indeed interposes on most occasions, and asserts its right of dictating to the will; yet unless it is seconded by the heart, it is overruled, or but half obeyed; whereas affection, without, or even against reason, can often produce very earnest pursuits, and vigorous actions. When the affections go foremost in the conduct of any man, he is, for the time, no better than a brute. His very nature is inverted; and reason in him is of no other use, than to make him a little more ingeniously foolish, more regularly mad and wicked.

If it is asked, how a rational creature should ever act against reason; experience readily answers, man cannot help pursuing his own supposed happiness, and flying from that which he thinks will make him miserable. Now, it is through his affections chiefly that he enjoys, or suffers; and therefore it is no wonder, if they assume a very extraordinary sway within him. Besides, their motions from one object, and to another, are generally so sudden and violent, that reason hath not time to interfere, till they are become too strong to be controlled. They give pleasure, and we follow; or they give pain, and we fly; before it is well considered, whether we should do either; for all is not good, that pleases; nor all evil, that disgusts. Hence it is manifest, that judgment is necessary to turn the affections away from that which is really evil, and to point them towards that which is really good. With the heat and vehemence that is natural to them, whether they are directed or not, they always move swiftly, and tend strongly, after the present appearance, whereon they are fixed. If in any man right reason, duly enlightened, hath the guidance and government of the affections, he must be happy; because he must be good: but if his affections are left to themselves, he must be wicked; and he who is wicked, must be miserable. If they are chained down to earthly things, and pent in to fleshly objects, they turn his heart into a fiery furnace, resembling the place of the damned, inhabited only by that which is foul and miserable; but, if they aspire towards things above, they blaze forth in kindly heat, and beautiful light; which refine as they ascend, till they mix with their kindred element in God.

All mankind are in pursuit of either real or mistaken happiness, and flying from such appearances of evil, as pre

sent themselves to their affections and passions. All our labours of body, and anxieties of mind, all our arts and schemes, all the risks we run on sea, or in battle, the profuseness of one, and the frugality of another, the activity of this, and the indolence of that, the honesty or knavery, the commerce, and the policy; in short, the whole importance, and struggle, and bustle of the world, is in order to one or other of these two great ends; to obtain some good, or avoid some evil; and proceeds altogether from our affections.

In the midst of all this hurry, and an infinite variety of solicitation made to our senses and desires by the things here below, religion steps in, and bids us set our affections on certain things above, which it proposes to be first examined by our understandings, and, if approved of, to be closed with on the part of our desires. These things are God and heaven, in the enjoyment of which to all eternity consists the chief, if not the only, happiness of man. Give me leave to propose this to you as the subject of the present Discourse.

A subject so copious and important can never be exhausted, can never be brought too often under consideration. Besides, as it is of all others infinitely the most delightful, no frequency of meditation can render it disagreeable or insipid to a mind that either aspires to great things, or has any taste of true pleasure.

As the proposal is made us by God himself, and founded on our own nature, I shall single out the several notions by which it is represented and conveyed to us in his holy Scriptures; and, one by one, illustrate and enforce them as well as I can.

The first representation of our happiness after death, I shall take notice of, is, that of rest. In the fourteenth of St. John's Revelation it is said by a voice from heaven, and by the Spirit of God, that 'the dead, which die in the Lord, are blessed; and that they rest from their labours.' In the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle, having formed an allegory between the promise of a temporal rest given to the Israelites, and of a spiritual given to Christians, says, 'There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God;' and 'let us therefore labour to enter into that rest. Christ, in the eleventh of St. Matthew, calls this

'a rest for the soul.' Job says, it is a rest for the weary;' and Isaiah, speaking even of its commencement in this life, calls it, a glorious rest.'

It was the curse inflicted on all mankind, upon the fall of our first parents, that they should eat bread in the sweat of their face, till they should return unto the ground.' 'All things,' says the preacher, are full of labour; man cannot utter it.' But in Christ's kingdom the righteous shall find a glorious and eternal rest for their souls. No anxieties of mind, nor toils of body, shall follow us into that happy place of ease and repose. The weary shall no more stoop under his burden; nor he that was stunned with the bustle of this world, any more hear the clamour of the crowd, nor be tossed in an ocean of business, like a bubble amidst the froth of a whirlpool. His soul shall enjoy a perfect calm, undisturbed by passions or cares. In this profound silence, his will shall listen to his reason, and his reason to the soft whispers of nature, and the still voice of God.

