immortal glory and felicity, of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, referved in heaven for him. He may fee his body decaying with old age, wafting with a diforder, or mangled with torture, and every way at the mercy of his enraged perfecutors; but he rejoices in the firm belief and expectation of its rifing again incorruptible at the last day; and that when Chrift, who is the refurrection and the life, fball appear, he alfo fhall appear with him in glory.

What an elevation of thought and fentiment is here! How muft this faith make us overcome the world, and render us fuperior to its allurements or its threats. With this enlarged comprehenfion of mind, which brings the future confequences of his actions into immediate profpect, it is impoffible that a fincere chriftian fhould live addicted to vicious gratifications and purfuits, which he must fee to be deftructive of thefe his animating hopes; and he must neceffarily grow more in love with that temper and conduct which is, with the greatest propriety

propriety, called chriftian, and which enfures to him these glorious expectations. As he who has called him to thefe great privileges is holy, fo will be alfo be holy in all manner of converfation. It will be his daily endeavour to cultivate that holiness of heart and life, without which, he is fenfible, no man can fee the Lord. With this hope fet before him, all the afflictions of this prefent life will seem light, trifling, and not worthy to be named with, but will be abfolutely lost in the confidcration of, that eternal weight of glory which awaits his patient continuance in well doing.

This fuperiority to prefent and temporary things, which is attained by truly chriftian principles, is of the moft rational nature, being of the fame kind with that which is acquired by experience, and which neceffarily refults from the ftru&ture of our minds, and the circumftances in which divine providence has placed us in this world: for it is only perfecting the affociation of thofe ideas which have a real connection, and uniting in our minds the feveral parts

one

one whole, and things which nothing but time feparates. If it be compared with that kind of fuperiority which might be acquired by other principles, thofe of the Stoics, for inftance, its advantage will appear to be exceedingly great.

The Stoic affects to defpife pain, becaufe, according to his arbitrary definition. of things, it cannot be called an evil, and does not depend upon himself. Having imagined, though without any ground, that every man's happinefs muft, in any cafe, arife from himself (in exclufion even of the divine being) he thinks it abfurd to complain of any thing which he could not help. Complaint implies a fenfe of unhappiness; and this, according to his hypothefis, can never take place without his own confent. If his wife or child be in the moft dreadful agonies, he looks, or affects to look on their condition with the greateft tranquillity, and the most unfeeling indifference; fatisficd that fickness and pain are not in his cafalogue of things within his power, and that the fufferers themfclves are not unhappy,

fince misfortunes are unavoidable, and he knew that his wife or child were not naturally exempt from them. When he dies, he expects that his foul, being a particle detached from the Univerfal Mind, will be abforbed in it again, and that his feparate confcioufnefs will be loft for ever.

Thefe are the great outlines of the famous philofophical fyftem of Zeno, which is faid to have made fo many great men; but it has certainly no foundation in nature. The principles of it can never have been really felt, and all the boafted effects of it must have arifen from conceit and obftinacy.

How differently, and how much more naturally, does the chriftian think and act in the cafes above-mentioned! He does not pretend to deny the evidence of his fenfes, nor has recourse to whimfical diftinctions; and not having maintained that pain is no evil, he finds himself under no neceffity of behaving as if he was unaffected by it. He owns that prefent fufferings are not joyous,

but

but grievous; but he ftill thinks them nothing in comparison with the glory that fall be revealed, and therefore he endures patiently for righteoufnefs fake, in a firm belief of being more than recompenfed for them at the refurrection of the juft. If his friends be in diftrefs, he has no principles that lead him to check, but, on the other hand, fuch as encourage him freely to indulge his natural fympathy with them; and thefe feelings will certainly prompt him to exert himself to the utmost in their favour.

At

the fame time, he will not fail to exhort his friends to the duties of chriftian patience and fortitude; inculcating the great chriftian doctrine of the tranfitorinefs of this world, and its fubferviency to another. When he dies, he indulges no extravagant, but really uncomfortable conceit, about being abforbed in the divine mind; but believes that he fhall, in his own perfon, rife again from the dead, when he fhall refume, and retain his own feparate consciousness, live again under the government of that God whofe goodnefs he has experienced, and whose friendship he has fecured, know all VOL. II.

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