into the heavenly regions, though their powers may be far inferior, and therefore their conceptions of the Moft High, the fame characters belong to their knowledge; whatever the difproportion is, or may be fuppofed it is juft, it is certain, it is blissful. The degrees of divine knowledge in the faints in light, cannot be afcertained; but we know that it fhall be no more fo limited as our highest attainments in the prefent ftate; no more mixed with doubt and hesitation, and uneafinefs. We fhall know even as we are known: we fhall fee him as he is. With all its limitations and anxieties, the knowledge of God is the fource of our most exquisite delight, below: what muft our happiness be, when the clouds are for ever diffipated, and we are placed under the beams of meridian fplendor!

Of human nature exalted, our ideas arc more diftinct and adequate. The overwhelming glory of Deity is relieved and mitigated, if I may fo fpeak, by turning to Him who was bone of our bone, a partaker of human nature in all its parts, the all-gracious and compaffionate Son of GOD, and Son of Man,

wha

who lived on earth, and fuffered and died, and role again; who afcended up on high, and is raifed to honour and power, and felicity immortal. In JESUS at the right hand of GOD, what majefty and grace are blended together! what reverence and love, and joy, furround his throne! nevertheless, many are the questions, which curiofity puts in vain, concerning the Redeemer, and LORD and Judge of men; concerning his court, his retinue, his fervants, his adminiftration; not to be folved till we enter the regions of immortal joy.

OBSERVE, fecondly, with what delight the works of GOD are fearched into, exhibited and known. The works of the LORD are wonderful: they proclaim the power and wifdom, and goodness of the Creator, Preferver, and Difpofer of all. In contemplating the works of GoD, devotion exclaims, What aftonishing magnificence! what exquifite skill! what unceafing variety of being, and of enjoyment! Age greatly exceeds childhood and youth, in the knowledge of the works of GOD. The learned and difcerning excel, in this knowledge, the unthink

Tt 2

thinking and untaught. Exceedingly different are the attainments in knowledge among men of different capacities, culture and ftudy. Nature is explored with high fatisfaction: wide fields of delightful study open, on every hand, and invite and reward the vifitant: monuments of wifdem, power and goodness divine, arife in every quarter : earth, fea, and air; their appearances, their changes, their inhabitants are examined and known with increafing and varying pleasure. After all the difcoveries of the ages that are paft, not to fay by individuals but by whole focieties, the moft fagacious and beft informed in all the diftributions of nature, lack information: the ftores of human knowledge are ever increafing. In natural hiftory, many questions remain unfolved, many conjectures are propofed, many fubjects remain to be more fully investigated. And to what is human inquiry and human knowledge confined? Almost entirely to this earth, which, a very little reflection, not to speak of fcience, fhews us to be a very fmall portion. of the works of God. When we confider the heavens, the fun, moon and stars, the worlds of worlds, which every more perfect difcovery

discovery multiplies, fo that to have an ade quate idea of their very numbers, baffles all our powers; we fay with the Pfalmist, "What is man!" This planet, with all its riches, with all the stores of nature and art; this fystem, to which it pertains, is as a drop in the ocean, a grain of fand on the fea fhore, compared with the unnumbered and innumerable fystems that float on the unfathomable deep of immenfity. Discoveries and information respecting thefe works of GOD, with all the pleasures they impart, are referved to the period of our enlargement from earth, and of our affociating with the blessed inhabitants of better worlds.

SOME information is vouchfafed us concerning the inhabitants of heaven. The angels of GOD are fuperior and perfect intelligences they bear, and retain, and manifest, the image of GOD; they publifh his glory, they perform his commandments: they are our guardians, our friends, our ministering fpirits: they are our fellow citizens in the kingdom of GoD: but we know in part only concerning them: very much remains to be known. Nor can it be ques

tioned that this additional knowledge will impart high delight; for who does not allow, who has not experienced, that from the knowledge of the wife and good, though of an inferior order, from the unfoldings and exertions of their intellectual, active and moral powers, from their atchievements and histories, notwithstanding all their imperfections, arife fome of our most exalted and purest delights?

In the regions of perfection and blifs, are the fpirits of juft men made perfect. The Apostle John fays of their state and attainments, "We know not as yet what we shall "be," but he adds, "we know that when "he fhall appear we shall be like him :" think my brethren what a rich variety of inftances of refemblance, all most interesting and most blissful, this information concerning the faints places before us; and all of them fources of high delight to the foul! like him delivered from the prefence, the terrors, the inflictions of evil: like him in the powers, perfection, pleasures, of the mind: like him in foul and body reunited, with all their best affections and moft blifsful co-operations;