is a place of infinite pain; it is a fire that will never go out. Hell is a state of infinite time, and endless misery: Go into everlasting fire: O who can dwell with everlasting burnings!

EXHOR.-Descend, O Christian souls, daily, with Ezekiel, in spirit, to the gates of hell, and there you may behold, with just horror, the punishment of sin and sinners; there tormented for their past pride, vanities and folly. Methinks I hear their cries and lamentations. What! has God cast me for ever from his presence? Must I thus remain in this everlasting fire? Will God never more recall the sentence? O torment! O despair! O dismal eternity! I see, alas! my folly, wickedness and ingratitude. O sad remembrance, which adds, every moment, new pains to my afflicted soul! O time past, which I cannot forget! How easily might I have saved myself, and how foolishly have I damned myself! O emptiness of riches! O deceit of past pleasures and delights!~ O vanity of all those sinful objects that turned my heart from God! These are now become as so many furies, as so many living hydras, that haunt, perplex, and torture my soul for ever and ever. Óh! and must I still behold, at a distance, that glory, that felicity, that enjoyment of God, which I can never come at? O what a gulf is fixed betwixt me and Abraham's bosom! And are not now these dismal cries sufficient, O Christian soul, to awaken you from the lethargy of sin, the evils whereof are so immense? God even now calls upon you, by the voice of the damned, to beware of sin; to arise, mend, and do penance, before too late: -and what is all the penance you can do, to the torments of damned souls? No more than an imaginary shadow to them: all the torments of this life are nothing to the torments of hell. Do you believe this? Why, then, do you go on in indulging corrupt nature, caressing your passions and vicious inclinations, which will certainly bring the dismal fate on you: nay, you will certainly suffer for it for what you have done already, unless you do penance, as God has enjoined: Unless you do penance, you shall all perish alike. Pray for grace, that may make you more sensible of the glory you may obtain by virtue, and the misery you bring upon yourself by vice.

SECT. IV.

Of Heaven.

Q. WHAT is Heaven? A. Heaven is the abode of the blessed angels and saints, or the state of bliss. Q. In what does the glory of heaven consist? A. In the clear sight and

possession of God. Q. How long is this glory to last? A. As long as God is God; of whose kingdom there will be no end.

INSTRUC.--Heaven, then, is the place God has prepared for angels and just souls: it is the palace, if I may so call it, of the Almighty. It has no bounds or limits: O Israel, how great is the house of God! how vast is the place of his possession! Baruc. iii. 24. It is an immense space, inconceivably great : its glory, its joys, its riches, its beauty, are beyond thought or imagination; therefore St. Paul, though taken up into the third heaven, could no otherwise describe it, than by saying, That the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, what God hath prepared for those who love him. 1 Cor. ii. 9. Man, while in this life, is of too limited a nature either to see or enjoy it; his mind is of too narrow a compass to conceive it; his understanding by far too shallow to comprehend it: No man shall see God and live, (Exod. xxxiii. 20;) no one enjoy him in his mortal body, or see him with mortal eyes.

Heaven is compared to pearls and precious stones, to feasts and banquets, to show its value, its joy and delight: it infinitely exceeds all the joys, pleasure, power, dominion or riches the world can give: whatever you can here conceive to ⚫omplete your happiness, is all less than an imaginary figure or hadow to its enjoyment.

Heaven cannot be so well described by what it is, as by what it is not: There, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and death shall be no more: nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow, shall be any longer, for the former things are past. Rev. xxi. 4. There shall be no night, but all day; no darkness, but all light; no death, but all life; no time, but an illimited eternity.

The visible things below may give some faint and imperfect idea of the invisible things above. If God has framed this lower world, of such vast extent, as an abode for sinful man, what must heaven be? what the extent of that world which is to be the habitation of just souls and all the elect? If he has beautified this world with such glorious bodies as the sun, moon and stars; adorned it with so many varieties, and permits the most wicked to enjoy its benefits; what must the beauty and splendour of heaven be, prepared for those, his beloved and faithful servants! If he has given such power to the impious, to reign over kingdoms and empires, and to abound in all riches and plenty; what power, what dominion, has he not in reserve for those who have been true and obedient in his commandments? The fruition of the Creator

is infinitely beyond all fruition of creatures, or created beings. Well may we then say, O how lovely are thy tabernacles, Lord of hosts! Psalm lxxxiii. 1.

EXHOR.-Seek now, O Christian, as St. Paul advises, the things that are above, not those that are below; seek the permanent substance, not the passing shadow; seek what eternity preserves, not what time destroys. Let your heart be fixed where your treasure remains; the fruition of God, the enjoyment of heaven and heavenly souls, are the only treasure a good man thirsts after, saying, As the hart pants after the living water, so does my soul thirst after thee, O God! Psalm xii. 2. Nothing but God, the possession of God, can fully content, replenish, and render the soul happy, which was made only for him.

As you are advised to descend daily, in spirit, to the gates of hell, to behold with horror the just punishment of sin and sinners, to learn you to detest a wicked life; ascend now, in heart and affection, up to the gates of heaven, and behold those endless joys, those unspeakable delights, those blessed souls now enjoy in God himself. Imagine that you hear them singing, Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of Sabaoth, the heavens are full of the majesty of his glory: Hosanna in the highest. And ought not these eternal joys animate your fervour, your devotion, your labour, and vigilance, to the acquiring them? O what are all austerities, penance and labour you can here undergo, in balance with them! The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be set in balance with the future glory which shall be revealed in us. Rom. viii. 18.

O Christian, had you but a right notion of heaven, of its glory, its happiness, you would not be so wretchedly fond of earth: all things here below would appear to you contemptible, and of no account: you would not so often and easily pawn your soul for trifles, folly and vanity: you would take more care and pains to secure it. Heaven is the precious pearl, for which the man mentioned in the Gospel gave all he had to purchase it; even the Son of God made a sacrifice of his all, eclipsed his glory, sacrificed his pleasure and his very life, to regain and reinstate you in this, your former happiness: the holy saints and martyrs thought they could not do or suffer too much to obtain it; for this they lived the most mortified lives, and endured the most cruel deaths: Some were stretched on the rack, others flayed alive; others sawed in two, others exposed to wild beasts; broiled on gridirons, cast into dungeons. Others, and these innumerable, retiring into deserts, spent their lives in contemplating the glory of this place, and purifying their

!

souls for the enjoyment of it: these had a right idea of their future immense happiness.

O how many live as if they belonged not to it? or think to obtain it in a more easy and delicate manner? contrary to what divine wisdom has taught them, that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away; that they must sow in tears, to reap in joy; that they must fight valiantly, to gain so great a victory: deny themselves, and lose their life here, to find it there; and carry their cross with Jesus, if they will partake of his crown. No, no; there is no other way to heaven, but what Christ himself has shown us, both in word and example: as it is written of him, so of all his followers: It is necessary for him to suffer, and by that means to enter into his glory. So, by many tribulations and persecutions, we are to enter, like him, into the kingdom of heaven.

PRAISE BE TO GOD.