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draws near to God, and thinks of Him, and prays to Him constantly and earnestly, so does he become familiar with the life beyond the grave, and find it possible and natural to fix his faith there. For with God continually in our thoughts, God in Christ, I mean, for a Christian knows God no otherwise than as approached through his Son,with God constantly thought of, prayed to, praised, thanked, and served, it is impossible that death should any longer be so great a barrier, or the state beyond it so dark and cheerless. For to God there is no difference of time or state; He is after our death as before it, before it as after it, in all respects the same. And death, which to Him. is absolutely nothing, becomes to us also less and less in proportion as we are more entirely His. So it is said that Enoch walked with God, and then it is added, "and he was not, for God took him." He walked with God on earth, and he walked with God in heaven, and the two became blended into one, and the barrier between them melted away into nothing. This is a true type, showing that the sense of death is destroyed by our consciousness of God. He who walks with God faithfully here, all that is said of him will be, "he was not, for God took him;" he will be missed here by us, but to himself it is in a manner all but one life, the latter part the more perfect and the happier, yet both were passed with God.

Again, all that has been said tends to that same conclusion on which I have dwelt so often; the one conclusion, "Let us pray." Let us pray: if we have prayed hitherto, let us pray the more; if we have not, then let us begin to pray. Remember that we may pray not merely as God's creatures, but as His children. This is our Christian privilege; this Christ's death has purchased for us. We may pray to God as His children. Where then is fear? Where is doubt? Where ought to be coldness? More certainly than our fathers and our mothers love us, does God the Most High love us, even us,-so humble, so sinful. And this is the most simple truth in the world, although it sounds like the loftiest flight of fancy; it is really and actually true. Wherefore, let us pray to God in Christ continually: and so shall we learn, like the patriarchs, to live in faith and to die in faith.

December 5, 1841.

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SERMON XXII.

THE PEACE OF GOD.

PHILIPPIANS, iv. 7.

The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

WE cannot doubt that what is here called the peace of God is no other than that peace which our Lord promised to His disciples, when He said to them, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you." And without fully understanding what it is, we yet cannot doubt that it is a blessing of the highest kind, when we read the language in which it is spoken of. Our Lord promises it as an especial gift from Himself to His people; St. Paul says of it that "it passes all understanding." Nor yet is there any reason to think that it is a blessing which belongs only to persons of one particular

either of

age. There is nothing in the words Christ or His disciples so to limit it. It would seem to have no other limit than this, that in order to enjoy peace, the mind must be capable of feeling the opposite to peace, that is, disquiet and annoyance. The heart so young as to be free from all care or pain, or so old as to have every feeling dulled and almost extinguished, may perhaps be incapable of receiving the promise, but all who are past the merest childhood and are not yet arrived at dotage, as they are capable of feeling grief, disappointment, pain, and anxiety, so are they capable also of receiving the peace of God.

We then here are all capable of receiving it; that is, it is a blessing neither out of our reach nor unsuitable to us because of our age. Other hindrances there may be in the way of our receiving it, great hindrances in our own will; but not in our age. Or if in our age, it is a hindrance which acts upon us in this way, that we do not trouble ourselves to seek any peace at all, because we are so little conscious of uneasiness. Yet at a later age there may be hindrances of another sort; we shall seek for peace perhaps with more earnestness than we did in early life, but our tendency will be greater also to mistake a false peace for the true. And it is because of this tendency of later years, and of the certainty that we shall feel the craving after peace sooner or later, that it is

so important to be possessed early with the true peace of God, and so be saved from all temptation of running after a counterfeit.

I have often alluded to the hardness of impressing persons in your present condition, because the world seems so sufficient to you, and you seem so sufficient to yourselves. And even when instances are brought very near to you, that the world's sufficiency and your own are not to be relied on, still the lesson, if it speaks loudly for a time, is soon repelled by the habits of your common life, which seem to assure you that you have no need of alarming yourselves, or of seeking for any thing more than you have already. And at this moment perhaps least of all, when your minds are set upon a prospect of very keen earthly pleasure, would you be disposed to seek or to desire very earnestly to become sharers in the peace of God.

Yet even at this moment the still small voice may speak, and some in all likelihood will hear it. For those who do not or will not, it will but testify against them, like the handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar's feast; and its witness regarded with indifference will be recorded against them as an opportunity lost.

Some undoubtedly will hear it, for they have heard it already. I am fully persuaded that to many the peace of God is not a thing altogether unknown, though it may not yet have been enjoyed

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