ftrengthen the feeble knees! Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, faith your God. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Truft in your all-fufficient Redeemer, truft in him though he should flay you.

And do not indulge causeless doubts and fears concerning your fincerity. When they arife in your minds. examine them, and fearch whether there be any fufficient reason for them; and if you discover there is not, then reject them and fet them at defiance, and entertain your hopes in fpite of them, and say with the Pfalmift, Why art thou caft down, O my foul, and why art thou difquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I fhall yet praise him, the health of my countenance, and my God. Pfalm xliii. 11.

SERMON

IX.

The Connexion between Present Holinefs and Future

Felicity.

HEB. xii. 14. Follow-bolinefs; without which no man Shall fee the Lord.

A

S the human foul was originally defigned for the enjoyment of no lefs a portion than the everbleffed God, it was formed with a strong innate ten

dency towards happiness. It has not only an eager

fondness for exiftence, but for fome good to render its existence happy. And the privation of being itself is not more terrible than the privation of all its bleffings. It is true, in the prefent degeneracy of human nature, this vehement defire is miferably perverted and mifplaced: man seeks his fupreme happiness in finful, or at best in created enjoyments, forgetful of the uncreated fountain of blifs; but yet ftill he feeks happiness; ftill this innate impetus is predominant, and though he mistakes the means, yet he ftill retains a general aim

at

at the end. Hence he ranfacks this lower world in queft of felicity; climbs in fearch of it the flippery afcent of honour; hunts for it in the treasures of gold and filver; or plunges for it in the foul ftreams of fenfual pleafures. But fince all the fordid fatisfaction refulting from these things are not adequate to the unbounded cravings of the mind, and fince the fatisfaction is tranfitory and perishing, or we may be wretched from it by the inexorable hand of death, the mind breaks through the limits of the prefent enjoyments, and even of the lower creation, and ranges through the unknown scenes of futurity in queft of fome untried good. Hope makes excurfions into the dark duration between the prefent now and the grave, and forms to itself pleafing images of approaching bleffings, which often vanish in the embrace, like delufive phantoms. Nay, it launches into the vast unknown world that lies beyond the grave, and roves through the regions of immenfity after fome complete felicity to fupply the defects of fublunary enjoyments. Hence, though men, till their spirits are refined by regenerating grace, have no relish for celestial joys, but pant for the poor pleasures of time and fenfe, yet, as they cannot avoid the unwelcome confciousness that death will ere long rend them from these fordid and momentary enjoyments, are conftrained to indulge the hope of blifs in a future ftate: and they promise themfelves happiness in another world when they can no Jonger enjoy any in this. And as reason and revelation unitedly affure them that this felicity cannot then confist in sensual indulgences, they generally expect it will be of a more refined and fpiritual nature, and flow more immediately from the great Father of spirits.

He must indeed be miferable that abandons all hope of this bleffedness. The chriftian religion affords him no other prospect but that of eternal, intolerable mifery in the regions of darkness and despair; and if he flies to infidelity as a refuge, it can afford him no comfort but the shocking profpect of annihilation.

Now,

Now, if men were preffed into heaven by an unavoidable fatality, if happiness was promifcuoufly promised to them all without distinction of characters, then they might indulge a blind unexamined hope, and never perplex themselves with anxious enquiries about it. And he might justly be deemed a malignant disturber of the repofe of mankind that would attempt to fhock their hope, and frighten them with causeless scruples.

But if the light of nature intimates, and the voice of fcripture proclaims aloud, that this eternal felicity is referved only for perfons of particular characters, and that multitudes, multitudes who entertained pleafing hopes of it, are confounded with an eternal difappointment, and fhall fuffer an endless duration in the most terrible miferies, we ought each of us to take the alarm, and examine the grounds of our hope, that, if they appear fufficient, we may allow ourselves a rational fatisfaction in them; and, if they are found delufive, we may abandon them and feek for a hope which will bear the teft now while it may be obtained. And however difagreeable the task be to give our fellow-creatures even profitable uneafiness, yet he must appear to the impartial a friend to the beft interefts of mankind, who points out the evidences and foundation of a rational and fcriptural hope, and expofes the various mistakes to which we are fubject in fo important a cafe.

