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knowledge, and to the attention paid to it.

But the most important knowledge, of which we are capable, is the knowledge of God-of his character and will, and of our duty and the way to enjoy him for ever; and, if rightly dispos

The soul's capacity appears to expand and enlarge with the increase of knowledge, and for ought we know, may continue to do so for ever. The more aed, of beholding his ineffable gloman knows, the more, generally ry and beauty. speaking, doth he desire to know; the greater and more ardent is his thirst for an increase of knowledge, and the more enlarged his view or conviction of the vast variety, extent, and magnitude of the objects of human knowledge.

I proceed to observe, that our souls are capable, not only, of a great degree of knowledge; but also, of moral disposition, affections and exercises, strong and vigorous, producing, or accompanied and followed with much good or evil to ourselves Though we may not be able and others, and with an incalcuto attain to a perfect know-lable degree of pleasure or pain, ledge and full comprehen-joy or sorrow, happiness or mision of any thing; yet we are sery, never ceasing, never endcapable of being taught and un-ing, but, probably, always inderstanding much, about an in-creasing. numerable variety of objects, visible and invisible, material and spiritual, past, present, and future, temporal and eternal.

The activity and powers of our souls are great and wonderful. In an instant, we can look back, through all periods of time, to the day of creation; and think of the incomprehensible, eternal existence of God. With equal ease, we can cast our thoughts forward to the end of the world, to the end of time, and contemplate or think of the scenes of a succeeding eternity. In a very short space, we can, in our minds or thoughts, rove round the world, or penetrate to its centre, or mount above the sky, and traverse the regions of the stars, or ascend to heaven, where God is enthroned in glory, surrounded and adored by myriads of spotless spirits; or descend to hell, where the wicked groan and wail in torment

and despair.

By the powers and faculties of our souls we are proper subjects of moral obligation-of moral government; and accountable to him, who made and upholds us, and reveals the rule and measure of our duty. We are capable subjects of the knowledge, love, service and enjoyment of God. We are also capable of kind, benevolent affections and, of beneficent and useful actions, towards our neighbours and fellow-creatures.And we are under great and infinite obligation, to love God with all our heart, and to serve and obey him with all our might, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do as we would be done by-to do good as we have opportunity to be just, kind and beneficent, in our feelings and conduct, towards all; and in a word, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God."

By the faculties of our souls,

in connection with those of our towards our fellow creatures, all bodies, to which they are uni-discordant, jarring, and grating ted, and of which they have the direction, control and government, we are capable of acting upon choice and design, and as dependent agents or voluntary instruments in the hand of God, of conceiving and executing, or contributing to the accomplishment of great designs, for our own and others' benefit, and for the honor and glory of God.

affections, lusts and passions would be utterly excluded; and all the inward peace, pleasure and joy, involved in, and naturally springing from such a temper and conduct, would be constantly experienced, together with the comfortable feelings of an approving conscience, and a consciousness of the approbation and favor of God, and of all wise and holy beings.

We should, likewise in this

We are, moreover, capable of knowing and inwardly feeling our obligations to the duties in-way, participate and share in, cumbent on us, towards God, ourselves, and our fellow-creatures, and to abstain from eve ry thing of a contrary nature and tendency.

The right and just, the kind, benevolent, friendly and beneficent affections and actions, which we ought to exercise and perform, are naturally productive of, or accompanied and followed with, inward pleasure and peace, joy and happiness.

For

and enjoy, so far as we are capa-
ble subjects of such enjoyment,
all the happiness and glory of
God, and of the happy subjects
of his eternal kingdom.
by love to others we appropriate
to ourselves all their happiness,
in proportion to our knowledge
and sense of it, and to the
strength and intenseness of our
love to them.

The parent who loves his children as himself, thereby makes their happiness his own, and experiences as real and as great satisfaction and joy in their pros perity and happiness, as in his own personal prosperity.

So

Benevolent, kind, tender and friendly dispositions, affections, and exercises, are calm and peaceful-in their very nature, pleasurable and happifying. He who, in the exercise of a bene-likewise, if we in fact loved our volent, friendly spirit, loves and neighbors as ourselves, we should does good to his neighbours, have as real pleasure and delight and contributes to their support, in their welfare as in our own, comfort and happiness, experi- and thus appropriate their hapences much pleasure and satis-piness to ourselves, and make it faction, and feels happy, in so doing. And did we, in fact, love God and our fellow creatures, as we ought to, and con-happiness would be above all stantly act out and exhibit this things grateful and dear to our love, in worshipping and servinghearts; and in proportion to the God and doing his will with all extent and degree of our knowl our might, and in all the genuine edge, view, and sense thereof, expressions of justice and right- we should be pleased and detousness, beneficence and mercy, lighted, and rejoice therein, with

our own. And if we really loved God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, his glory and

as real and great satisfaction and dation and basis, the source and joy, as if it were our own per-fountain of their support and sonal glory and happiness. Thus, were we, and had we always been, perfect in love, we should constantly share in and enjoy all the happiness of the moral system, comprising God and his creatures, so far as it comes within our view, and we are capable subjects of enjoying it. And our own joy and happiness thence resulting, would increase, as our knowledge and views, apprehensions and sense of the happiness and glory of God and his kingdom were extended and enlarged.

Thus, if sin had never entered, all human souls would have been constantly enjoying a happiness, pure and sublime, without alloy, and commensurate with their knowledge and capacity for enjoyment, and continually increasing, as these increased.

And to all this, will all those of mankind be finally brought, who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to the saving of the soul. They who are saved by Christ, though but imperfectly sanctified in this life, will finally be redeemed from all iniquity, and rendered to the extent of their capacity, holy as he is holy, and pure as he is pure.

