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He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death unto life"." Knowing these things, as revealed in the scriptures of truth, "the righteous," when he contemplates death as the passport to a future life, feels not those apprehensionsand alarms and terrors, which harrow up the heart of the wicked: nay rather is he "filled by the God of hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost, with all joy and peace in believing "," that when he " departs hence, he shall be with Christ ;" and amid the tumult and miseries of this sinful world, derives from the contemplation a delightful foretaste of that uninterrupted "rest," which is prepared " for the people

of God "

Seeing then, my brethren, that death must come to all; and that by some he is surveyed with fear, and by others with composure; that the carnal and worldly man shrinks from him with terror, whilst P Phil. i. 23.

n

John v. 24.

• Rom. xv. 13.

, Heb. iv. 9.

"the righteous" and spiritually minded is prepared to welcome him when he comes: what have we to do, but to " pass the time of our sojourning here" in preparing for our departure; and to endeavour to live the life, that we may "die the death, of the righteous," and that "our latter end may be like his?" What have we to do, but to strive all that lieth in us, to love God and to keep his commandments; to trust in the atonement and satisfaction of his only begotten Son; to be guided by the gracious influence of his Holy Spirit? So may we look forward, during our earthly pilgrimage, with comfort and joy to that solemn hour, which shall transport us from the visible to the invisible world: and so when the time of our departure comes, may we depart in peace, and rest in hope, and rise in glory; through the merits and mediation of Christ Jesus, our Lord; to whom in the unity of the Father and the eternal Spirit, be glory dominion and power for ever and ever!

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SERMON XXXI.

THE GLORY WHICH SHALL BE REVEALED.

ROMANS Viii. 18.

I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

SUCH is the point of view, in which the Apostle would direct us to consider the afflictions to which mankind are subject! So light is the estimation, which he attaches to those afflictions, when considered with a reference to that state, which is to come!" I reckon," says he, "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." "For," as he says in another place, "this our light affliction, which

is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory a."

And yet St. Paul, whose words we have here before us, was not a mere speculative observer of human actions and sufferings. He was not one of those slothful characters, who in the peaceable and undisturbed possession of all the enjoyments that fortune can bestow, are sheltered from the storms to which indigence is exposed, and exempted from the necessity of making such exertions, as are required from honest and industrious poverty. He was not one of those, who assume to themselves a superior character from the possession of superior abilities and acquirements; and who, in their endeavours to attain the heights of human learning, trouble themselves not with attending to the concerns of their fellow creatures; concerns of which the peaceable and even tenor of their own retired lives leaves them not only careless but ignorant. Nor was he one of those, who with an affectation of insensibility,

2 Cor. iv. 17.

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