future state, are all in favour of that fear and reverence of Almighty GoD which leads to obedience of his holy law, whether that be the law written on the heart, or the law of love and life proclaimed in the gospel.

To consider seriously, then, the doctrine declared in my text, is to open the door for the claims of religion to engage our attention. For religion is just what GOD, in his wisdom, has been pleased to appoint, to prepare us for a happy eternity—is just what is requisite to assimilate us otherwise sinful creatures to his pure and holy nature, that we may be capable of enjoying the glory and blessedness of his presence, and, in a state of endless being, reap those rich rewards which his loving mercy hath prepared and promised to all who believe and obey him. While to banish from our minds this awakening subject, to occupy our thoughts with present and sensible things, is to exclude all entrance to the fear of GOD in our hearts, all reverence for him in our lives. For, to the man who never realizes another life, religion, or what is the same thing, the love and service of GOD can present no obligations. In fact there might as well be no God.

When this universal impression of a future being is confirmed by express revelation, when the otherwise dark and dubious conjectures of our anxious minds are put to rest, and cleared up by the explicit confirmation of the gospel, and when, what all must wish for, but none could attain unto, has, by the resurrection of JESUS CHRIST become the birthright and inheritance, as it were, of Christian lands, it must be profitable both to those who receive and those who reject the light to examine and consider what Christianity teaches concerning a life to come, and then apply the instruction it shall give us-which life to come is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour JESUS CHRIST, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the gospel.

I. First, if there is another life after this, our present life must form a part of it, or be in some way connected with it.

We are, accordingly, informed and assured in the Scriptures that our present life is a state of reprieve and probation—that it flows from GoD's free mercy, by the mediation of JESUS

CHRIST that it is intended to ascertain who are fit objects of God's further mercy in everlasting salvation, upon the gracious conditions of the new covenant, or fit only for the everlasting exercise of his wrath, as irreclaimable, impenitent, unbelieving, and disobedient. The purpose of the present life, then, is to prepare ourselves, by victory over sin and the attainment of holiness, for another which is to follow it; and the duties which religion requires, and the grace or assistance afforded, are in order to enable us to attain this end, while the judgment we have to meet, is to ascertain who have and who have not made this wise improvement of God's sparing mercy.

Hence, we learn that every part of our present behaviour will be strictly and impartially inquired into, and our thoughts as well as our actions laid open before the Searcher of hearts, who will render to every man according to his deeds; to them cho by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life; but to them who are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, without respect of persons.

This is the great and fundamental discovery of the gospel on the condition of our future life-that the righteous shall be rewarded and the wicked punished everlastingly, is the express declaration of God's word, repeated in more instances than I have time to quote, and varied under every mode of expression which can engage attention, excite hope, or alarm fear. And this, perhaps, to the further purpose of counteracting the fatal propensity so frequent in the Christian world, of a careless, unfounded trust for salvation in that love and mercy of GoD which shines so bright in the gift of JESUS CHRIST, without once reflecting that this and every other instance of God's goodness, is intended to lead us to repentance, to faith, to holiness, and unless it produces this effect, will only the more deeply condemn us without once considering that mercy, however large and free, if unsought, unfound, here, cannot be obtained hereafter, and that without holiness no man shall see the LORD.

We may certainly collect, then, from the Scripture account

of our future life, that it will be a state in which men will reap the fruit of their doings in the present life-in which the reward of their hands shall be given them-in which he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the SPIRIT shall of the SPIRIT reap life everlasting.

