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bounty, for the good of others. Guard, therefore, against the temptations of riches, and make to yourself a friend of the mammon of unrighteousness. This, indeed, should check your desire of riches; because, if you consider them in a true religious light, they only engage you in a more arduous employment.-Draw -Draw in, therefore, all your desires; and consider yourself merely as a person travelling through a country, in which you have no property, to your great home, where, at length, you will meet with every comfort.

If this be thought too strict, let us hear St. Paul's opinion in the case.

"I have learned," says he, "in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and how to abound. Every where, and in all things, I am instructed, both to be full, and to be hungry, both to abound, and to suffer need."

Thus differently the World and Religion accost you on the subject of contentment, and you have an option to which you will listen. - But observe one thing (adds Religion), the advice of the World is calculated only for a few years- mine for eternity.

XXXIV.

1 Cor. xiii. 12.

Now I know in part; but then shall I know eren also as I am known.

THE apostle is here drawing a comparison be

tween several circumstances in this world and the next; and, among other instances, mentions the imperfections of our knowledge here, and the enlargement of it hereafter.

I shall first explain the text, and then make a few reflections upon it.

The apostle says, we know in part — that is, our knowledge is very confined. It is, indeed, best characterized by negatives not so much by what we know, as by what we do not know. The wisest and most learned men have been the most ready to acknowledge their ignorance.

In what branch of knowledge can any man say he knows more than in part? But the ignorance of man is ground so well known, that it is unnecessary to run it over. I shall only observe, that, as no exception is made, we may suppose this confined knowledge relates to religion, as well as to science. The great work of redemption, in all its parts and extensive range (except those parts which immediately relate to our selves), is, most probably, just as much hidden from us as the nature of the heavenly bodies-the mode of vegetation -or of animal growth.

For our comfort, however, we are told, that although we now only know in part, yet hereafter we shall know, even as also we are known. Our faculties shall be enlarged, and opened into a knowledge of many things, of which we have now no conception.

Spirits, hereafter, may probably have the same disposition for diversity of pursuits which is found on earth. Variety in the works of God is one of its principal characteristics. Some may employ themselves in tracing the various causes and chain of events in human affairs which we call evil, and in acquainting themselves with the reasons of those perplexing circumstances in the government

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government of the world in which the good man piously acquiesces, and which the bad man turns into arguments against Providence. Others, again, may examine what we are told angels desire to look into, the secrets of God's revelations to mankind—his early communications to the first race of men- the various peculiarities of the Jewish dispensation-and the still greater wonders of the Gospel. While some may examine the works of creation, and trace the amaing grandeur, contrivance, and beauty of every part, from the least to the greatest-from the reptile of the earth to the orb of the sun. But, in whatever way these glorified spirits pursue their various enquiries, they turn them all, in the end, into themes of gratitude and praise to the great Creator.

Let us now examine a few of such reflections as arise from the short span of human knowledge in this world, and its extensive range in the next. The most useful of them, perhaps, are these.

In the first place, we exalt our ideas of a future state. What can be conceived more grand, or more agreeable to the nature of the human soul, than to have all those corporeal and earthly obstacles

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obstacles removed, which are, in part, the sources of its ignorance-to have all its faculties enlarged at liberty to act freely and to stray among all those wonderful parts of knowledge, which will most probably be opened in a future world. To this may be added, the probability of our happy intercourse with the beatified spirits of all ages, and all nations; communicating mutually the fruits of our several pursuits — and enjoying all that happiness, of which rational researches and philosophic ease give us but a faint idea in this world. The expression of seeing through a glass darkly, but then face to face, is full of that grand obscurity, which is in the highest degree sublime; and raises, of course, the most exalted conceptions of our intercourse with the Divine Being in a future state.* Secondly,

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To mingle interests, converse, amities,
With all the sons of reason scatter'd wide
Through habitable space, wherever born,
Howe'er endow'd! to live free citizens
Of universal nature!

..... to rise in science, as in bliss,
Initiate in the secrets of the skies!
To read creation; read its mighty plan
In the vast bosom of the Deity:

The

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