to refign yourselves to his guidance and direction, if ye would afterwards perceive and feel the wifdom and tenderness of his proceedings, and exult therein. Fill worthily the lower station, the inconfiderable post ye here occupy, if ye wifh to be there promoted to higher stations, to more important offices. Be diligent and indefatigable in the performance of the task that is here affigned you; tranfact all the affairs of the station and calling, in which providence has placed you with conscientiousness and affiduity; manage all the goods and endowments, that are here committed to your truft, with inviolable fidelity, if ye would hereafter as faithful stewards of the manifold gifts of God be entrusted with more, if ye would hereafter be employed in greater matters, in more important affairs. Exercise yourselves in fhort now with unabated diligence, in ferving and affifting every one according to your ability, in thinking and acting difinterestedly and generously, in readily and zealously promoting truth and virtue, religion and piety, in diffusing around you refresh ment and comfort, fatisfaction and joy, in contributing as much as poffible to the mitigation of human mifery and to the augmentation of human happiness, if ye would hereafter enjoy the ravishing delight, of doing the fame in a more exalted fphere, and to a father extent.

We told you fifthly, my pious hearers, that the happiness of the world to come will be enjoyed br numbers together and be a focial ftate; and this

may

may alfo teach us how we should prepare and capa citate ourselves for the enjoyment of it. Are we to be fit companions for the wife and good, the votaries of God and Jefus; are we to enjoy pleasure and felicity in their fociety: we ourselves must be, at least as novices, wife, good, and fincere votaries of God and Jefus; we must know how to prize and to avail ourselves of the advantage of fuch intercourfe and fuch company. The fame focial virtues, which here render our connections and converse with our fellow-creatures agreeable and profitable, we fhall also want there. The fame fentiments and affections, which draw us together here, unite. us also there. There as here must esteem, benevolence, love, cordiality and tender fympathy accom. pany us to our brethren and actuate us in our intercourse with them. There as here muft our hearts be reciprocally open to each other, and mutually correspond without difguife and falfehood, if we would be happy in each other. There as here would envy, jealousy, vanity, pride, selfishness render us totally incapable of this felicity. Would you therefore previously secure it, my dear friends, exercise yourselves even now in all thofe virtues, and ftrive to render them more and more habitual. Cleanse your hearts more and more from all felfish, mean and fordid fentiments and affections. Expand them more and more to a general, undiffembled, unenvious, active humanity. Learn more and more to separate the man from outward, accidental contin

gences, from the light and the fhade which height and lowness cast upon them, and to esteem and love them as human beings, as the future partakers of your immortality. Take a real interest in whatever relates to others. Be not totally indifferent to any thing that concerns them as men, as brethren, to what men, what brethren do or fuffer or enjoy. Rejoice in all the beautiful and good that is in and among mankind, and is effectuated by them. Look not, as the apostle fays, every man fimply on his own concerns, but also on the concerns of others, Learn more and more willingly and generously to give, and more and more gratefully and joyfully to receive. This will both here and hereafter procare you accefs to the bofoms of all the wife and good, of all good chriftians, and capacitate you for the complete enjoyment of that felicity, which flows from mutual, pure and generous love.

SERMON LVII.

The Advantages of our Knowledge in the future Life.

GOD, thou haft endowed us, as rational creatures, as beings cloathed with thy likeness, with a capacity for perceiving truth and for advancing progreffively farther in the knowledge of it. Thou haft revealed thyself to us both in nature and in fcripture, and vouchfafed us various means of information and instruction. Thanks be to thee, our creator and father, for the manifold and glorious diftinctions with which thou haft favoured us! Thanksgiving and praise be particularly rendered to thee, for that we are able to foar in thought to thee, the primordial fount of truth, for that we can conceive of thee and have communion with thee, the confummately perfect intelligence, the father of fpirits. Though all the knowledge we can here acquire, is extremely defective and imperfect, it is neverthelefs fufficient to lead us fafely on the road of life, and to calm our minds amidst the difficulties and dangers of it. And what great improvement, what enlargement, what farther growth of it does thy parental tenderness not allow us to hope for ina superior state! What light will then difpel the prefent

prefent darkness! What a brilliant day fucceed that night, in which we are now involved! Oh let this exalted hope infpire us with courage and refolution, whenever we begin to feel the aggravation of that darkness, and the horrors of this night. Teach us carefully to employ every ray of that light which at present thou causeft to fhine upon us, and by the brightness of it to pursue our way with confidence and joy, and not come fhort of the glo rious prize. To know the truth and to follow as it leads, be that at present and for ever our unremitted aim, our greatest glory! Bless in the abundance of thy grace the meditations that are now to occupy our minds. Let them raise our affections above the afraction of things visible, and fix them on the unfeen and eternal world. For this we pray thee in the name of our lord and faviour Jefus Chrift, in whom we have boldness and accefs with confidence, as his votaries, unto thy gracious throne, and address thee further in his words: Our father, &c.

I CORINTH. xiii. 12.

For now we fee through a glafs darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then fhall I know even as also I am known.

HOWEVER impoffible it may be, as I recently

took occafion to obferve, for us to form any adequate notions concerning the happiness of the

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future