is doubtless our duty and our wisdom, however painful the task may be, to wait with patience, and perform our appointed work with diligence and fidelity, until He who has a right to dispose of us at his pleasure shall grant us permission to quit our station, and enter on the enjoyment of that repose which is reserved as the reward of faithful and unwearied labours. At all events, death is the greatest temporal calamity which can befall us; and to think of escaping from present misery, which is seldom altogether intolerable, and which, at the very worst, will soon pass over, by precipitating ourselves on the unseen and awful realities of eternity, is the very paroxysm of daring and head 'I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY.' No passion has a firmer hold of the mind, or retains its empire longer, than the love of life. Our present mode of existence and operation is the only one with which we are acquainted; and we are afraid to venture ourselves in an unseen world, to the manners and relations of which the soul has not learned to attune itself. Our nature, feeble as it now is, and bound to the earth by a thousand tender ties, shrinks from dissolution, and feels alarmed at the prospect of our being associated with beings who are not of this world, and whose powers, dispositions, and employments are utterly unknown to us. Even when hardly able to support the burden of our own ex-long madness. Even to wish for death istence, we cling to life in spite of pain and misery, and in the agony of death the glazed eye closes with reluctance on the surrounding objects, and the arm that is unstrung by the wrench of the king of ter-ish and discontented, and in its present rors makes an effort to avert the stroke, which in an instant would bring effectual relief. When the common feelings of humanity are not repressed or counteracted in their operation by supernatural influence, the prospect of being immured in the mansions of the dead, with worms and corruption for our companions, is forlorn and dreary; and self-love, which teaches us to regard ourselves as of great importance in the general system of being, sickens at the thought of our being cut off from the ways of men and shrouded in the mantle of oblivion, as entirely forgotten by a world once so dear to us as if we had never been. merely because we have been crossed in the world, because the stream of life does not glide so smoothly as we could desire, is highly criminal, and argues a soul peev state very unfit to quit its fleshly tenement, however uncomfortable, and appear in the presence of its Judge. We are not prepared to affirm that Job's mind was properly exercised, and under the benign influence of Christian meekness and resignation, when he uttered the words, 'I would not live alway.' He certainly was eminent above most of his contemporaries in piety and righteousness, and had the testimony of God himself, that there was none like him on the earth. At this time he was smarting under the most intense and complicated afflictions that ever aggrieved a mortal man. His patience under these almost True indeed, there have been many hap- insupportable sufferings has been comless and infatuated creatures, who, dejec-mended by the pen of inspiration, and ted and depressed by the gloom of melancholy, disgusted with the world, and sick with a life which affords them no pleasure, have sought the grave as a retreat from weariness and sorrow, and have longed for the shadow of death, under the covert of whose darkness they might rest and be at peace, beyond the fear of annoyance from their own morbid feelings, or the ruggedness of a wayward destiny. In the frenzy of despair, or under the malignant influence of unbounded pride and disappointed ambition, there have been many, who, in despite of the voice of nature, the mandate of Heaven, and the terrors of the world to come, have dared to become their own executioners, and impiously to lift their hand against that life which none but God could give, and which none but the Giver had a right to take away. This is the highest act of rebellion against their Creator of which men are capable, evincing at once a contempt of his authority, and a defiance of his power and wrath. If our days are numbered, it proposed as an example to future generations. And certainly, if his moaning was heavy, his stroke was heavier still. It cannot be denied, however, that his mind was too much chafed and irritated, and his desires for death appear to have flowed, partly, at least, from chagrin and fretfulness, and not altogether from those views and feelings by which the great apostle was actuated when he declared that he had a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, he was supported and solaced by the belief that his Redeemer lived, and by the hope that his eyes should yet behold him in that place where pain and sorrow can never enter. And though it should be a Christian's meat and drink to do the will of his heavenly Father, and finish his work with unconstrained alacrity and uncomplaining perseverance, doubtless it is his duty and his privilege to be animated by the prospects of glory and immortality which are set before him in the gospel, and to run his destined race with patience and cheer fulness, because he knows that in due time he shall reach the goal. While his presence on the field of labour and of warfare is needful for promoting his Saviour's honour and the prosperity of his Church, no private consideration of personal advantage should excite in his breast a wish to retire. But when the will of God is done, and the ends for which he was sent into the world are accomplished, surely death is a consummation devoutly to be wished. And that hope which irradiates its gloom should brighten as it approaches; and that faith which overcomes the world should wax stronger as the hour of victory draws nigh. We may mention a few of the reasons why a Christian would not choose to live always, or which determine him to prefer the life in heaven to the life on earthnamely, the reasons which are within him, around him, and above him. There are many reasons within the Christian, on account of which he would not live always, or which determine him to prefer the future to the present life. Unless when under the influence of some gloomy passion, a bad man, we believe, never considers death as an event to be desired; yet were he to be assured, on