his will is wife, holy and good; that the Judge of all the world will do right; and to wait for the day, when he will condescend to clear up every difficulty, and give us that fatisfaction, which, in our present state of ignorance and weakness, we are incapable of receiving. Shall mortal man be more just, or can he be more merciful, than God? It is a falfe compaffion, founded in a blameable difregard of what is due to the glory of his great name, that prompts us to form a wish, that, his unerringly wife appointments, could be otherwise than they are. Yet it is a comfort to think that his mercy, in which he delights, in which he is peculiarly said to be rich, and which is higher than the heavens, will, in its exercife, far exceed the bounds, which, fome fallible mortals, would peremptorily affign to it. We must not indulge conjecture and hypothefis farther than the fcripture will warrant; but while we humbly depend upon this infallible light, we need not be afraid to follow it, though it fhould, in fome particulars, lead us a little beyond the outlines of fome long received, and, in the main, very valuable, human systems of divinity.

I have repeatedly expreffed my belief, that many prophecies, refpecting the fpread and glory of the kingdom of MESSIAH upon earth, have not yet received their full accomplishment, and that a time is coming, when many, (perhaps the greater part of mankind) of all nations, and people, and languages, shall know the joyful found of the gospel, and walk in the light of the Redeemer's countenance. At present, I would confine myself to confider, what ground the scripture affords us to hope, that there are many of every nation, people and tongue, even now, finging this fong before his throne.

The Revelations vouchfafed to the beloved difciple in Patmos exhibit a fucceffion of great events, extending (I suppose) from the apostles days, to the end of time. But while only the learned can fo much as attempt to ascertain, from hiftory, the dates and facts, to which the prophecies already fulfilled refer ; or to offer probable conjectures concerning the events, as yet, future; (in which the most judicious commentators are far from being agreed) there are paffages, interfperfed, which feem defigned to adminifter confolation to plain believers, by representations suited to

raise their thoughts, to the state of the church triumphant. Though they are unable to explain the particulars of what they read, there is a glory resulting from the whole, which animates their hope and awakens their joy. Of this kind I think is that vifion *, in which, the apostle faw the fervants of God, who were fealed in their foreheads, in number a hundred and forty-four thousand; and befides these, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, ftood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands, and cried with a loud voice, faying, Salvation to our God, which fitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, &c. I confefs myself unable to expound this sublime passage, and to give the full, or even the principal, sense of it, with certainty. But that it has some reference to what is now paffing, within the vail, which, hides the unfeen world from our view, I cannot doubt. I propofe my thoughts upon it with caution and diffidence. I dare not speak with that certainty, which I feel myself warranted to use, when I set before * Rev. vii. 9, ad finem.

you,

you, from fcripture, the great truths which are effential to a life of faith in the Son of God. Yet, I hope to advance nothing that is contrary to fcripture, or, to any deductions fairly and juftly, drawn from it.

Having premised this acknowledgment of my incompetence to decide pofitively, I venture to say, that by the hundred and fortyfour thousand fealed in their foreheads (a definite for an indefinite number, which is frequent in fcripture language) I understand, thofe, who, living to mature age and where the gofpel is afforded, are enabled to make a public and visible profeffion of religion, and are marked, as it were, in their foreheads, and known to whom they belong, by their open and habitual separation, from the spirit and cuftoms, of the world which lieth in wickedness. And the exceeding great multitude, contradiftinguished from thefe, I conceive to be thofe, who are, elsewhere, styled the Lord's hidden ones; and that these, are a great multitude indeed, gathered by him, who knows them that are his, out of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples and tongues. I may distribute them into the following claffes.

1. Infants. I think it, at least, highly probable, that when our Lord fays, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of fuch is the kingdom of heaven*, he does not only intimate the neceffity of our becoming like little children, in fimplicity, as a qualification without which (as he exprefly declares in other places) we cannot enter into his kingdom, but informs us of a fact; that the number of infants, who are effectually redeemed to God by his blood, fo greatly exceeds the aggregate of adult believers, that, comparatively speaking, his kingdom may be faid to confift of little children. The apoftle fpeaks of them as not having finned after the fimilitude of Adam's tranfgreffion, that is, with the confent of their understanding and will. And when he fays, We must all appear before the judgment-feat of Chrift, he adds, that every man may give an account of what he has done in the body, whether it be good or bad ‡. But children who die in their infancy have not done any thing in the body, either good or bad. It is true, they are by nature evil, and must, if faved, be the fubjects of a fupernatural + Rom. v. 14. † 2 Cor. v. 10. change.

* Matt. xix. 14.