THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS I 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
 Julius Doerner, Chicago 
 Purchased, 1918. 
 
 257 
 
 T(o8>u 
 
1308 Trail (Rev. W.) Unseen Realities ; or 
 glimpses into the World to come, crown 8vo, 
 cloth, 2s _ • I860 
 
UNSEEN REALITIES. 
 
UNSEEN REALITIES 
 
 on, 
 
 GLIMPSES INTO THE WORLD TO COME. 
 
 i 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM TRAIL, A.M, 
 
 AUTHOR OF “THE CHRISTIAN GRACES.’’ 
 
 “ Not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.”—Eph. i. 21. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS, BUCHANAN STREET. 
 
 ID CCC LX. 
 
 V* • 
 
y -1 ^ )f 
 
 231 
 "T 6 8 u^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 The world to come” has frequently occupied the pens of 
 our philosophers and theologians. My inducement to write 
 upon it, therefore, was not the hope of being able to throw 
 any new light on a subject which has been so often and so 
 ably illustrated. Still it had often occurred to me that 
 while the philosopher deferred too little to the intimations 
 of Scripture, the theologian on the other hand had not 
 availed himself to the extent he might have done of the 
 teachings of science and philosophy. For it is of importance 
 to bear in mind that though there are many truths which 
 nature is unable to discover, yet, when these are once pre¬ 
 sented to her even in dim hints, she can at once apprehend 
 them and amplify the scanty intimations, by following out 
 the trains of reasoning which they have started. This I take 
 to be specially the case with regard to the world to come; 
 and, therefore, in my treatment of this subject, my aim has 
 been, while appealing throughout to Scripture as the sole 
 source of certain information, to avail myself of what light 
 nature, when set upon the track by revelation, has been 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 able to throw upon the subject, whether by philosophy, or 
 science, or the common sentiments and instincts of our 
 humanity. And, unless I deceive myself, the result of this 
 will be found to be, that while the explicit intimations of 
 Scripture concerning the world to come are on many points 
 comparatively scanty, yet when these are followed out to 
 their legitimate conclusions in the light of nature, the 
 information which may be collected is very considerable. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Is there Another World?—Its Possibility: 
 
 Its Probability,. 
 
 II. Is there Another World? —Its Certainty, 
 
 III. The Intermediate State, .... 
 
 IY. The Resurrection,. 
 
 Y. The Resurrection Body : Wherein it Differs 
 from the Present Body, .... 
 
 VI. The Resurrection Body: Wherein it Differs 
 from the Original Body, .... 
 
 I 
 
 VII. The Judgment,. 
 
 VIII. Heaven: The Place,. 
 
 IX. The Future Earth,. 
 
 X. Heaven: The State,. 
 
 XI. Heaven : The Inhabitants, .... 
 
 XII. Little Children in Heaven, .... 
 
 XIII. Heaven: The Occupations, .... 
 
 XIV. The Retrospect in Heaven, .... 
 
 XV. The Prospect in Heaven,. 
 
 XVI. Hell : The Place and the Occupants, . 
 
 XVII. Hell : Its Penal Torments, .... 
 XVIII. The Eternity of Future Punishments, . 
 
 XIX. Preparation for the Other World, 
 
 XX. Special Aids to Preparation, .... 
 XXI. Both Worlds,. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9 
 
 29 
 
 41 
 
 61 
 
 75 
 
 81 
 
 97 
 
 117 
 
 133 
 
 139 
 
 161 
 
 181 
 
 193 
 
 211 
 
 221 
 
 229 
 
 239 
 
 249 
 
 267 
 
 281 
 
 293 
 
■ 
 
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 >y 
 
 
 
 r ? 
 
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 > 
 
 
 
 
 5 , 
 
•I 
 
 UNSEEN REALITIES. 
 
 i. 
 
 IS THESE ANOTHER WORLD?-ITS POSSIBILITY: 
 
 ITS PROBABILITY. 
 
 Were the question, Are .there in space other habitable 
 worlds besides this planet on which we dwell? it might be 
 interesting to the man of science, as a branch in the 
 physical history of the universe; to the natural theologian 
 it might also be interesting, since a plurality of worlds, 
 once fully proved, might add new instances to the argument 
 from design for the being and perfections of God; also to 
 the Christian divine it might be interesting, inasmuch as if 
 our race is only one of an innumerable number of races, 
 some of whom may also have fallen, it were something to 
 know what bearing the great facts of revelation, on which 
 our destiny depends, may have on theirs. Still the question 
 is not one which can materially affect man’s practical 
 interests, either present or prospective. For the planets 
 will continue to pursue their courses, whichever way the 
 astronomers may decide the question of their being habited 
 worlds; and so also may we pursue the full orbit of our life’s 
 progress, even should we remain for ever ignorant whether 
 these distant orbs be peopled paradises or unpeopled zaharas. 
 
10 
 
 IS THEEE ANOTHER WORLD ? 
 
 But the question, Is there another world, or a scene of 
 conscious existence after the present, on which, sooner or 
 later, we must all of us enter, and in which we shall either 
 enjoy endless weal, or suffer endless woe? this is a question 
 which does affect our prospects, which involves alike our 
 duty and our destiny. We may not, therefore, treat this 
 as a question of curious speculation; nor leave it over for 
 some future generation to find out the answer to it. It 
 concerns ourselves, each one of us individually, to know 
 without delay whether death, which may come to us at any 
 moment, is to be the termination of our existence, or only 
 a transition from one state of existence to another; whether 
 when our last breath shall be drawn, which may he very 
 soon, our being is then to cease for ever; or whether with 
 that last breath our souls shall flit from our bodies, to enter 
 upon their future life, of which this present life is merely 
 the prelude and preparation. 
 
 There is need, therefore, that we put the question, and 
 press it to an immediate answer: Is there another world, a 
 life and a home for man beyond the grave? 
 
 ANOTHER WORLD POSSIBLE. 
 
 There are only these two, the atheist and the materialist, 
 wdio with any show of consistency can deny the possibility 
 of there being another world. For those who admit that 
 there is a God, a Being infinite in power, who has created 
 man with life, do in that bare admission confess that, whether 
 this Being has or has not made man’s life immortal, it was, 
 at least, possible for him to do so. So also those who admit 
 the immateriality of the soul, or that it is a substance distinct 
 from the body, do in that bare admission concede that, 
 whether it is or is not to survive the latter, its doing so 
 
ITS possibility: its probability. 
 
 11 
 
 is, at least, a possible event. Only these two then—the 
 atheist who denies that there is a God at all, and the 
 materialist who holds the soul and the body to be both one 
 substance, can with any show of consistency pronounce 
 another world for man to be an impossibility. 
 
 But let us see whether even these are entitled to go this 
 length. And first, as to the atheist. He holds that there is 
 no God, and therefore no hereafter life for man. But is this 
 latter a logical inference from the former? Even on the 
 supposition that there is no God, does it follow that man 
 cannot by possibility survive the stroke of death? We 
 think not. For the power, whatever it may be, which has 
 introduced man on this present scene, endowed with a 
 corporeal life, may also, for anything the atheist can show, 
 introduce man on a future scene with a life incorporeal. Be 
 that power what it may—even admit that it is fate, or 
 chance, or natural law, or some nameless energy which has 
 kindled within our bodies the vital spark—how can the 
 atheist be sure whether this same power, this fate, or chance, 
 or law, or energy, may not prolong that spark, or even make 
 it burst into a flame, by the very same stroke which is to 
 shiver the present external covering? Till the atheist, then, 
 has discovered what this hidden power is, which he says has 
 produced human life here; and shall have proved that this 
 power could not by possibility prolong that life hereafter; 
 he is plainly not entitled to pronounce another world to be 
 impossible. He labours hard, and may perhaps succeed, in 
 extinguishing all hopes, or even all fears of a hereafter, in 
 that abysmal darkness where he loses sight of God. But 
 what then, does his ceasing to hope for, or to dread it, make 
 it an impossibility? In that darkness there is some power. 
 We say it is God, let the atheist call it what he will; but there 
 
12 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 is some power even in that abyss of darkness, which, without 
 the atheist’s being able to prevent it, has sent him into this 
 world of sorrows and of tears, a creature to suffer and to 
 weep, to be horn and to die; and how knows he that it is to 
 stop here? Were he to entreat it to annihilate him at 
 death, can he tell whether it will hear him ? or if it heard 
 him, that it can do that which he asks of it? 
 
 Even on the atheist’s supposition, then, that there is not 
 a God, it would be rash to pronounce another world to he 
 impossible. Need I say it were worse than rash, it were 
 impious in those to do so, who acknowledge that there is a 
 God. 
 
 Now as to the materialist. He would identify soul and 
 body, or at least would have it, that the former is merely a 
 result of the organisation of the latter. In his view of it, 
 mind is not a separate existence from matter, any more than 
 music is a separate existence from the instrument which 
 gives it forth; or light is a separate existence from the 
 planet which emits it; or fragrance from the flower which 
 breathes it on the air. Break the instrument, and the 
 music ceases; quench the planet’s fire, and the light becomes 
 darkness; reduce the flower to ashes, and the fragrance 
 soon ceases to scent the breeze. 
 
 So, says the materialist, destroy the organism of the 
 body, let the icy hand of death have once arrested its vital 
 springs, and instantly the soul ceases to exist. And verily 
 the materialist were in the right, if it be so that the soul of 
 man is nothing else than the result of his bodily structure; 
 for in that case death, which destroys the cause, must also 
 destroy the effect. There would undoubtedly be an end of 
 all thought, and feeling, and perception, and life, when the 
 body is stark and stiff, if it is only the body that thinks, 
 
ITS possibility: its peobability. 
 
 13 
 
 aud feels, and perceives, and lives. The lamp of life must 
 cease evermore to burn, when the light of the eye is 
 quenched in death, if that eye, instead of being the mere 
 organ of vision, is itself the very gazer which revels in all 
 the beauties which this wondrous world unfolds. Yes in¬ 
 deed, if it be so, that man is merely an organised machine; 
 that his vitality is in its nature identical with the vitalities 
 of fishes or of reptiles, of birds or of beasts; that his brain, 
 instead of the mere sensorium of reason, is itself the reason¬ 
 ing substance: if this be so, then undeniably the materialist 
 is right in saying, that there neither is, nor can be, for man 
 a posthumous life. 
 
 But is this so ? Has the materialist proved it to be so ? 
 Has he demonstrated that the human soul is material? or 
 that it cannot be immaterial? He has not. And until he 
 has done so, which we presume to say will never be, he is 
 not entitled to pronounce a hereafter fife for man to be 
 impossible. 
 
 It is little to the purpose to tell us that there is so very 
 close a union between the soul and the body, and that they 
 so marvellously sympathise each with the other. Some 
 invisible cord does tie them very intimately together; so 
 intimately that the sheers of death, however thin-edged, 
 cannot clean cut that cord, without, as we can see, fraying 
 and grazing the fleshly parts. But does it necessarily touch 
 the spiritual part at all? or if it did touch it, can spirit be 
 cut or torn, as flesh can be? We know, alas! too well 
 what is the effect on the frail tenement of clay when the 
 last shock lays it low; and, doubtless, the living tenant is 
 still within it, when thus rent and riven it falls as a bowed 
 wall or a tottering fence. But is it not possible for an omni¬ 
 scient eye to calculate the precise moment when the dwelling 
 
14 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 shall be struck; and for an omnipotent hand, in that very 
 moment, to snatch the tenant from the falling ruin? Ere- 
 while as some feathered songster was trilling its gladsome 
 notes on the skirts of the forest, a sudden thunderbolt may 
 have struck the tree, breaking the very branch on which the 
 little warbler was perched: for the moment its trembling 
 wings would be unspread, and its faltering note unsung; 
 but, recovering from its fright, it is away higher up than 
 the cloud which discharged the electric fluid, and is pouring 
 forth a louder and more blithesome note than before. Now 
 who will say that the same Being, who watched that little 
 bird when the lightning struck at its feet, is not able also to 
 watch the human soul, when the bolt of death strikes at the 
 corporeal seat of life? 
 
 In some old grey cathedral the light is streaming through 
 its painted oriel, and all along the pavemented aisle you can 
 trace each sunbeam by a tinted line, as if as many rainbows 
 were floating on the ground: a storm-blast bursts upon the 
 fragile glass and breaks it; the tinted line of coloured rays 
 is gone, yet still you can trace a line of silvery radiance 
 waving along the aisle; for the storm, which has shivered 
 the medium that coloured each entering sunbeam, has not 
 quenched the sun. And can we tell that the body may not 
 be much the same to the soul what the painted oriel in that 
 grey cathedral was to the sunbeams which entered it—not 
 the solar font which feeds it, but merely the medium w T hich 
 tinges it with its own colours, while letting it through; so 
 that should that medium be broken—and death some day 
 will break it—the light of life shall indeed cease to be tinged 
 with its corporeal hues; but will not on that account 
 necessarily be extinguished. 
 
 Not even the atheist then, nor the materialist—and if 
 
ITS possibility: its probability. 
 
 15 
 
 neither of these, certainly no one else—is entitled to pro¬ 
 nounce another world to be impossible. 
 
 ANOTHER WORLD PROBABLE. 
 
 I. In proof of this, I appeal first to a distinguishing instinct 
 of humanity; that strong, stedfast, universal belief, which 
 man has .in the existence after death. 
 
 If we take human life during any of its stages—at early 
 childhood, or in late old age—we find the notion of immor¬ 
 tality fixing itself, and remaining fixed, among the very roots 
 of-the human mind. The child seizes on the idea of a spirit 
 home the moment you first hint at it; while the old man 
 clings to his belief in it with a tenacity which the decays of 
 nature in no degree relax. Or if we take human life in any 
 of its states—whether rude as in the savage, or polished as 
 in the sage; solitary in the hermitage, or social in the city; 
 virtuous or vicious; in affluence or in penury—we find that 
 every one either holds to the hope, or is held by the fear, of 
 immortality. Nothing null induce the good to part with this 
 hope, and nothing can enable the bad to escape from this 
 fear. Nor does this life-long anticipation of immortality 
 suffer an eclipse even when the soul enters the shadow of 
 death. Then, indeed, many are the prospects, once so 
 bright, which are extinguished; and many the fond illusions, 
 once so fair, which are dissipated. But the anticipation of 
 immortality is not one of these. For say it is an unrepent¬ 
 ant spirit that is struggling to quit the body; can it now 
 shake off the fear of a coming futurity which has haunted it 
 so long? does it now feel, that were it once sunk beneath the 
 dark waves which are rolling round it, no eye, not even His 
 whom it fears to meet, shall ever behold it more? does it see 
 death opening for it a pit of oblivion, where it shall be hid 
 
1G 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 out of sight for ever? Ah! no: these shadows from the 
 grave cannot shut out the vision of a future judgment from 
 that soul which is dying in its sins. And if it is a righteous 
 soul, which has clung with so fond a grasp heretofore to the 
 hope of immortality, must it quit hold of that hope now? 
 Nay, indeed; for the darkness only makes it grasp it the 
 more firmly. The two worlds, which were never far separate 
 in its view, appear now to it to be touching each other; and 
 lo! it stretches out its arms to the sister spirits on the other 
 side, who seem to welcome it home. 
 
 Now, say would this inextinguishable presentiment of im¬ 
 mortality have been implanted in our bosoms by a benevo¬ 
 lent Creator, if there were no reality to correspond to it? 
 would tliis anticipation of a hereafter have been kindled in 
 the human breast, if it is to have no fulfilment? would there 
 have been these whisperings of the future, which are as if 
 prophet-voices from another land, if there be no other land 
 whence these voices could come? Would hope have been 
 permitted thus to weave its garlands round our every good 
 thought with flowers which we believe to have been gathered 
 in some better Eden, if we are never to walk those celestial 
 arbours where they grow? The ox destined for sacrifice was 
 led to the altar decked with garlands; hut this raised not its 
 brute instincts into a hope of a hereafter, for it attached no 
 meaning to these floral emblems with which its unconscious 
 neck was wreathed. But man cannot see the visions of 
 futurity hung round his soul without his expectations being 
 raised. And is it in mockery that he is decked out as with 
 the garlands of immortality for the altar of death? Yes, 
 it would be in mockery, if with his hopes of a hereafter 
 raised, he were, like the dumb ox, to cease to be when he 
 dies- 
 
ITS POSSIBILITY* ITS PEOLABILITY. 
 
 17 
 
 II. In further proof of the probability of another world, 
 I would point to the two classes of inhabitants which people 
 this present world. These are inan himself, and the inferior 
 animals. Now, in their terrestrial history these two resemble 
 each other in one main particular—that they both are born, 
 and both die upon the earth. But is death to him, what it 
 is to them—annihilation? We say to them annihilation; 
 because there appears not a single reason why we should 
 assert the probability of their having another life. They do 
 not wish for it; do not form even a bare conception of it; 
 neither do they possess any fitness for it. So that there are 
 no hopes blighted, and no opening faculties nipt in the bud, 
 when they cease to exist. Not any more than when its aged 
 dam is struck by the butcher’s knife, do we lament the 
 bleeding lamb as if it had met an untimely fate. 
 
 But how different it is w r ith man. He has a notion of a 
 
 future being, an abiding presentiment of it; for either his 
 
 hopes anticipate, it as his crowning happiness, or his fears 
 
 forebode it as his consummated misery. His very experiences 
 
 become prophetic of it; till it may be said of him that he 
 
 lives more in the future, than in the present or the past. 
 
 Were death then to be to him annihilation, there are 
 
 aspirations which would be quenched, and cherished 
 
 anticipations which would be falsified, and life-long hopes 
 
 which would be buried with him in his grave. And, besides 
 
 having a presentiment of an endless life, man evidently has a 
 
 capacity for it. For the ultimate point up to which his 
 
 mental powers can be educated does not lie within his present 
 
 life-period. Their education is never finished; for the more 
 
 man knows, the greater becomes his capacity for knowledge. 
 
 Conceive a human mind elevated to what altitude you please— 
 
 suppose it to stand on those empyrean heights on which the 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 IS TIIEEE ANOTHER WORLD ? 
 
 mind of a Newton stood ; or to gaze from those still more 
 celestial altitudes from which the mind of a Moses gazed— 
 still, even when there, it does not feel that it has gained the 
 topmost summit, or' reached the farthest goal. For the 
 philosopher, when he had launched his adventurous science 
 on the boundless ocean of the firmament, and extorted their 
 secret from the distant stars, felt that what he had beheld, 
 were not the great continents, but only some of the smaller 
 islands of the universe. And the prophet, w r hen from the 
 mystic mount of vision he saw the unfolding wonders of the 
 spiritual heavens, felt that these w r ere but the shadows of 
 undiscovered truths, which had floated downwards to the 
 earth. 
 
 Such then being the co-inhabitants on the earth, can we 
 suppose death to be the same to both of them? To the 
 lower animals which have no idea of any other fife except 
 their present, and no conception of any other home save the 
 one w r hose meadows they now browse, or whose waters they 
 now swim, or whose circling atmosphere they now cleave 
 upon the wing—to them we can well suppose death to be 
 annihilation. But, can you suppose it to be this to man, 
 whose mental capacity is so boundless, and whose impressions 
 are so prophetic? Can you conceive him as lying down with 
 the beasts to rise no more? What! because he happens to 
 be housed on the same planet with them, to have a bodily 
 structure somewhat resembling theirs, to breathe the same 
 air, and feed on much the same esculents as they; because 
 of this, are w r e to conclude that his destiny is to be similar to 
 theirs? Nay, rather, does not the very fact of a being so 
 superior having been placed as a co-inhabitant with creatures 
 so much his inferiors constrain us to draw the very opposite 
 conclusion l that it is only for a time he is to house with 
 
ITS possibility: its peobability. 
 
