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is in the midst of the throne, shall feed all such" as have called " upon him faithfully" whilst on earth, and shall "lead them unto living fountains of waters, where God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," and receive them into his bosom for

ever.

SERMON XXIV.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF CHRIST'S

RESURRECTION.

"That I

PHILIPPIANS, I. 10.

may know him, and the power of his resurrection."

IT is the object of religion to render us finally happy. "To this end were we born, and for this cause came we into the world." God has, therefore, established religion among us as a means of securing happiness. Wherever it prevails in the heart, "there is righteousness and peace." Where it does not exist, there is neither. The ungodly shall seek rest and find none. "There is no judgment in their goings; they make them crooked paths; whoever goeth therein shall not know peace." It is religion only that makes us acquainted with God; because it is the medium which he has appointed to prepare us for his mercies, and to fit us for his service. Without religion, the most distinguished country would be "a land of

darkness, and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light would be as darkness." It is our acquaintance with God, through that revelation, which he has condescended to make to us, that confirms our confidence in the glorious promises of his gospel. It is a reliance upon those promises which constitutes the only legitimate happiness of a Christian here, since it is the only security he can have of happiness hereafter; and without a clear prospect, or, at the least, a hope of that, his condition in this world must be miserable. A man who discards religion, confines himself exclusively to the enjoyments of time. He cuts himself off from all hope in eternity. He is like "a city that is broken down and without walls," open to every assault, and must finally succumb to the destroyer.

This world furnishes at best but very questionable enjoyments. If it does afford us some pleasures, they, nevertheless, "pass away as a shadow that departeth;" our interest, therefore, manifestly requires us to seek those which are more enduring. It is clear, that we must direct our views beyond this evanescent state for anything like a durable enjoyment, since we evidently cannot find it here. But where shall we discover inducements to prepare for a more transcendant scene of things, in which alone "true joys are to be found," after we have in vain sought for them in this life of trial and vicissitude? In the gospel

of him who "hath redeemed us from all iniquity." It is there we trace the only true motives exhibited, that can instigate us to advance towards the perfection which we are commanded by God to imitate, and in which we shall ascend among "the just made perfect."

There is no system of morality, however inflexible, that can carry our views, with anything like a confiding expectation, beyond this mutable condition. The most rigid philosophy and the purest systems of ethics, apart from religion, must be circumscribed in their influence to time alone; that influence cannot extend into eternity. The noblest conceptions of mere human reason, which has not been irradiated by the light of revelation, are but as the brilliant hues of the morning that fade before the rising sun, and "the place thereof knoweth them no more." They are but as the rough-hewn material in the quarry, that religion shapes and polishes, for the glorious temple, which she is assiduously employed in raising in the moral world, which shall survive the wreck of time, and extend through all futurity.

The wisest and best among the heathens, have ever been involved in the perplexities of conjecture and doubt with respect to their future state. The highest mental acquisitions have never been able to penetrate beyond the grave. "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." All wisdom that is not grounded on religion,

tends to divert us from the path of life; and surely, the noblest and the best is, "that wisdom which is from above," because it is attended with the most enduring advantages to its possessor. It is only in the pages of God's law, that we discover those revelations which open before us a prospect of glory, that never could have been unfolded to mere human research. Ought they not, then, to be the objects of our daily study? We had known nothing, even of the God that made us, if he had not himself condescended to instruct us in the perfection of his attributes, and the infinity of his nature. All his holy Scriptures "were written for our learning," and they alone are able to make us "wise unto salvation."

Religion, it is true, is not unfrequently considered as a system of spiritual discipline, imposed upon us for the better security of society against those moral disorders and civil convulsions, in which "the unruly wills" of men but too generally predispose them to involve it. This, however, is the doctrine of such only as prefer the gratification of their bodies to the security of their souls, and who tax their Maker with wrong, because his interdictions thwart them in those enjoyments, which He, in his unerring wisdom, has seen it fitting to forbid. The "man after God's own heart" does not feel his duties to be irksome. Holiness is his delight, because he knoweth, that "the thoughts of the wicked are an abomination unto the Lord," but, that he

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