entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

According to every notion, however, that we are enabled to form of the most perfect and exalted happiness, all its ingredients are found in the declarations of scripture just now quoted. Constant uninterrupted communion "with the Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift," and with the immaculate, most benevolent, and affectionate Redeemer of mankind; the society of the angelic host, and of those of the human race who have been purged from all the dregs of corruption, and exalted to the highest perfection of which human nature is susceptible; untainted purity and holiness; mutual affection, which neither malice, nor jealousy, nor injury, nor suspicion, nor distrust, nor satiety, nor any species of selfish taint, can ever damp or diminish; but which will ever glow with increasing ardour, and be confirmed by indulgence; the complete removal of all pain, and evil, moral and physical; and the exclusion of those degraded and malevolent spirits whose presence must ever be the bane and the pestilence of all true and substantial felicity: these must ever constitute the grand ingredients of happiness to all rational and moral beings; and these scripture, as has been shown, declares to be the

sources of that which will belong to the blessed in a future state. The exclusion of the wicked and abominable from that state is indispensably necessary to its unallayed delights; for it is certain that the far greater part of the misery of the present life is produced by the wickedness and corruption of mankind, in comparison of which our natural evils are light and insignificant. Consider what immense and frequently irreparable mischief is produced here below, by power committed to weak and unprincipled governors, or even by the influence which flagitious men possess in subordinate stations. Independently of the positive injuries which they inflict, their noxious example has a most baleful tendency, by bringing virtue into discredit; by spreading the belief that principle is hypocrisy, that selfishness is universal, and that every man has his price; and by arresting the progress of that moral improvement of which man, even in his present corrupt state, is still susceptible, and, but for such fatal counteraction, would, under the good providence of God, certainly attain. All this may well be admitted in a state of trial and probation, in which temptations and difficulties are necessary for the proof, the display, and the consummation of moral excellence. But, into a state of complete and immutable felicity nothing that can hurt or destroy can ever be admitted. Wicked inhabitants would convert hea

ven into hell. No Eden has existed on earth "since sin entered into the world, and death by sin." If the prophet, on contemplating in vision the blessings of the Messiah's reign on earth, used these highly figurative and beautiful expressions; "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them; and the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den;" much more must all that is immoral, impious, and pernicious, be excluded from the everlasting kingdom of heaven. Indeed, the whole discipline of the gospel is directed to form men to that holy and divine temper and character which must qualify them for eternal happiness. By the very frame and constitution of human nature, its true, its only felicity must consist in the improvement and exercise of those exalted faculties, both intellectual and active, with which it is endued, together with those corporeal gratifications which are necessary for the preservation of our material frame, and to which the Creator has attached a

a Rom. v. 12.

b Isaiah xi. 6-8; lxv. 25.

proportionate degree of pleasure. Supreme and endless felicity must therefore consist in the highest perfection of our nobler faculties, delivered from those obstructions which at present accompany their exercise. As, after the resurrection, the blessed shall be invested with an incorruptible and spiritual body, every organ of perception must be infinitely improved, and every source of delight thence arising must consequently be inconceivably refined and exalted.

The same observations are, in a great measure, applicable to the future condition of the incorrigibly vicious. The habits which they have acquired, and their character finally established, must inevitably constitute a considerable part of their punishment. They must infallibly prove to each other constant objects of hatred and malice, excite all the distracting and furious agitations which accompany these passions, and prove mutual sources of vexation, annoyance, and torment. For the fearful and unbelieving, and whoremongers, and adulterers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, and thieves, and drunkards, and revilers, and extortioners," and every class of impenitent and obstinate sinners, shall have "their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." They shall be asso

a 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. Rev. xxi. 8.

ciated with

The

the devil and his angels." horrors of such society cannot be expressed by human language, nor conceived by human imagination. In this world, the wicked are often united in their malice against the virtuous, and in their persecutions of their reputations or of their persons. But, in the next, good men will be for ever removed beyond their reach, and "shine with the brightness of the firmament, and, as the stars, for ever and ever; and the rage of reprobates and devils will be confined to their own everlasting sphere, and operate its horrid effects in their own punishment.

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b

They that have not known God, nor obeyed the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." Exclusion from communion with the fountain of all that is amiable, excellent, and truly perfect,—from the brightest display of his glory, in the creation and preservation of myriads of celestial beings who never departed from their original rectitude, and who surround the throne of the Almighty, and pour forth the rapturous expressions of their sublime adoration and of their most ardent gratitude, and in the restoration to a state of purity and holiness, and

a Matt. xxv. 41.

b Dan. xii. 3.

c 2 Thess. i. 8, 9.