PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 A Series of Sermons. Delivered in 
 Emmanuel Reformed Episcopal Church, Ottawa, Ontario. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. COOPER, A.M. D.D., 
 
 OFFICIATING MINISTER. 
 1 s a 2 . 
 
 OTTAWA. 
 
 Printed by C. W. Mitchell, 6, 8 and lO Elgin Street. 
 
»>i, *■!■ ■'i 
 
/\ff 1^ ^. /!' jy-' 
 
 I /3 74^ 
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 I A Series ot Sermons. Delivered in 
 
 Emmanuel Reformed Episcopal Church, Ottawa, Ontario. 
 
 \ 
 
 WILLIAM H. COOPER, A.M. D.D., 
 
 ! - OFFICIATING MINISTER. 
 
 X 8 8 2 
 
 OTTAWA. 
 Printed by C. ^A/^. Miiohell, 6, 8 and lO Elgin Street, 
 
Ottawa, Nov. 14th, 1882. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Cooper, 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 IFe, your friends, who have xvith great pleasu:e heard your Sermons on (he 
 "Problems of the Future Stofe" respectfully request timr publication in pamphlet form. 
 
 We know that they did much good, and excited much interest : and we wish to 
 have them preserved. 
 
 Rev. J. J. Johnson. 
 George May. 
 R. W. Maktin. 
 Francis Hunter. 
 J. Hervey Sjpencer, 
 Robert Switzer. 
 
 ^ E. B. Botterell. 
 Thomas Taylor. 
 John B. Simpson. 
 Saml. Thompson. 
 
 T. D. KiRBY. 
 
 Ottawa, Nov. 16th, 1882. 
 
 Dtar Brethren : 
 
 In the trust that, with the Divine blessing, the Sermons alluded to may prove 
 conducive to prayerful searching of the Scriptures, and profitable meditation, I cheerfully 
 put them, forth ; and remain. 
 
 Yours, in tht love of Christ, 
 
 W. H. Cooper. 
 
PROBLEiS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 A Series of Sermons. Delivered in 
 Emmanual Reformed Episcopal Church, Ottawa, Ontario. 
 
 -BT- 
 
 WILLIAM H. COOPER, A.M. D.D., 
 
 . OFFICIATING MINISTER, 1882. 
 
 HADES: OR, THE PLACE OF DEPARTED SPIRITS, 
 
 And it came to pass that the bej^i^ar 
 died, and that hs was carried away by 
 the angels into Abraham's bosom : and 
 the rich man also died, and wa« buried ; 
 and in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being 
 in torment, and leeth Abraham afar oft, 
 and LaEarus ia his k< snm. And he cried 
 and eaid. Father Abraham, have mercy 
 on me, and send I^azirus, that he may 
 dip the tip of his finger in water and cool 
 my tongue : for I am in anguish in this 
 dame. But Abraham »aid, son, rrmem- 
 ber that thou in thy life time receivedst 
 thy good things, and io kke manner 
 Lazarus evil things : but now he is com- 
 forted and thou art in anguish. And 
 besides all thii, between us and you 
 there is a great gulf fixed : that they who 
 would pa^s from hence to you may rot be 
 able : and t hat none may rross over from 
 thence to us. (Revised Veraicm) Lnke 
 XVI, 22-26. 
 
 The future destiny of the soul is a sub- 
 ject in which we cannot all but feel 
 interested. It should not be treated 
 crudely or rashly, but only with our beat 
 thought No idle discussiiin is that upon 
 :which I propose to enter ; no question of 
 fancy naetaphysics or of purely specula- 
 tive theology — although, with the latter 
 we shall have, probably, somewhat to do. 
 Indeed, no discussion can properly be 
 regarded as an idle one w hich has to do, 
 seriously and soberly, with our eternal 
 destinies 
 
 Fortunately, we have a sure word of 
 Xrod — a written and Divine Revelation — 
 wbeteunto we shall ever do well ti take 
 heed : and consistency demands of thos-e 
 of us wio profess to believe in tha*; Word 
 that our opinions should be made to har- 
 monise with its clear and explicit decla- 
 . rations, and by '*ci*ar and orpUcit " I 
 would be understood to mean such rend- 
 -erings of i:he original Scriptures as the 
 best scholarship of the day will accept 
 -and sanction. I holdthose Scriptures to be 
 4he final standard of appeal as to all ques- 
 
 tions of Christian doctrine ; and that no 
 view should l)e held or maintained, either 
 from press and pulpit, which to say the 
 least, fs out of harmony therewith. At 
 the same time, I would enter a sc^ienin 
 demurrer against the claim of infallibility 
 for any man's private interpretations. 
 
 It is evident to the thoughtful observer 
 that great confusion of idea exists in 
 re^rd to the state after death. And I 
 thmk that a most reprehenpible loocenest 
 of eiipression has been indulged m from 
 the pulpit. . Views have been enunciated, 
 with the greatest confidence, which 
 would not bear the test, forope moment, 
 of even our English version of the Scrip- 
 tures. In proof of this apparently some- 
 what wholesale statement, I need only 
 remind you that it is very extensive^ 
 taught that the soul, at death, paeaee 
 immediately to heaven or hell, the interme- 
 diate state of Sfieol amongst *,he Hebrewt, 
 and Hndee amongst the Greeks, both 
 signifying the invisible p^ace, or abode, 
 of the disembodied (^ead, being entirely 
 ignored. And thi'« leaching prevails, it 
 seemn to me, for fea' of tlie bug bear of 
 Purgatory — an idea in no wise connected, 
 of U'^cessity. with Hades. Souls are not 
 purified through the instrumeutality of 
 material fire : the conception is too gross 
 to be believed ; and has no warrant in 
 Inspired Scripture. The spiritual man is 
 often purified thr ' the pucess of afflie- 
 tion, and is cleansed and sanctified Ihro' 
 the operation of the Hvyly Ghost. 
 
 It is evident furthermore, that the 
 immediate transfer of the soul, at death, 
 to either Heaven or Hell, cannot be 
 taught in t* e scriptures ; and for this . 
 reason— that it involves the grossest 
 inconsistency, in that it would call dowa 
 fr«m Hraven, and place at the bar -of 
 judgment, the saints of Ood who for ages 
 have been enjoying the everlasting rest ! 
 With what propriety — it might well be 
 asked — could the Redeemer say to thofe 
 on his right hand, " c(»ne ye blessed of 
 my Fisher, inherU the Kingdom prepared 
 
JT 
 
 Problem* of (he Fufiire Slate. 
 
 n i 
 
 for yon," they having alreattv, aD<l lout; 
 bfifon;. on*e'tMl upofi thf hliss of that 
 inheritance ? 
 
 Th« 8.)h1, it should l)e remeral»erecl, i8 
 not the ni»n, neither, of course ia the 
 bo<ly. 77«'f/ {)r(>[)(mition metis no argu- 
 ment. \N e are duplex in na ure, if not 
 triplex. VVe consiHt of iw* ly, mind and 
 soul, as some discriminnti-. VVe consiat 
 not of soul alone, nor of body alone, but 
 of both in union, or combined, ^tdea h, 
 a Sf-pantion tak>'H plsee : thn body 
 returni to the earth ; sinks into ocean's 
 deajtths ; or is scatterod br adcast as 
 ashes to the four winds rf Hraven ; the 
 soul separated, for a time, from it-i tene- 
 ment, enters into }{adts, the Invisible 
 World, or. as St. Fetp*" calls it, the prison, 
 (2 Peter, III I!)), or p/aceof safe-ko' ping, 
 of sppirate or departed spirits, tht-re to 
 await the morning of the Resurrection. 
 
 I tavestid that tlie body i» not the 
 man ; neither is the soul, but "Christ 
 TiiK FIRST FRUITS." What means this 
 •xpression ? 
 
 When, early on the morning of the first 
 day of the week, the two fiithful Marys 
 went to the sepulchre, ex^>ecting there to 
 find the Lord, they encountered, in the 
 place of the dead two shiuing ones, who 
 said to them, "why seek ye the living 
 among the dead ? He is not here, but is 
 risen. (Luke XXIV, 5.) 
 
 And afterwards, when he cnme and 
 stood in the midst of the disciples, they 
 were afraid, thinking it a spirit, when, to 
 re-aesure them, be «aid. " htndle me for 
 a ppirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see 
 me have." (v. 39.) 
 
 That same body, after dwelling 
 amongst them the mystic forty days, 
 ascended op to heaven, and now dwells, 
 in figure, at the riglit hand of God, — i.e, 
 in his unspeakable glcry. "Christ the 
 first fruits!" So also shall we dwell 
 with him — if faithful — our bodies and 
 souls alike immortal. 
 
 At sound of the archangle's trump 
 will occur the General Jail Delivery. 
 That is to say. Hades will be empHed 
 of its tenants of disembodied souk, both 
 bad and good alike ; and those souls will 
 be united again, each to their correspond- 
 ing bodies, now prepared, by a nurade 
 ©f the Almighty power ef God, for that 
 new and entirely different state of exist- 
 ence, either of weal or woe, upon which 
 they are about to enter. The itlentity of 
 the man again complete, but lost while 
 suspended by death, we shall stand 
 before the great white Throne, there to 
 receive the award of the Judgnoeat — ^the 
 wicked to receive tneir sentence of pun- 
 ishment, in company with the devil and 
 
 h 8 angels ; the righteous to join the 
 (J»'n"raT Assembly and < hurchof the tirst 
 born whose nuniei tiro wra<t n in lltuven. 
 I know that men deny thiH d<»otrine ot 
 the resurrection of tho body, and aU > this 
 other one of the General Judgment. Rut 
 for my part, I cani<ot otherwist^ under- 
 stand the scriptures. If St. Paul, in 
 particular, does not tf ach of such artsur- 
 rection (for instance in 1 Cor., XV') I am 
 at a lo^s to know what he does teach 
 there. Nor is thefe auythii g uniihil- 
 isophical in his doctrir e. He brniply 
 (It dares that a^ a givtu time, figuratively 
 spoken of as the sound iug of tho arch- 
 angel's trump, the bcuiea of th« sheeted 
 dead shall rise again, changed as to their 
 xuhtifitnre, unchanged as to their r^neufial 
 iUeiitUi/ : the corraptihie having i>ut on 
 incorrupt oil, the mortal imtnort ility. 
 
 Thereupon the soul iw ets tho body, and 
 the body the soul, ar d thus the integrity 
 of the m^n is consunuuated ; and that 
 not, as bef> re, f r a limited period of 20, 
 50 or 70 years, but/or all Etn-nUt/. VVe 
 shall die no more, if fortunut^ enough to 
 escape the '* Meeoiut" death, but be etjual 
 to the artge's. And thi- reunion mus' tvi- 
 dently be thut of eaih soul to its covres- 
 pocding body, as existing here < n earth» 
 lor otherwise it wou'd not he a resnrrec- • 
 tif n bnt a new creation The Apo->tle — 
 with as Inspired authoriry — is mrjst 
 explicit on this point. He silences at 
 once all cavil. ing against the ResurreC' 
 tion of mankind declaring that < bri«t 
 shall change our vile bodies — not abolish 
 the present one, nor substitue another, 
 but, " shall ch <nge tlis vile Ixidy that it 
 may he fashioneil like unto kis <ilorioti» 
 bodi/." (Ihlipp III, 21.) Wf xhnll 
 there/ore know our bodiea, notwithstand- 
 ing the change as to quality which will 
 have pa.'ised upon them. Our own, still, 
 not as to numerical particles, all of which 
 the g^erm alone excepted, may have been 
 transmuted again and again into other 
 organisms, they will be etherialized, to 
 fit them for the new and permanent habi- 
 tation which God has provided for them. 
 
 And that there is not even a physical 
 impossibility iu the case is d«raonscrated 
 from the fact that, even in this life, not- 
 withstanding the constantly recurring 
 changes in the substance of our bodies, 
 identity is still preserved. 
 
 But it will be, perhaps, objected that 
 this doctrine dots not harmonize with 
 the teaching of the parable constituting 
 the text ? To my mind, on the contrary^ 
 it does harmonize most perfectly. 
 
 Let it be observed that the rich man. 
 and Lazarus were fto^Ar in Hades, though 
 not in immediate contiguity. It should 
 
Ilmlcii : or, the Place qf Departed Sp'riU 
 
 be rcmerpbtT'-d thnt there was a (jrent 
 giil/tif' Hffmnitlofi betwien thtin— a gulf 
 a* Miilu iiii«l us (1l'. p uH thiit which iioir 
 moral ly afiKin tea hetwet'ii the trae sona 
 of (Jul and the children of the Kvil One 
 They could converse together ; but, with 
 out, poHsihle interchange of 1' cation. 
 
 And th' ir ^utfering, as well iw joy, was 
 but (iiifirijintori/. Their bouIh were, aa 
 yet, in a separate crndilion ; and 8< rtlence 
 either of cundenination or ac(|uitlal had 
 not yet bee i finally pronounced upon 
 them. At death, doubtless, a [larticular 
 
 I'udgment, so tu sp'ak, 'had b.en made 
 :nown t<) them. (Jrd, in his love and 
 mercy, had spiken peace to the one : 
 Conscience, in ton' s of ierto»-, had spokeu 
 to the other. They thus knew rf the 
 de-tiny 'U store f( r Ihcm. 1 would em- 
 
 Ehiisizt! t\,e fact that, as already stated, 
 oth Dives and Lazirua were, acordng 
 to ihe (ireek, in Hades. I is signiticant 
 that the word is not (iKiiENNA— the term 
 always used in the New Testament when 
 8ptakn_' of the place <f the lest. True, 
 th«" wo d is " hell " in o^r ptes nt 
 autho' ized. but it i:* H ides in the Revised 
 Ver '< n : it is sulficienl to know howtver 
 that will n the former versi<-n was made, 
 the t rui had a double signification, ai,d 
 not a- now, one exclusively. Exj re.^sions 
 chin;.e, in language', with the lapse of 
 time sc that a sense good in one ajje 
 becomes ol solete in another. Take, for 
 instance, the marriage service of the 
 Church ( f Euijiand. I that strvice the 
 bride^iroom is made to expres^shis " wor- 
 sh p' of the womin, in the now obsolete 
 aense of honor. 
 
 " The word Hell "—says Dr. Adam 
 Clarke (on Matt. xi. 2li) — " ufaed in the 
 common tr^iiislation, conveys vow an im- 
 proper n ei' ing of the original word ; 
 Dccaui*e Hell i O' ly used to signify the 
 place of the Hamned. Bu*', as the woid 
 Hell comes fn m the Anglo-Saxon htlan, 
 to ci'ver or hide, hence the tylinif or 
 sliitiiiL' of a h> use is called liellrKj to th s 
 day, .>nd the covers of books (in Lane ister) 
 by the same name , so he literal import 
 ©I th- oiiginal word Hades was formerly 
 well expressed by it. 
 
 So far. then, aa the text is concerned 
 instead of contirmii g the theory of an 
 imnudiate transition from this state of 
 exis ei ce to either heaven or hell, as we 
 now u derstand the ialter, it is undoubt- 
 edly opposed to it. 
 
 Ar^d liere I would quote the eminf nt 
 Dr. Chalmers. " 1 th.nk it very impres- 
 Biv< " — he remarks — *■ when Samuel com- 
 plains o* having been disquieted, and 
 wht n he tells Saul that he and hia sons 
 should be with him on the morrow — ali in 
 
 harmnuy with tlif iloctrine of auintermedi- 
 atr llwlrn, irfifrr fJif iliMf)iihinlifil ^piritHt)/ 
 inrii iliif/l nil the iluji uj tin' n shrrxtioii." 
 
 On rtfle>i< n, it wdl liave to be luucvded . 
 that the panics in t|ue»tion weie in the 
 same p'ace or region, iua much as that 
 tilt y ronrrrnfd tiiijrther. It wdl turdy not 
 be inaintaiuMl that a soul in heavin cnuld 
 by any possdjiiity, hold intercourse with 
 a soul in hell ! They are in th.? same 
 place a< the or'ginal also compels ui to 
 understand, but in »epnratf. tlirinlons of 
 that place. Tdere could be no passing 
 Irom one part of the common i)naou, or 
 plavf o/n(t/f kfcpiiiij, to the i thur. 
 
 Tne expres lou "Abraham's bosom," 
 ia evidently, to my m nd, a tignre di not- 
 ing a dger.i of happihess. grtat ui doubt- • 
 edy, but inferior to that of Heiven. 
 Abraham was. a ter all, a man ; a weak 
 one 111 H< iiK respects, judg'i^it from our 
 btand-poii t, and therefure not allog ther 
 a titling t\pe of that glo.ious abode 
 
 herein believers shall enjoy th ■ more 
 immediate presence of tii d hereafter. 
 Lazarus then, 1 apprehend, was in the 
 enjoyment of a sweet and comfort Ui,', but 
 withal impeifect andantn ipa ory lea.iza- 
 liou of the coming bliss of ILavtii. Uivcs, 
 on the other hai d, lifted up his »yes in 
 t. rments. Tne original word is a i-tr. nj^ 
 one meaning tortuied, as it were, I think, 
 by r. ub ouj reco.b ctions of the pa^t and 
 sore appreh* nsions cf the future 
 
 Comfort, then, and it» reveise : peace, 
 bappimss, bliss, although in liiintcd 
 deg'ee, and their ojjpos.tes, are all in- 
 volved in the Scriptuie idea of liie place 
 in which tne soul-< of Lazarns and the rich 
 man wert^ conhned, in expedition of the 
 Resuriectiim. In that sectii n, so to 
 speak, «f the invisible w>iH in which 
 was the soul of Lazarns, — and w ich may 
 be dencminate \ the Paradise oj the hlcnt — 
 repose the sou s of all who have died in 
 the Lord trom ihe days of ligh'eoiis Abel 
 even u> til now, Enoch anc! El jah most 
 pn bab y n t exce[.ted — most probably, I 
 say, for, as we are reminded by Bishop 
 Hobart, (p 52), "no man "— sa s our 
 bless' d Lord — "hath ascended up to 
 heaven, but he that came down from 
 heaven, even the son of man who is in 
 heaven." " Er.och and El jah were trans- 
 lated accoidintj to the foiegoing d' clara- 
 lion ( f our Lord, not to that heaven to 
 which Christ hath ascended, and to which 
 he will fi ally exalt his eaints ; but to some 
 separate abode of bhsHedness and peace." 
 Peter a'so in his great apeech at Jerusalem 
 on the da\ of Pentecost used this remark- 
 ab'e expression : David is not ascended into 
 the heaveiiH (ActsIL 34); where, then, was 
 his soul if not in Hades ? 
 
