And how did this man bear his afflictions? He bore them like a sincere Christian, ever recognising the hand of the Lord in his trials. His duties were not often interrupted by bad health, but still, he was seized with several fevers, which, had he taken due precautions, might have been easily removed, or at least greatly alleviated. He never cared for his health so long as his Master's work was to be performed; he spared not himself in his Saviour's service. After a very protracted and dangerous illness, he thus writes to a friend : "It is impossible to express the support and comfort which God gave me on my sick-bed. His promises were my continual feast. They seem, as it were, to be all united in one stream of glory, and poured into my heart. When I thought of dying, it sometimes made my very heart to leap within me, to think, that I was going home to my Father and my Saviour, to an innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. Animal nature was more than once in great commotion; my imagination, just at the height of the fever, hurried in the strangest manner I ever knew. Yet even then, Satan was not permitted to suggest one single fear with regard to my eternal state. I can never be sufficiently thankful for this. Assist me in praising God upon this account. O, may I come out of the furnace like gold!" But of all the afflictions with which his heavenly Father thought fit to visit him, the death of his eldest daughter was to him the most grievous. The sermon which he preached and published on that occasion, shews how deeply his heart was affected; yet he never repined, and the language of his heart was, "Thy will be done." The text from which he preached on that mournful occasion was peculiarly appropriate and affecting." Is it well with the child? and she answered and said, It is well." He tells us that there never was any dispensation of Providence, in which he found it so difficult to say it. "But it pleased God to quiet my mind, and lead me to a silent, cordial submission to his will." The evening after the funeral he thus writes." I have now been laying the delight of my eyes in the dust, and it is for ever hid from them. We had a suitable sermon from those words,' Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?' God knows, that I am not angry; but sorrowful he surely allows me to be. Blessed Lord, I trust thou hast received my child, and pardoned the infirmities of her short, childish, afflicted life. I love those who were kind to her, and those that weep with me for her: shall I not much more love Thee, who art at this moment taking care of her, and opening her infant-faculties for the business and blessedness of heaven? Lord, I would consider myself as a dying creature. My first-born is laid in the dust; I shall shortly follow her, and we shall lie down together. But, O, how much pleasure doth it give me to hope, that my soul will rest with her, and rejoice in her for ever! But let me not centre my thoughts here: it is a rest with, and in God, that is my ultimate hope. Lord, may thy grace secure it to me; and in the meantime give me a holy acquiescence of soul in Thee; and, now my gourd is withered, shelter me under the shadow of thy wings." Thus did he observe the hand of God in all the afflictions of his life, and endeavoured to improve every one of them to strengthen his submission

being too much taken up with trifles, which would have otherwise intruded upon his attention. " Oh," said he, how much delightful enjoyment of God have I lost, by neglecting occasional meditation!" Of prayer, he thus speaks: "As prayer is the food and breath of all praetical religion, so secret prayer in particular is of vast importance; insomuch, that I verily believe, that if a man were to keep a particular and accurate journal of his own heart, but for one month, he would find as real and exact a correspondence between the temper of his soul at the seasons of secret devotion, and in other parts of his life, as we find between the changes of the barometer and the weather." When I pray and meditate most," said he "I work most." From various passages in his diary, we have reason to suppose, that he seldoin sat down to study, compose, or write letters of importance, without previous prayer. His birthdays and new-years' days, he kept with peculiar solemnity, and he has left many valuable reflections, made on such occasions, some of which we are sorry we have not room to quote. In all his labours, and in all his employments, the grand animating principle was love,love to God, to Christ, and to mankind. This was the noble motive from which all his actions flowed; this was the great object of his desire and of his prayers.

Pious and diligent though Doddridge was, he was not to live for ever, and we now proceed to give our readers an account of his last illness and death. In December 1750, he went to St Albans to preach the funeral sermon of his ever faithful and beloved friend and patron, Dr Clark. In the course of that journey he caught a cold, which never entirely left him during the whole of the winter. The spring considerably abated its severity, but it returned again with great violence in the summer. While he thought there was no immediate danger, he continued to apply himself with unremitted ardour to his duties, and laboured hard, being particularly desirous to complete his Family Expositor. The world was always becoming less and less dear to him as his latter end approached, and every day "his affections were more strongly set upon Heaven, and he was daily breathing after immortality." In a letter to a friend he says, "Oh that I had the wings of a dove! you know whither they would carry me. Like St Paul, he was "in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better;" nevertheless, he was willing to remain if it was for the good of his flock. On the 14th of July, 1751, he preached his farewell sermon to his congregation, from Rom, xiv. 8, and it was apparent to all from the remarks he made, that he was perfectly willing either to live or to die, as his heavenly Father might see fit. After this he lived for some time at Shrewsbury, where his strength seemed a little recruited. As the autumn advanced, his medical attendants were of opinion that he should try the waters of Bristol, and accordingly he went thither in August. Here he received little benefit, for his strength daily decreased, and he was advised, as the last resort, to remove to a warmer climate for the winter. During all this time, and indeed during the whole of his illness, he was never heard to complain,-a heavenly calmi dwelt in his breast, and he seemed continually cheerful and resigned. His path was like "the path of the just, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." It was finally resolved that he should go to Lisbon to spend the winter, and every thing being prepared, he sailed from Falmouth on the 30th of September. If there ever was a ship to which a prosperous voyage was prayed for, it was the ship in which Doddridge sailed. Three nights in every week during his illness, he was prayed for in public by his congregation. No sooner had the vessel left the harbour than the first breeze of

