Our knowledge in the future life will be alfo fourthly much more important and refined, than it is and can be now. How much attention, how much reflection, how much mental application, are we now obliged to wafte on infignificant objects, on abfolute trifles! How much more are we employed about what belongs to the sustenance of our claybuilt tabernacle, to our food and cloathing, to outward propriety, than on what conduces to the ornament and accomplishment of our mind! How frequently does the former deprive us of time and inclination for the latter! How often does the acquifition of worldly riches and poffeffions prevent us from acquiring fpiritual and everlasting treasures! Is not many a generous, vigorous mind, that is panting after clearer light, after farther knowledge, tied and bound by these chains to the earth, and by petty, mean works and occupations hemmed in on all fides in the ufe and exertion of its eminent endowments! How much more of the extorted and puerile, than of the liberal and manly appears in almost all that we here undertake and achieve, that most concerns and employs us! We have no need, it is true, to be ashamed or to complain of this, fince it is agreeable to our prefent ftate and a neceffary means of our firft education and production. But we shall have occafion to rejoice in the fuperior state, where we fhall be enabled to fay: when I was a child, I fpake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man I put away childish childish things. Yes, on arriving at that age of manhood, at that more elevated ftage of our existence we may be affured of poffefling more mafculine faculties, and a much more manly use of them, more liberal and generous fentiments, a much riper judgment concerning the worth of objects, a much wifer choice between them, and a series of action much more confiftent with the dignity of a rational being. We fhall then be occupied about objects more important in themselves and worthier of us. Exempt from the wants and folicitudes of this ter restrial life, liberated from the weakneffes and bonds of this frail body, the magnitude, the excellence, the worthiness of thefe objects, will ascertain the degree of our curiosity, of our attention, of our reflection and research, and never fuffer us to be weary in it. God and his confummate perfection, the multitude and the magnificence of his works, the wifdom and benignity of his all-comprehending, all-bleffing ways, the wonders of his love in that œconomy contrived through Jefus for the happiness of mankind, the dominion and authority of this our great captain and leader, the coherence of human events, the folution of fo many at prefent inexplicable enigmas in nature and in the divine administration : fuch will be the grand, the fublime objects of our heightened knowledge; and they unquestionably comprise all that is important and noble, and worthy the employment of every faculty of the foul. Laftly, my pious hearers, these several advantages must likewise impart more life and efficacy to our knowledge in the future world, than it here commonly has and can have. Our foundest perceptions, our noblest principles, our best convictions are oftentimes by worldly occupations and cares, by bodily infirmities and fufferings, by outward connections and relations, by points of honour and complaisance, by bad example, by praise and cenfure, by intercourfe with fops and fools, much diminished and prevented from having their proper influence on our fentiments and conduct. What a great gulf is often fixt between our judgment and our heart, be-tween our thoughts and our actions! How feldom do even the most important truths of religion exert their whole efficacy upon us! How feldom are we rendered by them fo wife, fo good, fo contented and happy, as we might become by them!But likewife in this refpect, my dear friends, the imperfect will hereafter give place to the perfect. Truth will then fall into a better foil, and therefore more eafily fhoot up and thrive and bear fruit. Neither worldly cares nor occupations will choak. and crush like thorns and stones that heavenly plant. A milder climate, a ferener sky, a more genial atmofphere, a more careful nurture, a greater abundance of refreshing dews will favour its growth and cause it to bring forth fruit a hundred and a thousand fold. Never will our knowledge be extinct, never unpro. unproductive, never will our reafon be at variance with our affections, as we think fo fhall we act, and do that which we know to be lawful and right. Such, my pious hearers, is that greater perfection, which we may prefume to expect in regard to our knowledge in the life to which we are haftening. Be ye joyful in this hope, all you who are enamoured of truth, who are eagerly fearching for it as for hid treafures. Your refearches will affuredly not be in vain; your thirst for it will hereafter be quenched. Let not the darkfome night by which you are now in so many refpects furrounded, alarm or perplex you. It will not laft for ever, it will not much longer continue. Soon will it yield to the cheering dawn, to the bright effulgence of day and then will every restless doubt be at once difpelled, every anxious uncertainty ceafe, ye will pafs on from faith to fight, ye will behold many objects which ye now just difcern through the present dim and misty twilight, in all their luftre, and perfectly diftinguish many others which are now totally concealed from your view, and thereby become progreffively more active, more perfect, more happy. GOD, in framing us rational and moral creatures, thou haft made us capable of virtue, and thereby opened to us fources of happinefs the most exuberant and pure. We can diftinguish good from ill, truth from falfhood, and chufe between both according to principles clearly known. We can propofe for our model thee, the primordial fount and archetype of all perfection and strive after a progreffively nearer refemblance to thee. And on doing this; how it exalts, how it expands both our mind and our heart! What a bleffed fentiment it gives us of our dignity, of the true end of our being, of our fellowfhip and connection with thee! But still we often tire in the nobleft of our exertions, in the ardent purfuit of virtue, of godlike attainments. Still fometimes we are in want of light, fometimes of ability, fometimes of courage and refolution, to purfue with conftancy the path which leads to that glorious object. Still most of our paces towards it are flow and unfteady. The idea of this often troubles us, o God, and penetrates us with a diftreffing fentiment of our weakness and frailty. But far be it from us, on that account to stand still, or even to turn back to the dark |