shall be the law of heaven. To this state of tranquil blessedness we may apply these descriptions of the prophets and sweet singers of old, descriptions which they employ in anticipating the triumphs of the gospel in a more auspicious age, even on earth. "No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon... but the redeemed shall walk there... Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim: there shall be nothing to hurt or to destroy in all my holy mountain."

There is one view of the happiness of heaven arising from the dispositions of its members, which merits a separate notice. I refer to the pleasure which a perfectly benevolent being derives from the perception of the happiness of others. There is hardly a worse and more malignant passion that finds access to the human heart than envy; and, by a just law of Divine Providence, this passion is scarcely less painful to the breast in which it rankles, than it is injurious in its wishes and efforts, to its objects. The envious man cannot endure the prosperity and happiness of his neighbour, especially if he suffer any adversity himself. His eye cannot look on the splendour of his neighbour's talents, or good name; the sound of his praises is as discord to his ear, and grates on his feelings; and if no cloud at present rest on his neighbour's reputation, and no blight has fallen on his fortune, he can prognosticate with pleasure, that both may happen soon. What wretchedness would the sight of heaven, crowded with glorious and happy beings, inflict on the heart of an envious and wicked man! Directly opposed to this fiend-like spirit is true benevolence. To a benevolent man, the wealth, the influence, the honour, the happiness of a friend, bring a sensible addition to his own comfort. The sufferings of a friend are felt as if they were his own; and if he himself suffer, it is an alleviation if those whom he loves are happy.

Let us apply these remarks to heaven. There benevolence is perfected; and no check to its exercise exists in any breast, from the most inconsiderable remains either of unhappiness or of envy. When, then, each happy and benevolent individual, led not less by the tendencies of his nature, than by the authority of his God, to obey this law, "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," shall behold all around him as happy, as great, and as holy, as he is himself as bright with his Maker's image-admitted as closely to his Redeemer's fellowship-and as plentifully enriched with the gifts of his favour, how shall the condition of all influence the condition of each! With what enraptured delight shall the eye of pure benevolence ever survey the glorious felicity of heaven!

3. The society of heaven must be very extended. It shall

include, first, all the redeemed from among men; and these have long since formed a great multitude which no man can number; while their numbers are destined to receive their chief accessions in that age still future, when the dominion of Jesus shall be universal; when "men shall be blessed in him, and all nations shall call him blessed."

In the present state, the prospect of a very extended circle of friends would rather perplex than please us. From the shortness of our stay on earth, and the many personal duties in which we must be occupied, our intercourse never can extend to multitudes; our circle must be select and limited. But in a state of being in which peculiar personal vocations shall probably be unknown; in which the cares, the toils, the consumption of time with secular business, to which we are subject, shall happily and for ever cease; where the privacy and retirement of domestic life shall be broken up, and shall give place to a new and higher order of relationship; where nature shall seek and need no repose, mind then becoming capable of activity as constant and as unwearied as that of the planets in their courses, we shall have no such checks to external interOn the other hand, the desire of acquaintanceship, which shall then, doubtless, be intense, in proportion to the means of gratifying it, and the pleasure arising from its gratification; the assurance that, go where we may among the crowded multitudes of the population of the heavens, we shall discover nothing to alienate, nothing to alarm, nothing to vex us-no example of mind in ruin or degradation, no vestige remaining of the maladies and the havoc. which sin has inflicted, but all exhibiting the excellence, the nobleness, the glory of perfect man-all assimilated to Christ; the confidence that, traverse heaven as we will, we shall meet only friends and brethren ;-these must create among the blessed irresistible inducements to a most extended, to an universal intercourse.

course.

It has sometimes been made a question, whether the blessed in heaven shall know one another-shall distinguish individual from individual, as on earth. But, surely, it must seem strange that such a question should be started among wise men. A state of society in which, as far as personal distinction is concerned, there should exist among the members an eternal ignorance of one another, seems an utter absurdity. Each individual among the blessed must have the perfect consciousness of his own individual distinction and identity; and is it possible that they should industriously keep themselves under veil and mask toward one another? Indeed, this is a fact respecting heavenly society which the Scriptures rather assume than assert; implying it in the

very use of the terms, church, family, citizens, in their application to heaven as to earth. Yes, we shall then arrive at an acquaintance the most interesting as well as extended. We shall not only resume our intercourse with those we have known on earth, but shall be admitted to the fellowship of those of whom we have heard with an interest which awakened an eager desire to meet them in heaven. We shall find our way to Adam, the progenitor of our race; to Abel, the first martyr; to Enoch, who walked with God three hundred years in the ages before the flood. The Father of the faithful shall The other godly patriarchs,

be known there to all his children. Isaac, Jacob, Job, from the east; Moses, Aaron, David, and the eminent prophets and saints under the former dispensation, shall be well known to us in that world of glory. The apostles of Christ— the fathers and martyrs in the first ages-the honoured remnant of holy and persecuted witnesses, who kept the testimony of Jesus during the dark ages of antichristian ascendancy and usurpationthe illustrious reformers, who rekindled the torch of truth, and spread its light through so many lands-these eminent men, who, though dead, still speak, and whose pious writings consecrate their names in our remembrance-our own beloved parents, or children, or brothers, and sisters, or dear christian friends, who have gone before us in the faith, and have fallen asleep in Jesus, shall be our associates in heaven. We shall know "the general assembly and church of the first-born."

