I then instanced these terms, expressive, respectively, of the great end of man's existence, negative and positive, and of the only mean. And by contrasting the popular with the real meaning of two of those terms, Hell and Heaven, I proposed to infer a contrast between the popular and real meaning of the third term, religion; for the actual truth of which inference I would appeal to men's own lives and consciences. The first term we have already considered in this view and I will now proceed to consider the second term, Heaven. Of this I ask, what is its popular acceptation?

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And here I may appeal to the experience of the great majority of mankind, whether I do not state it at its full value, when I say that it carries with it no meaning more definite than the floating and mingled ideas of change of place, removal from this present scene, and entrance into a new and unknown region of happiness: but of whose nature, as well as degree, even the attempt at forming any conception would be viewed as an endeavour to become "wise above what is written." It would be impiously to draw aside the veil from the sanctuary and to pry, with curious eye, into the secret things of God. It would, in fact, be to approach too close upon the confines of terrible Majesty; and to lay upon the ark of God a daring and presumptuous hand. And I now appeal to reason, and to fact, whether such persons do not reap the natural fruit of their reluctance against contemplating this fancied state of happiness, in the horrors which they experience at the near prospect of exchanging for it "the miseries of this sinful world?"

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It must often have been a subject of interesting inquiry to the moral speculatist, why it is that daily the besotted heathen will mount the funeral pile: will sacrifice his life to some loathsome and bloody idol or plunge beneath the water of some consecrated stream: while the records of Christianity; in the days of its persecu tion, can furnish comparatively few martyrs. One cause (for undoubtedly there are others; and all wearing a favourable aspect upon the character of real and vital Christianity) I believe to be this,— the universally intelligible, and definite, and palpable character of their expected heaven. I have no doubt, both from the theory of the case, and from fact, that among the various religions which cover, or have covered, the face of the earth, there is none which forms a more vague and indefinite conception of heaven than mere nominal Christianity. And for this cause: No mind can furnish its expected heaven with enjoyments of which it has no conception: nơ mind will furnish it with asserted enjoyments for which it has no taste. He who is not glad when they say unto him, "We will go into the house of the Lord," will never think of contemplating, as the expected and hoped for enjoyments of his future heaven, an assembling of all nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and people, to sing praises unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. He whose sensual appetites, indulged, estranged him from the love of innocence and purity, will instinctively avert his pained eye from the contemplation of those realms into which nothing unclean can enter, and where, without holiness, no man can see the Lord. And if, from ignorance of them he can not, and from distaste for them he will not, contemplate and long after the real and spiritual enjoyments of the future, there is a moral impossibility from the circumstances in which he is placed, in a gospel

land, that he can substitute for them any other. While, therefore, the Mahommedan infidel, or the savage heathen, can suffer his imagination to riot, in his anticipated heaven, amid the refined luxuries, the gross and brutal sensualities, or the malignant and revengeful tempers which, in the night of thick darkness that envelopes his unhappy land, he indulges freely and without remorse; there is a moral purity in revealed truth which, however it may fail in its influence upon the conduct of general society, will not suffer speculative licentiousness to co-exist with it in the same land. There is a moral weight in the gospel, even in its degradation, which will not suffer the most abandoned profligate, in a land upon which its sun has shone and its spirit breathed, to dare, even in hope, to look beyond this passing scene for the indulgence of one vain, impure, or malignant passion. And therefore in any land where Christianity has unfurled its pure standard, washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb:" where it has exhibited, in the light of revelation, essential truth-that truth, which all of man that is capable of comprehending and contemplating a future may indeed hate, but cannot in full sincerity deny-the man who cannot set his affection on things above who cannot love the objects which Christianity opens to his view whose heart is not circumcised, and converted from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God; can have no enjoyments in common with God; in common with that Being who, such as the gospel exhibits Him, True, and Holy, and Sin-abhorring, he knows, upon the testimony of a monitor within which he would, but cannot, contradict, will be the ever present Sovereign of eternity; regulating the tastes and furnishing the enjoyments of each; and disposing all things according to the counsels of His revealed will :—in a word, he can form no definite conception of a heaven.

