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of thy services? No; all these shall be forgotten; thou shalt hear nothing of all these provoking iniquities, which now perhaps make thee shudder at the thoughts of judgment! All thy worthless services of loyalty and love which thou art justly ashamed to mention before him, he will own and proclaim before the hosts of attending spirits! "I was hungry, and thou gavest me meat," will he say; "I was thirsty, and thou gavest me drink." "What! I, Lord ?" you will be ready to answer, with conscious unworthiness; "when, Lord? or what have I done?" "Yea," he will say, "but thou hast done it to these my brethren, for my sake; and therefore come, well-beloved of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for thee, from the foundation of the world!" See here a full absolution; instead of departing into everlasting fire, it is, Come, inherit the kingdom! Observe the fulness of the absolution; that moment the believer will be declared solemnly to be justified, respecting the loss of God's favour, and the endurance of his wrath; and this by the mouth of him to whom the Father hath committed all judgment: he will be declared absolved for ever from the loss of God's favour, for so the words run, "well-beloved of my Father;" and he will also be declared absolved from God's wrath, for so the words are," inherit the kingdom." Well then, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect, when God so justifies and delivers them from all the penalties of sin, and declares their absolution by the mouth of Jesus? But are not believers as much justified from all those things now, as they shall be then? Yes; they are absolved from the wrath of God, and taken into favour now as much as then, so that to lay down the body is a privilege to them but then the solemn declaration of their justification is reserved till that illustrious day of the Lord, when their dead bodies shall arise, be publicly declared the members of Jesus, and shall enter into his everlasting joy! What matter of rejoicing then is here! Is the believer justified already? and will he be soon declared justified in so magnificent a manner? Why, then, what are become of all the consequences and penalties of sin ? Methinks I hear the true believer crying out in the triumph of the apostle, "Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." "O death, where is thy sting; O grave, where is thy victory!" "Come quickly,

Lord, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus." O! why cannot every soul of us join in the triumph? why doth the believer's soul doubt and draw back? If thou truly believest, thou art as fully justified as if thou hadst already heard thy final absolution. Yea, but why do so many other hearts wilfully draw back and tremble at the expectation of the resurrection of the body, and the day of the Lord? Ah! faithless generation, strangers to Christ, neglecters of Christ, despisers of Christ, will ye not wish, when the trumpet calls out the blessed dead from their graves, and raises them up with glorified bodies, that you had been of their number? You may be now of their number, but you will not; no, the love of sin hinders you. But, my brethren, let me speak one word to you ;-consider, I beseech you, what a blessed state you would be in, if justified; no wrath of God hanging over your heads, no terrifying fear of death gnawing at your hearts; but you would be the children and favourites of the Almighty; and then by-and-by to be called out of your graves, to be placed at the right hand of the Judge, by him to be instated into an everlasting kingdom of glory! sure I am you have no objection to such a state; but, alas! your souls are crying within you, "This is not my lot, this is not my portion." Why no, and there is my grief: I am sure it is not the state of any of you who are sleeping in carnal security; but I would it were the happy state of you all, and therefore it is that I deal thus freely with you; sometimes persuading you by the terrors of the Lord, and sometimes alluring you by the joy of his saints. Be prevailed upon by the delightful views I am setting before believers; in them, I am sure, there is nothing terrible, but the richest display of divine love, which might be yours, but you will not, holden back by the world, the flesh, and the devil. O! my friends, do but follow the present dictates of your own conscience. Surely, you would say, it were good to be a real Christian believer; had I an interest in Christ, I would not part with it for a world. "Awake then, thou that sleepest; arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life." "Set your faces toward heaven, and your backs on a vain, perishing world. O! do this, and you will quickly be at the right hand of God. But, Secondly,-In the glorious life everlasting, the believer shall be perfectly sanctified: "When I awake up after thy like

ness, I shall be satisfied with it." No wonder, for it is a glorious thing to be like God; like him now, in a perfect conformity of the heart to his holiness and law: to be like God, is to have our mind conformed to his, to like what God likes, to hate what he hates, choose what he chooses, and will what he wills. Thus to be like God, is the blessed disposition of the holy angels; God's will is theirs ; "they fulfil his commandments, and hearken to the voice of his words." What makes them do so? Why, they have no mind to do anything else; God has bid them love, and serve, and glorify him; now, this is what they like; their very nature leads them to it. Something of this conformity is wrought by the Holy Ghost in the heart of every believer here upon earth: "O, what love have I unto thy law !" it is what I love and desire; but, alas! how short do I come of it; I find a law in my members bringing me into captivity; hence, "the good that I would, I do not; whilst the evil that I would not, that I do." Alas! here is my burden, and my grief; there is a body of sin in me, perpetually enticing and seducing me, which will not let me love, serve, and glorify God: "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Lord, "when I awake up after thy likeness, then I shall be satisfied." You remember how the Israelites cried unto the Lord under their task-masters, and the Lord sent a saviour unto them, and brought them into Canaan in his good time; just so he will do by you who cry unto him, because of the law of sin in your members. You see your lusts to-day, you deprecate them; well, stand still a little, and you shall see them dead at your feet; yea, rather you shall see them again no more for ever; you shall leave them behind you, Christian believers, in the grave; there they and your mortal body shall perish for ever!

