ing to be comforted, because their children are not, Matt. xi. 18. Witness so many Davids, who exclaim with excess of grief, O my son Absalom....my son, my son Absalom....would to God I had died for thee....O Absalom my son, my son !!! 2 Sam. xviii. 33.

But in the ties, which connect the family of Jesus Christ, there is no mixture of anguish. This you may infer from what we have advanced; and your own reflections may supply the scanty limits in which we are obliged to comprise this point.

5. We shall lastly consider the persons, connected by the bonds of obedience to the will of God. The family of Jesus Christ consists of a selection of all the excellent in heaven and in earth. So St. Paul has expressed himself. Of whom the whole parentage, or as the text may be read, Of whom the whole family in heaven and in earth is named, Eph. iii. 15. On earth, the family of Jesus is not distinguished by the greatness of its number: and, to the shame of the human kind, there is a father whose family is far more numerous than the Saviour's: this father is the devil. And who are the children of the devil? To this question Jesus Christ has given us a key. He said, when speaking to the Pharisees, Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do; he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth; he is a liar, and the father of it, John viii. 44. These are the two characteristics of his children; lying and murder.

1. Lying. If you betray the truth, if you employ your genius, your wit, your knowledge, to embar rass the truth, instead of employing them for the acquisition of self-knowledge, and a communication of the truth to others; if we become your enemy when we tell you the truth, when we combat your prejudices, when we attack your errors, when we endea your to irradiate your minds, and to take the lamp of revelation from beneath the bushel; if this is. your

characteristic, recognise in yourselves this trait of your father, which is lying, for he is the father of a lie; and take to yourselves this awful declaration, Ye are of your father the devil.

2. He is a murderer; and to hate our neighbour is, according to the language of Scripture, to kill him; for he that hateth his brother, as St. John has decided, is a murderer, John iii. 15. Yes, if you obstruct your neighbour's happiness; if you are envious at his prosperity; if you are irritated by his virtues; if mortified by his reputation, if you take delight in aggravating his real faults, and in the im putation of imaginary defects, recognise another trait of your father; apply to yourselves this awful assertion, which so many may apply with propriety, Ye are of your father the devil.

It is nevertheless true, that how numerous soever the children of the devil may be on the earth, Jesus Christ has a family among men: and it is composed of those who believe, those whom a sincere faith has invested with the privilege of considering themselves, according to St. John, as members of the family of God: To as many as received him, to them gave he power, which I would render right, prerogative, privilege, to become the sons of God.

The branches of God's spiritual family are not always visible to the eyes of flesh, but they are to the eyes of the spirit; they are not always objects of sense, but they are objects of faith, which assures us of the continued existence of a holy church. Sometimes the fury of persecution, which prevents us from perceiving them, drives them into deserts, and causes them to take refuge in dens and caves of the earth. Sometimes the prevalence of calumny paints their character in shades dark as hell, calls their moderation indolence, their meekness cowardice, their modesty meanness of mind, their firmness obstinacy, their hope a chimera, their zeal illusion and enthusi asm. Sometimes it is the veil of humility by which

they conceal their virtues, and which causes them to be confounded with persons who have no virtue, and to be less esteemed than persons whose virtues are affected. Their kingdom invariably is not of this world: Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not appear what we shall be. We are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God, 2. Col. iii. 3.

John xviii. 36. 1 John iii.

But though the members of this spiritual family are not always visible, the reality of their existence is not diminished. On their account the world exAsts. Their prayers stay the avenging arm of an angry God, and save the guilty world from being crush ed beneath the stroke: for their sakes he sometimes mitigates the calamities, with which human crimes oblige him to visit the nations. It is their entreaties, which cause their God and Redeemer speedily to descend, and which hasten the happy day that is the object of their wishes, and subject of their prayers, Come Lord Jesus....come quickly.

And if the family of Jesus Christ is named on earth, it is more especially named in heaven. There it exists, there it shines in all its lustre. But who are the members of this family of Jesus Christ? They are the redeemed out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. They are the ambassadors of the Gospel, who have turned many to righteousness; they shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as stars of the first magnitude. They are martyrs, come up out of great tribulation, they are clothed in white robes, which they have washed in the blood of the Lamb. They are all saints, who, having fought under his banner, participate the laurels of his victory. They are angels who excel in strength, and obey his voice. They are winged cherubims, who fly at his com mand. They are seraphims burning with his love They are the thousand millions which serve him, and the ten thousand millions which stand before him. They are the great multitude, whose voice is as

the sound of many waters, and whose obedience to God is crowned with glory; but they cast their crowns before the throne, and cry continually, Hallelujah....let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory unto him.

Such is the spiritual family of Jesus Christ, and such is the christian family. Many of its members lie scattered in different parts of the earth, but the part which is most numerous, excellent, and consum mate in virtue, is in heaven. What a consolation! But language is too weak! What a consolation to the believer, against whom old age, infirmities, and sickness have pronounced the sentence of death! What a consolation to say," My family is in heaven a gulf separates me, but it is not like the gulf which separates the damned from the glorified spirits, of which Abraham said to the rich man, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed." It is a gulf whose darkness is enlightened by faith, whose horrors are assuaged by hope....it is a gulf through which we are cheered and animated by the voice of Christ.... a gulf, from which one final struggle shall instantly make us free.

Death is sometimes represented to me under an idea, happily calculated to assuage its anguish. There is not one of you, who has attained maturity of age, but has frequently seen those persons snatched away by death; who constituted the greatest hap piness of your life. This is inevitably the lot of those to whom God accords the precious shall I say? or the sad privilege of running the race of life. They live, but they see daily those taken away, whose company attached them to life. I look on death as reuniting me to those persons, whose loss had occasioned me so many tears during my pilgrimage. represent myself as arriving in heaven and seeing this friend running to meet me, to whom my soul was united as the soul of David to Jonathan. I imagine myself as presented to those ancestors, whose memo

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ry is so revered, and whose example is so worthy of imitation. I represent those children as coming before me, whose death affected me with a bitter an guish which continued all my days: with those innocent creatures I see myself surrounded; whom God, to promote their happiness, resumed by an early death.

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This idea of death, and of the felicity which follows, is extremely delightful; and I do most sincerely believe it: at least I have never yet met with a thought, which could dissuade me from thinking that the glorified saints shall enjoy, in heaven, the society of those with whom they have been so intimately connected on earth. But how real and pleasing soever this thought may be, it is, my dear bre. thren, far too contracted. Let us form more exalted notions of the happiness God has prepared for us." Our family is in heaven, but not exclusively com-", posed of the small circle of friends of whom we have been deprived by death. Recollect what we have just said. Our family is composed of the redeemed out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation....of the ambassadors of the Gospel, who have turned many to righteousness, who shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever ...of martyrs, who came up out of great tribulation, who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Our family is composed of those illustrious saints, who have fought under the banner of Christ, and they now sit down on his throne. Farther, our family is composed of those angels that excel in strength, and obey the voice of God....of those cherubims which fly at his command. Our family is composed of those thousand, thousand millions, and ten thousand millions which stand before him, and cast their crowns before the throne of him who conferred the dignity upon them crying continually, Hallelujah, let us be glad, and rejoice, and give glory unto him! Jesus Christ is the

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