And if, when we look around us, we find perfons full of the hopes of heaven, who can give no fcriptural evidences of them to themselves or others; if we find many indulging this pleafing delufion, whose practices are mentioned by God himself as the certain marks of perishing finners; and if perfons are fo tenacious of these hopes, that they will retain them to their everlasting ruin, unless the moft convictive methods are taken to undeceive them; then it is high time for thofe to whom the care of fouls (a weightier

charge

charge than that of kingdoms) is intrufted, to use the greatest plainnefs for this purpose.

This is my chief defign at prefent, and to this my text naturally leads me. It contains these doctrines: Firft, That without holiness here it is impoffible for us to enjoy heavenly happiness in the future world. To fee the Lord, is here put for enjoying him; fee Rom. viii. 24. and the metaphor fignifies the happinefs of the future state in general; and more particularly intimes that the knowledge of God will be a special ingredient therein. See a parallel expreffion in

Matt. v. 8.

Secondly, That this confideration fhould induce us to use the most earnest endeavours to obtain the heavenly happiness. Purfue holiness, becaufe without it no man can see the Lord.

Hence I am naturally led,

I. To explain the nature of that holiness, without which no man fhall fee the Lord.

II. To fhew what endeavours fhould be used to ob. tain it.

And,

III. To urge you to use them by the confideration of the abfolute neceflity of holiness.

I. I am to explain the nature of holinefs. And Į fhall give you a brief definition of it, and then men tion fome of thofe difpofitions and practices which na turally flow from it.

The most intelligible defcription of holiness, as it is inherent in us, may be this," It is a conformity in "It heart and practice to the revealed will of God." As the Supreme Being is the ftandard of all perfection, his holiness in particular is the standard of ours. Then we are holy when his image is stamped upon our hearts and reflected in our lives; fo the apoftle defines it, And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Eph. iv. 24. Whom he did predeftinate to be conformed to the image of bis Son. Rom. viii. 29. Hence holiness may be defined, "A conformity to God in his moral perfec

tions."

tions." But as we cannot have a diftinct knowledge of these perfections but as they are manifefted by the revealed will of God, I choose to define holiness, as above, "A conformity to his revealed will." Now his revealed will comprizes both the law and the gofpel the law informs us of the duty which we as creatures owe to God as a being of fupreme excellency, as our Creator and Benefactor, and to men as our fellowcreatures; and the gospel informs us of the duty which as finners we owe to God as reconcileable through a Mediator. Our obedience to the former implies the whole of morality, and to the latter the whole of evangelical graces, as faith in a Mediator, repentance, &c.

From this definition of holiness it appears, on the one hand, that it is abfolutely neceffary to fee the Lord; for unless our difpofitions are conformed to him, we cannot be happy in the enjoyment of him: and, on the other hand, that they who are made thus holy, are prepared for the vifion and fruition of his face, as they can relish the divineft pleasure.

But as a concife definition of holinefs may give an auditory but very imperfect ideas of it, I fhall expatiate upon the difpofitions and practices in which it confifts, or which naturally result from it; and they are fuch as follow:

1. A delight in God for his holiness. Self-love may prompt us to love him for his goodness to us; and fo many unregenerate men may have a felfish love to God on this account. But to love God because he is infinitely holy, because he bears an infinite deteftation to all fin, and will not indulge his creatures in the neglect of the least instance of holiness, but commands them to be holy as he is holy, this is a difpofition connatural to a renewed foul only, and argues a conformity to his image. Every nature is most agreeable to itself, and a holy nature is most agreeable to an holy nature.

Here I would make a remark, which may God deeply impress on your hearts, and which for that purpose I fhall fubjoin to each particular, that holiness in fallen

man