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I have told you what a glorious body is prepared for you, and now you shall hear how infinitely more glorious your soul shall be; the body of sin shall be done away, so that it shall no more clog and entice you for ever. But this is not all; your souls shall be like the angels of God; God's will shall be your will; all conformity lies in that one word, nothing may be taken from it, or added to it, to make up perfect conformity: God's will shall be your will absolutely, there shall not be the least drawing back, within or without; your will unreservedly in

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everything, great or small, without limitation; your will willingly, with the fullest and freest choice, without the least constraint: when God's will shall thus be your will, then you will be free and happy; then you will say indeed, "O what love, what delight have I in thy law! all eternity long is my study in it.” This is perfect sanctification. In this world God's will draws us one way, the flesh another, so that, though we incline to God's will, we cannot do the thing that we would; we cannot love him, fear him, trust upon him, reverence his adorable majesty, glorify his holy name, be conformed to his glorious perfections, or perfectly devoted to his service as we would; but in the life everlasting we shall be able. Now we have a will, but an imperfect power; then we shall have both will and power in perfection, because the power of sin shall be wholly done away, lust shall be dead and gone, and the whole nature will be for God; the understanding, the will, the affections, the memory, the conscience, the imagination; yea, every faculty and member of both soul and body will be for God; God shall be all in all to the whole man. Thus shall the spirits of just

men be made perfect: this is the work of the Holy Ghost, and when he shall have finished it at the day of Redemption, how glorious will the soul then be! What a numerous company of glorious beings will Christ then present to himself at that day! How will he rejoice over the work of his own hands! How will beholding angels admire their fellow-servants! And how will the ravished soul, conscious of what it once was, adore the wonders of redeeming love, and cry out in an ecstasy of joy, "What hath the Lord wrought!" Well, believers, I must refer you to that day for the full experience of this perfect sanctification, and the blessedness that will attend it. In the meantime, I know it must be a reviving thought to you, that a day is at hand when the most glorious Majesty of heaven shall find you most perfectly conformed to his will, and perfectly fit to serve him. Jehovah then shall set up his throne in your heart, and reign over you as willing, free, and joyful subjects. O! this is the qualification for heaven! It is the want of this that makes the world a dungeon, and the day of death the happy moment of deliverance. Keep your hope of perfect sanctification in view, and labour by continual prayer and self-denial to

be renewed in the inner man day by day; knowing that we look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

But, ah! unhappy unbelievers, bond-slaves of your lusts, why will not you be free? Do you know the employment of believers? they are qualifying for God and glory for this they pray, and strive, and keep their bodies under, and renounce a wicked world, which they must soon part with; and are not they well employed? And why, my friends, are you not thus employed? That which now takes up your time and thoughts, on which you spend your waking and almost sleeping hours, cannot, you know, profit you after death; while yet for the sake of it, you remain disqualified for heaven and the life everlasting in God's kingdom and glory. Look inward and see how disqualified you are; God does not reign in your hearts, see only how few he has of your thoughts, you have not an heart to do his will, how all he bids you do, you dislike, and what he forbids, you love. What do you think of the angels above? do not you think well of them? And why? because they are holy. How little are you like the angels of God! However you approve them, yet how careless are you to be like them, though it is in your power only Now to be so. Consider how dead your souls are to God; and should you be called away as you are, how unready you are for his presence and service in heaven. When the holy saints shall go forth to meet the Lord, you will surely lament that you have no oil in your lamps; it will grieve you, it will cut you to the heart, to see yourselves shut out while they are admitted. By all your hopes of heaven, therefore, I beseech you consider your state; remember that word, "without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

I have yet, Thirdly, to say, in order to make out the fulness of the glory provided for the believers in the life everlasting, that being thus finally justified and perfectly sanctified, they shall be admitted to a most satisfying and eternal sight of God. The two former make way for this; they are instated in God's favour, they are prepared for God's service, and so are admitted into his everlasting presence, and therein to inconceivable happiness this last is the sum of all, and the design of all. The two former are but removing hindrances to this; for without

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