1 that (according to the Hebrew proverb) a living dog is better than a dead lion? For, the living know, yea must know, unless they obftinately refufe, that they fhall die. But the dead know not any thing, that will avail, for the ease of their pain, or to leffen their mifery. Allo their hope and fear, and their defire, all are perished, all of them are fled: they have not any portion in the things that are done under the fun! 10. Where indeed is the hope of thofe who were lately laying deep schemes, and faying, To-day, or to-morrow we will go to fuch a city, and continue there a year, and traffic, and get gain? How totally had they forgotten that wife admonition, ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For, what is your life? It is a vapour that appeareth awhile, and then vanifheth away! Where is all your bufinefs? Where your worldly cares? Your troubles, or engagements? All these things are fled away like smoke; and only your foul is left. And how is it qualified for the enjoyment of this new world? Has it a relish for the objects and enjoyments of the invisible world? Are your affections loosened from things below, and fixt on things above? Fixt on that place, where Jesus sitteth at the right hand of God? Then happy are ye: and when he whom ye love fhall appear, ye shall also appear with him in glory. 11. But how do you relifh the company that furrounds you? Your old companions are gone: a great part of them probably feparated from you, never to return. Are your prefent companions angels of light? Miniftring fpirits, that but now whispered, "Sifter fpirit, come away!" "We are sent to conduct thee over that gulph into Abraham's bofom." And what are thofe? Some of the fouls of the righteous, whom thou didst formerly relieve with the mammon of unrighteousness? And who are now commiflioned by your common Lord, to receive, to welcome you into the everlasting habitations? Then the angels of darknefs will quickly difcern they have no part in you. So they muft either hover at a distance, or flee away in defpair. Are fome of thefe happy fpirits that take acquaintance with you, the fame that travelled with you below, and bore a part in your temptations? That together with you fought the good fight of faith, and laid hold on eternal life? As you then wept together, you may rejoice together, you and your guardian angels perhaps, in order to increase your thankfulness, for being delivered from fo great a death. They may give you a view of the realms below: thofe 66 Regions of forrow, doleful shades, where peace See on the other hand, the manfions which were prepared for you, from the foundation of the world! O what a difference between the dream that is paft, and the real fcene that is now prefent with thee! Look up! See "No need of the fun in that day, A pure and a permanent light." Look down! What a prifon is there! "Twixt upper, nether, and furrounding fire." And what inhabitants! What horrid fearful fhapes, emblems of the rage against God and man; the envy, fury, despair fixt within, causing them to gnash their teeth at Him they so long despised! Mean while does it comfort them to fee, across the great gulph, the righteous in Abraham's bofom? What a place is that! What a houfe of God, eternal in the heavens! Earth is only his footstool: yea, "The fpacious firmament on high, And all the blew ethereal sky." Well then may we fay to its inhabitants, "Proclaim the glories of your Lord, Difpers'd through all the heav'nly street; And yet how inconfiderable is the glory of that houfe, com- 66 Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes." 12. How wonderful then, now the dream of life is over, now you are quite awake, do all thefe fcenes appear! Even fuch a fight as never entered or could enter into your hearts to conceive! How are all thofe that awake up after his likenefs, now fatisfied with it? They have now a portion, real, folid, incorruptible, that fadeth not away. Mean time, how exquifitely wretched are they, who (to wave all other confiderations) have chofen for their portion those transitory fhadows, which now are vanished, and have left them in an aby's of real mifery, which must remain to all eternity! 13. Now, confidering that every child of man, who is yet upon earth, muft fooner or later wake out of this dream, and enter real life; how infinitely does it concern every one of us, to attend to this, before our great change comes! Of what importance is it, to be continually fenfible of, the condition, wherein we ftand? How advisable by every poffible means to connect the ideas of time and eternity? So to affociate them together, that the thought of one may never recur to your mind, without the thought of the other! It is our highest wifdom, to affociate the ideas of the vifible and invifible world, to connect temporal and spiritual, mortal and immortal being. Indeed in our common dreams we do not usually know we are allcep, afleep, whilst we are in the midst of our dream. As neither do we know it, while we are in the midst of the dream, which we call life. But you may be confcious of it now! God grant you may! before you awake in a winding fheet of fire! 14. What an admirable foundation for thus affociating the ideas of time and eternity, of the vifible and invisible world, is laid in the very nature of religion! For what is religion? (I mean fcriptural religion; for all other is the vainest of all dreams.) What is the very root of this religion? It is Immanuel, God with us! God in man! Heaven connected with earth! The unfpeakable union of mortal with immortal. For truly our fellowship (may all chriftians fay) is with the Father and with his Son, Jefus Chrift. God hath given unto us eternal life; and this life is in his Son. What follows? He that hath the Son hath life: and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. 15. But how fhall we retain a conftant sense of this? I have often thought in my waking hours, "Now, when I fall afleep, and see fuch and fuch things, I will remember, it was but a dream." Yet I could not, while the dream lafted; and probably none else can. But it is otherwife with the dream of life, which we do remember to be fuch, even while it lafts. And if we do forget it, (as we are indeed apt to do) a friend may remind us of it. It is much to be wifhed, that such a friend were always near: one that would frequently found in our ear, awake thou that fleepeft, and arife from the dead! Soon you will awake into real life. You will ftand a naked fpirit in the world of spirits, before the face of the great God! See you now hold fast that eternal life,, which he hath given you in his Son!" that 16. How admirably does this life of God branch out into the whole of religion! I mean, fcriptural religion. As foon as God reveals his Son in, the heart of a finner, he is enabled to say, the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. He then rejoices in hope 294 hope of the glory of God, even with joy unfpeakable. And in confequence both of this faith and hope, the love of God is fhed abroad in his heart, which filling the foul with love to all mankind, is the fulfilling of the law. 17. And how wonderfully do both faith and hope and love connect God with man, and time with eternity! In confideration of this, we may boldly fay, "Vanish then this world of shadows! Come, eternal King of glory, Now defcend and take thy bride! A An Account of Mr. WILLIAM BLACK. [Written by Himself.] [Continued from page 235.] UGUST 1ft. I set off again to vifit the dear people at where we had a comfortable meeting. name. "Oh! |