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future what he poffeffes for the prefent. But the happiness of heaven is a fteady and conftant light, fixed and unchangeable as the fountain from whence it fprings, the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, nor fhadow of turning.

And if the enjoyments of this life were certain, yet they are unfatisfying This is the vanity of vanities, that every thing in this world can trouble us, but nothing can give us fatisfaction. I know not how it is, but either we, or the things of this world, or both, are fo phantaftical, that we can neither be well with thefe things, nor well without them. If we be hungry, we are in pain; and if we eat to the full, we are uneasy. If we be poor, we think ourselves miferable; and when we come to be rich, we commonly really are fo. If we are in a low condition, we fret and murmur; and if we chance to get up, and to be raised to greatnefs, we are many times farther from contentment than we were before. So that we purfue the happiness of this world just as little children chace birds: when we think we are come very near it, and have it almost in our hands, it flies farther from us than it was at first.

Nay, fo far are the enjoyments of this world from affording us fatisfaction, that the sweetest of them are most apt to fatiate and cloy us. All the pleafures of this world are fo contrived, as to yield us very little happinefs. If they go off quickly, they fignify nothing; and if they ftay long, we are fick of them. After a full draught of any fenfual pleasure, we presently loathe it, and hate it as much after the enjoyment, as we courted it and longed for it in the expectation. But the delights of the other world, as they will give us full fatisfaction, fo we fhall never be weary of them. Every repetition of them will be accompanied with a new pleasure and contentment. In the felicities of heaven, thefe two things fhall be reconciled, which never met together in any fenfual delight; long and full enjoyment, and yet a fresh and perpetual pleafure. As in God's prefence there is fulness of joy, fo at his right band there fhall be pleasures for evermore.

2. The happiness of the other life is not only incom parably beyond any happiness of this world, (that, it may be, is no great commendation of it), but it is very

great

great in itself. The happiness of heaven is ufually in fcripture described to us by fuch pleasures as are manly and excellent, chafte and intellectual;, infinitely more pure and refined than those of sense: and if the fcrip-ture at any time defcend to the metaphors of a feast,. and a banquet, and a marriage; it is plainly by way of accommodation to our weakness, and condefcenfion to our capacities.

But the chief ingredients of this happiness, fo far as the fcripture hath thought fit to reveal it to us, are, the perfection of our knowledge, and the height of our love, and the perpetual fociety and friendfhip of all the bleffed: inhabitants of thofe glorious manfions; and the joyful! concurrence of all thefe in chearful expreffions of gratitude, in the inceffant praises and admiration of the fountain and author of all this happiness. And what can be more delightful, than to have our understandings entertained with a clear fight of the best and most perfect: being, with the knowledge of all his works, and of the wife defigns of his providence here in the world? than to live in the reviving prefence of God, and to be continually attending upon him whofe favour is life, and whofe glory is much more above that of any of the: princes of this world, than the greatest of them is above: the poorest worm? The Queen of Sheba thought So. lomon's fervants happy in having the opportunity, by ftanding continually before him, to hear his wifdom;; but, in the other world, it fhall be a happiness to Solomon himself, and to the wifeft and greateft perfons that ever were in this world, to ftand before this grea King, to admire his wifdem, and to behold his glory Not that I imagine the happiness of heaven to confist in a perpetual gazing upon God, and in an idle contem plation of the glories of that place for as by that ble fed fight we fhall be infinitely tranfported, fo the fcrip-ture tells us we shall be alfo transformed into the image of the divine perfections: We shall fee God, and we fhall! be like him. And what greater happiness can there be, than to be like the happiest and most perfect being in the world Befides, who can tell what employment: God may have for us in the next life? We need not: doubt, but that he who is happiness itfelf, and hath

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promised to make us happy, can easily find out fuch employments and delights for us in the other world, as will be proper and suitable to that state.

But then, befides the improvement of our knowledge, there fhall be the most delightful exercife of love. When we come to heaven, we fhall enter into the fociety of the bleffed angels, and of the fpirits of juft men made. perfect; that is, freed from all those paffions and infire mities which do now render the converfation, even of the best men, fometimes troublefome to one another. We fhall then meet with all thofe excellent perfons, those brave minds, those innocent and charitable fouls, whom we have feen, and heard, and read of,. in this world. There we fhall meet with many of our dear relations and intimate friends, and perhaps with many of our enemies; to whom we shall then be perfectly reconciled, notwithstanding all the warm contests and: peevish differences which we had with them in this world, even about matters of religion. For heaven is a state of perfect love and friendship; there will be nothing but kindness and good-nature there, and all the prudent arts of endearment, and wife ways of rendering con. verfation mutually pleasant to one another. And what greater happiness can be imagined, than to converse freely with fo many excellent perfons, without any thing of folly or difguife, of jealoufy or defign upon one ano ther? For then there will be none of thofe vices and paffions, of covetoufnefs and ambition, of envy and ha tred, of wrath and peevifhnefs, which do now fo much fpoil the pleafure and difturb the quiet of mankind. All quarrels and contentions, fchifms and divifions, will then be effectually hindered; not by force, but by love; not by compulfion, but by that charity which never fails: and all thofe controverfies in religion, which are now fo hotly agitated, will then be finally determined; not as we endeavour to end them now, by canons and decrees, but by a perfect knowledge, and convincing light.

