ither look backward
with complacency nor forward with hope: while the aged Christian,
relying on the assured mercy of his Redeemer, can calmly reflect that
his dismission is at hand; that his redemption draweth nigh: while his
strength declines, and his faculties decay, he can quietly repose
himself on the fidelity of God: and at the very entrance of the valley
of the shadow of death, he can lift up an eye, dim, perhaps, and feeble,
yet occasionally sparkling with hope, and confidently looking forward to
the near possession of his heavenly inheritance, "to those joys which
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart
of man to conceive."

Never were there times which inculcated more forcibly than those in
which we live, the wisdom of seeking a happiness beyond the reach of
human vicissitudes. What striking lessons have _we_ had of the
precarious tenure of all sublunary possessions! Wealth, and power, and
prosperity, how peculiarly transitory and uncertain! But Religion
dispenses her choicest cordials in the seasons of exigence, in poverty,
in exile, in sickness, and in death. The essential superiority of that
support which is derived from Religion is less felt, at least it is less
apparent, when the Christian is in full possession of riches, and
splendour, and rank, and all the gifts of nature and fortune. But when
all these are swept away by the rude hand of time, or the rough blasts
of adversity, the true Christian stands, like the glory of the forest,
erect and vigorous; stripped indeed of his summer foliage, but more than
ever discovering to the observing eye the solid strength of his
substantial texture:

Pondere fixa suo est, nudosque per aera ramos
Attollens, trunco non frondibus efficit umbram.

SECTION II.

_Advice to some who profess their full Assent to the fundamental
Doctrines of the Gospel._

In a former chapter we largely insisted on what may be termed the
fundamental practical error of the bulk of professed Christians in our
days; their either overlooking or misconceiving the peculiar method,
which the Gospel has provided for the renovation of our corrupted
nature, and for the attainment of every Christian grace.

But there are mistakes on the right hand and on the left; and our
general proneness, when we are flying from one extreme to run into an
opposite error, renders it necessary to superadd another admonition. The
generally prevailing error of the presen