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se who have been your associates in wickedness here, will then be your companions in misery. This will, if possible, aggravate your torment. You and they will rue the day when you first met; and mutually charge the ruin of your souls upon each other. Oh, think of this, and pray for grace to repent, before it be too late! At that solemn season, the righteous shall be publicly and fully acquitted before the assembled world. The judge will say to them, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the world [Matt. xxv.34.]. The holy angels will then conduct them to the mansions of eternal bliss. Happy souls! They will then have no more cause to weep and mourn, to fight and wrestle. They will no more be exercised with darkness or temptation; for sin, which is the cause of all their conflicts and sorrows, shall be done away; and God their gracious Father, and everlasting Friend, shall wipe all tears from their eyes [Rev. vii. 17.]. The righteous, however obscured and reproached upon earth, shall then shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. They are represented to us, as standing before the throne, clothed in white robes, with palm-branches (the emblems of victory) in their hands, and singing to their harps their Redeemer's praise [Matt. xiii.43.; Rev vii. 9,10.]. There they will join in company with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with the apostles, prophets, and martyrs, with their dear friends and relatives, who died in the faith before them, and with the glorious angels; and above all, (without which heaven itself would be no heaven to them) they will enjoy the unclouded presence of their Lord and Saviour, who once suffered pain, and shame, and death for them. They will see him seated upon a throne of glory, and unite with all the heavenly host, in ascribing salvation, glory, and honour, and praise to him who loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood; and has made them kings and priests to God, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever [Rev. v. 9.]. For the joys of heaven, and the pains of hell will be eternal. Otherwise, indeed, neither the happiness nor the misery of a future state could be complete. It would damp the joys of the blessed, to apprehend that they must at length terminate. And the horrors of the damned would be in a degree alleviated, if there was the most distant prospect that they would have a period. But the word of God assures
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