Prohlrm$ qf tfie Future StaU. ■ 
 
 Paradiae it not Heaven, altboas^h very 
 oommnnly •upiWMd to be, bat an inter- 
 mfilinte plncf of htUa thnianiuaa " Abra* 
 ham's bosom.'' Thi^ mav, perhip*. •eein 
 to some a startling propusition. We will 
 examine it, thertforo. 
 
 "TiiiH DAY," said our Lord to the 
 dving thief, " Shatt thou he with me in 
 Pnraili^i'. That was "Oood Friday," or 
 the day of the Crujiflxion; and yet, after 
 he had arisen, he said to Mary. " touch 
 me not, for I am not yet oAreiuled to my 
 Father." His departure into Huaven diil 
 nnt take place un^.il f'>rty days after bis 
 Resurrection. What became, then, of 
 his promise, and how was il fulfilled, for 
 assuredly it was not violated ? A daring 
 theologian he must nee is be, who in view 
 of this fact should athrm that Paradise is 
 Heaven, and notnw intermediate condition. 
 
 Well a'ks my frieaH the Rev. Jos. D, 
 Wilson, in a recent treatise on Hades, 
 " Was the Saviour's gracious promise 
 nothing more than that both He and the 
 thief should be buried ? Certainly not! 
 Ho must have referred to some condition 
 of the soul." (p 93 ) 
 
 I shall show, hereafter, that during the 
 interval betwe-in his Crucifixion and 
 Resurrection, — or, as we should say, on 
 the Saturday, the soul ol the Redeemer, 
 he taking with him in fulfilment of His 
 prom se, the soul of the penitent thief, 
 visited Paradise—in other word"*, that 
 
 Sart of the nether regions or place of 
 eparted spins which in the interpolated 
 Creed is signified by the word *' hell," and 
 fromMhieh Laxarus conversed with Dives 
 
 as we see from the text. The reason of his 
 visit there may form the subjeot of a 
 future discourse. 
 
 We tthould always let Scrip' ure speak, 
 and not s«-ek to force our own construe* 
 tiooo upon the Inspired Word. It is not 
 our Revelation to eaeh other, but that t>f 
 (rod to uf. It teaches God's truth : and 
 if we would but divest ourselves of pre- 
 conceived notions, opinions and preju- 
 dices, we should find that its revelations 
 are fre((uently, and in reality, the very 
 ouposite of what we had expected. No 
 Church tradition should be allowed for 
 one moment to set itself up in rivalry 
 with the Word of God. 
 
 Whilst, however, I s^and for corr-ct- 
 ness of phraseolofzy in teaching of so im- 
 portant a subject as that of the Future 
 State and deprecate the looseness of ex- 
 pression which has been indu'ged in by 
 not a few , I would remind you, in sum- 
 miog up, that after all, the presence of 
 the Saviour is that which, to the h<»l ever, 
 will constitute the bliss of our hereafter. 
 "I am going to Heaven soon " said a 
 little boy, " and then I shall gpe Jesus, 
 and be with Him forever," " But." said 
 the missionary, who was visiting him on 
 his death-bed. " if Jesus were to leave 
 Heaven, what would you do?" "I 
 would follow Him." " But if he went to 
 Hell, what would you do then ?" rejoined 
 his interrogator, to me, as it seems, not 
 wisely, " Ah ! " was the reponse, "there 
 is no Hell where Jesus is : His presence 
 is Heaven." 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 II. 
 
 Th« l^Mipanr, Worship, Md BlUi oriIeaT«a. 
 
 After these things I saw, and behold a 
 great miiltittide which no man could 
 number, nut of every nation, of all tribes 
 and peoples and tongues standing before 
 the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed 
 in white roben, and palma in their hands ; 
 and they cry with a great voice, saying, 
 Salvation to our <»od who sitteth on the 
 throne, aad unto the Lamb. And all 
 the angels were standing round about the 
 throne, and about the elders, and the 
 four living creaturefi ; and they fell before 
 the throne on their faces, and worahip{)ed 
 God, saying, Amen : Blessing, and glory, 
 and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and 
 honor, and power, and might be unto our 
 (iod for ever and ever. Amen. And 
 one of the elders answered, saying to nie. 
 These which are arrayed in the white 
 robes, who are they, and whence came 
 they ? And I say uuto him. My Lord, 
 thou knowest. And he said to me. 
 These are they which came out of the 
 great tribulation, and they washed their 
 robes, and made them white in the blood 
 of the Lamb. Therefore are they before 
 the throne of God ; and they serve him 
 day and night in his temple : and he that 
 sitteth on the throne snaU spread his 
 tabernacle over them. They shall hunger 
 no more, neither thirst anymore ; neither 
 shall the sun strike upon them, nor any 
 heat : for the Lamb which is in the 
 midst of the throne shall be their 8he|)- 
 herd, and shall guide them unto fountains 
 of waters of lite : and God shall wipe 
 away ail tears from their eyes. (Revised 
 Version) Rev. VII, 9-17. 
 
 We bury the hodif, but not the soul. 
 When we lay away our friends in the 
 repulsive grave, and heap sods on the 
 cotfin, we do not cover up the t:fiaracter, 
 nor do we hide from the exp* rience of 
 mankind the blessed example of a consis- 
 tent and beaatiful (Christian life. 
 
 I like not that word death as commonly 
 applied to man, for it is so apt to prove 
 misleading. When we speak of dying, 
 we speak of but a part, ard ^hat an infe- 
 rior part, too, not by any means of the 
 entire man. The flesh and blood, the 
 bone and sinew, die and become dast ; 
 not so the spirit' That lives on. Nor 
 does the body even, perish : for, a6 I 
 reau the Scriptures, we are taught therein 
 to held and believe that so much of this 
 fleshly body of ours shall survive dissolu- 
 tion as to constitute the germ of that 
 infinitely nobler spiritual body which 
 shall be given to us at the Resurrection. 
 
 What the changes may be to constitute 
 that spiritual body out of the remains of 
 this, is not revealed. But identity vriW 
 be preserved. That much we know. 
 
 I shall treat th« text as having refer- 
 ence to neither the past nor lo the present, 
 but to the futtirr condition of the Lord's 
 saints. It is through attributing to it a 
 present rather than a prospective sense 
 that many interpreters, as I conceive, 
 have erred. I hold that the departed in 
 Christ are in a separate state of blissful 
 expectancy, rather than positive enjoy- 
 ment, of the glory to be revealed. Their 
 spirits are in Hades now, — or Paradise, if 
 you like that word better — for the simple 
 reason that the assumption of their res- 
 urrection bodies is a necessary precursor 
 ef their entrance into Heaven. And it 
 were the sheerest anach ronism for our Ijr rd 
 to say, .as we are premonivshed he shall 
 say at the General Judgment, to those 
 on His right hand, " come ye blessed of 
 My Father, inherit the Kingdom," upon 
 whose blessedness they Aarf entered years 
 before. 
 
 Either we must give up the doctrine 
 of the resurrection of the body as alto- 
 gether a misconception of the teachings 
 of Revelation, or we must hold to the 
 doctrine of an intermediate Hades, or 
 place of blissful repose of God's saints, 
 wherein they await, as the Apostle 
 speaks, the adoption, to wit, the redemp- 
 tion of their bodies. And I would have 
 you remember that the inspired Apostle 
 in speaking of that redemption, or re-as- 
 suming, or more literally, buying back, 
 far from speaking nonsense, must have 
 known full well whereof he did affirm. 
 Nothing short of unmitigated ignorance 
 could lead us to suppose that those who 
 for ages have enjoyed the supreme bliss 
 of that place which the fScriptures denom- 
 inate Heaven, shoulu, after the lapse 
 of those ages, come down to earth for 
 the purpose of carrying their bodies back 
 to Heaven ! At sound of the Archangel's 
 trump, I hold, the cerements of the grave 
 will be unlorsed, the gates of Hades will 
 be unclosed, and then the throne set, the 
 books opened, and J udgment pronounced, 
 those on the right hand will enter the 
 mansions prepared for them by the 
 Father, to be thereafter forever with the 
 Lord. 
 
 Now, I am not willing to yield 'he 
 doctrine of the Resurrection of the boay, 
 despite the ridicule* and contempt which 
 have been poured upon it by would be 
 Scientists and would be Theologians. 
 
Prollems of the Future Slate. 
 
 Witboiit that key, the Apostle I'aul's 
 grand I Cor.. XV, were to me an unmpan- 
 ins; riddle. So the expression, "Christ 
 tlie iirst-fruita" in particular. And the 
 words of our Lord recorded by St. John, 
 (v. '_'!>), and the corresponding passage in 
 I>aniel,XlI.2 stating that "th-y that are 
 in the tombs shall come forth, some to 
 the resurrection of life, others to the res- 
 tirrpr i in of Judgment, or condemnation," 
 can hare no meaning other than a resur- 
 rection of bodies sepulchred, since souIh 
 ea.not be buried. The dry bones in 
 Ez'ikiel's vis'on symbolize undoubtedly, in 
 my judgment, the same great truth. 
 
 •* It is time indeed," I say with Dr. 
 Ebrard, " that this biblical doctrine of 
 the state after death were again prea hed 
 to congregations : for the common, hard 
 and truly u^c^iptural doctrine '' — as he 
 well styles it — "whieh knows nothing 
 fnrlher after death than happiness or 
 comlemn'ition, is, in its practical effects, 
 equally mischievious with the Roman 
 doctrine of Purgatory, in which .a trace 
 of the doctrine of Sheol, but only a cari- 
 catured trace of it, is contained." Notes 
 on Heb., p. 347. Audit were well, that 
 if but occasionally, the clause, " He 
 descended into the pla^e of departed 
 spirits," be repeated with the creed, as 
 sanctioned by our Church. 
 
 " Death," — says Bishop Burgess, — no 
 mean authority — "leads the just thro' 
 the intermed ate Paradise, through the 
 joyful reunion of the Resurrection, and 
 thro' the blessed award of the last day, 
 to all which we are taught to name 
 most fully Heaven and the life eternal." 
 Last Enemy, p. .S25. 
 
 But to proceed to the text. I remark, 
 in the first place : 
 
 L THAT THE RKDEEMED IN GLORY 
 ARK A :WCrLnTCDINOUS COMPANY. 
 
 *' I saw a great company which 
 no raan could n>imber, out of every 
 nation, and of all tribes and peoples and 
 tongues stinrljng before t}\°r throne and 
 l^efore the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, 
 a' d palms in their hands." 
 
 Of cour.se we should as'^id too great 
 literality in the consideration of this des- 
 eripti'>n. The ceulral idea is that vast 
 will bo the host of God'S redeemed. 
 The whito robea may symbolize the 
 righteoHsnes? of the saints. And gorge- 
 ous indeed will be that assemblage. I 
 suppo-sa that, to add to its splendor, 
 there will be the angels and archangels, 
 cherubim and seraphim, those shining 
 ones, the Jjord'a winged niessen-iters. In 
 the context, or rather the 14lh cnap., 
 the multitude of the sealed are called an 
 hundred and forty-four thousand, that is, 
 twelve thousand members of cash of the 
 
 twelve tribes of Israel ; but that would 
 be the merest fragment of the heavenlj' 
 host — for there a'-e so many more that it 
 is said "no man could number them." 
 
 I do not know how to reconcile our 
 Lord's description of his own as a "little 
 flock " to whom it is the Father's good 
 pleasure t.) give the Kingdom with thi» 
 description of ihe bos'; of Heaven, unles» 
 he is to be undertaood as instituting » 
 compa'isoi between the sef-mingly few 
 who accepted and the multitude who 
 rejected him. But nevertheless, and 
 with a 1 that sad di-count, the numbers 
 of the redeemed will be not a few. Many 
 will be there whom we in our short- 
 sightedness, expected not to see. All 
 along the ages God has had a Church ; 
 and by His Spirit has been constantly 
 gathering members into the fold. How 
 many He will yet gather iu before the 
 end shall come, we are not told, nor is it 
 necessary that we should know. 
 
 From Abel to Abraham ; from him ta 
 Malachi ; from Christ to Juhn. and from 
 John till HOW, what a mighty stream of 
 the Lord's saints have been sweeping 
 onwards and upwards from amongst 
 every kindred and tongue and nation 
 under Heaven ! And they will all be 
 there. Oh, what a mighty phalanx of 
 patriarchs and prophets, apostles and. 
 evangelists, martyrs and confessors shall 
 we behold, my brethren, when we get to 
 Heaven ; and what mighty volumes of 
 praise shall roll upwards from that v.ist 
 throng, to the throne of God ! Timid 
 women who for Christ alone were 
 valiant ; strong-minded, noble men, who 
 endured reproach and contumely in the 
 Master's cause, and thought not even, 
 their lives dear unto them, it only by their 
 sacrifice they might finish their course 
 acceptably and win their crown, oh, 
 what hosts oi the.^e shall we behold f 
 Confessors of whom the world was not 
 worthy ! True men and women who endur- 
 ed with patience ail that the ingenuity 
 of the wicked, prompted by Satan, 
 could do to their hurt — all the fiery 
 darts that could be burled against them ; 
 those barbed arrows ef ealmnny, detra- 
 ction a d persecution that must bring 
 the quivering fiesh away whenever you 
 woiild extract them ! 
 
 There shall we see crowds horn the 
 poor and despised of earth — those who 
 slept upon wretched pallets, dwelt in 
 miserable hovels, who day by day ate 
 the bread of poverty, and by n'ght 
 watered t>'eir eoueh with tears, but whose 
 sins were washed away in the ocean of 
 the Redeemer's blood — their hearts stead- 
 fast with God. There we shall Sfe the 
 atiiicted and distressed, though no longer 
 
Tilt Coriqinni/, Woiship, and Bliss of ILaven. 
 
 Kick ; the forloru and the fri€n(Iles«i ; the 
 despised and the outcast, but not of God 
 — men and women 'vho waded through 
 the waters and forced their way through 
 the fires to reach their crown, or who 
 endured the biting pangs of penury and 
 want, rather than accept the glittering 
 wages, together with the dread retribu- 
 tions of fiin. 
 
 And fain would I trust that we shall 
 see there also not a few of the high and 
 raighty, the rich and the noble, the illus- 
 trious and the talented of earth : for 
 the^e, too, are all God's children. Kings 
 have been bad, and nobles profligate, and 
 the wealthy wicked : but there have 
 been some to reliere their class from 
 execration. Not all are vile, 1 trust, no ! 
 not even the great majority. There was 
 an Edward VI amongst the Kings ; and 
 there is a Victoria. There wasaColigny 
 amongst the nobles, and there are a 
 Cavan and a Shaftsbury There was 
 an Anios Lawrence amonj^st the wealthy ; 
 and there are — I will no sy who or 
 hoiv many, who I trust, nay know, give 
 largely and freely to the L rd's Tre tsury. 
 
 Rank and influence, weal' hand talents, 
 are not, nor ought they to be, in them- 
 selves, a bar to any man's advaucemciit, 
 nor the means of such advancement to a 
 seat in the Kingdom of Heaven. God 
 forbid that we should seek to narrow its 
 portals to exclude either rich or poor, 
 even though it were within our power. 
 Let what is oT the earth p' rish with the 
 earth, whilst he who has employed his 
 means, talents, influence, be they great 
 or small, for the advancement of the 
 Master's cause, will meet due reward in 
 the day when the Redeemer siall come 
 to make up His jewels. And then, I 
 doabt not, will be brought to li<j;lit many 
 a. secret deed of love and nieicy of 
 which the world has hitherto known 
 nothing. Then will be acknowledged 
 in the open light of day, by the Re- 
 deemer Himself as administered to Him, 
 maay a cup of water given to moisten 
 fevered lip of suffering martyr, in noi- 
 some dungeon, or at the fearful stake. 
 
 It will be a mighty host, thst ci >mpany 
 of the Redeemed ! To say nothing of 
 the babes who have died in infan y, 
 uutasted by them the cup of sin « hich 
 thewi>rld administers to its votaries — U' t 
 counting those cherubs numerous as the 
 stars of the milky way, what crowds 
 shall be there of those who had repented 
 thfm of their sins ]>efore their day of 
 grace was past and gone ; and Oh, what 
 greetings and congratulatings of long 
 separated friends ! And the boys and 
 girls of our Sunday Schools, the young 
 in years and not old in sin, and the pati- 
 
 ent Belf-sacrificing Ttacheis, how many 
 shall be there ? A grand army of Chris- 
 tian soldiers, a glorious band ! 
 
 But amid the whole, conspicuous above 
 all the rest, I think we shall see Abel and 
 Noah, Enoch and Elijah, Abraham and 
 Isaac, Jacob, David, Daniel, and many 
 more of God's Old Testament saints. 
 And of the New, there will be the 
 blessed evangelists, and ardent Peter, 
 and the magnificent Paul, but pre-emin- 
 ently the beloved apostle John. And 
 of a later day, there will be a grind 
 procession filing heavenward, of men 
 leaders in the camps of Israel who will 
 t/(en see eye to eye ; but who could not, 
 or would not, walk together when here 
 on earth. And they wdl then, I think, 
 feel ashamed of the trifles which separ- 
 ated them in the Church below, There 
 we shall see Latimer, him of the coat 
 of frieze ; and Ridl<^y, of the courtly 
 robe. And Jerome, also ; and good old 
 Wickliff, "the morning stai ; " Me'an- 
 thon, the gentle ; and Huss, and Cn»nmer, 
 and Ridley, all of wh m so bravely 
 endured the fire. Pas-irg along, we shall' 
 catch sight of the Sixth Edward, and 
 Simeon and Cecii!, Bickersteth and 
 Chalmers, John Newton and Cowpcr, of 
 the 8 eet Oliiey Hymns ; and also Venn. 
 There we shall see Wilberforce and Hal- 
 dane, Owen and Richard Baxter, him of 
 "The Saints' Rest;" Duddridge and Scott, 
 Cummins and Mcllvaine, the judicious 
 Hooker, and the saintly Beveridge, and 
 the VVebleys, and g^and old Whitfield, 
 and Jndsun, and Brainerd, and Henry, 
 Martin that other sainted one : but I can 
 not stop to name other than the few, 
 not Protestants alone, but Romanists 
 too, notwithstanding the corruptions of 
 their Church, will contribute of their 
 numbers to swell the grand total of the 
 heavenly host — Feuelon and Massiilon 
 not amongst the least. That is a jaun* 
 diced medium through which we too 
 often view things now. Bigotry and 
 exclusiveness, prejudice a d intolerance 
 — those wretched barriers between 
 C^hr stians ! will all be swept away ; 
 and we shall see things and men as 
 they were aini are, not as they seemed. 
 The quest'on will be then, not who has 
 had most zeal for sect, but who most 
 love for Clirist, most zeal for souls, 
 most care for the g'ory of God and wel- 
 fare of his fellow men, 
 
 I borrow the language of one of the 
 m st eloquent wri era of hia day: 
 " Dwellers on the Mississippi and Mis- 
 souri, and in the back woods of Canada 
 and the prairies of the West, are there. 
 Millions from the Andes and the isles 
 of the Pacific, from the mountains of 
 
Problems of the Future State, 
 
 Thibet and the cities of China, from 
 every jungle of India and from every , 
 pagoda of mndostan, the untutored Arab 
 ana the uncultivated Druse, and the 
 * tribes of the weary fool,' the children of 
 Salem are there, * * and ^ugustine 
 and Luther are there alao, and many we 
 in our uncharitablenesa, or bigotry, or 
 excluaiveneas, or ignorance, excluded 
 from Heaven, will be there alao ; and 
 our aires and sonn and babes and parents 
 will be there, completed circles never 
 again to be broken, and their united 
 voices will give utterance to their deep 
 and enduring gratitude " Vnto Him 
 that loved va, and ^cashed us from our 
 sinx in his own blood, and that hath 
 made us kings and priests unto God, 
 even the Father; to Him be glory and 
 dominion for ever and ever. Amen.*' 
 Cumminga Apoc Sketches, Ist series, 
 p.p. 28, 9. 
 
