VIII. Life rolls along like a torrent. The paft is DISC. no more than a dream; the present, when we think we have fast hold of it, slips through our hands, and mingles with the paft; and let us not vainly imagine, that the future will be of another quality; it will glide by, with the same rapidity. You have seen the waves of the ocean preffing each other to the fhore. You then beheld an emblem of human life: days, months, and years, crowd forward, in like manner. Yet a little while, yet a few moments, and all will be at an end. "The things which are feen are temporal; but the things "which are not seen are eternal." DISCOURSE IX. THE NECESSITY OF RISING WITH CHRIST. COLOS S. III. I, 2. If ye then be rifen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Chrift fitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. TH HERE are few perfons who have DISC. not often employed their thoughts on the refurrection of our Lord Jefus Chrift from the dead. The fact is extraordinary, and well attefted; the circumstances striking and affecting. The trembling of the earth, the descent of the angel, the removal of the ftone, the terror of the guard, and the different appearances of the Saviour N 2 IX. DISC. Saviour to his disciples; all inspire a mix1x. ture of reverential awe, and heartfelt delight. As a confequence of this refurrection, it naturally occurs to our minds, that fince Christ is rifen, we shall arise too; because he arose, that we might do the fame. The members must be joined to the head; and the harvest will of courfe follow the first fruits. This is clear. But there is another confequence, which perhaps may not so much and fo frequently engage our attention as it ought to do. "I know," fays Martha, speaking of her dead brother—" I know that he "shall rise again in the resurrection at the "last day." We all can fay this refpecting our deceased friends and ourselves. We are ready to fay it. But what is to become of us; what is likely to be our portion, when we shall have thus rifen? For we may rife either to falvation, or to condemnation. To escape the one, and obtain the other, fome work IX. work must be wrought, fome change muft DISC. be effected in us, before we die; which in Scripture is likewise described as a resurrection. The Apostle, you have heard in the text, addreffing his Coloffian converts in this ftyle; "If ye then be risen with "Chrift." But how "rifen with Chrift?" They had not been dead, and therefore they could not have risen from the dead. That refurrection, the refurrection of the body, was not paft; it was not to come for many ages it is not yet come. The refurrection intended was to take place in perfons that were living upon earth. This intermediate link of the chain we are but too apt to leave out in our calculations; or, at least, to think very flightly and fparingly of it, though it be indeed of the utmost importance. what will it avail us to rife from the dead, For only to hear the fentence, Depart from wicked?" "" me ye Often have we bestowed some reflections on the information communicated by the Gofpel of the day concerning that which |