their way to the citadel of his heart. Asa is stretched in agony on his dying bed! And do not abused mercies and neglected warnings and excuseless sins rush to his remembrance? Does he not send for the injured prophet, and entreat his forgiveness, and an interest in his prayers? Is he not reminded in this the hour of his dire extremity, that no being in the universe can help him, save that God who listened to his cry, when the huge hosts of the Lubims threatened to swallow up his kingdom? All that man can do for him his physicians are now doing; and does he not even look unto God to direct and bless human means for his recovery? No; even in his last hour he relied not on God. He who put his trust in Benhadad, now puts his trust in his physicians. There is no intimation that he repented and was pardoned, as in the case of David; or that he cried unto God when brought down to the gate of death, as in the case of Hezekiah. All that is said of him is that he put his trust in his physicians.' There is a significancy in this, which renders comment almost unnecessary. He put his trust in his physicians; that is, in man, not in God. That God, in whose service he had been employed and honoured, who had so greatly prospered and enriched his country; interposed for his deliverance from the power of a ruthless enemy; sent his prophet in all kindness to expostulate with him; and even aimed by his judgments to bring him to a penitent sense of his sin; that God, for whose sake he himself had abolished all false gods, and with whom he had once compelled his people to enter into covenant, is left out of view, as though he had been an ideal being, and had no control over life and death. In his last hour Asa knew no God but self. Perhaps his physicians burned incense to his idol; and, by flattering his vanity, blinded him to his condition. Be this as it may, he died trusting in them. This was his last act!

Thus die the wicked: their last act, their last utterance, their last thought, is sin! And are we to conclude that when a man becomes estranged from the principles of the Gospel, loses all that is spiritual in religion, gives himself up to the devices and desires of his own heart, and dies in his impenitence, that he will be made holy at death? This is the prevalent impression; but it is no less unphilosophical than unscriptural. What greater absurdity can there be, than to suppose that the

dissolution of the body regenerates the soul? As well conclude that the putting off our clothes at night changes our physical nature. But as we awake from natural sleep to revolve again the thoughts and to renew the devices of yester day, so shall we awake in eternity to the consciousness of having the same character which we sustained in time; with this difference only, that our thoughts and feelings will then be inconceivably vivid, and that we shall find nothing there as here to blind our eye to the true character of our moral self. Character at death, is character for eternity. Amid the scenes and interests of earth, man may exclude the thought of God and retribution; but to die is to be disabused of all false impressions, divested of all the infatuations of self-love, denuded of all but conscience! to die, is to burst on the feeling of unmingled good, or of unmitigated evil, to be conscious of nothing but the presence of God as our friend, or our enemy: it is heaven or hell to the soul!

But notwithstanding the exceptionable and sinful acts of his reign, though the manner in which he died was equivalent to a practical renunciation of that religion which he had at first laboured with so much diligence to re-establish, yet the people did honour to his remains, and buried him with great pomp and ceremony. Had he been as holy a man as he was a great prince, they could have done no more to testify their appreciation of his reign, and their respect for his memory. treacherous alliance was nothing to them, so long as Asa returned victorious; his treatment of the prophet, and with those who sympathized with the prophet, of no consequence, while their private interests were not affected.

His

Thus judges the world; whatever a man's character, though it may have been at variance with truth and righteousness, if he had only distinguished himself, they will gather around his bier in all the imposing pageantry of grief. No inference, therefore, in favour of one's future condition, can be drawn from the manner in which he was interred. Where man has erected a mausoleum, God may have written I-CHABOD! Every man should have a grave, as well as a house; and so live as to be always prepared for death, and that, at death, his may be carried to their last home, not in pomp, but in But Asa digged a sepulchre for himself; and it is not

remains

sorrow.

improbable, left directions that he should be interred after the magnificent manner of the Gentiles, and not after the way of the Jews, If so, he was not singular; others have done the same to gratify their vanity, and distinguish their remains. from vulgar earth. The same vain regard for posthumous display is still extant. It provides for the splendid funeral and magnificent tomb: forgetful of the solemn truth, that, though the body may be embalmed, the soul may not be saved; though it may be encased in costly work, and let down into the grave amid the gaze of the world, it may rise at last "to the resurrection of damnation!"

FACTITIOUS RELIGION.

THE Bible is a book of principles it furnishes us with the elements of truth, and with the motives to duty, so that, as rational and accountable beings, we may be controlled by principle, and always able to assign a reason for the senti ments we adopt, and the course we pursue. It recognizes no religion that springs not from " a new heart and a right spirit," and promises rewards only to those whose perseverance "in every good word and work" unto the end, gives assurance that, in commencing a religious life, they were neither deluded in their views, precipitate in their decision, nor reserved in the devotement of themselves to God's service.

There is a wide difference in the circumstances in which men are placed; in their educational advantages and natural temperaments, and, by consequence, in their besetting sins and individual temptations: still, the criteria of true religious principles are essentially the same. Nor does religious character in all ages and conditions invariably present the same phase. It is at one time contemplative, and then active; here cheerful and hopeful, there melancholy and desponding; here elevated by noble thoughts and generous doings, there contracted by ignorance and deformed by bigotry; now revealing the mastery of the spirit over the flesh, and again so blending in its features with the lineaments of the world, that, as with the colours of the rainbow, we find it difficult to separate or distinguish the one from the other: nevertheless, all essential defects in religious character, as well as all instances of backsliding and apostacy, spring from the heart; for out of it "proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts,

false witness, blasphemies," and out of it "are the issues of life."

As "in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature," so he alone was truly a Jew who was one not outwardly, but inwardly. As all true religion is now directly traceable to regeneration, so was it under the Old Testament dispensation, to "the circumcision of the heart." We are not called on to examine ourselves with a view to ascertaining whether we have conformed to the letter of the law, but "whether we be in the faith;" for "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Nor are we cautioned against the neglect of days and ceremonies, but against "an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God:" an evil heart, this constitutes the great obstacle in the way of becoming religious, the source of selfdeceptions and hypocrisy, the cause of inconsistencies, declensions, and apostacies. It may be retained while the mind is receiving the ideas of a religious education, and conforming to all ceremonial enactments; amid works of charity and zeal for religion, and all due deference to the ordinances of the Church and the authority of her ministers. It may not preclude usefulness and honour in the cause of the Church. The world may never know that he who seems so devoted is not in sincerity and truth a believer; he himself, through self-ignorance, may not suspect that his is still an evil heart of unbelief; nor may he be aware of it until it is too late: he may even carry it with him to the grave, and not until the day of judgment will he know that he had only deceived himself! All were not Israel who were of Israel: all are not the disciples of Christ, though they may "eat and drink in his presence, and do many wonderful works."

The more prominent one may be in religious matters, the greater the danger of his being deceived by this evil heart; and so long as he retains his position and his associates, he may go on in well-doing, but a change of circumstances may bring about a change in the outward man. Were this not so, the Gospel had not been so emphatic in its cautions to all, without distinction, against "the deceitfulness of sin:" and that we are not mistaken in our view of that heart-religion which the New Testament inculcates, is evident from the