SERMON never rises, the whisper of suspicion never

IX.

circulates, among those innocent and benevolent spirits. Each, happy in himself, participates in the happiness of all the rest; and, by reciprocal communications of love and friendship, at once receives from and adds to the sum of general felicity. Renew the memory of the most affectionate friends with whom you were blest in any period of your life. Divest them of all those infirmities which adhere to the human character. Recal the most pleasing and tender moments which you ever enjoyed in their society; and the remembrance of those sensations may assist you in conceiving that felicity which is possessed by the saints above. The happiness of brethren dwelling together in unity is, with great justice and beauty, compared by the Psalmist to such things as are most refreshing to the heart of man; to the fragrancy of the richest odours, and to the reviving influence of soft ethereal dews. It is like the precious ointment poured on the bead of Aaron; and like the dew of Hermon, even the dew that descendeth on the moun

tains

tains of Zion, where the Lord commandeth SERMON the blessing, even life for evermore

*

Besides the felicity which springs from perfect love, there are two circumstances which particularly enhance the blessedness of that multitude who stands before the throne; these are, access to the most exalted society, and renewal of the most tender connexions. The former is pointed out in the Scripture by joining the innumerable company of angels, and the general assembly and church of the first-born; by sitting down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; a promise which opens the sublimist prospects to the human mind. It allows good men to entertain the hope, that separated from all the dregs of the human mass, from that mixed and polluted crowd in the midst of which they now dwell, they shall be permitted to mingle with prophets, patriarchs, and apostles, with legislators and heroes, with all those great and illustrious spirits, who have shone in former ages as the servants of God, or the benefactors of men; whose deeds we are accusomed to celebrate; whose steps we now follow at a

Pfalm cxxxiii. 2. ↑ Heb. xii. 22, 23.

Matth. viii. II.

distance;

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SERMON distance; and whose names we pronounce

IX.

with veneration.

United to this high assembly, the blessed at the same time renew those ancient connexions with virtuous friends which had been dissolved by death. The prospect of this awakens in the heart the most pleasing and tender sentiment which perhaps can fill it in this mortal state. For, of all the sorrows which we are here doomed to endure, none is so bitter as that occasioned by the fatal stroke which separates us, in appearance, for ever, from those to whom either nature or friendship had intimately joined our hearts. Memory, from time to time, renews the anguish; opens the wound which seemed once to have been closed ; and, by recalling joys that are past and gone, touches every spring of painful sensibility. In these agonizing moments, how relieving the thought, that the separation is only temporary, not eternal; that there is a time to come, of re-union with those with whom our happiest days were spent; whose joys and sorrows once were ours; and from whom, after we shall have landed on the peaceful shore where they dwell, no revolutions

IX.

lutions of nature shall ever be able to part SERMON us more! Such is the society of the blessed above. Of such are the multitude composed who stand before the throne. Let us now observe,

II. THAT this is not only a blessed out a numerous society. It is called a multitude, a great multitude, a great multitude which no man could number. These expressions convey the most enlarged views of the kingdom of glory. Dismay not yourselves with the apprehension of heaven being a confined and almost inaccessible region, into which it is barely possible for a small handful to gain admission, after making their escape from the general wreck of the human race. In my Father's house, said our Saviour, there are many mansions. That city of the living God, towards which you profess to bend your course, is prepared for the reception of citizens innumerable. It already abounds with inhabitants; and more and more shall be added to it, until the end of time. Whatever difficulties there are in the way which leads to it, they have been often surmounted. The path, though nar-·

row,

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SERMON row, is neither impassable, nor untrodden. Though the gate stands not so wide as that which opens into hell, yet through the narrow gate multitudes have entered, and been crowned.

It is much to be lamented, that, among all denominations of Christians, the uncharitable spirit has prevailed, of unwarrantably circumscribing the terms of divine grace within a narrow circle of their own drawing. The one half of the Christian world has often doomed the other, without mercy, to eternal perdition. Without the pale of that church to which each sect belongs, they seem to hold it impossible for salvation to be attained. But is this the genuine spirit of the Gospel? Can a Christian believe the effects of the sufferings of Christ to be no greater than these? For this did the Son of God descend from the highest heavens, and pour out his soul unto the death, that only a few, who adopt the same modes of expression, and join in the same forms of worship with us, might be brought to the kingdom of heaven? Is this all the deliverance he has wrought upon the earth? He was with child; he was in pain; and shall

he