breath of heaven, leaving the glorious sky in unobscured serenity.

But let us further consider the vast importance of the influence which these hopes and these expectations are likely to have upon our lives and actions. Compassed about as we are by infirmity, while we dwell in this frail tabernacle of the flesh, it is impossible that our minds can be so wholly disinterested, as not, in our obedience to our Creator, to be in some degree biassed by the hope of reward; and it is for this reason that he has propounded the joys of heaven as the recompence of our services. And is it not a most powerful stimulus to perseverance in the straight line of duty, that we have the blessed prospect of arriving at a happy and everlasting reunion with our departed friends? Is it not an effectual restraint upon our passions and evil propensities to know that the indulgence of them will be a certain bar to that reunion?-that it will cause us to see them sitting down with the glorious company of saints in the

kingdom of God, while we ourselves are cast into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth?

We shall learn too, from a proper consideration of this doctrine, to form a true comparison between this world and the next, and to appreciate justly the value of each. This life we shall regard only as the beginning of our existence-the infancy, as it were, of our being; but as an infancy which requires a proper nurture and training, in order to prepare the soul for the more perfect state which it is to enjoy hereafter. We shall know, by these reflections, that the consummation of all things is to be looked for in another world; that our joys and our affections, which are here but imperfect, will there attain the fulness of their completion; that the virtues, as well of ourselves as of those we love, of which we now so often lament the defects, will then shine out with an untarnished lustre, when "our righteousness shall be brought forth as the light, and our judgment as the noonday."

3 Ps. xxxvii. 6.

Finally, my brethren, we shall learn to fix our affections more earnestly and more steadily upon the things which are above; to think less of the perishable goods of this world, and cleave only to those virtuous and holy feelings and desires which we may hope to have renewed in a more perfect state of being: we shall keep our hands steadily upon the plough, without casting back one lingering look upon the idle pleasures of the world; so that, when "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God," we, with the rest of his saints, with all we have loved and held dear upon earth," shall be caught up in the clouds together to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."+

4 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.

91

SERMON V.

2 KINGS v. 13.

And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?

THERE is scarcely any part of the Old Testament, which does not bear a marked reference to the Christian dispensation; and none, perhaps, more perceptibly so than the history of the cure performed by the prophet Elisha upon Naaman the Syrian. My object, therefore, in the following discourse, will be, to direct your attention to the mode of relief prescribed by the prophet, and the

salutary effects produced by Naaman's ultimate obedience: considering the former as a type of the Christian sacraments; and the latter, of the benefits which we receive by partaking of them with repentance, faith, and charity. In order to effect this, I shall, as briefly as possible, give the outline of the history.

Naaman, a Syrian nobleman, afflicted with leprosy, a disease of the most inveterate and loathsome character, comes to the prophet Elisha, seeking relief. He comes with the full expectation, that the prophet would receive him with the courtesy and respect which were due to his rank, and by some signal and even ostentatious display of supernatural power, at once relieve him from his distemper.

But God, who had fore-ordained that this man should afford a lasting and eminent proof of his power and mercy, chose to appoint a method of healing him very different from that which he had pictured to himself. The prophet, without even paying him the compliment of a personal reception, sends