hesitate to call them by their distinctive names. He does not dread to illustrate and adorn his thoughts with apposite quotations from the sacred volume. But his general style is classical, and the whole work one which, while it cannot fail to instruct and interest the humblest Christian, ought to command the attention, and rouse the sensibilities, of the most enlightened. To the original work is added another Essay of the same author, on the "Influence of a Moral Life on our Judgment in Matters of Faith." This Essay has been already republished in this country, in a pamphlet form, and is inserted here for the purpose of giving it a more permanent and extended circulation. With the earnest prayer that this volume may be made instrumental in promoting the influence, and extending the knowledge, of pure and undefiled Religion, it is now commended to the blessing of God, and the favor of the public. Boston, October, 1829. CHRISTIAN ESSAYS. TRUE AND FALSE REPOSE IN DEATH. Ir the conduct of men be a just criterion of their feelings, it would appear to be the first desire of human nature that death might never arrive; the second, we might therefore conclude, would be, that seeing death is inevitable, we may become duly prepared for its reception. This, however, though a very natural desire, is by no means always followed by a corresponding system of conduct; so that while men in general wish, with Balaam, to "die the death of the righteous," few live that life which they imagine ought to be attended with so auspicious a result. There is but one modification of human existence which we have any good reason to believe will be accompanied with either safety or repose at our departure into another world. What is the nature of that peculiar modification cannot assuredly be doubtful; for if Christianity be a divine revelation fitted to the wants of man, and the only system which teaches him how he may obtain acceptance with God, then nothing short of the full effects of the Gospel upon a human soul can fit that soul for its eternal change. We may be moralists or philosophers; we may be esteemed wise and amiable; we may live without reproach, and meet death without a pang; yet amidst all, if we know not practically the necessity and the value of a Redeemer, and have not obtained a scriptural hope of an interest in his salvation, we are venturing defenceless and exposed upon a wide ocean of storms and uncertainties, and are braving all the terrors of eternity without a single well-founded expectation beyond the grave. The importance of procuring accurate ideas respecting religion and the mode of salvation, as connected with the safety and repose of a death-bed, is by no means universally considered in its full extent. There is a vague unmeaning sort of piety, or at least of what unjustly bears that sacred name, which persons in general are too often willing to consider as all that is required for sustaining with patience the approach of affliction or death. Thus a constitutional sweetness of disposition, or the negative blessing of not having been permitted to fall into any gross vices, is frequently viewed both by the sufferer and the spectators, as sufficient to render the hour of dissolution easy and the prospect of futurity welcome. If tranquillity be but obtained, it is of little consequence in the estimation of the world at large in what manner it was procured, or whether it be true or false; and thus that spiritual insensibility which, both in itself and its results, is the greatest of evils, is boasted forth as the natural and proper effect of a well-spent life. The propriety of such a conclusion is more than questionable; for who that is conversant with the effects of sickness has not observed how often there supervenes (independently of religious considerations), a languid indifference to life or death, to the world and to eternity, which is evidently nothing more than the natural effect of affliction long-sustained, and of a mind weakened and worn out by the near approach of dissolution? The faculties almost subdued by the pressure of natural causes oftentimes leave scarcely a sufficient |