final and unalterable state, then God will rest from his labours, and reap the happy fruits of all his works of creation, providence, and redemption. This is that glorious consummation, which will take place at the end of the world. But in order to a more clear and full illustration of this interesting subject, I will enter into particulars, and observe,

1. That God will, at the end of the world, reap the rich and glorious fruits of his own labours. He has been labouring, in a certain sense, from the early days of eternity. Before the foundation of the world, he formed the best possible plan of operation, and determined all things that should ever take place, by his own operations, and by the operations of all his creatures. Though he formed this great, complicated, and comprehensive design with perfect ease; yet it required the highest possible effort of his all-knowing, all-wise, and all-benevolent mind. It requires considerable mental exertion in a man of large property, to form a wise and correct plan of his own conduct, and of the conduct of all whom he employs in his service; and it requires still greater mental exertion in a general of a numerous army, to form a wise and complicated plan of his own conduct, and of the various operations and movements of all under his command. But it required an infinitely greater exertion of the Deity to determine in his own mind, how many worlds he would make; how many creatures he would form ; and how he would dispose of them all through every period of their existence. Having made these astonishing mental exertions in adjusting the whole plan of creation, he began to labour with his own hand. By his omnipotent hand, he brought heaven and earth, angels and men, out of nothing into being; and by the same hand, he constantly upholds and governs all his creatures, and his works. He universally controls all the views and designs, and conduct of angels and men, and employs them all as labourers in his vineyard, and as instruments in his hand, of executing his original and eternal purposes. Thus God, speaking after the

manner of man, has been labouring, in devising the plan of creation, in performing the work of creation, and in superintending both the natural and moral world, from the beginning to this day; and he will continue his constant and laborious operations till the end of time. Then his harvest being fully ripe, he will gather it in, and reap the fruit of all his labours, from the beginning to the end of the world. His harvest will not be blasted nor injured, by any unforeseen or unexpected accident, but be a complete compensation for all his laborious exertions, and a complete fulfilment of his benevolent desires and designs.

2. At the end of the world, God will reap the fruits of all the labours of his holy creatures. These are his faithful and industrious servants. All the holy angels are his ministering spirits, and continually engaged in his service. They guarded the tree of life. By them, he conveyed his messages to the patriarchs and proph ets, in former ages. And he still employs them to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation, both while they live, and when they die. He employed the ministry of angels, in giving the law at mount Sinai. He employed the instrumentality of angels in destroying Sodom, and spreading destruction in the camp of the Assyrians. He sent angels to announce the birth of Christ. He sent an angel to strengthen Christ in his agony in the garden. He sent angels to watch the sepulchre of Christ, and to confirm the truth of his resurrection, and ascension to heaven. And there is reason to think, that he continues to employ a vast many angels to carry on the purposes of his providence and grace. With all these powerful and faithful labourers in his service, all good men always have been, and always will be united, while they remain on the earth. All the real friends of God, in every age, and in every part of the world, have freely and faithfully laboured in his vineyard. Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and all the patriarchs, spent their long lives, in serving God and their generations. Moses and Aaron, Caleb and Joshua,

Samuel and the prophets, were no less faithful and zealous in doing the work, that God gave them to do. If to these eminent servants of God, we add the apostles and primitive christians, and all the good men that have ever lived from the beginning of the world to this day, and all that ever shall live from this day to the end of time, the labourers in the Lord's vineyard will appear immensely numerous. Solomon employed no less than one hundred and fifty thousand labourers every day, for seven years together, while he was building the temple in Jerusalem; but what is this number of labourers, in comparison with the many millions of labourers, that God has employed, and will employ in the course of seven thousand years, in finishing his living temple, which he is here erecting, and determines to bring to absolute perfection? We cannot, at present, form any adequate conception of the great, and glorious, and everlasting effects of so many faithful labourers for so many thousand years. But we know, that God will reap all the fruits of all the labours, and sufferings, and prayers, of all who shall be renewed, and sanctified, and redeemed from among men, at the last day.

