In that future ftate, which thou art pleased to promife, let us continue to be employed in the performance of thy commands. All thy bleffings, even the light Pf.lxxxix. of thy countenance in heaven itself, will '5. leave our happiness imperfect, if we are not permitted to tender to thee fome tribute of our thankful hearts, and gratify the ardour of our affection. Thy mercies are innumerable and infinite, and our obedience and praises, though they add nothing to thine honour, will yet, we trust, for our fake, be fuffered to approach thee to all eternity. Compleat all thy kindness in admitting our little service; and fill up the whole measure of our blifs, by receiving from us a drop into the ocean of thy Felicity and Glory. SER. AND THESE SHALL GO AWAY INTO EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT, BUT W HEN the Lord formed man upon the earth, and breathed into Wifd. ii. his noftrils the breath of life, he created him, to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. 23. From 12. From this happy immortality, Man, by his tranfgreffion, fell into a state of mife Wifd. i. ry, and death. For God made not death; 13,16. but ungodly men by their works, and words, Rom. v. called it to them. Or rather, By one man fin entered into the world, and death by fin: and fo death passed upon all men: and reigned even over them that had not finned after the fimilitude of Adam's tranfgreffion. ver. 14. If our first parents, upon their difobedience, had been punished with immediate death, they had fuffered only what they too juftly deserved: and their pofterity had, in that case, been nothing; no matter of difpute, no objects of injustice or of favour; but claffed among the innumerable tribe of poffibilities, without Being. However, Almighty God was pleased, in the overflowings of his goodness, to fufpend that sentence of death which he had pronounced, till a race of men were born born into the world, fuch as could proceed from fuch parents, fallen from their uprightness, and driven out from the happiness of Paradife, and from the tree of Life, into a state full of trouble and temptation, of diseases, and death. Can we help reflecting here, as we pafs along, on the deftructive nature of fin, how ruinous in it's effects both to ourfelves and all around us: how bitter even when tempered with mercy; and dreadful, though disarmed of half it's terrors. Still further; it pleased the Supreme Father, in the depth of his unfearchable wisdom and love, to provide for us a deliverer from the power of this death which paffeth upon all men; and by the death and refurrection of his dear Son, to open once again to us the gates of life, and restore us to that immortality both in body and foul, for which he had created us. Come, ye blessed of my Father, in- Matth. XXV. 3, 4. |