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we find an atonement for our iniquities, and we must be made heirs of glory by becoming the adopted children of God, and so 'we are joint-heirs' with his Son Jesus, and shall be glorified with him, Rom. viii. 17.

And it is by a true and living faith in the Son of God, that we become partakers of this blessing. God has set forth his Son Jesus as a propitiation for sinners through faith in his blood, Rom. iii. 24. "We are justified by faith" in his blood, and "have hope of eternal life through him," Rom. v. We also receive our adoption, and "become the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus," Gal. iii. 26. and thereby we obtain a title to some mansion in our Father's house in Heaven, since Jesus our elder brother, and our forerunner, is admitted into it to take a place there in our name. This is a very considerable part of our necessary preparation for the heavenly world, that we should be believers in the Son of God, and united to him by a living faith; and this faith also is the gift of God,' Eph. ii. 8. We are wrought up to it by his grace.

But as this does not seem to be the chief thing designed in the words of my text, I shall pass it over thus briefly, and apply myself to consider what that further fitness or preparation for heaven intends, for which we are said here to be wrought up by God' himself. The former preparation for heaven, may rather be said to be a 'relative change,' which is included in our pardon or justification, and alters our state from the condemnation of hell, to the favour

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and love of God: But this latter preparation implies a real change of our nature by sanctifying grace, and gives us a temper of soul suited to the business and blessedness of the heavenly world. This is the preparation' which my text speaks of.

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The great enquiry therefore at present is, What are those steps, or gradual operations, by which the blessed God works us up to this fitness for heaven?'

And here I shall not run over all the parts and lineaments of the new creature, which is formed by regeneration, nor the particular operations of converting grace, whereby we are convinced of sin, and led to faith and repentance, and new obedience, though these are all necessary to this end; but I shall confine myself only to those things which have a more immediate reference to the heavenly blessedness; and they are such as follow:

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1. God works us up to a preparation for the hea. venly felicity, by establishing and confirming our belief, that there is a heaven provided for the saints, and by giving us some clearer acquaintance with the nature, the business, and the blessedness of this heaven.' All this is done by the gospel of Christ, and by the secret operation of the blessed God, teaching us to understand his gospel.

Alas! how ignorant were the heathen sages about any future state for the righteous? How bewildered were the best of them in all their imaginations? how vain were all their reasonings upon this subject, and how little satisfaction could they give to an honest enquirer, whether there was any reward provided for

good men beyond this life? The light of nature was their guide; and those in whom this feeble taper burnt with the fairest lustre, were still left in great darkness about futurity. As the Gentile philosophers were left in great uncertainties whether there was any heaven or no, so were their conceptions of heavenly things very absurd and ridiculous; and their various fancies about the nature and enjoyments of it, were all impertinence.

And how little knowledge had the Patriarchs themselves, if we may judge of their knowledge by the five books of Moses, which give no plain and express promise of future happiness in another world, neither to Abel nor Noah, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or to Moses himself? And were it not for some expressions in the New Testament, and by the xith chapter to the Hebrews, where we are told, that these good men sought a heavenly country,' and hoped for happiness in a future and invisible state, we should sometimes be ready to doubt whether they knew almost any thing of the future resurrection and glory.

That great and excellent man Job had one or two lucid intervals of peculiar brightness, which shone upon him from heaven, in the midst of his distresses, and raised him above and beyond the common level of the dispensation he lived in; yet, in the main, when he describes the state of the dead, how desolate and dolesome is his language, and what heavy darkness hangs upon his hope! See his expression, Job x. 21, 22. "Let me alone that I may take comfort a

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little, before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness, and the shadow of death, a land of darkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death without any order, and where the light is as darkness." Mark how this good man heaps one darkness upon another, and makes so formidable a gloom as was hardly to be dispelled by the common notices given to men in that age.

And if we look into the Jewish writings in and after the days of Moses, we find the men of righteousness frequently entertained with promises of corn, and wine, and oil, and other blessings of sense; and few there were amongst them who saw clearly, and firmly believed the heavenly inheritance through the types, and shadows, and figures of Canaan, the promised land, which flowed with milk and honey.

It is granted there are some hints and discoveries of a blessedness beyond the grave in the writings of David, Isaiah, Daniel, and some of the Prophets : But the brightest of these notices fall far short of what the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ has set bebefore us. The Son of God who came down from heaven, where he had lived from before the creation of this world, has revealed to us infinitely more of the invisible state than all that went before him: He tell us of the pure in heart enjoying the sight of God,' and conversing with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,' the ancient saints: He assures us there are many mansions in his Father's house,' and that he went to prepare a place' there for his followers. "I tell you" says he, John viii. 38. "I

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tell you the things which I have seen with my Father." And when he came again from the dead, he made it appear to his disciples that he had " brought life and immortality to light by his gospel," 2 Tim. i. 10.

It is only the New Testament that gives us so bright and satisfactory an account what our future heaven is: The righteous shall be with God,' shall behold him, shall dwell with Christ, and see his glory; they shall worship day and night in his temple, and sing the praises of him that sits upon the throne, and of the Lamb that has redeemed them by his blood; there shall be no sin, no sorrow, no death, nor any more pain; they shall have such satisfactions and employments as are worthy of a rational nature, and a soul refined from sense and sin. St. Paul, one of his disciples, was transported into the third heaven before he died, and there learnt "unspeakable things," 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4. and he, together with the other Apostles, have published the glories of that future world which they learnt from Jesus their Lord, and confirmed these things to our faith by prophecies and miracles without number.

Now the blessed God himself prepares his own people for this heaven of happiness, by giving them a full conviction and assurance of the truth of all these divine discoveries; he impresses them upon their heart with power, and makes them attend to those divine impressions. Every true Christian has learnt to say within himself, This celestial blessedness is no dream, is no painted vision, no gay scene of

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