Nor shall our society in heaven be limited to the redeemed. It is the clear testimony of revelation, that it shall be extended to the holy angels. Even in the present state a communion exists betwixt these holy beings and the church of Christ; who, although veiled from the eyes of flesh, are often present with us, possess kind affections towards us, rejoice in our conversion and salvation, and delight, when commissioned by God, to perform towards us offices of love. They are "all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation." In the heavenly world, in which we shall be "equal to angels," we shall be admitted into their exalted society, we shall know them even as we are known by them, and shall feel that we possess kindred character, interests, employment and destiny, with these happy and exalted creatures. What an incalculable accession to the society of the redeemed! "I beheld," says Daniel, in vision, "till...the Ancient of Days did sit...thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him." And, says John, the apostle, upon enjoying, like Daniel, the visions of God, "I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts,

and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands." These, Christians, are your destined associates and friends! We may go farther still. There are expressions in the Scriptures which seem to carry our thoughts to orders of beings of whom at present we know nothing, and which excite expectations respecting our ultimate destiny, which the great realities of eternity shall assuredly fulfil. Like openings among the clouds into the azure between, they carry our views into immensity, and seem to connect the redeemed, in ultimate association, with the whole moral universe, be it extended as it may. Ephes. i. 10, 20-23.

On the question, how intercourse shall be conducted in the future state of being? it were easy to speculate, or to refer to the speculations of ingenious and pious minds. These, however, conduct us to no certain results. With what rapidity, and to what extent, spirit may communicate with spirit-what new faculties, adapted to communication, it may be the purpose of God to impart, or what existing, but (in the present infantile condition of mind) undeveloped faculties may be brought into operation, in that state of mental maturity and perfection-what channels of communication, accessible to the blessed, are established betwixt the celestial throne of Him who is "Head over all things," and all parts of that creation which he governs, it is not for us to say. Nor need our ignorance vex us, since, if we are scriptural expectants of the world of glory, it must prove but momentary.

4. We may conceive that in heaven intercourse shall be very intimate. The inhabitants of heaven are a family, convened, as we have remarked, in the domestic mansion of their Father: which undoubtedly conveys the idea of endearing intimacy. Where do we feel such unreserved ease-where do we unbosom ourselves with such unsuspecting confidence, "thinking aloud" with one anotherwhere do we experience such an identity of unconflicting and stirring interests, drawing forth and mingling all kindred streams of thought and feeling, as in our homes?

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On earth, we can hardly reach intimate intercourse with many. We have no time to cultivate it, in a state in which our days are but an hand-breadth,"-where death so soon divides us. We can enjoy direct intercourse only with a few, separated as we are by natural or artificial barriers, by language, by distance; and indirect intercourse is never intimate. Among those near us, many will not let us know them, keeping always on the reserve, and, as it were, behind the curtain; many are not worth knowing; and, after we think we have known others well, we find, by events which

bring out character, that we have been grievously mistaken. Society is formed into an infinite variety of little coteries, arising from station, wealth, literature, or religious party; each of these has its peculiarities, its usages, its language, its prejudices, its intellectual and moral costume; notwithstanding the expansive and combining influence of true religion, these distinctions remain; and, in passing from the one party to the other, the individual feels as a stranger, receiving and rendering many agreeable civilities indeed, in the large hall of promiscuous entertainment, but excluded from the private and smaller circle of interior and intimate converse, and departing, in a great measure, unknowing and unknown.

Suppose that at a period as remote as the creation, the human race had reached the number in which it exists at this moment on our globe, and had remained unchanged till this period, and suppose that no such obstructions to intercourse, individual and national, as have arisen from sin, had existed—suppose that such tendencies, inducements, and facilities for communication as a sinless world, accomplished in every improvement, would exhibit, had been continued for six thousand years,-who shall calculate the degree of acquaintanceship which would have existed among men at this day? Who can conceive the intimacy of that intercourse which must already have embraced a large proportion of the whole family of man?

I leave you to transfer these thoughts to the society of that world where all the obstructions to intercourse which exist on earth shall vanish-where common interests and pursuits shall animate, and the bond of love shall bind, the whole-where means of intercourse shall be multiplied-and where, as we must now conclude with remarking, the fellowship of the blessed shall be eternal.

5. This is the only other character of heavenly society which I shall specify. How evanescent is society on earth! Pleasant are the endearments of home-pleasant the interviews of hallowed friendship. They come like sun-beams on the soul. But how soon are they darkened by the shadow of death! The sweetness of intercourse in this land of affliction and mortality is only the prelude of the bitterness of separation.

In heaven we meet, but not to part. There, are no mournful tremulous adieus-no empty places of friends who once were with us-no lamentations for those who are not-no solitary survivor of departed companions and friends, longing in sadness for his own dismissal. Heaven is the land of immortality. It knows "no more death, neither" the "sorrow and crying" with which death hath so long caused this sad earth to resound: the society of the blessed shall be, like their existence, eternal.