for good, as he rejoiced over your fathers, and will bestow upon you favors inestimable in their value, and transcendent in their amount.

I cannot believe that you will, for a moment, entertain the thought, that the many judgments which your nation has experienced are without a cause. You will admit, that they have been inflicted because of transgression. But I am constrained to believe, that you do not well consider all that such an admission implies. Accompanied, as it is, with a neglect to discover, and to abandon the offence, does not the admission afford too much evidence, that the offence gives you too little concern? Should a child be convinced, by the frowns which he received, that he had offended his parent, and yet be unconcerned, and make no effort to ascertain the particulars of his offence, he would show by such conduct that he held bis father's authority in light estimation, and that he regarded a reconciliation with him as a matter of indifference. Does not your neglect to inquire into the nature of the offence, for which you have so long endured the frowns of your Heavenly Father, too much resemble the case of such a child? Were you in earnest to discover the real cause of the withdrawment of the Divine favor, and the way of reconciliation with Him whose people you profess yourselves to be, is it to be believed that he would refuse to aid you in your inquiries, or that your endeavors would fail of success? You may feel assured, that He is more ready to return to you, than you are to return to Him. But God is a Spirit; and he requires you to seek, and to worship him, in spirit and in truth. You must seek him on such terms, and such only, as he himself proposes. All attempts to regain his favor will be worse than useless, unless they are accompanied with a sincere determination to surrender every bias of your minds to his authority; to resign every feeling of your hearts to his control; and to accept, with childlike simplicity, such terms of peace as he vouchsafes to offer. Your love of the truth; your desire to please God, and to be accepted of him, must surmount every inferior consideration. Bear it, I beseech you, continually in mind, that indifference with regard to the will of God, and unconcern about either bis favor, or his anger, is an indication of dislike to his authority, and a fearful provocation of his wrath.

Did I solicit your attention to aught but what the word and authority of God enjoin, yourselves being the expositors of both, I might apologize for the ardor with which I press my subject. But while I plead the cause of truth, and offer to be discarded if I am found not to maintain it, I shall not feel solicitous to vindicate a zeal which has for its object the welfare of Israel. I would rather communicate somewhat of this zeal to you. I could wish that the experience of eighteen ages might not be thrown away; and that a consideration of the evils which indifference to the truth has, in that compass of time, brought upon your land and nation, may excite you to inquire, with devout solicitude, after the cause of this controversy which God has so long maintained against his people. I acknowledge that I feel unwilling that this unhappy experience shall continue forever; that Zion shall be a perpetual desolation; that her redeemed shall never return to her; and that her sorrow and mourning shall never flee away. Many a gentile, in these days, adopts the language of your captive fathers in Babylon,

and says; "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." Many an eye now looks forward with eager expectations t of the time when you shall return to the Lord; and when He, according to his promise, shall return to you, and restore you to the i possession of his favor.-Shall you alone be unmoved?-Shall Genin tiles seek the prosperity of Israel, and shall the children of Abraham be unconcerned? While, at this time, so many things conspire to elevate our hopes, and so many favorable indications of an approaching happier state of the world combine to animate our hearts, and to stimulate our devotions, it is not to be denied, that the apparent indifference of your people to the things which pertain to their peace, serves greatly to overcast the horizon of our hopes, and to throw an unwelcome mist over the bright prospect of future joys on which our eyes have long delighted to dwell. Could we see your reluctance to examine the pretensions of HIM, who claims to be the Prophet "like unto Moses," overcome; could we see your indifference respecting the cause of the Divine displeasure removed; could we see the seed of Jacob earnestly engaged to avert the wrath of God, and anxious to do his will; we should be furnished with a new theme of thanksgiving to the Author of all good, and with new evidence that not only their redemption, but that of the whole world, is, indeed, drawing nigh. This world would rejoice in new anticipations of good things to come; and Angels would strike a loftier note of praise for this further token of good will to men. A FRIEND TO THE JEWS.

For the Panoplist.

ON THE DESIRE OF DEATH.

Job vii, 16. I would not live always.

