I CORINTHIANS, XV. 19.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men moft miferable.

TH

V.

HERE is nothing which the foul SERM. of man doth reflect on with greater pleasure, or contemplate with more real fatisfaction, than the dignity of its own nature, and the delightful, though distant profpect of its own immortality.

To have our self-love gratified in fo high a degree by the continuation of our being, and our ambition by the exaltation of it, cannot but be the most natural object of our wishes, the great and ultimate end of all our hopes and defires; to cherish and encourage these hopes, and

to

SERM.

V.

to animate us in the caufe of truth and

virtue, a fecret consciousness is implanted in the breaft of every man, which

never fails in his calmer moments to

fuggeft to him, that though the grofs and earthly part of him, his corporeal frame, may be liable to change, decay, and diffolution; there is ftill within him a more refined portion, which feems, by its fuperior qualities, capable of much greater perfection, points out its divine original, and aspires to immortality.

The partial and unequal diftribution of things in this ftate, the uncertainty and imperfection of all human bleffings, the diftreffes and calamities, the vanity and shortness of life, are among the most powerful arguments which have been made use of ever since the beginning of this world to support the belief of another.

But

V.

But the conviction of this folemn and SERM. important truth, was too great a conquest for mere unaffifted, unenlightened reason to attain unto: the heathen world therefore could form but poor and imperfect notions of it: they had indeed the strong and repeated fuggeftions of their own minds in its favour, but who could inform them whether thofe fuggeftions were not merely the delufive flatteries of felf-love?

The councils and determination of the Divine Being, in regard to a future state, could be known by none but himself, and of confequence by him, and him alone, must be declared; and to this end, in the fulness of time, God of his mercy thought fit to disclose this great fecret to mankind by the mouth of his beloved Son, who defcended from the bofom of

his

L

SERM. his father, to bring life and immortality

V.

to light by the gospel.

But at the fame time, that the beneffcent Saviour of mankind conferred this illuftrious privilege on his faithful fervants and followers, he required of them in return for fo ineftimable a'benefit, and fo comfortable an affurance, an implicit obedience to his will, and a strict conformity to his divine commandments: As the religion of Chrift therefore brings with it a nobler profpect and promise of reward, it hath doubtless a fuperior claim to our fubmiffion, and a higher title to our esteem.

If we look back upon the ftate of christianity on the first promulgation of it, we shall very readily acknowledge that in regard to the things of this world, it was by no means a ftate to be envied

or