In the next place, the condition of the happy is set forth in the holy Scriptures under the notion of peace. 'Mark the perfect man,' says David in the thirty-seventh psalm; 'and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.' Isaiah says in the fifty-seventh chapter, that 'the righteous is taken away from the evil to come, and that he shall enter into peace.' The just and devout Simeon, to whom it had been revealed, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ,' taking the child Jesus in his arms, cried out, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'

By our natural birth we are born to enmity with God, and though by religious birth in baptism, that enmity in our flesh is abolished, yet we are then enlisted into the service of God against a powerful combination of enemies; namely, the world, the flesh, and the devil; whose continual assaults keep us actually in a state of war from thenceforward to the hour of our death. But then it is, that after having fought a good fight of faith, we enter into true peace; a peace which those enemies shall no longer be able to disturb. There shall be no evil principles to combat the good, nor inordinate passions to make war on each other or on our reason; no error to kindle vain disputes; no ambition, nor

avarice, to stir up strife and rage. Anger, and wrath, and clamour, and evil-speaking, with every malicious passion, every surly and jealous humour, that shuts our hearts against each other in this life, being then put far away from us, calm thoughts and benevolent dispositions, shall succeed into their place; and open our affections to all the infinite sweets of love and friendship from our fellow-creatures, and favour from God. With what a glow of tenderness must it warm a benevolent heart, to see the generous love that unites the spirits of good men made perfect;' to see those souls, who perhaps in this life contended bitterly about the trifles of this world, meeting like 'righteousness and peace, and kissing each other;' to see them strike hands, and unite hearts, for ever!

Again, the happiness of the next life is represented to us in holy Scripture as a treasure. Our Saviour bids us 'lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal.' He desired the rich young man to 'sell all he had;' and told him, that he should have treasure in heaven.' Again he assures his disciples, that' every one, who had forsaken houses or lands for his name's sake, should receive an hundred fold, and inherit everlasting life.'

The riches of this world generally cost us much more than they are worth; and even when we have obtained them, we have no certain hold of them; they make themselves wings, and fly away;' or although they should not, death soon removes us from them, and 'we cannot tell who shall gather them.' The greater part of human understanding, and worldly wisdom, is laid out in making fortunes and raising families. How do the living magnify this kind of wisdom! How do the dead repent of it or deride it! How like a child the rich man falls, and scatters all his collection of baubles! And how like children do those about him scramble for the trifles!

ever.

It is not so with the riches of heaven. They last for There are no thieves, no moths, nor worms, no accidents nor deaths, to take them from us. Our 'spiritual house' with all its rich treasures and shining ornaments, 'is eternal in the heavens.' Its everlasting foundations are laid on the firm rock of God's promises; its stately structure rises

among the beautiful buildings of the new Jerusalem; its walls sparkle with jasper, and its floors shine with 'gold transparent like glass.'

The riches of this world are poverty; for he who has the most of them still wants more. In heaven only there is enough. The wealthiest monarch in this world must rob a beast, a bird, or a worm, to make himself gay; and after all is not as fine as the lily.' But those who are thought worthy to attend in the train of the Lamb, shall be clothed in garments whose whiteness and lustre not eternity itself can tarnish. The wealthiest of men can only feed on the earth, in common with brutes and worms. But those who shall be received into the new Jerusalem, shall drink out of that river of life that flows from the throne of God, whose waters are clear as crystal;' and shall eat the fruit of that tree of life, whose very leaves heal the nations.'

Again, the happiness of heaven is represented to us, under the notion of pleasure. We are told in the sixteenth psalm, that at the right hand of God, where the righteous are placed, are pleasures for evermore;' and in the thirtysixth psalm, that his faithful people shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of his house, and shall be made to drink of the river of his pleasures.'

The pleasures of this life seldom satisfy; and when they do they surfeit. They enfeeble the body. They relax the very soul. Corruption and shame are mixed up with their nature. They begin in anxiety, and end in repentance. They were given us to answer certain ends in this present state; but we pursue them beyond those natural ends, to our own confusion and ruin. As soon as this life shall cease, then cease also all those pleasures that are peculiar to it; for in another life we shall be as the angels in heaven. As their happiness is of a purely spiritual and celestial nature, so shall ours be. It shall be such as seraphims can partake in; such as we can, without shame, enjoy in the sight of God. It shall in short, be such as the soul, renewed and strengthened in all its powers, and enlarged in its capacity, can injoy. One moment of such enjoyment would overpower and dissolve our nature, in its present infirmity. But when we shall have put on immortality,' the delights of heaven, instead of impairing, shall refresh the faculties that