the sea inspired him with new life and spirits. During the voyage he several times said to Mrs Doddridge, who accompanied him, "Such delightful and transporting views of the heavenly world is my Father now indulging me with, as no words can express." They landed

at Lisbon on the 13th of October, and about a week after his arrival, he was removed to the country by the advice of his physician. Change of climate, however, did not prove at all beneficial to Doddridge's health, for the rainy season coming on soon after his arrival, cut off every hope his friends had entertained of his recovery little strength was soon exhausted. During the night his mind continued in the same vigour, calmness, and joy, which it had felt during his whole illness. He desired Mrs Doddridge to remember him in the most affectionate manner to his dear children, his flock, and all his friends. Many devout sentiments and aspirations he uttered; but her heart was too much affected with his approaching change, to be able to recollect them. He told her that he was sure the Lord was his God, and he had a cheerful, well-grounded hope through the Redeemer, of being received to his everlasting mercy. The following day he lay in a quiet slumber which continued till within an hour of his death, which took place about three o'clock in the morning of Saturday the 26th of October 1751. Doddridge died as he lived, in the hope of a glorious resurrection.

Cn Thursday, October 24th, he became worse, and his

After his death a handsome monument was erected to his memory by his congregation at Northampton, but the most lasting monument is his "Rise and Progress," a little work which has been crowned with perhaps more success than any book in the English language, and one which we would cordially recommend to all our readers.

DISCOURSE.

BY THE REV. JAMES HENDERSON,
Minister of St. Enoch's, Glasgow.

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."-1 JoHN iii. 14. BEFORE any man can pass from earth to heaven, he must first pass from death unto life. By nature all are dead spiritually, "for death is the wages of sin, and all have sinned." The mournful and humiliating symptoms of the reign of death may be discerned in myriads who live and move around us in all the vigour of their physical existence. The moral beauty, the sacred energy, and the spiritual joy which constitute the character and experience of creatures who are alive unto God, have given place to those features of deformity and depravity which God's pure eye cannot look upon, and to that state of moral impotence and insensibility, which not all the high claims of God, nor all the great concerns of eternity, can rouse to action, or wake to feeling.

In this state, spiritual life is extinct, and unless we shall pass from it, heavenly joy is impossible. But blessed be God, there is open for us a way of escape. "God hath so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that we might live through him;" Jesus the Prince of Life has given his life for the life of the world, and now whoso seeth the Son, and believeth on him, hath passed from death unto life. Through the faith of the Redeemer's sacrifice, God, who had withdrawn from the sinner offended, now returns to him reconciled. The

sinner who had fled from God distrustful and afraid, now returns to him reassured. Thus the bond of a spiritual life is renewed. The powers and privileges resulting from it begin straightway to be exercised and enjoyed. And although its progress is retarded, and its blessedness impaired by the power of natural depravity, and of abounding temptations, yet, as quickened by the spirit, and preserved by the power, and cherished by the truth and grace of God in Christ Jesus, it advances in the soul toward perfection, until it ripen into life eternal.

Have we, my friends, thus passed from the death of nature into the life of grace? If there be ought important in the character and destiny of our moral and immortal nature, it is all involved in this transition; and that which is next in importance and in interest to it, is our knowledge or assurance of the fact. It shall now, therefore, be my object to apply the doctrine of the text to the decision of this interesting point.

And

It is evident, from the text, that our spiritual state is among these things which it is possible, and therefore proper and desirable, to ascertain. As expressive of his own experience, and that of other Christians, the apostle says, "We know that we have passed from death unto life." this knowledge was not derived from any peculiar source, which, though accessible in primitive times, had since been closed against us, but simply from the influence and operation of a certain affection in their own bosoms, of which the workings are at all times alike distinct and determinate, and which, by whomsoever cherished, must warrant the same confidence respecting their spiritual condition. "We know this," says the apostle,

"because we love the brethren."

