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to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."

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 clods, a glorious harvest; but only the sons and the 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 I then be fit for the world of light? Will the God of light ever receive me to his dwelling? Do I not hereby render 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 imitated their sinful manners, and obeyed their cursed influences?

O 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 pol luted. 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.

4. Remark. Under our darkest nights, our most unactive 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 no night, where there is neither sin nor pain, malady nor sorrow.

What if the blessed God is pleased to try us, by the with-holding 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 mourn

ing, 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, Isa. 1. 10. Let us learn to say with the Prophet Micah in the spirit of faith, Micah vii. 8, 9. "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."

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 enlightners of the sky, carry on the changing seasons of light and darkness in this lower world with your 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 hasten, let me arrive at that blessed inheritance, those mansions of paradise, where night is never known, but dne 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 resurrection: 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 fo of the just shall enjoy in the presence of the Lord,' as soon as 'they are absent from the body,' and yet leads our souls onwards also to our last and most perfect state of happiness, which is delayed till our corruptible bodies shall be raised from the dust, and mortality shall be swallowed up in life. We know,' saith he in the first verse of this chapter, we know

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that as soon as our mortal tabernacle,' in which we now dwell, 'is dissolved, we have a building,' ready for us in the heavens ;' i. e. an investiture in a glorious state of holiness and immortality, which waits to receive our spirits when we drop this dying flesh : Yet the felicities of this paradise, or first heaven, shall receive an unspeakable addition and advancement, when Christ shall come the second time,' with all his saints, to complete our salvation.

But which heaven soever we arrive at, whether it be this of the separate state, or that when our bodies shall be restored, still we must be wrought up' to a proper fitness for it by God himself; and as the end of this verse tells us, he 'gives us his own spirit as an earnest' of these future blessings.

The observation which shall be the subject of my discourse, is this: Those who shall enjoy the heavenly blessedness hereafter, must be prepared for it here in this world, by the operation of the blessed God.'

Here we must take notice in the first place, that since we are sinful and guilty creatures in ourselves, and have forfeited all our pretences to the favour of God and happiness, we must be restored to his favour, we must have our sins forgiven, we must be justified in his sight with an everlasting righteousness, we must be adopted as the children of God, and have a right and title given us to the heavenly inheritance, before we can enter into it, or possess it; and this blessing is procured for us by the obedience and death of the Son of God. It is in his blood that

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