SERMON X. 2 CORINTHIANS V. 6-9. "THEREFORE WE ARE ALWAYS CONFIDENT, WILLING RATHER TO BE ABSENT FROM THE POETS are seldom the safest authorities to quote; it is, however, not the language of -fiction, but of facts, which says "The chamber where the good man meets his fate, Is privileged beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven." There are principles, indeed, which show their strength and purity in all the duties and ordinary details of 'virtuous life ; '—there is a power which gives consistency to the Christian's conduct in all the bustle of worldly activity; arms him for successful resistance in every assault of temptation; supports and consoles him under every pressure of affliction; yea, a power by which, while "the outward man perishes" under the failings and feebleness of nature, "the inward man is renewed day by day”—renewed in all its holy purposes, in all its vigour of sober thought, in all its fervour of heavenly desire; in reliance on the word, in submission to the will, in conformity to the image of God. when mortality is evidently approaching its final breaking up, rapidly sinking to that point where it will at last be "swallowed up of life," the chamber where this scene is passing is privileged with a sacrednes peculiarly its own. We may seldom witness the raptures of the martyr, or the glowing visions of hope and assurance on which a saint of the first order soars to the skies; but we may But frequently feel a calm, reflected from the scarcely less favoured dying Christian, which subdues every impassioned emotion, and seems to forbid every other expression of our struggling sympathies but the suppressed sigh, and the silent tear. There, indeed, we may learn the true estimate of life, not in life's gay bustle, but in life's grand close. We see the captive stooping to his resistless stroke, only that he may rise with a higher triumph; and man's last enemy welcomed to give a friendly release from sufferings which other friends could not control. We, in fact, perceive the beams of immortality breaking through the perishable framework of man, and vividly playing amid the wreck of earthly hopes, and the rending of earthly bonds; and when the eyes of the sufferer are closed to all below, we feel that the darkness is only ours who are left to mourn; and that the real light is his, who has thus broken through mortality into the broad and boundless day of life. Thus is "the chamber where the good man meets his fate, privileged" beyond every other scene of earth; and he is privileged too, who is permitted there to witness the value of those principles, which can alone bring his own course to the same close; the strength of that faith, which can fight its way through every conflict of that hour; the happiness of that choice, which leads to such a consummation; and the importance of that light, and hope, and peace, which can give him the same triumph when he is the chief subject in a similar scene. Here, then, is the test-here is the truth of Christianity. Unbelievers may dispute its divine origin, may cavil at its miracles, may stumble at its mysteries, may rebel against its principles; yet they cannot but admit the value of that hope which beams with the brightest anticipations, in what, without it, must be the darkest hour of our dark mortality; the importance of that belief which gives the greatest aid, at the most feeble point of human feebleness; and the reality of that peaceful persuasion which receives its fullest confirmation, when all earthly resources fail. But we look to higher testimony than the involuntary admissions of infidelity. In the first publishers of the faith, we have every evidence of its truth-every illustration of its power. Though troubled on every side, they were not distressed; if perplexed, never in despair; persecuted, not forsaken; when cast down, not destroyed; "-ever sensible of a protection beyond all human interference -ever conscious of an immortal principle within, which defied all deaths without. "Therefore," they could say, "we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; (for we walk by faith, not by sight): we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him." We, however, frequently place the blessings of the Gospel beyond our reach; or, in fact, deprive ourselves of their enjoyment, when they are in reality within our attainment, by supposing them to be more exclusively the prominent glories of the first days Y |