the children of affliction, in those ever memorable words, “Come unto ME, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” [Matt. xi. 28.]. To complain then of bodily sickness, &c., is to complain that we have received this invitation from the DIVINE FATHER of our being to come unto him. It is to complain, also, that our sorrows and sufferings are all of them noted by the INFINITE and ETERNAL, Who hath been pleased to permit them as the instrumental means of calling us to HIMSELF, to receive from Him that fulness of blessing and consolation which none but HIMSELF can give. It is to complain therefore, that this MERCIFUL and HEVENLY PARENT no longer suffers us to destroy ourselves eternally by our sins and our follies, but tries every possible method of elevating us out of darkness into light, and out of our natural filthiness and sicknesses, both of mind and body, to the purities, health, and joys of His eternal presence and kingdom.
But it is time that I call your attention to the third point intended to be discussed in this letter, viz. bodily death. Yet what can I say on this subject, which you do not already know? For have you not often read, and as often been told, that bodily death consists in the separation of the soul from its body, and that when this separation takes place, the soul still continues to live in another world, but the body returns to its
