cannot understand it, as a poor wretched man, in this stage of his being, may deny the truths of religion, because he cannot gaze upon that light of Heaven. It is not intended we should know more n this world than is sufficient to guide us to the future.

Thus have I endeavoured to explain to you one of the most difficult passages in the whole book of Scripture, and to point out the difference between that kingdom of Christ, which He possesses as God, and which shall have no end; and that kingdom which began with the fall of man, and which shall have an end, when the object of its establishment shall have been accomplished in the salvation of the Church of God. These are lofty subjects, but they are suited to the day in which the Church requires us to consider the doctrine of the Trinity. I shall only add, that the time will soon arrive when our faculties shall be so enlarged, that we shall understand all the mysteries of God; and the day is coming also, when we shall all know whether we are among the number of those who shall be rejected from the Church of the first-born, and cast away with evil spirits and wicked men, the enemies of Christ; or whether we shall be of that sacred number, who shall be presented at the throne of God by the Saviour and Redeemer of the world.

SERMON II.

ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF EACH OTHER IN A FUTURE

STATE.

2 KINGS XII. 22, 23.

And David said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live. But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to

me.

Of all the customs which commonly prevail among Christians, there is not one which shews more forgetfulness of their holy Religion, or which excites more pain among those who reflect seriously, than the manner in which we too often speak of the death of our neighbours, our kindred, or our friends. Instead of mentioning their separation from us in the language of hope or resignation; instead of expressing our conviction that the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and that we ought not therefore to sorrow, as men without hope, for them that die in the faith of Christ--a custom prevails among us, of lamenting over them in the

language of pity, or of commiseration, as if the death of our friends were, to them, the greatest of all human calamities. We speak of the dead as if they were separated from us with an eternal separation, and as if we ourselves were to remain upon the earth for ever. Now I cannot but affirm, that this is not the manner in which we ought to consider the subject. The doctrines and the promises of Christianity are revealed to us to very little purpose, if they do not enable us, not only to speak of the death of others with composure, but also of the death of our own bodies, with peace and hope; anticipating the day, the great and solemn day, which is so emphatically revealed in the pages of Scripture, when all the nations of the world, and therefore all the families of the world, shall be assembled in the presence of God. Our fathers have descended to the grave before us; ourselves are following them to the tomb. Our children and our kindred shall mourn for us, and shall be lamented in their turn by others: and so the stream of time rolls on, bearing the successive generations of man to the ocean of eternity, till the day of our immortality dawn, and we shall all, all live again from the first man, who lost us an earthly paradise, to the last infant of the last of his descendants. These are the anticipations, the sure prospects of a Christian. We are not, we cannot be justified therefore in speaking of the dead in the language of grief or compassion only; we are bound to speak of them as if they should live again, and as if we

also, after having passed through the valley of the shadow of death, should rise again, and together with them, and together with those who shall follow us, form a part of that one great family of God, that one holy family, whose father is Jehovah, whose brother is Christ, whose companions are angels, whose duration is eternity, and whose home is heaven. It is delightful to think of the dead, small and great, of the dead, of the living, of the generations yet unborn, as one day destined to form, one great and everlasting society. I have, therefore, selected for our consideration this morning a subject which is adapted, above all others, to induce us to speak of the dead in other language than that to which I have referred; as well as to elevate our own thoughts to that better state of existence to which we are all hastening. It is a subject which appeals to the hearts of us all; for we have all been called, at one time or other, to the graves of our friends, to weep there. It is a subject which will afford us the strongest and most powerful motive, not only to live a religious life ourselves, but to take care that every individual of our family over whom we have the power of exercising the least control, should make the Gospel the rule and measure of his conduct. The subject upon which I mean to expatiate is this-the probability that those who have been united upon earth in the bonds of Christian affection and Christian love, will again meet, and be united, as glorified, and immortal spirits in the world to come. I wish to prove to you, that

as the future state is represented to us, as one great society, which is composed of the spirits of those who have once lived upon earth; it is probable that all the individuals of the various families of the earth, which will form that one great society, will be again known to each other in that brighter and more blissful world.

The principal arguments by which I shall endeavour to prove that we shall be again united to our kindred and friends in the invisible world, will of course be derived from the pages of Scripture, beginning with the very remarkable passage which I have selected for my text. There is one argument, however, which may be derived from the nature of the human soul, which is too important to be entirely omitted. When we shall have considered these various proofs which both Reason and Revelation appear to afford us, we will examine the two principal objections, which have been urged against the doctrine in question: and I trust that the solemn and affecting lessons which it is calculated to impress upon our hearts, may long be profitably remembered by us all.

From the nature, then, of the human soul, I cannot but think that we may justly infer, the probable re-union of those who

are separated for

God has created

a time, by the death of the body. the soul of man to be immortal; that is, to be capable of living in another state without the body, to which in this world it is, for a time, united. Whether the body lives, or dies, the