want, and fear-of all evil, bodily and mentala life of which the most enlightened, capacious, and well-ordered minds, even in the hour of their purest satisfaction, in their highest consciousness of knowledge, and rectitude, and security, and power, can attain but a faint conception-unknown to the experience, and surpassing the imagination of mortal man.

That life-the end and scope of salvationthe Apostle announced to be nearer to the Christians than when they first believed the Gospel; and in urging this reflection, as a most encouraging incentive to renewed and persevering exertions in their holy calling, it cannot be doubted that he adapted his strain of exhortation to the prevailing temper of the Christian mind-that by far the greater number of those to whom he addressed it, participated in the spirit with which he himself was animated. It merits observation, therefore, that this and other passages in the Epistles, expressing an ardent hope, and exulting anticipation of the heavenly state, describe with unexaggerated truth the feelings of the Apostles and their contemporaries. We do not mean merely that they made no pretension to an elevation of sentiment to which they were strangers, or that they were guiltless of hypocrisy-of this their

history precludes every reasonable doubt— but that they were wholly uninfluenced in the expression of their sentiments by any prevailing strain, or established form, of religious discourse and conversation; and that their writings were simply and exclusively transcripts from their own feelings under existing circumstances. Their language, therefore, is not to be classed with that which is customary with preachers of subsequent and our own time; who, in exalting the tone of their discourses to the height of apostolical argument and exhortation, more frequently deliver such sentiments as they desire to feel and awaken, than those which they actually feel or have the power to awaken-beyond, at least, the excitation of the hour.* The earliest Christians wrote and uttered what they did feel. They made known their individual and actual experience, when they declared “the lively hope" to which they had "been begotten by the resurrection of Christ from the dead" when they rejoiced in the

* We would not here be supposed to intimate that such a tone of discourse is otherwise than useful. It may be greatly useful, to enlist and fortify the judgment, and to fix the determination in the practice of religion.

† 1 Pet. i. 3.

nearness of their salvation, and spoke of “a joy unspeakable and full of glory." As the

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sons of God," and the "heirs of salvation," they as sensibly desired and anticipated their heavenly inheritance, as the heir of an earthly estate looks forward to the termination of his minority, the period when he shall appropriate and fully enjoy his inheritance. Their posture of mind towards the future, was, indeed, "an earnest expectation of the creature waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God."*

Now it were presumptuous to pronounce on the feelings of Christians universally, relative to the remainder of their days on the earth, and their nearer approach to the eternal world, some of whom, we can well conceive, may have attained an assurance, and may enjoy a foretaste of their state in glory, far above the experience, and even the observation of the preacher. But, we apprehend, it will be readily acknowledged, that with this hope of the earliest Christians, so "full of immortality" -this vivid presentiment of the state of heaven, the generality of believers are unapt and unable to sympathise. We do not speak of those who are Christians in name and profession only--not in spirit and determination; *Rom. viii. 19.

who, so far from rejoicing that their salvation is nearer, are careless to fulfil the conditions on which it is offered them; and can endure to live in uncertainty of its final attainmentnay, in actual danger of its forfeiture. We speak of those who are practically concerned in the prosecution of eternal life, and whose peace of mind is mainly dependent on the hope of its attainment. However such may value the promise of immortality recorded in the pages of eternal truth, and with whatever satisfaction they may appropriate that promise, yet, surely, the increasing proximity of the life to come produces no sensible augmentation of their happiness; and indeed no one would think of suggesting to the most earnest of his fellow Christians, as a topic of gratulation, or even of comfort, the certainty or probability of his speedy translation into the world of spirits :-unless indeed that Christian were torn with bodily anguish, or his spirit sorely pressed with the load of life.

The considerations which the retrospect of the past forces upon our minds are of a pensive, if not of a melancholy nature. We reflect, in sadness, that the larger and fairer portion of our days is consumed; that the tide of our pleasures and enjoyments is ebbing; that age

We

is fast approaching; that death is less distant; -not that "our salvation is nearer." are tasked to habitual and intent meditation on the objects of our faith, to be enabled to contemplate, without regret and mournfulness, the transitory nature of our life-the inroads of time upon our frame-the symptoms of a perishable being-the decay" of our earthly house of this tabernacle ;" albeit "we know" that " if it were dissolved, we have a building with God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

We are far, we need hardly say, from inferring that the hope of immortality hath forsaken us; but were the sculptor to attempt a faithful representation of that attribute of our mind, could he animate the marble beyond the expression of vitality? Could he erect the brow, dilate the eye, and present the figure in the act of stretching forward-lightly touching and scarcely resting on its pedestal ? Could he indicate any higher degree of hope than is visible in the composed features of patience and resignation? In truth, it is not so much the prospect of immortality that occupies our thoughts, as the stern necessity of dying; and conscious, as we are, of a * 2 Cor. v. 1.