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self as a stranger and pilgrim upon earth. His citizenship is in heaven. He regards himself as passing through a valley of tears to his Father's mansion.

NACLE.

With this view of his state, his body appears to him, as the Apostle here describes it, a taberWhat an emphatic term! The apostle Paul uses the same, For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved. This fleshly frame is indeed no more. As the traveller, journeying far from home, fixes his tent for the night, and removes it in the morning; or as the shepherd, arriving with his flock at a resting place, raises his temporary pavilion, to be taken down after a brief stay; or as the soldier, encamped before the enemy, pitches the tent which his immediate necessities require, always ready to march and combat;-so the Christian regards his body as the merely temporary accommodation where the soul is to reside for a time; a moveable and frail tenement, to be taken down with the same ease and celerity with which it was reared.

And how QUICKLY this may be the case is but too obvious from the scene now before us. This thought is also suggested by the express language of the text. As long as I am in this tabernacle-knowing that shortly I must put off

* τὸ πολιτευμα. Phil. iii. 20.

this my tabernacle. The time cannot be long when this momentary abode shall be laid aside. The vapour of human life will soon be dispersed. The post will soon have hurried by; the eagle have fixed on the prey to which it hastens; the brief tale of life be told. At the command of his Lord, the traveller quits his tabernacle, the soldier strikes his tent, the shepherd leaves his tenement. Sudden is this command; and irrevocable as it is sudden. Even the most useful ministers, in the full vigour of their life and labours, are often summoned away. In a moment the frail tabernacle crumbles into dust. The seeds of a thousand deaths lie planted in our frame, any one of which springs up in a moment to a fatal maturity. In this way it has pleased God to call on you to see your beloved pastor dropping as the leaf of autumn. In the midst of his days the tabernacle has fallen around him, and the disembodied spirit has ascended to God which gave it.

1

Nor is the Christian UNWILLING to answer to the call of his Lord. It is observable, that in the language of the Apostle there is a remarkable calmness of mind apparent. I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, &c.knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle. These are the words of one who is willing to depart, and be with Christ. He

speaks with unruffled composure of the time of his continuing here. He describes his death by putting off this his tabernacle, with the sort of indifference with which one would speak of laying aside one's garments at the close of a weary day, to retire to the evening's repose. This is the more observable, when we remember that the Apostle's death was to be accompanied with the torments of martyrdom, as our Lord had expressly foretold. Yet, what intimation of violence or persecution do we find in the text? The putting off a tabernacle, if a description of a death at all, is surely the description of a calm and tranquil departure to the glory of his Lord! We must look to the prophetic language of our Saviour to learn that St. Peter is, in fact, speaking in these words of a martyrdom. Compare, then, the holy peace, the calm fortitude, manifested here, with the previous cowardice of this same Apostle, when he denied his Lord at the voice of a maid-ser7ant, and learn the efficacy of the grace of Jesus Christ in converting and sanctifying the heart.

This calmness of our Apostle may however be partly referred to his SUBMISSION to the command of his Saviour. He observes expressly, as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me, referring to his Master's declaration', Verily, verily,

2 John, xxi. 18, 19.

I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. The entire resignation of the Apostle's mind to his Lord's will contributed, together with the other motives to which I have alluded, to produce the holy indifference to life which my text expresses. To such extraordinary intimations of the divine will Christians in the present day can make no pretensions. But we have all of us sufficient notices of the will of our Lord, in the general frailty of our nature, and the perpetual warnings of the approach of death with which the Scriptures abound, and which the experience of every day confirms. We have no need of a particular revelation to be assured that we must soon depart. There is not a moment which may not be our last. Every symptom of decaying strength, all the inroads of particular maladies, all the silent warnings of hastening years, are admonitions to us that we must soon put off this our tabernacle. He who asks for more proof than this, seeks to deceive himself. And yet how common is some measure of this self-deceit! How little did the family and friends of your late minister forebode the speedy termination of his labours! The

progress of the disease having been slow, and some of the symptoms having been suspended, how readily did hope kindle in the anxious eye of his attending relatives and friends! Even your excellent Minister himself, though so well aware in general of the uncertainty of life, was apparently but little aware how speedily he would be called to quit his earthly tabernacle. May we all learn then more practically to consider the brevity and uncertainty of our continuance here; and may every intimation of approaching dissolution, in the progress of age or of infirmity, serve as a sufficient intimation of our Saviour's will!

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And we may do this with the greater pleasure, because, in laying aside our earthly tabernacle, we can as Christians look forward to an enduring substance. An allusion, I conceive, to the HOUSE WHICH IS FROM HEAVEN, is contained in the text. For the Apostle has here, as I apprehend, in his eye, the language of Saint Paul, whom he calls his beloved brother, and to whose epistles he refers in another place. For we know, observes Saint Paul 4, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we

32 Peter, iii. 15, 16.

4 2 Cor. v. 1, 2, 4; an Epistle written about ten years prior to the one from which my text is taken.