information satisfactory to his own mind, that his present mode of existence would never have an end, it is doubtful whether his happiness upon the whole would not be diminished rather increased. Even under his present unavoidable convictions of the shortness and uncertainty of time, he often complains that its wheels move heavily onward; and were he to be assured that his years were to roll their tedious rounds to eternity, it is more than probable that the very idea of the perpetuity of the dull recurrence would render his life a burden too heavy to be endured. As matters now stand, he usually considers death as an event so distant that it appears divested of its terrors, and does not prevent him from catching the pleasures of the passing day; nay, so indefinitely remote does it seem, that he regards himself immortal for the present, and keeps himself easy for the time being, leaving futurity to provide for itself. Were a good man to be told that this world was his everlasting home, his hope would sicken into despair. In his mind and heart there are principles, and affections, and desires which connect him with the heavenly world, and the foul atmosphere of this polluted earth is not the element in which these can live with freedom, and extend with a vigour congenial to their celestial nature. By the agency of the Holy Spirit, through means of the gospel, he has undergone an inter nal change so complete, a revolution of views and sentiments and feelings so entire, that the Scriptures designate it a new birth and a new creation, and represent him as inspired with new life, partaking of a divine nature, and bearing the image of his heavenly Father. After this renovation, the love of God becomes the regulating principle of his mind, and the reigning affection of his heart, and his happiness chiefly consists in the unrestrained exercise and emanation of this divine affection, in connection with a sense and feeling of the ineffable love which God bears to him. This interchange of mutual affection in great part constitutes that communion with God which is the life and joy of the renewed soul, and the perfection of this communion is the perfection of felicity. But though divine love be the predominant affection in a Christian's bosom, though the general and prevailing tendency of his heart be to God and holiness, still the good and the bad are sadly blended in his constitution, and temper, and exercise, and the incessant jarring of discordant principles prevents the harmony of his soul, and not unfrequently renders it the seat of painful and grating conflictions. And after all, his most successful endeavours after holiness are little more than painful efforts to disentangle himself from the snares and the weight of sin. His mind has been enlightened to perceive the beauty and loveliness of holiness, and the deformity and hatefulness of sin. His understanding approves of the divine law, and acquiesces in its purity. The moral perfections of the Divine character excite his esteem and veneration, and the sympathies of his soul are in some measure attuned to harmony with that justice and benevolence which preside over the interests of the universe. He knows that the God who created all things, and who upholds them by the word of his power, surrounds him continually with his presence, and is most intimately acquainted with the deepest secrets of his heart. He knows that God, who thus observes him and compasses him about, is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look on sin. How sadly therefore must he be mortified and grieved when he feels that that abominable thing which is in direct contradiction to the nature and will of God, which his own understanding condemns and his heart detests, is interwoven with his very constitution, and diffuses its vemon and impurity through every faculty and thought of his mind, and every action of his life!How must he be cast down and humbled with the consideration, that his desires, and feelings, and disposition do not entirely harmonize with the Divine character, which he loves and admires; and that his conduct does not coincide with the divine law, of which his conscience has approved; that he is oftentimes actuated by passions abhorrent to the nature of God, and subversive of his government; and that some degree of enmity and rebellion against the Saviour, who died to rescue him from destruction, still festers in his heart in spite of his prayers, and tears, and repentance. Even the great apostle of the Gentiles, who had obtained as complete a victory over the unholy propensities of human nature as ever saint obtained, whose mind was as thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his Divine Master as it is possible for a mind to be in its sublunary state of imprisonment and imperfection, lamented bitterly over this state of internal discord, and hailed with transports of delight the happy period when he hoped to be delivered from its disquietude, when those seeds of depravity, whose growth he so earnestly laboured to repress, should be for ever plucked up by the roots. 'I delight,' says he, 'in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members warring against the law of mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' The Christian therefore considers death as an event to be desired, because he knows that it will place him for ever beyond the reach of sin and all its machinations, and all those defects and disorders to which he is liable in this inferior stage of his existence, and which are inconsistent with the heavenly felicity,-because he knows that he shall then be endowed, in a glorious and transcendent degree, with those spiritual and heavenly qualifications which he now enjoys in a lower measure, and in whose exercise, though feeble and obstructed, he experiences greater happiness than the world, with all its sorcery and fascination, can afford its misguided votaries. He now delights in the law of God after the inward man; but has to abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes, because he perceives another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin. He therefore looks forward with exultation to that period when he shall be made perfect in that holiness which the law requires, and have his heart and life entirely under its benignant influence, when his obedience will be complete, because his will shall retain no