victory over its corruptions which it here only desired, which it here only struggled to obtain.

Here our love of spiritual things is superinduced, there it will be our natural frame. The impression of God on our hearts will be stamped deeper, but it will not be a different impression. Our obedience will be more voluntary,, because there will be no riyal propensities to obstruct it. It will be more entire, because it will have to struggle with no counteracting force.-Here we sincerely though imperfectly love the law of God, even though it controls our perverse will, though it contradicts our corruptions. There our love will be complete, because our will will retain no perverseness, and our corruptions will be done away.

Repentance, precious at all seasons, in the season of health is noble. It is a generous principle when it overtakes us surrounded with the prosperities of life, when it is not put off till distress drives us to it. Seriousness of spirit is most acceptable to God when danger is out of sight, preparation for death when death appears to be at a distance.

Virtue and piety are founded on the nature of things, on the laws of God, not on any vicissitudes in human circumstances. Irreligion, folly and vice are just as unreasonable in the meridian of life as at the approach of death. They strike

us differently but they always retain their own character. Every argument against an irreligious death is equally cogent against an irreligious life. Piety and penitence may be quickened by the near view of death, but the reasons for practising them are not founded on its nearness. Death may stimulate our fears for the consequences of vice, but furnishes no motive for avoiding it, which Christianity had not taught before. The necessity of religion is as urgent now as it will be when we are dying. It may not appear so, but the reality of a thing does not depend on appearances. Besides, if the necessity of being religious depended on the approach of death, what moment of our lives is there, in which we have any security against it? In every point of view therefore, the same necessity for being religious subsists when we are in full health as when we are about to die.

We may then fairly arrive at this conclusion, that there is no happy death but that which conducts to a happy immortality ;-No joy in putting off the body, if we have not put on the Lord Jesus Christ-No consolation in escaping from the miseries of time till we have obtained a well grounded hope of a blessed eternity.

CHAP. XX.

ON THE SUFFERINGS OF GOOD MEN.

AFFLICTION is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed. It is a kind of moral Gymnasium, in which the disciples of Christ are trained to robust exercise, hardy exertion, and severe conflict.

We do not hear of martial heroes in "the calm and piping time of peace," nor of the most eminent saints in the quiet and unmolested periods of ecclesiastical history. We are far from denying that the principle of courage in the warrior, or of piety in the saint continues to subsist, ready to be brought into action when perils beset the country or trials assail the church; but it must be allowed that in long periods of inaction, both are liable to decay.

The Christian, in our comparatively tranquil day, is happily exempt from the trials and the terrors which the annals of persecution record. Thanks to the establishment of a pure Chris

tianity in the Church, thanks to the infusion of the same pure principle into our laws, and to the mild and tolerating spirit of both-a man is so far from being liable to pains and penalties for his attachment to his religion, that he is protected in its exercise; and were certain existing statutes enforced, he would even incur penalties for his violation of religious duties, rather than for his observance of them*.

Yet still the Christian is not exempt from his individual, his appropriate, his undefined trials. We refer not merely to those "cruel mockings," which the acute sensibility of the Apostle led him to rank in the same catalogue with bonds, imprisonments, exile and martyrdom itself. We allude not altogether to those misrepresentations and calumnies to which the zealous Christian is peculiarly liable; nor exclusively to those difficulties to which his very adherence to the principles he professes, must necessarily subject him; nor entirely to those occasional sacrifices of credit, of advancement, of popular applause; to which his refusing to sail with the tide of popular opinion may compel him; nor solely to the disadvantages which under certain circumstances his not preferring expediency to principle may expose him. But

We allude to the laws against swearing, attending public wor ship, &c.

the truly good man is not only often called to struggle with trials of large dimensions, with exigencies of obvious difficultý, but to encoun ter others which are better understood than defined.

And duller would he be than the fat weed
That rots itself at ease on Lethe's wharf,

were he left to batten undisturbed, in peaceful security on the unwholesome pastures of rank prosperity. The thick exhalations drawn up from this gross soil render the atmosphere so heavy as to obstruct the ascent of piety, her flagging pinions are kept down by the influence of this moist vapour; she is prevented from soaring,

to live insphered

In regions mild of calm and serene air,

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call earth.

The pampered Christian thus continually gravitating to the earth, would have his heart solely bent to

Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown religion gives

After this mortal change, to her true servants.

It is an unspeakable blessing that no events are left to the choice of beings, who from their blindness would seldom fail to chuse amiss. Were circumstances at our own disposal we should allot ourselves nothing but ease