far from being happy in such a society, he would be altogether wretched, and impatient of the restraints which, for a season, it might impose upon him. But, to a man of enlightened understanding, of equal virtue, and of congenial rank, it would be one of the highest pleasures he could enjoy on earth. If, then, a capacity to participate in the pleasures of this life-I mean those which are refined and pure-is essential to the real enjoyment of them, how much more essential to the pleasures of heaven must be a similar capacity to participate in them! Oh! to suppose, as thousands do, that if by any means, no matter how, we could enter that high and glorious world, we should necessarily be happy, is to indulge a supposition, not only at variance with the positive testimony of Scripture, and with the decisions of a sound and enlightened understanding, but with those principles of our nature which are in action every day. For if, without a susceptibility to the beauties of nature, the most enchanting scenes would afford us no gratification; or if, without a refined and cultivated taste, the society of the most

Oh!

intelligent and virtuous individuals would be a burden rather than a pleasure, how in the nature of things is it possible that the glories, the felicities, and the fellowship of heaven could make us happy without such a refinement of the feelings and the susceptibilities of the heart as should be congenial to them? were it possible for an unholy person to enter heaven, the moral purity of the place would confound him. And that which to the saints in light is the source of their highest pleasure, namely, the bright shechinah, the symbol of the ¡mmediate presence of their God, to him would be the source of the deepest misery and distress. Such a blaze of light he could not bear, neither could he bear the society of the holy beings that are around him, but would gladly hide himself for ever from so much purity and such awful goodness.

From the above remarks, it must be obvious that a moral adaptation to the society and to the felicities of heaven is indispensable, and that not only to the admission of the spirit into that high and holy place, but to the happiness of it when admitted. But such an adaptation, man, as a

fallen being, does not possess. As a sinner, he is alienated from the life of God, and an enemy to him by wicked works. He is also the subject of a moral pollution,-a pollution which has penetrated the very centre of his spirit,— has contaminated the noble powers that it possesses, and has perverted them from the end for which they were bestowed. If such, then, is the present condition of man, and such the pollution of his spirit, it will obviously and necessarily follow that ere he can be brought to the enjoyment of God, in which the felicity of heaven essentially consists, he must be the subject of that invisible and spiritual change, on the necessity of which our Lord so strenuously insisted in his conversation with Nicodemus:-"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king

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dom of God; that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

To be "born" then "of the Spirit" is an indispensable qualification for heavenly happiness, by which language is meant the implantation of those principles and of those virtues which are the special production of the Spirit of God, which assimilate us to the moral likeness of the Deity, and which, when matured, will fit us for the immediate vision of his glory. For "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;" and where but the germ of such virtues exists, a character is forming for the highest measure of felicity which God himself can bestow; inasmuch as under the immediate influence of the Spirit every duty, ordinance, mercy, and affliction, is maturing the virtues which he possesses, and

advancing them to that perfection which shall fit him for the blissful enjoyment of his God. Hence, if we would be prepared for heaven, we must possess the graces of the Spirit,must live in the constant exercise of them; and, in the language of the apostle, we must give all diligence to "add to our faith fortitude, and to fortitude knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For, if these things be in us and abound, they will permit us to be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so shall an entrance be abundantly administered unto us into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour."

Now an ardent attachment to God himself is not only an indispensable, but a principal qualification for celestial blessedness; for though he is but little regarded on earth, and in a multitude of instances almost banished from the thoughts of the creatures whom he has made,it is not so in heaven. There he is "all in all," enthroned in the affections of every ethereal in