willing and accomplished to every good word and every generous act! We are immortal, a better, a superior life awaits us: This sentiment must sweeten every joy that God vouchsafes us, and alleviate and render tolerable every affliction he calls us to suffer! We are immortal, a better, an everlasting life awaits us; accompanied by this consoling thought, encouraged by this glorious prospect, we will resolutely pursue the path that leads us to it, regardless of its troubles and inconveniences, undismayed see its end approach; and when we come, to day or tomorrow, to stand on the verge of the grave, we will not, like the unbeliever, start and tremble, but, looking unto Jesus who has gone before us, and relying on his promises, with confidence and joy pass over into the better, the everlasting life! Amen.

Easterday, 1782.

SERMON XXIV.

The Value, or the Importance, of the Hope of a blessed Immortality, considered as the principal Source of our satisfaction and serenity of Mind.

O GOD, thou greatest and best of beings, invisible

indeed in thine essence but evident in thine effects!-Thou who art our father by having produced us out of nothing, and more especially by having begotten us again to the hope of life in Christ Jesus by his resurrection from the deadteach us, we implore thee, to pay all due reverence to thee, our creator and redeemer. That we may conceive justly, though imperfectly, of thy perfections, and express humbly our sense of them. Give us power to transcribe the imita ble part of thy nature into our own. Incline us to look up to the complete pattern of thy beloved son, till we arrive at some faint resemblance of the deity by aspiring at the perfection of humanity. Give us the will to obey all thy commands, and to rest satisfied in all thy dispensations; that we may with as much constancy, cheerfulness and alacrity comply with the designs of thy providence on earth as the purer spirits do in heaven. Let us imitate their perfections here, that we may be made partakers of their happiness hereafter. Be pleased to give success to all our honest endeavors to acquire the necessaries and conveniences of this life, and the wisdom to discern that they ought never to be obtained by such methods as are destructive of the

more solid and permanent satisfactions of another. Look down with mercy and compassion upon all our failings, upon all our follies: And give us too such tender dispositions of mind, that we may exert a spirit of humanity and forbearance in all our dealings with our fellow creatures. Teach us, by an habitual exercise of reason, to distinguish between the proper and perverse use of the objects which surround us, that our passions may be kept in due subservi ence to the ends for which thou hast implanted them. Suf fer us not to be lulled into any sinful security. If the still small voice of mercy cannot reach us, alarm us with the terrors of thy judgments: Break the heart that will not bend; and lead us by any effort, however unwelcome or uneasy, through that mystery of iniquity which thou hast permitted, into the glorious liberty of thy sons, O God!Pity, father, and pardon and assist our weak attempts to address thee as we ought, Accept this humble act of duty and obedience, Indulge us kindly when we ask aright, and deny us mercifully what we ask amiss. And, that we may be sure to ask such things as shall please thee, give us leave to include our petitions in the name, words, and as far as we are able in the spirit of that beloved son in whom thou art well pleased; referring the issue of all our hopes and aims ultimately to the direction of thy good pleasure and providence. Even so, Lord, it is fit for us, weak and wretched as we are, to submit all our desires and views to the guidance of thy supreme control, eternal, everlasting king! enshrined in glory which cannot be approached, invested with wisdom and power which no arm can resist, no tongue express, no thought conceive. Our father, &c,

I. CORINTHIANS, xv. 19.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

QUIET and satisfaction being two grand objects of our desire; and, as so much pains are taken to acquire them, it is the more to be lamented, that we do not with greater frequency and care make use of that principal source of true repose and satisfaction, the hope of a blessed immortality. If you attach your thoeghts to this earth; if you confine your hopes to the short moment of this terrestrial life; if you take this state of discipline and exercise for the ultimate scope of your being; if you regard barely the present, and lose sight of the future: Then it is no wonder if you perceive disorder, confusion, and misery on all sides around you; it is no wonder that you should be tormented by doubt and solicitude, that you seek for the true calm and repose of your spirit in vain. Only soar above that which is visible and transitory; do but raise yourself in thought to the future world? Make yourself acquainted with the eternity that awaits us; and the greatest part of the difficulties that perplex you will soon vanish away; you will perceive the wisest arrangement, the most admirable beauty in the constitution of the world and of your present state; you will find ample cause for contentment in all circumstances, and for bearing all the difficulties of this life with firmness and resolution. The considerations with which I mean, at present, to support your piety, will, I hope and trust, by the divine assistance and blessing, furnish you with more light and certainty on this matter.

I will represent to you the certain hope of a blessed immortality as the principal and purest source oftranquillity and satisfaction, and lay before your minds

the inestimable value of the doctrines and promises
the gospel delivers to us, with regard to futurity.
And how can I better execute this design than by
comparing the dark and melancholy life, and the
dismal end of a man without hope, with the bright
and cheerful life and the comfortable end of a chris-
tian, who relying on the promises and believing in
the resurrection of our Savior, is in expectation of
a blessed immortality? Let us, therefore, set these
two classes of men against each other, and, accom-
pany them through the principal scenes of their lives;
we shall clearly perceive which of them has the ad-
We shall find that even in
vantage of the other.
this respect we have sufficient reason to exclaim,
with the apostle in our text: "If in this life only
we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most mis-
erable."

To the man who knows nothing of futurity, who has no hope of immortality, all nature is a sealed book, and he is the greatest of all mysteries to himself. The design of his existence is incomprehensible to him; and of the purposes for which the other creatures that surround him were formed, and which so far exceed mankind in number, magnitude, and beauty, he knows still less. Every thing he sees and hears is to him an ænigma, to the solution whereof he can find no key. Represent to yourself a philosopher, who knows nothing of the gospel, and from whom futurity is concealed, profoundly contemplating the heaven and the earth and himself, and that you hear him discourse on these important objects in his comfortless solitude: What a doubtful, what a desultory and dismal language he holds! Methinks I hear him exclaim, in a doleful voice, Why is the heaven so beautifully adorned, and to what end is this magnificence which nature so profusely displays wherever I turn my view? What is the purpose of