builder and maker is God. Often they refemble the exiled and difconfolate Jews by the rivers of Babylon, when they hung their harps upon the willows, and fat down and wept when they remembered Zion. They are in a foreign and hoftile land. All their pleasures and their hopes are placed in the new Jerufalem, in the heavenly Zion, in the city and temple of the living God.. How often, under the lively impreflions of the divine word; or in devout retirement, wrapt in the contemplation of heavenly things, have they been ready to cry, with the holy Pfalmist under the preffure of his troubles, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I flee away and be at reft."* Bleffed citizens of Heaven! banished, at present, to these abodes of mifery and vice, death fhall ere long furnish you with the wings you defire. Then, taking your immortal flight, you fhall enter the delightful regions of that celeflial country which, unfeen, you love, and take poffeffion of your celeftial and everlafting home. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; for they reft from their labors, from their fufferings,

* Pfalms lv. 6.

from their fins, from their griefs, from all the fatigues, the folicitudes, and pains of this mortal exile.

The road of virtue was faid by the ancients to be up-hill, and to rife along the fide of a mountain, every where filled with craggs and precipices of fleep and laborious ascent, and encompaffed with dangers that require the greateft vigilance and fortitude, to escape or overcome. This reprefentation has fo much truth that the faithful discharge of the duties that lie upon us as men, as citizens, and as chriftians, requires the moft vigilant attentions, and frequently the most arduous, painful and perfevering labors. And the difficulties and oppofitions with which we meet from our hearts, from our infirmities, and from the world, will never fulfer us to intermit our attentions, or to ceafe our exertions.

Some labors, and folicitudes there are peculiar to the minifters of the gospel, or, if not peculiar, which affect them in a higher degree than other men, arifing from the hoftilities of the world againft religion which they are called to combat-from the crimes

of finners against which they have at once to remonflrate and to pray-from the errors or the coldaefs of the vifible difciples of Chrift, over which they are obliged in fecret to weep-from the pride and infolence of power and wealth which are ready to trample with contempt on an humbled and mortified profeflion-from the infirmities and fins of their own hearts which afflict them fo much the more as their calling is more holy, and as, miniftering at the altar, they approach nearer to God than other menin a word, from the arduous functions in which they are engaged. Although many confolations accompany the duties of a pious minifter of religion, when he confiders that all the facrifices he makes, and the pains he endures are for the glory of his Redeemer, and the higheft interefls of mankind, yet they are often attended with fatigues that exhauft the body, and cares that harrafs the mind, and often are they embittered by many fecret caufes of affliction and grief. From all these evils he obtains at death an everlasting releafe in that blessed region, where "God fhall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there fhall be no more death, neither forrow nor crying;

neither fhall there be any more pain. "And the ranfomed of the Lord fhall come to Zion with fongs, and everlasting joy upon their heads; and they fhall obtain joy and gladness, and forrow and fighing shall flee away."+ Oh how defirable to retreat from all thefe griefs, these conflicts, these wearifome toils, thefe anxious cares, to an eternal reft! A reft where the fervice of the Redeemer, which forms the glory and felicity of the pious foul, fhall never be intermitted; and where it fhall be forever free from all the imperfections that mar, and from all the fufferings that afflict it in this mortal ftate. As the first fubject of confideration concerning the future happiness of good men, suggested in the text, is Reft,

II. The fecond is enjoyment-" their works do follow them."

This figurative language evidently points to that high and pofitive ftate of felicity which the faints fhall enjoy in heaven, which is the confequence and reward of their works.

Revelations xxi. 3. † Ifaiah xxxv. 10.

It conveys to us alfo, in the mode of expreffion, two other truths of the highest importance—the firft, that the habits of a holy life are necessary to qualify men for the poffef fion of heaven; because, without them, they neither could defire it as their abode, nor could they enjoy the pure and fpiritual pleasures that conftitute to the pious, the happiness of the place.-The fecond, that their rewards there fhall be proportioned to the advances they have made in the divine life; and to the labors they have endured, the dangers they have encountered, and the fervices they have performed for the benefit, and above all, for the falvation of mankind, which is the service of Jesus Christ, their master and their Lord. On this fubject the apostle Paul hath taught us," he that foweth sparingly fhall reap fparingly, and he that foweth bountifully fhall alfo reap bountifully." There is one glory of the Sun, and another glory of the Moon, and another glory of the Stars, and one Star differeth from another in glory; fo alfo fhall it be in the refurrection of the dead." The most pi

2. Cor. ix. 6.

1. Cor. xv. 41-42.