REMNANTS of TIME. 483 ghastly horror sits on his countenance, and he groans under ex- treme anguish. Behold the man a favourite of heaven, a child of light, assaulted with the darts of hell, and his soul surrounded with thick darkness : All his sins stand in dreadful array before him, and threaten him with the execution of all the curses in the bible. Though he loves God with all his heart, he is in the dark, he knows it not, nor can he believe that God has any love for. him ; and though lie cannot utterly let go his hold of his Saviour and the gospel, yet in his own apprehension he is abandoned both of the Father and the Son. In every new pang that he feels his own fears persuade him that the gates of hell are now opening upon him : He hangs hovering over the burning pit, and at the last gasp of life, when he seems to be sinking into eternal death, he quits the body with all its sad circumstances, and feels himself safe in the arms of his Saviour, and in the presence of his God.. What amazing transport ! What agreeable surprise?. Not to be utterred by the words of our scanty mortal language, nor con- ceived but by the person who feels it. The body indeed, which was the habitation of so pious a spirit, is demonstrated at once : Behold the lifeless carcase ; it makes haste to putrefaction. The released soul in extasy feels and surveys its own happiness, ap- pears before the throne, is acknowledged there as one of the sons of God, and invested with the glories of the upper world. Sor- rows and sins, guilt; fetters and darkness vanish for ever : It exults in liberty and light, and dwells for ever under the smiles of God. " What was it could provoke the wise and gracious God to. permit the wicked spirit to vex one of his own children at this rate, and to deal so severely with the man whom be loves ? To expose that soul to exquisite anguish in the flesh, which he de- signed the same day to make a partner with blessed spirits ? To express in one hour so much terror and so much mercy ? St. Paul will give a short and plain answer to this enquiry ; Rom. viii. 10. " The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness." Hence that anguish, those agonies and convulsions in the sinful flesh that -must die, and these will be felt in sotne measure by tile partner - spirit though that spirit being vested with divine righteousness, orjustified in the sight of God, shill survive these agonies in a peaceful immor- tality. Though the sufferings of the Son of God have_redeetned it from an everlasting hell, yet it becomes the offended Majesty of heaven sometimes to give sensible instances what misery the pardoned sinner has deserved; and the moment that he receives him into full blessedness; may, on some accounts, be the fittest to make a display of all his terror, that the soul may have the full taste of felicity, and pay the igher honours to recovering grace. The demolition of the eartl l9 abernacle with all the pangs and
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