comforts go and come; they ebb and flow like the tides. To a heaven-bound traveller fair weather is as uncertain as an April day: one hour a bright sun and clear sky, the next overshadowed with clouds, windy storm, and tempest, Ps. lv. 8. But the celestial joys in our Father's house are permanent and abiding. In this land of sin and sorrow, when we are keenly exercised with afflictions and temptations, our spirits droop, and our hearts faint. The difficulties of the way are many and insupportable to flesh and blood: often the believer is constrained to cry out, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit, for my sighs are many and my heart is faint. When wilt thou come unto me? Do not forget me, O Lord!" These heavy complaints will not be heard in heaven, for the saints shall not only behold the Saviour, but shall be glorified with him. The scriptures affirm that glory shall not merely be revealed to them, but in them, Rom. viii. 17. The King of Zion says to every one of his blood-bought family, immedi ately upon the separation of the soul from the body, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." It is his joy, for he is the author, object, and source of it. "Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright." O what a delightful day will that be when all the ransomed of Jehovah shall come and return to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away," Isa. xxxv. 10.

3. To be with Christ in paradise, denotes an endless duration of unspeakable happiness. The fashion of this world passeth away. Here we have no continuing city. This place is not our rest, it is polluted. Misery and woe are entailed upon the man whose only hope is in this life. The good things confined within the narrow span of time are comparable to a sea of glass, brittle and deceitful: it is mingled with fire, and will soon be consumed. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up," 2 Pet. iii. 10. How different the portion of the righteous! In the end of the world they shall receive

the adoption, to wit, the redemption of their bodies. These shall be changed and fashioned like unto the glorious body of the Son of God. He saith to them, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." "Because I live ye shall live also; and behold I am alive for evermore. The eternity of hell torments is the gnawing worm, and the fire unquenchable, which fills the damned with black despair and inconceivable anguish. And the saints reigning with Christ in glory everlasting, constitutes the heaven of heavens, and will cause their songs to be perpetual for the completing that felicity which is worthy their gracious God to bestow. Let us hear the crowning epithets of this heavenly paradise. It is eternal life-eternal glory-an eternal weight or mass of glory -a crown of glory that fadeth not away---an eternal house-an eternal inheritance, and an everlasting kingdom. Well might the apostle close his discourse upon a subject which has no end, with these consoling words, "So shall we be ever with the Lord; wherefore comfort one another with these words."

Thirdly. The time when this promise was made. The converted thief desired Christ to remember him when he came into his kingdom. Jesus said unto him, "Verily, I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise." The remarkably gracious answer was suitable to this extraordinary prayer; in which the expiring petitioner was assured that the Lord would not only remember him in paradise, but that very day he should be with him. It is also observable, that when our Saviour spake the word, it was about the sixth hour of the day, which corresponds with our noon; consequently the day was half gone; and how delightful to him the reflection when in the agonies of death, to know before its expiration he should be with the Lord in his kingdom of ineffable joys. There is something, my attentive hearers, so surprising in the Saviour's prompt reply to the request of the dying thief, that the exceeding riches of sovereign grace displayed in it beggars all description! Had he been a faithful servant of righteousness all his days, he could not have made to him a more glorious promise. Were we to judge after the manner of men, we should be inclined to think the Son of God was addressing some eminent saint who

from love to him had borne the burden and heat of the day, and for his sake was laying down his life, and not a man who was a notorious highwayman in heart when first nailed to the cross. Did the Saviour say to him, Thou hast been a wicked malefactor; for thy heinous crimes thou art transfixed to the ignominious tree; ever since thou hast been suspended there, thou hast united with thy miserable companion and my cruel murderers in reviling me? No. No. Blessed be his name, he upbraideth not, for he hateth putting away. Neither did he reply, I will surely show thee mercy, but I intend to consign thee first to the yawning gulf of perdition for a few years, that the flames of purgatory may purify thy polluted soul. "Wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth!" to the confusion of devils, the mortification of self-righteous pharisees, the encouragement of broken-hearted sinners, and the joy of angels, the adorable Redeemer answers, "Verily, I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise."