 19 
 
 them, and that when they have found their appropriate last 
 dwelling-place in the dust, he shall find his future home in 
 some region more congenial to his spiritual nature, and better 
 fitted to give scope to his intellectual powers. 
 
 III. A third proof of the probability of another world may 
 be found in the admitted difficulties in providence, or the 
 method of the divine government in this present world. 
 
 May w r e make the supposition, that instead of passing 
 away from this terrestrial scene in successive generations, 
 the entire race were to live on until, as if by another deluge, 
 death should come to sweep them all into one common 
 sepulchre. In this case there would be one crime at least 
 struck out from the catalogue of sins; for, where all must 
 live on until the period allotted as the lifetime of the race 
 shall have run out, it is plain there could be no murder. 
 Still, as at present, there might be cruelty, and oppression, 
 and rapacity, and fraud; there might be evil tongues and 
 jealous eyes, hands working violence and bosoms brooding 
 mischief; in a word, there might prevail every form of injury 
 which at present is inflicted by man upon his brother men, 
 short of the taking away his life. Though the wail of the 
 widow and her orphans would not be heard, the sighing of 
 the prisoner might daily ascend into the ear of heaven. 
 Though no bleeding bosom would have to show its deathly 
 wounds, there might be many a breaking heart. Though 
 gory scaffolds or fiery stakes there would be none; yet might 
 there be dungeons as deep as any which oppression now 
 builds, and fetters as heavy as any that tyranny has ever 
 forged. Saving the one fell wrong which the red hand of 
 murder inflicts, there is no species of cruelty which might 
 not be found on our earth, even supposing that the entire 
 
20 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 race were to live on until all should die together. Here then 
 would be difficulties in providence requiring to be cleared up. 
 But we can see how this might he done under the supposition 
 we have made, even if there were not another world. Take, 
 for example, the oppressor and him whom he has oppressed. 
 If both are to live on, it may he for a thousand, or even lor 
 five thousand years together on the earth, then what a 
 terrible retribution would be exacted of the oppressor, if, 
 after doing some dark deed of violence, he were to be smitten 
 with remorse, and to know that for centuries this gnawing 
 worm will continue to prey upon his heart. And how com¬ 
 plete a reparation would be made to the oppressed, if, after 
 being delivered from his cruel wrongs, he had before him the 
 prospect of a life of centuries, during which peace and 
 happiness shall continue to gladden his path. We can thus 
 see how justice, having so long a time in which to bring up 
 her arrears, might fully settle accounts between the oppressor 
 and the oppressed. So that when the end came at last, even 
 supposing there were no other world than the present, the 
 winding up of providence might leave very few, if any, diffi¬ 
 culties unexplained. 
 
 But now let us take things as we actually find them. And 
 how we ask, will those who deny a hereafter life attempt to 
 clear up the difficulties in providence? Take a case which is 
 not uncommon—that of a grinding usurer, who has wrung 
 anguish from the widow’s heart, and tears from her orphans’ 
 eyes—he lives on a few years enjoying his ill-gotten wealth, and 
 then dies on his canopied bed of down. Say you death is to 
 be his only punishment? What! is that selfish, sordid, stone- 
 cold heart punished by death, if there is not another world 
 in which it shall be made to feel, what it never felt in this—the 
 gnawings of remorse? Is it punishment to snatch away the 
 
ITS possibility: its probability. 
 
 21 
 
 criminal from the gripe of justice? Is it retribution to turn 
 that usurer’s sleep, which was beginning to have some dreams 
 of terror, into a slumber which shall have none? Is it right, 
 is it just to close that man’s ears in perpetual deafness, when 
 they were just beginning to tingle with sounds as from 
 another world, where the widow’s plaint, which he refused to 
 listen to, shall be heard? But come with us away from that 
 dying sinner’s bed of down, to yonder flock-pallet, where 
 another is about to breathe her last. It is the mother of the 
 fatherless ones, whom the usurer robbed of their patrimony, 
 and who are soon to be left orphans indeed—motherless, as 
 well as fatherless. Say ye that death here is deliverance ? 
 What! if there is not another world, where that gentle spirit, 
 which has known little but sorrow here, shall have its tears 
 -wiped away, and its anxieties soothed in the bosom of its 
 Saviour. Does she—the mother of these orphans—feel that 
 the prospect of death would bring soothing to her spirit, if 
 there were not also the prospect of another world—that 
 brighter sphere from which, in their sore battle of life, her 
 orphans shall fancy that she is looking down upon them, as 
 if to cheer them on till their time shall come to rejoin her in 
 their heavenly father’s home. Let those who can make light 
 of such difficulties in providence; but for ourselves we must 
 confess, that we could not stand at these two death-beds, 
 and still believe in a just and righteous God, unless there is 
 a world beyond the present, wherein what here is dark shall 
 be illumined, and what here is incomplete shall be made 
 perfect. 
 
 We have no wish to exaggerate the difficulties in pro¬ 
 vidence, far less to represent it as a chaos or confusion. On 
 the contrary, we would delight to trace in it, even as in the 
 physical world, the orderly operation of fixed lairs. And 
 
22 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 assuredly there is one law, which, in the hands of the God of 
 providence, is as potential and paramount as is that law 
 which, in the hands of the God of nature, so firmly binds 
 the planet to its sun, or the effect to its cause. As on the 
 open page of the firmament we can read the daily operation 
 of this physical law, so in the registers of past history, or on 
 the records of contemporaneous observation, we can read the 
 operations of that moral law which connects happiness with 
 virtue, and misery with vice. Yet how often do we find 
 this great law in providence crossed and contravened. How 
 frequently, when we would look for its more than ordinary 
 operation, does it appear to be suspended. As when we see 
 virtue jostled aside by a supple expediency, or at last 
 trodden in the mire, as with an iron-shod heel, by a worth¬ 
 less effrontery; and honest industry, because fortune has not 
 smiled on it, when labour-spent left to sink beneath its 
 burden ; and bleeding patriotism allowed to die of its 
 wounds, and then cast, like an unshroucled felon, into some 
 roadside grave. Now were it so, that the imprisoned patriot 
 were at length to exchange his fetters for an honourable 
 freedom; or that the martyr were snatched, even at the 
 last moment, from the kindling pyre; or that the unfortu¬ 
 nate labourer, after his ill-remunerated toils, were at length 
 to sit down at a board which is spread at least with daily 
 bread for a no longer starving family; were this, we say, to 
 happen, then we could understand how that the after 
 pleasure would be a full compensation to these for all their 
 former pains. But when, instead of this, we find the patriot 
 left to die in his chains, and the body of the holy martyr 
 left to blacken amid the flames, and even a resting-place 
 refused to his calcined ashes, which bigotry strews upon the 
 winds, as if it were dust from the streets; when we see this. 
 
ITS possibility: its probability. 
 
 oo 
 
 Lo 
 
 or what sometimes happens instead, the cordial of sympathy 
 poured upon the heart, but not till it is broken; and a 
 chaplet brought to crown the brow, which is dying, and 
 cannot wear it; and plenty set down before the starved 
 lips, which are now too feeble to taste a morsel; when we 
 see these tilings, then are we constrained to ask, how are 
 such anomalies in providence to be explained? Say that 
 there is only this present world, and to us the explanation 
 appears to be impossible. But admit that there is a world 
 to come, and then the explanation is not impossible, but 
 only postponed. 
 
 Reason indeed might still stumble at present difficulties, 
 and with a querulous voice might be heard asking, Why are 
 such things permitted to be at all ? But Faith, when she 
 pierces the vista of centuries into the world that is to come, 
 can afford to wait. Allowing God verge enough—not time 
 merely but eternity, not one world only but two—in which 
 to evolve his great plan, Faith is able to believe how in 
 another state, the ways of providence shall be vindicated, 
 and all those difficulties, wdiich we cannot at present under¬ 
 stand, be explained. For let that other state be to the 
 good the realisation of hopes deferred, and to the bad the 
 reversal of hopes forestalled; let justice there take up and 
 finish what here she had only time to begin; let the books 
 be opened, and all accounts be settled between man and his 
 Creator, between man and his fellow-men, and then can we 
 understand how providence shall be made to shine forth, 
 and that all the more by reason of its present difficulties, a 
 complete and perfect illustration of infinite wisdom, recti¬ 
 tude, and beneficence—the full-orbed sun blazing forth with 
 eternal lustre, after a temporary eclipse. 
 
2£ IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 IV. A fourth proof of the probability of another world 
 will be found in what may be called the limited jurisdiction 
 of conscience. This monitor speaks to us with the voice of 
 one having authority, who if not our lord and lawgiver, is at 
 least his representative and vicegerent. Hence we are made 
 to feel, every time conscience lifts its voice, that we are 
 under law, and that the Lawgiver to whom we are subject 
 expects from us obedience, which He will not allow to go 
 unrewarded, any more than He will suffer disobedience to 
 pass unpunished. There is in the conscience itself a provi¬ 
 sion for this very purpose. For when we act according to 
 its dictates, its approval sheds a pleasurable sensation in 
 the breast, which we feel to be the reward of well-doing, and 
 when we disregard its monitions, we have a feeling of 
 uneasiness and dissatisfaction with ourselves, which amounts 
 to a sense of punishment. So that our own breast may be 
 said to be a court of justice, where though there be not all 
 the formalities, there are in'effect the main features of a 
 trial, issuing in a sentence of acquittal or condemnation, and 
 this sentence followed by reward or punishment. 
 
 Now seeing there is thus set up within ourselves a 
 tribunal at w r hich we are instantly arraigned, and have 
 sentence summarily pronounced upon our deeds, whether 
 these be good or evil; the inference might seem to be, that 
 there is no need of, and that therefore there will not be, a 
 future judgment. 
 
 But let us watch somewhat more narrowly the procedure 
 of conscience in its judicial capacity. If it is the sinner’s 
 only judge; if at its bar alone he is to be put on his trial, 
 and from its lips alone is to hear his doom pronounced; 
 then we should certainly expect that the oftener he has 
 disregarded its warnings the more loudly mil it condemn 
 
ITS POSSIBILITY: ITS PPvOBABILITY. 
 
 25 
 
 him; that for ever j time he has slighted its reproofs, the 
 more keenly will it cause him to smart when it next reproves 
 him; that his repeated attempts to put it off its guard will 
 only have the effect of making it more vigilant; and that 
 the opiates by which he has tried to lessen the smartings of 
 its sting will be turned by it into so many drops of a 
 bitterer remorse. In short, if conscience alone is to pro¬ 
 nounce and execute-sentence upon evil-doers, then must we 
 conclude that it will be most exact in its reckoning, and 
 most severe in its sentence, upon those who have gone the 
 greatest lengths in wickedness. 
 
 What then if we shall find something like the opposite of 
 this 7 ? That when the reproofs of conscience have been 
 repeatedly slighted, it reproves with a voice which eveiy day 
 becomes feebler, till, by a long persistence in crime, it 
 becomes at length seared as with a hot iron, when the 
 breast of the profligate and abandoned, once as sensitive to 
 shame and remorse as the fresh wound is to the slightest 
 touch, are now as insensate as the quick flesh becomes when 
 it has been cauterized. Thus the power of conscience to 
 reprove in such way as really to punish the sinner seems to 
 reach but a certain point, and where most needed for the 
 full ends of j ustice, there it stops. 
 
 This is w r hat we mean by the limited jurisdiction of the 
 conscience, and upon this we build an argument for a future 
 judgment. Suppose an individual wdio is a stranger to our 
 juridical arrangements were to enter one of our burgh or 
 county courts, as case after case is disposed of by the pre¬ 
 siding magistrate, his first impression might naturally enough 
 be, that these are our only courts of justice. But suppose a 
 case of a more aggravated criminality to come up, and the 
 prisoner is led from the dock without any sentence having 
 
26 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 been pronounced upon him; then, unless the stranger could 
 suppose that our penal laws awarded punishment to minor 
 offences, but allowed grayer crimes to escape, he would at 
 once infer that there are among us higher courts of justice, 
 before one of which this prisoner, guilty of a more aggravated 
 crime than his fellows, must await his trial. And just so, 
 when we find conscience dealing judicially with those who 
 have not gone great lengths in wickedness, but dismissing, 
 
 or, as we might say, letting off hardened transgressors who 
 
 » 
 
 may have grown hoary in crime, the inference we are con¬ 
 strained' to draw is, not that these great offenders are to 
 escape the just award of their evil deeds; but that their case 
 is remitted to another court, at whose higher tribunal they 
 shall hereafter be tried. And what is that superior judgment- 
 seat before which they must yet stand, if not that on which not 
 conscience, but her Lord, and these sinners’ Lawgiver, shall 
 sit as judge? 
 
 And there are times, wdien, even in the most hardened 
 breast, conscience will lift up its trampled head and 
 cause its stifled voice to be heard. But its voice now is 
 less that of a monitor or a reprover, than that of a prophet 
 of judgment. - The sinner hears it—he cannot help hearing 
 it; but instead of expostulating with him, as if that were 
 useless now, it is heard appealing from him to that Lawgiver, 
 in whose name it had pleaded so often in vain. Having 
 failed as a witness here to arrest this sinner in his guilty 
 career, it now turns to God as if invoking Him to cite it as a 
 witness hereafter. There, at the higher judgment-seat; for 
 to do it here, at its own, were to little purpose now,—there, 
 vat the higher judgment-seat does conscience demand to be 
 cited as a witness, that there it may testify to having seen 
 this sinner commit his evil deeds; and that there it may 
 
ITS possibility: its peobability. 
 
 27 
 
 bear its record bow that, so long as be would listen, it bad 
 warned and reproved liim. And shall not conscience be 
 cited as a witness, and this sinner be placed as a prisoner 
 at that higher judgment-seat, when it shall be seen whether 
 by him, or any one, God’s witness in the breast can be 
 slighted and despised with impunity? It is now—when con¬ 
 science lifts up her voice as the prophet of doom—appealing 
 to God to be heard at his bar—in the court of last resort— 
 that even the most profligate and abandoned cannot shake 
 olf the conviction of a future judgment. 
 
 Thus by an appeal first to a universal instinct in our 
 nature, then to the immense difference which there is 
 between the present co-inhabitants of the earth, then to the 
 difficulties which there are in providence, and then to the 
 prophetic voice of conscience, when its admonitory voice has 
 not been listened to, have we argued the probability of 
 another world. That world,-—which this universal instinct in 
 our nature anticipates,—in which man, one of the co-inha¬ 
 bitants of this present earth, shall find a region more congenial 
 to his spiritual aspirations, a field more commensurate with 
 his intellectual powers,—in which the difficulties in providence 
 shall all be cleared up,—and in which there shall be held that 
 great assize, in the supreme court of justice, at which those 
 who have set at nought the warnings of God’s witness in 
 their breasts, shall from God himself receive their righteous 
 doom. 
 
 Verily the testimony of these four witnesses does make 
 another world, to say the least, probable. 
 
 And we might press the question, what is there to be 
 found anywhere to render it improbable? Does the infidel 
 charge us with credulity because we believe in its probability ? 
 then may we well fling back upon him the charge, that it is 
 
28 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD 1 
 
 lie, sceptic as lie is, wlio is credulous in denying it. For tliat 
 he may get rid of a single probability, he can give his assent 
 to four counter-improbabilities, any one of which would re¬ 
 quire more credulity to believe, than we should care to 
 boast. But while he affects to stigmatise us with credulity 
 for holding another world to be probable, we much doubt 
 whether, with all his boasted indifference, even he himself 
 can entirely drop it from the life-problem of his thoughts. 
 
II. 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD?—ITS CERTAINTY. 
 
 Hitherto we have argued the possibility and the probability 
 of another world. We now advance a higher step, and 
 proclaim its certainty. 
 
 IT IS CERTAIN THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD. 
 
 Suppose a ship is cruising in an unknown sea, where away 
 in the distance apparently the largest of a coral group, an 
 island is seen to stand out, as a rocky rampart above the 
 breaking waves. Is that island merely the home of coralines, 
 or the eyrie-rock of sea-ospreys? or is it the habitation of 
 men? Could the vessel near it, this question might he 
 decided; but the navigation # of these reefy channels is too 
 critical for this to he attempted, and though the telescope 
 has been turned towards the island, no traces of human 
 habitations can be discovered. Suppose now that a moving 
 speck is descried upon the foamy current, which as it nears 
 the ship turns out to be a canoe paddled by a savage, and 
 that the sable stranger makes signs that he has come from 
 the island, and has brought of its fruits to barter with the 
 white traders. The question has now been answered; the 
 island is inhabited, for here is one of its inhabitants. 
 
 Our supposed solitary isle, fenced round by its outworks 
 of coral walls, might be taken as no inapt similitude of the 
 other world, during those ages when as yet life and immor¬ 
 tality were not brought to light by the gospel. There had 
 
30 
 
 IS THEEE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 indeed, at sundry times, been beard a voice, which, as it 
 plainly was not of this earth, could only be supposed to 
 come from some other world; but then that voice uttered 
 itself in dark parables and obscure echoes of the night. 
 There had also repeatedly appeared upon our planet certain 
 angelic visitors, who, as they were evidently not of the race 
 of Adam, must have descended from some other sphere; 
 but it was little these visitors disclosed of the invisible 
 world whence they had come. Inspired seers and bards had 
 also, in their predictions and prophetic hymns, spoken of a 
 land of promise where earth’s pilgrims were to rest after 
 death; but then there mingled much of mystery with the 
 oracles of the prophet and the psalms of the poet. There 
 had also two of our mortal race been translated to heaven 
 without their tasting of death; but this very circumstance 
 —I mean the manner of their exit from the earth so 
 different from that of others—was perhaps calculated to raise 
 the perplexing question, Must then a man be snatched 
 away from this land of the dying, like an Enoch or an 
 Elijah, without himself tasting death, if he is to enter the 
 world of the immortals? Hitherto therefore the death- 
 shadows of some forty generations had settled down upon 
 the border line which lies between man’s present and his 
 future home. It was not absolute darkness, yet was it a 
 dimness such as to be almost opaque. The tiniest rivulet 
 which separates two meadow lands is in reality broader than 
 what separates the two worlds; for in shorter time than you 
 would take to step across the narrow brook, does a human 
 sold, when once out of the body, wing its flight from the 
 world that is seen into the world which is invisible. Yet 
 what human voice had ever sent one accent back to earth, 
 to tell how it had got across that hair-breadth bourne ? or 
 
ITS CERTAINTY. 
 
 31 
 
 who, of all the thousands who were fondly believed to be 
 landed safe on its other side, had ever returned to disclose 
 what was passing there? Voices there had been from that 
 invisible world, but they were not human voices. And 
 messengers there had been, going to and fro between this 
 and that other world, but these messengers were not our 
 fellow-men. One human voice heard, or one human tra¬ 
 veller come back from that unseen region, were a proof of its 
 existence as man’s future home, more convincing than a 
 thousand angel-visits, or bodiless voices in the air. And 
 the period at length arrived when this proof was to be 
 vouchsafed. Let us proceed to trace its several steps. 
 
 THE FIRST STEP IN THE PROOF. 
 
 There appeared on our earth, when “the fulness of time” 
 was arrived, one in human form, who said that He had 
 come from the other world, and had seen in it human 
 spirits, the souls of those who had died upon the earth. 
 Here then, if this stranger was trustworthy, the question 
 whether there be another world for man is set at rest; for 
 his testimony is that of an eye-witness. 
 
 Is this then a true witness? Have we any reason to 
 distrust, or rather is there not every reason wdiy we should 
 implicitly believe his testimony? 
 