 II, BUT SOME WILL BE ABSENT ! 
 
 And here the Theologian is confronted 
 "with a dffionlty the most tremendous 
 which conld possibly beset him. 
 
 The difficulty is this. Perhaps when 
 we shall come to look around in the courts 
 of Heaven, should we in God's mercy 
 ever reach them, same of ua may miss a 
 parent, father, brother, siater, or child, 
 from amongst the glorified. We look 
 again and again with painful eagerness, 
 but we look, alas ! in vain. The loved one 
 is not there ! 
 
 Now that conviction, we might think, 
 ca'inot but give us pain. But in Heaven 
 there can be no pain, for the text asserts 
 that there will be no tears there. How 
 reconcile this contradictim ? How can 
 one be man and not mourn the lost oon 
 dition of i baent friends ; and where 
 mourning is how can there be perfect 
 bliss ? 
 
 The thoughtful Burgess attempts to 
 meet this difficulty, but lo my mind 
 unsuccessfully, with the suggestion of 
 " simple, humble faith in that aH-provid- 
 ing wisdom which can enable the human 
 soul to forget all which it might be dis- 
 tressed to remember, can Jill it with all 
 joyous and holy meditations and can in 
 a thousand tvays preserve the flowers of 
 memory without it" thorns.'^ Last Enemy, 
 p. 289. 
 
 •' The Flowers of Memort Withottt 
 ITS Thorns ! " A solution, I fear, more 
 beautifully poetical than soundly theo- 
 logical. Have we any rpaso" to believe, 
 from Scripture, that God will work such 
 a tremedous change in our moral nature 
 as is here suggested, on our transfer- 
 ence to the Eternal World ? On the 
 contrary, have we not reason to think 
 tnat as we are here, we shall be very 
 
 much there — but iimji^Y improved editions, 
 not essentially other wom^n or other men ? 
 
 We shall moat certainly carry our 
 natural affections with us into the Eter- 
 nal World, or Heaven were no Heaven 
 to us. Shall we all who have fought the 
 good fight together here below, meet 
 agam as strangers on the golden streets ? 
 Are theiy to be no rapturous recognitions 
 there ? Shall Luther not know Melanc- 
 thon ? Shall Ridley not recognize Lat- 
 imer? Will that sorrowing mother who 
 wept such scalding tears when they hid 
 away h-r little darling with face of 
 marble beneath that cold, dank mould, 
 not clasp it to her arms again on reaching 
 the farther shore ? Shall I not meet my 
 children ? This is either fact or rhetoric, 
 scripture or poetry. Which ? And if 
 mere fiction— if, after all, there are to be 
 no recognitions of friends in Heaven, 
 what mean those consolations which the 
 minister of religion profi^sses to adminis- 
 ter in the Master's name to bursting 
 hearts, in their hour of sorrow ? If 
 nothing, then he too is a sham and a 
 fraud ! but if not auch, there muat in bis 
 Cistimate be recognition. 
 
 And if recognition of friends, then a 
 cognizance of their absence. There is no 
 avoiding that conclusion. I have a theory, 
 to me clear, distinct and satisfactory, on 
 this most important subject : but shall 
 leave you to form your own. 
 
 III. I pa?8 on to notice briefly, the 
 
 OCCUPATION OF THE REDEEMED. 
 
 For doubtless t'lere will be occupation, 
 and that of the highest and noblest char- 
 acter of which we can possibly conceive. 
 The metaphorical language of the 'axt is 
 proof of that. " Fiaurea," sr.ys some 
 one, "have no vaiue except as they 
 express realitied. " That there will be 
 mus c in Hea.'en, I doubt not, and a'so 
 that there will be worship — and such 
 music as we have never heard, auch 
 wcTship as we have never rendered. 
 What mean those mysterious words 
 of the Redee-rer : "/ will not drink 
 henceforth of this fruit of the vine until 
 I driuk it new with yon in My Father's 
 Kingdom."^. I think Mith the author 
 already quoted, that " He surely pointed 
 forward ti some scene of holy joy from 
 which they might look back to that 
 sacramental east, and recognize the unity 
 of the cup on earth with the cup above." 
 
 Th5 anthems of Heaven ! The new 
 song of the Redeemed ! The throne, the 
 Lamb, the vast army of the saved ! Shall 
 we chant those anthems ? Shall we i^ing 
 that song? Let us look well to it 
 betimes, brethren beloved, that our names 
 be written in the Book of Life ! 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 , For the earnest expectation of the crea- 
 ture waiteth f(jr the manifestation of tlie 
 «pns of God.— Rom. Vlli 19, 
 ,. Various and conflicticg are the con- 
 atructioDs which have l^een put ujjon 
 this passage. Perhaps there are few 
 more difficult, aod in regard to which 
 there exists greater difference of opinion. 
 The trouble arises out of the varying 
 opinions of the Commentators as to 
 the right interpretation of the term 
 'creature' in the text. Some understand 
 by it tlce uHwle vhihk creation^ including 
 both the Kingdoms of aiimate and 
 inanimate nature, and coneeuuently 
 under the former head, man alike in 
 his civilized and savage, in a Christian 
 and Heathen state, together with all 
 the lower animals ; and under the 
 the latter, every variety of form of 
 matter. This is the opinion held by 
 Olshauseu, Bloomfield and others, and 
 for which the former has been rather 
 severely handled by one our soundest 
 commentators. — Turner. 
 
 Others, again, maintain that the 
 Apnstle speaks oi JX moral creation, i.e., 
 of Christians, or the Christian Church 
 converted from Judaism to Heathenism: 
 but to this view there are, to my mind, 
 insuperable objections. Lastly, there 
 are those who would compromise and 
 understand by the " creature " or 
 " creation " of this passage, all intelli- 
 gent and sentient creation — all who are 
 capable of the passions spoken of by 
 the Apostle, and so of course the whole 
 human race. 
 
 Of these various interpretations, and 
 they can all show illustrious names in 
 their support — I hold, with Chalmers, to 
 the first. The Apostle, by a bold figure 
 or metonymy, speaks of inanimate 
 nature as of an intelligent or sentient 
 being in a state of bondage, gro. ning 
 and travailing for its redemption. This 
 style is not unknown to Scripture. 
 " The morning stars sang together " we 
 read in Job, and the Psalmist calls upon 
 the floods to " clap their hands, and the 
 hills to rejoice before the Lord. " • " The 
 creature " — says the Apostle — " was 
 made subject to vanity " — that is, if we 
 understand him of man, to "a frail, 
 unhappy, miserable condition ; " and if 
 
 The Futura Reeognttlon of God's Children. 
 
 '1, •%ti l«i(!i 
 
 of inanimate mattor, "to do.r?ngement- 
 and disorder. 
 
 Tlie idea seems to be that this eprtb 
 is not what it was, nor what it was' 
 designed to be. Sin has cnrked. it :. 
 everywhere, in storm and earihouake^. 
 volcanoe and miasma, we seem to per- 
 ceive the consequences of that curse. It 
 yields only to labor ; hereit isobstin- , 
 ately barren ; yonder it gives briars ar;d 
 thorns. Everything has its ei:emy, 
 both in the kingdoms of animate and. 
 of inanimate nature. The beasts, fishes--, 
 and reptiles prey upon each other. 
 And in the vegetable world, blight and 
 mildew, the worm, the drought, the 
 flood, seem continually on the watch to 
 ruin and destroy. Nature ap]iears at war- 
 with nature. Beautiful though it be, 
 it is a beauty which has been marred ;. 
 and from this marred condition I can 
 understand the Apostle as re]iiesentiug' 
 the whole, in his magnificent rhetoirc,. 
 as groaning to be redeemed. And that 
 it will be redeemed, restored to its' 
 pristine beauty and perfection, I think- 
 there ia good teason to believe from' 
 Scripture. That the curse will be re- 
 moved, the earth yield spontaneously 
 and become even yet more beautiftil' 
 than before the fall of man, seems fore-, 
 shadowed in more than one text. That 
 a time shall come when nothing shall 
 hurt nor destroy in the Lord's holy, 
 mountain, is the declaration of an. 
 inspired prophet. And St. Peter,, 
 quoting that i)rophet, speaks of Chris- 
 tians as " looking for new heavens and' 
 a new earth in which dwellieth right- 
 eousness," 
 
 My subject now is, however, and' 
 more particularly, Ihe Future recognitvm^ 
 of the Lcvd's saints. And this recognition' " 
 1 think we may safely argue from the' 
 declarfc-ion of the Apostle that "the 
 earnest expectation of the creature 
 Waiteth for' the manifestation of the 
 sons of God." 
 
 1. I need scarcely attempt to prove 
 that we shall know our friends in 
 Heaven. And yet, strange to say, 
 there is a wonderful obtuseness of per- 
 ception in regard to this subject. People 
 are constantly found who seem to doubt 
 it. One woi^d think it must be eyident 
 
if 
 
 ; //{• 
 
 Prohlemt of the Future State. 
 
 thi.t we can not be divested of our 
 identity, by the mere fact of trans- 
 lation hence to the world of spirits. 
 The casket may be destroyed ; but the 
 jewel it contained remains imperish- 
 able. 
 
 2. The very general prevalence of a 
 doctrine may, I think, be regarded as a 
 strong presumption in favor of its 
 truth. Of course given the condition 
 that the doctrine itself shall not be in 
 conflici with either sound reason or 
 inspired Revelation. That a belief in 
 Future Recognition has been .leld in 
 all agb^i by the great majority of man- 
 kind, seems beyond dispute. — See Ap- 
 pendix A. 
 
 The faith, strong and simple, of many 
 heathen men in the reality of a future 
 state of existence, I am constrained to 
 say might well put to shame some who 
 live in this day of superior illumination, 
 because gospel truth [ 
 
 4. W®. ^^^ the same idea of future 
 recognition amongst Mohammedans, 
 Jews, Christians and our own North 
 American Indians of by gone days. 
 The Hindoos, we know, believe this 
 doctrine : in the davs of iMtee the wife 
 was immolated on the funeral pyre, in 
 hope of rejoining her departed 
 husband. Amongst the ancient Danes, 
 it was a practiee for slaves, subjects and 
 friends of the deceased, to destroy them- 
 selves, in order that they might serve in 
 the other world those whom they loved 
 and respectwi in this. Harbaugh p. 34. 
 
 5. The belief in a future re-union with 
 the departed in the woiid of spirits was, 
 in fact, and is, a universal bebef. How 
 it came to be so, unless founded in 
 truth, I most leave others to determine. 
 Let us now see whether the doctnne 
 meets with any countenance from the 
 JSacred Scriptures. As deduced from 
 the Bible,,however,.it is rather inferen- 
 tial than dogmatical. On this point I 
 quote Bishop Burgess : 
 
 "That it should evBr have been 
 doubted whether the inhabitants of the 
 spiritual world recognize each other in 
 lliat abode, is but an example of the 
 •wide influence of unbelief, suggesting 
 the strangest dimness wherever the 
 Scriptures had not spoken in the most 
 explicit words, even though the obvious 
 reaaun for which the words bad not 
 been spoken was, that to speak thfem 
 was needless. Why should not the 
 departed recognize and be recognized ? 
 How can tlu;ir very nature and being 
 
 be so utterly changed that they should 
 be able to exist in the same world, to 
 remember, and to be a general assembly^ 
 a church, a society, without recognition f 
 If the future life is the sequel, and re- 
 . suit, and retribution of the present, 
 how can recognition foil ? Not a step 
 can we proceed, not a conception can 
 we form, not a statement of divine 
 revelation can we clearly embrace in 
 our contemplations of the future iife^ 
 without admitting or involving the 
 necessity of mutual recognition as well 
 as mutual remembrance and affection. 
 Were Moses and Elias unknown Uy 
 each other? Did the Martyrs below 
 the altar utter the same cry, without 
 knowing the history of their com* 
 panions, each a stranger amongst 
 strangers? Was Abraham a stranger 
 to Lazarus, or was Lazarus seen and 
 known by the rich man only ? Oould 
 those who watch for suuls render 
 account for them with joy or grief, and 
 yet not know their doom ? Could 
 Christian converts be the "glory and 
 joy " of an Apostle at the coming of 
 the Lord if He knew them not ? Could 
 the Patriarchs be seen in the kingdom 
 of God by none but those who should 
 be shut out ? All proceeds on the sup- 
 position of just such knowledge there 
 as here. It is probable, indeed, that 
 the human soui must always clothe 
 itself with form, even in the separate 
 state ; and such a form would bear the 
 same impress which had been given to 
 the mortal body. There is no extra- 
 vagance in the wish of Dr. Randolph 
 to know Cowper above from his picture 
 here, or in the same thought as express- 
 ed in the verses of Southey on the 
 portrait of Heber." Last Enemy p,p 
 287,8. 
 One has written thus : — 
 
 " I count the hope no day-dream of the mind. 
 No vision fair of transitory hue, 
 The souls of tlioee whom onee on earth we knew. 
 And loved, aud walked with in communion kind. 
 Departed tience, again in heaven to find." 
 
 Mant. p. 96. 
 
 Tea ! it is no " day-dream," no fond 
 delusi(/n,. that which tells us that our 
 departed friends are not lost to us, 
 though, as we are accustomed to say. 
 "dead.*' We shfdl see them again in 
 the spirit worM ; know tbem, and be 
 known. They have disappeared, for 
 the time, from view ; but we shall be- 
 hold them again, in a higher and better 
 atmosphere than this. 
 
 6. There is no great truth which has 
 
VA^ 
 
 The Future Recognition ((f Oocfa Children. 
 
 fl 
 
 not been perverted, and no good thing 
 which has not been counterfeited. It 
 is often difficult to discriminate between 
 paste and diamond ; the genuine bank- 
 note, and the spurious. Almost every- 
 thing is imitated in this age of shams. 
 Wooden houses are brick faced ; brick 
 houses stone faced ; and even " The 
 Church " has fallen into the habit of 
 deception, with her ship-loads of wood 
 of the true cross, and nones of Saints 
 and of the Virgin, her winking Madon- 
 nas, and her St. Januarius liquefactions ! 
 
 And so with modern Spiritism. It 
 iiaa seized hold of, and perverted, and 
 Abused, and made ridiculous, a great 
 truth, to such an extent that, by a 
 natural revulsion, men are nearly ready 
 to deny the spiritual factor in religion 
 altogether. S&j more, it is even dan- 
 gerous for the pulpit to advocate the 
 rweet, 'comforting, and enobling 
 doctrine of these sermons, lest the mad- 
 dog cry of "Spiritualist!" should be 
 raised incontinently. Neverthelesa, 
 the truth must be spoken. What it 
 that truth ? is a question of the deepest 
 interest to intelligent Christians. 
 
 _ 7. A sober authority, aroues the jMjssi- 
 bility of the nearness, and even some- 
 times the actual apparition, of our 
 departed friends, from the universality 
 of the persuasion. And I have thought 
 when reading of Christs' walking on 
 the sea, when the disciples "supposed," 
 we are told, "that they had seen a 
 Spirit," and of hia tefiing them to 
 handle him, " because a spirit has not 
 flesh and bones as they saw H^m have " 
 —l have thoiTghf that were such appari- 
 tions an impossibility, the Holy Spirit 
 would not have permitted the saered 
 writers to set these impressions down 
 without some mark of censure actual 
 or implied. " It is his angel," said the 
 frightened disciples^ when Peter stood 
 before the gate, after his miraculous 
 escape from prison. If this be super- 
 stition, men may make the most of it I 
 Were it not that necromancy is so 
 plainly forbidden in God's Word, I 
 should be willing even to inve?tigate 
 the phenomena of so-called "Spiritism.'* 
 
 ** An universal belief like this "—says 
 the able v :- already quoted— "ia 
 not sufficieuuj explained by an univer- 
 sal Jongiug for communion with the 
 d^pirted. Its foundation is rather in 
 tsdi! actual discourse which our spirits 
 'hold with the dead, and which they 
 ieem to hold with us, when their images 
 
 are before us in our solitary contem- 
 plations, our reveries andourdreaius.'^ 
 
 "Thoughts of a deceased friend" — 
 he goes on to say —"become sometimes 
 and in some mental constitutions, so 
 vivid for a moment, that the difference 
 between recollection and present reality 
 is all but imperceptible. The departed 
 spirit seems even present to the inward 
 eye ; his influence is actually and most 
 powerfully felt ; may he not be indeed 
 near, thouj^a invisible 7 " 
 
 This is strongly put — perhaps too 
 much so ? For my part, Mrithout cast- 
 ing any reflection upon the soundneat 
 of the bishops judgment, I freely con- 
 fess to a want of such experiences. 
 But, to proceed : " Wesley," he re- 
 marks, "who knew Swedenborg, and 
 believed him insane, has spoken of 
 his own clear conviction that the strong 
 impression on his own mind of the 
 images of deceased friends at particular 
 momeui^, was produced by their actual 
 invisible presence. Oberlin supposed 
 that for manv years he enjoyed intimate 
 communications with the dead." And 
 he continues thus : " that the appear- 
 ance, visible as well as invisible, of the 
 dead, is possible, the instances related 
 in the Bible are decisive^ That ther ' 
 have ever appeared to the outward eye, 
 except in those instances, can scarcely 
 be proved from history, to the satis- 
 faction of the i>keptical or even of the 
 indiflerent. That, however, the strong- 
 est sense of their influence, as if they 
 were present, has often been impressed 
 upon the mind, in those st&tesin which 
 visible objects have least control, is con- 
 firmed by ten thousand testimonies." 
 
