it.

The most contrary sects among them, on dif ferent grounds, have been able to do it; but, consider death as a passage to eternal misery, as the gate of hell, as the end of all comfort, to a wicked man, and the beginning of an endless calamity, and nothing can be imagined more dreadful to a guilty, unholy soul.

Some of my acquaintance, it may be, who died this last year, are now among those hopeless, despairing, wretches, who expect the final judgment of God to consummate their insupportable mis ery. If they were permitted to come and tell us what they suffer, and what they know, what a terrible consuming fire God is; what vanity, lust, and folly, brought them to this place of torment; what diligence they would advise us to, while in a state of hope, to prevent the like; if we have any love and kindness for ourselves, any bowels of compassion to our own souls; what a change do we think it would work upon us! But, "if we will not hear Moses and the prophets," Christ and his apostles, "neither should we believe, though one came from the dead."

SECTION XX.

The eternal blessedness of heaven considered, as the perfection of holiness, to quicken our desires and endeavours after greater meetness to possess it.

DOTH one year after another hasten me to the end of time? And doth the blessedness of eternity depend on the communications I now receive from

God? On the preparations I now make, and the meetness I can now attain, for eternal felicity in the presence of my God and Saviour? O, with what intenseness of mind should I now prosecute that glorious object! with what unwearied diligence should I run the race that is set before me, lest I fall short of the incorruptible crown of life! How should every thing be undervalued and rejected, that would divert, retard, or hinder, me from pursuing this end! Lord, be not a stranger to my soul, in this distant wilderness state! let me see more of thy light! be traus❤ formed more into thine image! experience more of thy love! feel more of thy vital presence and quickening Spirit! let the divine life in my soul be more powerful, and the characters of thy likeness be more legibly stamped upon it! by the daily exercise of faith, and hope, and holy affections, carry me through this world till my pilgrim state be over, and thou hast brought me to perfect everlasting holiness and let the believing forethoughts of it fill all the powers of my soul with joy and wonder, desire and love!

Give me, Lord! to think aright of the heavenly glory, as a confirmed state of positive perfect holiness; of heavenly light, love, liberty, and joy, with the satisfying vision of God in the face of Christ, and his impressed likeness; dwelling for ever in the direct and steady view of his transforming glory, with complete conformity of the soul to eternal goodness, truth, and love, as its perfection; esteeming nothing, desiring nothing, but that God and Christ may be glorified, with an entire subjection to his will, adherence to him, rest and confidence in him, swallowed up in the love, admiration, and praise, of God and

our Lord Jesus, living in joyful repeated acts of subjection, adoration, and acknowledged dependence; ravished to behold the glory of God in the face of Christ, to see his blessed image perfect in every one of the saints, &c. When all the present blindness of our minds, the errors of our judgment, the perverseness of our will, the disorder and rebellion of our passions, the remaining aversion from God, and disaffection to him, which in this world we complain of, shall all be done away; the flesh shall no more lust against the spirit; or the law in our members against the law of our minds; but an everlasting tranquillity and holy peace take place: a peace which passeth all understanding, without any outward molestation or inward cause of disquiet.

Our corrupted nature shall no more cast forth mire and dirt as now; we shall have no more vain or wicked thoughts; no more sinful fears or foolish hopes; unbecoming heats, unruly desires, sensual inclinations, earthly affections; feeble, slothful, spiritless duties; dead and heartless prayers, cold thanksgivings, &c. But, as we shall then know God without errors, and see our Lord Jesus face to face, so we shall love him, without reserve, more than now we can think; and serve him without dulness and distraction, and praise him without weariness; the spiritual actings of our souls shall have no alloy or dross. And thus shall we be with him, and admire and enjoy him, without end.

Thus, when death is swallowed up in victory, and what was imperfect is done away, and what was corruptible and mortal hath put on immortality, God and Christ shall be all in all; and, when it is truly

and perfectly so, then it is heaven! the blessedness whereof is inconceivable. A blessed person is not expressed in the singular number by the Hebrews, but in the abstract and in the plural. Beatitudes,' instead of blessed,' because the blessings are as many and great as they have powers and capacities to partake of blessedness; so will it be in heaven: a word, though commonly used, as little understood as holiness, which is one of the greatest mysteries in the world; but will hereafter be fully and delightfully understood by the blessed saints, as the malignity and intrinsic evil of sin shall be by the damned spirits.

Oh! that I might now feel more of this heavenly life, begun and carried on in my soul, by a farther participation of his holy image and conformity to his will! by more vital effects of his indwelling Spirit in my soul, forming it to be a temple to himself, for his own delightful residence! that, forgetting that which I have received, I may still be covetous and desirous of more; forgetting what I have attained, I may press on with a holy eagerness and fervency towards the mark!

When I seriously examine my own heart, had I nothing else to prove the weakness of my grace, and the sinful remainders of unbelief, but the low desires, and the few comfortable thoughts, the seldom joyful prospect of this blessed state; how sad an evidence were it of my low attainments, that I breathe with no more impatience after that blessed holy rest, in the enjoyment of God and Christ, and labour no more in preparing for it! when we profess to believe that all the desires of our souls should be fixed on

him, and filled with him, as our infinite and supreme good; and all the expectations of faith and hope swallowed up in endless admiration, gratitude, and joy; being fully satisfied and at rest in the presence and vision of God, without the least inclination or desire of change. And, by consequence,

There will be no need of novelty, as now, to give a relish to our happiness. All happiness in this world is by comparing a man's present condition with his past, or with that of some inferiors. But the intrinsic good, felicity, and joy, of heaven, will need no such foil to set it off; no such comparison to make it prized. The blessed spirits will never lose the lively sense of that low and miserable condition from which they were raised to so great a glory; and so will ever equally rejoice in the happiness of their translation and wonderful change: and what was at first delightful will for ever be so; and not be disdained or lessened by a continuance, as it happens in this world, from the emptiness, shallowness,, and . vanity, of the creature. An affectation of vanity, and a desire of change, proceeding always from a sense of want. But holy souls shall never be weary of seeing, loving, and enjoying, God; his blessed presence will afford us undecaying and endless satisfaction; pleasure never to be interrupted or abated, and never to cease. The blessed object is absolutely infinite, and so will be always new to a finite understanding; and continual fresh communications, from his infinite fulness, must needs make our subjective happiness to be always new, and eternally such.

Let me, by such thoughts, quicken and excite my diligent endeavours, after a greater meetness to en