II. Secondly, if there is another life in connexion with this, the means of attaining it must be within our reach.

To keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope, is truly the character of the father of lies, not of the Father of mercies and GOD of all comfort and consolation. And as GOD in his mercy hath seen fit to reprieve sinners from eternal death, and to put them once more on trial for eternal life, he who doeth all things well must have furnished them to profit by this wonderful display of his wisdom and love; and we are bound to believe, whatever specious objections may be brought against the doctrine, that every human being under the sound of the gospel, to go no farther, though I am willing to include the race of Adam, is provided, by the undertaking of JESUS CHRIST, to escape that eternal death from which he is reprieved, to overcome that sin which entailed it upon him, to attain that holiness required by the gospel, and as its reward, that eternal life which is yet the free gift of God through JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. With this view of the subject agrees the whole tenour of revelation. GOD was in CHRIST reconciling the world to himself. For GOD sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. GOD made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Accordingly of JESUS CHRIST and his undertaking for us, we are taught to believe that he tasted death for every man; that he gave himself a ransom for all; that the atonement of his death is as extensive as human sin; that he is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world; that because he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross, therefore GoD also hath highly exalted him, that he might be head over all things to his Church, in which he rules as a Son in his own house; that when he

ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men, even the HOLY SPIRIT, to abide continually with his Church, to convince, convert, and save; that, having overcome death and him that had the power of it, and having all things committed unto him of the Father, he proclaims to a lost world, Come unto me all the ends of the earth, and be saved. Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. He that believeth on me hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Of the HOLY SPIRIT we are taught to believe, that by his operations upon our hearts, we are enlightened and quickened from a state of spiritual death to one of life and knowledge; that by his convincing power we are brought to a right sense of the heinous nature of sin, and enabled to resolve against it; that by his sanctifying grace we are renewed in the spirit of our minds to love God and to serve him in holiness, to believe his word, to trust his promise, and to embrace the offer of his mercy in and through JESUS CHRIST as our only hope of eternal life; that in the great work of our salvation, from first to last, it is by the HOLY GHOST that GOD works in us to will and to do; and that as it is by him only that we are prepared for glory, so by him are we raised from the dead to partake of it. Such is the wonderful provision of the love of GOD in CHRIST JESUS, to bring back a world of fallen, sinful creatures to himself, and by the gospel the gracious invitation is to all, the means are offered to all, and it is proclaimed even to the chief of sinners-ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. And it is surely a much more reasonable, as well as scriptural method of accounting for the disregard manifested for the gospel, to ascribe it to the perverseness of human nature, to the power of the god of this world in blinding the minds of them that will not believe, to the love of sin, or to any cause rather than to some secret reserve on the part of Almighty GOD, at war with the plain declarations of his public message by his only begotten Son, however right and just such a proceedin inay be shown in the abstract to be, and most consistent, in the view of man's wisdom, with the claims of his unlimited sove

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reignty. No, my fellow sinners, there is no bar to the mercy of the gospel but yourselves-the SPIRIT and the bride say come, and let him that heareth say come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will let him come, and take of the water of life freely. If you are not athirst for the water of life, it is because you have turned a deaf ear to the warning of God's word, to the testimony therein given to your lost condition; it is because you stifle the convictions of your conscience awakened by the HOLY SPIRIT, and drive him from you; it is because you love the pleasures of sin and the vanitles of the world more than your immortal souls; it is because you will not believe even one who has arisen from the dead, to reveal to you the unspeakable interests which await you beyond the grave, and are dependant for their everlasting happiness or misery on the present short, fleeting, and uncertain state of being; it is because you receive not the truth in the love of it that you might be saved; it is because you will not come to the light, lest your deeds should be reproved, and not because God either withholds his grace or restrains you from profiting by it. No, he this day calls upon you to repent and believe the gospel; he offers you the sacrifice of his only Son to atone for your sins, the grace of his HOLY SPIRIT to renew your hearts, the comfort of his precious promises to strengthen your weak endeavours, the terrors of his avenging wrath to alarm your guilty fears, a judgment revealed to determine your everlasting condition, and eternity awaiting you to crown with its endless sanctions the part you shall now take. O that his light may this day dawn upon your souls with life and power, that you may be no longer faithless but believing, and enabled to choose that good part which shall not be taken from you. For your eternal interest is now depending, and depending upon yourselves. The terms of the gospel, life and death, are set before you. Your condition in the future world will be determined by your behaviour in this. Eternal life, through the free and undeserved gift of God through JESUS CHRIST, can no otherwise be obtained by us than by our own most earnest and unremitting endeavours to become worthy of it, by that personal holiness which is the crown of religion; for he that will be saved, must work VOL. II.-36