"A crown of glory." Every crown is glorious, but this excels in glory. Our dying, loving Redeemer, to obtain it, was content to wear for us a crown of vilest thorns, that he might set a crown of pure celestial gold on our base, earth-born heads, was crucified that we might reign. It implies a day, without a night; a sun, without a cloud; a bliss, without an end!—all that is ennobling, enlivening, or perfecting; that confer excellency, or attract admiration!

Compare it with the present condition of the body: -sorrows, sickness, pain, want, age, and death; its contrasts are, the glory of this matchless crown. They shall be exchanged for joys, health, ease, and riches; changeless youth, and endless life: the absence of all evils, and fruition of all good; or, in the Apostle Paul's incomparable antitheses, "this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality."

Compare it with the present condition of the soul. From knowing in part, we shall know, even "as we are known;" affections shall have rectified propensions and objects; our perverted wills move right, with an adjusted balance; and sin, the inrooted leprosy of our fallen natures, lose its name and being, in consummated holiness. It must needs be glorious, for it is a primeval, ancient royalty, a "kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world." The diadems must be splendid, that such illustrious sovereigns wear; for they shall shine forth,' themselves, " as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." (Matt. xiii. 43.) It must needs be a crown of insuperable glory; for "in God's light they shall see light."

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And wants there more to set it off?—Yes! (blessed be the purchaser and bestower of this inestimably precious gift!) the fairest jewel is yet behind!

It" fadeth not away." A fading crown, a cheap,

mean wreath, of a few short-lived herbs or flowers, given anciently to such as came off victors, at the famous Grecian athletic games, was all they got for agonizing wrestlings, racings, sweat, and toils. They ran, saith St. Paul, "to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible." (1 Cor. ix. 25.) What emulations, preparatory discipline and regimen, strivings and vehemence of conflict did these excite! and yet how poor, after all, was the prize! They bestowed their honours a few hours, or days, on the wearers, and then they vanished, withered, and "returned to their earth,” and all" their gains perished." But a nobler, spiritual, immaterial crown!" a crown of glory!-a crown of glory that fadeth not away;-eternal in the heavens!" Every mention adds a lustre; every word a charm! -Permanency is the chiefest good in bliss. Our highest joys have this, of pain, because they last not. TO HAVE BEEN blest is the deepest accent in, gives the keenest edge to, mortal grief. In heaven there are no deposing eras; no surrendering back of crowns, by changes, times, nor death: "they go no more out, but are as pillars" (the stability and embellishing ornaments in the fabrick) "in the temple of God," for ever and ever. (Rev. iii. 12.) The happiness of the upper, invisible world of spirits, is better known by comparisons of the negative, than positive sort; by circumstances gathered from the infelicities we feel annoy our present state of animal being; by contemplating rather what heaven is not, than what it is.

It “fadeth not away." To speak more of this transcendant crown, would be depreciating, diminishing its superlative lustre; since all language fails, and our images are too faint and dull, and all the richest flowers of man's rhetoric are too poor, to investigate these mysteries,-and we are stopped by a message

from heaven, which informs us, " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man," (that capacious, aspiring, ever-inquisitive thing,) "what God hath prepared for them that love him." (1 Cor. ii. 9.)

Moses Brown.

THE sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed. It matters not what we want or what we suffer. If this life were a state of extreme poverty and misery-if not a single beam of light were to break in upon our gloomy dungeon-if not a single drop of consolation were to be mixed with our very bitter cup-if we were to travel through the wilderness, amidst perpetual alarms and assaults, without a single moment's rest or safety,-heaven would make amends for all; and our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, would work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Lavington.

HELL.

CANST thou descend, O my soul! with awful step, into the doleful regions of damnation?-Let thy heart meditate terror. The more shall thy fears be alarmed to fly from the wrath to come in this thy day of merciful visitation: the more shall thy gratitude be awakened to thy loving Saviour, who redeems thy life from destruction, and who says unto thee, "Fear not, I have the keys of hell and of death."-But have the doors of the shadow of death been opened unto us? Who can presume to give the geography of this dismal terri

tory, or confidently say, in what place of this large universe eternal justice has ordained this doleful dungeon? Whether it shall be in the centre of the earth; or in some blazing comet; or far beyond the limits of this lightsome world, where chaos and eternal darkness reign; He only knows, before whom hell and destruction hath no covering. No thoughts can reach, no words can paint the horrors of this dreary region, where the miserable inhabitants drink of the wrath of the Almighty, and know, by dreadful experience, what is the power of his anger. Waving the metaphorical descriptions of darkness, worms, and fire; there dwells the most restless and unsatisfied desire; the most overwhelming shame; the most horrible fear; the most dismal sorrow; the most tormenting envy; the most unrelenting hardness of heart; and the most racking despair.

They hunger, but there is no food to relieve their appetite; they thirst, but there is no refreshing fountain, nor even a cooling drop. Should sensual appe tites remain, they never can be gratified. As heathen poets sung of Tantalus burning with thirst and hunger; gladly would he snatch at the delicious apples hanging over his head, or steal a cooling draught of water that came up to his chin: but no sooner did he make the fruitless attempt, than the apples fled from his grasp, and the waters fled from his taste. So shall they" snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and they shall eat on the left, and shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm.

How will the impropriety of their past conduct expose them to the bitter taunts of insulting devils, and to the painful upbraidings of their own hearts! Fools that we were, for one morsel of meat, to sell our heavenly birthright! for such transitory delights; for such

little sips of polluted joys, to awaken these everlasting flames?

What fearfulness and trembling shall come upon them, when they behold the angry face of God clad with an everlasting frown! Who can behold it, and not be sore amazed! Even the Son of God did sweat great drops of blood when he beheld it. How then shall these feeble creatures endure!

Lo! heaven shuts its everlasting doors upon them, while their minds are haunted with the ghast apparitions of their departed joys. How keen must be the sorrow! how cutting the anguish of such a thought! I have eternally lost the incomparable happiness of yonder blessed abodes. Where are ye now, my pleasing comforts! How have you fled away as a vision of the night!

Nor will it be a small part of their misery, to envy the prosperity of the righteous, when they shall seize their heavenly thrones, and tune their harps to strains of highest rapture. When" their horn shall be exalted with honour, the wicked shall see it, and be grieved: he shall gnash with the teeth, and melt away.

Ó shocking to think! they will eternally hate the eternal Excellency, because they are hated of him.— No more shall the Divine Spirit excite the faintest motion in their minds towards God, or holiness. The iron sinew of their stubborn will, will grow more hard by these fierce flames. They may indeed repent, but their repentance worketh death.

Here hope supports under the greatest pressures; but there that anchor shall be broken. Here the sons of sorrow will sometimes sink in soft repose: the couch will ease their complaint; and kind officious friends will fall on various methods to blunt the edge of the sharpest pain. Even the tortured wretch, though dy