 "There is no difficulty in believing," 
 —flays Mr. Harbaugh, who has written 
 well and beautifully on this subject — 
 " that, on the part of saints in Heaven^- 
 an acq,uaintance with us is kept up.- 
 We have lost them for a time, but they 
 have not lost us. As they have gone 
 higher, they have capacities and privil- 
 eges which we, who are still beneath 
 them, have not ; and this may extend 
 to a oonstant oversight and interest Ir 
 us, This sense is as natural as any 
 other to the passage. Then shall I knov 
 everk as I amknmm. * * * Wie_ 
 have reason, and' also intunations of 
 Scripture, to confirm us in the' l}elief' 
 that our sainted friends are bending an 
 interested eye of love over us in all our 
 earthly pilgrimage— that they keep up 
 a tender and affectionate acquaintance 
 
12 
 
 Prohlems of the Future State. 
 
 •\ -Jit 
 
 with us. and stand ready when we fail 
 on eaitn, to receive us into the arms of 
 holy and eternal love at the very gates 
 of * * Paradise. Or mast we 
 believe that they are less interested in 
 us than the rich man was for his breth- 
 ren ? " "We live in the midst and 
 under the constant power of myterious 
 unseen influence.-", which strongly 
 declare the fact, that we are in a sphere 
 of existence influenced by a higher 
 world, and undei the attention of higher 
 intelligences, who are ever drawing us 
 to themselves ; and soon as the separa- 
 tion of soul and body — the natural and 
 finite from the spiritual and infinite — 
 ahall take place iu death, we shall dis- 
 cover at once how awiully and sweetly 
 near we have always been to the dead, 
 and how much we shared their atfection- 
 ate sympathies." 
 
 1 iiave drawn thus copiously from 
 the writings of others, and those 
 of no mean reputation, that my own 
 opinion might not stand alone ; and 
 now, in conclusion, I would speak a few 
 words to the bereaved, who form the 
 great majority of most congregatio ^s. 
 
 8. Our friends live, my dear brethren ; 
 and we shall see them again, having 
 departed in Christ, on the instant of 
 our casting off the garments of the 
 flesh. "The earnest expectation of 
 the creature waiteth for the manifesta- 
 tion of the sons of God." Thus would 
 i interpret that text : their manifesta- 
 tion to our (j^uickened vision after we 
 too have passed through the grave and 
 gate of death. Our spirits long for 
 that reunion. From the innermost 
 depths of our souls there is ever 
 gushing up a flood of desire for their 
 companionship, which cannot be 
 ({uenched short of actual fruition. 
 Our departed friends! Our sainted 
 dead ! Yes : we shall see them again, 
 embrace them again, love them again 
 in that land where separations shall be 
 no more, and where all tears shall be 
 wiped away. The Holy Spirit has 
 enjoined us " conerning them that fall 
 asleep," that we sorrow not as those 
 who " have no hope ; " and that, I 
 think, lie would not have done, were 
 we not to meet our loVed ones in the 
 bright spirit land. ' Weep not, then, for 
 your friends' who Wve died in the 
 Lord. Separated '' are they from us, 
 but onlv lor a time. " Separated," I 
 
 said. Perhaps not even that? Who 
 shall say that the all-wise disposer of 
 events may not have removed them 
 hence un purpose that they should min-. 
 ister tu and help us onward on our pil- 
 grimage to the better world? Who 
 knows but that their spirits still surround 
 and hover near us, a glorious hapj y band 
 of " witnt'sses," to cheer us on our way 
 to Heaven, to pour the soothing balm' 
 of comfort into the troubled spirit, and 
 to animate with the hope of tnat glori- 
 ous rest of the saints of God ? 
 
 Ye mothers bereaved ! dry up your 
 tears : weep for yourselves — if weep you 
 must, but not for your departed little" 
 ones. The Christ hath told us that, 
 " their angels do always behold the face' 
 of our Father who is in Heaven." 
 Surely you would not withdraw them 
 from that august presence? A lady,; 
 sober-minded and Christian, once told, 
 me "it seemed as though the spirit of ' ^ 
 her darling daughter never left her — 
 so conscious was she of its presence ! " 
 And she was thereby comforted. 
 
 Brethien, one and all, not lung shall, 
 we be separated from those dear ones" 
 of our kindred who have gone before 
 us to the spirit land, and entered into 
 rest. We shall recognize and be recog- 
 nized, should we continue faithful, at 
 the marriage supper of the Lamb, 
 
 And we shall know them not as 
 strangers, but as tee knew them ivften ori 
 earth. Every faculty of thesoul^iuick- 
 ened ; every bright feature of the char- 
 acter, and for aught I know, of the 
 person even, improved and beautified ; ' 
 brighter, holier, better editions of what 
 we knew them here, superior every way 
 to what once they were, and mara now. . 
 Infirmities of the flesh and spirit all. 
 left behind, and yet identity preserved ! 
 I am not quite sure but that grief may 
 still find place, though chastened and 
 submissive, because of the conscious 
 absence of those not in Christ : as to . 
 that, let us trust in God. 
 
 'We shall know our friends, then, for 
 what can hinder ? Weep not therefore, \ 
 1 say, to the mourning and bereaved. 
 We shall meet again in that bright land 
 of pure delight : . r* 
 
 Where Saints immortal reign (where) T 
 Infinite day excludes the ni^t, «^ -i 
 
 And pleasures huiush pain. •; 
 
 Let us prepare to meet them i^^^, 
 deeds of holiness, and lives of faith;,, 
 
 '1/ 
 
 ;v;* g.: 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 
 IV, 
 NinUtering Spt-'ta. 
 
 '»".- 
 
 Therefore let us also, seeing vx are com- 
 paused about irith so great a cloud of 
 witucsAiS, lay usiile every v:eiqht, and the 
 sin ^ehiijl doth .so easily beset us, and let us 
 run xcith patience tJie race that is set before 
 us. — ^Revised version), Heb. xii. 1. 
 
 Are they not all ministerinij spirits, sent 
 forth to do service for the sake of thern, that 
 sJtall inlierit Salvation -. — Ibid i. 14. 
 
 That the Pulpit is dull is often 
 charged ; and perhaps the charge is not 
 altogether without foundation ? There 
 are debates in Parliament, or in Con- 
 gress, and political harrangues, which are 
 also dull ; and legal arguments, and 
 news-paper editorials ! Let their auth- 
 ors throw the stones ! 
 
 In regard to the first named, people 
 say that it is ever the same old, old 
 story ; and this is sometimes made a 
 pretext for non-atteudp.uce in the Sanc- 
 tuary. But this ca.n be only true, in 
 the sense of a lack of interesting topics, 
 when the rich mine of inspired truth is 
 suffered to remain un worked by him 
 who is set to " divide " it to the Lord's 
 people. 
 
 There are subjects almost innumer- 
 able, and which come j^roperly within 
 the province of the preacher, and yet 
 are seldom or never discussed in the 
 Christian Pulpit. The text treats of 
 one such, and in regard to which I do not 
 remember ever listening to a sermon 
 within the whole range of my experi- 
 ence. Assuredly if some wells run dry, 
 it is not through lack of water, but the 
 will to use it. 
 
 I do not advocate sensationalism. 
 " There was much grass in the place : " 
 " Old shoes and clouted," are poor texts 
 for sermons. All terts should contain 
 something as a key-note which shall 
 lead the congregation to expect a season 
 of profi^taW e meditation. Solcmyi trifling 
 sliould, of all kinds of trifling, be most 
 earnestly deprecated, It were almost 
 the assertion of a truism to say that the 
 themes of the Eternal World, the great 
 mystery of man's future, as well as the 
 many mysteries of his present, the 
 actual condition and future occupation 
 of the Saints of God, with their correla- 
 tives, — it were superfluous almost to 
 say that topics such as these should 
 
 never be treated v/ith other than the 
 profoundest . everence, when not with 
 awe. 
 
 There is a habit of explaining away 
 the Scriptures, metaphorizing the 
 plainest statements, and glossing the 
 most express declarations of the Word, 
 and with which I have but little 
 patience ; for which I have no respect. 
 The text has fared thus at the hands of 
 this class of would be expounders of 
 the Lively Oracles. We have been 
 gravely told that the " cloud of wit- 
 nesses " here spoken of means the band 
 of inspired writers of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and with about as much warranty 
 as had the surgeons in attendance upon 
 the late martyred President of the 
 United States who pronounced that 
 terrible pus-pocket, or cavity, the 
 original wound ! The autopsy revealed, 
 however, how greatly they were mis- 
 taken : just as will the autopsy of 
 sound judgment and of a correct Bib- 
 lical ex egesi?, the great error of those 
 who forget the wholesome Canon that, 
 when not opposed to reason, Revelation, 
 or common sense, the Scriptures should 
 always be received in their plain, hleral 
 and grammatical acceptation. 
 
 What right have we, for example, to 
 take the prophecies in which future 
 blessings are distinctly promised to the 
 present outcast Israel, and make Zion 
 signify the Christian Church, and then 
 cooly appropriate to the Jewish people 
 the curses and denunciations?'^ And 
 what more right have we to say that 
 the " cloud of witnesses " of this inter- 
 esting text does not mean what the 
 words seem evidently intended to ex- 
 press — a vast host of departed saints, 
 but a cloud of testimony, the record of 
 their example? Surely the Apostle 
 Paul, who was a scholar, not an igno- 
 ramus, could have found words to 
 express his meaning ? he would never 
 have confounded " testimony " with 
 the witnesses themselves ! 
 
 I grant, and candidly, that I find here 
 a difficulty so strong as to forbid my 
 enforcing the interpretation of this 
 sermon with any the least approach to 
 dogmatism. If the doctrine of Hades, 
 advocated in this series of discourses. 
 
14 
 
 X. ^.. 
 
 Probkms of Uie Future State, 
 
 
 be the true one : that in to say, if it l)e 
 true that the spirits of the dejiarted in 
 Christ do not immediately at death 
 enter into Heaven, but are detained in 
 Paradise awaiting the remmption of thxir 
 bodies at thv. Resurrectioi: then how 
 could they b*- so far nresent as to sur- 
 round us V o are till here on earth ? 
 
 This is the difficulty stated in all its 
 force ; and I can not solve it even to 
 my own, and probably therefore not to 
 your entire satisfaction. The truu 
 scientist, however, will always be ready 
 to recognize a fact, no matter how stub- 
 bornly it may bear upon any precon- 
 ceivea theory of his own. And he will 
 yield his theory, in the face of plain 
 and unanswerable demonstration. So 
 should the Theologist. He is not piit 
 to state theorems, or to establish hypo- 
 theses, but to "rightly divide," so far 
 as in him may lie, " the word of truth." 
 
 The two ideas in q^uestion may not 
 be antagonistic, after all. Who shall 
 say that the Hades of Scripture may 
 not be an expression so wide of signiti- 
 cation as to include the possibility if 
 not the absolute fact of spirit communi- 
 cation, at least that of spirit supervision 
 of the career of such of us as remain 
 still on earth ? It is a sweet and com- 
 forting idea, to say the least. And we 
 shoula beware, I think, of reducing our 
 religion to the level of a cold, dry, hard, 
 unfeeling materialism. WhUst avoiding 
 superstition and fanaticism, we can not 
 yield our hold of the Poetical. 
 
 We know that Moses and Elijah 
 appeared to the Lord on the Mount uf 
 his transfiguration, and we know from 
 the record that Samuel was called up 1 -y 
 the witch of Endor, after his decease ; 
 and that he actually appeared before 
 Saul. By what means he manifested 
 himself to the guilty monarch we are 
 not informed ; but certain it is that it 
 was a bad man and a bad woman who 
 did the necromancing, and that such 
 practices are forbidden by God in His 
 Holy Word. (Is. viii. 19, 20.) 
 
 In this Epistle to the Hebrews the 
 Apostle Paul — presumably the author 
 —-devotes the wnole of his first chapter 
 to angels and their ministry. Why do 
 we hear so seldom about this subject of 
 angelic ministration from the Christian 
 Pmpit 1 Why must it be ever the same 
 hard, dry, didactic teaching ? Should 
 men be so anxious to preserve a repu- 
 tation for orthodoxy that they must 
 
 needs be ev<'r harping upon dogma, and 
 treading in the same old groove, to the 
 neglect of topics of the deepest interest, 
 as all those (juestions are which relate 
 to the spiritual life of man ? Is not all 
 or eveiy Scripture inspired of God 
 profitable for instruction in righteous- 
 ness ? Why, then, should we harp 
 upor some, and overlook others / 
 
 '• We are compassed about," or sur- 
 rounded " with a cloud of witnesses," 
 says the Apostle, in one place ; and 
 there are " ministering spirits " — or 
 angels, (from the context) " sent forth 
 to do service for the heirs of salvation," 
 he tells us, in another. The question 
 arises : are these two separate and dis- 
 tinct classes of beings ; or are they one 
 and the same ? 
 
 I think ttiey are not the same ; and 
 for the reason that the one class is 
 represented as in the passive act of 
 K-itnessiiKj how we acquit ourselves in 
 the conflict with sin, whilst the other 
 class occupy the attitude of helpers, or 
 ministrants — as doing service. I shall 
 speak of them accoraingly, as different 
 individuals. 
 
 The Apostle speaks of a cloud — a 
 classical metaphor for a vast assembly, 
 a great multitude, a mighty host of 
 witnesses, — "martyrs," it is literally, 
 the martyr being one who has sealed 
 with his blood his witness or testimony 
 to the faith. We are surrounded with 
 this host of sainted confessors of God's 
 truth. Not necessarily by any friends 
 or relatives of ours according to the 
 flesh : I do not say that, for which the 
 passage does not seem to afford war- 
 ranty, but a cloud of martyrs or wit- 
 nesses, whatever this may mean. 
 
 It does seem to mean, beyond reas- 
 onable controversy, the saints of God ! 
 The Apostle devotes considerable 
 portion of the preceeding chapter to 
 the enumeration of a portion of the 
 glorious host of the Lord's redeemed, 
 whom He represents, by a figure drawn 
 from the Olympian games, as standing 
 upon the race course intent upon the 
 efforts of the competitors for the prize ; 
 a crowd pressing in upon the racers, so 
 to speak, in their anxiety, just as we 
 see now on occasions of equestrian or 
 pedestrian games. But he only names 
 a few, for time would fail, he says, to 
 tell of all of them— those invisible spec- 
 tators of the conflict being waged by 
 their brethren who are still in the flesh. 
 
Mini^ering Spiritg* 
 
 IS 
 
 The paaaagft clearly indicates, to my 
 mind at I'^aut, tUal we of the Church 
 militant, we >vho ire still runners in 
 the Christian . ", v" \\'ho have yet to 
 win the heavenly c iwn, arc surround- 
 ed by an innumerable iiott — albeit 
 indistinguishable by mortal ye — of the 
 spirits of the just made perfect ; the 
 spirita of men and women who have 
 toiled and fought, and sutfered oblo (uy 
 and derision, i)ain aud jiersecution, in 
 the good Mas^ter's cause, many of them 
 sealing ultimately their unswerving tes- 
 timony with thfiir blood ! Thej^e encom- 
 pass us as though a cloud ; they look 
 upon us with an interest the most 
 intense. They watch our every move- 
 ment ; see every muscle-strain as we 
 press onward, every relaxation of the 
 thews and sinews, as, discouraged or 
 losing faith, we, for the time, draw 
 back. Aud watching us so inteutly, in 
 the nature of things, they are cheered 
 by our successes, saddened by our de- 
 fections. 
 
 But these are not the only spectators 
 of our trials and suflerings, our strug- 
 glings and our victories. Tiie inspired 
 writer tells us also, in, terms unmis- 
 takable—although interrogatively put, 
 as is often the fashion of Scripture 
 when implying an affirmative, — that 
 God's angels are charged with the duty 
 of ministering to or doing service for 
 God's children — for those, that is to say, 
 who "shall inherit salvation." 
 
 Ask me not concerning the nature of 
 those ministrations, for, on that point, 
 God's word is silent ; and we may not 
 be wise above what is written. The 
 fact of angelic ministrations towards 
 the human race is a fact indubitable. 
 They watch over us, I doubt not, from 
 the cradle to the grave ; in our hours 
 of gladness and in our hours of sorrow ; 
 in sickness and in health ; in prosperity 
 and in adversity. They stand by us 
 —those blessed " messengers " of God ! 
 to strengthen and sustain in the fierce 
 hour of temptation, to comfort and 
 support in the trying moment of dis- 
 solution ! 
 
 We wonder at the faith and constancy 
 of the martyrs : and seem to think that, 
 because the love of so many waxes cold 
 in our day, this age would prove barren 
 of victims for the Master, were it to 
 become one of fierce and fiery persecu- 
 tion. But we should not forget those 
 ministering spirits — those angelic mes- 
 
 sengers commissioned from the throne 
 of Jehovah. Invisible to the eye of 
 flesh, it wa-> their mission, as I believe, 
 to give strength and support to the 
 vlrooping hearts of those otherwise 
 weak men and women who were 
 called, in the ali-wiae Providence of 
 God, aud in the defence and confirma- 
 tion of the faith, to pass through the 
 lires of martyrdom, What but such 
 an influtmce could have imparted to its 
 victims, strength to endure the dark- 
 ness and the daiapiie.s«, the chains aud 
 hunger ol the oolls of the Inquisition ? 
 Who but an angelic visitant could have 
 inspired tl "> soul to resist the tempting 
 bribe of liberty, aud to suffer willmgly 
 the excruciating agonies of the rack, 
 the wheel, or any other of the manifold 
 and most devilish forms of torture ? 
 Had not the blessed Christ sent His 
 messengers, would they not have 
 counted their lives dear and refused to 
 .surrender them, when, seemingly, all 
 was to be lost, and nothing gained, by 
 that surrender? 
 
 And are there not times, in our own 
 •experience, when the spiiit seems 
 moved, as by an exterior power, to 
 meet some extraordinary emergency ? 
 Are you not conscious, fr»^,quently, of 
 an influence which you can not account 
 for? au ihlluence warning, almost, as 
 it were, in audible tones, of impending 
 danger, and urging to its avoidance ? 
 Never was liiere a greater fallacy than 
 that of the [lopular proverb, " second 
 thoughts best.'' For my part, I have 
 generalTy found that my first impulse 
 was apt to be the true one. Whence 
 come those impulses ? Say you they 
 are the original product of one's own 
 mdependent mind ? And what is that 
 reply but a mere begging of the 
 q uestion ? 
 
