dom are visionary and unfounded. On the con trary, Providence has still inspired the human mind, amidst all the darkness of its view, with hopes connected with a future life, which cannot be eradicated but by the entire corruption of every thing that is noble and good in our nature,―hopes connected with appeals for their fulfilment to that Divine wisdom and justice, which seem thus pledged for their gratification, hopes that have the best influence on the whole tenor of our thoughts, and on all the conduct which we pursue in life,-hopes that have always been most powerful and cheering in minds of the purest elevation, and of the best-constituted feelings, that increase in power with all our advances in true wisdom and genuine virtue, and the abating of which must, in every case, be attended with a diminution of our trust in the perfect rectitude and goodness of the Divine plans. The veil that hides from our view the secrets of futurity is thus, indeed, impenetrable ;—but our hopes, and aspirations, as related to the future manifestations of the Divine scheme, are indestructible. They are thus to be viewed as the voice of God speaking in the deepest recesses of the human heart VOL. I. L respecting the great things which are destined, in his kingdom, for the souls which he has made,-and though, from the very structure of our present powers which have an essential relation to things visible and temporal, we cannot imagine to ourselves the course we are hereafter to run,-nor say in what way we are to be conducted to the region where that course is to be pursued by us, we are yet entitled, on grounds of the deepest and purest wisdom, to believe, that the future evolutions of the Divine plans will only be such as to surpass all our present imaginations, or that something will yet come forth which we have not anticipated, and were not at first furnished with powers to conceive. This is the true light in which to regard the veil which Providence has interposed between our view and the future manifestation of his plans in our behalf;—but the intimation given to us of our interest in these plans is perfect;—and it is impossible for us not to feel, when we attend only to the voice of God speaking in the deep feelings and high hopes of our own hearts, that we should be surrendering our noblest birthright if we gave up all hope of our future connexion with the Divine scheme, and that we should be infallibly exposing ourselves to all evil if we neglected the prescriptions which that hope suggests. Most of the perplexities which have darkened the minds of men, when thinking on this subject, have originated in an unwise attempt to image to themselves the actual process by which these hopes are to be realized,—and in a neglect of those gracious intimations which the human heart and the condition of man as a subject of the present dominion of God so beautifully afford of his higher destiny. It ought never to be forgotten that all our ideas being essentially connected with our present station in existence, are incapable of being applied to other and different manifestations of the Divine scheme; and that all we are entitled to conclude from our present limited view, is, that the future evolutions of the infinitely-good and wise plan of Providence will be such as to surpass all our present powers of anticipation. ; Still, we may gain such ideas, from a careful study of the present order of Providence, as may adapt the prospect of a future life for allying itself more powerfully with our purest feelings and most warmly cherished hopes;—and with this view, it is important for every man to endeavour to gain such conceptions of the entire plan of the Divine kingdom as may have the happiest effect in promoting his present welfare,—and in enabling him to regard himself habitually as a subject not merely of the temporary dominion which God is exercising over the inhabitants of this world, but of that boundless reign which connects time with eternity,-things visible with things invisible,—and all the beauty and goodness that are apparent on earth with those purer and more glorious displays of the attributes and ways of God that are to open in still increasing grandeur throughout eternal ages. Such pure conceptions are gratifying to the mind that has attained them, and have a tendency to render the hope of immortality dear to the heart. But still the true evidence of that doctrine is the same to the poor man as to the most enlightened;and that evidence is to him as perfect as to the bestinstructed of his fellows,-in the deep and indelible conviction which he feels, that he has throughout life been acting a part which has not received all its consequences;—and that God has been constantly surrounding him with mysteries, for the entire solu tion of which his secret aspirations have directed him to look to that future and higher state,--on which, when his toilsome day of life is past, he feels that he is destined to enter. The four following topics may be considered as comprising the results of the preceding illustrations. In the first place,—the kingdom of God extends not only to all the nations of this earth, and to all the ages of time,-but is one grand and immense whole,—embracing all the worlds that people the universe, and extending with ever-brightening radiance, throughout all the ages which eternity is to evolve. In the words of a great master of Divine wisdom," it comprehends all people,—all ages,— all eternities. It is one entire whole,-one grand, immense, and infinitely extensive whole,-of which we can perceive no more than single and small fragments, and which God alone surveys in all its causes and effects, in all its parts, in all its connexions and contingencies;-a whole that connects the present with the future, the visible with the invisible, time with eternity, earth with heaven;-a |