There are persons who imagine that the souls of the righteous and the wicked fall asleep when separated from the body, and are in an unconscious state of existence until the resurrection morn. And they have been very much perplexed with this text, because it absolutely contradicts their unfounded and unreasonable supposition; therefore they cavil at the punctuation, and remove the comma from the pronoun thee, and place it after the phrase to-day, contending that it ought to be pointed thus,-" Verily, I say unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with me in paradise." This alteration restricts the day to the time when our Lord spake these words; instead of denoting the time when the converted thief was to enter his kingdom; and leaves the exact period undetermined, when he was to enter glory, in the vague declaration," Thou shalt be with me in paradise" at some distant undetermined future period. If this impious conduct is pursued, and this unwarrantable licence permitted in interpreting the word of God, farewell common sense and unchangeable truth! If the uncertain notions of fallible men are to be preferred before the simple and plain testimony of scripture, there are no delusions, however absurd, but what might be inculcated as consistent with the inspired volume, according to the wild reveries of men of corrupt minds, who wrest the scripture to their own destruction, because they hate the light, and

receive not the truth in the love of it. Materialists, who deny the immateriality and immortality of the soul, belong to this class of persons, and erroneously conjecture that the soul is inactive from the period of its separation from the body until the last day. This Socinian hypothesis is as unphilosophical as it is anti-scriptural. The soul is a thinking being, and can no more be divested of thought, than matter can be deprived of solidity, or of length and breadth, which are essential properties of all bodies, as much as a conscious state of being is absolutely requisite to the essence of the soul of man, which is an immortal spirit. The soul-sleeping system has a baneful influence upon the conduct of worldly men; it lulls the guilty conscience in its slumbers, and calls in question the final day of retribution, and thus hardens the wicked in their sins. For if the spirit falls asleep with the body, where is the scripture to prove that it shall be raised again? Upon the admissibility of this supposition, the fatal and delusive doctrine of the soUL'S ETERNAL SLEEP must be irrefutably established, which is all the heaven the ungodly desire. They "shall seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them," Rev. ix. 6. What a gloomy and discouraging aspect it presents to unbelievers, in reference to their departed christian friends and relatives, whose souls it represents as locked up in the cold embrace of death, as incapable of happiness as their bodies; and therefore it robs them of the joyous and pleasing remembrance of the gospel fact of being with Christ in glory. With respect to believers themselves, according to this chilling scheme, how truly comfortless the prospect of death! Far better would it be for them to remain in this wilderness of sorrow and affliction, where they often enjoy the gracious presence of their God, in his service, which is perfect freedom; and frequently have their spirits refreshed, and their hearts delighted with the soul-cheering visits of their Almighty Friend, than enter a state of inactivity and unconscious existence. This benumbing chimera flatly contradicts the word of God, and therefore ought to be rejected by all real christians, with merited disdain and holy detestation. The unerring language of inspiration is explicit. The ungodly antediluvians and Sodomites are now suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 1 Peter iii. 19, 20. Jude 7. The rich glutton that fared sumptuously every day, and

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despised poor Lazarus, is lifting up his eyes in hell, being tormented with unquenchable flames of brimstone and fire, St. Luke xvi. 25. O who can fall asleep amidst devouring fire; and who can slumber tortured in everlasting burnings? "The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" "For the smoke of their torments ascendeth up for ever and ever." Though the immortality of the soul is indescribably dreadful to the wicked, it is a theme which causes the troubled hearts of the righteous to rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. When Moses and Elias conversed with Christ upon the mount of transfiguration, upon the sublime mysteries of the cross, they certainly were not asleep. The happy spirits of just men made perfect, who serve God in his temple without being weary, though they rest not day nor night, are far from being in an unconscious state. "Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord ;" and when we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. It was this animating and sure hope of the faithful entering glory immediately their souls leave the body, caused St. Paul to say, though he enjoyed such an elevated degree of communion with God, equal to any saint upon earth, "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." The thought of reigning with his Almighty Friend, inspired him to sing in the prospect of martyrdom, with all its attending evils, "None of these things move me; neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy." "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.” I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed against that day." These divine verities the martyrs of Jesus firmly believed and vitally experienced. Through the energy of the Holy Ghost, they were enabled to maintain the all-important truths of the gospel with such unshaken constancy and intrepidity of spirit, that in these days of modern refinement and liberalism, the worldly-minded and fashionable professors of every sect, would have denounced them as obstinate bigots, wild fanatics, and absolute madmen. But they loved not their lives unto the death, that they might obtain a better resurrection; and our Lord declares, "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth

"For