no rest to you? And then, think, I beseech you, upon the condition of that lost soul for whom no such rest is laid up in store!. The sins of a life ill spent will cling to it still, only to create a loathing and disgust: the remembrance of a whole life's folly will abide with it still, only to torment and upbraid it: the contemplation of a rest, once offered and rejected, will be present with it still, to grieve and distract it. All that was once set within its reach, will be recollected with a more perfect recollection than it ever was before whilst, on the other hand, the remembrance of all that wickedness, for which eternal happiness was rejected, will rise up to condemn it. The people of God will have entered into their everlasting rest; the connection between the evil and the good, which in this world gave vent to the passions of the one, and called forth the patient endurance of the other, will then for ever have been broken through; the gate of mercy, the entrance to the celestial city, will have closed for all eternity: and the wail of ceaseless anguish, the burden of an endless lamentation, will be heard by those alone, whose misery it is to utter it. This state, my dear brethren, (and I beseech you to remember it,) this

is the

state of restless, burning, intolerable anguish may be yours: not even the having run on in the commandments of the Lord, hitherto, will be any protection from it, unless you persevere in your godly course. "He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved,"* is the Gospel promise: "Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" apostolic reproof. And if to the now diligent labourer in the Lord's vineyard this caution is still not unneeded, what shall be said of those who have no such diligence to lay claim to; who never strive to become renewed through the grace of their God, and made heirs of his inheritance? What will your conscience tell you then, my brethren, if, when you shall come most to desire a rest from your anguish; when the very recklessness of your pursuit after the things that belong to the kingdom of the evil one, shall have produced in your mind a satiety, and a wearisomeness, which make you long for rest; what will it then upbraid you with of callings neglected, opportunities lost, providences despised, warnings rejected, sins unrepented? Like a troubled sea, the unsatisfied soul will toss from * Mark, xiii. 13. † Gal. v. 7.

side to side, and seek to enter into that longedfor rest; but rest will be far, far away from your eyes and your heart. The people of God will have occupied every mansion prepared for the day of rest; and to groan and toil in hopeless anguish will be all the rest permitted to you. Is there amongst us now, one hearer of this Scripture truth whose heart assures him he is not labouring to make his calling and election sure; to whom the rest, that remaineth to the people of God, does not seem an object of surpassing desire; and upon whose spirit the conviction that to the people of God, alone, that rest is assured, comes with apprehensive alarm? Oh! that he would turn his thoughts, but for one short hour, to the contemplation of the things he now despises, and when he is most weary with the toil after this world's goods, would ask himself what would that weariness be, for ever, and for ever! When his tired spirit sinks within him, and he begins to suspect the truth of the wise man's words that all is vanity; let him propose to himself a never-ending condition of such vanity and when in the midst of those bitter disappointments from which he will assuredly not escape, he longs, at length, to rest in peace;

let him recall to his memory, and lay to his heart, the words of the apostle, "There remaineth a rest to the people of God." But woe unutterable, the worm that dieth not, the fire that is not quenched,* will then present themselves to his terrified conscience as the part he has chosen for his eternal inheritance; for in the number of God's people he is conscious his name is not enrolled. Oh! how will he then envy the condition he before despised! How will he desire to participate in that rest he had never before learned to appreciate! May this sorrow, and remorse, and desire be his before it be too late; may he seek after, and discover, and lay hold upon the things that belong unto his peace; and may the "rest" that remaineth "to the people of God," be made his own for ever.

* Isaiah lxvi. 24.-Mark ix. 44.

As he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.

If the credibility of those sacred records from whence we draw the knowledge of Christianity, had depended upon the internal evidence of their genuineness they are able to supply, this one passage, it might almost be said, would have established it. How true to nature is this expression