I. This love of the brethren is specifically distinct from that general good nature, or kindly disposition, which survives the fall, and discovers itself in many amiable and attractive forms in many who remain the children of disobedience. This susceptibility of nature may perhaps be termed the constitutional element of Christian love, so that, even under the power of divine grace, those in whom it is naturally deficient seldom become eminent for the strength, or warmth, or activity, of their brotherly affection. Yet it is only as receiving this specific direction, and as called forth and sustained by considerations peculiar to the character and circumstances of those who are its objects, that it forms an evidence of the spiritual life. It is love to the brethren, to the genuine disciples of the Lord Jesus. It is not indeed to be supposed, that Christians monopolize all the affections of their fellow-Christians. The love which the Gospel enjoins, is like that of our heavenly Father, a universal love, and goes forth in benevolent regard to thousands who have no more special claim to it than the participation of a common nature, and a consequent capacity for the Christian's character and the Christian's destiny; and that man who would contract the sphere of his affections so as to confine his love exclusively to the

brethren, ought to suspect that he is more the subject of mere party than of truly Christian feeling. Still, while Christianity requires and promotes a universal philanthropy, there is among Christians a family affection, which is known only within the family circle, and among the members of the household of God. This is to a great extent independent of the common relations of human life, and is awakened and sustained by considerations of a directly Christian character. It regards men as brethren, not by natural but by spiritual bonds. It contemplates them as related to God in Christ as their reconciled Father, and to Jesus the Son of God as their elder brother. It discerns in them the features of their Father's image, and the heirs of his heavenly inheritance. As thus divinely related and endowed and honoured-as redeemed by the same blood, and beloved by the same God, and partaking of the same spirit, and conformed to the same image, and cherishing the same hopes, it may be well understood that Christians should feel drawn to each other by the warmest, and purest, and fullest sympathy, and should form and maintain with one another the most endeared and delightful friendships. The power of this family affection was beautifully exemplified in primitive times. The multitudes of them that believed, it is said, were of one heart and of one soul. So amiable was the spectacle of Christian unity, that even the heathen exclaimed, “Behold these Christians, how they love one another!"

II. It was as the subject of a love thus grounded and thus exercised, that the apostle inferred, in regard to himself and others, the fact of their transition from death to life; and I proceed to shew, that this affection will infallibly justify the same conclusion in behalf of all in whom it is cherished. It is not by any means a natural inmate of the human bosom. The brethren may, indeed, generally share in that natural affection which lives still in the breast of fallen man. Standing related to others by the various endearing bonds of social and domestic life, possessing, as will be granted, an average portion of what is amiable in the dispositions, and estimable in the virtues of human character, they can hardly fail to command, in some measure, the love, and esteem, and gratitude of such as are thus connected with them, and who witness their virtues or experience their beneficence. A parent, a child, a husband, a wife, who is a Christian, may be very dear to the unrenewed heart, solely on the ground of natural kindred, or of that moral excellence, or that social usefulness, by which Christians often are, and ought always to be, distinguished. But as united to the Saviour, as loving him in their hearts, as walking in his steps, as living to his honour and destined to his salvation, they are not only not loved and delighted in, but are, on these very grounds, wont to be regarded with a diminished complacency and kindness. Nay, often for this cause love is changed into hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. That he who is born after the flesh should persecute him who is born after the Spirit, is demonstrable from

the immutable principles of our moral nature. The natural man does not discern the reality, and cannot therefore appreciate the worth of those spiritual relations which subsist between Christians and their God and Saviour. When, therefore, he feels his sinfulness reproved by their sanctity, or his pleasure, or interest, or ambition marred or thwarted by their unbending adherence to truth, or integrity, or purity, it cannot fail that his antipathy and dislike shall be awakened against them. How affectingly was the full operation of these principles displayed at an early period of human history! "Cain was of that wicked one, and slew his brother; and wherefore slew he him? because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous." How familiarly, alas! has the same scene been repeated between those "who are born after the flesh and those who are born after the Spirit." It may be true, that much of the dislike with which Christians are often regarded, and much of the enmity they have met with from the world, is to be imputed to their own indiscretions or misconduct. But these will not account for the fact; and that a deep and rooted enmity there exists in the world against them, is, on other grounds, conclusively demonstrated by the treatment which the Saviour himself met with when he tabernacled among men. He, to whose nature no imperfection adhered, on whose conduct no indiscretion was chargeable, whose heart was love, whose life was purity, whose walk was beneficence, whose whole character was the living impersonation of perfection and beauty, was, notwithstanding, made, as you know, the butt of contradiction, the mark for slander, and reproach, and deadly hatred. Now, his experience in this respect, he hath held forth as the natural fruit of man's selfish and corrupt assertions, and therefore a specimen of that treatment which his disciples must look for at the hands of men. "Marvel not if the world hate you; ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."

Since then such is the natural state of man's affections toward the Christian brotherhood, it is evident that they in whose hearts this enmity is slain and changed into love, to whom the piety, and purity, and spirituality which once revolted them, is become a positive and powerful attraction, who cherish a high esteem for their character, a warm sympathy in their feelings, a decided preference of their society, a peculiar desire and envy of their privileges and their prospects, have undergone a great and important change in the spirit of the mind. They have been taught to realize and appreciate those spiritual relations which only the eye of faith can perceive, that holy character which only a sanctified heart can love, those eternal blessings which only the heaven-born creature will ever aspire after. Such affection is baptised by the Holy Ghost. Such love, it is said, is of God. Those whose hearts have been thus puri