tom to the top; both root and branch fhall be rent and removed; for, When he shall appear, you shall be like him: your conformity to him fhall be complete; you muft go to heaven dragging a body of death after you; but whenever you come to the port of glory, there will be a joyful parting; for you fhall take an everlasting farewel of all your lufts and corruptions; then you will fay, Farewel with all our hearts; and glory to God that we shall never meet again. Bleffed be God, we fhall never fee your face again.

2. Then fhall the vail of darkness and distance be rent in twain; for then darkness will give way to light, glorious light; and diftance will give way to prefence, glorious and everlasting prefence. Now you fay, I cannot fee him, he is far away; but, fays Chrift, Father, I will that thefe whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory: to be with me where I am; there is diftance removed; to behold, my glory, there is darkness removed. Darkness and distance now, create doubts and fears; but doubts and fears will then take wings and flee away, never to return again; for, The face of the covering fhall be entirely removed, Ifa. XXV. 7, 8.

3. Then fhall the vail of ordinances be rent in twain: any view we have of God's glory now, is mediate, through the intervention of means and ordinances; any glimpfe we get of his beauty is through the dimb glafs of duties and ordinances; for, Now we fee through a glafs darkly, fays the apoftle; but the time comes when the glafs fhall be broken, and we shall fee him as he is, in an immediate manner; Rev. xxi. 22. I faw no temple there; for the Lord God almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple of it. And then shall the faints be able to fay, the half of his glory hath not been told, when they shall fee him face to face, and not his back parts, or the fkirts of his garments only.

4. The vail of fcanty enjoyments will be rent in twain; the vail of paffing blinks and interrupted views. The life of the faint here, is moftly a life of defire; he can never get his defire fully fatisfied; and when you get any defirable meeting with the Lord, why, it is but a

blink and away; your defires are but increased thereby, and your melancholy wants remain unfupplied : but within the vail all defires shall be fatisfied, all wants shall be supplied; for, In his prefence there is fulness of joy, and at his right-hand rivers of pleasure for evermore. No clouds, no night, no difertion there; no fuch complaint as this, O why hideft thou thy face? The best communion and enjoyment here admits of interruption; but that which is above, is uninterrupted; no tempting devil, no deceitful heart, no difmal cloud to darken their day, or interrupt their vifion and fruition of God. Chrift is here only paffing by us, and as a wayfaring man, that tarries only for a night; yea, hardly for a night: no fooner does he enter, but he is away; no fooner does the heart begin to open to him fometime, than, alas! he is gone, Song v. 6. I opened to Beloved, but he had withdrawn himself, and was gone: but then their enjoyment fhall be full, and everlasting, and uninterrupted; for, So fhall they ever be with the Lord. Partial enjoyments will give way to eternally full enjoyments; For when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part fhall be done away.

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5. The vail of church-diforders and confufion fhall be rent in twain. Many times you have reafon to figh and complain, that matters are all out of order in the church; the vail of confufion and diforder is upon it, and the glory departed; nothing but clouds in our fky. Indeed we would gladly expect the rending of thefe vails that are upon the church, even in time, and even with refpect to the church of Scotland. It is with the church, as it is with particular believers, the Lord ufually brings them to an extremity, before he give them a deliverance: the darkest night may ufher in the cleareft day; to them that fear his name the Sun of righteousness fhall arife. Whatever dark eclipses the fun may be under at present, do not fay the fun is gone out of the firmament, because it is a cloudy day; the clouds may grow thicker and thicker yet; yea, there may not only be dark clouds, but rain, and perhaps a terrible fhower of wrath is coming; many things look like it: but though there fhould be both clouds and rain, fay not the fun is

gone,

and

and will never return and shine again; he that rent the vail, will rend the clouds in his own time. Yea, the rending of the vail of the temple did foretel good to the church. It fays, that he will rear up a more glorious temple, fuch as is promised, Ifa. liv. 11, 12. O thou afflicted, toffed with tempefts, and not comforted! behold, I will lay thy ftones with fair colours, and lay thy foun dations with fapphires; and I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleafant ftones. Why, what is the meaning of all this? See it in ver. 13. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great fhall be the peace of thy children. You fee it is a time of great darkness in the church, fo it is indeed; but here is a promife of light that fhall arife, All thy children fhall be taught of the Lord. Is it a time of great divifion and contention? fo it is; but here is a promise of great peace, Great shall be the peace of thy children. We hope there will be a more full accomplishment of this in the church, even in time; but when will all this come to pafs? why, we may come to be tried with another kind of tempeft before it come to pafs; for, fee how the promise is ufhered in, O thou afflicted, toffed with tempefts, and not comforted; then follows the promise of a pleasant iffue. But withal never expect a perfect church upon earth; we hope it will be more pure, but it never will be perfect, till that which is in part shall be done away. The time is coming, when the bride, the Lamb's wife, fhall be prefented to him without spot or wrinkle; when the union of the faints shall be entire, and the communion of faints fhall be perfect. There will be no contention, no division, no diforder in the general affembly and church of the first-born that are written in heaven.

