SER. XII.

may then command a moft fpacious Prospect, may trace the Oeconomy of God's Providence from the first Birth of Time to it's laft Period, and furvey the whole Theatre of Nature; and then, from this Light of the Understanding, what Heat of Devotion will arife! And how apt fhall we be to cry out, as to the Workmanship of the Creation, Great and marvellous are thy Works, Lord God Almighty! And, as to the Conduct of his Providence, Just and true are thy Ways, thou King of Saints! ever adoring that Being, who is too great to be worthily praised, too good not to accept of our unworthy Praises.

And as our Happiness will confift in the Perfections of Soul and Body; fo will it,

II. In the bleffed Society and Place.

A Heathen who, in other Placés, expreffes himself very diffidently about a future State, yet breaks out into this triumphant Exclamation: "O glorious Day, "fays he, when I fhall depart from this "Crowd of Men on Earth, this Sink of "Pollution; and be admitted into the

Affembly of divine Spirits!" Our Author means those exalted Perfons, who had done

an

an Honour to human Nature, and, by their SER. XII. virtuous and noble Actions, left behind them a bright and lafting Track of Glory. This is undoubtedly an enlarged Reach of Thought. But how much more does that Religion draw back the Veil, and display to our View a brighter Scene, which tells us, that we shall hereafter refide with the Spirits of juft Men made perfect, with an innumerable Company of Angels, with Jefus, the Mediator of a better Covenant, and with God, the Judge of All? Father, faith our Saviour, I will that thofe, that thou haft given me, may be with me, that they may behold my Glory.

When once the Soul is thus upon the Wing, when once it foars upwards, how do the Glories of the World leffen to our View! Who, when he thinks of thefe Things, does not defpife the little Greatness here below, and pity the little Men, who can be so low-thoughted, as to be restlefs in the Pursuit, or elate with the Poffeffion of worldly Honour? What would this folemn Pageantry of Grandeur be to him, who could have a direct and immediate Converse, in Heaven, with that infinite Being, who is his Father, and those VOL. I. Y

enno

SER. XII. ennobled Spirits, who are to be his Brethren and Affociates for ever and ever?

Those who want to be refolved whether we shall know one another in a future State, may confider, that God's Juftice in punishing or rewarding, will appear the more by our Knowledge of the Perfons who are rewarded or punished; fince Crimes admit of feveral Alleviations or Aggravations from perfonal Circumftances; infomuch that it is a known Saying, that when two Perfons do the fame Thing, yet it fhall not be the fame, by Reason of the different Circumftances of the Offenders. They may reflect that the rich Man and Abraham know one another in the Parable, that the Apostles knew Mofes and Elias on the Mount.

But however that be, to live amidst this auguft Affembly of Spirits in an uninterrupted Circulation of mutual Endearments, while the Light of our Joy grows greater by mingling with another's Flame, and the Beams are redoubled by Reflection; to join with this awful Congregation of Men and Angels in one great Chorus to our Maker; to receive from the Throne of Glory continual Emanations of Joy, and to fend up to it continual Incenfe of Praife; this is what the

4

the Gospel promises; and this is the Height SER. XII. of Bliss; if we include the

IIId Thing, in which our Happiness will confift, viz. the Enjoyment of the Godhead.

And this I take for granted, will com

pleat our Felicity. It is plain, that our Defires are infinite. For, if they are fixed on any finite Object, how great foever, they may still grasp at a greater. And, if our Defires are infinite, nothing can fully and adequately fatisfy them, but an infinite Good, and an inexhauftible Source of Delight.

Suppose a Man in fome Retirement, all fecular Bufinefs difcontinued, all Solicitation of outward Objects fhut out; while Reason seated, as it were, on the Throne commands a Silence to the Paffions: In this State of folemn Thoughtfulness and undisturbed Contemplation, when the Soul would be the ableft to form a true Estimate of her Condition, would he find himself fufficient for his own Happiness? No; in a State of folemn Thoughtfulness, in the Multitude of Thoughts, which we have within us, the divine Comforts can alone reY 2 fresh

SER. XII. fresh the Soul. A Perfon, A Perfon, who, not content with fuperficial Notions, fees with a piercing Eye Things naked and undisguised, as they are in themselves, according to their intrinsick Worth, and not as they are set off by the Heightenings and Colourings of the Imagination; thinks too deeply to be pleafed with many Things, too deeply not to fee the Littleness of almost every Thing but God, but what procures his Favour. Take away Religion, or the Relation between God and Man; and you leave nothing great, in which Man is interefted. So true it is, that Irreligion can be built upon nothing, but the Ruins of every thing, that is great, noble, and valuable in human Nature.

On the other hand, it is a vulgar Error to imagine, that Men of gay, volatile, and unbalanced Minds are the most happy. No; their Happiness must be very unsteady, because the Soul, which is the Subject of it, is so unsteady and light. They are carried up to the Heaven, and down again to the Deep. They have fudden Starts of Joy, which are fucceeded by as fudden a Flagging of the Spirits. True, confiftent, unruffled Happiness, confifts in a collected Way of thinking, in an even and compofed Turn

of