 God carries on His work in the 
 human soul through the instrumentality 
 of means of His own providing. Un- 
 doubtedly He has endowed each soul 
 with certain powers of volition or free 
 agency, in order to that soul's responsi- 
 bility. But He has made it responsive 
 to the touch of His own divinely 
 appointed agents, just as the chords of 
 the harp or the lute respond to the 
 touch, when not almost the breath, of 
 the skilled practitioner ; or as the flower 
 opens its petals to the sun-beam ; or, 
 as the electric current flashes across a 
 continent, at will of its manipulator. 
 
16 
 
 ProbUfAA of thf Fufttrf Stale. 
 
 angels, of 
 " not sent 
 
 But I shall perhaps be told this theory 
 of angelic ministration contlicts with 
 the doctrine of the Holv Spirit ^ that 
 it would supersede that fepirit's agency 
 in the hearts of men in the great work 
 of the aoul's salvation ? 
 
 I need only say, in renly, that if the 
 objection be valid, the onjector must be 
 wiser than was the inspired Apostle ! 
 
 "Are they "— t. f., the 
 whom He is discoursing, 
 forth to do service " — as the Revised 
 Version renders " for the sake of them 
 that shall inherit salvation ; " God 
 works by means, alike in his Kingdom 
 of nature and of grace : and he can 
 -therefore^ and does, employ subordinate 
 agencies in the accomplishment of His 
 purposes of mercy and of goodness 
 towards the world. 
 
 I come, lastly, in this connection, to 
 consider a point of the deejiest interest 
 to thoughtful Christians — the nuestion 
 oi whther our frumfls depart) d have any 
 knowltdge of wriat is taking place liere on 
 earth ? 
 
 Speculation on religious subjects is 
 not wrong, provided it be k». )t -within 
 due bounds, and do not degenerate into 
 dogmatism. I am impatient of those, 
 as already intimated, who would alto- 
 gether eliminate the poetical from oxir 
 theology, and especially of those who 
 are so rigidly ortnodox as to bcjid back- 
 wards, forgetting that they are not in- 
 fallible, and that wtiat to one servant 
 of the Master may seem althogether 
 the right view, to another equally 
 devoted may not be so. Tho legitimate 
 Freedom of the Press has been already 
 secured to us. The Freedom of the 
 Pulpit, which ought to be no less dear, 
 is yet a thing of the futiirr.. I know of 
 more than one Minister in the " ortho- 
 dox " ranks, of various denominations, 
 who confess to the holding certain views 
 on mooted points, but say they " dore 
 not preach them I " Is there one single 
 sentence in all Scripture which would 
 warrant the belief that at death our be- 
 loved departed cease from all interest 
 in us ? And is there a single scripture 
 which would authorize the statement 
 that they know nothing of our hopes 
 and fears, our joys and sorrows ? And 
 if the Bible teaches no such negation, is 
 not the subject legitimate matter of 
 discussion ? Surely the presumption 
 is not unreasonable that, unless simul- 
 taneously with the death of the body, 
 
 the soul or spirit also Incomes insensi- 
 ble — and no Scripture that I know of 
 gives sanction to thit idea — a conscious 
 redeemed soul must, in the disem- 
 bodied state, take not only interest, but 
 a most deep and tender interest in the 
 progress heavenwards of the dear ones 
 left behind it in tho flesh ? Selfish in- 
 deed must the heart be, which, its own 
 felicity assured, should feel no earnest 
 concern in regard to tho felicity of 
 others ! 
 
 We stand in the midst of a world of 
 awful mystery. Could the veil be with- 
 drawn, I do not doubt we should find 
 the material — wondrous though that 
 be — but as nothing in comparison of 
 the immaterial or spiritual. There 
 are more chariots and horses of fire 
 than those which carried Elijah the 
 
 Erophet in that whirlwind up to 
 [eaven ! This circumambient atmos- 
 phere. Oh, could we but penetrate its 
 mysteries ! Should it be Hades, huw 
 peopled with innumerable throngs of 
 God's redeemed, and what le«'ions of 
 angelic ministants flying to and fro on 
 their errands of love and mercy ! 
 However that may be, it is not suppos- 
 able that our Heavenly Father, who 
 loves His redeemed children with a love 
 which is inexpressible, should deny 
 them the sweet consolation of knowing 
 the progress in Christian grace and 
 heavenly meetness which is being made 
 by the friends whom they have left 
 behind on earth. I do believe they 
 know of it ; and cannot but take com- 
 fort in the thought. — Sd- Appendix B. 
 
 To believe that those who nave enter- 
 ed into rest, and who therefore know 
 its blessedness, mi\y be permitted to 
 watch over us and help as, can do no 
 hanu ; and may be productive, under 
 the Divine guidance, of no little good. 
 That conviction may inspire to • deeds 
 of love and mercy — to the foisaking all 
 that may grieve the Holy Spirit, or 
 bring reproach upon the sacred cause 
 of our dear Master. That thought 
 may lead us to desire pleasures which 
 are not of earth, but which are at God's 
 right hand forever more. 
 
 Wherefore, then, my brethren, " see- 
 ing we are compassed about with so 
 great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay 
 aside every weight, and the sin whicn 
 doth 80 easily beset us, and let us run 
 with patience the race that is set before 
 us." 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 Th« Nea*«>ii of Rfttvenut Wt«t %ni Wknr* U lit uil Who Mlmll Inhabit it I 
 
 Sincf the fifi/innintf d/ Ihe imrli/ m*u 
 hnri' ikA hfiinl, nor fwrvflt^d ft// thf >ar, 
 tteil/nr ImIIi ttiK <ij^ Hfi'H, O (iixi, iHHul'e 
 Th'f, what lie haUi pri/mrnl /or hinilhiU 
 triii/'th/ur Iliiu. I«. Ixiv. 14. 
 
 This i« iiuoted lo 1 Cur, n. 9; and the 
 Eavisfd Vnriion retd-ra the quuUtioa 
 tbuH : 
 
 T/iiiKjM whkh eye naw not, atid ear 
 heard not. 
 
 And which entered not info the heart 
 of iiiiin. 
 
 WhiilMocivr thiiii/n Ood pn'ipared for 
 tJieiii that lore IJlm, 
 
 We all wish to ^et to Heaven; nay, we 
 all hope to reach its bleaaed ahorca. We 
 know that we iruat traverae the ohill 
 watera which fl )W between ttiis world 
 and that one yoDd»^r; and that aooDer or 
 later wa nhall be called to make the 
 pluDfiie into their dread depthn : and I 
 venture to auy there is not one here pre- 
 •ent who would not recoil with horror 
 from the tboaght that he or ahe ehould 
 fail of ultimately reachiog the bliseful 
 land 
 
 "Whero saints immortal reiif n." 
 
 And, thanka to God, we all may reach 
 it if we but will, for Chriat came co brine; 
 life and incorruption (2 Tim., i. 10) to 
 li^ht through the Goapel. There ia do 
 ancertainty about this thing. St. Peter, 
 Writing by inapiration, told thr^se whom 
 he addreagf>d that when the Chief Shep 
 herd shall be manifested t* ey shoald 
 rec'ive the crown of ahry that fadeth 
 not away (I Pet , v. 4). Ani Su- Paul, 
 that lerandeat of men, rejoiced in the 
 oonvictitn that there was laid ap for him 
 a crown of righteoDRnees, which the 
 Lord, the righteoufi jndge, should give 
 to hi n at that day, and not riy to him, 
 he adds, but also loall the,mthit love His 
 appearing {2 T m, \v 8). 
 
 Therelore I siy we all may reach 
 Heaven wha will, but on certain «pecifio 
 and not unreasonable conditions The 
 crown of plory will furmount the brows 
 et all who shall comply with the terms 
 of ita attainment, for obvieualy there 
 must be terms and conditions. Heaven, 
 it ehould he remembered, is the reward 
 of the faith and patience and perseverance 
 of the Lord's Miinta. It is no cage of 
 unclean birds. Clearly, the principle of 
 selection must obt'<in in regard to Its 
 Inhabitants. Bains;, as it is, the more 
 especial abode of God, speaking after the 
 manner of men, for God is everywhere, 
 filling immensity with His presence, 
 M that the very heaven of heavens 
 
 oannot uuotaiu Him; but. never* 
 theleas, beinu the eipeoial place 
 ot the Lord's habitation, there will not 
 be gathered there an indisuriminate 
 uompaoy of the pure and of the impure, 
 of the rit{iiteoua and the wicked, of thu 
 anrvanta of God, and of those who arrve 
 Him not, tor that fact would destroy iti 
 blia^, and no constitute it hell in a de- 
 gree. Heaven i* the /lurchatied jtOKnennioH 
 of Chriat'anun blood boU|/ht ptiopie. I 
 ahall perhaps be a^ked, then, and kbail 
 endeavor to answer the (luestioo. 
 
 1. What is Hkavkn ? 
 
 Js U a filare ' or a ittute ? one or loth 7 
 
 I, As already remarked, it is sp ken 
 of in the iScriptures aa an ioheritanre — 
 "the lot of our inheritanoe"— a posae^aioB 
 to be bestowed by Chrii-t upon his sanc- 
 tified ones. Heaven bngirs here, on earth. 
 Its peat ia the human loul. We are 
 prepared (or it through the impartation 
 to us by the Holy Spirit of heavenly 
 desires, thouehta, and affectiona. That 
 which is esaentiaily of the earth, in its 
 sinful sense, is taken away. The Lotd 
 puts a new spirit within his children, as 
 speaks the prophet Ezekiel, He takes the 
 stony heart out of our lleeh, and gives 
 us a heart of fle«h. We are renewed 
 after the image and likeness of Christ. 
 A different nature is cummunicat d; old 
 things pass away, and all things become 
 n«w. This is heaven begun, begun 
 it may be, at the v ry outs<jt 
 of our earthly career, as in the case 
 of Samuel, or of Timothy who from a 
 child had known the scripturts, or of 
 many a devoted young person in our 
 churches and Sunday Schools. And so 
 imperceotible is thiH change sometimes — 
 for the spirit of God works variously — 
 th»t it is imoossible to fix the day or date 
 of its commeniement, whilst in others, 
 ag«iR, it has come with the surldf-nnes of 
 the liphtoing'e flatih, or aa with the vio« 
 It-nce of the tornado. 
 
 2 We carry our heaven with us whither- 
 noever toe </o. The foul which realizes 
 the enjoyment of the Saviour's presence 
 experiences a foretaste of the bliss of the 
 heavenly sanctuary, no matter whether 
 in marble halls, in forest wilds, in 
 no'some dungeon, or on the trackless 
 00 an. Thanks to His holy name, no 
 bolts nor bars can shut me off from com- 
 munion with that B'essed One whom 
 truly to know ia life eternal ! On 
 stormy watch, or even amid ha<l of 
 battle, or pestilential fumes, the Christian 
 oftD, and will hold convene with his 
 
l'n>hlrm» of thi' Futitrt Htate^ 
 
 Lord. Nothing md (apArAla him from 
 tat lov* of Ohritt. Lot p«ra<Kiotioa do 
 it* Witrit ! KvoQ thoutth a boatile world 
 •h< uld UQitd to oMt oat our naino m t-vil, 
 the Lord woald ■till, »nd b«vorth«leii, 
 kuow aad rtoognizo them that ar« hit. 
 
 3 A great tniataliM, Iheo, it la to atao- 
 cikta the idea of h«!av«io, aa of uticaa- 
 •itf, with that of tb« period of 
 ddito It were the mereat 
 
 Intiam to aay that tb« bo<ly ia not 
 the Heat of the sMotioaa. I hare aeeo 
 men aod womea raakud with paia whoae 
 apirita wore ia the full at aad mont oom- 
 plHte oDJoymcDt of the Haviuur'a poaoe. 
 Rtady they were and williog to depart 
 an I be with Chriat, nay, lorgiog even for 
 th9 hour of their tranaition. To think 
 that the diaB'>Iution of thia Qeihly frame 
 baa neceatiarily auK^t to do with oar 
 ■oala' heaven ia moat prepoaterona. Tr«e, 
 the animal spirita are often %nd atrinaaly 
 afT'iuted by the ilia which athict the body, 
 but the aoul which )xw% a well founded 
 hope oo Chriat the Rook of Auos, will oot 
 be affeotfld even by the thaudera of the 
 jalginent day itaelf. The bodyorumblea 
 into dtiat ; tbe aoul livea oo in anbroken 
 oontinuity. Again: 
 
 II. WhkreisUeavkn? itmaybeaaked, 
 halt it locality f 
 
 1. That it ia HOiuwhe^re in space cannot, 
 I think, b«) doubted, for we read of it aa 
 occupied, aad oooupied by apirita, and 
 theae have form and identity by which 
 they may be known, which were impoaai- 
 ble apart from apace. Bat if it l>9 ob- 
 jected that God cannot be localized, I 
 answer that the objection ia bat in p«rt 
 legitimate, for, while Ood ia everywhere 
 in Hia o^n aniverse, even in the very 
 caxrema of Hell, we read of him aa 
 *' dwelling in the Heavena " That ia a 
 very different idea from the anperatition 
 belonging to a paat age, but 
 utterly nnwortby of the present, 
 which would looaliza Him in 
 a few orumbe of bread or drops of wine, 
 at t'ae beck of a so-called " priest," 
 standing before a so-called "altar." Oar 
 fathers repudiated that fantasy centuries 
 ago; altbOQgh, shame to eay it t there 
 are those to-day who woald again fasten 
 the exi^oded dogm) upon the venerable 
 Anglican Chareh. 
 
 I am at a loss to nnderstacd why there 
 should be difficulty in receiving the idea 
 of Heaven a locality — a fact of material- 
 ity, within the domain of physios, equally 
 positive with the existence of Jupiter or 
 Satarn, Venus or Uranns. The telescope, 
 it ia most true, has given wondrons reve- 
 lations of the magnitude and the magni- 
 ficence of God's glohoQS universe; but 
 even that has not been able to reveal the 
 
 secrets of the milky may, nor to oaloolate 
 the distanofs of the nearsat of the Hitd 
 atara, aa the attronnmfr will tell you. 
 Hut when wn curne to think, %» ia moat 
 prohtbly true in faot, that with all the 
 wonder* thaa laid op<<n to oar view — and 
 t'h'iy are mn<it a''.ap«nd na — we stand aa 
 yet Hut withio the veitit>ole oftrod'a 
 threat tern ule. Lik** Newton, we aaunter 
 along piokmg uu Here and there a pnhble 
 from the shore, ths ureat oooan of troth 
 meanwhile lyini{ ail aneiplornd boyond 
 ua. I doubt not that. oouM >ve V-^it 
 aee tittim, as in prophetio viaion, we 
 ahoqid behold myriaia upon myriads of 
 ahining orbt p^oplmg the infinitudes of 
 siiaoe and of which the most aecurate of 
 all the soienovs has not oonoeived 
 the m')at rem ite idea. Inasmuch, then, 
 as we 09 yet know nothing in oompariHou 
 of what yet remains to be revealed to the 
 eye of science, Sow dare we presume to 
 say that the idea of Heaven as a lootlity 
 is a b tnpian figment of the imagination — 
 a mere poetic creation ? We have picked 
 up a aand or two from the beach, and 
 aay th^taa are all there is of them \ We 
 have hej'>n>e slightly acqnainted with the 
 wonders of thia. our own aolar univerae, 
 and from that premiae attempt the im> 
 poasible feat of proving a negatire, predi- 
 cating the nen-exintenoe of any other ! 
 
 Moat assureiily, since God hai found 
 place for the world» we do aee, He is of 
 might anlfioient to the finding of room in 
 the vast depths of spa^e for the heaven or 
 heavens which at present we do not see* 
 
 2. Again, be it remembered that God 
 ia personal, and not a mere abatraotion aa 
 some would make Him. Therefore, we 
 cannot divest ourselves of the convictioD 
 that there mast he an intimate reUtioo 
 between personality and locality. God's 
 children nhall be l<ke him, we are told, 
 and see. Him as He. m; and how that 
 scripture could be verified unless there 
 be place and gtrrious manifestation, I 
 cannot conceive. And what place mora 
 fitting for such a rerelationof the Divine 
 presence than the "Heaven of Heavens'" 
 those who disbelieve may tell, 
 
 3. Who an tJieif that shall inherit 
 Heaven^ is a further question which it 
 well behoves us to consider. And fortn* 
 nately there is a " sure word'* of God oo 
 which we can depend for an answer to 
 this enquiry. I wish to bespeak your 
 intelligent consideration of this d^fi- 
 aition : 
 
 I. They are those who have truly re- 
 pented them of their stna, and washed 
 their robes tn the Uood of the Lamb: the 
 great host of Gad's redeemed oat of every 
 nation and kindred and toogae ander the 
 whole Heaven. Their names will b« 
 
Th^ Ifntitn ((fIfeavtMi What aiui ff'here itU? ami Who thill fn/uihil it f \9 
 
 foaod writtno in thai record of riMbtcooi- 
 OBM— thn Lkinb't hiolk of life. They »re 
 the lauotitiud ia heart; the men and 
 women, who, whdei pMtina thr Bt{h th«t 
 Irtali and Mtorme o' life, in faith and 
 
 fatien e poeieM^d their eoaU. Through 
 he iipirit'i itflaence they hare beon 
 made " meet for the inheritaoue of the 
 •aioU in li^ht " They bare aooept«d 
 the Lord Jeiaa aa their Matter "Klitnt'd 
 are the dead who die in the Lord," waa 
 the legend recorded ag»init their oamea 
 iu the boolia of lleavoD'e Chmoery, in 
 the moment of their departure h«noe; 
 and of all aaoh it ie written that they 
 ■ball attain a part in the firat Re«arreo 
 tion; and upon them the " •eoond death" 
 •hall harx no power. 
 
 2 Rot there are who perhape will aay 
 " that ia a very exoluaive kind of Hea> 
 ▼en!" Snrelr yoQ would not limitjk to the 
 oompuratively few whom you hare indi- 
 o»tf>d ? W hat of the Jewa, Mohamnedana, 
 Hindoos, and all others of the aat boat 
 of heathens and unbelierera generally ? 
 Shall the maltitudes with whom we daily 
 associate, and who make no profession 
 whatever of any other than a purely 
 iifitnral reliKion, be forever excluded from 
 tie heavenly inheritance ? 
 