3. At the end of the world, God will reap the fruit of all his unholy, undutiful, and mercenary servants. Though God made all his rational and immortal creatures for himself, and formed them capable of yielding him a free, voluntary, and faithful service; yet a large number of them have renounced their allegiance to their rightful Lord and Sovereign, become disaffected to his character, opposed to his wise and holy designs, and resolved to pursue their own selfish interests in direct contrariety to his. Apostate angels and apostate men are alienated from God, and heartily opposed to his cause and interest in the world, and would not, if they could avoid it, do any thing to promote the designs he is pursuing, and is determined to accomplish. But God is able to overrule all the enmity and opposition of fallen angels and of fallen men, in subserviency to his own glory, and the great interests of his kingdom.

This he has most clearly and strikingly manifested in the course of his providence, from the beginning P the world to the present day. He has always had the cr hearts of all his enemies in his hand, and made themED undesignedly willing to promote the very ends they hated. God designed to promote his own glory in the fall and recovery of mankind. And he employed Satan, his first and greatest enemy, as a free, voluntary in-a strument to promote that design, which he had no desire, nor intention to promote. And after the apostacy of the human race, we find, that God employed evil a spirits, as free voluntary agents in fulfilling the purposes of providence. He undoubtedly employed their a invisible influence in bringing about the dispersion of the ambitious and idolatrous builders of Babel; in sending Joseph into Egypt; in trying the patience of Job; in hardening the heart of Pharaoh, and the hearts of the Egyptians; in hardening the hearts of the seven nations of Canaan, and preparing them for their predestinated ruin; and in tempting Saul, Ahab, Haman, and Judas, to pursue the path to their own destruction. God saw it necessary to bring all these things to pass, and employed the free and voluntary agency of his most inveterate enemies to effect his purpose. There is reason to believe, that God has as constantly and universally employed the unholy, as the holy angels in carrying on his gracious designs in this fallen world. And he as constantly and universally employs unholy as holy men in labouring for him in his vineyard. He has hitherto employed a vast many more sinners than saints, in his service. It appears from both sacred and profane history, that God employed the Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians, Grecians, and Romans, to labour for him, in preparing the way for the coming of Christ, and the spread of the gospel among those, who were perishing for the lack of vision. And he is now setting the whole wicked world in motion, and employing their selfish exertions to promote his benevolent and gracious designs. And though the labours of his mercenary servants never have been, and never will be vir

Steous; yet they always have been, and will be, uninspeakably useful, in promoting his ultimate end, in the ad creation of the world. And when he has accomplisheted this wise and noble end, he will then reap a rich harvest from their long, laborious, and undesigned services. I must add,

4. That God will, at the last day, reap the fruits of ry all the labours of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came into the world to do the will of him who sent him, and he delighted to do his will. He was the most faithful and laborious servant, that God ever employed in his service. He went into his Father's vineyard, and went about his Father's business, before he was twelve years old; .and he never lost, nor misimproved a single moment of time, for more than twenty years. And though his life was comparatively short; yet he did more in that short period, than any other person ever did, in more than nine hundred and sixty years, and was far the most faithful, most industrious and most laborious servant, that ever voluntarily entered into his Father's field. He knew all that he had to do and to suffer for his Father before hand. He knew that he had to combat the power and subtilty of Satan in the wilderness. He knew that he had to work miracles, to cure all manner of diseases, to cast out devils, to go all over Judea and preach the gospel of the kingdom, to lay open the corruption of the human heart, to condemn the errours, delusions, and false religion of the apparently best and worst of men, to meet their contradictions, reproaches, and malignant opposition, to endure the heat of summer and the cold of winter, and to save himself and others from sinking in the sea of Tibereas. But these labours, dangers, and sufferings, were nothing in comparison to what he knew that he had to endure in the garden, before the bar of Pilate, and on the cross, by the hands of wicked men. Though he fully anticipated these things and sensibly realized the tremendous sufferings before him; yet he did not shrink from them, but magnanimously and cheerfully resolved to meet them. "Now is my soul trou