WHILE man is approaching the retributions of the world to come, lost in the fogs of error, loving all things he should hate, and hating every thing he ought to love, he shuts his eyes to the prospect of the eternity which awaits him. The soul of imperishable nature and immeasurable desires is turned away from the pursuit of immortal glory, seeks the trifles it must soberly contemn, and is made to search for its aliment in the dust. Indeed, the ordinary life of man is precisely such as would be expected, were he sure of living here forever. Even when taught by the oracles of Revelation, his attachment to sordid pursuits seems, if possible, more obstinate than before, because continued in disregard of evidence. The moment his attention is caught by the glittering sands beneath his feet, his eyes are averted from heaven; his Creator and Preserver is forgotten; both the sources and means of substantial happiness are neglected. At the expense of continued losses he perseveres in his useless labors for the attainment of happiness in earthly possessions. He firmly believes, that a satisfaction is attainable, in amusements of a day, which they never confer. Such enjoyment as he looks for lies not within the compass of sensible objects, is perfectly incompatible with the constitution of the material world; and while considering the direct prohibition of searching

* Psalm cxxxvii, 5.

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for the food of an immortal mind among such corruptible elements, the continuance of the pursuit can be construed into nothing less than a positive warfare against the Governor of the universe.

Notwithstanding, however, the accumulated proofs of the impossibility of success, men labor much, and long, and late, in attempting to rear the fabric of happiness below. The powers of invention are exhausted, and the extremes of labor and suffering are endured, and failure is attributed to every thing but the true cause, while the miserable exiles, roving from one falsehood to another, deceive themselves, fix on absurdities, of which they would in any other case be ashamed, to justify their hazarding an exclusion from heaven.

With devout gratitude to God let it be observed, that one special design of a Revelation, is, by showing the relation between this short life and the futurity to which man's hopes and fears are pointed,to place eternity before him in such magnificent proportions, and invested with such unspeakable dignity, that the nobler powers of the intellect and the better feelings of the heart shall be attracted towards it, as the principal, nay, as almost the only, object worth attention. And it is observable, that a large proportion of the crimes of men may be traced to that forgetfulness of God, which accompanies a neglect of the state of retribution. Having once lost sight of all that is good and great, the sordid mind is ready to affix the most exorbitant value to the possessions of time. No enticement is too despicable to captivate those feelings which are wholly sensual. Accordingly, we see men of such a character cheated with allurements of fashion, the low gratifications of luxury, the dazzling illusions of fame, of wealth, and of power. Although these wretched pursuits pall upon the senses of the unhappy victim, he flutters from object to object in quest of variety, till even variety itself loses its charms.

If some are for the moment so enamored with the fascinations of sin as to wish to continue the toilsome chase forever, many more, though without any solid hopes of a better state, are greatly wearied with this. The strong disgust, with which the atheist and infidel spurn at the continuance of the dull round, after once tired by its repetition, may be easily conjectured from the readiness with which they sometimes daringly rush uncalled into the presence of their Judge. Such men do not desire death from any just apprehensions of the state to which it will introduce them: but from vexation at the mortifications they experience, and loathing of the repetition of the wretched expedients contrived by the enemies of God, to escape all thought of Him, and all recollection of their crimes.

But there is a rational conviction arising from the most established principles, and from much experience, which makes the Christian of enlarged views and strong faith sometimes willing to leave a state so abounding in evil, for one of perfect holiness. I say sometimes;-for so strong is the attachment to life and its endearments, so solemn is the subject of exchanging a known state of being for an unknown, which, notwithstanding the disclosures of revelation, is obscured from mortal sight by clouds and darkness,-that very few, even of the most favored friends of the Redeemer, can steadily contemplate the approach of death without terror or reluctance.

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There are, however, many substantial reasons why the good man should not desire to live always. I mention several of these,

1. Those contemplations, which habitually raise the mind above the present world, give their possessor a fairer view of temporal enjoyments than he could otherwise obtain. Such a view, presented to his cool reflections, gives a far better understanding of the nature of earthly things than the mere worldling can ever acquire. One accustomed to ascend the commanding elevation, to which the sublime instructions of prophets and apostles would raise him, and who has his mental eye purified by the visions of faith, witnesses the transactions of other men, and examines his own, with a more correct judgment than any others. Although he is more likely to receive every rational satisfaction from material objects which they can fairly afford, than any other persons, still, considering their fading aspect, their sure marks of rapid dissolution, he expects less from them, and is less mortified by blasted expectations. Each hour brings some fresh testimony to the delusive appearances before him,-as the very objects on which he is invited to lean wither at his touch.

