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weary are at rest."-Now, if you should allow the benefit of such assistance, and yet think that it may be rendered with equal effect by some other person, I reply, that the Minister of Christ is the person appointed by God for this purpose, and if only for this reason ought to be the person employed by you-that on this account also his prayers and ministrations may reasonably be expected to be more availing-that he alone can administer

to

you the blessed Communion of Christ's body and blood-and, therefore, that in rejecting the ordained instrument, you do in effect deny the Divine wisdom, and prefer chusing for yourself to suffering the Almighty to chuse for you.

But remember, that in order to your Minister rendering you any of the abovementioned services, it is absolutely necessary that you should send for him before your disease gains such strength as to prevent your conversing with him, or understanding the admonitions he

may give. How lamentable it is that religion should be thought by the generality of men to be the concern ONLY of the other world, and therefore that the Minister of it should never be sent for, till all hope of living in this is given up. When the sick person is nearly exhausted by a long illnessor when his fever rages so high as to place him on the verge of delirium, or when the agonies of death are hourly expected-then (and not till then, too frequently) is the Minister sent for: as if, like his Divine Master in the distressed ship, he could at once hush the storm by saying, "Peace, be still." -Alas! in such case, he can give no solid comfort-because he can neither ascertain the real state of the sick man's soul

nor find out his wants, nor prescribe the proper remedies; with his reason expiring, his religious feelings, perhaps till now altogether strangers to his breast, confused and perplexed and death staring him in the face, what regular ad

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ministration can take place?-All he can do, is to pray for him, and charitably hope that God, who knoweth the heart, hath seen reason for the exercise of his mercy. But this is a melancholy sight for his real friends, who might have witnessed his progress towards the gate of death, so cheered and directed and assisted by the Minister of religion, that at the last he should have had nothing else to do, but to resign himself willingly and cheerfully into the hands of his merciful Creator.

II.

Open the state of your conscience to him honestly and unreservedly.

Having now called in your Minister, be mindful to do your part towards rendering his attendance profitable to you,

by communicating to him the state of your conscience as freely as you would that of your worldly affairs to the lawyer, or of your health to the physician. And if any fear should come across you of a disclosure of what you may impart to him, consider whether it is quite fair to have less confidence in him than in them -and whether his office is not as good a pledge of his fidelity as theirs. But you will perhaps say, "I know not that I am "required by my duty to conquer my "natural unwillingness to reveal to a "fellow mortal (though a Minister of re"ligion) the secret sins of which I am "conscious: the Church, of which I am "a member, denies the necessity of such "a confession: and my Bible tells me, "that if I confess my sins to God, it is "sufficient: he will be faithful and just "to forgive me my sins and to cleanse 66 me from all unrighteousness." To this I reply, that there is a wide distinction between necessity and experience: a thing may be very expedient, so expe

dient, that by not doing it we lose a considerable benefit, and yet, strictly speaking, may not be absolutely required of us, as in itself a point of duty. This I take to be the case with your confessing your sins to a Minister of the Gospel: if you only deal in generals with him, can he do more with you? if you confine yourself to saying generally, I have been a sinner, can he speak more particularly to your case, than merely urging the necessity of faith and repentance? how is it possible for him to suit the remedy to the disease, unless he is made acquainted with the sins that have most easily beset you. The lurking holes in which sin hides itself in the human breast, are so various, that the wound may be festering at the heart-may spread its contagious influence through the whole habit of the mental constitution, and yet must be without hope of cure while the spiritual physician is kept in ignorance of its worst symptoms. The body and the soul are in this alike, and you may as well expect