 First, observe his bearing—He looks not as one of the 
 ordinary sons of men; but his every word, action, and move¬ 
 ment, proclaim him to be of a nobler race, and stamp him 
 as the denizen of some higher sphere. True his body was 
 mother-born, and his human soul confessed its brotherhood 
 with our own. But there is to be seen about him something 
 which is not of this earth—a nature which is not human, 
 hut celestial, divine. While mingling freely among men, He 
 
32 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD ? 
 
 moves at tlie same time in an orbit of his own—a sun among 
 its satellites though eclipsed. And this occultation of his 
 higher glory cannot altogether conceal it, for it broke out at 
 times, and those who attended him “ beheld his glory,, the 
 glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” 
 
 Examine now his credentials, or the vouchers of his 
 testimony. These are miracles, those signatures of heaven, 
 which it never affixes except to its own truth. “ The works 
 which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works 
 that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent 
 me.” “ Though ye believe not me, believe the works.” 
 Thus did Jesus challenge for himself the credence of the 
 men of his own day, who had seen the miracles which He 
 wrought among them. And justly might He do so. For 
 truly these miracles were stupendous. Every form of disease 
 yielded at his healing touch; the arrowy winds stopped their 
 flight, and the waves of the, tempest lowered their nodding 
 crests, at the whisper of his power; the all-devouring sea 
 parted with its treasures at his wish; the dead arose from the 
 bed, the bier, and the grave, at his life-pronouncing word. 
 
 Yes, this is “the true witness that cannot lie.” Scepticism 
 may affect to doubt, or may even have the effrontery to 
 deny his testimony; but scepticism never has, it never will, 
 it never can succeed in discrediting it. It is therefore 
 certain that there is another world; for here is one who has 
 been in it come to proclaim it unto us—not only assuring us 
 of its existence, but that it is the spirit-home of those -who 
 left this earth at death. 
 
 THE SECOND STEP IN THE PROOF. 
 
 The advent of the Son of God was not, strictly speaking, 
 the descent of a human being from the other world; still 
 
ITS CERTAINTY. 
 
 33 
 
 less was it tlie return of one who in some former generation 
 had left the earth. When Jesus uttered these words, “No 
 man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down 
 from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven,” had 
 the question been asked, Has there then at last one of our 
 buried ones, some brother departed, come back to us from 
 the other world? the answer must have been, No, not yet 
 has a human soul, nor a human body, come down to us from 
 the invisible world. Not yet has this ocular proof been 
 afforded us, that that world is the home of departed men. 
 
 But what the advent of Christ was not itself, it became 
 the means erf procuring. Behold then the invisible world at 
 length sending back two of its human inmates. See the 
 bourne, from which no traveller was ever known to return, at 
 length recrossed by two. For there, on the mount of trans¬ 
 figuration, stand Moses and Elias, of whom it is expressly 
 said, that they appeared from heaven. All hail, ye human 
 visitants; welcome to our earth once more, though brief 
 your stay. Not now can we doubt that the world unseen is 
 the home of our departed ones, for ye who are two of them 
 have come back from it. Well-mated witnesses are ye both; 
 thou, Moses, who didst pass to the other world through those 
 same dark gates which we must pass through; and thou, 
 Elijah, who didst enter it by another way; taken together, 
 your evidence is indeed conclusive and complete that, 
 whether by death, or by translation without death, man 
 leaves this earth, he does not cease to exist, but enters into 
 that invisible region where ye have found your eternal home. 
 
 THE THIRD STEP IN THE PROOF. 
 
 The ascension of Christ, even more than his advent, gives 
 us an assurance that the invisible world is the future home 
 
 c 
 
34 : 
 
 IS THEBE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 of man. His advent, as we have remarked, was not, strictly 
 speaking, the descent of a human being from the supernal 
 abodes; since it was his divine nature alone that came from 
 the bosom of the Father. But in his ascension that nature 
 was accompanied by his human. The man Christ Jesus 
 ascended. The very body which was horn of woman, and 
 the same human soul which had animated that body—these 
 together, or the entire humanity of the God-man, entered the 
 seats of blessedness and sat down at the Father’s right hand. 
 No fact is more explicitly declared in Scripture than this of 
 the literal ascension of the Saviour. Anticipating the event. 
 He himself predicted it. While the event was happening, 
 the angels declared it to his disciples. And years after the 
 event, when the ascended One appeared to the exile of 
 Patmos, He declared his identity with the very Jesus on 
 whose bosom that exile had once leaned. 
 
 But what more is there in this ascension of the Saviour, 
 than was in the translation of Enoch and Elijah? Oh! how 
 much more. Their entrance into heaven was no positive 
 promise—did not necessarily involve or guarantee our 
 entrance. Hope, doubtless, saw in their ascension a prophetic 
 adumbration of a general resurrection. Still there w r as in it 
 no express promise or positive pledge. But when Christ 
 ascended, here was promise the most express, and pledge the 
 most assuring, that all who believe in him shall also enter 
 heaven—their souls immediately after death, and their bodies 
 in due time thereafter at the resurrection. For He is one 
 with his brethren. Their lives and his are sown together as 
 seed in the same field; and if He rises sooner than they, it is 
 as the first-fruits. Their destiny and his lie in one path; 
 and if He enter heaven sooner than they, it is as the fore¬ 
 runner. By a law of moral fitness it behoved him to have 
 
ITS CERTAINTY. ' 35 
 
 the precedence; to be the first to rise from the dead; the 
 first to ascend; the first to enter on his finished glory. But 
 by a law of moral equity it is secured to them, each in their 
 order, to be participants of his resurrection, his ascension, and 
 his glory. (1 Cor. xv. 22,23.) All this was matter of covenant 
 arrangement between him and his Father. For thus stood 
 the covenant—that He should take upon himself all that in 
 them was amenable and obnoxious to divine justice; and that 
 they should receive of his all that was meritorious and 
 rewardable. Accordingly, He took upon himself their legal 
 liabilities, their sins, and their penal death; and they receive 
 in exchange his righteousness, his life, his resurrection, and 
 a share in his glory. His home, therefore, must be their 
 home, as necessarily as his God is their God. So that, of 
 the invisible abode into which He has entered, we can now 
 say, not merely that it may be, but that it shall be, their 
 dwelling-place after death. And since for those who believe 
 not in him there needs also some place to be found: where 
 shall we seek it? Certainly not in heaven, the place prepared 
 for his own, but in that drear and dark abode into which 
 Christ has not entered, and where they are never to be 
 cheered by his presence nor gladdened by his smiles. 
 
 THE FOURTH AND COMPLETING STEP IN THE PROOF. 
 
 We have seen that ocular evidence of the other world being 
 the home of departed men, was given in the re-appearance of 
 Enoch and Elijah, after having been absent from the earth 
 during many generations. There was still another way in 
 which ocular evidence might be furnished, namely, if some, 
 while still upon the earth were permitted either actually to 
 pass the mysterious threshold, or to look with open vision 
 across it, into the invisible mansions, and report to their 
 
36 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 contemporaries so much, at least of what they had seen and 
 heard. Now this other form of the proof has also been 
 given; thus making the ocular evidence, or the testimony 
 from actual eyesight, as complete as it possibly can be. The 
 apostle Paul tells us that he was caught up into the third 
 heavens; whether in the body or out of the body, he cannot 
 say; and it matters little to us which, since either way his 
 evidence is that of a living eye-witness, or of one who, while 
 still a dweller on the earth, had actually seen the other 
 world. Then, also, the apostle John had the veil drawn 
 aside, and spirit-tranced on Patmos’ lonely isle beheld a 
 panoramic view of the entire invisible world—not onty of 
 
 that paradise into which Paul had been caught up, and where 
 he heard the unutterable voices of the blessed; but also of 
 that bottomless pit, whose sulphurous smoke, dense as it 
 rose, could not smother the cries, nor, darkly as it spread, 
 could hide the tortures of the hopelessly lost. 
 
 Here let us gather up the cumulative proof of the cer¬ 
 tainty of another world. As, during the ages of chaos, 
 darkness was upon the face of the deep, so, during the 
 economy of Moses, darkness might be said to lie on the 
 borders of the invisible world. And as at the beginning of 
 time God dispelled the material darkness by the instantaneous 
 creation of light, so, in the fulness of time, was the spiritual 
 darkness suddenly chased away, when God said, Let the 
 gospel be, and all was light. For, first, we have seen that a 
 glorious visitant, whose every mien and movement proclaimed 
 him to be of a higher sphere, and whose miracles vouched the 
 truth of his testimony, arrived at our earth, declaring that 
 He had come from the invisible world, where He had seen 
 and mingled with the spirits of departed men. Now this 
 was evidence far in advance of what had been vouchsafed to 
 
ITS CERTAINTY. 
 
 37 
 
 the ancient fathers. To them there was a voice, as if a 
 sound, or its echo, had floated down on the impalpable air; 
 but here in visible form is the speaker himself. Then, 
 secondly, we have seen that there appeared two return visi¬ 
 tants from the other world; and this also was evidence far in 
 advance of wdiat had been vouchsafed to the ancient fathers. 
 For these two, who stood on Tabor’s mount, were not angels, 
 but men, who had actually once lived upon the earth, and 
 have now returned in a brief visit to the planet of their birth. 
 Then, thirdly, we have seen that there was a resurrection 
 followed by an ascension; and this also was evidence far in 
 advance of what the ancient fathers had received. For as 
 the first-fruits are the sure prelude of the harvest, so was the 
 resurrection and the ascension of Christ, the head, the sure 
 pledge and promise of the resurrection and the ascension of 
 all his members. Then, lastly, we have seen that two of 
 earth’s living inhabitants were selected to be spectators of 
 the other world; and this also was evidence far in advance of 
 what had been afforded to the ancient fathers; for, till now, 
 that world had been shut out from the sweep of terrestrial 
 vision. 
 
 What more then is wanting to complete the proof that 
 there is another world—a fife and a home for man beyond 
 the grave? Truly now may apostles speak of that world. No 
 longer is there any reason why they should preserve the silence 
 or the reserve of the ancient prophets. They need have no 
 hesitation in distinctly declaring it to be man’s future home. 
 Doubtless, there be some things respecting it, which, though re¬ 
 vealed to themselves, they were not authorised to make known 
 to us; and, doubtless, there be other things concerning it, which 
 even they, as well as we, must remain ignorant of, until the 
 day which is to declare them. But there is one thing con- 
 
38 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 cerning it on which they speak out authoritatively, explicitly, 
 plainly—that the entire human race, from Adam, its first 
 parent, down to the last-born of his sons, shall enter it, to 
 dwell for ever in one or other of its two great compartments. 
 Earth has had, and will have, its .missing ones—of whom it 
 is not known whether they are alive or dead: if alive, where 
 they wander, if dead, where they sleep; so that if its 
 population-roll were called at any time there would be 
 absentees, countless names which must be scored as missing. 
 But all—these missing ones as well—must appear before the 
 judgment-seat of Christ: and when at that great assize the 
 muster-roll of earth’s countless generations shall be called 
 over, there is not one name which will have to be marked as 
 that of an absentee. 
 
 We now pause for a moment to review the three answers 
 which we have given to the question: Is there another world? 
 
 We have replied that it is possible there may be another 
 world. Now, say that it is barely possible, what is to be 
 made of a bare possibility in a matter of this sort? Is it 
 worth the heeding, or of being taken into account, in our 
 prospects and plans of life? Yes, most assuredly, the barest 
 possibility here is of unspeakable moment. For if we were 
 certain that there cannot be another world, then our only 
 wisdom would be to make the most of this. If we are sure 
 that death must be the end of our existence as conscious 
 beings, then let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow 
 we die. If only in this present life we can possibly have 
 hope, then the thought of a transmundane future should 
 never be allowed to startle pleasure at her carouse, or cause 
 her with trembling hand to spill a single drop from the 
 brimming cup. But if we are not certain but that possibly 
 there may be another world into which we may have to pass 
 
FTS CERTAINTY. 
 
 39 
 
 with the wing-speed of a spirit at any moment, then it would 
 not be wisdom, but the supremest folly in us not to be asking 
 ourselves, what is this other possible world? and how, if it 
 can be done here, and possibly only here, are we to prepare 
 ourselves for it? When a traveller, having struck his heel 
 into a landslip, is warned by its hollow sound that it might 
 possibly give way under him, would he commit his weight to 
 it, trying how near he may approach its thinner edge which 
 quivers above a yawning abyss ? And shall we try then how 
 near we can venture to the brink of time, unprepared for a 
 possible eternity? 
 
 We have further replied that it is probable there will 
 be another world. What then of a probability? So far 
 as this present w r orld is concerned, men are accustomed 
 to make a great deal of probabilities. The arithmetic of 
 experience, by which we attempt to solve the problem of the 
 future, is no other than a calculation of probable quantities. 
 Now, in our calculations of life, are we to leave out the great 
 probability? In summing up the series of our existence, are 
 w r e to omit the last term? In trying to solve the equation 
 of our being, are we to strike out from the other side that 
 vast integer, compared with which all the integers on this 
 side are but as so many ciphers? In other words, seeing we 
 make so much of probabilities, in so far as this present life 
 is concerned—for we will stake immense ventures, will submit 
 to the hardest toils, and will indulge the most sanguine 
 hopes, all for a probable, or even a chance advantage—is it 
 consistent in us to make so little of the grand probability, or 
 even the grand chance, were it no more than a chance, of 
 there being another world? For, if we were to throw into the 
 one scale all the probabilities of this present life, what would 
 they weigh against the one probability of the life to come? 
 
40 
 
 IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD? 
 
 They would not weigh so much as a feather, or as the filament 
 of down which flutters on its stem. Say ye that these are 
 many, while this is only one; what then; will the ten 
 thousand little pools which the receding tide has left upon 
 the shore, if gathered together, make up even ope of the 
 waves of the ocean? or will the momentary coruscations of 
 a million of shooting stars equal one noonshine of the blazing 
 orb of day? or would the hour-lives of all the ephemerse that 
 ever sported on the wing make up one single day of the years 
 of eternity ? 
 
 But, we have also replied that it is certain there is another 
 world. And will wise men trifle with so tremendous a cer¬ 
 tainty? True, indeed, not one of us can be sure, when, or 
 where, or how, we are to enter the other world. We may be 
 called hence next year, or this year, or even this very day— 
 we cannot tell when we shall have to go. We may die of 
 disease, or from the decay of nature, or by accident, or by 
 the hand of violence—we cannot tell how we are to die. We 
 may breathe our last upon our beds, or in the fields, or on 
 the sea—we cannot tell where we are to breathe our last. 
 All we know is, that we must die—that at some time, some¬ 
 how, and somewhere, must enter into the other world. And 
 what, we would ask, ought to be the effect of so much 
 uncertainty, mingling with so great a certainty? Surely it 
 ought to be, to quicken us into the more vigilance, so that 
 we shall not give sleep to our eyes, nor slumber to our eyelids, 
 till we have made sure of our entering (die when, or where, 
 or how we may) into life eternal in the world to come. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 It is a subject on which one cannot help speculating—what, 
 supposing man had continued in his state of innocence, 
 would have been the manner of his departure from this 
 earth, and of his entrance into the other world. For that 
 he would not always have remained on his native planet 
 will appear evident when we consider that, capacious as it is, 
 the earth in the course of generations must have become too 
 narrow for its population, unless room were made for the 
 younger by the removal of the older inhabitants. But what 
 would have been the manner and circumstance of their 
 removal? This we may possibly never learn, except that it 
 would not have been as our own departure is, by death; and 
 that there would not, as now, have been a painful leave-taking 
 from sorrowing survivors. And whatever might have been 
 the manner of man’s entrance into the other world, we may 
 be sure that he would not, as happens now, have had to 
 enter it as a disembodied spirit, nor to wait in it a bodiless 
 soul until his mouldering ashes should be recovered from 
 the tomb. 
 
 Here then we can perceive three important particulars in 
 which the other world, as respects man, now wears an 
 altered aspect in consequence of his apostasy: the manner 
 of his departure for it is different; the manner of his 
 entrance into it is also different; and the manner of his 
 continuance in it, for a time at least, is likewise different. 
 
42 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 But while admitting these differences to be great, we are not 
 to represent them as greater than they really are. 
 
 NOT MERELY DEPARTED BUT DISEMBODIED. 
 
 Man, when he dies, not only leaves the earth, but he leaves 
 besides a part of himself behind. Not only are the ties of 
 kindred and companionship broken, but that still closer tie 
 which held together the two parts of his own being is torn 
 asunder. The body, which was born with him, which has 
 grown with his growth, separate from which he has never 
 known a sorrow or a joy, which forms a very part of him¬ 
 self, must be left behind. And who shall tell what is 
 implied in that severance. As we hang over the dying bed, 
 we can see, by the quivering lip, and the contracted brow, 
 and the labouring breath, that physical pain accompanies 
 death. But what the struggling spirit itself feels, in the 
 moment of its being torn asunder from the body—this 
 happily for us we can only guess at. In that body this 
 human soul has suffered much; by that body has often been 
 trammeled; because of that body has often been misunder¬ 
 stood ; but for that body might have found life a very 
 different thing from what it is. Yet think you it can leave 
 it without a pang? or can go forth out of it as if it were 
 merely flitting from some old tenement? No, this cannot 
 be. For that body has been more to the soul than a 
 dwelling-place; more to it than a companion; more to it 
 than wedded spouse is to the husband of her youth. That 
 body—cold, claylike, lifeless as it soon will be—has been, 
 and still is, a part of the man himself. So that this dying 
 is a self-severance, a pulling asunder of part from part of 
 what made up the human being. Here then is one of the 
 sad effects of sin; not that man leaves this world, for that 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 43 
 
 we believe he would have done even had he never sinned, 
 but that he is tom away from it, by a wrench which tears 
 himself in twain. 
 
 But then as to those who survive him, is it not a mitiga¬ 
 tion of their grief that his body is left with them? Might 
 we not even say that with them it fares better now, than if 
 man’s entire being had gone away into the invisible world. 
 For is it not something when the unseen part of the loved 
 one has been snatched from us, to have left with us the 
 outward form on which we fondly gazed—those lips on 
 which so often we imprinted affection’s kiss, those hands 
 which we have so often grasped at happy meeting or in 
 lingering adieu. Ah! mockery of death, it leaves with us 
 these, but what to do with them? To bury them out of our 
 sight, to lay them where we know it will moulder them into 
 dust. Ah! better almost to have taken the body too; for 
 then there would have been but one leave-taking, that at 
 the bed of the dying; but now there are two, that other also 
 when, having taken our last look of the shrouded coun¬ 
 tenance, we bid them cover it up that we may carry it out 
 for burial. 
 
 We have no wish—alas! there is no need—to aggravate 
 the terrors or to add to the triumphs of death. Bather let 
 us behold it in the softening light of the gospel, when, 
 through the dismal portals which open into the tomb, the 
 star of immortality is seen to shine afar; and when even the 
 gloomy pall which we spread over the dead becomes fringed 
 with the glorious prospect of a coming resurrection. Yes, 
 let us thus view death and the grave, as divine mercy has 
 revealed them to us in the gospel. So viewing the one, let 
 us call it a sleep; and so beholding the other, let us say of 
 it, that it is become a bed of rest. But when we hear death 
 
44 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 called the debt of nature, or when we hear it said, that we 
 must all die in the course of nature, we must protest against 
 this vain attempt to make death appear natural. For it is, 
 on the contrary, most unnatural—what never ought to have 
 been, what never would have been, but for sin. It came 
 upon us by no law of nature. It grew not out of the ground, 
 as our food was growing; nor dropt upon us from the clouds, 
 as the rains were dropping; nor was carried on the winds 
 which blew only health on the cheek which knew no guilt. 
 There was originally no death in the laws or the constitution 
 of nature to man. Its breezes would have brewed no storms; 
 its skies have distilled no pestilence; its vegetation have 
 elaborated no poison for him at least, unless he had sinned. 
 And then death came to him, not by a law of nature, but by 
 a law of penal retribution. Nature has, no doubt, to do with 
 his death—its seas with their tempests, its air spreading the 
 invisible malaria, its elemental forces so terribly destructive 
 when they gain the mastery, its skies black with thunder¬ 
 storms have all to do with it; but this is not in fulfilment of 
 nature’s original uses, which were to nourish human life, 
 never to destroy it. Nature has been bent from its pre¬ 
 destined course, and is made to do a novel work, when it 
 performs the dismal duty of the executioner of death. And 
 what we pay in dying is not the debt of nature, but the 
 debt which has been incurred by our sins; and the creditor is 
 not nature, but He against whom we have sinned. In employing 
 nature, as doubtless Fie does, to see that the debt be paid, He 
 says, as it were, with terrible emphasis, See, 0! guilty man, 
 what thy sins have done; though they have not changed the 
 laws of nature, nor the substances of nature, nor the processes of 
 nature—for rain is still formed as it ever was; and vegetation 
 is the same process that ever it was; and the atmosphere is 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 45 
 
 composed of the same elements as ever it was—yet, by me ; 
 on account of thy sins, nature has been set to do a strange 
 work—when out of what was designed to nourish thy being, 
 it has now to extract what shall poison and waste it, until 
 thou who wast created to live shalt die, and return to the 
 dust whence thou earnest. 
 
