eternity. Here lies the frame, like the dry bones before me; but, the soul is gone to the sessions of righteousness; and perhaps, the dreadful sentence of the divine justice is pronounced on it. This is a tremendous affair, that calls for timely and serious consideration. Eternity! Eternal misery! They that have done evil, to come forth unto the resurrection of damnation.

I will take thy advice then, thou glorious penitent, JOHN ORTON; and since it is in my power to come forth unto the resurrection of life, and obtain immortality, honour, and glory, with the righteous, in the kingdom of their father, I will open the reforming gospel night and morning, and by its heavenly directions regulate my conduct. I am determined to make a wise and serious preparation for death and judgment. To the best of my power, I will provide for that day, when the prayers and charities of the righteous will be brought forth as their memorials before the tribunal of Jesus Christ.

This is the thing to be minded. The brightest scenes of worldly prosperity, and grandeur, are contemptible, when they do not accord with virtue and piety. Death, in a few years, blends the prince and the meanest subject, the conqueror and the slave, the statesman, the warrior and the most insignifi

cant, in one promiscuous ruin; and the schemes, the competitions, and the interests, which have engaged the chief attention of the world, are brought to nothing, and appear, too often, ridiculous: but righteousness is unchangeably glorious, and in the universal ruin, receives no detriment: when all human power and policy will be extinct; concealed piety and persecuted virtue, will again appear, and be owned as his by the Lord of Hosts, in that day when he maketh up his jewels.

I will love thee therefore, O Lord, my strength; yea, I will love thee and it shall ever be my heart's desire, that my soul may behold by faith in itself, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, able and ready to change it into the same image from glory to glory, reflected upon, and conveyed to it by the Spirit of the Lord. May my portion here be this blessed transforming union, that I may be made partaker of the divine nature, by impressions from it. I shall

* The expression, partaker of the divine nature by impressions from it,' may, perhaps, be thought by some readers, to approach to vision; and to contradict my own opinion before delivered, in relation to this subject: let me obзeve then, that by impression, I here mean no more, than bright beams of light cast upon the soul by the present Deity; as he sits all power, all knowledge,

then have all I wish, and all I want. With a settled indifference I shall then look upon the highest ad

in the heart, and dispenses such rays of wisdom to the pious petitioner, as are sufficient to procure a lasting sense of spiritual heavenly things. God is not only in heaven.

He dwelleth indeed in the heaven of heavens after the most glorious manner, as the High and Lofty One, and by some splendid appearance, manifests a presence to the senses of the blessed spirits*: but as he

As to the expression just now used, to wit, that this infinite Spirit manifests himself to the senses of his blessed subjects-it may be asked how this can be-can the eye behold what is infinite and invisible?

The answer is this, that although God's essence be invisible, yet there is a glory, the train and attendance of his essence, which exhibits a bodily and sensible vision of God. He decketh himself with light as with a garment. This is the dwelling of his essence. He dwelleth in light that is unapproachable.

We must distinguish then between the essential and the majestatic presence of God. The majestatic presence is the discovery of his essential presence in a determinate place by a magnificent luminous appearance; and this the apostle calls the excellent glory, megaloprepous doxes. This glory appeared on Mount Sinai six days together. It rested and dwelt in the sanctuary. It filled the house.

vantages of this world. I shall have nothing to hope or to fear. The will of God will be to me unmixed felicity.

is an infinite Spirit, diffused through all things filling as well as containing them, seeing and knowing all, even the most secret things; for, His eyes, to speak after a popular manner, are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men and considering the most secret paths; knowing all things ere ever they were created, and looking upon all things after they were perfected: it follows, that since nothing can ex. clude the presence of this infinite Spirit; then, in Him we live, move, and have our being: He is not far from any of us; but although he is above all, yet he is through all, and in us all; within us, as well as without us; and therefore, in the hearts of the faithful, he must be considered, as an immense, intellectual, pure light, ready to enlighten and enliven them, and to shed forth the bright beams of his love upon them. I imagine this illustrates the thing. To me it seems reason.

Moses saw its back parts, that is, a small measure and scantling of it, in proportion to the weaknesss of his mortal eyes: but, in the other world, when mortals shall have put on immortality, and our bodies shall be invested with the new powers of spirituality and incorruption, then face to face, we shall be able to see the whole lustre

Such was the soliloquy I spoke, as I gazed on the skeleton of JOHN ORTON; and just as I had

of divine Majesty, as familiarly as one man beholdeth the face of another *.

There are two ways then, as an excellent man observes, of seeing God, to wit, by intelligence, and, in some manner, by sense: but we must not imagine that these two make up the beatific vision. There is a cause of more importance to beatitude. The sight and contemplation of the divine glories is our act; but the act of God is the communication of them. This makes the saints perfectly blessed. By the communication of the divine glories, we come to be, not bare spectators, but, θειας κοινονοι φυσεος, partakers of the divine nature.

As we are more obliged, says the writer I have mentioned to the sun, who is the cheer and vigour of nature, and the very life of all animal and vegetable beings : for his influences than for his sight, so are the heavenly inhabitants much more obliged to God for their receptions from him as the fountain of life and wisdom, than for the sight and contemplation of him as the subject of perfection. This illustrates the matter, and we may say, there

* As grateful objects of sense make up a great part of human delectation; may we not suppose, that this glory of God, accommodated to our senses, will produce a more ravishing and transcendent delight, than all the objects in nature are capable of producing.