the house of the Lord to have their ears charmed by human eloquence, or their tastes gratified by the setting forth of their favourite doctrines, and that where they cannot have either one or the other, they turn their backs upon its doors; but the Lord himself hath said, "my house shall be called the house of prayer," not the house of eloquence, or the house of doctrine, and there the true Christian will ever pray, under whatever ministration it may be; nor when he comes there, will he think that he does enough if he plays the part of a listener, but with the deep conviction, that ten thousand sermons, however excellent, can do nothing for his final salvation, unless they lead him to prayer; he will pour out his heart to his God in the sanctuary, and in the secret chamber.

There is too much negligence in this matter, as there is in every other relating to religion, but it is more flagrant with regard to prayer, other ordinances are more attended to. Some men who are seen with worshippers never pray, they never think of it, not even the judgments of God will rouse them to it, when they witness them

in their most awful forms, like those that "came together to see Jesus die, they smite their breasts and return;* but there is no enlightening of the understanding, no sending of the soul to God. It is a fearful infatuation: for I am obliged to declare on the authority of Scripture, on the authority of the example of Christ himself, and with my dying voice I must maintain the same, that there is no other way by which gospel truth can act effectually on our hearts, by which we can obtain the favour of God, or escape final perdition. We cannot plead as an excuse for neglect, that we know not how to pray, for Christ himself has taught us; our heavenly Father, too, looks not for perfectness of expression; and where there is indeed ignorance of how to address him, he will mercifully accept the wish to do it, he will inform the penitent with the influences of His Holy Spirit, and the dews of divine grace shall descend upon his heart.

* Luke xxiii. 48.

LECTURE VIII.

THE DEATH OF THE BODY.-CHRIST DIETH.

ROMANS VI. 3.

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death.

WHATEVER this world can claim of pleasure and enjoyment, whatever it may boast of excellence and virtue, along with all that it contains of misery and vice, is hurried on towards one final .consummation. Men sink into the tomb, and their sorrows and their joys, their vicious inclinations and their principles of virtue, alike die with them. Now there arises in the mind a certain awe and apprehension, a certain dread, an indescribable fear, whenever we look forward to that end of all things. Not even the most miserable are exempt from

it; however intolerable their lot they still do, in their secret hearts, prefer enduring it to casting off the burden by death. Every symptom of decay, and of a tendency to dissolution, gives birth to gloomy fore- | bodings, nor do we willingly, nor, while our hopes whisper to us that it is far off, without an effort, contemplate the solemn hour when the damps of corruption shall gather on the brow, and thought and feeling give place to insensibility, at least of earthly joy

or sorrow.

This fear of death, as well as this death itself, is a part of the original curse from which redemption does not relieve us. It is the fruit of the remaining corruption of sin that the bodies, even of the redeemed, may not be created immortal; and it is a punishment of sin, not yet removed, that the Christian should look on the death of the body as a penalty to be paid to the justice of God, and view its approach with proportionate apprehension.

Still, however, the scene is not altogether dark to him, nor is the anxiety with which the soul looks forward to the breaking up of its tabernacle of flesh, and its own en

trance on the yet unvisited regions of spiritual existence, unmixed with the gladdening hope that the change may be a blessed one, and itself productive of exceeding great and important benefits.

The gospel we are able to declare is, not only a gospel to guide us through life, but is also, if we may so say, a gospel in death; that is, it reconciles us to it, and while the accents of wrath tell us that the body must die, tells us in the accents of mercy, that it is good for us it should. Its light finds its way into the blackness of the grave, and sheds its ray over the mouldering heaps of the charnel-house, while it reveals to us, that it is better for the spirit whose habitation they once formed, that they should be as they are. Such is the difference between a revelation of wrath and a revelation of mercy; a revelation of wrath denounces death as the punishment due for sin done in the body, and a preparation for the further punishment of the soul that sinned; a revelation of mercy does not entirely divest it of the character of a penalty, but, with reference to the redeemed soul, says that it is that which is sanctified leaving