and not your youth, or your want of ability. No, you are not too young; and you cannot, surely, be too hardened. Pray with me, pray for me and for yourselves,-that we may none of us be too dull or too cold to understand what the will of the Lord is; none too hard to love him and be loved by him.

SERMON XXVII.

JOHN XI. 11.

Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

As, in every thing else, men's tastes are different, so are they also with regard to the Scriptures. I mean, that amongst Christians, -all looking upon the Scriptures as their rule of faith and life, there are particular passages which will most suit the wants of particular minds, and appear to them, therefore, full of an extraordinary measure of comfort and of I am speaking, however, of persons who are in earnest, and not trying to cheat their own souls: for there may be persons who are most fond of the very parts which they need least, that is to say, of the parts which condemn the faults to which they themselves are least inclined; and who turn away from those which contain a medicine for their

wisdom.

own particular disease. But, let a man deal with himself truly; let him know, as who does not know if he will but inquire, what are his own weaknesses, and what are the spiritual weapons which he most needs;-and then he will be better able to direct himself in reading the Bible profitably, than any other person can direct him.

So there are parts which one man may pass over lightly, and which, to another, may seem to be full of most particular beauty. And though he must not expect others to see in them all that he does,-nor make his own interpretation that which all others must follow,yet as some may think and feel with him, and no man can be harmed by hearing another's views of the riches of God's word, if he does not seek to strain it into something foolish or mischievous, so I will venture to lay before you some of the thoughts which the words of the text have been apt to awaken in my own mind,-coming as they do from a part. of the Scripture which seems to me one of the richest of all in wisdom, in comfort, and in raising our affections to God and to Christ.

"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," said our Lord; "but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." There seems to me to be contained

in these few words one of the most powerful charms in the world to lull the bitterness of death, and to make us anxious to become such as that we may humbly venture to apply them to ourselves. What would we, each of us, give, when our last hour was come, to feel that Christ would so speak of us? friend sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Yet this is the language in which Christ does speak of every one who has died in his faith and fear,--in which he will speak of us, if we do not so live as to shut ourselves out from his salvation.

"Our

"Our friend sleepeth." How much is there in these three simple words! Christ speaks of Lazarus as his friend; and St. John tells us that he loved him and his sisters. But the title is not reserved for Lazarus only: "Ye are my friends," he says to his Apostles, " if you do whatsoever I command you." It is not because they ate and drank with him, and went about with him: if it were, we could not, indeed, hope that the title would belong to us. But they were his friends, if they did whatsoever he commanded them; and this we can do now as entirely as they could. Christ, therefore, will call us his friends, as much as he did his first twelve disciples, as

much as he did Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus. He told one of his Apostles, when he expressed his belief in him after his resurrection, that he, indeed, because he had seen him, had believed; but blessed were they who had not seen, and yet had believed. If there be a difference then, his promise is almost more gracious to us than to those who saw and knew him on earth; we may be sure, that if we do whatsoever he commands us, he will quite as much call us his friends as he did them.

"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." The disciples could not understand that, by this gentle term, he could possibly mean a thing so fearful as death. They thought that he meant to speak only of sleep literally; insomuch that Christ was obliged to express himself in other words, and to tell them plainly, “Lazarus is dead." And in this we are all of us very like the disciples. We talk of another life, when we think it at a distance, but we have really got but a very little way towards overcoming our fear of death. We fear it very nearly, if not quite as much, as the Heathen do. And this is so natural, that no mere words will ever get the better of it, unless we put ourselves in time into such a state of mind as