It is thus men train themselves for real battle. Look forward to all the circumstances of our arrival at the last hour, the sickness and the sorrow that surrounds our bed; the more we think of death, by certain desires and tendencies as to futurity, the less terrible it will appear. A sober joy will spring up, that will detect pleasure even in the grim aspect of death, so as to enable us to say, with the apostle, O death, where is thy sting? 0 grave, where is thy victory? It will be the image of immortality, and only as a dark avenue into which we must enter into the eternal world. This will mix with the shades of the sepulchre a light that will light it up. Do not take a cowardly refuge in vanity and dissipation.

5. Some remedies that may be proposed, by which death may be considered as a relief to man.

How many pains and miseries, greater than death, have befallen some of you. Death is but an instant of being. Consider how many have supported the fear of death without Christianity. There is not a passion but what has overcome it. The passion of love, of fame, and ambition. Despair has dug for it as for hidden treasures; but religious joy has not only surmounted, but triumphed over it. Let us remember how many persons would rather have died than have met certain calamities. Cresius was not the only man that lamented that he had lived too long. How happy for Eli, for example, would it have been, if he had died before the judgments of God fell upon his children. How happy would death have been to Solomon, before he fell

into idolatry. Who knoweth what is good for man all the days of his life? for the good are taken away from the evil that is to come. God considers

death as a deliverance; he takes his children aside, and leads them into the sanctuary of the grave. Let us then, my brethren, seek an interest in the divine favour, and in the promises of the gospel. We should consider the death of a Christian rather an enviable object than a pitiable one. When the apostles heard of the death of Lazarus, they said, Lord, let us go and do likewise.

ON THE APOSTOLIC WRITERS.

December 5, 1801.

WE see, here, what is the distinguishing spirit of Christianity. They that are his children are led by the Spirit of God. The doctrines of religion might have been taught in a different form, if the Scriptures had been calculated to give us mere speculative knowledge; but they exhibit the temper of the heart. We see the writers of them in bonds and afflictions, in triumphs and miscarriages. These epistles represent them under every variety of form and circumstance, in order that we may learn and know what is that one spirit into which all the disciples breathed. It is of very little purpose to have an acquaintance with the doctrines, without we have the spirit which the apostles breathe in all these epistles, and which

has formed and sanctified the hearts of his chosen in

every age.

Do not, my brethren, read them only to know what it is they teach, but consider them with a view to the improvement and renovation of the heart, producing that sincerity, that devotedness to Christ, that heavenly-mindedness, which they everywhere inculcate; and let these penetrate your hearts, and make you ashamed of yourselves, that you should fall so far short of the spirit of disciples; for, unless we possess this spirit in some degree we cannot be his disciples. If you compare these writings with the celebrated heathen authors in sublimity of style, in purity, in elegance, and in delicacy of expression; look at them with seriousness, and how low and little do their characters appear, although these heathen writers. came into alliance with every thing that is great and splendid in this world; but the apostles came into contact with God, they touched the Eternal, they breathed into his temper, and out of that fulness received grace for grace. Let us, my brethren, seek this renovation of mind; let us not be slothful, but followers of them who, through faith and patience, are now inheriting the promises. Let us breathe after their spirit and their enjoyments, and very shortly the days of our mourning will be ended, and we shall be with them and with the Lord.

CHRISTIAN DIGNITY.

February 14, 1802.

"Whatsoever things are honest."

HERE the word undoubtedly signifies venerable. It is a sort of dignified manner of behaviour, as the word honestum signifies, from which it is taken. It stands opposed to a fantastic, to a light and frothy behaviour, to foolish jesting and buffoonery, to the character of a scoffer, and to the character of a wit. Indeed, it is impossible that wit, or the faculty of making people laugh, should be suitable to the dignity of a Christian, an heir of eternal life; it is impossible that this can associate or comport with a grave, a serious and manly deportment, which is perfectly inconsistent with trifling and jesting. There is nothing will produce this dignified character so much as the consideration of the design of human life, the dignity of the christian calling, and the end of our being. Mirth, though useful at times to the spirits, yet if it be made the business of life, we are dead while we live."

PARENTAL DISCIPLINE.

June 28, 1801.

MR. HALL frequently regretted the change that has taken place within the last forty years in the restraints and bonds of parental authority; that young persons were not under the same sort of

discipline and control as formerly; that if our forefathers, the puritans, were too rigid, their descendants are to lax. He had high ideas of the authority of parents, which he considered amounted to patriarchal. The following is a specimen: He observed, "God sent a message by the child Samuel to Eli. The purport of it was the destruction of his sons, and the taking away of the ark; with these all the dignity of the house of Eli was extinguished. The affliction was very complicated. Poverty was inflicted upon his children, and the two which were chief in transgression fell in one day. Such was the punishment, that every one that was left in his house crouched for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread. And what was Eli's offence? That he did not exercise that power and authority for restraining the vices of his children, which, as a parent, he possessed. His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. This was his crime. Children and servants are not to be persuaded merely, but commanded; as God said of Abraham, I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him, to keep the way of the Lord. Parents are required to exercise that authority which by God, by nature, and by religion, is put into their power, for the advancement of their children and servants in piety, and in every heavenly work. If setting an example, then, merely, will not exempt them from punishment, how dreadful will it be for those parents who set the example of their own vices! Young persons should