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The Happiness of the GOOD in
a Future State.

Preached in TWICKENHAM-CHAPEL the
Sunday after Dr. WATERLAND's
Interment.

MATTHEW XXV. 21.

Well done, thou good and faithful Ser-
vant; Thou hast been faithful over a
few Things, I will make thee Ruler over
many Things: enter thou into the Joy of
thy Lord.

B

Y the good and faithful Servant in SERM. XL this Text, is meant one, that has

improved the Talents, which were

entrusted with him, to the Advancement of
Religion, and the Good of Mankind: By
being Ruler over many Things, and entring
into the Joy of his Lord, is fhadowed out

the

SER. XII. the future Happiness of those, who have discharged their Duty faithfully.

I have made choice of thefe Words, with a Design to draw the Character of a very faithful Servant, the late worthy Minifter of this Parish, and Archdeacon of this County; after I have, in the first Place, briefly described the Joys of Heaven, and the Nature of that Happiness which our Saviour has, by his Revelation, difplayed; and, by his Merits, enfured to us.

Some Philofophers and Divines of the first Distinction have imagined the Soul to have several Faculties, which, though the cannot now display them, while her Operations are clogged and encumbered by Matter, will shoot out and exert themselves, as foon as she is divorced from this grofs corruptible Body.

But, however this be; whether fome Faculties are originally vefted in the Mind, which are to be hereafter new Inlets of Pleasure; or whether God will fuperadd new Capacities to it; it is undoubtedly certain, that our Bliss will be as great, as our enlarged Soul, the Subject of it, can then receive; and greater than our narrow Undertanding can at present comprehend.

The

The chief Ingredients of our future Hap- SER. XII. piness we may, however, proceed to mark out, viz.

I. The Perfections of Soul and Body.

II. The bleffed Society and the Place.

III. The Enjoyment of the Godhead.

As to the first,

If in this World, when the Soul must have a groffer Way of thinking, as immersed in the Dregs of Matter, a well-regulated Mind, and an enlarged Understanding, are yet confiderable Springs of Pleafure; with what exquifite Joy will they affect us, when we shall throw off this dull Mortality, when our Bodies fhall be fashioned in the glorious Likeness of our Redeemer's, and our Soul's transformed into the Image of our Creator? Now we fee through a Glass darkly; but then (in a future State) Face to Face. Now I know in Part, fays St. Paul, but then I fhall know, even as I am known.

If Knowledge appears fo very beautiful, when we find it fo difficult of Accefs, and when we only fee fome broken Sketches

and

SER. XII. and imperfect Outlines of Truth; how

much fuperior Luftre muft it needs difplay, when it fhines forth in its largest Dimenfions and in its full Proportion? Shall we, who hardly guefs aright, at Things before us, who, if there were not another Life, might justly complain with the Philofopher, that Nature has given indeed a very large Scope to our Curiofity, but fet very narrow Bounds to our Knowledge; fhall we, I fay, in God's Light, fee Light, nay, even fee God as he is, or have direct and immediate Ideas of him, as he is in his own Nature; whereas we now derive all our Knowledge from the Sources of Senfation and Reflection?

Here the Body is not able to keep pace with the Soul in its Inquiries; it clogs the native Energy of our Thoughts: But, when our glorified Souls fhall act in glorified Bodies, they will be ever on the Wing, without ever flagging, or exhaufting their Vi

gour..

We may farther fuppofe, when the Soul fhall have furvived Millions of Years amidst thefe pure and unfullied Joys, with what unfpeakable Pleafure the Memory shall look backward over that wide Field of

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Bliss, which we have already paft; and SER. XII.
the Imagination with much greater Tranf-
port, may look forward to that Endless
Ocean of Delights yet to come;
still prefs
onward, and still find nothing to terminate
its Views. In vain our Mind widens to
take in the vast Idea of an everlasting Hap-
pinefs: In vain it adds Thousands to Thou-
fands, and Millions to Millions: Our
Thoughts are loft in Eternity.

Were it not that this Life is the Founda-
tion of our future Happiness, who knows
but that in the unbounded Extent of Eter-
nity, at some far distant Period of Duration,
our Thoughts being engroffed by an infinite
Variety of nobler Objects, except our Me-
mory be very tenacious, we may forget, or
at least not think it worth our attending to,
that ever there was fuch an Island as this,
in which we live; fuch an Earth, as con-
tained this Island; or fuch a Sun as enlight-
ened this Earth? The Idea, how great fo-
ever, may, in fuch an undetermined Pro-
cefs of Duration, be neglected, and give
Place to nobler Guefts, which will supply
its Room. When that which is perfect
hall come, and that which is imperfect, be
done away;
the Eye of the Understanding

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