the path which leads to happiness in both worlds. If the Author of our being had opened to us a clearer view of the felicities of Heaven, the necessary occupations of life would have been overlooked in the anticipation, and we should have been in danger of losing it by neglecting the means which alone can qualify us for its attainment. Divine wisdom and goodness are evinced in not superseding the ordinary occupations of this life, by giving to man a more particular description of the joys of another. Neither the light of nature nor of Reve. lation have so specifically discovered a future state as fully to gratify the extent of our wishes; but the variety of opinions which different nations have adopted respecting it, resemble the copies of a painting of some eminent artist, while, amidst their several shades of distinction, all prove the reality of one and the same original. (ƒ)

With respect to the evidence on which our assent to Divine Revelation is founded, it approaches as near to demonstration as the nature of any testimony will admit. The faith of a Christian is said to amount to a full assurance.

The evidences of the truth of Christianity amount to a moral certainty. The prophetic delineations of David and Isaiah, in many instances, resemble a record of past events; not an iota or tittle of them relating to the Messiah, previous to his crucifixion, but what were accomplished before he exclaimed on the cross "It is finished!"* To this may be added the miracles of our Lord, performed in the sight of multitudes of witnesses,-his resurrection from the dead, the fulfilment of his prophecy respecting the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem,-the dispersion of the Jews, and the gradual diffusion of his Gospel. (g)

When we open the first page of the most ancient and authentic of all histories, we find the account given by the inspired historian of the creation of the first human being, in perfect agreement with the declaration of the Royal Preacher in the text. Moses states the combination of spirit and matter as the immediate cause of animation :-" The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man *John xix. 30.

became a living soul." The Preacher tells us that the dissolution of that union is the cause of the extinction of life:-" Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."† (h) In the scriptural illustration of this doctrine we may remark, that when the father of the faithful had finished his appointed course, it is written that " he gave up the ghost, and was gathered to his people," by which something more is conveyed, than that he died, and was buried in the cave of Machpelah, in Canaan. The fathers of Abraham were buried at a distance, some in Chaldea, some in Mesopotamia. Thus when Jehovah first appeared to Moses, he said, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." They had been long gathered to their fathers; yet our Lord, in his argument with the Sadducees (the Materialists of that day, but who allowed the divine authority of the books of Moses,) repeats this declaration, and saith, "Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, am the God of Abraham, and the God of * Gen. ii. 7. + Eccles. xii. 7. Gen. xxv. 8. Exod. iii. 6.

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Isaac, and the God of Jacob,'" and emphatically adds, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living;"* intimating that the souls of these patriarchs were still in existence. (i)

David, on the death of his child, must have had something more in expectation than being buried near the infant, when he said, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Else where was the consolation here implied? If he were never to know the infant after their separation in this world, that child would have been to him for ever lost. The language is evidently that of affliction mingled with hope, acquiescing in the dispensations of Providence, and anticipating a re-union of relative parties in a happier state, when the parent will recognise the child, the husband the wife, "the friend him who has been as his own soul." It may be objected that if we participate with pious and virtuous friends in future bliss, we must know, by not finding others in those regions who may have had a portion of our regard, that they are in the

* Matt. xxii. 32.

† 2 Sam. xii. 23.

regions of misery, and that this would deduct something from our happiness. This does not necessarily follow: those who fail to attain future happiness may not only be struck out of the book of the living, but of the memory of those whose names are written therein. All our knowledge will be improved in a future state, all but the knowledge of sin and misery; and in that state there will be "no more sorrow." The general tenor of the New Testament describes the faithful in the other world as living with Christ, constituting his kingdom, living in communion with each other, "heirs and joint heirs of the same promises.* The Apostle, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, saith, Ye are come to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly of the 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." The inspired Apostles were authorised in making these declarations, when they reflected on the affectionate claim of their Divine Lord and Master:-" Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may bebold † Heb. xii. 23.

*Rom. viii. 17.

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