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upon transient objects, merely and exclusively, must lead to disappointment. I have spoken of the three chief heads into which human passions are generally divided, sensuality, ambition, and avarice; and have shown that the objects which men, under the dominion of these passions, severally pursue, are not only essentially valueless and unsatisfactory, when obtained in the utmost degree, but even destructive or prejudicial. But think not because these objects are intrinsically without any adequate worth, they therefore appear so to those who pursue them. On the contrary, they constitute their whole life; and when by the conscious decays of nature and the approach of death they are wrung from the hearts of their admirers, when it is seen and felt that they must be parted with, nothing can exceed the desolation of mind which ensues, unless happily penitence and religion, if it be not too late, come to fill up the void. No man who is given up to any one of these passions can say, "For me, to die is gain." "If our Gospel be hid," says St. Paul, “it

is hid to them that are lost; in whom

"the God of this world hath blinded the "minds of them which believe not, lest "the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, "who is the image of God, should shine "unto them '.

This then being the case with respect to human life, that it is given us but for a short period of time; that, short as it is in its utmost extent, it is liable to be rendered yet shorter by a countless multitude of accidental causes; perhaps by the original frame of the bodies of some; and that in all the care and toil which we bestow upon objects belonging to this life only, we aim at gaining that which we cannot keep; what remains but that we turn our chief attention to that sublime state which, together with the objects it contains, is permanent and stable? to that state, the objects of which are always within the compass of our endeavours by the divine grace, and which, when obtained, will neither frustrate our hopes by their inadequacy, nor cloy the appetite by enjoyment? How happy must

2 Cor. iv. 3, 4.

be the condition of that man who, when he finds, as we shall find, the earth and all that it contains receding from him, can with equal tranquillity take his leave of it and its concerns; and, turning his eyes to that heavenly country to which he is going, can exclaim, or feel with silent joy, that is my home, there shall I find a resting-place, there are my treasures laid there is my up, heart also: "for me," therefore, "to die is "gain." Neither will it be inferred from this reasoning that, because those objects which inflame the passions or tempt the desires of vain man in his passage through life are without any essential value, human life itself is therefore of no importance. On the contrary, the dignity and inappreciable excellence of our nature is only thereby rendered the more evident when such things are shown to be unworthy of our chief attention or more serious pursuit. This life is the passage to eternity, and we must so wind our way through its various seductions as not to be corrupted by them: we must so "pass through things temporal that "we finally lose not the things eternal." It

is from conflicts about those objects of which the real worth is so trivial to a being of such excellence, and which has but a short time to continue among them, that all the evil passions are kindled; that we hate, instead of loving each other, that we injure, instead of promoting each other's good, and that we degrade and deprave our own souls, instead of purifying, adorning, and fitting them for eternity. "From whence come wars and fightings among you? come

66

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they not hence, even of your lusts that 66 war in your members' ?"

Lastly, amidst the insecurity that attends all human possessions and concerns there is, perhaps, nothing more frail or insecure than human virtue. He, therefore, that standeth has at all times occasion to "take "heed lest he fall." But, when the end shall be come, we are secure; we are under no further liability to err; our conflict closes. Well, therefore, may the good man say, "For me, to die is gain." He no longer prays that he enter not into tempta

s St. James iv. 1.

tion, but receives the cheering congratulation and reward of his victory: "Well done, "thou good and faithful servant, . . . enter "thou into the joy of thy Lord"."

t St. Matt. xxv. 21.

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