their bodies raised from the grave, and made like unto his! With this profpect I will comfort myself, under all the infelicities of life, and apprehenfions of death. I must die, pass through the dark valley, drink of the cold cup that my Saviour drank of; but if I belong to him as a living member of his myftical body, I fhall rife again to a bleffed immortality. It was not the defign of his death to excufe his followers from dying, but, as connected with his refurrection, to fave them from the terrors of that laft enemy; forafmuch as death is now only a dark paffage to the regions of immortal light and glory, and we lay down this body, with all its frailties and imperfections, to take it up again without them, bright, active, and incorruptible. Look forward, O my foul, to that glorious day! Think what a joyful, what a furprising meeting that will be, of perfected minds with their glorified bodies, of all the faints that have ever lived in the moft diftant regions and ages of it with one another! Think of that divine and eternal feftival in which they fhall all join with one heart in the kingdom of their Father, and at which thou, O my foul, fhalt be a transported gueft! Now we neceffarily meet in feparate, and, alas, too often in divided and oppofite communions; estranged and alienated in our affections, for want of knowing one another better; now they are but few with whom thou canst perfonally join in the common duties of divine worship, still fewer in the Lord's fupper; thy many infirmities N 3 mities abate the pleasures of thy best performances; and the pleasure, as it is imperfect, fo is tranfient too. Hereafter all the followers of the Lamb, all the faithful fervants of God, a multitude without number, fhall worship together in the temple above; unite their praifes to God and the Lamb; mingle their af fections, like fo many confluent ftreams, in one common ocean of love; be delivered from every temptation, and from every grief; be made perfect in knowledge, holiness, and blifs, and fo continue to everlasting ages. O what life and fpirit fhould the meditation of this infufe into all my religious performances ! How fhouldst thou ftretch all thy faculties, O my foul, and aim to do the will of God as the angels do in heaven, and as thou thyfelf fhalt do it when thou art come thither! Bleffed time, when all upright minds fhall fee that wonderful perfon face to face, whom now they behold as through a glass darkly! Bleffed time, when the prefence of the Redeemer fhall make all memorials of him needlefs! O moft blessed time, the expectation of fo many ages, when the church fhall receive the immediate and fulleft emanations of that love which he is now ravished with the contemplations of! Then fhalt thou acknowledge, O my foul, that eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, neither can enter into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God hath laid up for them that love him! Then fhalt thou reap the fruits of thy Lord's victories, and thy own; of his victory over death, and of thy thy own, through him, over fin and the world! The., in fine, will it be true, in the highest fenfe the words are capable of, that we are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general affembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven, to the fpirits of just men made perfect, to Jefus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to God the judge of all. G Reat and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty;-what then art thou, whofe power hath produced and fuftains, whose wisdom both contrived and directs, and whofe goodness crowns them all! I praise thee, O my God, from the bottom of my foul, that, having made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they fhould feek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, thou haft, in the course of thy providence, fo ordered the circumftances of my birth and education, that I fhould be a partaker of the grace of the gospel from my earliest years, and know the wonderful works of God, even those things which many prophets and kings defired to fee and hear, and could not. For all my powers and fa culties, culties, as a reasonable creature, all the teftimonies of thy paternal care, all the effects of thy common bounty and goodnefs, in the courfe of my life, I bless and magnify thy holy name; but more efpecially for thy diftinguishing grace and mercy in Jefus Chrift; in. whom while I rejoice and glory, I cannot forget to pray that all mankind may enjoy the fame happiness, and the whole world know that thou haft fo loved it, as to give thine only begotten Son, that whofoever believeth in him, fhould not perish, but have everlasting life. Hear, O moft gracious God, the prayers of thy faithful people for the enlargement of that kingdom of truth and righteousness which thou haft fet up among men, that the religion of Chrift may be profeffed and practised in its greatest fimplicity. Grace be with all them that love the Lord Jefus in fincerity, their numbers continually increase, their confola-tions abound, the multitude of them that be-lieve be of one heart and one foul, and the church of Christ appear to be the fchool where immortal fouls are trained up for the more perfect worship, and the everlasting felicity of the heavenly world. O let not thy grace be received in vain by me! Let it not be in vain that I have been fo fully taught the way of the Lord, have had both external and internal affiftances, and every fort of encouragement, that I might abound in all the fruits of holinefs, which are by Chrift to the glory and praife of God. Forgive me, O merciful Father, that I have made thee returns fo unfuit able able to thy great goodness towards me, to the vaft and numberlefs obligations thou haft laid me under, and the repeated engagements I have taken upon myfelf! O forgive me the coldness of my love, my floth and inactivity, the little proficiency I have made in the vir tues of the Christian and divine life, with the advantage of fo excellent a rule, fo perfect an example, fo free an access to the throne of grace, fuch almighty aids, and the profpect of fo glorious a reward! And O may the confideration of thy readiness to pardon, fill me with an ingenuous hatred and deteftation of all fin; and my abhorrence of fin, and care to avoid it, and all the occafions of and temptations to it for the future, be a fatisfying proof, that all my fins are actually forgiven me through the redemption which is in Jefus Chrift thy Son, whofe death I have been fhewing forth in his fupper! And may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make me perfect to do his will, fulfilling in me the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power! Help me to carry in mind the defign of one duty to difpofe me for another, and of all the inftrumental duties of religion to beget and ftrengthen thofe exalted. principles and habits of goodness in my foul, by which it will be more and more ripened for the life of heaven. By faith let me be able to fee him who is invifible, and always. to walk as in his prefence, and be more af fected |