revelation, will be accomplished. Every expectation raised in this manner may justly be confidered in the light of a promife, or covenant; and thofe bleffings which God promifes to his creatures are justly ftiled in Scripture fure mercies; for the accomplishment is fecured by the eternal and immutable perfections of his nature. In our expectations from our fellow-creatures, however reasonable, we may poffibly be difappointed; for they are fallible and mutable. But the promise of God is fure: his covenant standeth faft for ever. "Know ye, that the Lord thy God, he is God, a faithful God, who keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him, and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations."

Let the pious fervants of God hold fast their confidence in God without wavering; for he is faithful who hath promised. Let neither the appearance of improbability, nor the delay or diftance of accomplishment, lead you to entertain a doubt

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of the performance of the Divine promises.

Has he encouraged you to hope, that he will in the iffue caufe all things to work together for good to those who love him? Let not prefent gloomy appearances lead you to diftruft the kindness of his defigns. What though you may be at prefent furrounded with difficulties, from which you can fee no way of escape; and oppreffed with afflictions, which feem almost too heavy for human nature to fupport; let not your heart be caft down, or your spirit be difquieted within you: but ftill hope in God; for fhall yet praise him who is the health of your countenance, and your God. Remember, that his thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways; but that as the heavens are high above the earth, so are his thoughts and ways above ours: and that though his judgments are unfearchable, and his ways paft finding out, righteoufness and mercy are the everlasting foundations

you

foundations of his throne. In all your troubles caft your care upon him, with a firm perfuafion that he careth for you; and that, though many are the afflictions. of the righteous, the Lord will deliver him out of them all.

Are we taught by the gospel of Christ to expect a refurrection from the dead; and affured by our Saviour, who spake to mankind in the name of God, that all who are in their graves fhall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and fhall come forth? Let us not suppose it an impoffible thing, that they who are fleeping in the duft of the earth fhould be called to life, and crowned with immortal vigour. Have we not heard, have we not known, that. the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary! Why should we doubt, that he who first formed the body of mán out of the duft of the ground, can at the refurrection give him a body as he pleases? Shall it be thought a thing incredible, that VOL. I. D

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he who brought the vaft and goodly fyftem of nature into being, and who breathed into man the breath of life, fhould raise the dead? Inftead of prefuming to fet bounds to Omnipotence, and to say to the Moft High-" Hitherto canft thou go, but no further;" let us confide in the affurances of the gospel, that this corruptible fhall hereafter put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality.

Hath God, who cannot lie, promised us eternal life through Jefus Christ our Lord? Let no falfe notions of the meannefs of human nature, on the one hand; nor any exalted conceptions of the vaft felicity which must be included in an immortal happy existence, on the other, incline us to doubt concerning the completion of the promise. Our future happiness is not to be limited by our deferts, but is to proceed from the free favour and rich bounty of God, whofe mercy is everlasting upon them that fear him. Why fhould

we

we entertain a doubt, that the fame Divine Power which at first brought us into being, and which continually upholds us in life, can fuftain us in exiftence, through any the most distant period of future duration? or that the fame goodness which induces him to make us happy at present, will incline him to preferve us in being, and perpetuate our happiness, throughout eternity? Since our Maker hath inftamped upon our minds, in their intellec tual and moral capacities, an image of his own eternal nature; and fince he hath fent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to bring life and immortality to light; let us confide in the promife of eternal life as a faithful faying, and give all diligence to prepare ourselves for that felicity, to the hope of which the God of all grace hath called us.

Be it, however, remembered, that we are not fo far to prefume upon the promife of God, as to imagine that it will be fulfilled with respect to any of us, if we neglect to comply with the condition of

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