love of the Father, that he should not fpare his own Son, but freely give him up for our fakes! And O amazing love of Chrift, that he should tafte death, in all the bitterness of it, to provide for our fupport and comfort in these trying moments! What gratitude, as well as joy, fhould inspire our hearts, while we reflect thus on the infinite expence at which we are faved from the curfe of this the greatest of natural evils, and in the profpect of which the stouteft heart trembles ! 3. What an ineftimable bleffing is true religion! It is the only thing that will ftand us in ftead in the hour of death. Neither wealth, nor power, nor greatness, nor friends, will be of any avail then. Men may despise it when they are in health and strength, and in the midst of affluence and pleasure; but where is the wretch that dares laugh at it in the immediate views of eternity?-Ah! no. They then think otherwife. Had they millions of worlds, they would part with them all, to obtain the comforts and hopes I have been just now defcribing. How defirable then is an intereft in Chrift! He alone can fave an immortal foul from the miferies of the fecond death, and give it an admiffion into the realms of light and glory above. O may this therefore be the grand object of our concern, and may every thing else be held in fovereign contempt, when compared with this, the greatest good! In one word, 4. If there are fuch fupports provided for the dying Chriftian, and fuch bright profpects beyond the grave; then let the faith of these things have its fuitable effect on our temper and conduct-to moderate car affections to the world to reconcile us to our afflictions-to infufe fweetnefs into our enjoyments—and to fubdue in us the fear of death. The Lord is your Shepherd, Chriftian, you shall not want. He will take care of you all the days of your pilgrimage on earth. He will fuftain you with his rod and Staff in the valley of the fhadow of death. And he will at length give you a joyful entrance into the heavenly world, where you shall dwell in his houfe for ever. DIS DISCOURSE XVII. THE FINAL CONSUMMATION OF RELI GION IN HEAVEN.. IT ROMANS vi. 22.. The end everlasting life. T hath ever been the perverfe language of the men of this world, “What is the Almighty that we should "ferve him? and what profit fhall we have if we pray to "him ?" A kind of expoftulation which argues as great a degree of ignorance and folly, as of impiety and profanenefs. What profit?-There is great profit in ferving God. Thousands in every age have borne this honourable testimony to real religion. A mighty prince, and the wifeft too that ever swayed an earthly fceptre, hath told us that the ways of wisdom are pleasantnefs, and all her paths are peace*. And the great apostle of Christ, whose testimony is unquestionable, hath affured us that godliness is profitable unto all things, having a promife of the life that now is †. But, admitting that it were in fome respects otherwife-admitting that the path in which the Christian is led, were dark, rough and intricate, and that temptations, dangers and forrows awaited him all his way through this wilderness; yet ftill the profit is great, inconceivably great: for THE END IS EVERLASTING LIFE. * Prov. iii. 17. Such t1 Tim. iv, 8. Such you fee is the language of the text. And the argus ment receives no finall additional force from the very strik-ing light in which the apoftle hath placed it; I mean the contraft he forms between the characters and future condition of the righteous on the one hand, and of the wicked on the other. He had been reafoning with the Christians at Rome upon their obligations to obedience. And in order to fix these impreffions the deeper in their hearts, he reminds them of the miserable state they were in, while under the power of fin and unbelief; and then opposes to that state their prefent happy condition, and their future glorious prospects. What fruit bad ye then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of thofe things is death. But now being made free from fin, and become fervants to God, ye have your fruit unto bolinefs, and the end everlasting life. And thus may the very fame question be retorted upon the men of vice and fin, which as we have obferved, they are fo prone to put to the Chriftian-What profit have you in ferving Satan, and the lufts of your own hearts? You will fay perhaps in the language your mafter would have once put into the mouth of Job, "Think you we ferve him for naught?"-No. We don't think you ferve him for naught. You have your reward, fuch as it is! even the poor pittance of fome little tranfient fenfual pleafure, which fails not to bring after it either sooner or later fhame and mifery. The wages of fin is death * But as to the man of religion, though he may be expofed to fome prefent outward inconveniences; yet, having his fruit unto holiness, he even now participates the joys of faith, and in the end fhall poffefs eternal life. By eternal life is meant the happy condition of good men in the world to come. It is expreffive of their existence after death, of the perfection to which their nature fhall attain, and of the uninterrupted felicity they shall en *Ver. 23. joy joy to all eternity. How well the phrase is adapted to . convey each of thefe ideas, and with what propriety therefore it is fo frequently used in Scripture to describe the heavenly ftate, I hardly need obferve. Now the text tells us that the end is eternal life; a mode of expreffion which may, 1. Point out the term at which the future happiness of the Christian shall commence, even the close or period of the prefent life. When this life ends that shall begin. To the short winter day we fpend here on earth, fhall immediately fucceed one long never-ending age of blifs and glory in heaven.. Some there are who defer the happiness of the faints to the morning of the refurrection, and fuppofe the foul fleeps with the body till that time. A notion this which, methinks, cannot fail of cafting a gloom over the minds of good men, on the one hand, who must needs wish to remain in poffefsion of themselves after death; and of affording pleasure to the wicked, on the other, who would gladly get rid, though it were but for a time, of the painful reflections and fears which their guilt excites. This ob jection may, indeed, seem to be removed by the confideration, that the two points of the foul's falling asleep and awakening must to its own apprehenfion be united, there being in this cafe no confcioufnefs during the intervening fpace. But (not to fay how few there are upon whom fuch a refinement will be likely to have any effect) it is farther to be objected to this notion, that if the foul may fleep for a hundred or a thoufand years, it may, for aught there is in the foul itself, fleep for ever: and fo all the arguments in favour of a future fate, arifing from the natu ral immortality of the foul, are entirely deftroyed. The definition however of the foul, as being an active, confcious principle, and of a nature perfectly remote from matter, feems to me the most just and accurate that can be given of it. And if that be admitted, I do not fee how the idea off of its fleeping, or ceafing to think and act, can be reconciled to it. But it is by Scripture that our faith as 'Chriftians must be regulated; and I cannot perceive any real ground in that facred book for this unpleafing notion. Ou the contrary, our Saviour evidently takes the doctrine of a separate state for granted in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. He clearly afferts it in his words to the penitent thief on the cross, To-day fhalt thou be with me in paradise†. And as the apostle's declaring, that he judged it far better for him to be with Chrift than to continue here, fuppofes it ; fo the fame apoftle elfewhere exprefsly speaks of being absent from the body, and present with the Lord. Nor is there any intimation given us in Scripture, as I remember, that a feparate state of existence is a privilege peculiar to the apostles. It follows therefore that the end of the prefent life, is to the Chriftian the term at which his future happiness will commence. Again, 2. The phrase may be defigned to intimate yet farther, that the happiness which the faints enjoy in heaven, is the perfection of what they in a degree attain to here on earth. And fo this future eternal life is to be confidered, not only in oppofition to their existence here, but likewife in reference to that divine life which is here begun in their hearts. The apostle had been fpeaking of their having their fruit unto holiness; and fo very properly adds, that the end, or the final completion of this life of holiness on earth, will be eternal life in heaven. When men are converted and become truly religious, they are reprefented in Scripture as being quickened or made alive by the grace of God . They have eternal life, that is, the feeds, the beginning, the dawn of eternal life in them §. And when they are removed hence, thefe principles or habits of grace which were thus generated in their hearts here, are ripened, matured and brought to their utmost *Luke xvi. 19.---ult. + Luke xxiii. 43• † Philip. i. 23. § 1 John ii. 15 |