perversion, and his corruptions will be done away. He now feels himself constrained by the love of Christ which is shed abroad in his heart, but has to lament that some rebel passion still disputes the empire of his soul with that divine affection, and labours to push it from its throne. He therefore rejoices in anticipation of that final and perfect victory which the grace of God, which now reigns within him, shall achieve over all his earth-born affections,-when the smoking flax shall be blown into a flame, which through eternity shall mingle with seraphic ardours in the pure element of perfect love. He has now a joy and peace in believing which the most violent gales of external adversity cannot disturb, and a serenity of soul, arising from assurance of an interest in the love of God, which settles in placid tranquillity while the world around him is agitated and deformed by tempests; but from the misgivings of a timorous faith, and the waverings of an unstable hope, he has often to complain that his views are so distorted and intercepted, that his heavenly Father appears to frown upon him, and the evidences that his sins are forgiven, and himself approved of as righteous, are so dim and defaced, that he is unable to read them. He therefore longs to be freed from his present incumbrances, and to become an inhabitant of that place where he shall behold his Saviour face to face, and be convinced, by the evidence of perception and intuition, that he is in the immediate presence of God, and that he is the object of his entire approbation, and ineffable delight. He now enjoys sweet communion with God in the ordinances of the gospel and the exercises of religion; but even in his happiest frames he has to lament that the damps of sin or of bodily infirmity hang_cold and heavy about him, repress the ardour of his devotion, and prevent it from attaining those sublime heights of rapturous ecstasy after which his soul aspires, and to which the infinite excellence of the object whom he adores is calculated to elevate it. He therefore desires, with the apostle, to be absent from the body, and in the appointed time to be released from the trammels which now entangle him, that his soul may glow and expand with the energy of angelic fervour; or rather, he looks forward with emotions of delight to the period when this 'corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality.' There are many reasons around the Christian, on account of which he would not choose to live always, or which deter mine him to prefer the future to the present life. The moral world is now in a state of disorder and confusion, which to a Christian would be altogether intolerable, did he not believe that there will be a time hereafter when all will be rectified. What is this world at present but a revolted province, and the scene of a great and malig nant rebellion against the God who made it? Here the prince of darkness has erected his standard, and marshalled his infernal legions against the King of heaven. Those mighty and malicious spirits, being exiled from the realms of light, knowing that their doom is inevitable, and their perdition remediless, and burning with implacable resentment against their omnipotent Creator, are incessantly struggling, with an industry and perseverance which conscious impotence cannot slacken, to derange his administration, and lay waste the beauty of his dominions, or at least, to show that they hold his power in defiance, and hate him with a perfect hatred. The grand object of their ambition, in this their opposition to God, is to defeat his gracious designs with regard to mankind, and render them wicked and miserable as themselves. For wise and holy reasons they are permitted to roam at large through the world, and exert a powerful though invisible influence over the children of men. Those demons, who thus go about as roaring lions, seeking whom they may devour, bend all their energies against the Christian, and hunt him with peculiar rancour and malevolence. They are enable to overcome him, because he is strengthened by a power superior to his own; yet they unceasingly dog his steps, and pursue him with fiendish malice to the very border of Immanuel's land. He therefore welcomes the approach of death, because he knows that beyond the vestibule of eternity they dare not follow him, and that from the country whose inhabitant he then becomes, they are for ever excluded by a gulf which they cannot pass. The Christian also considers death as an event to be desired, because he knows that it will release him from the pleasures of the world. His religion does not disqualify him for relishing innocent pleasures and rational amusements; yet he finds that even these, unless zealously restrained within the bounds of exact moderation, tend to relax the vigour of his piety, and put his mind into such a state of levity as is hardly compatible with the enjoyment of communion with God. He therefore welcomes the approach of death, because he knows that it will place him beyond the reach of temptation, and introduce him to pleasures, in the enjoyment of which excess and satiety are alike impossible. He regards death as a desirable event, because he knows that it will release him from the sorrows of the world. No affliction for the present is joyous, but grievous, and the Christian endures it with patience and fortitude, only because his light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory-because he knows that the pang which will break his heart will be the last he shall ever feel-because he knows that it is the will of his Father, that through much tribulation he should enter the kingdom of heaven. There are many reasons above the Christian, on account of which he would not choose to live always, or which determine him to prefer the future to the present life. It is said of the good man, that he is a stranger in the earth. A stranger passing through a foreign country to the land of his nativity, which contains all that is dear to his heart, never thinks of taking up his permanent residence in the country through which he travels. He may, indeed, be pleased with the road, and the entertainment and accommodation that he meets with in the course of his journey. He may admire the general aspect of the place, the beauty of the scenery, the fertility of the soil, and the mildness and salubrity of the climate. He may be charmed with the