bodily ease as well as mental tranquillity—every thing, in a word, which stirs and excites our affection towards him, may produce in us a near application to religion; may carry us to it in the best way. And we may, therefore, say, that advanced years ought to dispose men to their religion on this very account-that they make them more sensible of the gifts and graces and blessings of our Creator than youth usually is: I do not mean to say, than youth ought to be-the contrary is the truth; but than youth usually is.

Again; it is scarcely possible that any man can have lived to sixty or seventy years without having experienced many special blessings: I do not mean that general providence, by which his life has been for so long time preserved and continued to him, but many special favours and mercies in the course of it. Recollections of this kind, so long as God is pleased to grant the powers of recollection, ought to employ the minds of those in particular who are advanced in years, and raise their thoughts to God. Either they have been critically perhaps preserved from sin, which, though they did not think so at the time, they now acknowledge to have been the very greatest of all possible mercies; or though they have fallen, or perhaps rushed headlong into sin, they were not ruined by it, as they might have been ruined; they escaped many of the consequences of it, which might have destroyed them. They were spared in order to repent. They were saved and snatched as a brand out of the fire. These are truly spiritual blessings. These are points and marks of Providence which ought to be peculiarly grateful to aged men, and which they should delight to meditate upon, both because they are immediately and in

timately connected with that salvation in which they now ought to be more peculiarly interested, and leading their contemplation into that eternity they do certainly border upon; and also, because the chief and natural satisfaction of old age is mental rather than bodily. But even here many recollections crowd upon a mind even less sensible to the gratifications of thought and serious meditation. They may have been recovered and rescued in times of great bodily danger. Their lives and limbs have been preserved to them through some great perils, some extraordinary accidents, some severe sickness. They have often been drawn near to the edge and brink of their mortal fate. They have stood upon the precipice of death and confines of eternity; and what makes such preservation a mercy indeed is that which I fear too many of us but too well remember that if they had been cut off when they were in so much danger, they had been cut off in their sins. Is not then our preservation from such dangers, both ghostly and bodily-both of soul and body-a mercy to be acknowledged with the deepest sense of thankfulness and obligation? Still more shall we acknowledge it, if we have used the mercy and forbearance of our Maker as we ought to do; that is, if we have grown better since: if danger has alarmed and roused us; if our escape has taught us fear and caution -fear of God, and caution in offending him: if these beginnings have gone on, and have had the effect of generating seriousness of temper, holiness and purity of heart, more spirituality than was formerly felt, stronger faith and livelier hopes, a gradual rising above the follies of the world; what may we not attribute to this -multitude of years to this language, which nature and

age so forcibly speak? A mature age, well instructed by experience, well versed in the changes and chances of this mortal life, ought to be expected to have where at last to fix its views-whither to point and direct all its endeavours-from whence to look for any steadfast ground of consolation, any firm security, any rational object of pursuit and confidence.

XXVIII.

OF THE STATE AFTER DEATH.

1 JOHN III. 2.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

ONE of the most natural solicitudes of the human mind is to know what will become of us after death, what is already become of those friends who are gone. I do not so much mean the great question, whether we and they shall be happy or miserable, as I mean the question, what is the nature and condition of that state which we are so soon to try. This solicitude, which is both natural and strong, is sometimes, however, carried too far; and this is the case when it renders us uneasy, or dissatisfied, or impatient under the obscurity in which the subject is placed; and placed, not only in regard to us, or in regard to common men, but in regard even to the apostles themselves of our Lord, who were taught from his mouth, as well as immediately instructed by his Spirit. Saint John, the author of the text which I have read to you, was one of these; not only an apostle, but of all the apostles, perhaps, the most closely connected with his Master, and admitted to the most intimate familiarity with him. What it was allowed, therefore, for man to know, Saint John

"that

knew. Yet this very Saint John acknowledges it doth not yet appear what we shall be;" the exact nature, and condition, and circumstances of our future state are yet hidden from us.

I think it credible that this may, in a very great degree, arise from the nature of the human understanding itself. Our Saviour said to Nicodemus, “ If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things ?" It is evident from the strain of this extraordinary conversation, that the disbelief on the part of Nicodemus, to which our Saviour refers, was that which arose from the difficulty of comprehending the subject. Therefore our Saviour's words to him may be construed thus: If what I have just now said concerning the new birth, concerning being born again, concerning being born of the Spirit, concerning the agency of the Spirit, which are all "earthly things," that is, are all things that pass in the hearts of Christians in this their present life, and upon this earth; if this information prove so difficult, that you cannot bring yourself to believe it, by reason of the difficulty of apprehending it; "how shall ye believe," how would ye be able to conquer the much greater difficulties which would attend my discourse, "if I told you of heavenly things ?" that is to say, if I speak to you of those things which are passing, or which will pass, in heaven, in a totally different state and stage of existence, amongst natures and beings unlike yours? The truth seems to be, that the human understanding, constituted as it is, though fitted for the purposes for which we want it, that is, though capable of receiving the instruction and knowledge, which are necessary for our conduct and the discharge of our duty, has a native original incapacity