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The contemplation of heaven, as the end of the Christian's race, and hope of the Christian's calling, which alone can be practically and beneficially operative upon his moral state, is that which views it as the universe of sanctified spirits congregated before the throne of God,―the centre and rallying point of the spiritual world: where angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, and the spirits of just men made perfect: where this vast concourse of God's family, in their different stations and degrees, assemble round the Throne, with the regularity and order of reverential and all-pervading humility, and with the harmony of universal love where no rebel in heart against the Sovereign Will could dare to enter, because the law of the Lord is but the expression of the general mind: where those who in life were united in holy affection; who have fallen asleep in Christ; and who therefore in death were not divided; shall meet at the right hand of Christ in everlasting re-union where all will rejoice to do God's will perfectly, freed from the infirmities and clogs of mortal flesh; and from all those distressing circumstances of life which a wisely beneficent Providence has permitted to disturb the Christian's rest, and to awake him to the spiritual conflict of this probationary scene from every dream of temporal happiness; where all the individuals of this congregated universe are knit together by bonds of the profoundest, the most intimate and indissoluble union: where the same spirit pervades every breast, and that the Spirit of Christ: where

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the same image is stamped upon every soul, and that the perfect Image of Christ: where the same sentiment of gratitude to the Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier,-the triune God-animates every bosom: where the same enjoyments delight every heart: where the same anthem of praise flows from every tongue, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."

If we would have our conversation in heaven, we must often meditate upon the things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God:-and to meditate upon, we must form some notion of, them. We should love to expatiate within the hallowed borders, that we may spy out the promised land: that we may pluck some specimens of its fruits and flowers; and acquire some knowledge of its character and inhabitants. Thus should we trace back the link of connexion from the glories which shall hereafter be revealed to us, to the glories which must previously be revealed in us, to prepare us for appreciating and enjoying them. By contemplating what we shall be when Christ appears, we should discover not only a motive, but a model, by which to purify ourselves, even as Christ is pure. We should, therefore, often draw aside the light veil which curtains off time from eternity; and soberly contemplate all to which the torch of revelation extends its light, and the purified vision of faith can reach. And what is the scene which opens upon our view? Is it vague, and chill, and wild, and ghastly? Is it such a scene as fiends would imagine, and Southey, as their prophet, reveal? No. It is a scene in which the Christian finds himself at home. All its objects are familiar, and congenial to the feelings of the regenerate : only all have ripened into perfection, and are illuminated with a halo of glory. It far more resembles the evenings of Bethany: the walk to Emmaus: the guest chamber at Jerusalem: the Mount of Olives the domestic or social circle pouring out the deep and varied affections of the heart to a present God, as they bend the knee together before the throne of Grace and rising, only with more tender and holy affection to "love one another."

Views such as these keep perpetually open the communication between time and eternity. Earth and heaven are viewed, not as two essentially different worlds, as we are accustomed to view this earth and some planet which philosophy tells us must be inhabited by an essentially different race of vegetable and animal being. He views them as two provinces of the same great empire, separated but by Jordan's narrow stream: regulated by the same laws: ruled by the same Sovereign: animated by the same principles and feelings: or if differing to the Christian, differing, not in kind, but in degree. Such views tell with practical benefit, and with power, upon every habit, taste, and temper. While those views must necessarily be inoperative, which wrap up religion in a shroud of mystery and superstition, so as to scare men from it, by its gloomy and ghostlike aspect : which represent God as bestowing upon his people, here, a charter of privileges and immunities which they neither value nor understand; and designing, hereafter, to remove them, every one from his own vine and his own fig-tree, and, by a transportation at which he shudders, to colonize a strange and visionary heaven, into the nature and enjoyments of which it is deemed a prime ingredient of humility, piety, soberness, and faith, not to presume to speculate or inquire.

That man has found a great practical principle by which to test his pleasures here, who believes that the enjoyments of heaven are cɔngenial to the sanctified affections of the Christian: that when, by regeneration, he has passed from death unto life, he has been born into the eternal system, and "shall never die :" that he shall carry into eternity his very self, and not some sublimated efflux which, in the protestant purgatory of the grave, death has new created: who believes that he shall carry with him the very tastes and tempers which now constitute his moral identity that the change which death effects is not of character, but of circumstance; and that this very change only gives fuller liberty and stronger stimulus to the character, whatever it may be, freely to develop, and fully to display itself.

