on rational and scriptural grounds, ever illumined their dying pillow! No. "Their rock is not as our rock, our enemies themselves being the judges." Do they blame us for thinking too little of ourselves, and too much of God and Christ? What christian ever blamed himself for this when he came to die, and who can imagine the Great Being himself to blame them for this? Others have had to come down from their towering views > and lofty conceits of themselves, and to renounce them; but the christian has never had to renounce his own self-depreciatory ones, while from the depths of his self-abasement, he has risen to ascribe undivided glory to the great Three One. Sceptics have often done homage to virtue and piety on their death-beds; but christians have never returned the compliment, by doing homage to the principles and feelings of dying infidels. For one christian who regretted being such at death-if one such could ever be found-a multitude of sceptics and unbelievers may be adduced, who then recanted all the boasts they had made of the consolations of their own philosophy, consigning them to ignominy and forgetfulness. Is it said that we attach too much importance to the feelings and passions in relation to another world, and are, therefore, enthusiasts? But in a question which relates to happiness, the heart is the best judge; its consciousness the final appeal.

And if it be enthusiasm to think of ourselves as God thinks of us, and of Christ as he is revealed in the scriptures; in such enthusiasm, who would not be ready to exclaim, let me live and die? There is, at least, in the last hour, nothing to be brought into competition with this. It is the true sunshine of the soul, and glory beaming from on high upon the departing spirit, as it plumes its wings for its everlasting ascent towards the Infinite and the Eternal.

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DISCOURSE X.

PARADISE.

"The spirits of just men made perfect."-Hebrews, 12. 23.

THE Apostle is here setting forth, in bold and figurative strains, the superiority of the christian dispensation to the Jewish; and the reason, therefore, which the Hebrews had to rejoice in its substitution for that of Moses. Its privileges were of a far higher order, and of a more excellent and spiritual nature. They were inspired by it with a far greater freedom in their approaches to God, and more confident expectation of his favour. They had come from Mount Sinai to the mount of Zion; from an earthly to a heavenly Jerusalem "the Jerusalem from above;" and from a wilderness state to that of a city"the city of the living God."

He then passes on to the future and invisible state which it reveals, and on which they were to enter on quitting this world. A state of the glorious "assemblage of minds," in the presence of the great God, and of his Son, the Mediator; consisting of myriads of angels and departed saints, who had already joined the angelic throng, and to whom the converted Hebrews were soon to be united. They had already "come" to it in hope, through faith in the revelation that brought it before them; and also in their apprehension and anticipation of it, by the elevation of their christian experience and character. "Ye are come," says he, "to God the judge of all, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, to myriads of angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect :"-departed saints; made saints on this earth before their departure, but then in a disembodied and more perfected condition.

I. We are thus led to observe, in the first place, on the soul's conscious existence in a separate state, on the death of the body, as agreeable to the whole strain of scripture. This notion is not less in harmony with the soul's instinctive apprehensions and aspirations; and hence its universal prevalence. With this idea in his mind, the devout reader of the Word of God finds himself in sympathy with the scripture in every part. The different origin of the body and soul; the declaration that the "spirit," at

death, returns to God who gave it; and the emphatic investiture of the Deity with the titles of the "God of the spirits of all flesh;" and "the Father of our spirits," in contradistinction from our human parents as "the fathers of our flesh;" all fall in with this idea. It is corroborated, if needed, directly or indirectly, by numerous other passages of holy writ. The early death of Abel, viewed in connexion with, and as resulting from, his eminent piety; the invocation of the spirit of Samuel from another world; the reconcilement of David to the death of his child, by the thought of going to him; are all in unison with what is thus written in our natures. To which we may add, there is not a syllable of doubt or suggestion to the contrary.

The deprecation of premature death, by some good men in scripture, is to be accounted for on a very different ground from that of their supposing that they then ceased to be. Had that been the ground, why should they not have equally dreaded it at an advanced period of life? which we find they never did. But an early death was then deemed a mark of the divine displeasure; and long life, with temporal favours, and opportunities of glorifying God, a proof of the divine complacency. When this, therefore, had been obtained, they gathered up their feet, and departed with the greatest composure. Thus did David end his career, which it is clear he