 DISEMBODIED, YET CONSCIOUS. 
 
 Is that naked spirit, which has passed into the other 
 world divested of its corporeal teguments, the same sensitive, 
 intelligent, emotional soul, that it was when in the body? 
 Then it could perceive external objects, for there was the eye 
 to serve as its organ of vision; and then it could distinguish 
 sounds, for there was the ear an auditory tube for these 
 sounds to enter by; and then it had sensational impressions, 
 for there were the nerves of feeling, so delicately strung, that 
 the passing of a sunbeam, or the slightest pulsation of the 
 air, affected them; and then it could hold vocal converse 
 with its fellow-spirits, for there were the bps to shape those 
 words which the tongue did utter. But now this corporeal 
 apparatus has been left behind. Can the soul then still see, 
 now when the organ of sight is wanting? Can it still hear, 
 now when the curious mechanism by which sound entered 
 lies under the silent mould? Can it still feel, now when 
 worms are gnawing those subtle threads by which sensations 
 were conveyed to it? Can it still carry on conversation, now 
 when the tongue is dumb, and the lips are sealed in the 
 voiceless sepulchre? In a word, is the disembodied soul in 
 a state of consciousness? Does it know where it is? and 
 what it is? Holds it sensible communication with the outer 
 world around it? Is it actively employed, and has it de¬ 
 finable enjoyments ? Or has it fallen into a slumbrous state ? 
 
46 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 or into that state of doubtful consciousness which lies dreamily, 
 somewhere between sleeping and waking? 
 
 There be those who profess to take their views of the 
 disembodied state from Scripture, who incline to the latter 
 opinion—that it very much resembles a trance, or coma, or 
 a profound slumber, which, mayhap, has its dreams, but no 
 open vision, and from which the soul will not awake until it 
 is once more united to the body. But we believe the 
 Scriptures to teach the opposite of this; that, so far from 
 being in a comatose, or drowsy, or lethargic state, the 
 disembodied soul retains its full consciousness and activity, 
 is, within certain limits, even more active, more wakeful, than 
 it was when in the body. 
 
 If here we shall be asked categorically to define what are 
 perception or feeling in the individual disembodied spirit, or 
 what is intercommunion between two or more such spirits, 
 we profess not to be able to give a categorical definition. At 
 the same time we have a notion that these may not differ so 
 very much from perception, feeling, sensation, and inter¬ 
 communion, in our present corporeal state. Of course, 
 the question will be pressed, how, in any sense, can a 
 disembodied spirit perceive external objects without the eye? 
 or how have any sort of sensations without a nervous system? 
 or how, in any manner, converse without the organs of speech? 
 We do not profess to answer the question; or, rather let us 
 say, we decline to be pressed by the question, until, at least, 
 those who would press it, shall have explained how it is that, 
 with an eye, the mind contrives to see; or, by means of 
 nervous filaments, manages to feel; or, using vocal organs, is 
 able to converse. That it can do so, we know; but how'? 
 Has any one yet discovered that sympathetic cord which so 
 mysteriously unites mind with matter, the soul with the body? 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE, 
 
 47 
 
 Will he explain to us how it is that, when I will to stretch it 
 forth, this arm of mine, which is only a piece of mechanised 
 matter, obeys my volition? Or how it is that sound, which 
 enters my outer ear as mere vibrations of the air, becomes in 
 my inner ear articulate words, or notes of music? Or how it 
 is that, when a needle punctures my finger, which is a. piece 
 of mere insensate flesh, my spirit, which the needle cannot 
 touch, feels the pain? How it is, in short, that a spirit can 
 look through eyes which are not spiritual; or the soul, which 
 is not material, can feel by means of nerves which are wholly 
 composed of matter. When these things are explained, then 
 we may feel called upon to attempt an explanation how, 
 without its present corporeal apparatus, the disembodied soul 
 can perceive, and feel, and converse. But the truth is, we 
 cannot explain either. Not any more how with eyes the soul 
 can see, than how it can see without them. The one is just 
 as much a mystery to us as the other. Unless, indeed, it be 
 the greater mystery of the two, that a spirit should be able 
 to use bodily organs, than that it should be able to do without 
 them. 
 
 It is not philosophy that can decide the question, whether 
 the disembodied soul is, or can be, conscious; because philo-. 
 sophy must have some data from experience on which to 
 build its conclusions; but here the matter lies wholly beyond 
 the range of our experience; the home of departed spirits 
 being as inaccessible to the philosopher as it is to the peasant. 
 Still it is something to find that what scantling light philo¬ 
 sophy does shed upon the question seems to favour the con¬ 
 clusion that a disembodied spirit may still possess conscious¬ 
 ness. Imagine a person to be shut up in some dungeon from 
 which every sun-ray and every sound is completely excluded, 
 so that were the prisoner blind the darkness could not be 
 
48 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 greater, nor, were he deaf, the silence more profound. Still 
 his mind may both see and hear. For the green hills 
 which he climbed, and the bosky vales which he rambled 
 through, when a boy, rise to memory’s vision amid that 
 darkness ; and the murmur of the wimpling brook, with the 
 thrush’s note from the forest glade, which was music to his 
 childhood’s ear, sounds in memory’s hearing amid that 
 silence. Here, observe, it is not merely that this individual 
 remembers having seen these hills and vales, and having 
 heard the thrush’s warbled note; but he is actually now see¬ 
 ing and hearing them ; their memorial pictures are as vividly 
 before him as erewhile were the originals. Now, the same 
 philosophy which explains by what laws of memory and asso¬ 
 ciation, one so entirely cut off from all communication with 
 the outer world can conjure up its sights and its sounds of 
 bygone years, would seem to warrant the inference that by 
 the same mental laws, when the soul has left the earth, and 
 it is shut out altogether from its view, there will still linger 
 in its memory the visions and the voices of the past. Then, 
 the phenomena of dreaming, when philosophically investi¬ 
 gated, would seem to show that it is only the body that 
 sleeps, and not the mind; for when leaden slumber has 
 fallen on its tired companion, the still waking soul is busy 
 all the night through weaving vision after vision, though it is 
 only those which were more vivid, that we remember when 
 we awake. Now what help does the mind get from the body, 
 whose every sense is shut up by slumber, in weaving these 
 visions of the night? There be bright images, but not by the 
 outer eye, which sleep has closed, do these enter. Nor 
 through the outer ear, which somnolence has stopped up, 
 does the music of our dreams come in. Must not the soul 
 then have of its own an eye and an ear, with which it may 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 49 
 
 be able in its disembodied state, just as it seems able while 
 in the body through the darkness of night and amid the 
 silences of slumber, both to see and hear. Once more, the 
 singular facts of somnambulism would appear still more 
 strikingly to prove that, even while in the body, the mind can 
 act independently of it. For what the sleep-walker sees, is 
 not, as in the case of the dreamer, mere airy visions, or 
 phantasies of the brain; but those actual objects through 
 which, with a step that never once falters, he threads his 
 way. But whence comes the light which renders these 
 objects visible? It comes not from that flickering taper, or 
 from yonder pale moon ; for their rays cannot pierce through 
 these closed lids of flesh. The light with which that sleeper 
 sees is not from without at all; but must come, though how 
 we cannot tell, from the mind’s own eye, w T hich can illumine 
 the darkness of the body’s slumber. And who then shall say, 
 that it is unphilosophical to suppose that when these fleshly 
 lids and the eyes which they cover are away altogether, the 
 inner light of the soul’s own may not be still more bright; 
 and that objects shall then stand forth more clearly manifest 
 to its direct spirit-gaze, than they are at present to our bodily 
 vision? But, as we have said, it is not philosophy which can 
 decide the question. We turn then from philosophy to the 
 Scriptures for an answer to the question: Does the soul, when 
 out of the body, retain its consciousness and activity? 
 
 And here we are free to confess, that in certain parts of the 
 Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, there occur expres¬ 
 sions concerning the dead which might appear to favour the 
 idea that the soul, when disembodied, drops into a state of 
 forgetfulness, silence and inactivity, as if it slept, or were 
 but dreamily awake. Thus: “What profit is there in my 
 
 blood, when I go down to the pit ? Shall the dust praise thee? 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 sliall it declare thy truth'?” (Ps. xxx. 9.) Also, “Wilt thou 
 show wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise 
 thee? Shall thy loving-kindness he declared in the grave? 
 or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be 
 known in the dark ? and thy righteousness in the land of 
 forgetfulness?” (Ps. lxxxviii. 10-12.) Or again, “The dead 
 praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.” 
 (Ps. cxv. 17.) 
 
 Now, to us it appears very manifest, that what the Psalm¬ 
 ist means to express in these passages is simply this: that 
 the dead, who have departed this life, cannot any longer praise 
 God in this present world—that the wonders of his provi¬ 
 dence, as exhibited on the earth, cannot be known by the 
 sleepers in the tomb—and that only those who are alive, in 
 the sense of being still in the body, can take any active part 
 in advancing God’s glory here below. But if this is all he 
 means, why, it may be asked, does the poet of immortality 
 sing so sad and plaintive a requiem o ver these departed souls ? 
 Why speak of them as gone into silence, if they are even now 
 hymning the praises of their God in heaven? Why as shut 
 up in darkness, if they are beholding, with open face, the 
 glories of the better land? 
 
 If we reflect how very small a minority the saints of God 
 were in the days of the Psalmist, we will cease to wonder 
 that, in strains so dolorous and dirge-like, he sings of the 
 pious dead. Ah! the Church in those times could ill spare 
 a single one of its members, and the world could ill afford to 
 lose any of the few, who were as lights to it in its pagan dark¬ 
 ness ; and the hosts of the Lord had not so many standard- 
 bearers, but his prophet might well indite a plaintive dirge 
 when even one of them was taken away. For what though 
 every such death was a gain to the Church triumphant the 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 51 
 
 gain to it was not so great as was the loss to the 
 Church militant: the ranks of heaven were less sensibly 
 swelled, than was the little flock in the wilderness diminished: 
 the songs of glory would still have angels to hymn them, but 
 who were to raise the songs of Zion in the temple here, if one 
 after another the saints were taken away? It was, therefore, 
 of their seats now empty here, rather than of the seats they 
 had gone to occupy, and of their voices now silent on earth, 
 than of their songs in heaven, that the Psalmist was think¬ 
 ing, as well he might, when every seat thus empty, and eveiy 
 voice thus silenced, was so sensible a loss to the terrestrial 
 sanctuary. 
 
 In the New Testament there are numerous passages which 
 appear to us to place the question beyond a doubt—that the 
 soul when unclothed immediately enters into the presence 
 of God, from him, as its judge, to hear its final destiny; if 
 that destiny is blessedness, then, forthwith, without delay, 
 pause, or suspension, it will begin to enjoy its blessedness; if 
 that destiny is misery, then as promptly, without respite or 
 reprieve, it will begin to endure its misery. No mesmeric 
 trance—nor dreamy slumber—nor drowsy torpor will seal up 
 the faculties or blunt the sensitiveness either of the happy 
 soul, so as to diminish the fruition of its bliss, or of the 
 unhappy soul, so as to mitigate the torture of its despair. . 
 
 1. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we are per¬ 
 mitted a glimpse into the world of disembodied spirits. What 
 is there given is manifestly not a literal description of their 
 state. For that soul in the place of torment, which com¬ 
 plains of burning thirst, had not a tongue with which to feel 
 the bodily sensation; nor has that happy soul in the bosom 
 of Abraham a finger which it could dip in water. The par¬ 
 able, therefore, is in part figurative; yet under the figure 
 
 t 
 
OJ THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 there lies an evident literality, which it is impossible for us 
 to mistake, viz., that these two souls are in a state of con¬ 
 sciousness—that the one, be its happiness of what sort it may, 
 is supremely conscious that it is happy; and that the other, 
 describe its misery as you please, is equally conscious that it 
 is miserable. Yes; that lost soul does not slumber amid the 
 flames of hell—memory does not find remorse a pillow on 
 which it can go to sleep—these compunctious fears, lest its 
 five brethren, whom probably it helped to ruin, may come 
 here to upbraid it, are not an opiate with which to lull itself 
 to repose. 
 
 2. When Jesus was on the cross, He said to one of the male¬ 
 factors who suffered with him: “Verily, to-day shalt thou 
 be with me in paradise.” Did that mean, to-day our spirits 
 shall slumber together in some dreamy elysium—mine to 
 awake again after three days, but thine to slumber on until 
 the trump of doom shall startle it out of its syncope ? Was 
 this our Lord’s meaning, when, in the solemn hour of death, 
 He thus addressed the penitent thief? We venture to say it 
 was not; for in that case He would have used language 
 which was calculated to deceive this trembling soul which 
 had thrown its last stake upon his word. Let philosophy 
 here stand aside, for this was no philosopher, but a simple 
 unlettered man; and he , taking the words in their obvious 
 meaning, would understand Christ to say: To-day—this 
 very day—ere yonder sun has sunk beneath these western 
 hills, our sufferings will be over; for our souls, escaped from 
 these nail-pierced bodies, will be in paradise, the happy spirit- 
 home of the blessed; not there to sleep, but there in wakeful 
 ecstacy to share their pleasures and their sweet repose. 
 
 3. In one of the Pauline epistles the following passage oc¬ 
 curs: “ Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 53 
 
 we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: 
 we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from 
 the body, and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Cor. v. 6, 8.) 
 
 There can he no question that the apostle here refers to 
 the period which is to intervene between death and the 
 resurrection; since it is only during that period the soul is 
 “absentfrom the body.” The other expression, “present 
 with the Lord,” must therefore be taken as describing the 
 condition of the soul while disembodied. Mark, then, the 
 antithesis: here “we are at home in the body,” but “absent 
 from the Lord.” But are we then so shut up within this 
 house of clay, so confined at home in the body, that we can 
 have no communication with “the Lord?” Is there no 
 access by which, occasionally at least, He may come to us, 
 and no egress by which sometimes we may go out to him ? 
 Are these walls of flesh altogether so impassable as to admit 
 no passages of intercourse between us and him? Not so. 
 He does sometimes find his way through these obstructing 
 walls into our hearts. He standeth knocking at the door of 
 this poor cottage of clay; and when we open to him He 
 cometh in to us, and suppeth with us, and we with him. 
 
 Yet with all this we feel, what Paul felt, that we might get 
 nearer to him still—might be more in his society—never, in 
 fact, absent from him at any time, but always and ever pre¬ 
 sent with him. And if this cannot be unless we leave the 
 body, shall we hesitate? Nay, says Paul, “We are willing 
 rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord.” 
 And the time came, thou holy apostle, when thou didst get 
 thy wish; when they made the bloody rent in thy martyred 
 flesh through which thy spirit went forth to be “ present with 
 the Lord.” But, what! hast thou found that thine absence 
 from the body has rendered thee less capable of enjoying his 
 
54 : 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 presence? When angels carried away thy spirit, did they lay 
 it asleep upon his breast, where it has slubbered ever since, 
 not knowing where it lies? Were this to be “present with 
 the Lord”—his eye ever upon thee, but thine never returning 
 his fond gaze—his close embraces folding thee, but thou 
 never feeling them? Nay, this were to be more absent from 
 the Lord than when thou wast present in the body; for then 
 thou didst sometimes see his face, and sometimes hear his 
 voice, and sometimes draw his breast closer to thine own with 
 the embraces of a conscious love. 
 
 4. In another of his epistles the same apostle uses this lan¬ 
 guage : “ I am in a strait betwixt tw r o, having a desire to 
 depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.” (Phil, 
 i. 23.) It would, indeed, be difficult to persuade us that Paul 
 would have been in a strait between living or dying, or 
 that he would have said, that it is better to die than to live, 
 if at death the soul becomes insensible. For with all its 
 toils, and griefs, and hardships, life were preferable to an 
 unconscious slumber, indefinitely prolonged. It is, indeed, 
 a pleasing picture to see an infant asleep on its mother’s 
 breast, hushed into a soft unconsciousness. But the picture 
 of a soul asleep, even in a Saviour’s arms, raises to our ima¬ 
 gination no such pleasing associations. Paint to us as you 
 will the balminess of such a slumber—the heart no longer 
 throbbing to a single pain—no more aching of the wearied 
 limbs—and no distempered dreams; still the bare idea of a 
 long oblivious night, stretching through centuries, is some¬ 
 thing from which our soul recoils. We cannot, therefore, 
 present to our owm mind, nor can we believe that Paul pre¬ 
 sented to his mind, a state of slumberous insensibility as the 
 condition of a beatified soul. No; interject a sleep of ages 
 —draw round the drowsy spirit a curtain which is to hide 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 55 
 
 from it even that Saviour in whose immediate presence it 
 now is—and Paul would have been in no strait. Far better 
 life with all its struggles, a thousand times better with all 
 its sorrows, than this sluggish existence —this ever sleeping 
 there, while here there is so much work to be done. 
 
 We have spoken of a sleep of ages, and of a long oblivious 
 night; but the philosophers will tell us that such language 
 is not applicable to the soul’s sleep. For on its awaking 
 the first conscious thought will leap back, as it were, and 
 link itself in a moment to the last conscious thought ere it 
 fell on slumber, so that there will be no sensible lapse of 
 time. This may be seen to be the case when one recovers 
 from a trance. During that death-like syncope, hours, or 
 even days, may have elapsed—long hours and weary days to 
 the watchers who surround that stilly couch; but when the 
 sleeper returns to consciousness they appear to him as but a 
 moment; indeed, so little is he sensible of any interval what¬ 
 ever, that the first words he utters are, perhaps, the conclud¬ 
 ing part of the sentence wdiich lay unfinished on his lips 
 when he swooned away. Now, from this it is argued that 
 when the disembodied soul shall awake from its sleep, that 
 sleep will appear to have been momentary. Measured by 
 the circling planets it may have stretched through long 
 centuries; but, as measured by the soul’s own impressions on 
 awaking, it will appear to it shorter than the slumber of a 
 night. Thus would philosophy attempt to soften the dreary 
 prospect of a protracted spirit-sleep. It may be so. And 
 had Scripture declared to us that the soul does fall on sleep, 
 from which it is not to awake until the resurrection, we 
 might have felt grateful to philosophy for the softening light, 
 which in that case it w r ould shed around the pillow of our 
 spirit’s slumber. But seeing that Scripture plainly indicates 
 
56 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 that there is to he no break—no drowsy stoppage—no sus¬ 
 pension whatever by sleep or trance of our consciousness— 
 but our souls immediately after death are to enter on their 
 blessedness; then we do not need these explanations of phi¬ 
 losophy to soften the dreariness of that which is not to be. 
 
