let us enjoy the favour of our superiors, and the esteem of men, as though we enjoyed them not; they are only shadows, which vanish, and leave us for ever; and let us only reckon those moments as real, in our whole life, which we have employed for heaven.

SERMON VIII.

THE CERTAINTY OF A FUTURE

STATE.

MATTHEW Xxv. 46.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.

BEHOLD, my brethren, the termination of the desires, hopes, counsels, and enterprises of man: Behold, upon what at last shall split, the vain reflections of sages and freethinkers, the doubts and eternal uncertainties of unbelievers, the vast projects of conquerers, the monuments of human glory, the cares of ambition, the distinction of talents, the disquietudes of fortune, the prosperity of empires, and all the insignificant revolutions of the earth. Such shall be the awful conclusion, which will unravel the mysteries of Providence in regard to the diversified lots of the children of Adam, and justify its conduct in the government of the universe. This life is, therefore,

but a rapid moment, and the commencement of an eternal futurity. Torments without end, or the delights of an immortal felicity, shall be our lot, as well as that of all

men.

Nevertheless, the idea of this great scene, which was at one time able to startle the ferocity of tyrants, to shake the fortitude of philosophers, to disturb the effeminacy and voluptuousness of Cæsars, to soften the most barbarous nations, to form so many martyrs, to people the desarts, and to bring the whole universe submissive to the yoke of the cross; this image, so terrifying, is in these times destined to alarm only the timidity of the common people. These grand objects are become like vulgar paintings, which we dare no longer expose to the false delicacy of the great and wise; and the only fruit we generally reap from this sort of discourse, is to make it be inquired perhaps, after quitting them, whether every thing shall take place as we have said.

For, my brethren, we live in times in which the faith of many has been wrecked; in which a wretched philosophy, like a mortal venom, spreads in secret, and undertakes to justify abominations and vices, in opposition to the belief of future punishment and rewards. This evil has passed from the palaces of the great, even to the people, and every where the piety of the just is insulted, by the discourses of irreligion, and the maxims of freethinking,

..

And indeed, I am not surprised that dissolute men should doubt of a future state, and endeavour to combat, or to weaken a truth, so capable of disturbing their criminal sensualities. It is horrible to look forward to everlasting misery. The world has no pleasure which can be proof against a thought so shocking; conseVol. I. 27

quently, it has always endeavoured to efface it from the heart and mind of man. It well knows, that the belief of a future state is a troublesome check on the human passions, and that it will never succeed in making tranquil and resolute libertines, without having first made unbelievers.

Let us deprive, then, the corruption of the human heart, of so wretched and weak a support: Let us prove to dissolute souls, that they shall survive their debaucheries; that all dies not with the body; that this life shall finish their crimes, but not their misery; and more completely to confound impiety, let us attack it in the vain pretexts on which it depends.

1st, Who knows, say the impious, that all dies not with us? Is that other life of which we are told, quite certain? Who has ever returned to inform us of it?

2dly, Is it worthy of the majesty of God, say they again, to demean himself by any attention to what passes among men? What matters it to him, that worms of the earth, like us, murder, deceive, and tear each other; live in luxury or in temperance? Is it not presumptuous in man, to suppose, that an Almighty God is occupied with him?

Lastly, What likelihood, add they, that God, having made man such as he is, will punish as crimes, the inherent inclinations to pleasure, which nature has given us-Behold the philosophy of the voluptuary: the uncertainty of a future state; the majesty of God, which a vile creature cannot offend; and the weakness of man, which, being born with him, He would be unjust to consider it a crime.

Let us then prove, in the first place, against the uncertainty of the impious, that the truth of a future state

is justified by the purest lights of reason: Secondly, against the unworthy idea, grounded upon the greatness of God, that this truth is justified by His wisdom and glory. Lastly, against the pretext, drawn from the weakness of man, that it is justified, even by the testimony of his own conscience. The certainty of a future state; the necessity of a future state; the inward acknowledgment of a future state: These are the subjects and arrangement of my discourse.

O God! attend not to the insults, which the blasphemies of impiety offer to Thy glory; regard only, and see what reason is capable of, when Thy light is with drawn-In the wickedness of the human mind, behold all the severity of Thy justice, when it abandons us; that the more I expose the foolish blasphemies of the impious soul, the more he may become in Thy sight, an object worthy of Thy pity, and of the treasures of Thine infinite mercy.—

PART I. It is surely melancholy to be obliged to justify before believers, the most consolatory truth of faith; to prove to men, to whom Jesus Christ has been announced, that their being is not a wild mixture, and the wretched offspring of chance; that a wise, and an Almighty Artificer, has presided at our formation and birth; that a spark of immortality animates our clay; that a portion of us shall survive ourselves; and that, on quitting this earthly mansion, our soul shall return to the bosom of God, whence it came, and go to inhabit the eternal region of the living, where to each one shall be rendered according to his works.

It was with this truth that Paul began to announce faith before the Athenian judges. We are the immortal