While "all flesh is as grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field;" while "the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it;" while, in short, "the human race is withering under the breath of Jehovah's mouth, perishing under his rebuke, his word, eternal in its character, subsists from generation to generation in undying vigour, to console our wretchedness, and impregnate the dying mass of human nature with the seeds of immortality." Of this there is no reasonable ground of question; it is no matter of mere probability, or speculative opinion; it is not more clearly asserted in Scripture than it is firmly established by existing practical proofs. There are thousands now living, who not only professedly receive the Gospel, but who feel its cheering and purifying influence, and whose characters bear testimony at once to the excellence and amplitude of its power. Advancing under its guidance, in the acquisition of moral worth, they live in the enjoyment of that "peace passing all understanding" it imparts, rise aloft upon the pinions of those elevated hopes which it inspires, and wait, with confident expectation, the arrival of that hour when death, as a messenger of good, arrayed in drapery of wo, will give perfection to their spiritual character, and usher them into the actual realization of the promised inheritance. Nor will their hopes be disappointed, for they rest on the declaration of Him who cannot change, and whose wish cannot exceed his power-who, having promised, has neither the inconstancy to retract, nor the imbecility to be unable to perform.

And thus powerful and efficient to salvation will the Gospel continue to be. No series of years, however long, nor change of circumstances, however adverse, can possibly exhaust, or even diminish its inherent strength. Its blessings will descend, and its influence be felt to the latest generation. The human race, like the waters of a river, may roll on in perpetual motion down the channel of time into the ocean

of eternity; one generation may supplant another in- rapid succession; the saints of God who now move upon the face of the earth, and live under the influence of the Gospel, may pass away like a vision of the night, and be as though they had never been; and the ministers of religion, whose duty it is to preach that Gospel and enforce its reception, may, one after another, fall from the battlements of Zion, and be laid low in the silence of the tomb. These things may and will happen, but the Gospel itself, the word of the Lord, which we preach and you hear, will, like the luminaries of heaven, and the course of nature in general, go down to latest posterity uninjured by the force of years, and prove itself to the last moment of its existence," the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."

IV. The Gospel, I remark, in the fourth and last place, abideth for ever in its final issue, or in the eternal happiness which it confers upon its faithful votaries.

The religion of Jesus, it is true, is neither a system of mere abstractions, nor one whose influence has little or no bearing on the current life. It is, on the contrary, a practical system, which takes large cognizance of the present, and bears extensively on the immediate realities of human existence. It is, in short, the means of direct advantage-of direct moral improvement and solid felicity to all who sincerely abet it. This we both admit and maintain. But still, extensive as the immediate influence of the Gospel is, its great matter of concernment is the future; it views man especially as immortal, and makes provision, above all, for his eternal welfare. Regarding the present world merely as a place of sojourning, as a moral wilderness through which the human race are passing, it points to a region ulterior to death as their ultimate and principal home, and considers the adjustment of their condition there as of prime and ingrossing importance. It is pre-eminently a religion of light

and promise, but its greatest discovery is the way to heaven, and its highest assurance of good, "the crown of glory that fadeth not away."

In drawing a contrast between the possessions and pleasures of the present world and those with which scripture exhibits the next as replenished, there is no point in which the superiority of the latter appears greater or more striking than in that of duration. While the earth, as must be admitted, is a scene marked alike by vicissitude and brevity of existence, heaven is represented as a city of permanent delight, whose denizens are subject to no change save what is involved in perpetual progression. Here, on this ball of clay, all flesh is indeed as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; every human possession-health, riches, reputation, influence, honour, and even life itself-all grow up, wither, and die with the rapidity of vegetation; and nothing, of course, is seen so universally prevalent, so ascendent in power, so absolutely sovereign, as decay and death. But yonder, in the paradise above, it is quite otherwise. There, decay and death are unknown. It is a region of immortality-of eternal freshness and vigour, whose inhabitants "cannot die any more," where they revel in a "fulness of joy" which never palls, and where the pleasures that abound are 66 pleasures for evermore."

It is unnecessary, as it is inexpedient, to enter at present into argument on this subject to proceed to establish either the immortality of human nature, or the eternal beatitude of heaven. I address an auditory, it is presumed, who receive with implicit credence the sacred Scriptures as the testimony of God, and who read, in these inspired records, the amplest evidence for the truth of either proposition. All I deem requisite, therefore, is merely to adduce a passage of scripture or two confirmatory of the doctrine under consideration -the endless nature of the glories secured by the Gospel; and I do so more for the purpose of impressing your hearts

with a sense of the magnitude of these glories, and quickening your desires after their acquisition, than of convincing your judgments as to the truth of their perpetuity. Take, then, the following as a specimen of the announcements of revelation on the point. "I give," says the Saviour, in one of his addresses, "unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand;" a tropical allusion, homely it may be, but at the same time, most obvious in meaning, full of beauty, and expressive of the doctrine of which we speak. The Apostle Paul, again, in his elaborate defence of the resurrection of the body, makes the following statement:-" For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." And, to instance only another, the same Apostle elsewhere comforts the church under the trial of persecution, with these words :"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." A host of other passages to the same effect might easily be quoted, but these are deemed sufficient. They make up a measure of evidence amounting, in the Christian's eye, to demonstration; they place the eternity of heaven beyond the limits of dispute; and form a basis of faith and hope, which all the artillery of scepticism, and all the thunderbolts of hell are incompetent

to move.

The Gospel, then, as we have said, abideth for ever in its

final issue-in its promised reward; it provides its faithful votaries with "a treasure in the heavens that faileth not." Permanence, unfading youth, and perpetual safety characterise the paradise above, which it reveals, and to which it leads. And this, be it observed, is the crowning point of the Gospel's excellence-the acme of its perpetuity. What would it avail, comparatively speaking, though it abode for ever in all else—in its form, its endurance and its efficiency, if it issued merely in conferring a temporary beatitude-if it conducted to nothing higher than a heaven of perishable materials and limited duration? Valuable as its provisions for the future might in this case be, so far as they extended, they would nevertheless fall infinitely short, both of the attested dignity of human nature, and the aspiring desires which rise spontaneously within the breast of those by whom it is possessed. But it is not so. The elysium, or paradise of Christianity is not more ineffable in its joys than it is interminable in its being; eternity alone defines the boundaries of its destined existence. It is "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God”—a city which "God will establish," and which " will never be moved." Imperishable in itself, and all it contains-exempt from every internal principle calculated" to hurt or to destroy," it stands safe also, from all foreign invasion, and can neither be surprised by stratagem, nor vanquished by power. "The Lord is its keeper;" "God is known in its palaces for a refuge;” He is

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a wall of fire round about it, and the glory in its midst :" And hence its abiding stability; hence its freedom from decay, and exemption from danger. As the immediate abode of the Deity, no less than as the general rendezvous and eventual home of the good, it must be safe under every vicissitude, commensurate in durance with the nature of its Owner, and unfadingly resplendent with the dazling glories of the saints. Years may roll on-centuries may go their round-eternity may pour forth its endless current of ages,