have performed for the benefit, and above all for the salvation of mankind, which is the service of Jesus Christ, their master and their Lord. On this subject the apostle Paul hath taught us-"he that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall also reap bountifully."

"There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, and one star differeth from another in glory; so also shall it be in the resurrection of the dead." The most pious, faithful, and successful servants of Jesus Christ shall shine with the highest lustre and enjoy the most consummate happiness in his eternal kingdom. What an animating motive was this to the fortitude of the primitive martyrs! What an illustrious, what a divine encouragement is it to the duty of every believer in Christ! If he does not reap his reward in this world, he shall receive one proportionably more rich and glorious in the world to come; where "the wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Let us, my brethren, remember, however, the great and fundamental doctrine laid by the apostles as the foundation of our hopes,-that "it is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by grace we are saved." Those works cannot be presented at the throne of divine justice as forming any absolute claim to the rewards of heaven; but they become, by the gracious promise of God, the title of a believer to a recompense that infinitely transcends any claim that can be grounded on the merit of human obedience. They follow him, not as a meritorious measure, but as measuring, so to speak, the infinite proportions of divine grace and of heavenly glory.

The gradations of rank, splendour, and felicity in the kingdom of heaven are but faintly and obscurely marked to us in Holy Scripture. It is more easy to impart to minds like ours some general apprehensions of the glory and perfection of the state of heaven, than nicely to trace its degrees. A scale of this kind

requires a knowledge of the subject more accurate and just than our limited faculties are able to receive even from the holy spirit of inspiration. Such a scale was not necessary to the end for which this revelation was made to the divine St. John, which was to encourage the martyrs in their mortal conflicts. Their cruel sufferings and their unshaken firmness would indeed procure for them a higher rank in the order of the heavenly state than others should attain who had not been called to give the same heroic proofs of their fidelity to their Lord. But it is the expected glory and felicity of that state that sustains the courage of a Christian, and enables him to triumph over the most formidable pains of death.

This felicity and glory is the subject chiefly pointed at in the text, and that to which, without entering into any representation that must at best be fanciful concerning the economy and the gradations of rank that may take place in the kingdom of God, I shall limit my view in the remaining part of this discourse. But how shall we describe that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, and of which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive? It would require the colours of heaven and a divine pencil to represent that celestial "city which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of the Lord doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it, and there shall in nowise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they who are written in the Lamb's book of life."

The improvements and the sublime perfection of human nature shall be correspondent to the glory of its habitation. But both, perhaps, are equally out of the reach of our conceptions at present. We must actually have attained, before we can fully comprehend, those immortal powers with which the body shall be raised from the grave, and reunited to the soul, purified and exalted by a nearer approach to God. "It is raised,"

saith the apostle, "in incorruption-in glory-in power: it is raised a spiritual body."—Mark that bold and extraordinary figure. It is allied in its essence to the immortal spirit-composed of the most pure and active principles of matter that resemble the purity and activity of the soul-incorruptible in its organization like the diamond-splendid in its appearance like the sunrapid and powerful in its movements like the lightning, that bears in its course an image of the omnipotence of the Creator.

The soul, purged from the dregs of sin, shall bear a higher resemblance of the perfection of God, in whose image it was first created. Its intellect shall be boundlessly enlarged-its affections shall be directed with immortal and unceasing ardour to the eternal source of love-and we have reason to believe that it shall enjoy the power of unlimited excursion into the works and, if I may speak so, into the essence of the Deity.

On a subject of which it is so far beyond the present powers of the human mind adequately to conceive, it becomes us to speak with modesty and caution. In judging of it-reason affords no lights to guide us-the fires of the imagination will only mislead us-we must take our ideas solely from the Scriptures of truth. And when we collect together all that those sublime oracles of wisdom have said upon this subject, and take from the whole those general views which they give of the state and felicity of heaven, we may range them under the heads of its glory, its immutability, and its eternity.

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Its glory." It doth not, indeed, yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' There the redeemed shall dwell in the presence of God, who alone can fill the unlimited extent of their desires; there they live in the delightful exercise of an eternal love, and in the full possession of all that can render them supremely blessed; for, "in his presence is fulness of joy, and at his right-hand are pleasures for evermore."

There they cease not celebrating in songs of ecstasy

the infinite perfections of God, and the boundless riches of redeeming love." Hallelujah! salvation, and glory, and honour, and power unto the Lord our God." Worthy is the Lamb that was "slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." There, according to the emblematical language of the Revelations, they are seated on thrones, and receive from his hands celestial diadems; for, saith the Spirit, "they shall reign with him for ever and ever."

If human nature, notwithstanding all its present imperfections, is destined to such improvement and felicity, much more is it reasonable to believe that the eternal habitations of the pious, and the temple of the immediate presence of God, are infinitely superior in splendour and glory to all that we now behold in the sublimest or the most beautiful works of nature. When this veil of sense shall be withdrawn, what an unutterable scene of wonders shall be disclosed! Imagination cannot picture them-language cannot describe them; we have no powers at present capable of admitting or sustaining the view. Could we suppose a mole that grovels in the earth, enveloped in absolute darkness, and circumscribed to a few inches, to be endued with the powers of vision and reason, and suddenly admitted to contemplate with the eye of Galileo or the mind of Newton the splendours and boundless extent of the universe, its ravishments, its transports, its ecstasies would afford but a faint image of the raptures of the soul opening her immortal view on the glories of that celestial world.

But the glory of the heavenly state consists not only in the augmented powers of human nature and the external magnificence that adorns it, but in the holy and devout, and-may I not add?-the benevolent and social pleasures that reign there.

There "the pure in heart see God," there they "know even as also they are known,"-there they love without sin him whom it was their supreme delight to contemplate and to love on earth. Sometimes the

humble and devout believer, in the communion of his soul with God, or in the celebration of the precious mysteries of his grace in his temples here below, has enjoyed such discoveries of his infinite goodness and mercy as have been almost too powerful for the feeble frame of flesh and blood.-Ah! what then will be the manifestations of heaven! My beloved brethren, an Almighty power, a celestial regeneration will be necessary to enable you to sustain the unutterable bliss.

I have ventured to mention also the social and benevo

lent pleasures of that state. And it will not, perhaps, be the smallest part of the felicity of pious souls to enter into the society, to participate the joys, and to receive the congratulations of those perfect spirits who have never fallen from their rectitude, and of the saints redeemed from among men, who have gone before them to take possession of their promised rest. "There is joy in heaven," saith Christ, "over one sinner that repenteth," how much greater will be their joy when he has escaped the dangers of the world, when he has no more cause of repentance, when he has kept the faith, when all his conflicts and temptations are finished, and he has arrived at the end of his course, where nothing shall ever be able again to shake the security of his state, or to impair the plenitude of his happiness? What high enjoyment will it be to meet there his fellowtravellers through the dangerous pilgrimage of life, escaped from its pollutions and its snares. To meet there with "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets," with all the holy apostles and martyrs of Christ! To meet there the friends who were most dear to him on earth, whose souls were mingled with his! To meet there his fellow Christians out of every denomination,-on whom, perhaps, he had been accustomed to look with distrust and jealousy! Nay, more, to meet there devout men like Cornelius from every nation under heaven; and to see the grace of God infinitely more extended than those narrow limits which probably his prejudices had prescribed to it! What immortal consolations must fill the breasts of those who