6. The vail of militant graces will be rent in twain, and nothing but triumphant graces will have the throne: Now remains faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of thefe is love. Why, love is a triumphant grace; and faith and hope will refign to love the chair of state. There will be no need of militant graces in the church triumphant; no need of faith, where vifion is; no need of hope, where fruition is; no need of patience, VOL. I. where

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where all tribulation is at an end; no need of

any fighting grace, where there is nothing but victory, light,

life, love, liberty, joy, glory. You have a fighting life of it here, but then a fong of victory; victory for

evermore.

7. The vail of infirmities will be rent in twain: here believers have infirmities on their bodies, that have no fmall influence on the actings of their fouls; infirmities on their fouls, darkness and dulness in their intellectual powers; infirmities of the new nature, though created in Chrift Jefus, though fupported by his power, and guided by his grace; yet ftill it is a weak thing, like a new-born babe: but none of these infirmities are in them that are within the vail; they are become perfect; Then fhall we all come in the unity of the faith, to a per-fect man in Chrift, Eph. iv. 13. Then that fcripture fhall be fully accomplished, Ifa. xxx. 26. The light of the moon fhall be as the light of the fun; and the light of the fun shall be fevenfold, as the light of feven days.

8. The vail of mortality fhall be rent in twain; for, This mortal fhall put on immortality; this corruption, shall put on incorruption; and death fhall be fwallowed up in victory. The vail of flesh, the clay tabernacle, will be rent in twain'; We know, that if the earthly house of this tabernacle were diffolved, we have a building of God, a houfe not made with hands, eternal in the heavens: for in this we groan earnestly, defiring to be clothed upon with our boufe which is from heaven, 2 Cor. v. 1, 2. O was you ever brought to that man's faying, O mortality, mortality! O time, time! that will not haste away, to • let eternity come!' Was you never content to shake the fand-glafs of time to win to eternity? was you never content to take death in your arms; and fay, Welcome, welcome; O friend, welcome news, that mortality shall be fwallowed up of life?

9. The vail of incapacity will be rent in twain: now you are not capable of that glory which you fhall be able to behold and contain in heaven; your eye is fo weak, that you cannot behold the Sun of righteousness fhining in his ftrength. Though light be the moft pleafing thing to the eye; yet the meridian brightness of the

fun

fun cannot be looked upon without deftroying the fight; because the faculty is not so strong, nor capable to receive the object: fo it is here, we want a capacity to behold the light of glory; but within the vail, or in heaven, the faculty will be ftrengthened, and the capacity enlarged, to hold an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory; the want of which hath made fome, in time, when their cup hath overflowed with confolation, to cry out, Lord, hold thy hand, thy fervant is a clayveffel, and can hold no more.' Indeed it is little we get here below, and it is little we can hold, though we fhould get our fill; but in heaven the capacity will be fo enlarged, that it will be able to hold a fulness of God, a fulness of glory, a fulness of the Spirit, fulness of joy at God's right-hand for ever and ever.

man,

10. The vail of weariness fhall be rent in twain; here we foon weary of praying and preaching, we foon weary of fermons and facraments. I doubt not but many here may be wearied to the heart with this day's work. Indeed little wonder that the carnal heart fay, What a weariness is this work? For, as one fays, you may take a carnal 'tie him to a poft, and then kill him with praying and 'preaching only.' But even the spiritual man himself, while he hath a wearying body of death about him, he wearies of ordinances, he wearies of God's fervice; but in hea ven, within the vail, they shall serve him without wearying or fainting, Rev. xxii. 3.; there his fervants fhall ferve him. Their weary fervice here is hardly to be called a fervice; but there his fervants fhall serve him indeed. O! will it not be a mystery, and a great wonder, if we, who cannot pray half an hour to an end, and hardly hear an hour to an end, but will be toiled, as if we had done fome marvellous work, fhall be brought to heaven, and never weary of the fervice of heaven? Here is comfort, believer, you fhall through all the years of eternity, praise him, and never weary.

In a word, all the vials of trouble and trials will be rent in twain; There remains a reft for the people of God. -The vail of forrow and anxiety fhall be rent in twain; for, All tears shall be wipt from their eyes; Sorrow and fighing fhall flee away.-The vail of fickness and uneafi

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