hand to every one who will be suffered at last to enjoy it in reality. Yet so weak is our faith, that we would fain have something of a sight of our promised glory, even before our trial time is over: we can make up our minds to the sight of good men suffering not only from outward misfortunes, but from inward fears and anxieties, so long as the clouds are rolled away a little on this side of the grave, and the last moments of their stay upon earth are a visible foretaste of the blessedness of Heaven. So indeed they are often-perhaps most often; but they are not so always; nor ought we to expect it either for ourselves or others. It is therefore to my mind, a most gracious instance of our Lord's exceeding love to us, that he himself drank the cup of human suffering to the very bottom; that no servant of Christ's can fear his death so painfully, or feel himself so forsaken and miserable, whilst actually undergoing it, as his Master did before him. The thought of death before it came to pass, affected him even to agony; and in the hour of death itself, instead of feeling any foretaste of his coming glory, he uttered those memorable words of the deepest misery, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" This then is one use which we may draw from

the account of Christ's agony, before death, and in death; to assure ourselves that a peaceful end of their mortal life is not the appointed portion of all God's servants; and to prevent us from despairing or doubting of the salvation of the good man, because God's countenance was hidden from him on earth, even to the last. And, for ourselves also, should it please our Lord to afflict us with this most severe trial, it may somewhat help to support us under it, if while we were yet in our health and strength, we were continually to call to mind that Christ himself had borne the same. "In all our

affliction he was afflicted;" and as he endured poverty with the poor, persecution with the oppressed, contempt with the humble and despised, and death in common with all; so did he also endure the worst afflictions of our nature-intense fear of death, and intense feelings of misery while he was undergoing it.

But they are his own words, "If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" If death was so fearful and so miserable a thing to him who was without sin, what shall it be to those who must suffer it with all the added bitterness of sin, which is called, especially, the sting of death? This also, is a second use to be drawn from the

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consideration of Christ's agony, to teach us something of the grievous pangs which await the sinner. It is said, indeed, that the wicked man has often no bonds in his death; that is, that he dies to all appearance easily and peaceably, as if he were but entering on an everlasting sleep. But the sting of what Christ suffered, as it proves to us that great fears and troubles of mind are no sign of God's displeasure, so may it also teach us, that a calm and fearless death is no mark of his love. “The rich man died, and was buried;" with nothing perhaps to pain or to alarm him; by a mild disease, it may be, and with an unawakened and, therefore, an untroubled conscience; with no suffering to his body, nor any terror to his mind. "But in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments." But one moment's space, and he was awakened to a sense of his misery, which he could never lose again. The forbearance of God was at an end, and the day of his wrath was come; of that indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, which will surely fall on every soul of man that doeth evil, and which will burn like an unquenchable fire for ever.

But, whether our death be easy or painful, it is appointed unto all men once to die. This every one knows, so that each person may think

he can gain nothing by hearing it repeated. But I imagine, that although we know that we shall die, yet that we who move about in health and strength, have a very faint and imperfect notion of what death is. Indeed, it is not more concealed from our sight, than it is shut out from our minds. People fancy that there is a melancholy about the subject which makes them uncomfortable, and therefore they drive it from them. But there is a great difference between seriousness and melancholy the latter, indeed, does no man good, but the want of the former is the cause of half the sins of which we are guilty. To think on death would make us serious; but it need not and ought not to make us melancholy. Nor would it, if we accustomed ourselves to it sufficiently; for we should then see it as it really is, a solemn and awful passage indeed; but one which leads to so great a state of blessing, that when viewed soberly and at a distance, the good of it ought to swallow up the evil. But if men purposely keep themselves from thinking of it till it actually comes upon them, they will either be overwhelmed then with fear and misery, or if they harden themselves against it, their hardness will be but the blind folly of wickedness, which puts off all fear of God till the time of his judgment

is come; and the fear, when it is felt, is useless to save us from it.

Let us then place before our minds for a little while a picture of that state to which we must all come, and from which we know not how short a time may yet separate us. Probably some of those who now hear me have never seen any one after death, nor ever witnessed the changes which take place before it. These ast, indeed, must in many respects be often very different; yet there are some circumstances sufficiently common, to be considered as part of that state which we must all one day experience. We must expect to find our minds greatly altered; sometimes, indeed, by absolute delirium, but oftener by the weakness and restlessness attendant on disease. The mere confinement to a sick-room, and the sights of gloom and grief by which we are surrounded when our condition becomes hopeless, are enough, when acting upon a weakened body, to unfit the mind for the calm and free exercise of its faculties. Repentance under such circumstances is almost impossible; we may be frightened, confused, overpowered with a multitude of various feelings, but we are not enough masters of ourselves to gain then a true hatred of sin, or to be able to form deliberate resolu