men, and which they should delight to meditate upon, both because they are immediately and intimately connected with that salvation in which they now ought to be more peculiarly interested, and leading their contemplation into that eternity they do certainly border upon; and also, because the chief and natural satisfaction of old age is mental rather than bodily. But even here many recollections crowd upon a mind even less sensible to the gratifications of thought and serious meditation. They may have been recovered and rescued in times of great bodily danger. Their lives and limbs have been preserved to them through some great perils, some extraordinary accidents, some severe sickness. They have often been drawn near to the edge and brink of their mortal fate. They have stood upon the precipice of death and confines of eternity; and what makes such preservation a mercy indeed is that which I fear too many of us but too well remember that if they had been cut off when they were in so much danger, they had been cut off in their sins. Is not then our preservation from such dangers, both ghostly and bodily-both of soul and body-a mercy to be acknowledged with the deepest sense of thankfulness and obligation? Still more shall we acknowledge it, if we have used the mercy and forbearance of our Maker as we ought to do; that is, if we have grown better since: if danger has alarmed and roused us; if our escape has taught us fear and cautionfear of God, and caution in offending him: if these beginnings have gone on, and have had the effect of generating seriousness of temper, holiness and purity of heart, more spirituality than was formerly felt, stronger faith and livelier hopes, a gradual rising above the follies of the world; what may we not attribute to this multitude of years to this language, which nature and age so forcibly speak? A mature age, well instructed by experience, well versed in the changes and chances of this mortal life, ought to be expected to have where at last to fix its views-whither to point and direct all its endeavours-from whence to look for any steadfast ground of consolation, any firm security, any rational object of pursuit and confidence.

XXIV.

DIFFERENT DEGREES OF FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.

JOHN v. 29.

They that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.

THERE is a difference introduced into religion of this sort. From the text-from the mention made of separation merely, and placing one sort on the right hand and the other on the left from the familiar notions and method of speaking of heaven and hell, of salvation and perdition, we are led to imagine that the human species at the day of judgement will be divided into two kinds that the one will be advanced in heaven to supreme happiness; that the other will be consigned in hell to extreme misery. This is a way of thinking we may easily and naturally fall into; but when we come to consider it further, there are two or three principal difficulties attending this opinion on the subject.

First; it seems a defect in the Christian religion, that it nowhere points out the precise quantity of

innocence or virtue sufficient for our salvation, or necessary to entitle us to admission into heaven.

Secondly; that there is no encouragement, according to this account, to go beyond, or strive after a superior degree of holiness.

Thirdly; that we cannot easily comprehend how it should be a just dispensation of Providence to advance one part of mankind to supreme happiness, and commit the other to extreme misery, when there cannot be much to choose beween the worst of the one sort, and the best of the other between the best who are excluded from heaven, and the worst who are received into it.

Now for the satisfaction of these several doubts and difficulties, I shall endeavour to show, that it is most agreeable to our conception of divine justice, and also consonant to the language of Scripture, to suppose that there are prepared for us rewards and punishments of all possible degrees and varieties, from the most exalted happiness down to extreme misery; upon which plan satisfactory answers may be given to all the difficulties just now stated.

First; that it is in its nature impossible, and upon this plan needless, to ascertain the precise quantity of virtue necessary to salvation.

Secondly; that upon this plan our labour is never in vain that we have encouragement to proceed from virtue to virtue, from one degree of goodness to another, till we attain the utmost which our ability and opportunity admit of.

Thirdly; that this plan totally subverts all objection to the divine economy, in not adapting the degrees of reward and punishment, to the degrees of virtue and vice.

These points I shall speak to distinctly, and in their order. It is most agreeable to our natural conceptions of justice to suppose that there are prepared for us rewards and punishments of every possible degree. It is hardly necessary to contend that there exists an almost infinite variety of virtue and vice, of merit and demerit, in different persons. The conduct of any great number of persons is seldom alike, or the same, though they may be all virtuous, or all innocent, or all vicious; but that is not the whole. The same conduct is capable of very different degrees of virtue or guilt, according to the abilities, the opportunities, and the temptations. In acts of goodness, the merit will be proportionably increased, as the abilities to perform them are less, and as greater acts of self-denial and exertion are requisite. The opportunities, which happen to different men of doing good, are also very various, and constitute a proportionable variety in the character; for every opportunity neglected becomes a vice. In estimating the guilt of criminal actions, it would be extremely unfair to have no consideration by which the criminal. was urged. A man who steals for want is wrong, but it would be hard to place the crime upon a level with his who steals to support his vices, to indulge his vanity, to supply his pleasures. Now the actual