ous, faithful, and fuccefsful fervants of Jefus Christ shall shine with the higheft luftre, and enjoy the most confummate happiness in his eternal kingdom. What an animating motive was this to the fortitude of the primitive martyrs! What an illuftrious, what a divine encouragement is it to the duty of every believer in Chrift! If he does not reap his reward in this world, he fhall receive one proportionably more rich and glorious in the world to come; where "the wife fhall fhine as the brightnefs of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteoufness as the ftars forever and ever."* Let us my brethren, remember, however, the great and fundamental doctrine, laid by the apoflles at the foundation of our hopes, that "it is not by works of righteoufnefs which we have done, but by grace we are faved." Thofe works cannot be prefented at the throne of divine juftice, as forming any abfolute claim to the rewards of heaven; but they become, by the gracious promife of God, the title of a believer to a recompence that infinitely tranfcends any claim that can be grounded on the merit of human obedience. They

*Dan. xii. 3.

follow him, not as a meritorious measure; but as measuring, fo to speak, the infinite proportions of divine grace and of heavenly glory.

The gradations of rank, fplendor and felicity in the kingdom of heaven, are but faintly and obfcurely marked to us in holy fcripture. It is more eafy to impart to minds like ours fome general apprehenfions of the glory and perfection of the state of heaven, than nicely to trace its degrees. A fcale of this kind requires a knowledge of the subject more accurate and just than our limited faculties are able to receive even from the holy fpirit of inspiration. Such a fcale was not neceffary to the end for which this revelation was made to the divine St. John, which was to encourage the martyrs in their mortal conflicts. Their cruel fufferings and their unfhaken firmness, would indeed, procure for them a higher rank in the order of the heavenly flate, than others fhould attain, who had not been called to give the fame heroic proofs of their fidelity to their Lord. But it is the expected glory and felicity of that flate, that fuftains the

courage of a christian, and enables him to triumph over the most formidable pains of death.

This felicity and glory is the fubject chief. ly pointed at in the text, and that to which without entering into any representation that must at best be fanciful, concerning the economy, and the gradations of rank that may take place in the kingdom of God, I fhall limit my view in the remaining part of this difcourfe.-But how fhall we defcribe that which eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, and of which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive! It would require the colours of heaven and a divine pencil to represent that celeftial " city which hath no need of the Sun, neither of the Moon to fhine in it; for the glory of the Lord doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them that are faved fhall walk in the light of it, and there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they who are written. in the Lamb's book of life."*

*Rev. xxi. 23, 24-27.

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The improvements, and the fublime perfection of human nature fhall be correfpondent to the glory of its habitation. But both, perhaps, are equally out of the reach of our conceptions at prefent. We must actually have attained, before we can fully comprehend, thofe immortal powers with which the body fhall be raifed from the grave, and re-united to the foul, purified and exalted by a nearer approach to God. It is raifed faith the apoille in incorruption-in glory-in power. It is raifed a fpiritual body!-Mark that bold and extraordinary figure. It is allied in its effence to the immortal fpirit---compofed of the moft pure and active principles of matter that resemble the purity and activity of the foul-incorruptible in its organization like the diamond--fplendid in its appearance like the fun-rapid and powerful in its movements like the lightning, that bears in its courfe an image of the omnipotence of the Creator.

The foul, purged from the dregs of fin, fhall bear a higher refemblance of the perfection of God in whofe image it was first

* 1 Corinthians xv. 42, 43, 44.

created. Its intellect fhall be boundlessly enlarged-its affections fhall be directed with immortal and unceafing ardor to the eternal fource of love-and we have reason to believe that it fhall enjoy the power of unlimited excurfion into the works, and, if I may speak fo, into the effence of the Deity.

On a fubject of which it is fo far beyond the prefent powers of the human mind adequately to conceive, it becomes us to speak with modefty and caution. In judging of it, reafon affords no lights to guide us-the fires of the imagination will only mislead us -we must take our ideas folely from the fcriptures of truth. And when we collect together all that thofe fublime oracles of wildom have faid upon this fubject, and take from the whole, thofe general views which they give of the ftate and felicity of Heaven,we may range them under the heads of its glory-its immutability—and its eternity.

Its glory-" It doth not, indeed, yet appear what we fhall be, but we know that when he fhall appear, we fhall be like him, for we fhall fee him as he is."*-There the

I John iii. 2.