being decided, thorough, right-hearted Christians. There is no consistent medium, no resting-place, between the freezing atheism which says, "No God," and the evangelical, vital, active Christianity which teaches us that God is our Father, and heaven our home, and all men brethren, and life a pilgrimage to happiness and glory.

I have thus, then, spoken of the earnest of the rest that remains for the people of God. I need not repeat that nothing else but Jesus no one thing but faith, and confidence, and close communion and walk with him, can possibly give us that rest which is the thirst of all humanity, but the attainment only of the people of God. That spirit that spans the universe, cannot be satisfied with a grain of sand. The eye that descends to the depths, the soaring thought that stretches beyond the stars, never, never can be at rest until it find its centre and its resting-place in the bosom of God.

But this is the earnest of a rest: the true rest remains, we are told, for the people of God. The rest that a Christian now has, is a rest in trouble; the rest that a Christian will have, is a rest from trouble. It is the same as that spoken of in the Revelation, where it says:-"I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, Yea, saith the Spirit, from henceforth, for they rest from their labors." How beautiful is that text! They die in the Lord that is their safety-as the branch is in the vine. We can never say a servant is in his master, that would be absurd; then this strange phrase "in Christ" must mean something more than being followers of Christ: it means being united to him — resting upon him deriving life from him, forgiveness, sanctification, happiness from him. Then "blessed are the dead that die in the Lord," as their state of safety, their blessedness being that "they rest from their labors." The

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trail of light and beauty that follows them is reflected from their works. They are represented as following the Lamb, and their works following them. It is not said that their works precede, and that they follow this would mean that their works would be a title to heaven; but it says that Christ precedes - the Christian follows, and the works follow the Christian. Job also alludes to this rest when he says, "There the weary are at rest." The apostle also explains it when he says, "You who are troubled, rest with us."

And yet this rest is not insensibility. Man's soul never sinks into torpor. It is an awful delusion that the soul at death becomes insensible till the resurrection. I believe, even natural religion would teach us that man's soul when severed from the body, so far from becoming insensible, is only emancipated from its prison, to unfold a broader pinion, and soar with a more majestic flight, until it basks in the beatific vision, and sings beside the throne of the Most High. Thus when we are mourning over the beloved dead some father, or mother, or sister, or brother, or husband, or wife and gazing upon the cold face on which the last smile of life still lingers-and weeping, as though this were our relative; that soul emancipated, if permitted by God's great laws to speak to us, would say:-"Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves. I have laid aside, not life, but the shackles of life; I have not left happiness, but entered upon it; I am not dead, I have only begun to live. Come up hither! Come speedily, and share with me those joys that shall never be suspended—that rest that shall never be broken."

This rest, then, which remaineth for the people of God, I would notice, in the first place, will be rest from all bodily pain. "The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick." Sickness and death are perfectly unnatural things; and

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I am not surprised that men shrink from death that most unnatural catastrophe. Man was made to live; and it is sin, the foul blot that has fallen upon the earth, and generated disease and decay, that renders death now necessary at all. This death to the worldling—that is, to the man who has no religion, must be a terrific thing. I wonder how any man can have twelve hours' quiet who has not some clear, or rather conclusive evidence that he is going to the rest that remaineth for the people of God." I wonder, on the other hand, how any man can have ten minutes' unhappiness who knows that God is his Father; that that blessed Saviour has gone to prepare a home for him; and that, as sure as he dies, whether death shall be sudden, or the result of protracted disease, instant death shall be instant glory, and, in any shape, the vestibule of happiness for ever. The rest, then, that "remaineth for the people of God" will be free from all pain and from all sickness. Then the mind will be able to pursue its excursions; then it will enjoy powers adequate to the analysis of all that is submitted to it: it will not have to complain of the aching head, nor to resign its toils because of the fainting heart; but, freed from the fetters and restrictions of mortality, it will put forth a vigor and a power of which we have now but a dim conception vigor and a power of which it has given occasional intimations in its grand discoveries; but beside which, when it takes its place in heaven, the most brilliant discoveries of human genius will appear like children's playthings, that perish in the using.

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In that rest, too, the soul will be free from all mental anxiety and grief. Here, it is the experience of every Christian, that there are fears within and fightings without. How often do we weep because our plans have miscarried! and how often do we fear that our future plans will mis

carry also! How often do we lament the deceptions practised upon us in trade! How much do we fear and suspect those with whom we have intercourse in the market or in the exchange, from the necessities of human nature, and the weaknesses of human character! But when that day comes - when that bright rest dawns, no want will tempt us to do wrongly, no passion will drive us to do rashly. All passion, in as far as it is evil, shall be purged; all wants shall be abundantly satisfied; there shall be no aching void; we shall admit that we are, as David said he would be, "satisfied when I awake with thy likeness."

In that blessed rest we shall be free from all the disputes and the controversies that agitate the world and society at large. All disputes will be settled on the confines of heaven; all controversies that have convulsed the world, will be forbidden there. We shall then see, as the apostle tells us, eye to eye. Providence, with its ups and downs, will be luminous; all mysteries will be unravelled - all hieroglyphs explained—all discords resolved in harmony. There shall be no war, nor battle, nor conflict, nor sound of clarion, "nor garments rolled in blood;" because holiness shall beat in man's heart, and happiness shall be breathed in man's life for ever.

In that rest, when it comes, too, there will be no loss by death. Here, our circles upon earth become fewer, and those that we love are constantly removed; but in that better land, not only will there be no death, but those that were severed from us by death below, will be re-united, and joined to us in happiness above. The broken circles of families will be completed; those that we loved, and parted with in agony, shall rejoin us; the doors that shut us in, shall shut all sorrow out; the loveliest blessing will be the longest; all space shall be full of light; our praise will be a perpetual hymn; and our hearts ever bounding, and never breaking.

And this rest, let me add, at some of the features of which I have glanced, is to be an eternal rest: "There remaineth a rest for the people of God:"—it is for ever; it fadeth not away. No frost shall nip its flowers; no cloud darken its sky; the rest shall never be disturbed for ever and ever.

This rest of which I am speaking, is coming nearer and nearer to us every hour. Every day that closes, takes from the length of life and from the lustre of things that are seen. The tide seems already to approach our feet; the first waves of that eternal sea rise and swell upon the sand on which we now stand. Very soon what we call life that little isthmus between time and eternity. shall be covered by the vast unsounded ocean into which all of us must speedily enter. Every day that we live, that eternity is coming nearer; every pulse of our heart is a warning that it is so. Let me ask you, reader, Are you ready for it? Are you thirsting for it? Do you long for it? Do you enjoy every thing that tells you of it? and feel that you are happier because you hear that "there remaineth a rest for the people of God?"

This leads me, in the last place, to notice for whom this rest is designed. I said the rest in trouble "is for the weary and heavy laden," the rest from trouble is here pronounced to be for "the people of God." Who are they? They have been branded by many names, but they are still the same; they have been often caricatured, but they are still the people of God. They will not be so many as the Universalist alleges, nor so few as the exclusive Antinomian alleges. If I rightly estimate their character, they are not distinguished by an outer robe, nor yet by the pronunciation of a popular Shibboleth. Many of them worship in chapels, many in churches, some in cathedrals. Some pray without a liturgy, some pray with one; some praise with