laws, customs, and manners of the inhabitants, and the wisdom and rectitude of their government. He may survey with a high degree of joyous feeling, a smiling country, exhibiting on every part of its surface the traces of well-directed industry and liberal economy, and teeming with a busy, enlightened and happy population. Still he contemplates the whole with the eye of a passenger, and moves onward with an alacrity and impatience which increase as he approximates the home where he hopes to be hailed with the welcomes of his friends, and delighted with the endearments of reciprocal affection. Thus is it with the Christian. To him this world is a foreign land. He feels that he is a stranger in it. His Father, his Redeemer, his friends, his home, and his inheritance, are all above, and there also are his heart and affections. His God and Father is in heaven. Jesus Christ is also in heaven, and therefore the Christian welcomes the approach of death, because he knows that it will introduce him into the immediate presence of his Redeemer-because he knows that when he shall leave this world of dreams and shadows, and awake into that bright world of spirits, he shall see his Saviour face to face, in all his exalted glories, and be with Him where He is, according to his own prayer, and his own promise. 'In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.' The Christian regards death as a desir not be purchased, for it is infinitely above all price, nor will he sell his favours. It cannot be merited; for the best merit nothing but destruction. It must come as a free gift. But to whom will it be given? I answer, It is freely and unconditionally offered to all who will accept it by faith. None, however, will ever accept it, but those who see that they have no righteous break his word, and act contrary to his own solemn declarations. He has summed up the law by which you will be tried, in the two great commands which enjoin it upon us to love God with all our hearts, and our neighbour as ourselves. Now, even though we should allow, what we presume none of you will pretend, that you have, through life, perfectly obeyed this latter command, and loved your neighbourness of their own to plead. None will acas yourselves; yet, you would still be condemned for neglecting to love God with all your hearts. The performance of all the duties which you owe to your fellowcreatures, can make no atonement for neglecting the far more important duties which you owe to your God; for as our Saviour has said, in a similar case, these ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone. If, therefore, we should even allow the truth of all your pleas, you would still be found guilty, when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, of wanting that perfect love to God, which the divine law inflexibly requires of all who seek to be justified by its works. cept it but those who are truly convinced, that they have never performed a good action, uttered a good word, or exercised one good affection. Hence our Saviour informs us, that publicans and harlots, the very refuse of society, will sooner enter the kingdom of heaven, than those, who, like the Pharisees, trust in themselves that they are righteous. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SACRED HISTORY. THE TIMES OF THE MESSIAH.-No. III. The Dawn of Philosophy in the West. THE philosophy of the West was evidently intended to accomplish a certain end, but as this is generally overlooked, its influence and use are frequently underrated. It was well said by Augustine, that Perhaps some may be found who will say, Notwithstanding, still our hope remains unshaken; for we have both piety and morality. We not only deal justly, and love mercy, as it respects our fellowcreatures, but also walk humbly with our God. We do not make the performance of our duties to men an excuse for neglect-God never intended to enlighten the ing our duties to God; nor, on the other hand, do we consider the discharging of our duty to God as an excuse for neglecting our duties to men; but we carefully attend to both. But still if you have nothing more than this, you want many things. You want that new heart, without which no man can see the kingdom of God. You want that faith, without which you must be condemned. You want that repentance, without which you must inevitably perish. You want that holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. But you will say, If this be the case, then all will be found wanting; for the Scriptures assure us, that there is not a just man on earth, who doeth good and sinneth not. True, by the law of God we are all found wanting. We have all sinned, and the whole world has become guilty be fore God. We are all children of wrath, and are "already under condemnation. Do you ask, Who then will be saved? who will not be found wanting? I answer, those, and those only, who can bring and place in the balance the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a perfect righteousness, without spot or blemish. But here an important question arises: How may an interest in the righteousness of Christ be obtained? I answer, it can world, or to reclaim men from idolatry, by these philosophers.' This work was reserved for a better faith, more favourable times, and other men. The tendency of that philosophy was to foster doubt rather than faith, and to destroy error rather than to establish truth. Its cold and cloudy light came like a withering frost on the rank superstition of the times; and as the frost that freezes the weed is as really the breath of heaven as the breeze that fans the flower, we regard the West at this period, not as a barren field, but as fallow ground, preparing for a future spring, a better seed, and a more abundant harvest. It is in this light that we purpose to look at the history of philosophy, in order to show that in the wisdom of God, after the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased him, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe.' Ancient philosophy had its youth, its manhood, and its old age. Its youth begins about the time of Thales, and lasts till that of Socrates; that is, from the year 600 to 400 B.C. This period comprehends the three primary schools, which were named after the countries of their founders-the Ionian, the Italian, and the Eleatic schools. Its manhood lasts from the time of Socrates to that of Epicurus; |