natural recoil from dissolution, and an instinctive tenacity of life-pertaining, it would seem, to its continuance and preservationreflecting how, under the maturing influence. of habit and custom, the affections implanted by nature strike, and twist, and spread their roots in the earthly soil, we deem it well, if we can receive the summons of death in a spirit of submission to the Supreme Being; as to one whose will concerning us we believe to be merciful-we desire to obey-we abhor to dispute.

It was not so to the first generation of Christians. They were not thus loath to quit their hold of life. They did not fold so closely about them this mortal garment-" the vile body," as they called it, "which was to be changed and fashioned like unto the glorious body" of their Saviour. They feared no blow to their 'affections-no disruption of the ties of friendship -no violent shock to their habitual feelings and associations. The sight, the bent of their minds, was directly heavenward. They antedated all good, foretasted all happiness, in the future state. Their faith was "the substance" of all they "hoped for," and in embracing it they felt at once the inspiration of a new and an immortal life. Receiving,

in its full import, the promise of their Redeemer, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die," they banished the idea of death, dropped the usage of the word, and 'saw in the aspect of their lifeless friends the face of sleep. Truly it was the language of experience, the utterance of their own feelings

"Our Saviour Jesus Christ hath abolished death;"* having left not a trace of his dominion, not a fragment of his sceptre, and only the memory of his name. It seemed that already "the last enemy" was " destroyed”— the terror of him gone-" swallowed up in victory."+

Now, if there be, in reality, this difference between ourselves and the first Christians, it is, certainly, our duty and our wisdom to inquire into the causes of it: to ascertain whether, and how far it is the effect of a difference in external circumstances, and in what degree it must be ascribed to a defect in the conduct of our own minds, as the subjects of a kingdom which is not of this world, the heirs of a heavenly inheritance. Inasmuch as that desire and lively expectation of an immediate transition into the heavenly state, which distinguished the first Christians,

* 2 Tim. i. 10.

+ 1 Cor. xv. 54.

was the growth of peculiar circumstances, it is undeniably proper and needful that we should be apprized of the fact, lest the consciousness of our own comparative insensibility -the quiescence of our feelings, when contemplating that perfection of our nature which awaits the true believer in the life to comecontemplating it, as we have intimated, not as the basis of a deliberate preference, or as supplying the governing motive of conduct, but as the immediate object of desire and anticipation, lest this consciousness, we say, should engender an unreasonable disquietude, or doubt of the integrity of our religious principles. On the other hand, inasmuch as there may be ground to believe that this comparative inertness of our feelings towards the heavenly state, is resolvable into strictly moral causes, it must needs suggest a reason of self-reproach and humiliation, and should excite us to a more diligent preparation for a future life. How indeed, as believers in the Gospel, can we look upon that attitude of mind in which the first Christians expected their final change -their more than fearlessness of dying-their waiting, as "mortal" men, to "put on immortality," as corruptible" beings, "to put on incorruption"-how can we contemplate this

66

loftiness in human spirits, without desiring to approach it, as nearly as a difference in our condition or endowments may allow?

We can hardly ascribe that expectant ardour which distinguished them in the pursuit of immortality, to the fact that the Gospel was a recent communication to the world, thereby inferring that the assurance of a future happiness was new to the human mind. For, to say nothing of the belief of a future state previously existing, we may readily gather from the writings of the Apostles, and from other sources, that, speaking generally, the same cast of thought, the same tone of feeling, distinguished themselves, and their fellow Christians, from their first conversion to the religion of Christ to the end of their earthly pilgrimage: a period long enough for their knowledge of the Gospel to have become familiar to their apprehensions, if this could have quenched their aspirations after a purer life, and the charm of novelty had lent a radiance to "the day-star that had risen in their hearts."

Nor should we easily accede to the opinion that they looked for the second glorious advent of our Redeemer during their own lives not only for the reasons already adverted to namely, that St. Paul expressly

H

disclaimed the intention imputed to him, of fixing the time of our Lord's second coming, and St. Peter expected to quit his tenement of flesh before that great event and crisis*—but because a continual reference to the specific period of their Lord's coming-to the question whether it would take place a few years-say thirty, or even a hundred-sooner or later, appears to be a habit of thought inconsistent with the scope of their minds; accustomed as they were to merge such ideas of comparative duration in the eternity which lay before them, and the momentous nature of that last alternative which awaited all the generations of men. We find it difficult to conceive that that Apostle could have been occupied from week to week, or month to month, or year to year, with the imagination that he would be living on the earth to witness the second coming of our Redeemer-that Apostle, who, to fortify the minds of his brethren against a particular objection of unbelievers and scoffers at their creed, aimed to impress them with this sublime and affecting conclusion :—“ But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord

* 2 Pet. i. 14.