 The question which we have been considering is not a 
 matter of mere curious speculation. For it cannot be of 
 indifference to some of us, who mourn our departed ones, nor 
 indeed to any of us, seeing we ourselves have also to die, to 
 inquire into the experience of the soul immediately on its 
 being separated from the body. No; it is not curiosity, but 
 my heart’s deep instincts that ask the question—that dear 
 departed friend whose ashes are scarcely cold in his tomb, 
 whom but the other day I bade farewell, where is he? 
 What is he now? Not of his body do I ask this—for where 
 it is, and that it sleeps a dark and dreamless slumber, alas! 
 I know full well. But is his soul also asleep? Has it, too, in 
 some dream-land sunk into drowsy forgetfulness, without a 
 thought of me, whom he loved so well? Was it after all a 
 fond delusion, the hope expressed by his dying lips, and 
 echoed back by my own, that though parted we would still 
 remember each other? Ah! if Scripture had said so, what 
 were there for me but to believe it, and try as best I might 
 to conquer this second bitterness of separation. But Scrip¬ 
 ture is truer to my social nature than is a cold and stoic 
 philosophy. For though it tells me not whether this dear 
 departed one still sees me, or know r s what befals me, it does 
 tell me, and this sufficeth, that while I weep here behind 
 him, he is happy—consciously, blessedly, fully happy in the 
 presence of his Saviour—and I, who soon shall have to follow, 
 will comfort myself with the thought that our re-united spirits 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 57 
 
 will renew their intercourse, which death for a short time 
 has interrupted. Away then with that drear philosophy 
 which would roll up the shadows of sleep from the grave’s 
 mouth also to heaven’s gates. For surely it might suffice it 
 that the body sleeps, so soundly sleeps, that corruption’s 
 gnawing tooth does not awake it. And perhaps it needs the 
 rest, foul as the bed is on which it lies. At all events, when 
 we have wrapped it in its winding sheet and covered it over 
 with the pressed mould, we do not look for anything else 
 but that it will sleep out its slumber until the resurrection- 
 trump shall awake it. But the soul which we wound in no 
 shroud, nor enclosed in any coffin, nor buried in the loam— 
 to tell us that it also sleeps would be to quench some of 
 our fondest longings, and to diy up one of the sweetest 
 mitigants of our sorrow for the dead. 
 
 It helps, indeed, to reconcile us to being “ absent from 
 the Lord,” the assured hope that we shall yet “ see him 
 as he is.” But is it not till our bodies shall have slept 
 out their long slumber in the grave that we are to be¬ 
 hold him? Must we wait thus long for the expected 
 vision? There is that within us which anticipates a sight 
 of our Saviour soon as our spirits shall be ushered into 
 his presence. And why suppose this anticipation doomed 
 to disappointment? . Why bid us fling from us the hope that 
 our soul, which also has an eye—the keener, the stronger, 
 the more piercing of the two—shall, in the moment when it 
 is “ present with the Lord,” see him with its own full un¬ 
 mantled spirit-gaze? 
 
 And those who are not the friends of Jesus shall also see 
 him—see him sooner than they wot of. For let them not 
 flatter themselves that within some chamber of slumber and 
 on some close-curtained couch, their souls will sleep through 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 C8 
 
 the centuries, neither seen nor seeing. In sheerest nakedness, 
 altogether unclothed, they will pass, in the moment of 
 death into the presence of their Judge—human spirits stand¬ 
 ing face to face with the Infinite Spirit, to he- examined, 
 scanned, pierced through and through by his all-searching eye. 
 
 0, Lamb of God, be thou, by thy righteousness, my cover¬ 
 ing in that hour when I shall appear an unbodied spirit in 
 the presence of thy Father. 
 
 DISEMBODIED,, THEREFORE EXPECTANT. 
 
 Personal identity has survived the shock of dissolution. 
 The intertwisted cords of this corporeal life were then un¬ 
 twined, and its outer plies, so to speak, were coiled off; 
 but the central thread, or the inner core, still remains; and 
 the man knows himself to be the same conscious, intelligent, 
 responsible being that he was before. If in heaven, he is as 
 happy, as completely blessed, and, if in hell, is as entirely 
 miserable, as a human spirit can be. Still there is not the 
 sense either of consummated felicity, or of consummated 
 wretchedness. 
 
 Let us take the case of a disembodied soul in paradise, 
 w'e have said it is consciously happy, infinitely more so than 
 it ever was on earth. But were his body also there—no 
 longer the w r eak, corruptible, carnal organism it was when 
 his spirit left it; but such as that body is which sits upon 
 the throne, or such as these two bodies are winch may be 
 seen beside the throne—this happy one feels that he would 
 be still more happy than he is as yet. Not that in itself his 
 soul has any feeling of deficiency; or that it is not full, even 
 to overflowing, with all blessed emotions. Still he has tasted 
 of the pleasures which arise from the companionship of soul 
 and body — has known corporeal as well as spiritual enjoy- 
 
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 59 
 
 ments; and this even when the outer and the inner man were 
 not always fitly mated. Were these two then united once 
 more, each prepared and fitted for the other, he feels that 
 his cup of happiness as a human being would then he full. 
 His present state therefore is one of expectancy. He waits 
 for “ the adoption, to wit, the redemption of his body”—its 
 resurrection from the grave, and its re-union to his spirit, 
 when he shall he his entire self again. Not that there is 
 impatience, for one so blessed can w T ell afford to wait; nor is 
 there a shade of doubt that the day of consummation shall 
 inevitably arrive. Still there is a looking forward to joys 
 which will be yet more abundant, and to a still more 
 exceeding weight of glory. For a part of this redeemed one 
 even now lies buried in dishonour, in weakness, in corrup¬ 
 tion; and not till this part also shall have been delivered from 
 the power of “the last enemy” will the glory be complete. 
 
 What an insight does this afford us of the consequences of 
 sin. That it should have turned an earthly paradise into a 
 wilderness is what we might have expected. But who 
 beforehand would have thought to trace its effects in heaven 
 where it is never allowed to enter? Not indeed that its 
 shadow ever glooms the firmament of the glorified, or its 
 polluted breath ever taints their blissful air. Yet why are 
 their spirits there alone, without their bodies? and why are 
 these bodies even now in the charnel-house dishonoured dust? 
 Whence comes it that there are joys which the redeemed 
 cannot taste as yet, and companionships which they cannot 
 renew as yet, and services which they cannot perform as yet ? 
 Why for these must they wait until the dragging centuries 
 have brought in the close of time? Would it have been thus, 
 0 sin! but for thee? But for thy doings, thou fell destroyer, 
 would they not already be in heaven, soul and body, in the 
 
60 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 full possession of all their parts, corporeal as well as spiritual, 
 and in the full enjoyment of all the pleasures possible to our 
 glorified humanity? Yes; it is thou who holdest their dust 
 with thy griping clutch—thou that makest no more account 
 of the bodies of these righteous ones, than of the carcases of 
 the ungodly dead—thou that riddlest all together in one 
 heap — thou that with the same foul tooth gnawest the 
 bones of saints and of sinners. Be it so, thou finisher of a 
 loathsome work; but know that when it is done, thou wilt 
 be found to have been the refiner of the dust of Christ’s 
 ransomed ones. 
 
IY. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 We have had occasion to observe that one of the sad changes, 
 which sin has introduced into our world, is in the manner 
 of man’s leaving it. Now he does not simply depart, but 
 dies. Is not only snatched away from surviving friends, 
 but is himself rent in twain; his soul being torn from his 
 body in the leave-taking; so that, while his spiritual part 
 may be clothed with the bright vestments of immortality, his 
 material part lies shrouded in the grave, till the shroud, 
 and that which it winds, are both rotted into dust. But 
 this may not be the case for ever. For it is not a part of 
 man only, but his entire nature, his body as well as his soul, 
 that has been redeemed. His corporeal part must, there¬ 
 fore, be rescued from the gripe of death. Out of the loath¬ 
 some fingers of corruption his ransomed dust must be 
 recovered. Ah 1 but what is there now, it may be said, 
 except dust to rescue ? A body there was when the grave 
 got it; but open that grave now, and what do you find? 
 A lump of putrid matter, which your every sense recoils 
 from, or perhaps a few bones which you are glad to shovel 
 under the ground again out of your sight. And are these dry 
 bones to live? Is this skin, which worms have devoured, 
 again to wear the warm hues of the living countenance ? or are 
 these joints, which have fallen asunder from very rottenness, 
 ever to be knit together again with their once supple flexure? 
 or is this human dust, which has been riddled through the 
 
62 
 
 THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 loam of earth’s crust, or perhaps scattered to the four corners 
 of heaven, floated on the fitful waters, or wafted by the 
 still more fitful winds, ever to he collected out of the ten thou¬ 
 sand urns of death, so that to each several body its own 
 particles can he restored ? 
 
 These are questions which, familiar as they are to us now, 
 we should never have thought of asking, except for revela¬ 
 tion. For the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is 
 purely a scriptural doctrine ; not so much as even a surmise 
 of it is to be found in any one of all the systems of natural 
 religion. Some of the ancients would seem, indeed, to have 
 had a sort of presentiment that the disembodied spirit 
 would somehow be clothed again with flesh; but, according 
 to them, this was to be accomplished not by a resurrection, 
 or by the spirit re-occupying its former body, but by a 
 metempsychosis, or by the spirit entering into some other 
 body: or if the ancient Egyptians, approaching somewhat 
 nearer the truth, believed that departed spirits would return 
 each into their own body; still they had no idea of a resur¬ 
 rection, but tried to preserve the body by embalming it, as 
 if in the hope that, should the deceased person ever return, 
 he would find the house of clay kept ready for his re-occupy¬ 
 ing it. Anything, however, resembling the Scripture doc¬ 
 trine of a resurrection, or that the body which has seen 
 corruption shall be raised again, is not to be met with in 
 any of the ancient mythologies. The poets of Greece never 
 sang of it; her philosophers never once surmised it. 
 
 How distinctly this doctrine is announced in the Scrip¬ 
 tures a very few passages will suffice to show; for when the 
 voice of inspiration speaks plainly on any point, it is unne¬ 
 cessary to multiply her sayings. “Marvel not at this: for 
 the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves 
 
THE RESURRECTION• 
 
 G3 
 
 sliall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have 
 done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have 
 done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” (John v. 28, 
 29.) “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the 
 dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection 
 of the dead?” (1 Cor. xv. 12.) “And the sea gave up the 
 dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the 
 dead which were in them : and they were judged every man 
 according to their works.” (Rev. xx. 13.) 
 
 These, and many similar passages, not only explicitly pro¬ 
 claim the resurrection of the body, but indicate, besides, 
 that it forms a principal article in our holy faith. That 
 difficulties should have been started is scarcely to be won¬ 
 dered at, when we consider how stupendous a change is 
 implied in the resurrection. Were it merely the resuscita¬ 
 tion of a dead body, this would be a miracle ; but there is 
 the re-organisation of a body not merely dead, but decom¬ 
 posed, whose atoms have been dispersed, exhaled into the 
 atmosphere, scattered by the winds, and wafted by the 
 waters. But more than this : here is the raising again of a 
 decomposed body, whose atoms, besides being dispersed, 
 have entered into new combinations; some of them with 
 other human bodies. And then, further, there must needs 
 be not only the reconstruction of the body, but also its 
 transformation, so as to suit it for am altogether different 
 sphere of existence. It will, therefore, be necessary to 
 devote some consideration to the difficulties which have 
 been started concerning these aspects of the resurrection. 
 
 THE DISPERSED ATOMS-CAX THEY BE COLLECTED ? 
 
 Bones which have been crushed by the ploughshare, or 
 bleached to powder on the desert sands—bodies which have 
 
64 
 
 THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 been burnt to ashes, and then flung upon the winds—car¬ 
 cases which were eaten by worms, or swallowed by ravenous 
 beasts and monsters of the deep—human flesh, which decom¬ 
 posed into its primary elements, has been absorbed by the 
 plants and the grasses, which the cattle eat—can these ever 
 be got together again? From the tangled slime in ocean 
 caves, and out of the mixed mould of earth’s ever changing 
 crust, can these human atoms ever be picked out and put 
 together again, so that his identical bodily frame shall be 
 restored to each of the thousands and tens of thousands who 
 have been, or yet shall he, consigned to the tomb? 
 
 Now, to any such objection as this, we have a very simple 
 answer. Has the Lord said it, and will He not do it? With 
 God all things are possible. From his all-seeing eye not a 
 bone, or a particle, or the minutest atom, can be hid. Let 
 death store them up, or scatter them where it will, He 
 knows where they are to be found. And when He wants 
 them, it will be hut one sweep of his omnipotent arm to 
 collect them each into its own heap; and but one fiat of his 
 almighty voice, to do, what erewhile He did before, out of 
 that heap of dead dust, to fashion a living body. 
 
 We may away then at once with that craven scepticism, 
 which, because it will require a miracle to rescue our dust, 
 would yield it up for ever into the hands of death. We can¬ 
 not, alas ! prevent the grave from getting our bodies; and 
 when once in its gripe it may keep them long, but not for 
 ever. For firm as is its grasp, firmer far than any miser’s, 
 and great as is its power, greater immeasurably than any 
 potentate’s, yet must its grasp relax, and its power yield, 
 when a stronger than it shall break into its charnel-stores, 
 and shall rifle them of all the human relics which it has gone 
 on hoarding and hiding through so many generations; or 
 
THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 65 
 
 death may have flung them away out of its graves, till even 
 it would not know where to find them; or they may have 
 been sunk, where grave was never dug, under the deep sea- 
 waves; yet shall they all be gathered again. The land shall 
 give them up if in it; and the sea shall give them up if in 
 it—but not into the custody of death any more. 
 
 THE CORPOREAL PARTICLES-CAN THEY BE FASHIONED INTO A 
 
 BODY SUITED FOR ANOTHER SPHERE? 
 
 “How are the dead raised up? and with what body do 
 they come?” (1 Cor. xv. 35.) This was the question which, 
 in the days of Paul, the philosophers urged against the 
 Scripture doctrine of a resurrection, as though they had 
 said: If what you taught were that the body is to be raised 
 again so as once more to dwell upon the earth; or that the 
 deceased person is to return in the body to a life the same as 
 this present life, and to be under an economy similar to that 
 which he is under now—then we should not see much diffi¬ 
 culty in the doctrine of a resurrection. But you say that 
 the resurrection body is to enter on quite a different life—is 
 to be under altogether a new economy—and is to dwell in a 
 greatly higher sphere, even that spirit-home of angels, where 
 God himself has his heavenly abode. Now this is our diffi¬ 
 culty, how could a body, especially such a body as man’s, 
 supposing it to be raised again, find itself at home in that 
 celestial land? How, for example, is it to breathe its ethereal 
 air? or how to walk its viewless plains? or how to find 
 nourishment on its ambrosial fields? Either heaven must 
 be a very different place from what we have ever figured it 
 to be, or man’s body would be ill adapted to dwell in it. We 
 see not, indeed, how there can be material bodies in heaven 
 at all; or even if there were, still we would be at a loss to 
 
 E 
 
GG 
 
 THE RESURRECTION - . 
 
 conceive how ever onr animal, earthy bodies, are to he so 
 fashioned as to be fitted for it. “How then are the dead 
 raised np ? and with what bodies do they come ?” 
 
 Now observe how Paul sweeps away this specious objec¬ 
 tion. First, let those objectors watch the familiar processes 
 in nature; the striking transformations from a lower to a 
 higher life—and all these by means of death—which are to 
 be seen in the vegetable economy. “ Thou fool, that which 
 thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: and that which 
 thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but 
 bare (mere) grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other 
 grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and 
 to every seed his own body.” (1 Cor. xv. 36-38.) Can you 
 not then read and understand the great parable which is 
 written on the fields? You drop a seed—a bare grain—into 
 the ground, where it dies; but see what springs from it 
 when dead; first a green blade, then a wavy stalk, then filling 
 ears of corn; so that when the reaper puts his sickle into the 
 yellow harvest, what you gather for your one seed are perhaps 
 sixty or it may be even a hundred seeds. 
 
 Now, argues Paul, may it not be with our bodies as it is 
 with this seed-grain; that in their case also, death is but a 
 preliminary step to their being quickened, and decomposition 
 only a process of advancement to a superior condition? Nay, 
 does it not seem to be a general law or principle in this pre¬ 
 sent state of things, that when matter has been once worked 
 up into organised bodies, it passes through death into a 
 higher kind of life; and, by means of decay, comes forth with 
 a corresponding higher organisation. Take a piece of unor¬ 
 ganised matter, say a clod of the valley, and pound it into 
 dust, it will always remain dust; or if its particles get 
 cemented together again, it will become simply what it was 
 
THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 67 
 
 before, a clod of the valley. But take a piece of organised 
 matter, however small, a seed-grain, for instance, and bury 
 it in the ground; there decomposition will speedily reduce 
 it to dust, but see what becomes of it next—a beautiful plant, 
 with fan-like blade, pensile stalk, and rounded ears, springs 
 from it. These are your seed, in the higher form to which 
 it rises through a process of death and decay. Hence does 
 not nature herself teach us, by her parable of the fields, that 
 the death of the body, and its decomposition in the grave, 
 so far from being an obstacle to its living again, would seem 
 rather to afford a presumption that it is to live again; that 
 in common with other organised substances, with this seed- 
 grain, for example, it is not only to be quickened by its 
 dying, but shall spring forth from its own decay, possessed 
 of a new nature, a new structure, adapted to the new sphere 
 into which it is to be introduced. 
 
 Then, again, let these objectors cast their eyes round on 
 the various animated tribes which people this present earth. 
 “ All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of 
 flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and 
 another of birds.” (1 Cor. xv. 39.) Here are four varieties 
 of flesh, yet, as we know, they were all formed out of the 
 self-same primary matter, or elementary substances. Taking, 
 as it were, a handful of virgin dust, the Creator formed 
 out of it the flesh of fishes ; out of another handful of the 
 same dust, He formed the flesh of birds; out of another 
 handful of still the same dust, the flesh of beasts; and out 
 of another handful, the flesh of men. Thus out of the same 
 primary ingredients, or, so to speak, out of one and the 
 same raw material, God fashioned four kinds of flesh, each 
 generically different from the other, and adapted to different 
 elements—one to swim the liquid floods—another to cleave 
 
68 
 
 THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 on the wing the aerial regions—another to walk the solid 
 land, ranging forest, and field, and desert waste—another to 
 form the body of a creature, who w r as made after the image 
 of God himself. Now it will not be said that Omnipotence 
 had exhausted itself, or had reached the last of its possible 
 achievements, when out of the dust of the ground it formed 
 tlie highest of these four kinds of flesh. But you will admit 
 that if God had so pleased He could out of another handful 
 of the same virgin duct have gone on to form a fifth trans¬ 
 formation-even a body so refined and glorious as to be fitted 
 to dwell in those very heavens wdiere He himself has his 
 celestial mansions. Now where is the difference—except that 
 an interval of time elapses—if at the resurrection God shall 
 gather together a handful of dust, and out of that dust shall 
 fashion at the end of time what you yourselves confess He 
 could have fashioned at the beginning of time—that higher 
 style of body, which is fitted to dwell in the spirit-home 
 of angels. Ah! but you will say, this handful of dust 
 which God is to collect at the resurrection . has already 
 formed a body. But what, I ask, of that \ if it is dust, then 
 is it precisely the kind of material with which He had to 
 work at the beginning. Corruption has made that dust, you 
 say; but it is nothing to him what has made it; for being 
 dust—bare, simple dust—it will be but carrying his creative 
 agency on to its fifth and crowning achievement, to fashion 
 out of it that glorious body which He could have formed at 
 the beginning, only that the time was not then come for it. 
 
