derive consolation from the service of your Church, from the prayers thereof, from the Scriptures which are read and from the word which is preached to you.

We would have you derive consolation from doing what Christ tells you should be done, and not to be left until you lie upon your last sick-bed, and are then struck with remorse for your negligence. Of what avail will it be to us to cry loudly, fearfully, and madly at our last hour, when we need to derive spiritual support from the consolations which are in Christ Jesus, if we desert His Church whilst we live and attend not to His commandments when we may.

Fear, O, fear that most fearful of all failings; lest a promise being given of entering into rest any of you should come short thereof; for "there is a rest which remaineth for the people of God!"

I am earnestly seeking that rest with you. I have not yet entered thereupon, because as yet my duties towards you are not finished. I have some souls yet to comfort for Christ's sake, that they may have the consolation that is in God. O! let me invite you, wanderers, to come into His fold; for without are grievous wolves tearing the sheep and driving them away from the true Shepherd.

Return unto the Lord your God, and be not carried about by strange doctrines, but accept us as the ambassadors from Christ, who pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God; and may we say in the pious language of the apostle to the Corinthians "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort t; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which

are in trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of God abound in us, so our consolation aboundeth also by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; or, whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation!"

Are the consolations cf God small with you? God forbid! Oh grant, merciful God, that they may abound greatly through our Lord Jesus Christ. -Amen.

Believe me, your affectionate friend,

THE COMFORter.

ADDRESS XVII.

O GOD, who canst teach us wisdom, grant that we may so apply our hearts thereto, that the examples of ages gone by, and of friends passed away before our eyes, may so teach us to number our days that, when our few years are spent, we may go whence we shall never desire to return; but be with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.-Amen.

When a few years are come, then I shall go whence I shall not return.-Job. xvi. 22.

MY DEAR FRIENDS-Yet a few years, and where shall we, who now live, move, and have our being, abide ?

We may, in common with all that draw the breath of life, desire to live here as long as we can; but the longer we do live the more agonies we suffer, the more sorrows we experience, and the less satisfactory is every earthly enjoyment we possess. What pleasure is it to have all the world can give us if we have neither health nor strength to use it? And what satisfaction is it to be extolled, praised, idolized, flattered, or deceived, when the zest of life is past, and we know that all things end in vanity and vexation of spirit?

"When a few years are come (says the patriarch Job), I shall go whence I shall not return.”

How few, how short, are the years of a man! With the prosperous they are shorter than with the unfortunate. They seem like a span, indeed, to him who finds such increasing pleasure in life as the growing rich and powerful every day. Time has so many fleeting moments of delusive pleasure that all seems good, all seems easy-and smooth, and tranquil, and placid, and enjoying-that a man lives in such daily improving luxury he finds life nothing near so long as he would have it, and the desires of another world are his greatest disappointment.

Oh the cares of such engrossing deceptions! How do they carry along with them the mortifications of that dreaded hour when a few short years shall be over, and man must go whence he shall not return. To him who has been so happy that the sun rose without his going forth to labour, and the day was spent without his living by the sweat of his brow, and his nights came with the sounds of cheerfulness and mirth, and his sleep was without sorrow -to him to be called to the same grave with the poor wretched Lazarus, who lay at his gate full of sores, desirous to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, there may be something sickening-something which may remind him fearfully of these words-" Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things; but Lazarus evil things: now he is comforted and thou art tormented." For him to receive his summons to go whence he shall not return, there may, indeed, be a grief which he finds so oppressive that he is glad to have it swept away with all the speed of inconside

rate rashness, such as knows nothing but bitter

ness.

The pious Job might have been once in such a situation. True, he had been in prosperity; but the Lord who gave had seen fit to take away, and to leave him nothing to console him but the consciousness of an upright life, the sure retirement into his own heart; and there he found the friend who-whilst others would have him "curse God and die," or give himself up to despair and dissolution-there found the friend who taught him the just value of his life, to live or to die, as God saw best for him. In his adversity his friends, who were not, like him, conscious that God exalts and puts down, and even afflicts his children for their good, applied to him every species of artful accusation. They reminded him that he had no business in his adversity to assume the tone of reasoning he adopted: they accused him of being an hypocrite and of assuming a sanctity he did not possess; but Job answered and said, "I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all! Shall vain words have an end, or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest? I also could speak as ye do, if your soul were in my soul's stead. I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you!" But this he would not do. No; he would not oppress a troubled soul— one visited with the arrows of the Almighty: for he adds:"But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief. Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged; and though I forbear, what am I eased ?”

Affliction only teaches us true wisdom: the consciousness that we are, in our best estate, but vanity :