in some favored moments upon earth, can give no adequate conception.

But I check myself. Suffice it to say, that the unbounded prospect which faith contemplates, stretches beyond its most eager view. The death and resurrection of our Lord, which begin to relieve the child of sorrow under the thought of death by simple faith in the facts themselves, and the blessings consequent upon them, acquire a further efficacy as these opening prospects are gradually realized in a vigorous and spiritual manner by the same holy principle.

But it is time to exhort you, brethren,

III. To repose upon the consolation thus administered, during the intervening periods of darkness and affliction.

1. "Be not ignorant," then, ye who are children of sorrow, concerning them that sleep; for ignorance stops the tide of comfort. If you know not the real state of things, immediate grief may overwhelm you. The Apostle proposes therefore as the first means of adequate consolation, knowledge, a well informed faith, an understanding enlightened and directed aright on the facts of the redemption of Christ, on the new and softened character given to death, and the future advent of our triumphant Lord, to receive us to himself. I would not, therefore, have you to be ignorant, brethren, either by the hurry and turbulence of grief, or the lapse of time, or the failure of accurate recollection, of those truths. It is our office, as ministers, to "stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance." "The priests' lips are to keep knowledge;" and his "tongue to be learned to speak a word in season to them that are weary."

2. The second step to full consolation, is to check that sorrow which would be inconsistent with our

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faith, and would place us on the same level, as it were, with the ungodly and unbelieving-" That ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." For, have we not "hope towards God, that, there shall be a resurrection of the dead?" Have we not a good hope through grace?" Are we not "begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away?" Are we not "saved by hope?" And shall we sorrow with the rebellion of mind, with the murmuring, with the obstinacy and dejection, with the excessive and unmitigated grief, which others do, who are "without hope and without God in the

world ?"

We may sorrow indeed. Christianity is as tender in its sympathies, as it is holy in its tendency, and magnificent in its discoveries. Those feelings can never be wrong in themselves, through the medium of which God works all the beneficial effects of affliction. We are to " weep with them that weep." Twice did the holy Jesus weep-at the grave of Lazarus, and on the view of Jerusalem given up of God for her sins. But grief must not be indulged to excess, any more than any other passion of the human mind. Inconsolable and despairing sorrow, is admired indeed by the world; but it is rebellion, ingratitude, unbelief. Submission to God's will, a consideration of our remaining mercies, and a hope founded on the prospects of the heavenly felicity which are opened to those that believe in Jesus, and realized by all who sleep in him, should check our sorrow, that it flow not out into the boundless grief of those who have no hope.

3. And when sorrow once begins to yield to faith, abundant comfort is not far from us. For a third means of consolation is pointed out by the apostle, communion with the faithful on the subject of the

divine promises; "wherefore comfort one another with these words." Knowledge and a check thrown upon immoderate and hopeless sorrow, will bring us into a state capable of positive comfort; which is never so likely to be vouchsafed, as when we commune with our brethren on the words of this and similar passages of Scripture, and suggest to each other, in Christian conference, the topics arising so copiously from them for our mutual relief.

We may, and should, comfort one another thus with the words of the text, and of other parts of Scripture, concerning our Lord's meritorious death and glorious resurrection; the blessedness of sleeping in Jesus; the return of our Lord with all the departed at the last day; whilst those who remain and are alive are caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so are they all, without distinction, for ever with the Lord.

We may, and should, comfort one another with the bright prospects which faith contemplates and realizes in our seeing and being with Christ; in a freedom from all evil and defect; in our positive felicity of every kind, possibly augmenting throughout eternity; in the joy of reunion with all whom we have loved upon earth; in the probability of many of the mysteries of our present state being developed to us; in our resting from our labors, and our works following us; in the spending an eternity of gratitude, praise, and love.

We may, and should, comfort one another with these words, and submit with resignation to God's sovereign will; wait our short remaining term of trial; turn to those active duties for which our social nature and the grace of Christ prepare us ; look on our departed friends as not lost, but gone on a little before on the road where we are travelling; bless God that they were spared to us for so long a time; imitate their holy example; dwell with

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thankfulness on their having run the race, finished their course, kept the faith, and received the crown; remember our own momentary tenure of life; and gird up the loins of our minds in " following those who through faith and patience have inherited the promises."

Thus the child of sorrow is gradually relieved under the thought of death; thus he learns to look forward to it, yea beyond and over it, to the glorious prospects on the other side the grave; thus he is enabled perhaps to say at length, with holy triumph, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

I will not insult this audience by contrasting the sources of consolation thus derived from the pure, spiritual, exalted fruition of the eternal Author of life, in His own immediate presence in heaven, and all derived from the incarnation, sufferings, atonement and resurrection of his only-begotten Son, with the sensual and degrading Paradise of the false Prophet, or with the misty abstractions and transmigrations of the Hindoo mythologies-which neither relieve the child of sorrow under the terrors of death, nor present any one object of joy suited to a reasonable and responsible creature. In no one point of view does the truth and glory of Christianity stand out in bolder contrast with the impurity and darkness of Heathen and Mohammedan imposture, than in the spirituality and purity of its ultimate rewards. This arises directly from those just conceptions of the character of the one living and true God which the Christian Revelation, as we have repeatedly noticed, conveys. All is consistent. The glory of Deity, the justice of his moral government, the

great atonement made for sin, the sanctifying grace of his Spirit, the holy nature of faith, the Christian's walk, hope, reward, ultimate joy-all constitute one vast scheme most worthy of God, and most suitable to all the capacities and wants of man.

I observe, in conclusion, that all the evils themselves which Christianity thus meets and relieves-all the evils involved in the thought of sickness, affliction, calamity, separation, disappointment, death, final judgment, eternity; all the evils, in a word, that render man a child of sorrow-are no part of Christianity. Christianity did not produce, she found them only. They press as much upon Natural as upon Revealed religion. Whether man receives Christianity or not, these evils remain the same, nor can he escape them. He must put off his very nature, he must sink himself into the brute, he must deny the being of a God, before he can throw off the terrors of death, the anticipations of eternity, the dread of pain, sickness, dissolution.

The slightest evidence, therefore, in favor of a remedial revelation like Christianity, should dispose him to receive it with candor, considering that it is the only message of comfort in this dark world.

When therefore she presents to him the accumulated testimonies of every kind which have been augmenting for two thousand years, what must be the folly, the guilt, the infatuation of man, to remain without hope, to stand aloof from help, to despise his only remedy, to insult by unbelief the majesty of heaven, to choose death.