us.

unprofitable servant into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

This will teach us without difficulty, that we should improve the grace which God affords us; that we should profit by the helps which he gives

This should serve to correct our faults, and should lead us to obtain the perfections which we need. This is what we should earnestly labor to acquire : and we should be inspired with a fear of his wrath, lest, when he comes to us, or calls us to himself by death, he may find that we have left unperformed the service he so reasonably expected. But it may be inquired, Is it not sufficient if we have improved our talents some time before; and will it then be necessary to labor at the time immediately previous to death? On this supposition it would always be true, that we had so increased the number of our talents that we might render Christ more than sufficient to escape the malediction of the unprofitable servant.

This idea might have some force if our Master had confided to us no new talent between the time which has passed and that when we shall have ceased to act. But as we each day, or more properly speaking, each moment, receive some new talent; as there is not a moment in which God gives us not new grace, fresh supplies of help; it is evident that unless we labor with unrelaxed

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ardor, we shall have to apprehend the sentence of the unprofitable servant; and thus there can be no point of time when repose would be safe or allowable. I moreover add, that the idea might have force if the improvement we had made of the talents which God has given us formed, I will not say any equivalent, but any proportion to those talents. As this never can occur, and there is always a melancholy disparity between what we do and what we ought to do, or rather what we might do; there is consequently no moment in which we should not labor not only to discharge the obligation which arises from that moment itself, but besides, to repair in some degree our past negligence, and to do what we ought to have done some time before. Above all, it is right to redouble our efforts when we contemplate the approach of death, because in fact we see the time shortened in which alone it will be possible for us to work. We should imitate travellers, who, seeing the night approach, and knowing that they are still far off from the place where they desire to be, quicken their steps and walk with accelerated speed. . Such is the admonition of Christ when he

says, 6 Yet a little while is the light with you; walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness, knoweth not whither he goeth. The night cometh when no man can work.” (John ix. 4, and xii. 35.)

CHAPTER V.

TO DIE WELL, WE MUST REPENT OF OUR SINS.

WHAT has thus far engaged our attention, applies to all dying persons without distinction ; what we are about to consider, concerns only those who see the approach of death, and are not ignorant that they are about to pay this debt of nature. These are necessarily obliged to perform many duties, the omission of which, would infallibly be imputed to them, however God might be pleased to dispense with them in others who are overtaken by sudden death.

The first of these duties, comprehends all the acts of repentance, which a near view of approach. ing death, and expectation of judgment to come, is calculated to excite in the heart. In fact, a dying person should consider himself, as one who is about to appear in a few moments before the tribunal of God, and there to render him an exact account of his life. It is evident that he should neglect nothing to avoid condemnation, since he should, his ruin would be inevitable, and his misery without remedy. There is but one way of avoiding this, which is to condemn himself at the bar of conscience. To conduct the action with a holy severity; to anticipate the judgment of God, by that which he pronounces against himself. In this sense, as in every other, if we “judge ourselves, we shall not be judged of the LORD.” But more distinctly to see the truth of these remarks, it is to be observed, that there are three descriptions of dying persons, that is, of those who are sensible of the near approach of death. The first are they, who have always lived in sin, as well they who have been absolutely subject to the tyranny of this cruel master, as they who have hastily supposed themselves delivered from its bondage, by one of those imperfect and useless conversions, which always leaves in the heart an unmortified love of the world and of its perishing advantages; in a word, who have never been truly converted from sin to holiness.

The second are they, who, though made the children of God by adoption and grace, have fallen from their regeneration, into certain gross sins, of which St. Paul informs us in various places, and of which he declares that they who do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God; and who after having fallen into them either have not repented of them at all, or have had only an extremely feeble repentance, and by no means proportioned to the magnitude of their faults.

The last are those children of God who, from the time they were first devoted to him, have never committed

any of those great sins, or who, having committed any of them, have recovered their lost state of favor, by manifest and particular repentance, and have neglected no means to obtain perfect remission and forgiveness. It is here maintained that repentance is necessary to all of these. To the first it is undeniably so; “except they repent they shall perish."

To the second it is likewise so, for though they are the children of God, and their adoption has given them a certain and incontestible right to the heavenly inheritance, the sin into which they have afterward fallen, has-suspended the enjoyment of this right, and has thrown an obstacle in the way of their salvation, which cannot be removed but by a lively and sincere repentance. The last of these also are not dispensed from this necessity. Admit in fact that they have not committed any great sins, such as those I am about to

That they have not committed a great number of those faults from which the most holy are not entirely exempt; how often may they not convict themselves of indulging vain thoughts? How often have they uttered idle and useless words? How often have propensities far from innocent agitated their hearts? How often have