And when this bleffed fociety is met together, and thus united by love, they fhall all join in gratitude to their great patrons and benefactors: To him that fits upon the throne, and to the Lamb that was flain: to God even our Father, and to our Lord Jesus Chrift, who hath

loved us, and washed us from our fins in his own blood.. And they fhall fing everlasting fongs of praise to God,. for all his works of wonder, for the effects of that infinite goodness, and admirable wisdom, and almighty, power, which are clearly feen in the creation and government of the world, and of all the creatures in it :: particularly for his favours to mankind; for the benefit: of their beings, for the comfort of their lives, and for all his merciful providences towards them in this world; but above all, for the redemption of their fouls by the death of his Son, for the free forgiveness of their fins, for the gracious affiftance of his Holy Spirit, and for conducting them fafely through all the fnares and dangers, the troubles and temptations, of this world, to the fecure poffeffion of that glory and happiness which then they shall be partakers of, and are bound to praise God for to all eternity. This, this fhall be the employment of the bleffed fpirits above; and these are the chief ingredients of our happiness which the fcripture mentions. And if there were no other, as there may be ten thousand more for any thing I can tell; yet generous and virtuous minds will eafily understand, how great a pleasure there is in the improvement of our knowledge, and the exercife of love, and in a grateful and perpetual acknowledgement of the greatest benefits that creatures are capable of receiving,

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3. This happinefs fhall be eternal. And though this be but a circumstance, and do not enter into the nature of our happiness; yet is is fo material a one, that all the felicities which heaven affords would be imperfect without it. It would ftrangely damp and allay all our joys, to think that they fhould fometime have an end. the greater our happiness were, the greater trouble it would be to us to confider that it must have a period. It would make a man forrowful indeed, to think of leaving fuch vaft poffeffions. Indeed, if the happiness of heaven were fuch as the joys of this world are, it were fit they fhould be as fhort; for after a little enjoyment, it would cloy us, and we fhould foon grow weary of it. But being fo excellent, it would fcarce be a happiness, if it were not eternal. It would imbitter the pleasures of heaven, as great as they are, to fee to an end of

them,

them, though it were at never so great a distance; to confider that all this vaft treasure of happiness would one day be exhaufted; and that, after fo many years were paft, we should be as poor and miferable again as we were once in this world. God hath fo- ordered things, that the vain and empty delights of this world fhould be temporary and tranfient; but that the great and substantial pleasures of the other world fhould be as lafting as they are excellent. For heaven, as it is an exceeding, fo it is an eternal weight of glory. And this is that which crowns the joys of heaven, and banishes all fear and trouble from the minds of the bleffed. And. thus to be fecured in the poffeffion of our happiness, is an unspeakable addition to it. For that which is eter nal, as it shall never determine, fo it can never be di minifhed for to be diminished, and to decay, is to draw nearer to an end; but that which fhall never have: an end, can never come nearer to it.

O vast eternity! how dost thou fwallow up our thoughts, and entertain us at once with delight and amazement? This is the very top and highest pitch of our happiness, upon which we may ftand fecure, and look down with fcorn upon all things here below: and: how fmall and inconfiderable do they appear to us, compared with the vaft and endless enjoyments of . Our future ftate? But oh! vain and foolish fouls, that are fo little concerned for eternity, that for the trifles of time, and the pleasures of fin, which are but for a feafon, can find in our hearts to forfeit an everlasting felicity! Bleffed God! why haft thou prepared fuch a happiness for those who neither confider it, nor feek after it? Why is fuch a price put into the hands of fools, who have no heart to make use of it? who fondly chufe to gratify their lufts, rather than to fave their fouls, and fottifhly prefer the temporary enjoyments of fin, before a bleffed immortality?

4. And lastly, This happiness is far above any thing that we can now conceive or imagine. It is fo great, that is cannot now enter into the heart of man. We cannot, from the experience of any of thofe pleasures and delights which we have been acquainted withal in this world, frame an equal idea and conception of it.

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