2. On turning our eye over the wastes and fruitless portions of a long life, the mind of religious sensibility sees little cause to congratulate itself. The amazing mass of misery, which meets the eye in every direction, is far too sorrowful a spectacle to be desired always. When looking at his own deficiencies, the penitent calls to mind the lost opportunities for relieving some portion of this misery, and considers the small amount of all the benefits he has conferred, he may well blush at having done so little for advancing the happiness of perishing souls. If he knows his own weakness, he will not expect to effect great things, by living longer in a region where his toils so much exceed his ordinary strength. The youthful expectation of accomplishing great objects single-handed, vanishes under the hard lessons of experience, and he who once thought his powers equal to any difficulty, estimates them nearer according to truth as he learns wisdom from above. To be a spectator of suffering which he cannot relieve, of sorrows he cannot mitigate, of disease he cannot cure, and to have his ears assailed with the moans of wretchedness, are enough to make a bosom, in which dwells a spark of genuine virtue, swell with intolerable anguish. Such an one may well exclaim, in the bitterness of his soul, I would not live always.

3. The flagrant injustice among men and the triumphs of iniquity, form a painful subject of contemplation. The histories of mankind are little else than a narration of the wrongs practised by individuals and communities on each other. The strong language of the inspired historian, in describing the condition of the antedeluvian world, is applicable to every subsequent period of time: The earth was filled with violence.

Those who most ardently desire a state of perfect holiness, are anxious to promote the good of mankind. The means, hitherto employed for this purpose, have been counteracted by all that is base in human nature. Every evil principle in operation here below is incessantly at war with the Almighty and his cause. Of course, whoever espouses this cause becomes an enemy of worldly principles and max-.

ims; and although his whole life be spent in the most self-denying labors, for the good of the human family, still, he is accounted the worst enemy of the persons, and the destroyer of the happiness, of those, whose highest happiness he seeks with unwearied perseverance. Now a state of warfare is far from being desirable to a peaceable temper. Least of all, would it be the choice of that man, who serves the Prince of Peace, and whose chief labor on earth is to extend the principles and the influence of that religion, which at once proclaims peace on earth and good will to men, at the same time while ascribing glory to God in the highest. Men, who are determined to make the most of this world, who defy the thunders of the Almighty at the same time that they trample his laws under foot, always look with a scowl of malignity on those persons, whose life reproaches them. It spoils their guilty festivities to allow a thought of the humbling doctrines of the Gospel to intrude, and the person, who brings these doctrines in full view before them, must be treated as an enemy. A warfare with worldly principles, and, of consequence, in some shape with worldly men also, is unavoidable by him who would keep a conscience void of offence. Here let it be recollected, that the Christian, by becoming such, does not lose those better sensibilities or kinder feelings of his nature, originally implanted for holy purposes; but finds them increased in strength, and elevated in their object, by every fresh communication of sovereign grace. To all such feelings the conflict with almost every thing around him is exceedingly distressing. He can hardly avoid wishing for a release from a station of so much suffering. 4. The awful apostasies, observed in some of those, whose light once seemed to shine with a strong lustre, make the humble Christian tremble. He has learned something of the deceitfulness of the human heart by studying the intricacies and fallacies of his own. Every new instance of departure from the truth, among the professed disciples of Christ, adds a new memento of his danger, and teaches him, that there is no positive security from his own ability, that he shall not apostatize in like manner. The bare possibility of such an event spreads a gloom over his prospects, and shows the necessity of watchfulness. It also reminds him that the very notion of being in safety is itself an exposure to imminent danger. The admonition of the Apostle on this point is full of practical wisdom. Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. An observation of the awful declensions of individuals within our knowledge ought to teach us, that there is no safety till death bas put the seal on our labors and terminated the contest with sin. The first glance at our frailty would alarm us, if we sometimes knew how near we came to the borders of enchanted ground. When those, who in the moral world once seemed to shine as stars of the first magnitude, have at length been obscured by a dark cloud, or even set in everlasting night, well may the experienced Christian raise his streaming eyes towards heaven, and shuddering at the tremendous relapses of those to whom perhaps he looked for counsel and assistance, say, "I have a desire to depart."

5. A stronger motive for welcoming the approach of death than any other which occurs to my mind, is a permanent and earnest desire to escape the dominion of sin, aud enter a state of perfect holiness.