poor; fome healthy, others fickly; fome in profperity, others in adverfity; fome spend their days in pleafure, others never eat with pleasure. But all these things are only for a time; these different ftates are only to laft for a certain number of years, which being expired, things fhall be fet on a quite different footing in the other world. So,

(1.) The fmiles, comforts, and advantages of this world that any do enjoy, will in a little time have an end. It is a pity, that any fhould value themfelves upon them. They are but the conveniencies they have in the inn, in their way to the other world, and are neither eternal, nor pledges of welfare in eternity, Luke xii. 19,-21.

(2.) The afflictions, croffes, and miseries of this world, will fhortly have an end too. As the fummer-warmth therefore will not laft, neither will its Both the faint and the finner will quickly remember them as waters that fail; the one exchanging them in the other world with eternal joys, the other with eternal forrows.

winter. blafts.

2. That our main concern lies in the world to come; for there our eternal ftate is to be fettled, there we are to have our portion for eternity. As is the weight of eternity to time, fo is the world to come to the prefent world; and as time will be swallowed up in eternity, fo ought our temporal concerns to be engaged in concern about the world to come. It is fearful heedleffnefs to behave otherwise.

3. Men must pass out of this world into the other world, from out of the world we fee, into the world we fee not; otherwife there could be no receiving our part in it.

(1.) We must all leave this world, and that paffage is by death. That is the way of all flesh, Pfal. lxxxix. 48. "What man is he that liveth, and fhall not fee death?" Death is our going hence, Pfal. xxxix. ult. And our whole life here is a journey through

the

the world, to the end of which journey we come at death, Eccl. ix. 10. However unwilling men may be to leave the world, no art nor might can alter the ftatue, Heb. ix. 27. " It is appointed unto men once to die."

(2.) We are not done when dead. We do not cease to be, when we ceafe to breathe in this world; neither do we ceafe to act, when all bodily motion fails with us. We leave our dead bodies to our friends, for them to lay up in the grave in the lower parts of this earth, but we pass away from among them, for the foul is the man; and they cannot keep us ftill, nor can we abide; but dropping the mantle of the body, we fly away.

(3.) We enter then into the other world; as at our birth we are born of our mothers into this world, at our death we are born into the world of spirits. That world which we now hear of, we will then fee; and that state we are now making forward to, we will then arrive at. When we are loft to our friends we leave behind us weeping, we will be found of others before us, and perceived as new incomers into their world.

4. This world itself passeth away, the other world will abide for ever; the age of the one is but time, that of the other is eternity; fo the former gives place to the latter.

(r.) This world is paffing, 1 Cor. vii. 31. 1 John ii. 17. It is long fince it began, and it will have an end. Its glafs is running, and the last fand thereof will run out at length; the fun and moon are by the appointment of God to make fo many rounds, and then time comes to an end, and the fabric of this evil world is diffolved. There was a curfe laid on it for man's fin; that defuged it with water once; and in the end will burn it up with fire. So,

[1] The weary land to the godly will vanish out of their fight; the wafte howling wilderness, where

in

in they had many a heavy heart, for their own fins and miferies, and thofe of others, they will fee no more for ever. It is a world that will not mend, but fpurns all means of amendment; it will be destroy ed at length, they looking on and feeing the vengeance, [2.] The land whereon the wicked fet their hearts, as the only pleasant land, will fink under their feet, and leave them to drop into the pit of deftruction in the other world. It is the ftage of their wickednefa now; but God will take it down; it is the fink of fin, but it will be burnt up, And they that took it for their portion, will perish, and their portion with them.

(3.) The other world will abide for ever, for there men liye eternally, and therefore it must be eternal. The feat of the bleffed was never defiled by mens fin, therefore there will be no paffing away of it, even when the visible heavens fhall be diffolved, which af ford light and covering to finful man; and the feat of the damned will abide for ever; for there, the everlasting fire into which they are condemned, will be kept on; and there is the place of everlasting pun ilhment. So, in a fort, it will be for evermore the world to come, in the sense that confervation is a con. tinned areation. Hence,

[1.] Entering into the other world, men are at the end of their journey, at their utmost paint; they are no more travellers, but at their home, their everlast ing home, Rev. iii. 12. Luke xvi. 26. There is no coming back again into this world, and there is no palling out of that world into another, for there is none to fucceed to it.

[2.] Whatever mens portion in that world is, it is fare; for it is an abiding world. Mens portion in this world cannot be fure, becaufe the world itself is not fo; it is like the foam on the water, which is liable to perishing, because the water itself is still in motion; but that world is not liable to paffing away;

happy

happy are they who lay up for themselves treasures

in heaven.

5. Laftly, Men are to receive, each one at length, his part for eternity. What we get now in hand, is but for time: worldly good things are fo, and even the grace given now is the provifion given for our journey through time, and is liable to many changes, if not in itself as real inherent grace, yet as to the fense thereof as relative grace; but when we come to the other world, we will receive what falls to our lot for all the ages of eternity. Hence,

(1.) Mens being is to be continued through eternity. God was from eternity, and will be to eternity; we had indeed a beginning of our being, but it will have no end. Our being in this world will foon come to an end; but when we ceafe to be in this world, we will be in the other. Though the body is mortal, the foul is immortal, and will never cease to be. Death will diffolve the union betwixt foul and body; but it will not touch the foul to put an end to it.

(2.) Our ftate in the other world will continue for ever, as it is fixed and determined at death, Eccl. xi. 3. If we die in the favour of God, we will never lofe it. if we die out of it, we will never recover it; for cur ftate in the other world will be eternal. Now, if we be wrong, we may yet get right again; but there is no mending of our state.

Were it bewherein we

(3.) Laftly, Our great work now then must be to have a happy part fecured for us there. lieved, that the moment is abiding us, fhall be fet down in an unalterable state; there could not be fo little care about it, to have it right. But alas! the din of this world, will not fuffer the report from the other world to take place with us.

II. I fhall confirm the being of another world, a world to come, wherein men fhall receive their part

for

for eternity. And to establish the notion of that world in the general, confider,

1. There is an invifible world actually in being, namely, the world of fpirits, diftinct from our visible world, Heb. i. 2. Col. i. 16. Invifible it is, not in respect of the inhabitants thereof, for the faints that are there are in light, and even the rich man in hell is faid to fee Lazarus in Abraham's bofom; but in refpect of us who are in the world, it is invifible. This is that other world, into which, we fay, the fouls of men do pafs, going out of this world by death.

This is the world to come spoken of in the text, of which heaven the feat of the bleffed is a part. For it is evident, that it is in heaven the lofing faints fhall receive eternal life, even in the heaven that now is; and that their heavenly eternal life is not put off till the last day, Phil. i. 23. Luke xxiv. 51. 2 Cor. v. 1. The only difficulty is, how that world now in being, can be called the world to come. To which it is answered, that it is fo called in refpect of us, who have now no part or place in it, as in this world, but at death are to get it. So that though in itself it is come already, yet as to us it is to come. Further,

2. That world will at the end of time be extended, to the comprehending of the new heavens and new earth, which will take place after the conflagration of this world. That there will be a pafling away, an end of this world, appears from 1 John ii. 17. a perifhing of it, Pfal. cii. 25, 26. and that it will be by fire, 2 Pet. iii. 10.; and that God will create new heavens and earth upon the back of that, ver. 13. "Nevertheless we, according to his promife, look for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteoufnefs." Thefe will be a new world, not belonging to this world, which then will be gone, but to the other world, the world to come.

And in refpect of this addition, the other world is the world to come, which is not now in being. And

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