 Brethren : let os nek seek to be wise 
 above what ia written. We are not the 
 judgea of oar brother. It ia not for me to 
 aay what will Lj the Ste of the unbeliev- 
 ing Jew, or of him '«i ose mind has been 
 steeled by education against the icfluence 
 of Christianity, or of the man to whom 
 the Saviour baa not been revealed ;o all 
 hia gloriona faltneas. To hia own Master 
 each n ill stard or fall. All will not be 
 )ud({ed by the same rule ; that w* do 
 know; and we are told, furthermore, that 
 he to whom muoh is given, of him much 
 will be required, and be to whom little, 
 of him little. Heaven is not so much a 
 negative as it is a positive revelation. 
 That is to say, we are informed not so 
 much of those wbc shall not, aa of those 
 who ahall enter therein. In oar Father's 
 house are many mansions, and Ood h^s a 
 place for all according to their merits or 
 demerits. It is a blessed truth that "the 
 Lord knoweth them that are hia;" and 
 that He will make due allowance where 
 ve, in onr sbort-eightedness, might be 
 intolerable and uncharitable. 
 
 3. But this we ito Know, on the author* 
 ity of Scripture, that Heaven is essentially 
 where Christ is; and that none but those 
 who love and serve him can enter therein. 
 And this in the eternal fitness of 
 things, for obviously there must be 
 harmony of feeling and of temperrment 
 in orier to the enjoyment of the L>ivine 
 presence, and adaptation of apirit to 
 
 the surroundings of bsaven. Lacking 
 these, it were no longer heaven— the 
 beatific abode of the Saiota uf ('od. The 
 irbabitanta of that place airve and «or- 
 «hip (iod; they rajoioe in the aaunhine 
 [ of His orinotenanoe; they rejoio in the 
 j ft lluwahip of the Redeemer; they all aiD)( 
 , the new vend. Tb<t harmony ia ui (|iiali« 
 I tied for ; they caat onitedly their crowns 
 iK-fore the throne, "nd chant, in heareu'a 
 own mntio, ' unto lliin who hnlh l-iteU m« 
 and wanhnl un from our hihh in hi» own 
 IiIoihI. a bad man would himaelf deaire 
 that the doors of I caven thonld be closed 
 agatnfct him. The harmony of the 
 upper sanctuary is, I have stid, nnquali' 
 Ked ; for, wherA discord ia, there cannot, 
 in the nature of things, be pfrfect happi* 
 neas. But there ia nothing to mar the 
 aereaity ef the acene. Aod how toch 
 perfection of content could poaaibly ohtaio 
 amongst other than the followers of the 
 Lamb when called to aiog bis prai»es !>«• 
 fore the throne, I cannot conceive. In 
 this ie>4()ect the church on earth cannot 
 be regarded as the counterpart of the 
 church in glorv, for here alas! we have 
 difTtreooes aid recrimiuatiunf, alai!toa 
 cften Litter ones. Here we have jeal- 
 ouiies, mistakes, short comiigf: the 
 aervants uf Christ, owing to the corrup> 
 tion of the tiesh, are too like other tren, 
 but thfre. ah! there, there will be noce of 
 that. Seeing, as we do, through a 
 glass darkly now, we mis> 
 
 conceive and misapprehend each other; 
 we are intolerant and overbenrii k; we 
 take wrong views of each other's doo- 
 trine, and do not iu£Bciently comprehend 
 each other's motiv<)s, and so, too fre* 
 quQDtly judge harahly and erroneously; 
 but yonder all that is obscure will be 
 made plain, and each Christian saved by 
 grace will regard his brother Chrittiaa 
 as equal to himself, equally acceptable to 
 the same beloved Maater, none will seek 
 pre-eminence over the other, all hearts 
 filled to overflowing with gratitude and 
 love. In view of the supreme delight of 
 that most holy place, weil may we sing : 
 
 "Therr* are depths of lore that I cuiBot know. 
 
 Till I eross the narrow sea, 
 There are heights of joy that I may not reach 
 
 Till I rest iu peace with Tt^«e. 
 
 Ob, the pure and nnsallied happiness 
 of that blest abode of the saints of God I 
 who but must wish that it may be his ? 
 As stated in my opening remarks, it may 
 most assmredly be yours and mine, pro* 
 vided we oomoly with the conditions. If 
 fail we shall, the fault will be oars alone— 
 the fault of oar rebelliousness or indiffer> 
 enoe. God is willing, and Christ is will* 
 ing, and the Holy Spirit is willing, that 
 we all shoald enter io. 
 
20 
 
 Problems of the Future State, 
 
 4 Rat remember there must be fi'^ne«>B 
 — % titoeaa of im jntatioD, and aUo of 
 personal holiness, for without these 
 no man can see the Lord The 
 first hncome^ ours in the moment when 
 we believe, the Saviour's unsullied holi 
 nesR being acoounted unto nn for right- 
 eousness, and th» latter eff<?cted in us 
 throush the daily sanctifying graoe of the 
 HoU' Sjirit. 
 
 Without these requisites entrance within 
 the sates of the New Jerusalem were no 
 privilege to you. Yon could not be 
 happy there, for just as the wicked man 
 will carry his hell with him in his 
 own bi'om, so shall the saved take with 
 them their heaxec. Surely you will not 
 think it mordly right thit God should 
 compel ynu, if unoreoared. to enter 
 heaven ? The very fact of unfitness would 
 i iduce you to seek your own exclusion ; 
 and this is a thought that I would 
 recomme.'d to your most serious and 
 prayerful consideration. Take a reso- 
 lutely ungodly man, and set him in the 
 midst of an assembly of Christ's worship- 
 ping people here on earth, and he will 
 find himself out of his element, prayer a 
 burden, praise an unwelcome exercise, 
 and therefore his wandering footsteps are 
 seen so seldom wending their way towards 
 the sanctuary; and just so would it be in 
 regard to heaven. We shall take with 
 us into the eternal world the predispo- 
 sitions and antipathies we entertained in 
 this, and therefore the man who loved 
 not God here will not love Him there; he 
 who hatei holiness and piety and virtue 
 here will bate them there. The elements 
 of each one*s moral constitution will 
 continue tT be precipita*:ed by a law 
 which is fixed and invariable. The right- 
 eous, therefore, will shine as the stars 
 in the midst of heaven's pure glory, 
 whilst the wicked shall go to their own 
 place — that which they themselves have 
 chosen. 
 
 It is just such a heaven as God's word 
 reveals, and I have feebly endeavored to 
 pourtray, which the soul longs for as the 
 fitting compiemect, the satifying com- 
 pensation of this world's life of bo much 
 
 ' misery and wretchedness. Hearts sick 
 
 I of itx hollnwness and deceit are longing 
 
 ' for it every where ; and without some such 
 
 { rounding off as that it would look as 
 
 I though G'^d's plans of happiness for the 
 
 race wer ^ marred by a power he could not 
 
 control, but that we know could never 
 
 be. There are some in this congregation 
 
 who are longing ts know what shill be 
 
 their future ; and for that reaoon I have 
 
 chosen the subjects of these aermons. In 
 
 the words of a gifted preacher of the 
 
 day ; 
 
 "To-day there rises before me the 
 vision of the world's struggle and need 
 and of God's great fulness — a fulness like 
 the sea, like the plenty of th<) land, 
 whilst all about is the hunger, the thirst, 
 the cry of the multitude Oh. how I 
 long to bring this fulness and this W'irt 
 together ! I think of Jesus as he stood 
 by Galilee or on the Mount.as He mingled 
 with the joy in Cana, as He talked by 
 the well, as He comforted the widow of 
 Nain, as He blessed little children, as He 
 wept by the grave, and I wish that I 
 might know His love and repeat His 
 words and live His life, and that His 
 ministers and His churches everywhere 
 would open wide their hearts and their 
 doors to welcome the multitude. I know 
 of the passion, the sin, the hardness and 
 blindDesp of hearts, but I know that 
 God is the Father of all, that where sin 
 hath abounded grace h^th abounded much 
 more, and that He calls all and is able lo 
 save all." 
 
 And I close with the closing lines of 
 one of our finest poems — "Yesterday, 
 To-day "ind Forever" : 
 
 * * * Zion is our horae; 
 
 Jenisa'em, the City of rur God. 
 
 O happy hoLis ! i» happy^ eb'ldren here ! 
 
 O blissful iLansions of our Fa'h t's house ! 
 
 O wilkssurpas ing '-den for Ipl'aht ! 
 
 Here are the harvests rr a >'il ouce sown in tears: 
 
 Here is the rest by mi ■ i-tr enhanced: 
 
 Her? is the bAnquet rf the wint of heaven. 
 
 Riches of tlory iiicorriiptii'le, 
 
 Crowns, amarantliine e own- of victory, 
 
 The voice of harjers hari'inar -^n their harps, 
 
 The anthems of the holy cherubim, 
 
 The c'.vstal river of the pirii's joy, 
 
 The Bridal pa'ace of ihe Prince if Peace, 
 
 The Ho leit of Holiea— Gol is here. 
 
 *4i. 
 
 
 .i .if 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 Hearen'fl Many Maiinlons. 
 
 In my Fat)ier^s hmise an nutny mansions 
 — John xiv. 2. 
 
 There U no truth on which my soul 
 more dehghta to dwell — paradoxical 
 though it may seem to say it — than that 
 of God'.s intiexible justice. When Abra- 
 ham pleaded with the Lord on behalf of 
 guilty Sodom, he said, as fearing not to 
 be contradicted, "shall not the Judge of 
 all the earth do right ?" — dm. xviii. 25. 
 
 The position has been taken by some, 
 to avoid certain theological dilliculties, 
 that God's idea of justice is different 
 from man's, — in other words, that He 
 has one standard of justice for himself, 
 another for us ! But that seems most 
 unreasonable : for surely our sente of 
 the right and the just, the good and 
 the true, must have been implanted 
 within us by the Almighty Creator : 
 and therefore He neither would nor 
 could sanction two contrary or oppos- 
 ing measures of these properties. Such 
 a supposition were entirely unworthy 
 of an all-wise Being, as is our heavenly 
 
 V Father. 
 
 ^ Now I hold it as utterly at variance 
 "'with all right principle, as alike un- 
 
 V scriptural and unphilosophical, that 
 •> there should be a sameness of rewards 
 
 and punishments ; ihat equal felicity 
 
 should, on the one hand, be conceded 
 
 J to the long-tried faithful servants of 
 
 I God, and to the " scarcely saved ;" and 
 
 flCin the other, that equal punishment 
 
 ' should be meted out to the poor weak 
 
 ft victim of temptation, and to the man 
 
 s who, all his life-long, has "worked 
 
 'wickedness with greediness." In the 
 
 «. distribution of the awards of Eternity, 
 
 : tinder the government of a righteous 
 
 God, one would think regard must 
 
 surely be had to the respective grades 
 
 * of merit or demerit characterizing the 
 
 individual. 
 
 In perfect harmony with this view is 
 the declaration of our Lord in the text ; 
 " In my Father's house are miny 
 mansions " — not wig mansion, then, 
 but " many ;" not one house with but 
 one room, but many rooms in the same 
 house, and those many rooms hlled 
 with diversified classes of occupants. 
 
 Let us take a view of human society 
 as existing at present in our world. 
 
 There are diversified elements which go 
 to the make-up of that society. Men 
 are drawn together by the attractive 
 force of similarity of feeling, by con- 
 geniality of disposition. It were a trite 
 remark to say that antagonistic char- 
 acters cannot dwell together side by 
 side in harmony. One man has a taste 
 for high art, the beautiful, the poetical; 
 the other is all plain matter of fact, 
 utterly unromantic and unpoetical. 
 One has a keen and appreciative ear 
 for music ; the other is utterly un- 
 moved by any " concord of sweet 
 sounds." This Christian man delights 
 to worship God beneath fretted arch 
 and in vaulted aisle, surrounded by 
 magnificent designs in architecture, the 
 rich gorgeous light, rainbow tinted, 
 streaming in upon him thro' painted 
 window : and &il this, we may well say 
 instead of detracting from, acts as 
 adjunct to his devotional feelings and 
 perceptions — it does to mine ; whereas 
 that other one, utterly devoid of taste 
 or poetry or sentiment, can worship 
 God more pleasurably to himself, in a 
 Barn or a Church resembling one, 
 utterly devoid of any the least preten- 
 sion to the comely or the beautiful. 
 
 One man, again, thrives upon food 
 which to another man would be little 
 short of poison. This one longs for 
 tJae frozen regions of the Arctic ; that 
 one pines lor the latitude of the Torrid 
 Zone. This mans genius is mechanical 
 and practical ; thai one's suberbly un- 
 realistic and ideal. Here we have a 
 devotee of the classics of ancient Greece 
 aud Kome, buried in the tomes of 
 Homer, Thucidydes, Cicero, or Juvenal. 
 Yonder is on<i absorbed in the mysteries 
 of the Differential and Integi-al Calculus, 
 Quadratic equations, Algebra, or Conic 
 Selections. 
 
 Now it were obviously useless to 
 attemp', to fuse all these infinitely dis- 
 cordant elements. Their happiness 
 consists in their sepai'ations. Tliey must 
 agree to differ, otherwise their insur- 
 mountable antagonisms would give rise 
 to calamities incalculable. There would 
 be danger of constant and fatal explo- 
 sions. When cloud comes in contact 
 with cloud, there follow the fiadbdag of 
 
1» 
 
 Probltrtii qfthe Future Staie. 
 
 the Lightning and the reverberations of 
 the Thunder. Can two walk together 
 except they be agreed ? Their only 
 safety consists in living in different 
 habitations. 
 
 And 80 in things heavenly. 1 appre- 
 hend there must be different spheres or 
 " mansions " in God's glorious King- 
 dom, that each of the redeemed in 
 Christ may he as happy as his or her 
 capacity shall admit of. On earth all 
 Christians have not, by any means, the 
 same experiences. There are degrees 
 of faith and hope and love. Some 
 rejoice in manifest tokens of the Divine 
 fa7or ; they have the comforting wit- 
 ness of the Spirit to their Divine Son- 
 ship ; the precious assurance of pardon 
 and forgiveness. They know whom 
 they have believed ; and are firmly 
 persuaded that he shall give them a 
 crown of rejoicing at the last day. Ac- 
 cepted in the beloved, they can " sing 
 songs in the night." The Comforter 
 speaks peace to their souls . They have 
 entered within the vail ; have been 
 hidden in the cleft of the rock. They 
 \yalk bv faith, and not by sight ; and 
 30 walking, have laid hold on the 
 promise of salvdtion which God has 
 made to the believer in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Others there are, again, who have 
 embraced the gospel in the love of it, but 
 are nevertheless devoid of that rich joy- 
 ousness of hope and consolation which 
 is the privilege of their more favored 
 brethren. Their faith is like the grain 
 of mustard seed ; so weak and tender 
 is it that it needs careful tending, or it 
 will be overgrown with weeds and 
 brambles. The lamp flame quivers in 
 the socket so that the rough wind may 
 puff it out at any moment. No soar- 
 ing aloft is there on the wings of faith 
 and love — nothing but a faint and 
 feeble fluttering of the pinion, so that 
 instead of, Eagle-like, attaining the 
 mountain crag, their place is low down 
 in the valley of humiliation. 
 
 I know Christians of this kind, who, 
 instead of the white garb of joy and 
 gladness, are forever clad in the sombre 
 Dabiliments of mourning. If a believ- 
 ing friend is taken from them, instead 
 of thanking God that his toils are over, 
 his warfai-e ended, and his soul at rest 
 on the bosom of the Saviour, they sel- 
 fishly bewail his loss; and talk hesi- 
 tatinglv and doubtfully of his .salvation. 
 Instead of " Soldier of Christ well 
 dons 1 " they chant doleful Misereres 
 
 and lamentations. They hang their 
 harps upon the willows, and refuse to 
 sing the songs of Zion : forgetful, the 
 while, that all this is dishonoring, be- 
 cause a refusal to take God at His word, 
 and to believe the precious assurances 
 he has given us of pardon and forgive- 
 ness 
 
 Now, is it not clear as the noon-day 
 that those weak ones, to be hapyy in 
 glory — for not only do they live, but 
 they also die in this condition — must 
 needs have a place by themselves in the 
 mansions of the Father ? Surely they 
 would not be at home in the company 
 of such saints of God as Abraham, and 
 Moses, and David, Samuel, Isaiah, Job 
 or Ezekiel ? Matthew, and John, and 
 Paul, and James, would not be, for 
 these weakling Christians, most assur • 
 edlv, fitting associates in the Kingdom 
 of glory. Such men as Wickliffe, and 
 Huss, and Jerome of Prague, and Leigh- 
 ton, and Wesley and Whitfield, and 
 Scott and Chalmers, and Cecil and 
 and Simeon ; Oh, would they not grow 
 weary of the doublings and staggerings 
 of those I have been describing ? Bye 
 and bye, when they shall have pro- 
 gressed upwards — for I trust — nay I 
 feel crnfident — there will be progressing 
 in heaven ; it is -scarcely conceivable 
 that the dissolution of the body shall 
 put an end to the progressive capacity 
 of the soul — when they shall have 
 attained a fitness for the higher seats in 
 the kingdom, God will admit them 
 there ; and then shall they praise Him 
 with more gladsome Ups, and with 
 louder bursts of adoring gratitude than 
 heretofore. Oh ! there is, it seems to 
 me, a depth of meaning in those words 
 of the Saviour " In my Father's house 
 are many mansions," for, if "many," 
 there must be a purpose in them. This 
 is not like the language of metaphor : 
 or, if metaphor it be, then ii must be 
 significant of distinction. 
 
 1 like that idea of Mr. Faber, that the 
 " many mansions "of the Father are 
 the many planets of God's Universe. 
 Of course it is speculation only ; and 
 yet, as it enlarges our conception of a 
 possible meaning of this text, it is surdy 
 deserving of our respectful considera- 
 tion, His words are : " the true im- 
 port of the passage," i.e. my text : " is, 
 that as there are many mansions in the 
 vast mundane House of the Father, so 
 Christ will go to prepare (ms of them, 
 as thtt place allotted for th« fatur« 
 
Heaven's Many Man$ion$. 
 
 2S 
 
 permanent abode of His Disciples ; and 
 that, when the preparation shall have 
 been completed m the Day of Final 
 Judgment, He will come again at His 
 Second Advent, and receive them unto 
 Himself, that, where he is, there they 
 may be also," 
 
 "The result is," — he continues— "that, 
 as one of the many mansions is the des- 
 tined future Heaven of the redeemed 
 human race, the other numeroub man- 
 sions must be other Heavens, severally 
 allotted to those armies of angels over 
 all of whom, though each army be 
 immediately subjected to its own special 
 commander, the great archangel pre- 
 sides, and is thence congruously re- 
 vealed as the Captain of the Host of 
 Jehovah. 
 
