reprobates?" The present life is the only period in the whole of your existence in which you can thus become just with God. It is insensibly, inevitably, and perpetually contracting. It is lessening while you read these lines, and will be lessening after you have read them, and in all the futuré actions of life will still be lessening, till it comes to a close. It is the law of all organized beings to come to an end, and to this law the human body is subjected. The vessels necessary for its nourishment will decay, and be no longer able to receive it, or convey it into the system for support, and death must inevitably ensue. But what will be our state then, if found in our sins, and without a vital union of spirit to Christ by faith, as members of his spiritual body? The disembodied state of sinners and unbelievers is revealed in the scriptures, as well as that of the righteous, though not with equal clearness and fulness. But that which is said concerning it by Christ himself is truly affecting, and indeed appalling; "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Flee, then, from the wrath to come. O flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before you. Death, perhaps, may lie in ambush you, and surprise you by a sudden stroke. No age or place can be secure from his attacks. Were we to calculate from facts, upon his probably selected victims, we should find them not so frequently among the old, decrepid, and feeble, as among

for

the

young and buoyant, the thoughtless and the gay. He passes over the front rank to summons those in the rear, who least expected him. He omits the elder as sure of them, to seize upon the young, who felt confident they should be taken last. On what a slender thread of life then hangs our eternal destiny! The next moment may snap it, and all the future stand revealed.

Let believers in Christ seek, by the contemplation of the bright prospects that have been presented, to reconcile themselves to the loss of those pious friends and relatives, whose removal will rob life to them of its sweetest charm. Let them, as they gather round the closing scene, consider that it is in effect Christ coming to fetch the departing saint, to be with him where he is, to behold his glory. Let their faith pierce through the vista that is before him, to the glory beyond, to which he is going. He hears the trumpet sound that calls him to the last combat. He knows that it is the last, and though the issue, as to his mortal part, will be fatal; to the immortal it will be glorious. He anticipates the approach of the angels commissioned to be his convoy, and the celestial city opening its gates, and pouring forth its inhabitants to greet him, as the ancient conqueror was met by congratulating troops when he approached the gates of the Roman capitol. And shall we hang about him with our passionate solicitudes and

regrets to draw him back, and prevent him from achieving the triumph? No wonder that, on this account, some good men have expressed a wish to die alone, on the summit of some lofty mountain, or among strangers, where free, and unincumbered by the entanglements of earth, they might, with all their collected forces, encounter the last enemy, and spring into the presence of Him who places the immortal crown on the heads of conquerors.

Let us strive, then, to be willing to let them go, and to promote their willingness to depart. Why should we put in our claim against that of Christ, or dispute his right to those whom he has purchased with his blood, and purposes to wear as jewels in his own mediatorial crown? If the prospect of their happiness will not reconcile us to their dismissal, that of his right to them, and glory by them, should. What! would we have him to sit in a solitary paradise, a prince without his subjects, a head without his members, a Redeemer without his redeemed ones around him, as trophies of his conquest, and spoils that he has won from the foe! Yet, if such were the wishes of all christians to detain their departing friends, and they could all be indulged, this would be the case.

When part of a household are leaving their native country, to go and reside in a distant land, with the prospect of being joined by those whom

they leave behind, at no great distance of time, and as soon as they have made themselves ready, how does the thought of this reunion soften the pang of separation, both to those who go, and those who stay! A little while, and these latter shall set sail, and on the distant shores shall meet their former loved ones, to greet them, and fold them in their embrace, with the certainty of no further separation. But no reunion is comparable, for its felicity and certainty, to that of the family of God upon earth with the spirits of the just made perfect.

Yet let us not lose sight of the fact that it is perfection only of one kind and state. They are but the spirits of the just, with the nobler portion, indeed, of their being; but still a portion only, in a heaven that is, but not that which shall be, when these visible heavens and earth have passed away. But the transactions of that great day, and the scenes and circumstances to follow, as largely depicted in the scriptures, must be reserved for another and concluding meditation.

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DISCOURSE XI.

HEAVEN.

“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the world."-Matt. 25. 34.

NUMEROUS passages occur throughout the scriptures, referring, as the context plainly shows, to a state of future and consummate blessedness, prepared for the whole multitude of the righteous. These scriptures give us not only a general decription, but portray the particular features and circumstances of that blessedness; each possessing its own peculiar beauty and glory, and all, when brought together, sweetly harmonizing and combining into one complete and perfect picture of felicity. The paradise, or heaven, is thus brought before us, which is foretold to be the final and permanent abode of the righteous, after