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miferable world fucceeded, much like what it is now, that lafted long. That old world was deftroyed by the waters of the flood, and a new world fucceeded to it thereafter. An emblem of the deftroying of this by fire, and another world coming in its room. There was the ftate of the world under the law, and the ftate thereof under the gospel, that was long prophefied of under the name of the world to come, before it came. And even the conftant revolutions of winter and fummer, night and day, may ferve for memorials of the great change of this world, with another world to come.

Laftly, The word cannot be fulfilled, if there be not a world to come; for fure in many parts thereof it is not fully accomplished in this world. Now it is more fure than heaven and earth, and must be completely fulfilled; and therefore there is a world to come in which it must be so, that the veracity of God may be entire. ¿

(1.) The promises of the word are far from being fully accomplished in this world; and therefore they who by faith betake themselves to them for their por tion, muft not only live in faith, but die in faith, Heb. xi. 13. In this world there is a begun accomplishment of them; but certain it is, that God's people have always vaftly more in hope, than in hand, I Cor. ii. 9. But their faith and hope fhould be vain, were there not a world to come.

(2.) The threatenings of the word are not fully accomplished in this world neither. Many ungodly men live and die in peace, as far as the world can difcern, Job xxi. 13. Pfal. Ixxiii. 3, 4. Yet moft terrible things are denounced against them in the word; and that they are not accomplished in this world, is an infallible proof, that there is another world in which they shall.

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A DESCRIPTION OF THE OTHER World.

III. HAVING evinced the being of another world, a world to come, we shall now effay to give fome view of that world. And here we are much in the dark, knowing but very little of the fubject; and therefore it is a very scanty view we can pretend to give of it. The reasons hereof are,

1. We are while in this body creatures of sense, and much of the knowledge we have arifes from our fenfes; but thither our fenfes cannot reach. We fee, and hear, and feel much of this world lying in wickednefs, whereby we are in a capacity to judge thereof; but in refpect of these our fenfes, and all other, that world is as if it were not at all; fo that those who are immersed in sense, void of faith, heed not that world. There are loud fongs of joy and praise among the faints in that world, and howlings among the damned there; but liften we as we will, we can hear neither. There is fhining glory in one part of it, and darkness and mifery in the other; but neither of them can our eyes perceive.

2. The communication betwixt our world and it, is ftopt beyond the power of men to open it. Men have opened a communication betwixt us and the most remote parts of this world; they have found means to pass the vast oceans between them and us, to go to them that dwell in the utmoft parts, and to return and give us defcriptions of their part of the world, and the manner of the inhabitants. But the invi fible world remains yet the unknown land to us, and will do fo to the end. There is a paffage to it, but not at our will neither; but there is no paffage back again to us. All of us have friends and acquaintance there before us, but no more communication betwixt them and us, than others.

3. Though there have been apparitions of inhabitants of that world, unto fome of our world, both of

good

good angels and of faints, Matth. xxvii. 53. and of evil angels, Matth. iv.; yet it is obfervable, that these were quite extraordinary, and happened but to very few; that men are very unable to bear the fight even of good angels, or to converse with them, Dan. viii. 17, 18.; and that the accounts they have brought concerned mens duty, or events to befal in this world, and not to give them defcriptions of the other world whence they came. And if at any time evil spirits have offered reports of that kind, they cannot be de pended on, for the devil is "a liar, and the father of it;" John viii. 44. And apparitions of the dead are very fufpicious; and it is like Satan offers in that kind many illufions, as is thought he did in the case of the apparition of Samuel, 1 Sam. xxviii.

4. The Lord has made the revelations concerning the other world, but fparingly in the word, from whence we get our notices of it. There is as much there difcovered about it, as is neceffary for us to know for our falvation. The happiness of the inhabitants of one part of it, and the mifery of the other, are in the general, plainly laid before us, to ftir us up to our duty, to fee timely how to be right pofted there; but certainly there is a vail drawn over many particulars concerning it, which we will never be able while here to draw by, 1 Kings x. 7. Befides, we are flow of understanding what is revealed about it.

Laftly, There is indeed a difproportion between our prefent faculties and the clear and diftinct notions of the other world. As to heaven's happiness, there is a plain and pointed teftimony, 1 Cor. ii. 9. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." The eye fees many things that the hands cannot reach, the ear hears more than the eye fees; but the heart conceives more than is either feen or heard, yet cannot reach that. The fame may be faid of the mifery of hell, it is beyond our concep

tion. When Paul was caught up to the third heaven, he heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful [marg. poffible] for a man to utter," 2 Cor. xii. 4. An evidence hereof is, that the notices given us of the other world, are much in the way of fimilitudes taken from things we are acquainted with, as heaven a glo rious city, hell a burning lake. Our Lord gives the reafon, John iii. 12. "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how fhall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" So our notions of these things are like those of children of what they never faw, 1 Cor. xiii. 11, 12.

Wherefore the little I can or will adventure to say on that world, fhall be comprised in a few heads. 1. The parts of the other world.

2. The inhabitants of it.

3. The paffage into it.

4. The state of men in it.

I. Of the parts of the other World.

THAT vaft world is, according to the scripture, dis vided into two, and but two parts, heaven the feat of the bleffed, and hell the feat of the damned. A purga tory, or place of a middle ftate between thefe, there is none; for fcriptare mentions but two places, into one of which fouls separated from their bodies do país, Luke xvi. 22, 23. And accordingly there are but two ways, the one to life, the other to deftruction, Matt. vii. 13, 14. Besides, the fins of believers are fully pur. ged away by the blood of Christ, and the scripture knows no other purgative of fin, 1 John i. 7. Heb. x, 14, 17. Unbelievers die in their fins without hope, Prov. xiv. 13. The faints are happy immediately after death, Rev. xiv. 13. Therefore Paul defired to be diffolved, Phil. i. 23. "For we know, (fays he) that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were diffolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with bands, eternal in the heavens," 2 Cor. v. 1.

I fhall

I fhall speak a word of these two parts.

FIRST, The one part of the other world is Heaven, the empyreal heaven, the feat of the bleffed. Concerning which, under the guidance of fcripture-light, we may confider three things of it as a part of the other world.

FIRST, What it is; for that it is can be refused by none who own the fcripture, and the being of another world....

I. It is a real definite place. I think they refine too much on the fcripture expreffion that deny a local hea ven, and confine it to the notion of a state. Our Lord exprefsly calls it a place, John xiv. 2. "In my Father's house are many manfions; if it were not fo, I would have told you: I go to prepare a place for you." And the body of Christ is contained in it, Acts iii. 21. and the bodies of fome faints, Enoch and Elias, are already in it, and the bodies of all the elect shall be in it; and bodies must needs be circumfcribed in a place.

It is a definite place, and not every where, where God is. It is not on earth, for earth and heaven `are oppofed, Pfal.cxv. 15. Col. iii. 1. And betwixt it and hell a gulf is fixed, that it reaches not thither, Luke xvi. 26. And though finite fpirits that are perfect are in it, yet it cannot contain God, who is not only omniprefent, but immenfe, 1 Kings viii. 27. therefore it is a place that hath its bounds. Hence,

2. It is a created thing; for it is the throne of God, Ifa. lxvi. 1. his house and dwelling, John xiv. 2. therefore is not God, but created by him; fince whatsoe ver is, is either the Creator or a creature. The fcripture is exprefs, that God made it, Heb. xi. 10. "For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whofe builder and maker is God." And whereas it is faid to be not made with hands, 2 Cor. v. 1. Heb.ix. 24. that denies it only to be made by men, as houses here are, and the tabernacle was.

Moreover, it was created within the fix days, and

therefore