When Christ shall appear, they will be like him, and appear with him in glory. He will then present to himself all the redeemed and sanctified, "a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but holy and without blemish." God will be their God, and their portion for ever. They will, therefore, have all his adorable perfections united, as the foun

happiness for ever. Of course, their complete everlasting happiness will be as effectually provided for and secured, as stable and certain, as the all-sufficient God can render it. He knows he is able to and will form and fit them, in soul and body, for the most pure, sublime, and completely satisfying knowledge, exercises and affections, employments and enjoyments, and utterly abolish every appetite, inclination or desire, which is not consistent with such a state of soul and body.

He is, likewise, able and will satisfy and fill every desire of their whole persons, thus fitted for complete, everlasting happi

ness.

At the day of judgment and thenceforward, they will, in the fullest sense, inherit the kingdom prepared for them. Perfectly purified from all selfish, carnal, and worldly appetites and desires, affections and lusts, and formed with tempers and tastes, perfectly suited to the objects, company, discoveries, exercises, employments, and enjoyments of the heavenly world and state, they will be ever there with the Lord, as children and heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, participating with him in his ineffable glory and happiness, in the inheritance of all things.

How great, then, how ineffable, how far surpassing all our present conceptions, must be the joy and happiness of every soul which is saved!

Every such soul will be entirely freed from every irregular, discordant, corroding, and disquieting passion, desire, and in

sensible enjoyment of God's favor and love, and rejoice in him as their God, and Father, and portion for ever.There each individual will join and bear a part, with the my. riads composing that glorious so

clination. Every such soul will be of a perfectly benevolent and friendly disposition, perfectly conformed to God, and glow with supreme and perfect love to him; and with the most pure and disinterested benevolence towards and complacency in every|ciety, in the worship and honors fellow-subject of the kingdom of God.

paid, and in the songs of praise and triumph addressed, to the thrice Holy One. And each individual, by the most pure and

and having an idea and sense of the glory and happiness of God, and of the myriads of his holy and happy subjects, he will experience the same unutterable satisfaction, joy and delight in the whole, as if it were all his own. For by the perfect union of hearts, between the head and all the members of the heavenly society, produced by perfect love, they have one common interest, of which every individual partakes, and which he enjoys, to the full extent of his capacity.

Every such soul, united to its risen and glorious body, will find itself a fixed-an eternal inhab-perfect love to God and to every itant of heaven, in company with subject of his holy and happy Christ and all the saved and all kingdom, will partake and the holy angels. There the most share, to the extent of his cagrand and glorious objects, per-pacity, in the glory and happifectly suited to its holy taste,ness of the whole. So far as will be constantly presented to he is capable of contemplating its view. There it will behold the clear exhibition of the ineffably glorious character and perfections of God, made in the whole series of his works and dispensations; and, probably, in ways, and by means, and to a degree, at present, inconceivable by us. The saved will see, with ineffable joy and delight, the full accomplishment of the divine declaration and promise, that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head-the works of the devil destroyed--everyenemy of God and his kingdom vanquished and subdued-the Saviour gloriously triumphant-the whole redeemed church in actual glory and perfect happinessall the great designs of God, in regard to the glory of his own great name, and to the best good and greatest happiness of the system, accomplished, exactly to his mind, according to his original intention, and his throne and kingdom established in eternal peace.

There they will continually experience the conscious and

How full and complete, then, and how inconceivably great in degree, will be the joy and happiness of every soul which is saved? And to what an infinite sum of real, substantial good will it amount by being continued for ever, and probably, with a progressive increase, by a gradual increase of knowledge, and a proportionable expansion and enlargement of the capacity for enjoyment ?-In comparison with this, how inconsiderable, how small and trifling a good to a man,-yea, how worthless and

despicable, would be the acquisi- | covenant of salt for ever;" as in tion and sole possession of the Numb. xviii. 19. and 2 Chron. whole world, during the period xiii. 5. of his existence on the earth? The offerings presented by This infinite good doth every the children of Israel, were orone lose; of all this doth everydered to be seasoned with salt, one fall short, who loses his own soul.

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probably, "as an emblem of their purification from corruption, and of their savor and acceptableness to God." In allusion to this, Christ said, "Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt;" intimating, as I conceive, that every one who sincerely devotes himself to God, as a liv- * ing sacrifice, shall be seasoned with grace, or knowledge and holiness, whereby his heart and life will be purified from moral corruption, and he, of course, preserved from everlasting destruction.

As salt cleanses and preserves meat from putrefaction and renders it savory and wholesome; so the Christian, who gives himself up to God and his service through Jesus Christ, has his heart and life purified by divine grace, and is rendered savory in his principles, dispositions and affections, conversation and practice, and preserved from the everlasting destruction, in which corrupt principles and affections, words and actions, indulged and persevered in, would finally involve him.

In this sense every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Every person, who presents himself to God, as a living sacrifice, shall, through the knowledge of gospel

One end for which salt is commonly used, is to season meats and other kinds of food, in order to give them a good relish, and render them more agreeable to the taste. Another is to cleanse meat from those parts, which would otherwise cause it to corrupt, and thus to pre-truth, and the influence of diserve it from putrefaction, and to keep it good and savory.Hence, salt is made use of as an emblem of incorruption and perpetuity. A perpetual coveenant is, therefore, termed "a

vine grace by the operation of the holy spirit, have his heart purged from corrupt dispositions and principles, and his life from corrupt morals and become savory in his affections, conver

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