Hereby we may be assisted and animated to travel on through the mingled stages and scenes of light and darkness in this world, till we arrive at the inheritance of the saints in perfect light. It is a glorious blessing to this dark world, that the light of christianity is added to the light of judaism and the light of nature; and that the law of Moses, and the gospel of Christ, are set before us in this nation in their distinct views, on purpose to make our way to happiness more evident and easy. May the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb, be sung in our land! But let us never rest satisfied till the light that is let into our minds become a spring of divine life with us, a life of knowledge, holiness, and comfort. Let us not be found amongst the number of those, who, when light is come into the world, love darkness rather than light, lest we fall under their condemnation. Let us never rest till we see the evidences of

the children of God wrought in us with power; till the day-spring that has visited us from on high has entered into our spirits, and refined and moulded them into the divine image; till we, who are by nature all darkness, are made light in the Lord.

Oh, what a blessed change does the converting grace of Christ make in the soul of a son or daughter of Adam! It is like the beauty and pleasure which the rising morning diffuses over the face of the earth, after a night of storm and darkness; it is so much of heaven let into all the chambers of the soul; it is then only that we begin to know ourselves aright, and know God in his most awful and most lovely manifestations: it is in this light we see the hateful evil of every sin, the beauty of holiness, the worth of the gospel of Christ, and of his salvation. It is a light that carries divine heat and life with it; it renews all the powers of the spirit, and introduces holiness, hope, and joy, in the room of folly and guilt, sin, darkness, and sorrow.

Remark 3. If God has wrought this sacred and divine change in our souls, if we are made the children of light, or if we profess to have felt this change, and hope for an interest in this bright inheritance of the saints; let us put away all the works of darkness, with hatred and detestation; let us walk in the light of truth and holiness. Ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord; walk as children of light. And the apostle repeats his exhortation to the Thessalonians: Ye are all children of the light and of the day, and not the sons of night or darkness, therefore let us watch and be sober; putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation; for God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Thess. v. 5-9.

To animate every christian to this holy care and watchfulness, let us think what a terrible disappointment it will be, after we have made a bright profession of christianity in our lives, to lie down in death in a state of sin and guilt, and to awake in the world of spirits in the midst of the groans and agonies of hell, surrounded and covered with everlasting darkness. Let our public profession be as illustrious and bright as it will, yet if we indulge works of darkness in secret, night and darkness will be our eternal portion, with the anguish of conscience and the terrors of the Almighty, without one glimpse of hope or relief. It is only those who walk in the light of holiness here, who can be fit to dwell in the presence of a God of holiness hereafter. Light is sown only for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart; and it shall break out one day, from amongst the clouds, a glorious harvest; but only the sons and daughters of light shall taste of the blessed fruits of it.

Think again with yourselves when you are tempted to sin and folly, "What if I should be cut off on a "sudden practising the works of darkness, and my

"soul be summoned into the eternal world, covered "with guilt and defilement? Shall then be fit for "the world of light? Will the God of light ever. "receive me to his dwelling? Do I not hereby ren"der myself unfit company for the angels of light? "And what if I should be sent down to dwell "among the spirits of darkness, since I have imi"tated their sinful manners, and obeyed their cursed "influences?"

Oh! may such thoughts as these dwell upon our spirits with an awful solemnity, and be a perpetual guard against defiling our garments with any iniquity, lest our Lord should come and find us thus polluted, Let us walk onwards in the paths of light which are discovered to us in the word of God, and which are illustrated by his holy ordinances, to guide us through the clouds and shades which attend us in this wilderness, till our Lord Jesus shall come with all his surrounding glories, and take us to the full possession of the inheritance in light.

Remark 4. Under our darkest night, our most inactive and heavy hours, our most uncomfortable seasons here on earth, let us remember we are travelling to a world of light and joy. If we happen to lie awake in midnight darkness, and count the tedious hours, one after another, in a mournful succession, under any of the maladies of nature, or the sorrows of this life; let us comfort ourselves that we are not shut up in eternal night and darkness without hope, but we are still making our way towards that country, where there is neither sin nor pain, malady nor

sorrow.

What if the blessed God is pleased to try us by the withholding of light from our eyes for a season? What if we are called to seek our duty in dark providences, or are perplexed in deep and difficult controversies wherein we cannot find the light of truth? What if we sit in darkness and mourning, and see

no light, and the beams of divine consolation are cut *off; let us still trust in the name of the Lord, and stay ourselves upon our God, especially as he manifests himself in the Lamb that was slain, the blessed medium of his mercy. Let us learn to say, with the prophet Micah, in the spirit of faith, When I sit in darkness the Lord will be a light unto me; he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness, Mic. vii. 8, 9.

Blessed be God that the night of ignorance, grief, or affliction, which attends us in this world, is not everlasting night. Heaven and glory are at hand; wait and watch for the morning star, for Jesus and the resurrection. "Roll on apace in your appointed course, ye suns and moons, and all ye twinkling "enlighteners of the sky; carry on the changing "seasons of light and darkness, in this lower world, "with the utmost speed, till you have finished all my appointed months of continuance here. The light of faith shews me the dawning of that glorious day, which shall finish all my nights and "darknesses for ever. Make haste, O delightful "morning, and delay not my hopes. Let me basten, "let me arrive at that blessed inheritance, those "mansions of Paradise, where night is never known,

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but one eternal day shall make our knowledge "our holiness, and our joy eternal." Amen.

DISCOURSE VIII.

A SOUL PREPARED FOR HEAVEN.

2 COR. v. 5.

Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing, is God.

WHEN this apostle designs to entertain our hope

in the noblest manner, and raise our faith to its highest joys, he generally calls our thoughts far away from all present and visible things, and sends them forward to the great and glorious day of the resurrec tion: he points our meditations to take a distant prospect of the final and complete happiness of the saints in heaven, when their bodies shall be raised shining and immortal; whereas it is but seldom that he takes notice of the heaven of separate souls, or that part of our future happiness which commences at the hour of death. But in this chapter, the holy writer seems to keep both these heavens in his eye, and speaks of that blessedness which the spirits of the just shall enjoy in the presence of the Lord, as soon as they are absent from the body; and yet leads