 "But the particular mansion allotted 
 to the redeemed human race, is this 
 very planet of ours when the dissolved 
 first earth shall have passed away so 
 far as its present organization is con- 
 cerned, and shall have been succeeded 
 by a new earth framed out of the pres- 
 ent dissipated materials. 
 
 "Hence, if our future Heaven be 
 one of the innumerable orbs which are 
 all the handiwork of the Almighty 
 Creator, analogy requires that the 
 other Heavens sHould be the other orbs : 
 and thus we have a consistent explana- 
 tion of the many mansions which our 
 Lord declares to be in the House of 
 His Heavenly Father." 
 
 Now this theory mav be true, or it 
 may not. If true, it throws a flood of 
 light upon that much discussed question 
 of where is Heaven ? But it is not alto- 
 gether in harmony with the view which 
 I have presented for your considera- 
 tion—the view, viz : that in Heaven, 
 wherever that may be, there are vari- 
 ous habitations, representative of various 
 degrees of happiness, various degrees 
 of happiness, various grades— if I may 
 so speak— of glory. This latter idea 
 seems preeminently that of the Apostle 
 Paul, as expressed in that familiar chap- 
 ter, the 15th of his first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, and particularly the 4 1st 
 verse : " There is one glory of the sun, 
 and another glory of the moon, and 
 another glory of the stars ; for one star 
 dififereth from another in glory. " So 
 also ," he adds, " is the resurrection of 
 the dead " — not as to form, for all will 
 be raised at once and alike — but as to 
 results. 
 
 It seems to me that, insensibly, we 
 
 are too much in the habit of localizing 
 God, and also, oi contradicting our owu 
 theory or doctrine. We say, and that 
 truly, that Jehovah "fills immensity 
 with hii presence," — that God is every- 
 whtre, both in the Heavens above, and 
 on earth beneath : nay, were I to use 
 so strong an expression as to say that 
 the very Hell of Hells is open to Hia 
 inspection, and at His command, you 
 would not deny it, for the Almighty 
 must surely be omnipotent also in His 
 own universe ? He could not have 
 created it, to be thereafter excluded 
 from any part of portion of it, by foiee 
 of any unimagiiiable circumstances, 
 or agencies, independent of His control. 
 Now, thi' being true, both in theory 
 and in fact, and supported as it un- 
 doubtedly is, by Holy Scripture, and 
 therefore no mere speculation, we find 
 that God is not far off, but v^ry nigh to 
 every one of us. He has not retired to 
 a distance ; but is constantly with us in 
 our homes, in our business, and in our 
 daily walks. And, if we only hold 
 communion wilh hiui, there is, to us, 
 our Heaven. He is with us, whilst 
 stretched upon our beds at night wrcpp- 
 ed in unconscious slumber, dreaming 
 sweetly, it may be, or else taking un- 
 knowingly that refreshment so much 
 needed by the weary o'er- worked frame. 
 He is with us in our hours of sicknes : 
 and in our bereavements the Angel of 
 His presence is at hand to comfort and 
 uphold, so that we shall not give way to 
 hopeless sorrow and despair. That vision 
 of Jacob's ladder at Padan Aram had a 
 meaning in it, not for him alone, but 
 for every child of God living in these 
 latter days. Oh yes ! the believer does 
 hold communion with the God and 
 Father of his spirit without waiting for 
 his hereafter. We need not to die and 
 be buried, and we need not await the 
 glorious morn of the Resurrection before 
 being admitted to His presence, and 
 being made partakers of the peace-giv- 
 ing influences of His blessed Spirit. 
 Perhaps there is somewhere a throne of 
 God ; Bomewhere in the vast universe, 
 a place more transcendently beautiful 
 thaii any other of His many mansions : 
 a place where He may be said to make 
 His home, where Christ stands in all 
 the splendor of his glorified humanity, 
 as our tender elder brother — for He took 
 with him hiBphysical body when he as- 
 cended to Heaven — where the holy 
 angels and the va^t host of the redeem- 
 
2*. 
 
 Problems of the Fntnre Slate. 
 
 ed chant unending praises : and into 
 that place shall be gathered all the vast 
 host of the redeemed — the General As- 
 sembly and Church of the first-born — 
 but this Is, perhaps, only ideal after all ; 
 an accomodation of language to our 
 limited capacity ; a formula of expres- 
 sion suited to the comprehension of the 
 limited human understnnding, and 
 not plain, palpable, actual fact. This 
 we know however, :— that the very 
 Heaven of Heavens cannot contain God: 
 and we do know, furthermore, that " eye 
 hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
 hath it entered into the heart of man, 
 the things which God hath prepared for 
 them that love Him." The place of 
 the Lord's feet is glorious. (See also 
 Is. Ixiv, 4.) 
 
 "In My Father's house are many 
 mansions " — said our blessed Lord : 
 and hence .we deri /e an argument in 
 favor of putting forth every possibie 
 effort for the soul's greater sanctifica- 
 tion. We are co- workers together with 
 God in this matter : and therefore I 
 say putting forth every effort, whilst 
 depending, at the same time, upon the 
 grace of God. 
 
 It should be for us a powerful incen- 
 tive to the cultivation of personal holi- 
 ness to know that in our Father's house 
 are '' many mansions," for it will largely 
 depend upon where we stand upon the 
 the ladder^ of sanctificatiou here on 
 earth as to which of these mansions we 
 shall occupy hereafter. The man who 
 barely gets within the gates of pearl- - 
 who is saved only "just as by fire " — 
 cannot expeet to attain a position of 
 ]:)re-eminence in the heavenly king- 
 dom. And while it would seem true 
 that every saved soul shall be accorded 
 just the degree of felicity of which it is 
 capable, in the better world, undoubt- 
 edly the higher we rise in the scale of 
 Christian grace, and the nearer we ap- 
 proach the imasie and likeness of the 
 Master, so much nearer shall we get to 
 Him, and so much more intimate shal! 
 be our communion with him in the 
 world hereafter. 
 
 r Oh, for a more increasiug and pro- 
 gressive holiness ! Oh for greater ardor 
 of desire after increasing sanctificatiou ! 
 The future wiil be a world of com]ien- 
 sations, alike to the righteous and the 
 wicked. Every act ajid labor of love 
 performed here on earth in the cause 
 of the Saviour, and from love to Him, 
 will be remembered by Him in His 
 glory and in His kingdom, Not a tear 
 
 of penitence we shed ; not a longing 
 after holiness we experience ; not a 
 lust subdued ; not a sm abandoned and . 
 forsaken ; not a child of sorrow helped 
 and relieved ; not a pilgrim aided on 
 the heavenward journey ; b it will be 
 noticed by the Master, and by Him . 
 placed to our account, and made con- 
 ducive to our happiness in the day whea : 
 He shall come to make up His jewels. 
 The Lord is looking on, my brethren : 
 not umindful is He— no, not for a mo- 
 ment ! of what is passing in His vin- -. 
 yard. A life sp«^nt for Christ, and in ; 
 the interests of a true philanthrophy, is 
 a life spent to good advantage, and will , 
 not have passed without its compensa- 
 tions. The nearer we get to God on 
 earth in heart and affections, the nearer 
 shall we get to Him in H^s dwelling place 
 hereafter. 
 
 And on the contrary, the further we 
 wander away from God, the more diffi- 
 cult will that make our reclamation. 
 Some think — but I take, for one, no 
 pleasure in the thought — that in the 
 Eternal world there will oe a constant, 
 progression in evil, and that, therefore, 
 the alienation of the wicked from God 
 will become constantly more intensified. 
 But this would make sin eternal ; and:, 
 thus, a power which God is either un- 
 able or unwilling to controul ; an idea, 
 to me, most repugnant. 
 
 Certain it is, however, that it is both 
 unwise and unsafe to trust to any pos- 
 thumous amelioration of the soul's 
 condition, inasmuch as we have no 
 Scripture warranty for believing, but 
 only at most a cliaritable ho-pe, that such 
 amelioration may be possible. The only 
 wise way, therefore, the only prudent, 
 safe way is to make assurance of our 
 salvation certain , if that be possible ; 
 and possible it is, since Christ Jesus 
 came into our world, for the very pur- 
 pose of saving sinners. 
 
 God would surely not tantalize His 
 creatures by oflering them a salvation 
 which is unattainable. The adorable 
 Redeemer would not have told us of 
 mansions of the Father which are un- 
 reachable. These are set before us to 
 stimulate our desire--, and to intensify 
 our ambitions. 
 
 Crowns we shall have, and harps, and 
 palms, if only faithful : not crown* 
 material, I need not say, but metaph- 
 orical. And we shall sing heaven's new 
 song of joy and gladness. Oh may it 
 be ours — every one of us — to realize 
 that blessedness I 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 VII. 
 The Xethemont Hell, and its Eiii4>iitlal RIpmcnt«. 
 
 Thf miiitki' ofthpSr torruuni axcfiidcth up 
 fmr fi^r anil fi'T. [Jcv. xiv, 11. 
 
 8ome there are who say that those who 
 die in their aioH shall be the labjects of 
 endless conscions puDishment io Hell; 
 others that,after enduring their due meed 
 of retribatioD, they «h«!l be restored; and 
 yet others that, having anfferrd in the 
 eternal world according to their misdeeds 
 and conti&uing still impenitent and re- 
 belltcoB, they will be blotted out of ex- 
 istence, and 80 become as though they 
 bad never been. To thne may be 
 added a fourth class, who, combining the 
 ▼iewi of the last two, hold that, a 
 further probation being etill allowed 
 them in the fatare world: — 
 
 (I.) Those who avail of it and become 
 tmly penitent will eveotaally be re- 
 stored; and 
 
 f (2.) Those who still continue obdurate 
 thall be tiaally blotted out of existence 
 by the Almighty power of God, and thus 
 ■in universally abolished, and the king- 
 dom restored to the Father, Christ shall 
 be "all in bll." 
 
 In this sermon I shall discuss neither 
 of these propositiont, each of which has 
 more or lees able advocates iu its favor, 
 bnt will simply take the ground that by 
 "heil"— the 'Nethermost hell," rathar 
 — we may understand that dark abode to 
 which the tiaally impenitent shall 
 descend after the Resurrectian and Gen- 
 eral Judgment. 
 
 And my theme to-night will be no 
 pleasing one, though necessary to this 
 series of discourses, yet I trust that, 
 with God's help, it may prove profitable. 
 
 I — IS THERE A HELL THEN ? AND IF SO, 
 WHERE, AND WHAT IS IT ? 
 
 To this question, often asked, I will en* 
 deavor, in the first place, to give an 
 answer: 
 
 1. There are two terms :n the New 
 Testament, indifferently translated. Hell 
 in King James' version, but properly dis- 
 criminated in the new or revised eaition. 
 The one used always when the inteneer 
 form of suffering is indicated, being 
 Gehenna, or the valley of the son of 
 Hinnom, the other Hades, or the place 
 of departed spiiits, without regard to 
 condition. That valley, outside the walls 
 of Jerusalem, was a place In which tires 
 were continually kept burning, and so in 
 process of time it came to be in the 
 popular mind, a symbol of the place of 
 the lost. " Whore their worn dieth not, 
 and the fire is not qnecched." 
 
 2. Now that there I't snch a place, can 
 I think no more be doubted than that 
 there is a Hearen, and for precisely the 
 Mme reasons. It is evident that there 
 most be retribution after death, for 
 
 otherwise the monatrons villains of the 
 world need but to commit a painless 
 suicide, and so escape " nnwhippad of 
 jantice." And that the Knffericgs of 
 "Hades" ace but anticii:'atnry, will, I 
 thick, be evident when we rt fleet that as 
 yet there ha"< been no rceurrtction of Ihe 
 body. As the rightncui will nred their 
 bodies in order to the fiill eri'-yment of 
 their blijs, so will the finally impenitent 
 need theirs to the compler^ient of the- 
 measure of their wretchedne'S. 
 
 3. It is equally true that met:phori- 
 cally ap'aking 8om« men cirrv their own 
 hell with tbem. Before defith even, :t« 
 baleful firtp fl^me up within t^eir scu1b> 
 That Jh a teiriiile Scripture of the Apostle 
 Paul; "some men's sinp a-e open before- 
 hand, or evidont, coing befvre to judg- 
 ment;" 1 Tim. v. 24; a warr.ir.g wh'ch 
 might well RflTr'ghc the wrong-doer; and 
 Milton craphiot.lly writes: — 
 
 " Whidi waj I t1; i* hell; myself am hell '" 
 
 Such are described by the Apostle, in- 
 his Epistle to the Romans, as " given 
 over by God to a reprobate iTsitsd" — Rom. 
 I. 28— following wickedness with greedi- 
 ness. 
 
 4. Bnt there is something more tbac 
 metaphor, or the figures of Scripture are 
 overstrained, which we may not aflBrm. 
 We read that the Devil's rebellicus 
 acgela are confined " in chains under 
 diirkness unto the judgment of the last 
 great day." Jade 6. What means that 
 declaration, if there be no placa of penal 
 confinement, and that, one too horrible 
 to contemplate ': I grant that the expres- 
 sions "fire and brimstone," "undying 
 wsrni," " smoke of torment," and such 
 like, are but figures of cspeech; but yet, 
 and nevertheless, th-y are figures which 
 certainly must represent certain awe- 
 inspiring and most tremendous realities: 
 Who shall undertake to limit them ■; We 
 shall see, I think,* before I close, that 
 they have a meaning the most stu- 
 pendous. May none here ever realize 
 that meaning in an awful exoerience I 
 
 The question of precise lora'if'j is cne 
 of not the smallest coHsequeiice, and it 
 were but trifling to dwell upon it; we 
 have far irtore important matter to attend 
 to-night than thaf, unless as connected 
 with the second member of our enquiry. 
 
 5. Hell, then, it may be stated, is that 
 most horrible of all places in God's crea- 
 tion in which shall be confined the sonle 
 of the persistently rebellious against the 
 uivlne commands — those who shall, not- 
 withxtandiug God's patience with theut 
 and the imploring entreaties of His spirit, 
 have died in their sins, filled up the mea- 
 SKre of their iniquity, and upon whom, 
 at the last day, the Jndge shal! have pro*. 
 
2b 
 
 Rrohitinu fj Che Pu'.Hrtt SiiUe. 
 
 M 
 
 n&uncsi the dread fltntenoc: "Drpart 
 fM'n mft, ye cursed, into the etern<I fira 
 Nvhi .h is pre;j'irel for the devil aiivi hia 
 Anjjele." Matt, xxv, 41, R.vd. Vtrsioa. 
 l\, la a pU u ia which ah:ill bo gathered 
 thd :no'-!»l siiiun and offdjoutijgs of ea. th; 
 thjabjiaof the aoholy, th^' »J auionc 1, 
 thd IcvvJ, and th • ptofai^e- The ni n and 
 woman who hav;; paid dd hetd to th < re- 
 quirements of G.id upon thein; who have 
 Worked wickedutsa with greet^iaeej'; who 
 ii:ive triuiiifiht^d over dowu-troddnu vir- 
 tu'i; wallii.< (d in t!;e mire of sin; tura;;d a 
 /ieaf car to the warninga acd rmiioabtrAU- 
 vj-'s of the Gutpi'I, the oonstrainiag en- 
 :< 'catiea of the Hoiy Spirit. Heil will 
 s\r.v'' for its inhabitants those who in 
 iK^r daj aa I j:;tneratiou might have fouud 
 ,^r;ijtj acd mercy, but would not; whom 
 the Uiiaistry of the Lord Jesus would 
 !l^ve suatchud aa braada from the burn- 
 .'D;*, aud opened for their acccptauct* the 
 aa.ea ol salvation, but who pers'sUntly 
 ru-ited upon their deutruotion, and turned 
 th ir backs upoa the Saviour. In hell 
 will be Been congregated those who 
 have heretofore made meroy impo«. 
 5tb!e beeausc; inconeintaab with 
 the Divine tru'hful.-iess and justice 
 — "ru-hfulaees in the execution of threat 
 tnod p.!ii.'\Ity, and ju^tii'.e to thoae who 
 'have I bediei:t!y cjinplie 1 with thd law's 
 re^uireniects; cU, in short, who ))av» 
 ■Wi.utonly and fooliohly sjoued away their 
 d3,y vt grace, and so put it cut of the 
 power of Gcd to forgis e thw-m, becaupc 
 wilfally, dtliberately, and persiatently 
 obdurate and inipFcitent 
 
 •1. The^^" is a 'vide-spread incredulity, 
 jaoie or loss forcible , in regard to the 
 fXPteiice (f a hell, o*ini,' probably iu 
 5otae degree to the txsgtjeratecl reproseu- 
 tntiona of t^e pulpit. But zlv.n I will say 
 that if there Ve not one, there surely 
 bv.:/hi to ba, for I see not how God's mural 
 government could be sustained with.-.ut it. 
 
 W.'.y do we, genorally, in clote rtlitirn 
 to our Te.v.'ples of Jusiice, sorat'timea 
 utidef the same roof, invariably build 
 priiona or penitet>tiarie&? Bscau'ie law 
 irithout its saacijcns were oowerl'BS, 
 and socifcty would eocn become imrme- 
 iible, being everrun by its villains and 
 murderers. 
 
 A few days since, one movmg in what 
 .are called, /icr fxctlhnce, the •"Society" 
 oirclea of a western metropolis was ar- 
 rested on a charge of embezzlement. He 
 had been hading a fast life, as many such 
 people do to their sorrow. Living in a 
 fashionable quarter, keeping up a sump- 
 tuous establishment, his expenses oat- 
 stripped bis means, ani to supply defi- 
 ciencies, he squandered the fortune en> 
 trusted to the safekpeping of his honor (!) 
 by the presumably now beggared widow 
 ^l a former employer. Nor was that all: 
 
 fie had reckleady expended in idle pomp 
 add sensuous grafeitioation the funds of 
 vaiiout oiiints, which he bad collected ia 
 his professional capacity. Should there 
 cot be a hell for such men, uader a ri^tht* 
 (una government ? 
 
