inadequately moved by the single, unaided love of holiness: the desire of happiness is interwoven in our frame with the love of rectitude, so finely and complicately, that the human intellect is continually feeling for the place of their connexion, and is tempted to believe their identity. To encounter with success the power of temptation, to withstand the onset of the passions, we should seek to be fortified with a persuasion of the insufficiency of this world to our capacities and desires, and, especially, of our exposure to manifold adversity. We should direct our forethought to the ills which beset and threaten us, the troubles "to which man is born as the sparks fly upwards." We should forebode disappointments and calamities, and think of inherent diseases, and inevitable death. 66 We should dwell," as a great monitor of "holy living" has written, “in the suburbs and expectations of sorrows." Whether our actual experience in this world would be the worse or the better in this habitude of thought, we leave to your philosophy to determine. It is the province of the preacher to present this life in the aspect which it bears towards that which is to come: as a school of religious wisdom, a preparation for immortality. Regarding it as such, how

We

ever, we all know that affliction is our appointed preceptor- an essential means of chastening and purifying our spiritual and immortal nature. But as rational, prospective beings, we cannot suppose that the discipline of affliction is limited to the period of its actual experience to the weeks, or days, or hours, in which we are immediately sensible of pain and trouble. are, at this moment, every one of us, under the chastisement of the Almighty, whereby he manifests his paternal character, and consults for the welfare of his intelligent offspring. For he has instructed us all to expect and prepare to suffer. He has exposed us all to calamitous reverses; made us all accessible to disease; and subjected us all to the stroke of death. Thus has he qualified us all, and at this moment, to feel the want of that faith which is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Thus has he ministered a present, universal, and most powerful motive to the prosecution of our Christian calling-to our active preparation for a world, where there is no sense of insecurity, and no dread of suffering, and where they die no more.*

* Luke xx. 36.

It may be thought, perhaps, that we have too freely assumed the prevalence of those feelings towards a future state, which we have ascribed to the first Christians; inasmuch as we find, in the Epistles addressed to them, not only exhortations to fortitude, but many admonitions and warnings against immoral conduct, and an undue attachment to the objects of this world. But, undoubtedly, such admonitions were necessary, if not especially so, at the original publication of Christianity: for besides that worldly pleasures and concerns would present the great obstacle to the first step in a Christian course, it should be remembered that the morality taught in the Gospel was not only greatly above the common practice and example, but of a far higher order than had been previously inculcated by the professed teachers of virtue. And though we may well conclude, that persons who had so little to hope for, and so much to dread in this world as the first Christians, would be powerfully stimulated to a scrupulous obedience of the Gospel; yet it is quite possible—indeed, it must be inferred from passages in the Epistles, that there were some amongst them who were disposed to attach an unreasonable importance to an intrepid profession of their faith: to derive from it an apology for vicious excesses, or serious omissions of Christian duty. Moreover, we do not forget that they were less exposed to persecution at some periods than at others, and had seasons of comparative rest and security from their enemies; when it might have been more needful to warn them in general against the common temptations to evil and the seductive pleasures of the world. It is observable, indeed, that in some of the Epistles, there is little or no allusion to their persecutors.

But it cannot be doubted, we presume, that the sincere and resolute followers of Christ actually experienced those

feelings with relation to a future state, which we have ascribed to them, with whatever mixture or interruption. It is enough, then, if we have rightly assigned a principal cause of those feelings. We have not attempted to present a portraiture of the primitive Christian character in all its features, and under every change of external circumstances. In remarking the fact itself, that the first Christians were peculiarly characterised by lively impressions of a future state, we are in no degree singular. Paley, in particular, has taken notice of it, (Evidences, chap. vi. § 6,) and refers it to "a miraculous evidence coming with full force on the senses of mankind.” His observations on it, however, are incidental to his discussion of another topic, and can hardly be supposed to express his conclusive judgment on the subject Had it been his particular purpose to account for that impression of a future state, which he ascribes, in strong terms, to the first Christians, however much he might have attributed to a miraculous evidence, he surely could not have overlooked altogether "those labours, dangers, and sufferings," which, in the first chapter of his invaluable work, he shows it to be probable from "the nature of the case," that they underwent in the profession and extension of the Gospel. It is surprising, indeed, that a mere glance at their posture of mind towards futurity did not bring their peculiar circumstances before him.

We do not dispute the effect of a miraculous evidence on the first Christians; but in justice to the tenor of the preceding discourses, we must contend that their impressions of a future state are far more satisfactorily explained by their afflicted and exposed condition in this world. What the effect of miraculous evidence actually was, must to us be very much matter of speculation and conjecture. It does not appear, however, that it would promote the impression of a future state otherwise than by establishing a confident expectation of it. It could not, as we conceive, impress the belief of a future life with any peculiar force on

the imagination; except in the case of the Apostles, who saw the risen body of their Master. But however this be, and without inquiring whether there be not thousands in our own time, who believe the reality of a future state as firmly as the first Christians, certain it is, that if we be Christians in more than the name, our faith in the Gospel must be of such a nature, so firm and steadfast, that it would enable us, at the manifest command of Christ, to imitate the first Christians in a voluntary resignation of all that we possessed or hoped for in this world. But the first Christians actually made such a resignation, and Christians in our time do not. To what then shall we ascribe that more ardent expectation of a future life, which took possession of the hearts of the former?-to a superior degree of strength in the conviction of its reality, or to a frame or habitude of mind induced by a sacrifice of earthly enjoyments? There can scarcely be two opinions on the question.

Had the external circumstances of the first Christians occurred to the recollection of Paley, he would not have cited their experience, as a ground for concluding that the impression of a future life may be "oyerdone;" that it may so seize and fill the thoughts, as to leave no place for the cares and offices of men's several stations. If they embraced the Gospel with such a prospect in this world as our Saviour had distinctly and repeatedly set before his disciples,a prospect which, it is evident from their history, was, in no small measure, realized-we can hardly wonder if they felt" no anxiety for worldly prosperity, or even for a worldly provision,"-if they felt this concern in no degree comparable with men of other times and other circumstances. Whatever place in their thoughts was allowed them for the desire of a worldly provision, "the stimulus of secular industry," in intervals of quiet and freedom from their persecutors, these were seasons which they had not been encouraged to look for, and were probably too brief