 Or, yet once more, let these objectors look up to the starry 
 skies. “ There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terres¬ 
 trial : but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of 
 the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, 
 and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the 
 
THE EESUKPECTION. 
 
 69 
 
 stars: for one star differetli from another star in glory.” 
 (1 Cor. xv. 40, 41.) See here again, what varieties of form, 
 and what gradations of glory, among these shining spheres, 
 the Creator has formed out of the same elementary matter, 
 or planetary stuff. Here a satellite which shines with bor¬ 
 rowed rays; there a star of self-fed flame. Here a sun of 
 unchanging lustre; yonder a crescent moon which waxes and 
 wanes. Now, if God could thus, out of the same matter, 
 fashion these several spheres, so as that each shall fit its 
 place in the galaxy of the firmament, shall it be thought a 
 thing impossible for him, out of the very matter which formed 
 man’s earthly body, to fashion for him a heavenly body, 
 which shall be adapted to his new position in the universe; 
 when (to carry out the apostle’s illustration) he shall no 
 longer shine a terrestrial planet, but a celestial star, in God’s 
 own immediate firmament. 
 
 We may say, then, with Paul, away with all objections 
 raised upon the question, “ How are the dead raised up, or 
 with what body do they come?” for we may safely leave it 
 with Omnipotence, in whose hands matter assumes every 
 plastic form, to fashion such a body for man out of the 
 remains or ashes of his present body, which, without losing 
 its identity, shall yet be so gloriously transformed, as to be 
 a fit inhabitant of heaven, glorious as heaven is. 
 
 THE CHEMISTRY OF THE GRAVE-DOES IT RENDER A LITERAL 
 
 RESURRECTION IMPOSSIBLE? 
 
 The ascertained facts of modern chemical science, it is 
 alleged, would seem to demonstrate the physical impossi¬ 
 bility of the identical body, which has decomposed in the 
 grave, being raised entire , that is, with every particle which 
 was in it when buried. For when a human body is 
 
70 
 
 THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 resolved into its elements, these enter into new combinations, 
 forming parts not only of plants and animals, but also of 
 other human bodies. So that the dead bodies of one genera¬ 
 tion go to build up the living bodies of a succeeding genera¬ 
 tion. Hence it is evident that if the latter were to be raised 
 entire, they must contain some of the particles which belonged 
 to the former: and, therefore, these could not also be raised 
 entire, but only minus these particles. The resurrection of 
 the entire bodies of all the generations of the earth is there¬ 
 fore held to be a physical impossibility, inasmuch as it 
 would involve a physical contradiction, viz., that the same 
 particles can belong to two or more bodies at the same time. 
 Such, we are told, is the chemistry of the grave. But now 
 let us see how it bears on the doctrine of the resurrection, as 
 that doctrine has been revealed in the Scriptures. 
 
 The sacred writers unquestionably teach a literal resurrec¬ 
 tion, or the resuscitation of the very bodies which were con¬ 
 signed to the dust. On this point they leave us no room to 
 compromise with science. Whatever transformations chemis¬ 
 try may prove the decomposed body to pass through, the 
 word of God stands pledged to raise it again from the dust of 
 death, so as that the man himself shall know it to be his 
 own body, and all who saw it on the earth shall also recog¬ 
 nise it to be his. Thus far Scripture is plain and explicit. 
 
 But then, on the other hand, does it teach that the iden¬ 
 tical entire body, in every particle of it, is to be raised? On 
 the contrary, it plainly indicates that “ flesh and blood can¬ 
 not inherit the kingdom of heaven;” by which clearly is 
 meant that our “ flesh,” or the grosser animal particles of 
 our bodies, which fitted them for this present earthly life, but 
 which would ill fit them for their future heavenly life, instead 
 of being raised, are rather to be purged away, or separated. 
 
THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 71 
 
 from the finer particles, just as the residuum of earthly 
 matter is separated from the pure metal in the smelted ore. 
 
 This physical fact in the resurrection of the body, the 
 apostle Paul illustrates by a metaphor, of which it is inte¬ 
 resting to observe, that modern chemistry throws a light upon 
 it, which if it does not completely answer, at least neutral¬ 
 ises, its own objection. 
 
 “That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: 
 and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body 
 that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of 
 some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath 
 pleased him, and to every seed his own body.” (1 Cor. xv. 
 36-38.) Such is the apostle’s illustration, which we shall now 
 proceed to examine in the light of that chemistry which finds a 
 difficulty in the resurrection of the body. Now we know that 
 when a seed-grain has been cast into the ground it dies; all 
 of it at least, except a minute germ, which springs up from 
 the decaying cotyledon. But what of that germ? or what 
 connection has it with the body which the growing plant 
 assumes? Chemical botany will tell us this. The small 
 kernel of wheat which you cast into the ground revealed 
 to the naked eye no resemblance to the full-grown plant; 
 indeed, no two things could well be more unlike each other 
 than the wavy cereal which bends its stalk, and nods its 
 bearded head to every breeze, and the hard, round granule 
 of grain which you dropt into the ground. Yet, had you 
 examined that minute seed by the aid of powerful glasses, 
 you would have found the entire body of the plant in em¬ 
 bryo within it; for under the microscope there can be traced 
 the sprouting blade, the reedy stalk, the rounded ears, all 
 coiled up, as it were, within the body of the little seed; so 
 that when these spring up from the ground, forming the 
 
72 
 
 THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 expanded plant, wliat you see is literally the resurrection 
 body of the dead and buried seed; the very body which was 
 in it as a germ or embryo when you cast it into the ground. 
 It is very true, that of the actual substance of the plant 
 only a small portion came from the little seed; for even if 
 all its particles (which is not the case) had passed up into 
 the body of the growing plant, its tiny whole could have 
 furnished but a mere fraction of the greatly larger mass. 
 Still, as we have said, that tall stalk of corn, bladed and 
 full-eared and ripe for the sickle, is the very body of grain, 
 which, as a germ, lay within the seed when the sower cast 
 it into the ground, and which has risen from the seed, under 
 the fostering influences of the winds, the sunbeams, and the 
 showers. These, if I might so express myself, were to it 
 the archangel’s trump, which opened its grave in the field 
 where it lay buried; the voice of spring, with its genial 
 showers, and the voice of summer, with its warming sun¬ 
 beams, called it forth in its resurrection life, and it has come 
 forth a thing of beauty now, a goodly plant of fair propor¬ 
 tions, though it was coiled or packed up in a tiny seed when 
 you laid it in the ground. 
 
 Such is the apostle’s illustration, when viewed in the 
 light of modern science—that very science from which an 
 objection is fetched against the resurrection. But the objec¬ 
 tion very speedily vanishes; and, we would have you mark, 
 that it is not we who waive it away, but the very science 
 which was made to conjure it up. The body which we bury 
 is very different in its form and properties from the body 
 which is to rise, even as the seed-grain is very different 
 from the future plant; yet just as that tiny granule contains 
 within it the germ of the plant which springs up from it, so 
 does the body which is contain within it the germ of the 
 
THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 73 
 
 body which Js to be. And as by no means all the particles, 
 even of the tiny seed, pass up into the substance of the 
 plant, so neither shall all the particles of our present bodies 
 pass into our future bodies; yet if, as in the case of the 
 plant, all its germinal atoms shall be raised up, then will 
 there be a true, a literal resurrection; since the body which 
 shall rise from the ashes of the body which was buried is 
 the very body which was contained in it, in its germ or 
 embryotic state, when we laid it in the dust. 
 
 All that we insist upon -then, and all that Scripture 
 teaches, is, that every particle which is fit to be restored to 
 its proper body shall be gathered from the tomb. And who 
 will affirm that these rarer particles—these less gross or 
 fleshly atoms—these grains of a finer texture, which form, 
 shall we say, the germ of the future body—cannot be so 
 watched over by omniscience that they shall not enter into 
 composition with other human bodies. Nay, for all we know 
 of the chemistry of life, may not these finer, more subtle 
 particles of our bodily frame, be unmixable; or such, and so 
 formed on purpose, that between those of different bodies 
 there is no elective affinity by which they could combine. 
 For this same chemistry, which tells us of the combinations 
 which some of the particles of the decomposed body forms 
 with some of the particles of other bodies which are still 
 alive, also informs us that there are substances in nature 
 which it cannot combine together. And does the chemist 
 know that among these very substances which defy his art. 
 to unite them in new compounds, may not be the germinal 
 particles of the body winch is to be raised? 
 
 We do not doubt but that particles of a still finer quality 
 than the finest of those which we laid in the tomb mil be 
 added so as to form the resurrection body. But addition 
 
74 
 
 THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 does not destroy identity, else we should ha^ to say that 
 the full grown body of the adult has no identity with the 
 growing body which he had when a child. The question, in 
 fact, is not how many particles will be left behind, nor how 
 many particles will be added; but the question is this, will 
 all the particles, fit to be restored to the resurrection body, 
 be raised when that body rises ? for then it will still be our 
 body—the very body which was buried, however much trans¬ 
 formed to suit its new sphere of existence. 
 
 We have heard of the physical chemistry of the grave; 
 but has it not a higher than a merely physical chemistry? 
 Is there not something more goes on in it than the decompo¬ 
 sition of so many human bodies? Yes, it is God’s refining 
 crucible, in which death and corruption are made the unwit¬ 
 ting means of dissolving into their original elements the 
 bodies of his saints, in order that in the resurrection He may 
 separate the finer from the grosser particles—carefully gather¬ 
 ing all the former, so that not one of them shall be lost or 
 left behind; but caring not to gather the latter, for what 
 recks it what becomes of them; even if they should be 
 consumed in those fires which are to bum up the earth and 
 all that it contains. And in the case of those who shall be 
 alive at the resurrection, and whose bodies have not been 
 subjected to this gradual purifying process in the grave, the 
 same thing will be accomplished instantaneously by the 
 transforming power of God. “ Behold, I show you a mystery; 
 we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a mo¬ 
 ment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.” (1 Cor. 
 xv. 51, 52.) 
 
Y. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY: WHEREIN IT DIFFERS 
 FROM THE PRESENT BODY. 
 
 In describing the resurrection body, Paid adopts the method 
 of contrast, showing wherein it shall differ from our present 
 mortal body. Of the latter we well know that among its 
 specific properties are corruptibility, dishonour, weakness. 
 But whence are these? Did they characterise it when first 
 it came from the Creator’s hand? Were these faults or flaws 
 in the finished statue when it had received the last touches 
 of the great Sculptor’s hand ? No; these are blemishes which 
 have been introduced into it by sin. And as these were not 
 in it in its original state, still less will they be in it in its 
 glorified condition. For it shall be raised in incorruption, 
 in glory, in power. Thus far Paul might seem to indicate 
 simply a restoration of the body to its original faultless con¬ 
 dition. As though he had said: “Let it be rid of those 
 blemishes which sin has caused in it, by being restored to 
 what it was when first formed; and you see what it will be 
 in its resurrection condition.” But that there is to be more 
 than a restoration appears from what follows, when the 
 apostle goes on to mention a fourth particular in the con¬ 
 trast: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual 
 body.” Taking his own commentary on these words, we 
 are prepared for more than a mere restoration of the 
 blemished body to its original unblemished state; that there 
 will be a higher style of organisation in it, than even Adam’s 
 exhibited, while as yet it was in its pristine grandeur. 
 
76 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY: 
 
 The description which Paul gives of the resurrection body 
 thus runs in two lines of contrast:—First, there is the body 
 as it now is, or such as sin has made it, and the body that 
 is to be, as differing from this; then there is the body as it 
 was in its original sinless state, and the body which is to be, 
 as differing from that. 
 
 We proceed then to consider the three chief characteristics of 
 the body which shall be, as differing from the body that is. 
 
 FIRST CHARACTERISTIC OF THE RISEN BODY-INCORRUPTION. 
 
 “It is sown in corruption; it is-raised in incorruption.” 
 (1 Cor. xv. 42.) The present body is subject to dissolution 
 and decay—it actually dies and corrupts. A compound of 
 diverse elements, let it once lose the preservative virtue 
 of life, and by an inevitable chemistry, the very same 
 which seizes on the dead tree-trunk, it is very soon resolved 
 into its elements. That which is blood, and flesh, and bones, 
 becomes dust and gaseous effluvia; and even while it lives 
 the work of corruption may have commenced. Gangrene 
 and cancer may be eating into its flesh, pthysis may be 
 suppurating its lungs, and caries wasting its very bones. 
 Under the rich glow of joyous health, and the smiling bloom 
 of ripening beauty, there may be the slow and secret gnaw¬ 
 ing of the insidious disease; even as many a folded green 
 leaf, in early summer, conceals the canker-w r orm, which 
 wTaps itself within that which it is to consume away. Such 
 is the body as sin has made it; or, at least, such it has 
 become since Adam w r as debarred from eating of the tree of 
 life, whose immortal leaves, if there was any tendency to 
 decay in the pristine human frame, had a charm and a virtue 
 to renew its youth. But will that sort of material structure 
 do for a resurrection body ? 
 
"WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE PRESENT BODY. 77 
 
 No; that body is to be incorruptible, indestructible. 
 Composed still of matter, but not of that gross, fleshly 
 matter which requires constantly to be nourished by absorb¬ 
 ing into its substance the still grosser particles of vegetables 
 and lower animals; nor of that metamorphic matter which is 
 ever changing; nor of that composite matter which can be 
 severed limb from limb, or wasted by disease, or broken up 
 by corruption, into its individual atoms. It will be still a 
 body—visible, tangible, mobile; but so much more simple 
 in its structure, in its substance so much more refined, that 
 neither accident can hurt it, nor climate aff ect it, nor years age 
 it, nor any w r eapon formed against it either wound or destroy 
 it; not, indeed, that there will distil any subtle poisons 
 from the pure empyrean which it will breathe, or pestilence 
 lurk beneath the wings of the breezes that shall blovv upon it, 
 or arrows of death be shot at it, or the touch of corruption 
 ever come near it; but even if they did, those ethereal veins 
 could not be poisoned, nor could that subtilised bosom 
 bleed, nor could those immortal limbs contract any taint. 
 Here the body resembles those compound substances which 
 chemistry can separate into their constituent ingredients; 
 but when raised it will be like unto those elementary, indi¬ 
 visible substances, which have defied the chemist’s art to 
 reduce them into substances more simple or indivisible than 
 themselves. 
 
 SECOND CHARACTERISTIC OF THE RISEN BODY-GLORY. 
 
 “ It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory.” (1 Cor. 
 xv. 43.) Planned, built up, and furnished in a style which 
 showed that its great Architect had spared neither pains nor 
 expense, the first human body was a mansion fit to be occu¬ 
 pied "with honour by some illustrious tenant; and the tenant 
 
78 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY : 
 
 did honour to the house so long as he dwelt in it; sinless and 
 godlike; but when the occupant brought disgrace and 
 infamy on himself by his apostasy from God, then was the 
 house also dishonoured; for it had now become the haunt 
 of the lawless one, was now the darkened chamber where 
 he plotted his impieties, and perpetrated his deeds of wicked¬ 
 ness, and continued as a criminal to set at defiance the 
 righteous law of his Creator. Yea, the body was doubly 
 dishonoured; for, more than the mere dwelling-place, it 
 is also the instrument with which the sinner commits the 
 most atrocious of his crimes. Does he cast covetous glances 
 on that which he lusts after?—with its eyes he casts them. 
 Does he approach with stealthy step the secluded spot, 
 where the deed of shame or infamy is to be committed?— 
 with its feet he approaches it. Does he aim the murderer’s 
 blow, or seize on the robber’s booty?—with its hand he aims, 
 and with its hand he seizes. Does he utter words of blas¬ 
 phemy, or of impious scoffing, or of envenomed malice?— 
 with its lips he utters them. And even of every man, whom 
 we may not charge with these blacker crimes, it holds true 
 as a fact, which will not deny, that he has yielded the 
 members of his body to he the servants of sin. Verily, 
 then, with such a history, well may the body be said to be 
 sown in dishonour. And what must be done with the body 
 thus dishonoured, before it can be re-occupied by a soul, 
 which is now made pure and spotless, as was that first soul 
 which tenanted the first body, which the Master Builder pre¬ 
 pared for man? 
 
 What is to be done with it, indeed, but in the first instance 
 to take it down—to raze it to its very foundation—not to 
 leave one stone,' one particle of it, standing on another; 
 so that no vestige shall remain of what was once the scene 
 
WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE PRESENT BODY. 79 
 
 of a history so foul with dishonour and so black with deceit. 
 And then, when it has been reduced to a ruin—crumbled 
 down to a bare heap of dust—the next thing to be done is to 
 build it up again, with all its parts searched, sifted, purified, 
 as if by fire, so that every trace of its dishonour shall be 
 done away. And then the last thing to be done, now when it 
 is a fit palace of purity, “ all glorious within,” without all 
 fair, is to introduce into it the glorified, sinless spirit, who is 
 to occupy it for evermore. 
 
 THIRD CHARACTERISTIC OF THE RISEN BODY-POWER. 
 
 “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.” (1 Cor. xv. 
 43.) There is doubtless a measure of strength in these firm com¬ 
 pact bodies of ours, great toughness of muscle and sinew, an ex¬ 
 ceeding elasticity of nerve, a wondrous power to grasp, a master¬ 
 ful energy to struggle with and overcome the brutal tribes, and 
 even the material elements when we use the mechanical forces 
 which are lodged within us, as so many levers to move the 
 mechanical forces which are in nature around us. Yet, how 
 weak after all is the body; more especially now, when it is 
 occupied by a sin-misguided soul, which knows not rightly 
 to measure its strength, and which either by over-daring or 
 from want of due caution, so often brings it into perils of the 
 deep and dangers on the land. For see yonder inmate of 
 the maniac’s home—a fatuous lunatic is he now, whose con¬ 
 gested brain cannot control, or put together, or remember any 
 two of the thoughts which chase each other through it, more 
 incoherently than the random visions of a dream. That 
 brain was strong once; but the gifted one—gifted in all but 
 knowledge how far to tax it—has by over-pressure made it 
 what you now behold it. Or, see yonder hunter, who, fired 
 by the chase, has ventured into the tiger’s lair; in stern and 
 
80 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY. 
 
 solitary conflict he grapples with the infuriated beast, nor 
 does he grapple long; for now it stands with a howl of vic¬ 
 tory over his bleeding, mangled, lifeless body. Or, see 
 yonder gigantic engine, by which inventive man crushes the 
 rock, or bends the solid iron, or weaves into the most deli¬ 
 cate pattern the textile fabric: stronger than the forces of 
 nature has that engine made the human hand: but, lo! a 
 false step, an unwatchful eye, and man is crushed among the 
 wheels of his own gigantic machinery. And then, in ^ur 
 ordinary daily labour, how easily is the body fatigued. Tired 
 nature craves repose—rest during its labours, and slumber 
 after them. Will a body so soon fatigued, so easily over¬ 
 come, so liable to wear itself out, and so exposed to accident, 
 do for the resurrection body? 
 
 No; “it is raised in power.” Fatigue it will no longer 
 know—sleep will no longer need. Its eye will not tire with 
 gazing, nor its brain confuse with long-continued thought, 
 nor its fingers cramp with sweeping the stringed harp, nor its 
 lips ever falter in the repeated song. Day and night con¬ 
 tinually—or rather all day through, for there is no night in 
 heaven, it will minister without pause, never stopping, and 
 never needing to stop, for it shall be strong as the angels who 
 excel in strength. And then it will be the instrument of a 
 soul, which will know exactly how to measure its physical 
 power. No false step, no miscalculating eye, no rash daring, 
 will ever expose it to peril or to pain. 
 