 Again: the papers constantly tell ns of 
 murderous house-breakings. Indeed, 
 th^y aro'too numerous and sickening t« 
 partioular'ze. A lazy scoundrel, lubting 
 for the wealth whioh he would not earn, 
 invades your domi -ile at dead of eight, 
 br'^^itiS wife or children sleeping by your 
 Elide, then, on your awskonin;,', mortaily 
 woucida yourffelf, and, in the Rcullltf, ha 
 hiiijcielf i- sent i?ito Kteru'ty. Now, shcali 
 there not be a Uoll for all such mocHters? 
 Would that be heaven to you in whick 
 you should behold the wretch, bis handa 
 still re'iking with the bbod of your mur- 
 dered innocents ? He had not repented : 
 no tirae was given him for that. In proper 
 self-defence, ^ ou sent him to bis own 
 place. Could that pla 'e, by the tensest 
 ttretchiog (f iin«2mation, be Heaven 
 to a child of God ? Go aomewhere ha 
 must; if not to H»;aven, the abode of God'a 
 siints alone, then obviously to hel!: and 
 hut, and deep, and foul, and dark, shoald 
 that pbice be ! 
 
 7. Hell muy be described as a sort of 
 moral Vesuviu'j — a bo'linj/, up'aeAvitig 
 cra'ier of iniquity and pollution! Thera 
 will ba tie li^rods, the Neros, the Cali- 
 «uUs, the Bor^iai, the Wolst-ys, the 
 Robfc^pi. rrts of tho world's history— mea 
 who ishould have bean a bless ng to the 
 race, but who have proved themselvea a 
 curse. 
 
 "Sinners cf every ai^e and every type; 
 The proud, de-pitefiil, fierce, implaLal)le, 
 I'tithankful, and unholy, an I Huciean." 
 I'^nlerday, etc. 
 No ray of sunlight can ever reach its 
 darksome caverns from the Throne of 
 God : Its datkL<esa, itk-like, pitchdike, 
 only relieved by the lurid glare of the 
 emoke ff tornicot. No word of purity 
 is heard; nothing but the bowlings of re- 
 norre; the groans of anguish and despair. 
 Such, brethren, is the picture which the 
 Scriptures draw of the Infernal pit. 
 
 There are some prisons on this earth 
 which ir.i^hl eervT to give a faint idea of 
 vvhat hell muEt be. because of the 
 wretches who are there oonfiopd. I have 
 seen seme such. Villains whose conn* 
 tenances bespeak their character at a 
 alanoe — thieves, cut-throats and assassina ! 
 Monsters so depraved by seusualityan d 
 vice, that crime has cea<<ed to be 
 crime to them ; death in ignomy 
 the only future they look forward to — 
 the place of the lost, their habitation in 
 the hereafter. Not that all have sinned 
 alike, for some there are bnt neophytes 
 ia crime; brt all, more or le^s, are bad — 
 the very atniospheie pollution, Ooos 
 
Tkf NfJhj-rnuitf Ifffl, ami «/« K»»fniinl. KlrmrtUn, 
 
 those men might h»ve been snved, per- 
 sbaace, it is now too late! Hardened in 
 sin have they become! They prefer dark- 
 aea» to liG^ht.becsuje their deeds are evil. 
 Now I want to make this point with 
 yon. Not one of those wretched prisoners 
 need have occupied that loathsome place 
 without his own consent. I mean by 
 this that his own consent was necessary 
 Xm the perT>etratioi. of the crimes which 
 sent him there. Conscience will force 
 him to exclaim: 
 
 ''Myself alone am i^usa of al! luy woe!" 
 The law would not have 
 
 iikid hold uprin him had he not 
 ▼iolatpd its tnactmentfl, Rubbery, mur- 
 der, arson, were d^f'da to which he was 
 r>ot forced, And he sinned wilfully and 
 deliberately with eyes open to the corae- 
 qucrcea. Therefore he may be said to 
 have made electioa of his own desperate 
 fate, Juat so in regard t^ hell. Were 
 God's laws kept, tho place would be 
 abolished — none would be condned 
 therein: and he who perwistently break<< 
 that law does so of his own accord. God 
 created him a free agent, and ao invested 
 hi:n with the responsibility of choice. 
 Here it may be enquired: 
 n. wii.\T co.NSirruiEs the essintial 
 
 ELE.MtNT OF HBLL IN THE HCMAX 
 SOCL ? 
 
 Firs»:: adaptation ot Hplrit. He that 
 .^oes thither goe? to "h'mouni fjlacc," like 
 Jnias, He goe?, because he has 
 virtually choaeM it in defiance of 
 ■warning and admonition, in preference 
 to Heaven. For that a choice wa^ ofifercd 
 kiva in th^ gospel cannot be denied. 
 
 "Evil, be thou my good '. ' 
 was his reply. 
 
 The bad man unfits himself for Heaven 
 by tculneas of tora'ie.impurity of life and 
 oonducc, and by deUberate self-will and 
 hardness of heart. The door of mercy 
 et lod wide open ir.vitins; him to enter in; 
 bat he slammed it to, as it were, in the 
 very face of Ood 1 His heavenly Father ' 
 (lUl not sf'id him to perdition. He went 
 there, because to the abode of kindred 
 spirits. Un6tted for the companionship 
 ot the redeemed because of hia wicked 
 works, juat as wster will seek its level, 
 he sought the companionship of the de- 
 praved, and so found his leyel in the 
 ziether world. There was nothing abnor- 
 mal in this, but, in perfect correspond* 
 ence with the processes of natnie. sowing 
 to the wind he reaped the whirlwind ; 
 exactly according to the tree which he 
 planted, he gathers fruit. 
 
 "The mind is iti own place, and in it»cU 
 Can make a heaven ot hell, a hell of heaven." 
 —^Paradise Lost; Book I., 235, i>. 
 
 Take a filthy man ..nd set him in the 
 midst of the JParadise of God. bis heart 
 unchanged, it were no Paradise to him. 
 Talk of God's not beincr so cruel as to 
 «xclade any from hia Kingdom ! The 
 
 charge is uroundleia, in that the wicked 
 are self-exuluded — excluded by virtue of 
 their own incapacity for the t njoyments 
 and purfuits of Heaven. I sec nok 
 iiow it could be justly otherwirie. Put a 
 pure and virt'touu man into a prison, such 
 as that I spoke of, it were a hill to him; 
 because repugnant to every feeling of 
 his own nature. Place an im uru and 
 develishman inheaven : that, to him.wera 
 virtual bell, because out of harmony with 
 his every destre and aspiration. Eack 
 in /lis oicti place, then, becomes a demand 
 of justice — a first prinoipl'», 
 
 80 that you sea tho wicked must herd 
 with the wicked, such being thoir de* 
 libera^'e choice, the natural and titting 
 sequel to a life of wickedness. It needs 
 no %3t of God to acoomplish this. Nxturt 
 ■ifelcM tin m'lUihriun ; and so, by the law 
 of spiritual gravitation, will wicked and 
 ungodly men and wcrr.en gravitate to* 
 wards each other th^^re (just as they do 
 in thib W(rld,) aiid conformably to the 
 awards cf the fioal judgment. And just 
 as the magnet ia attracted by the load- 
 stone, and as the pious, the God-fearing 
 and Chriittlo^inE; draw near to each 
 other here on earth, so will they enjoy 
 tht'reaiter. but in h(>roic degree, tLe de- 
 light) of heavenly interconrst and com* 
 rauuion This in the eternal fitness of 
 things, from which I see no rdason to 
 exp'jct any the least 'Ipviation. 
 
 Second : Thf convid Ion rf the forfeiture 
 of hx'avtn will form, I think, an essential ' 
 and moat aggravating ingredient in the 
 wret-chedneta of the lost 
 
 When a soul created after the 
 image of God shall come to 
 consider in the eternal world 
 what it mi^ht have been but for sin — 
 sin wilfully and delibcrattly indulged— it 
 appeafs to me th.^t it were mare than 
 enough to drive that soul mad if such a 
 thing might be For cne in torment to 
 look upwards to those gates of light, and 
 to realize in all its horror that the pri- 
 vilege of treading the solden ttreets is re- 
 served for otherx, not for him or her; that, 
 whilst enchained a prisoner in that awful 
 place which he has chosen, more than by 
 apy act of the Almighty Father who 
 might have cruahed him in the days of his 
 impotent rebelliousnE&s. but simply in 
 compassion would not, his hands shall not 
 be allowed to strike the chords of the 
 heavenly harps, nor his voice attune to 
 the heavenly music ; to think that, 
 instead of a white robed saint, partaker of 
 the marriage supper of the Lamb, his 
 garments are those of filthiness, curses 
 his clothina;, his associates murde-ers. 
 adulterers and all liars--bis|fate"the stcond 
 Derth," oh what horror that ! who shall 
 attempt te depict its awfnlness ? In- 
 spiration alone could do it ; and Inspira- 
 tion hai expressed it in that terribU 
 
28 
 
 PrM'iiis «*/■ tht Fufurf S(nU.\ 
 
 formnU of ** Where the worm dieth not 
 aod *:he fire ia notqnenchn'l !" 
 
 ill. Rut \o\ p'-rbspi will »k m9,'ix there 
 no pitxtibilifi/ of fdC'ipe ' itJinll thf ptinUh- 
 mf-nt Iff the wickeil he eternal ' uliall they 
 not rntlwr he hlottrd out * 
 
 Let me sfty here that I have on nym- 
 psthy with that tnrt of Christianity 
 which la ever reafly to def^d the awfnl- 
 Beta and tV'" eternity of Hell f r othn-x, 
 but which je zealot would not for one 
 moment t'>lerite for himself. Le»; as not 
 fori^et t> at ttie measure wp would mete 
 •nt to others will be meted to uf again. 
 
 In regard to the first interrogatory, 1 
 am willing to say that w Inii'j ox xiti nhnll 
 Uwt, so Ioh'J there muat nti'f nil/ he puialty; 
 and penalty means suffering — suffering in 
 the ratio of guilt, Sin eternr^ so will be 
 retribution. Now suppose we read the 
 text, as some would render it, the smoke 
 of their torment ascepdcth up "for ages 
 and aijes" instead of "for ever and evei," 
 would j'ou be any the more reconciled to 
 its endurance '! "Perhaps a little," you 
 leply, "but only just a little." "Age- 
 long suffering !" Is fhaf the extent of 
 your ambition ? Anything, so i*- be not 
 eternal! Ob what quibbling ! Bewake, 
 and deal frankly with your souls. You 
 don't want even "ages" of agony; and 
 yet these are denounced against the im- 
 penitent trau8grei>sor. Oh '. See to the 
 stronghold while yet there is time. See ! 
 The avenger of blood is behind you; es- 
 cape for yonr life — haeten and tarry not 1 
 
 Furthermore, as to the 2tid snd 3rd en 
 quiry: but no ! before proceeding farther, 
 1 too must ask a question, and it is this: 
 yy/iy do ijou v:ii*h to hno"- whether the 
 retributions of the future shall or shall 
 not be eternal ? Becaase of a prurient 
 curiosity — an idle prying into the great 
 aearets of the future ? or because yon are 
 weighing in your own m-'nd whether it 
 will pay or cot to defy Omnipotence, and 
 spurn the gracioua offer of mercy and 
 forgiveness ? 
 
 Asisuredly if you have determined, as is 
 your manifest duty, to renounce your sins 
 and to walk henceforth in newness of life, 
 through Divine grace, it c<»n be a matter 
 of small personal concern to you whether 
 the punishment of sin shall or shall not 
 be eternal. You have laid hold upon the 
 horns of the altar. Y'ou havp accepted 
 the salvation of the Gospel. You have 
 enlisted as a Christian soldier; iled to 
 the stronghold as a prisoner of hope. 
 For yon, then, there is now no con- 
 demnat on. Why need you, therefore, 
 be anxious to secure the eternal 
 condemnation of ynur brother ? Can you 
 Bot leave that to his Master, before whom 
 he standeth or falleth ? You can surely 
 believe that the Judge of all the earth 
 will do only whi^t Is right, that bia 
 
 punishments will be ^uch a>* men (Unerve 
 and His Word declares. If it be Gud'a 
 will that any soul of man shall "perish." 
 perish he will, whatever that may mean; 
 that "his root shall be a<i rott^nnris and 
 his blossom ihall be aa dast," (Is. v. 24) 
 I — that a so shall happen to him. This 
 I we koiw : that the pernetentiy winked, 
 "who know not God and obey not tte 
 ' Gospel," shall "be punished with ever- 
 lasting (Icstructiob from thb presence of 
 the Lord and from the glory of His power.'g 
 (2 Tbess. i, 9.) 
 
 Go home, then, my brother, and think 
 and pray over this. Lay the matter 
 before God in your secret heart; then 
 search His Word, and pray to be guided 
 aricht and led to choose the good part:; 
 and then, if still unsatiatied, unable 
 to decide between Christ and Belial, 
 Heaven and Hell, come tiack to me and 
 we will talk it over; bnt you must 6r8t 
 pledge me to make and 8»v yon have made 
 an honest and determined ejJoTt to escape 
 the condemnar,ion of Hell and to dnd, the 
 way to the glory everlasting. 
 
 And finally, brethren, one and all.let me 
 entreat you to beware how yon do 
 aught which shall dieqaalify you for the 
 realms of glory, for if you 
 do, the choice you make must, in tbe 
 nature of ihicgs, be that awarded yon, I 
 have endeavored to set before you, in 
 these sermons, Life and Death, Heaven 
 and Hell : may God enable you to choose 
 the better part which shall never be taken 
 from you. 
 
 And to choose without delay. The 
 sands ot time are ebbing fast away. 
 
 " And everj beatinjj pulse we tell 
 Mikes but the number less." 
 
 '< Not long will Balvsi.tionbe in our option. 
 That door is open yet The Savicur 
 stands there inviting all to enter in. The 
 Spirit and the Bride say come. The pitcher 
 IS not \pt broken at the fountain nor the 
 wheel broken at tbe cistern. The mar- 
 riage feast ts prepared, and all things 
 are ready for the invited guests. Let 
 there, then, be no dallying with iniquity; 
 no trifling pondering of "the chances." 
 Heaven is within your reach; H<3ll may 
 be shunned and avoided. What, then, 
 hinders you from making the better 
 choice ? Make it, in the btrength of Gtxi, 
 and you are safe. 
 
 And to you, brethren beloved, whe 
 are walking by faith and not by sight, 
 let me say, be encouraged and press oo. 
 You have girded on the Christian armor: 
 Keep your weapons burnished, and 
 I stand with loins girded and lamps bnm- 
 I ins; and yonrs shall be tbe glad welcome, 
 "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit 
 the Kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foaadation of tbe world." . 
 
APPENDICES PrMemt oj the PiUurt State. 
 
 29 
 
 APPENDIX A— Paoe 10. 
 
 The philoBophers of ancient Greece 
 and Rome did not look upon their 
 departed friends as lost. They believed 
 that death only separated them from 
 each other fur a time : that soon they 
 should meet, in more happy re-union, 
 in the reahiis of Hades. How ihey 
 became imjtressed with this notion, it 
 were useless to enquire : as to the /oct, 
 no one actjuainted with cla8.-ic story 
 will deny it. The poets frec^uently 
 alluded to it. Homer, the great Grecian, 
 for example, re{)re8ent9 the shades of 
 his heroes a.s retaining all the charac- 
 teiibtics, di^!position8, habits, stations 
 and peculiarities which belonged to 
 them before death. (Book ll, line 48, 
 &c). The Elysium and the Tartarus of 
 the poets correspond respectively to the 
 Paradise and the Hell of our Sacred 
 Siiriptures, or rather, accordini' to Dr. 
 Campbell, as quoted by Bishop Hobart, 
 Pa<^'e 100), " the prison of Hades 
 wherein criminals are kept until the 
 General Judgment." The sentiments 
 of Socrates, probably the greatest 
 Grecian philosopher who ever lived, 
 are so well known as to need but the 
 bare allusion. It is evident from the 
 language used in conversation with his 
 frieiidf, after being sentenced to drink 
 the fatal hemlock, that altho' he spoke 
 with apparent doubting, he neverthe- 
 less in tne main believed that bis spirit 
 would meet and recognize, and in turn 
 be recognized by the great and good of 
 former times. "If" — says he — "the 
 common expression be true that death 
 conveys us to those regions which are 
 inhabited by the spirits of departed 
 men, will it not be unspeakably nappy 
 to escape the hands of mere nominal 
 judges to appear before * * such as 
 Minos and Rhadamanthus, and to associ- 
 ate with all who have maintained the 
 cause of truth and rectitude ? * * Is 
 it nothing to converse with Orpheus, 
 and Homer, and Hesiod ? ♦ * With 
 what pleasure could I leave the world 
 to hold communion with Palamedes, 
 Ajax and others, who, like me, have 
 had an unjust sentence pronounced 
 against them 1 " 
 
 Now hear Cicero : " glorioui day ! 
 when I shall retire from this low and 
 sordid scene, to associate with the 
 divine assembly of departed sbirits ; 
 and not with those only whom I have 
 just mentioned, but with my dear Cato 
 that best of sons and most valuable of 
 men ! " 
 
 APPENDIX B— Paoe 16. 
 
 There is one departed — Bishop Bur- 
 gess, late of tho Diocese of Maine - who 
 v>'ill not be accused of intemperate en- 
 thusiasm by those who knew nim when 
 here below, whose words I shall ask no 
 indulgence for quoting here. He says : 
 
 " 'Ihose we loved on earth may be 
 spectators at this moment of those 
 they left behind them. The partition 
 wall that separates Time fromlEternity 
 may be so thin that those on the other 
 side may hear the voice of music and 
 prayer lifted up to God from those on 
 this side ; the eye of saints in glory 
 may have that penetrating power that 
 it can see through the partition, and 
 witness the countless races that are on 
 their course to immortality and glory." 
 Voices of the Dead, p. 435. 
 
 To me there is an inexpressible 
 sweetness in the thought that our 
 friends who are asleep m Jeims may 
 not be so distant from us as we had 
 perhaps conceived. Should this be ir- 
 reconcileable with the idea of confine- 
 ment in a separate place, in expectation 
 of the Resuirection, then will I give up 
 that idea for the sake of this. To thint 
 that not only are we ministered to by 
 God's angelic agents, and compassed 
 about with that vast cloud of Old Tes- 
 tament witnesses of whom the Apostle 
 makes mention, but that our own dear 
 friends, a sainted mother or wife, for 
 example, or a loving father, may be 
 also with us in out sleeping and in our 
 waking hours, suggesting thoughts — 
 for aught I know— of purity and peace, 
 oh ! what harm can there be in that 
 belief ? Men may call it the romance, 
 the enthusasim, the exaggeration of 
 religion, if they will. I do not think 
 any will dare to call it " superstition." 
 
 IsrOTES- 
 
 1. For reasons of expediency alone I do not state my own solution of the difficulty alluded to under 
 Heading ii. of Sennun I., page S. 
 
 2. I should also have said that just as there will be various degrees of happiness in Heaven, so by 
 parity of reasoning, will there undoubtedly- be differing (degrees of v. retchedness in Hell.