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of the streams of friendship; the congelation is gaining upon our own vital powers, and marking us for the tomb, where the endearments of social affection, and the meltings of sympathy, and the glow of love, are felt no more. But we sorrow not" over departed worth" as those who have no hope." God, and angels, and "the spirits of just men made perfect," have gained what the world has lost: they move in a higher sphere; they perceive with purer intelligence, act with superior energy, enjoy with more exalted capacity; they die no more, they are as the angels of God in heaven: and Providence charges itself with the care of the forsaken, the helpless and the forlorn whom they have left behind. And we look forward together to that day, when we shall join Moses and Elias, Peter and James and John, and all who have died before us, or shall die after us in the Lord, not in the glory of Tabor, which was to pass away, but of Mount Zion which is above, and which endureth to endless ages...when we shall come together" unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel," Heb. xii. 22....24 and dwell in a tabernacle not erected by the hands of man, the habitation of an hour, but in" a building of God, an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens."

Be ye therefore "followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." Purchase for yourselves a deathless name among the "ransomed of the Lord." Consider yourselves as encompassed, observed, tenderly regarded by those to whom you were dear while they tabernacled among men, and who now love you with the ardor of immortals. Add to the consolation which they enjoy, that of marking your prog

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ress in wisdom, your growth in grace. Cultivate acquamtance with the language you are to speak, the spi rit you are to breathe, the manners with which you are to conform, the persons with whom you are to converse eternally. "Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, fooking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endu red the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God," Heb. xii. 1, 2. "Behold what manner of love the Father bath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure," 1 John iii. 2, 3.

END OF THE FIRST COURSE OF LECTURES.

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Sacred Biography.

LECTURE I.

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him an help meet for him. GEN. ii. 18.

THE

HE holy scriptures always exhibit the most simple and the justest view of every subject which they treat. And what subject of importance to man do they not treat? The God who made us what we are, formed man after a model, destined him for a special situation, and to fulfil a specific purpose. His faculties, his relations, his duties, his demands, his delights, were all, from the beginnig, present to the eye of his Creator; and a corresponding arrangement and provision were made by Him, who seeth the end from the commencement, and who exactly adjusts all, according to number, weight and measure.

The perfection of the works of God, is a beautiful and gradual progress toward perfection: from inanimate to vegetative, from vegetat ve to animal, from animal to rational nature; each approaching to, bordering upon each, but every one circumscribed by a boundary which it cannot pass, to disturb and confound the province of another. The scale of being, as to this globe, was complete when God had "created man

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