reader's heart! Oh, that you would fear before God this day! Oh, that you would be won on the side of heaven! But this is beyond the power of man to effect; this is God the Spirit's work.

In his word, he places before you a soul satisfying prospect; there he also portrays the eternal wailings of the prisoners of his justice; and I do desire to lure your heart with the desirableness of beholding his face in righteousness. Oh, that I could provoke every one to cleave with full purpose of heart unto the Lord, to choose his ways, and to give a preference for the things that make for the everlasting peace of the immortal soul. Oh, that you would live a life of faith, that you might have part in the first resurrection. Oh, that you would determine as did Israel of old, that you will serve the Lord!

The divine resemblance. "When I awake with thy likeness." To be like God will afford the believer infinite delight, for that will be consummating his present desires; to have evidence that a time is coming when that will be the case must be a means of quieting doubts, allaying griefs, and subduing sins. "Be ye holy, for I am holy," admonishes the believer that holiness is one of the perfections in which he is to resemble God; and though the resemblance can be but imperfectly attained in the present state, yet the thought will afford great encouragement, while pressing forward to the mark of perfection, that in the morning of the resurrection he will awake satisfied with the complete likeness. The consummate holiness to which the believer will be raised at the morning of the resurrection, will be communicated to him from the immeasurable fountain of all holiness and purity, the Eternal Jehovah. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts."

The body which in death is sown a natural body, will in the resurrection be raised a spiritual body; and in this the believer will resemble the divine nature of his Lord; yea, he will put on the nature of angels. The body of the believer will possess many new qualities; it will be refined, subtle, beautiful, and incorruptible; capable of serving God for ever without fatigue or weariness; it will hunger no more, it will thirst no more; it will be raised pure and undefiled; the noxious effluvia of sin will have passed off in the grave, and it will no more be capable of carrying out a thought in any way estranged from God than the soul would be capable of engendering such a thought; for it will be a spiritual body, raised after the image of God. Then there will be no sexual distinctions, for "they who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that resurrection neither marry nor are given in marriage. Neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, "God is being the children of the resurrection." love;" herein also will the resemblance of the believer be perfected. The love of God shed abroad in the heart in the present state, has a transforming influence; and hereby the Christian is daily perfected in the likeness of the Redeemer, hereby believers feelingly apprehend his divine presence, and hereby they experience the most pleasing and joyous results: "Joy and peace in believing." But at the morning of the resurrection, this benign principle will be perfected; the Holy Spirit will consummate the soul's satisfaction in its union with God, and will cause feelings of complacency, or love to God, to abound to a degree beyond anything of which it is possible to conceive, or to compare with present frames and feelings. Language has no words by which to convey a sense of what the love

of God is, nor of the transforming influence of that love upon a glorified soul; but the believer may with David confidently say, "I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness."

The doctrine of the resurrection is a ground of comfort in every trouble, but especially on the loss of relatives by death. The afflictions of the present life, whether they consist of deprivations or reproaches, sickness or the death of those we hold most dear, be assured they were intended to be felt; a heart callous under afflictions is not the characteristic of a true believer; present trials are intended to wean the affections from the earth, and those which, perhaps, are the best calculated to effect this end, are those which cut the ties that most intimately bind us to the earth; and in this particular also is manifested the abounding love of God, for he has made provision in the gospel that when tribulation aboundeth, consolation may much more abound. The apostle Paul, in writing to the Thessalonians, says, "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others that have no hope." The apostle, by calling death a sleep, signifies, doubtless, that there will be a waking time, and consequently that their death is not an everlasting farewell; for at the morning of the resurrection they will again be seen and known in a more excellent state; and were this not the intention of the apostle, his argument would lose its force, its power to console, but that this was his intention, see further the last verse of the chapter, where he says, "wherefore comfort one another with these words"-with the consideration that those who sleep in Jesus shall rise again, that believers shall meet them again, and that together they shall be for ever with the Lord.

Have we good evidence within ourselves, such evidence as will admit of our adopting the language of David? "As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness." "I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." Doubtless, we are ready to conclude that we should be satisfied with this result; but let me ask, is there that within us upon which we may build for a like result? Are we living in faith upon the Son of God? Have we an innate abhorrence of sin,—a principle implanted within us by the Holy Spirit, which is opposing every rising corruption, and combating every unholy affection? If we will take the pains to examine how our hopes stand for eternity, we have helps sufficient in the word of God to ascertain our evidence.

The way in which it is to be done is, to read over the gospels and the epistles, and the book of Psalms; and as we read, compare our case with the truths with which we meet, and in this way shall we be able to discover whether or not we are Christians according to the gospel standard. But let us not fail in one thing which is important, and that is, to pray over the word every time we peruse it, that God by his Spirit would enlighten our minds, that we may not put a wrong construction upon his holy testimonies; for in itself it is declared to be so plain that he who runs may read, and that the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein.

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THE MAN WHO WAS BORN BLIND.

WHEN we assert that afflictions form part of the common lot of mankind, we do not mean to say that all men are afflicted; we know it to be otherwise; but where afflictions are sent, they are appointed according to the will of God, the Supreme Ruler, and the instruments he employs are as different as the subjects of affliction, they are too numerous to name.

The reasons of afflictions are also very various : "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." It was not an improbable thing that this man's afflictions might have originated in sins that his parents had committed, for parents often entail upon their children very loathsome diseases, through their own sinful practices; but it was quite impossible that he himself could have been the occasion of his being born blind, in consequence of any sin that he had committed; but the question seems to refer to the notions of heathen philosophers, among whom was Pythagoras, who taught the doctrine of transmigration, which supposes that souls pass into other bodies at the hour of death, and are there punished for sins that they formerly com