part of man, and will be raised in the highest purity to complete his happinefs. How much nobler is this, than to believe, with the joyless patrons of naturalism, that this world is just as GOD first made it, and that we are doomed to live and die like the beafts that perish! Who fo proper to judge the world, as he who redeemed it? What time fo proper, as when he has completed the amazing scheme of falvation? And what a powerful motive to virtue, that he, whofe laws we fee broken here, will be our judge, that he bore our nature, and will allow for our infirmities?

III. UNDER the influence, then, of thefe discoveries, let us learn to make it our great end to fecure an inheritance in that happier state; that, when the fashion of this world is paffed away, and our earthly house of this tabernacle is diffolved, we may have a building of God, a bouse

boufe not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

ARE things around us in diforder? are the honours and pleasures of the world fometimes the reward of iniquity? Let not this tempt us to fwerve from our integrity, and let us wait with patience for our reward. All things will be fet hereafter upon their proper foundations; it is but waiting a short time; and the tares fhall be finally feparated from the good fruit and committed to the fire.

WE can fin often here with the certain profpect of impunity. Let this not feduce us. He, who is then to be our judge, is now the fpectator of our actions. Then the fecrets of all hearts shall be discovered, the works of darknefs expofed, and even what we have done in the inner chambers be published before the general affembly of men and angels.

WE murmur at the different degrees

of

A

Alas! we appear

of honour and dishonour, which affect
our bodies here. *
now, but as it were upon a ftage, for
temporary purposes. A few hours over,
the fictitious fcene vanishes; the actor,
who represented the monarch, and he,
who just before trembled at his frown
in a vassal's disguise, shall stand upon the
fame level, and be valued, in their real
life, just as virtue forms the distinction.
All the bleffings of the fpiritual world
will be peculiarly appropriated to the
good alone. If we are happy, there-
fore, in the good things of this world,
let us learn humility; if unhappy, we
may easily learn refignation and content
under any infirmities.

EVEN death itself, the greatest of human evils, is thus difarmed of all its terrors, and becomes to the pious chriftian, what the bed is to the weary tra

*THIS thought is beautifully enlarged upon, in Lucian. Ed. Bleau. Tom. 1. p. 335.

veller; a place of repofe; repose from the cares and toils and evils of mortality: a place of truer repofe; for the one lies down only, to rife the next morning with recruited strength and fpirits to renew the fame tedious circle of earthly toil; but the other lies down with a certainty of waking again into a life of perfect, unmixed, and unceasing happiness.

COULD we in short keep these things conftantly before our eyes in their full vigour, we should rife, I had almost faid, into a finlefs independence, above the world and all its numerous temptations.

BUT let us do, what infirmity really permits us; let us make them as familiar, as we can, by frequent acts of faith and meditation, and we cannot greatly fall.

SER

SERMON III.

Of future Rewards.