If such be the end of the Christian's calling, what, of necessity, must be the means? If such be the place to which the soul should tend, what must be the way? In other words, what is religion? Can it be that a wearisome and insipid round of ceremonial observances should conduct to those joyous mansions of spiritual bliss? Could a heart willingly devoted to the debasing and transitory pleasures of this present world, and dead to every spiritual sentiment and enjoyment, live upon the heavenly manna, the light food of angels, and not lust after the flesh-pots of Egypt? Could it eat of the fruit of the tree of life, which alone never withers, and be satisfied? Could it drink of the waters of the river of life, which alone never fail, and thirst no more? Can the bustling activities of a feverish and unsubdued mind-anxiously interested, perhaps, about the accessories of religion, but dead to its spirit-conduct the soul to those calm mansions of rest which Christianity opens upon it? Can a spirit of party in religion tune the soul to harmony with an universe? Can a mind studious to lose itself amid the pathless labyrinths and subtle perplexities of mere theoretic knowledge; enthroning its idol tenets in the sanctuary; and submitting to them every decision of the understanding, and every affection of the heart, be fitted for that kingdom of heaven where the one doctrine, and the one precept, is -charity? No! Religion, as the path which leads to this spiritual heaven, is the deep and entire crucifixion of the old man. It is the heart sprinkled by the blood of Christ from an evil conscience; and purged by the Spirit of Christ from the practice and the love of sin. It is an humble walk with God, by faith in a crucified Redeemer; in a sense of His continual presence; in an entire and cheerful dependence upon His providence and grace. It is a resigned submission to, a patient endurance, a zealous performance, of His whole will. It is a subjection to the cross of every evil passion and evil temper : a sanctifying of every affection: a faithful discharge of every relative duty; and that under a sense of obligation to God, as well as to man. It is a deadness to this present evil world: a weaning of the heart from time, and a fixing it upon eternity: looking "not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." It is a life guided by principle: a heart animated and warmed by love to God, and love to man. It is the peace of God ruling, in a pure heart, over calm yet energetic tempers; warm yet subdued affections. It is the Spirit of God crowning the work of grace with His own ripe and peculiar fruits, which are "love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." It is, in a word, the gospel

kingdom established in the heart: that kingdom which is "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Such is the object to which every soul that is sincerely, and intelligently, engaged in the work of religion, and treading the path which leads to immortality, tends in this life, and by whose light it guides its steps.

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In making this brief statement, imperfect and inadequate as it ne. cessarily is, of what appears to me true religion, I am prepared to hear some say, Point out, and exhibit to us, in actual existence, the bright original of this glowing picture. If this be Christianity, where are the Christians? To this I can only repeat, that such is Christianity; and that such is the object to which the heart and life of every sincere Christian tends: such the only rest from his spiritual labours in time: such the only heaven in eternity, which he proposes to his soul and this, through the Saviour's atoning blood, and through the love and promises of a faithful God, he shall assuredly taste in time, and fully enjoy throughout eternity. I know that the necessary sufferings and chastisements, the infirmities, and, with sorrow be it said, the sins, of the children of God, may prove a stumbling block over which many will sink into a deeper destruction ; and thus that they may give occasion to many to blaspheme that worthy name by the which they are called. I know that the principles which, in heart and word, they maintain, will be unfairly measured by the standard of their scant and imperfect performances : and that religion will be unjustly identified with the very worst part of the life of its professor. But for the sake of religion; for the sake of the objector's own soul, we humbly, yet firmly, protest against this wrong. We call upon men to beware. We warn them that the principles of immutable truth cannot be falsified, were it even by the total apostacy of their loudest professor and most zealous advocate: that the treasure of the everlasting gospel of grace can receive no taint from the corruptions of the earthen vessel which contains it. And if there be any who, from the sufferings, the infirmities, or the sins of a professing Christian, would strengthen themselves in the belief that vital, spiritual, religion is but a dream; and thus extract from them poison for their own souls; we still further say to such, that there is an essential distinction between the humblest servant of God, if sincere (and, if not, there can be no shadow of reason in identifying him with religion), while groaning beneath the burden of infirmities, and even of sins, which he abhors: while the good that he would, he does not; and the evil that he would not, that he does; that there is an infinite distance between him and the ungodly world, "alive without the law :" glorying in its shame; contentedly resting in a state, and in a system, from which, in heart and spirit, the lowest Christian flies for his life, as from a burning Sodom. Religion, viewed from the vast distance at which the worldly look upon it, appears but a theatre of actions. They are not within hearing of the sound of the voice of the heart. Spiritual temptations and resistances the strivings of the spirit: the sufferings of the cross: and all the various and complicated mechanism of the inner man, are not discernible. Even those who are but newly converted, and to whom God, the more effectually to wean their hearts from the world, has revealed Himself in the beauty of holiness and the sweetness of His love-even these fondly dream that religion is, as they have hitherto experienced it, but the enjoyment of a perpetual summer