But who

to eternity terribly sudden indeed. ever heard of the last end of the righteous being sudden to him? Whoever beheld the man whose whole life had been one faithful course of preparation for death, shudder at the approach of his summons to the presence of his Maker, and account the time intervening before his departure one moment too short? Let no man deceive you, my dear brethren: that death, and that death alone, is sudden, for which we are unprepared; and against this it is in the power of every one to guard effectually, through grace, and the help vouchsafed him in Jesus Christ. And if neither the Spirit of God given him, nor the admonitions of friends anxious for him, nor the warnings of Christ's ministers, watching over him, avail to the conversion of his soul; if Christ and his apostles with authority and power preach, and preach to him in vain, such a one, it must be feared, would not hear though one rose from the dead.

Be wise, then, I beseech you, in time: turn to him who can renew a right spirit within you; and if you should feel tempted again to look back upon the ways of sin, think of the vanity and uncertainty of life: remember, "We all do fade as a leaf."

SERMON XV.

THE REST OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE.

HEBREWS, iv. 9.

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

THE close relation which exists throughout the sacred volume of God's revealed will, between the commands he has promulgated, and the assurances by which those commands are sustained; and the harmonious accordance thence resulting between the promises and declarations it contains, deserve to be studied with particular attention. They manifest unity of design in an

eminent degree; and, inasmuch as this agreement extends throughout the whole volume, that is, throughout the whole series of revelations, by which the will of God has been made known to his creatures, they afford an argument, of no ordinary cogency, in proof of the identity of the source from whence those various revelations have come. If, for example, in one portion of the Bible many troubles are said to attach to the condition of the righteous, it is immediately stated, or is plainly to be inferred, that the Lord delivereth them out of all: if, contrariwise, a rest is pointed out for the people of the Lord, it is assured to them as a reward for much patience, and much endurance; for faith, and holiness, and love unfeigned. If the Lord is asserted to love his people, his people in return are described as those whose trust is in him; whilst as an inducement to all to place their confidence in his word, and to trust in his promises, they are continually assured that, if they do so, they shall never be ashamed. And what these instances, given merely as instances of one kind, are in a limited degree, the whole Bible, the whole revelation of God, is in the most ample extent: it is all, in truth, from one end to the other, a con

tinuous example of it; so much so and so perfectly, that no call to exertion is without its corresponding promise, nor any summons to endurance is made, without the sanction of an abundant consequent reward. The mind is thus satisfied in the utmost degree, and the soul is enabled to rest in the fullest assurance that it is not called to run in vain, nor to labour in vain ; it reposes confidently in the apostle's promise that "in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."*

In exactly the same spirit were the words of the text uttered by St. Paul; and in the brief declaration, “there remaineth a rest to the people of God," both injunction and promise may be clearly traced out, and identified. First, we are assured of a rest remaining, or to come; and thus a promise is held out, to every one, of that fullness of blessing which he, who bestows the rest, is able to make worthy his own infinite perfections. And who can doubt that the rest which the allwise, the all-powerful, the all-merciful God will provide for those, to whom the promise is made good, will be a glorious rest indeed? Which of us, my brethren, when he looks forward to the * Gal. vi. 9.

hope of an inheritance in the mansion his divine Master has prepared, dreams of a disappointment in the magnitude of the gift, or the enduring nature of the eujoyment? Who, when he speaks of heaven, or meditates upon the blessedness of salvation in the presence of his Redeemer, ever contemplates what will be less than sufficient to fill his whole soul with rapture, and to occupy every faculty of it with ceaseless delight? Heaven would not be the heaven of our conception if it fell short of this; for all that the holiest and the purest spirit can conceive of felicity, we are conscious must fall immeasurably short of the reality of that rest, which God vouchsafes to hold in store for the objects of his gracious care. Thus is it clear that, even according to our imperfect imaginings, the rest that remaineth to the people of God will be glorious. But further; since it is spoken of as a rest, this word implies that the state which precedes it is one not of rest: and hence the very word carries with it the force of a command so to live, before the attainment of God's rest, that the change into that state may be felt to be a ceasing from labour. What, however, that condition of life is we shall most easily discover, by observing the limitation set to the dis