 Such, then, as differing from the body that now is, mil be 
 the body when raised. The defects and the blemishes which 
 sin has caused in it will be entirely removed. For this cor¬ 
 ruption shall put on incorruption ; this dishonour, glory; this 
 weakness, power. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY: WHEREIN IT DIFFERS 
 FROM THE ORIGINAL BODY. 
 
 The material frame is not only to be renovated and restored 
 to its original condition, but will be made to excel even its 
 pristine glory. 
 
 But here, to guard against misconception, I would observe 
 that in the body of Adam, as it came from his Maker’s hand, 
 there was no flaw or defect of any kind. It was a piece of 
 perfect mechanism, fearfully and wonderfully made, exactly 
 suited for all the functions of man’s earthly life. But in say¬ 
 ing this, we do in fact intimate that a change behoved to have 
 passed upon it, had he been translated to a celestial sphere. 
 
 THERE IS A NATURAL BODY. 
 
 Three things are specified in Scripture as the constituent 
 parts, or elements in man’s organisation—spirit, soul, 
 body. Spirit, or pure i ntelligence , the higher principle, the 
 spiritual life, which is akin to God’s own life. Soul, or the 
 principle of animal life, with its instincts, propensities, and 
 passions—the vital spark, the. vital force/ as we so call it, 
 which man has in common with the beasts which perish. 
 Body, or the material part, consisting of flesh, blood, and 
 bones. Here, then, you have a trinary compound—or three 
 in one—spirit, soul, body, making up the single person— 
 man. The body had to serve as the handmaiden of the 
 other two. 
 
82 
 
 TIIE REBUERECTION BODY: 
 
 But how, we ask, could one and the same body equally 
 well serve these two, so different masters? The spirit was a 
 subtle, flame-like principle, ever rising upwards; buoyant, 
 expansive, wide-ranging, not to be confined. While the 
 mere soul, or the animal principle, had an earthward tend¬ 
 ency; w r as moved by instincts, appetites, and the senses; 
 craving lower pleasures, and having meaner wants. How, 
 then, we repeat, could one body serve these two, so very 
 different masters? We can see how it could minister to the 
 lower, or natural life, since that was so much akin to itself. 
 A better instrument than the human hand with which to 
 till the ground—or than the human stomach with which to 
 digest food—or than the human foot with which to move 
 from place to place—or than the human eye with which to 
 perceive external objects, could not be conceived. And thus 
 was the animal life furnished with all the necessary mem¬ 
 bers to discharge its functions and fulfil its offices. But 
 then it is not so easy to see how a natural body could equally 
 serve the purposes of the higher spiritual life. For we can 
 conceive of a more facile and efficient instrument for the 
 spirit to think with than a brain of flesh—and also of a 
 more suitable instrument than an eye of flesh for the mind 
 to send its glances through, which, were the optic glass suf¬ 
 ficiently powerful, could reach not only to the starry spheres, 
 but sweep the remotest fields of space. With such a body,. 
 then, the higher life in man, while it could do much, could 
 not do all that it felt itself capable of doing. Another sort 
 of body, less animal, less sensuous, not so fleshly, or natural, 
 would suit it better. Still it could not have that body so 
 long as man was upon the earth; for then the requirements 
 of the animal life could not have been attended to; and the 
 vital spark would have gone out, like a lamp which is not 
 
WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE ORIGINAL BODY. 83 
 
 fed with oil and duly trimmed. Hence, then, during the 
 period of his terrestrial existence, a natural body was chosen 
 for man—that is, one which in every respect answered all the 
 purposes of his physical life; and which also did tolerably 
 well, as well as was necessary, for a time at least, for the 
 purposes of his higher or spiritual life. 
 
 THERE IS A SPIRITUAL BODY. 
 
 Let us suppose primeval man to have been translated to a 
 higher sphere; say to those heavens where there are none of 
 the instincts or propensities of the merely animal life—where 
 they neither eat nor drink, neither marry nor are given in 
 marriage, but are as the angels of God; it is evident that a 
 part of his nature, the lower, or animal part, namely, would 
 have to be dropped or left behind—and this being the case, 
 it is just as evident that a natural body, such as he had on 
 earth, would be altogether out of place; since now there is 
 not any longer a merely physical but only a spiritual life to 
 be served. Hence we cannot doubt that the same infinite wis¬ 
 dom, which had fashioned for man a body of the earth earthy, 
 to suit his earthly life, would in such manner have trans¬ 
 figured that body as to adapt it to his now heavenly life. 
 That which was a natural would have been changed into a- 
 spiritual body. 
 
 The event which we have supposed did not happen to 
 primeval man; for having become subject to death, when 
 he came to quit the earth, his body had to be left behind, 
 so that his spirit passed without corporeal covering of any 
 kind into the other world. But there is one to whom what 
 we have supposed did actually happen—the Second Adam— 
 who also had a natural body, framed and fashioned in all 
 its members and organs like unto our own, while he lived a 
 
84 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY : 
 
 man upon the earth, hut who has entered into heaven with 
 his body transfigured, or changed, as the first Adam’s would 
 have been, had he not sinned; and it is after the model or 
 pattern of the glorified body of the Saviour, that, in the 
 resurrection, the bodies of his saints are to be transfigured. 
 For “ he shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned 
 like unto his glorious body.” “ As we have borne the image 
 of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” 
 
 What, then, is this spiritual body, with which, at the 
 resurrection, the saints are to be clothed? 
 
 In applying the term “ spiritual ” to the future body, the 
 apostle does not express the nature of the substance of 
 which it is to be composed, but rather the uses and purposes 
 which it is intended to serve. It is not to be spiritual, as 
 contradistinguished from material; for, however much refined, 
 the body will still be composed of matter. But it is to be 
 spiritual, as opposed to natural; that is, it is to be so 
 fashioned as in every respect shall adapt it to the higher or 
 spiritual principle in glorified humanity. It will not cramp 
 nor confine, will not clog or bear down; but will entirely 
 serve, will give full scope and free play to this nobler part 
 of our nature. 
 
 “ There is a spiritual body.” It is not merely a possible 
 existence, wliich one may conceive of by an effort of the 
 imagination as among the things which might be, but it is 
 an actual reality, a thing which already has existence. Yet 
 actual existence as it is, we, w r ho have never beheld such a 
 body, far less had any experience of it, may not even ima¬ 
 gine the full meaning of the phrase, “ a spiritual body.” 
 The apostle does not attempt to describe it. It were to 
 little purpose for him to have done so; since the description 
 would only have bewildered our imagination, and dazzled 
 
WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE ORIGINAL BODY. 85 
 
 our mental vision. We may, therefore, attempt no more 
 than simply to hint at one or two of the probable charac¬ 
 teristics of this spiritual body. 
 
 1. And, first, it doubtless will have spiritual senses; for 
 this is but saying that its senses will correspond with its 
 own nature. 
 
 How strong, how quick, how far-ranging, and, in all 
 their motions, how electric, will these senses be! The 
 spirit will no longer have to complain of the eye that it con¬ 
 fines its fleet and roving glances; for, independently of all 
 mechanical aids, it will have boundless, instantaneous vision 
 —without the telescope will sweep the farthest immensities, 
 and without the microscope will penetrate the minutest 
 portions of creation. Nor will the spirit any longer have to 
 complain of the ear that it is dull of hearing, or that it is 
 not sufficiently musical, or that it faintly, sometimes falsely, 
 telegraphs the speaker’s winged words. These, then, the 
 senses of sight and hearing, and not these only, but all the 
 other senses in the spiritual body, will be spiritual, or such 
 as mil enable the higher faculty, the pure intelligence, the 
 mind or spirit, in redeemed man, to see, to hear, to handle, 
 to taste, with a quickness which will be as instantaneous as 
 its own mental motions, to an extent which will have no 
 limits except its own boundless powers, and with a preci¬ 
 sion which will admit neither of mistake, uncertainty, or 
 obscurity. 
 
 2. Secondly, the spiritual body will have spiritual organs; 
 for this is but saying that its members or parts will corres¬ 
 pond with its own nature. 
 
 But here we must forbear, except to remark on two of 
 these—the organs of speech and those of motion. It is a won¬ 
 derful mechanism, that by which man is endowed with the 
 
86 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY : 
 
 faculty of language, or articulate speech. The celerity and> 
 precision with which the lisping tongue of infancy learns to 
 combine innumerable sounds into words and sentences is 
 amazing, and only fails to astonish us because it is so com¬ 
 mon. And yet how inadequate is the organ of speech to 
 express the more subtle involutions, and the finer shades of 
 thought. Not the orator alone and the poet have to com¬ 
 plain that there be forming ideas and imaged musings, which 
 their words all imperfectly convey ; for there is at times in 
 every breast the motion of a hidden fire—the voiceless echoes 
 of thoughts unspoken, because we cannot find utterance to 
 express them. In the spiritual body it will not be so. But 
 the organs of speech will be such, that our every word, uttered 
 it may be in softest whisper, shall travel as with instantane¬ 
 ous speed, and through distances longer than the electric 
 wire when it stretches from pole to pole. Nor will our words 
 come either too fast for the lip to frame them, or too slow 
 for themselves to seize and shape the fleetest thought. And 
 then the organs of motion, or the limbs of the spiritual 
 body, may not these be such that at will, and as if borne on 
 angel-wings, we shall have the power of rapid transition from 
 planet to planet and from star to star, when distance will 
 thus be all but annihilated and separation unknown. 
 
 3. Thirdly, the spiritual body will have a spiritual 
 aspect; or, in other words, it will wear habitually, visibly, 
 entirely, the impress and expression of the spirit that dwells 
 in it. Here, even the natural body doth bear some impress 
 of the higher spirit which it - lodges. In the serene medita¬ 
 tive eye, you can see in its liquid depths the great thoughts 
 lie which are yet to instruct and delight mankind. On the 
 brow pale with study, you may see intellect shining through, 
 as if a hidden flame were set within a vase of alabaster. 
 
WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE ORIGINAL BODY. 87 
 
 While the sunshine of the soul, in some aged saint, comes 
 stealing through “ every chink that time has made.” When 
 sorrow clouds the spirit, its shadow finds its way into the 
 countenance; or when joy lights up the bosom, its reflections 
 gleam in every glance of the eye. Yet how inadequate, after 
 all, is the natural body to give full or fixed expression to the 
 workings of the inner spirit. The images are dim as on a 
 clouded, or bent and broken as on a rippled, lake. In the 
 spiritual body it will be different. Cast in a finer mould, com¬ 
 posed of finer materials—a statue of purer clay—it will be 
 a veiy transparency which will let be seen every motion 
 however fleet, every feeling however subtle, every thought 
 and desire however evanescent, of the spirit within: a veil it 
 will be rather than a vestment, whose translucent folds will 
 soften without concealing the diviner aspects of the mind. 
 
 And thus shall we know even as we are known. There will 
 be the most perfect intercommunion of spirit with spirit. That 
 which here we speak of by way of figure—a window in the 
 breast—will then be literally the case. There will be nothing 
 hid—nothing half-revealed—nothing to be guessed at by 
 means of doubtful signs. Oh! what blessedness in this per¬ 
 fect reciprocation of fellow-spirits; when the misunderstand¬ 
 ings which so often cooled their earthly friendships—the 
 suspicions and the jealousies which would arise from their 
 imperfectly knowing each other—the reserve, the restraint, 
 or the hesitating frankness, ever in a strait between speaking- 
 out and keeping silence—will all be done away in that per¬ 
 fection of mutual knowledge which will draw still closer, as 
 the ages roll on, the bonds of hallowed friendship between 
 associate spirits, who, knowing as they are known, will never 
 misunderstand, nor suspect, nor distrust each other any 
 
 more. 
 
88 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY: 
 
 Reviewing in their connection, or as united in one organ¬ 
 ism, the senses, the members, and the aspect of the resurrec¬ 
 tion body, we may sum up the whole by saying, that w'hether 
 as an outlet, by means of its senses, by which things without 
 are to reach the spirit; or as an instrument, by means of its 
 organs, by which the spirit is to work; or as an index, by 
 means of its aspect, by which the spirit is to express or 
 reveal itself—in each and all of these respects it will be a 
 spiritual body; that is, such a body as will afford full scope 
 and manifestation, the freest range and play to the nobler 
 part of man—such as will be altogether congenial to, and in 
 entire harmony with, that diviner principle in him, which 
 never was any mere life-spark struck out of the clay, but 
 which came by the direct inspiration of the Almighty—as if 
 a vital emanation from God’s own vitality. 
 
 THE TWOFOLD TRANSFORMATION. 
 
 Such as we have attempted to describe appears the two¬ 
 fold transformation which the body is to undergo in the 
 resurrection. Of the necessity of the higher transformation, 
 by which the body, which was created natural, is to become 
 spiritual, we cannot so well judge from experience. But 
 from the nature of the case it is not difficult to see that it 
 must be so. Heaven being what it is, and the glorified spirit 
 being what it is, a natural body, or a body of flesh and blood, 
 which was contrived to perform the functions of the animal 
 life, would be a misadaptation as great as if a creature 
 intended to live in an aerial home were to be furnished with 
 a body which has limbs but no wings. Had Scripture, there¬ 
 fore, when describing the heavenly life, been silent altogether 
 concerning the resurrection body, that unerring wisdom 
 which adapts the physical frame of every creature to the 
 
WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE ORIGINAL BODY. 89 
 
 habitat of its being, and the functions of its existence, would 
 have led us to the conclusion, that that which is sown a 
 natural will be raised a spiritual body. 
 
 Of the necessity of the other transformation by which the 
 body is to be freed from the blemishes and defects which 
 sin has caused in it, we are better able to judge, since we 
 have experience of such a body. If our souls have been 
 quickened and renewed by the Spirit of God, then will we 
 know what it is to have to dwell in a body of sin and death. 
 How, in place of an imperfect help, it is a positive hindrance 
 to the life of faith. For it hampers, distracts, pollutes, 
 grieves; is both an encumbrance and a snare to the soul; 
 when divinely renewed, it would walk by faith and not by 
 sight. Always prone to the earth was the body, as if from 
 the gravitation of its fleshly substance; but now when sin 
 acts in it as a dead weight, it would press the very ground, 
 would lie content in the lap of its mother earth, or would 
 creep along the dust, till it mingles with it once more. And 
 its sensual appetites, its low and grovelling propensities, as 
 if fed by that which they themselves feed, indicate but too 
 plainly its earthy origin and its fleshly nature. It needed 
 to be sinless this natural body to keep it afloat or on the sur¬ 
 face ; and now when it is sinful—corruptible, dishonoured, 
 weak—it sinks to the very bottom, even in the mire. 
 
 No wonder, then, if a renewed soul feels itself ill at ease 
 in such a body. No wonder that there goes on between 
 them a constant struggle and warfare; when often like to be 
 worsted, the spirit is fain to cry out: Ah! wretched me; 
 who will deliver me from this body of sin and death? for 
 when I would do good, it tempts me to evil—when I would 
 rise, it weighs me down—when I would be free, with its 
 fleshly lusts it fetters and enslaves me. 
 
90 
 
 THE RESURRECTION BODY: 
 
 We, therefore, “ which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, 
 even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adop¬ 
 tion, to wit, the redemption of our body.” And the time will 
 come when it shall be redeemed. When our spirits, purer, 
 
 'fairer, stronger than they are at present—divinely pure, 
 
 ■ 
 
 divinely fair, divinely strong—will find no cause to complain 
 of the bodies that shall be raised for them to re-occupy. For 
 in the resurrection body, not only will sin be done away, but 
 its fleshliness also will be done away. Both in its material 
 and its make, in its fabric and its fashion, it will be a body 
 more refined, more radiant, more active, more like to the 
 Spirit itself, than was the body of Adam, when it shone, 
 among all God’s terrestrial works, his master-piece. Re¬ 
 united, itself a glorified spirit, to this glorified body—the soul 
 wall have a fit associate with which to spend its eternal years; 
 a meet instrument by means of which to exercise its im¬ 
 mortal faculties; and an all-truthful index by which to display 
 its celestial graces. 
 
 THE BODIES OF THE WICKED WILL ALSO BE RAISED. 
 
 We have contemplated the resurrection body as it shall 
 appear when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and 
 this mortal immortality. But the bodies of the wicked 
 shall also be raised—for there is “ the resurrection of damna¬ 
 tion.” Ah! dreadful thought! the grave shall not always 
 hold or hide the unredeemed dust. But the land and the 
 sea, when the last trump is heard, shall cast it forth, and it 
 shall be fashioned once more into human form. But how 
 shall these dead be raised? and with what body shall they 
 come? The decrepit sinner, will he rise wrinkled old? the 
 haughty sinner, will there be the old scowl upon his brow? 
 will the face, which was scarred and seamed with unsightly 
 
WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE ORIGINAL BODY. 91 
 
 sores, wear the same repulsive aspect? The eyes that 
 were sunken and lustreless—the cheeks which were shrivelled 
 and hollow—the form which was bowed and shrunken—the 
 voice which was broken—and the head which shook with a 
 palsied motion—will these issue again from the beds of 
 death? Will the tremor of conscious guilt still shake, like 
 an ague, in the limbs, and the hot blushes of detected shame 
 still burn on the cheek? Will the body of the libertine 
 rise the same bloated carcase, or the same wasted skeleton, 
 that riot and debauchery had made it here? Will the body 
 of the murderer come forth with the blood-spots on its 
 hands? Will the body of the drunkard stagger to the judg¬ 
 ment-seat—its lips blistered with thirst for the maddening 
 drink, where not even a drop of cold water will be got to 
 cool its tongue? Will the miser, as lie is hurried through 
 the air, be seen with his greedy fingers clutching at empti¬ 
 ness, the cry hissing through his hollow throat, My money S 
 give me my money? Will the discrowned monarch rave 
 for his rusted diadem—and the minion of fashion for his 
 ruffled mantle, which the moths have devoured—and the 
 high-born beauty, once the cynosure of all eyes, shudder at 
 her own altered form ? But we must forbear. For w r ho may 
 tell of what form, or with what aspect, the bodies of the 
 vdcked will be raised? Only this do we know, that a change 
 will pass over them, which will make them as indestructible 
 as their immortal spirits are, with fearfully enhanced pow r ers 
 for evil, and with fearfully intensified sensibility to pain. 
 
 WHAT IF THE BEAD BE NOT RAISED? 
 
 The way in which salvation has been brought to our fallen 
 race was by the obedience unto death of God’s own Son, in 
 our human nature. But let us conceive for a moment that. 
 
i 
 
 ft 
 
 92 the eestjeeection body: 
 
 * 
 
 without a body of flesh, the Son of God had taken to himself 
 a rational soul, which should sorrow and suffer, though, of 
 course, it could not die and be buried for our sins. 
 
 In that case our redemption, corresponding to what our 
 Eedeemer had done for us, would not necessarily have 
 included the resurrection of our bodies. A human soul, 
 in union with the divine nature, having drank the full cup of 
 mental agonies for our sins, possibly our souls might have 
 been redeemed: but no blood having been shed, nor death 
 endured for us, our bodies would have remained unredeemed; 
 and therefore, when once in the power of death, would have 
 lain for ever in the tomb. Our future blessedness, in this 
 case, would have been purely mental. To share in the hap¬ 
 piness of the now blissful spirit which had sorrowed and suf¬ 
 fered for us—this would have been the fullest fruition of our 
 heavenly felicity. 
 
 Whether such a salvation as this was possible is not for us 
 to say; but at all events it would not have been a complete 
 salvation. For though the soul is the more precious part, 
 yet it is not the whole of man. And if he were to be for ever 
 a disembodied spirit, then, however blessed as such, he would 
 not reach the full measure of his possible blessedness. He 
 w r ould, in fact, be in the position of those happy spirits who 
 are waiting for their bodies to be restored to them, when 
 their heavenly felicity shall be filled up. Hence then a 
 scheme of salvation, even supposing it possible, which does 
 not include the redemption of thebody, would not be complete. 
 And, therefore, our Eedeemer assumed to himself a body, 
 that, by suffering and dying in the flesh, He might endure 
 that part of the curse which had fallen on our bodies, and 
 might secure for them that measure of lieavenfy felicity of 
 which they are capable. 
 
WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE ORIGINAL BODY. 93 
 
 Let ns now see the import of the question, What if the 
 dead rise not? 
 
 And, first, what if the buried Saviour had not risen? 
 Say that the grave once closed upon his body had continued 
 for ever shut, affording corruption time to finish its foul work 
 upon it, what inference in that case must have been drawn? 
 Simply that He had failed to redeem the body? and that 
 his not having risen, ours would not rise; but yet our spirits 
 after death would be with his spirit in paradise? Ah! more 
 than this, for what He had undertaken was to redeem man; 
 and they were not two works, the redemption of the soul and 
 the redemption of the body, which could be separated now, 
 so that though the one failed the other might still be 
 accomplished. They must stand or fall together. Both 
 
 must be achieved or neither. Had Christ not risen from the 
 
 4 / 
 
 dead, then, we could have had no hope: no hope manifestly 
 for our bodies, but in reality as little hope for our spirits. 
 Since his detention in the grave would have proved that 
 there was failure somewhere; and here failure anywhere 
 would have been irretrievable disaster. 
 
 Hence, then, the vital importance of the resurrection as 
 respects the Redeemer. He had given his body as a hostage 
 to death, until it should be seen whether or not his work—■ 
 the entire work He had undertaken—was finished. And 
 when death gave up the hostage, and the grave delivered 
 back the stake which had been deposited in it, what more 
 decisive proof that He had said truly on the cross: “It is 
 finished.” Death echoed back the words, It is finished; and 
 the grave with its open mouth echoed them back; and cor¬ 
 ruption, which had not dared to touch his dead body, echoed 
 them back. / 
 
 Now, secondly, what if the buried saints were not to rise ? 
 
94 
 
 THE EESUEEECTION BODY: 
 
 Is this a question merely about our bodies? Or is it a ques¬ 
 tion which involves the whole matter of our redemption, obour 
 souls as well as of our bodies? Undoubtedly the latter. For 
 only conceive it possible that the grave could retain our 
 dust, when the trumpet shall have sounded the summons for 
 it to be given up. What would this prove? Ah! what else 
 than that here there had been some miscarriage—some flaw 
 or failure. Christ cannot have redeemed me, if death may 
 keep back my body. If any part of me may thus be holden 
 in the grave, it cannot be that my other parts shall enter 
 into life eternal. For as it behoved Christ to finish his whole * 
 work, or fail entirely; so equally did it behove my whole 
 person to be redeemed—my body as well as my soul—or else 
 both must perish together. 
 
 You will not wonder then that the apostle Paul should 
 lay so much stress and emphasis on the resurrection. How 
 on the one hand, speaking of the Redeemer, he should say: 
 
 “ If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in 
 your sins.” And how on the other hand, speaking of the * 
 redeemed, he should say: “ Then (that is on the supposition 
 there is to be no resurrection) they also which are fallen 
 asleep in Christ are perished.” Nor will you wonder that 
 this apostle and his fellow-ambassadors of the cross, wherever 
 they went, preached the resurrection—the resurrection of the 
 Redeemer first, as the foundation of faith, and along with 
 this the resurrection of the redeemed, as the fruition of 
 hope. 
 
 THE VICTOR VANQUISHED. 
 
 Flow awful is the king of terrors, when he goes forth 
 attended by his gloomy retinue, and armed with his weapons 
 of destruction! Was there ever such a dismal train? The 
 
WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM THE ORIGINAL BODY. 95 
 
 all-devouring pestilence is there; and war, with its havoc- 
 hordes, is there; and murder, with its reeking hand, and 
 pallid disease, and sleep-disturbing pain, are there; the 
 wasteful conflagration, the sweeping flood, the scorching sun 
 rays, and the icy blasts of winter, are there—the gloomy 
 attendants of this ghastly monarch! And, hark! how a 
 thousand deadly arrows from each unerring bow cleave 
 the yielding air, and then fix on the quivering vitals! 
 During how many ages has this mighty ravager wasted the 
 earth? and for how many ages yet to come will it continue 
 to slay its countless thousands? Other conquerors some¬ 
 times experience defeat, or are arrested in their march of 
 victory by opposing hosts as puissant as their own, but 
 Death's pale brow is crowned with perpetual cypress—the 
 gloomy wreath of universal victory. Yet the hour is coming 
 when this victor shall meet with irretrievable defeat. Its 
 empire, which has required so many years to extend, will at 
 last sink by one powerful stroke, never to rise again. The 
 trophies of its power, which it has taken so many centuries 
 to collect, will, in a single moment, be snatched from its 
 hand. For it will not require more than a moment of time 
 to raise all the dead; at one blast of the trumpet which 
 Christ’s archangel will sound, every sepulchre will open, and 
 every body come forth. The kingdom which rose in the 
 course of generations will thus fall in an instant of time, 
 and the conqueror of ages will be the vanquished of an hour. 
 And when the dead are all restored to life, then death itself 
 shall die; at nature’s funeral pyre the torch shall be lighted 
 which is to kindle the bier on which it will be carried to its 
 grave, wrapped in a winding-sheet of flame. Then from the 
 lips of Immortality will break forth the hymn of life:— 
 “ Death is swallowed up in victory. 0 death, where is thy 
 
96 
 
 TEE EESUEEECTION BODY. 
 
 sting? 0 grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death 
 is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be 
 to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. xv. 54-57.) 
 
VII. 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 There are three which meric pre-eminently to be regarded 
 as the prophets or harbingers of a coming judgment—con¬ 
 science, providence, and the Scriptures. Conscience, with 
 its seer-like voice in the breast, foretells who are to be 
 judged; for it proclaims to every man that he must appear 
 before the judgment-seat. Providence advances a step 
 farther than conscience; for it predicts what is to be the 
 grand design or purpose of the judgment; viz., to vindicate 
 the ways of God, by a future and final reckoning, when 
 present difficulties shall be explained, and present inequa¬ 
 lities adjusted. The Scriptures advance a step farther than 
 providence; since besides indicating the general design of 
 the judgment, they describe, with considerable minuteness 
 of detail, the sublime preparations with which it is to be 
 ushered in, as also the solemn and august ceremonial with 
 which it is to be conducted. 
 
 After what has been already said, when arguing the pro¬ 
 bability of another world, on the testimony of conscience 
 and providence, it will not be necessary to cite them again 
 as witnesses of a coming judgment; we shall, therefore, 
 proceed at once to examine what the Scriptures have revealed 
 concerning it. On the dark background of a distant futurity 
 
 these revelations are predicted, but he that runneth may 
 
 G 
 
98 
 
 TEE JUDGMENT. 
 
 read them, as if a writing scrolled in letters of fire, which 
 are legible in their own light. 
 
 THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 Those glorified spirits who are at present around the 
 throne must he far better able to prognosticate the signs of 
 providence, now that they can watch its evolutions from its 
 great central point in the heavens. Yet even to their prac¬ 
 tised eye the foreshadowings of the judgment will not reveal 
 its near approach. “ But of that day and hour knoweth no 
 man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” If 
 we might conceive these happy spirits to be looking down 
 upon the earth, on the eve of that all eventful day, they will 
 behold its populations busy as ever in the ordinary affairs of 
 this present life. The festive table will be seen spread as 
 heretofore, and the wine cup pledged by the assembled 
 guests—the bridal banquet will appear set forth with all the 
 usual decorations which grace so auspicious an occasion—the 
 marts of commerce will be thronged as ever with eager 
 traffickers—along the broad street and the narrow byepath 
 the buzzing crowds will be seen hurrying, every one intent 
 on some pursuit of business or of pleasure—while there will 
 be heard the clank of the hammer, the ring of the axe, and 
 the din of the waggon wheels. In short, this planet-world 
 will be seen to roll on, steady as ever, on its unchanging 
 orbit; and this earth-world be seen as busy a hive of indus¬ 
 try and as crowded a haunt of pleasure as it ever was at 
 any former period in its history. The great clock of time 
 will still be striking the hours, and bidding fair to make many 
 another revolution of the years and centuries. So that even 
 these celestial spectators, whom we have supposed to be wit¬ 
 nessing ail this, might say, the end is not yet: when suddenly 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 S9 
 
 a trumpet will sound, sending its thunder-peals through, the 
 universe, which will shake to its centre at each reverberating 
 echo. The wheels of time suddenly stand still—the earth 
 all at once ceases to revolve—the living look aghast—the 
 dead begin to start from the graves—and hell is in a commo¬ 
 tion of alarm; for the trumpet which sounded is that of the 
 archangel, who, at a secret sign from his Lord, has planted 
 a foot on the sea, a foot on the land, and hath sworn by Him 
 that liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no more, 
 and that all must come to judgment. 
 
 Descending from the third heavens there will he seen a 
 great white throne, for the Judge to sit upon; it is canopied 
 with clouds, but such clouds as never floated in our nether 
 firmament; beneath it also are clouds, yet fixed and firm is 
 that throne as if it rested on battlements of adamant. 
 
 And now begins to assemble such a concourse as never 
 met in any one place before; for the world of spirits is pour¬ 
 ing forth its multitudinous hosts, till for once heaven and 
 hell are empty, and the earth is sending up its countless 
 generations—the millions upon millions of human beings, who, 
 through all its lengthened ages, and over its wide-extended 
 climes, had been born on it, including even the infants w T ho had 
 breathed but for an hour. But what judgment-hall will be 
 found large enough to contain them all ? Behold it stretching 
 on every side around the central throne! Hands never built 
 it, nor was the sound of hammer ever heard upon its walls; for 
 walls it has none, nor roof, nor floor; it is the wide immen¬ 
 sity of space, where planets find room to roll, and stars 
 innumerable to shine. There,, in that all-spacious chamber 
 of the universe, without crowding or pressure, will the many- 
 millioned multitudes assemble for the judgment. But how 
 is that measureless hall of judgment to be lighted up? Will 
 
100 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 it be by these twinkling stars which serve as night-lamps 
 to our lower skies, or by those brighter suns which light the 
 firmaments of larger systems? Not by these—at least 
 not by these as they shine at present; but there shall be an 
 illumination more worthy of the occasion. For the stars, 
 which at present send forth but a twinkling light, will burst 
 out into a blaze; and the sun, which is now shedding down 
 upon our planet its tempered rays, will shoot forth Streams 
 of flame; and the earth itself wall be as one volcanic mass, 
 erupting its burning entrails; for the heavens and the earth 
 will be on fire, and lighted up by the terrific conflagration, 
 that vast judgment-hall will be one blaze of brightness. 
 Then will be the last night of time; but neither the dark¬ 
 ness of night nor the shades of evening will be there; but 
 all will be fearfully visible, from the Judge on the throne to 
 yonder guilty wretch who may be cowering on the outskirts 
 of the myriad multitude. 
 
 And shall we attempt to describe the scene, either in its 
 tragic grandeur or in its dramatic picturesqueness? Shall 
 we try to work on the imagination by describing the looks of 
 those who will be seen rising from their graves and of those 
 who have been wrapt up alive from the earth to meet their 
 Judge? or by representing those gathering hosts which will 
 muster from heaven above and from hell beneath ? or by 
 depicting those blazing bale-fires whose flames will be seen 
 leaping from world to world, while their lurid gleam spreads 
 through all the caverns of the universe ? or by bidding you 
 listen to the reverberating echoes of the archangel’s trump, 
 as these come back mingling with the crash of worlds? 
 Could the pen of a Milton depict such a scene, or the 
 pencil of our grandest painters picture it? or the tongue of 
 the most fervid orator conjure it up before us, by the power 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 101 
 
 of his mighty eloquence ? No; it is a scene this which baffles 
 description; we shrink, therefore, from the attempt as hope¬ 
 less ; and even if we could succeed in setting it forth before 
 you, till your very imaginations were appalled by the spec¬ 
 tacle, what purpose would be served? Will the actual sight 
 of it affect us as the prospect may do ? When we shall see 
 it spread visibly out before us in all its terrible sublimity 
 and appalling grandeur, will we have any inclination to 
 survey the scene? Ah! no; something else will occupy our 
 thoughts then. Perhaps, for a moment, the vast assemblage 
 of our fellow-beings, gathered from every generation that 
 has ever lived, the blazing worlds, the convulsions of universal 
 nature, will arrest our gaze, but only for a moment; for no 
 one is to be there as a mere spectator, but every one present 
 is himself to be judged; and as if he were there alone, with 
 nothing around him but solitude and silence, and with 
 nothing before him except that great white throne, his eye 
 will be rivetted on the Judge. You may have been present 
 in a court, perhaps, during a trial for murder. How solemn 
 the scene was, as the witnesses gave their evidence, and 
 judge and jury listened with rigid impartiality! what solemn 
 emotions were excited, though you were only spectators of 
 the scene! and how great was your anxiety to discover in 
 the countenance of the prisoner what were his feelings, 
 whose life trembled in the balance! And, oh ! in the great 
 assize we will be as that prisoner; for tlieD we are not to be 
 the spectators only, but the subjects of trial! Our own 
 doom of life or death, of gloom or glory, will then be decided 
 by Him who is seated on the great white throne; and what 
 will it be to us who may be there, or wli^t may be the out¬ 
 ward ceremonials of the spectacle? for grand, picturesque, 
 sublime beyond conception as the scene might be to a mere 
 
102 
 
 THE JUDGMENT 
 
 onlooker, we will not be mere onlookers; standing tliere to 
 be judged, we will have room for but one thought—that 
 our destiny is to be pronounced; and our eyes will behold 
 but one object—Him who is to pronounce it. 
 
 THE JUDGE. 
 
 It is a principle in British law that a man shall be tried 
 by his peers. And may I venture to say, that upon this 
 principle the last judgment is to be conducted. For since it 
 is mankind who are to be judged, He who is to judge them 
 is the Son of man. “ The Father hath given him authority 
 to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." 
 “ God hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the 
 world in righteousness by that man , of whom he hath given 
 assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the 
 dead.” And you can see at once the fitness of this arrange¬ 
 ment. The judge of mankind is not to be selected from an 
 alien race, or from another order of beings than themselves; 
 but he is to be one in their own nature—of their own lineage 
 —of their own blood. Than such a judge as this, who 
 can feel so intense an interest in the fate of our race, himself 
 being one of its sons? who can be more disposed than He 
 to see equal justice done to those who are his own brethren 
 by birth? who can be so easily moved to pity as He who 
 gave proof of his compassionateness by the tears which He 
 shed upon the earth? or who so ready to listen to explana¬ 
 tions or excuses as He wdio himself had reason to know by 
 bitter experience the depths of satanic wiles? or who so com¬ 
 petent to declare what was possible or impossible for men to 
 have accomplished as He who as a man finished his own 
 appointed work? Nor let it be objected that it would 
 require one with more than human capacities to conduct 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 103 
 
 tliis transcendant ceremonial; for He who is the Son of man is 
 also the Son of God. And now, when He shall turn his human 
 countenance to those on his right hand, though there will 
 rise no shout of welcome, nor hallelujah of praise, for feelings 
 too deep for utterance will then fill every breast, yet will it 
 be joy which has hushed and will hold their breath; for soon 
 as their eyes meet his, they will recognise in him that same 
 Son of man, who for them endured the cross, and by the 
 power of his love drew them to him when they were wan¬ 
 derers about to perish. He—their Saviour—their friend— 
 their elder brother—is to judge them, and to declare their 
 destiny; therefore their beating breasts will be stilled, and 
 their every fear be hushed away; for He who bled and died 
 for them will not desert or disown them now. 
 
 But hark! from those on the left hand, there will burst 
 forth a shriek, a very howl of despair, an anguished cry that 
 shall continue to ring in their own ears throughout eternity; 
 for the moment they behold the Judge they will know him to 
 be that Son of man, whose blood they shed—whose sorrows 
 they mocked—whose mercy they spumed. With frantic 
 cries they will call upon the rocks to fall upon them, and to 
 the hills to cover them from the face of him • that sitteth on 
 the throne. Headlong into these blazing fires, whose fervid 
 heat is melting the very elements—or down into hell itself 
 they would plunge ; for anything—death, torture, annihila¬ 
 tion, or the mockery of ten thousand fiends—rather than 
 to have to meet that human eye of the Son of man. Ah! 
 will impenitent sinners, who have time still given them to 
 repent, run the hazard of such a meeting as this? Begin 
 not to say, that ye did not crucify the Son of man—that ye 
 were not present when the deed was ddne, for in the sight 
 of heaven ye are doing it now. His blood is on your hands, 
 
104 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 and his Father sees it, though man may not discover the 
 ensanguined stains. And how will you show' these hands at 
 the judgment-seat? Will you dare to hold them up to him 
 whose slaughtered blood is upon them ? Will you venture 
 to face the Son of man, whom ye have crucified afresh, and 
 put to an open shame? Ah! if ye would escape the bitter 
 shame—the despairing terrors—the unavailing anguish of 
 those who, when they see him, shall wail because of him, 
 fiee to him now while there is yet mercy for you. Go, and 
 cast yourselves, guilty as you are, at his feet; take hold of 
 the hands you have pierced—weep upon the bosom you have 
 W'ounded—say to him whom you have crucified, We will not 
 let thee go until thou forgive us. 
 
 THE OPENING OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 “ And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: 
 and the books were opened; and another book was opened, 
 w'hich is the book of fife: and the dead were judged out of 
 those things which were written in the books, according to 
 their works.” (Rev. xx. 12.) 
 
 Here is one book specified by name— The book of life— 
 that register or catalogue which God himself keeps of the 
 names of all those who have become heirs of life eternal. 
 Observe it is called “ the Lamb's book of life,” which I take 
 to be not the book of election in which the names were 
 entered in eternity, dateless ages before any one of the now 
 redeemed was born; but that book in which each separate 
 name was enrolled by Christ when the sinner believed in 
 him, and so became an heir of eternal life by faith. And, 
 thus, no one will have to say that he has been judged by a 
 book which contains God’s secret councils, in which case he 
 could have no responsibility whether his name was in it or 
 
 i 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 105 
 
 not; but by that book which shall declare whether he has 
 done that which it was his bounden duty to do—even to 
 accept salvation on the terms on which God had offered it to 
 him. It is not by a question of divine decree, but by a 
 question of human duty, that we shall be tried in the judg¬ 
 ment ; and to this question “ the Lamb’s book of life” will 
 furnish the answer. 
 
 And what hushed silence and breathless attention will there 
 be, while the leaves of this muster-roll are being turned over! 
 The other books will determine what degree of happiness, 
 or what amount of misery, shall be awarded in each several 
 case. But the prior question, Is a man to be happy or 
 miserable? May those blessed spirits, who have spent these 
 happy years in heaven, now, when re-united to their bodies, 
 return to their seats of blessedness? and must those wretched 
 spirits, who have spent these miserable years in hell, now, 
 when they are once more in the body, go back to their abodes 
 of misery? This must be decided by the book of life. For 
 in nowise shall any enter in through the gates of glory, “ but 
 they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” After 
 some mightiest contest for the noblest honours on earth, 
 assembled multitudes have held their breath to hear the 
 prize-lists read. But here it is no earthly prize that is to 
 be lost or won. Not a chaplet of fading laurels, or of flowers 
 which will wither on the brows they entwine, but an immortal 
 crown, wreathed with the fadeless amaranth of eternity; not 
 a place in that temple of fame, which by this time will have 
 crumbled into dust, but a place in the everlasting mansions 
 of glory; not a temporary happiness, but endless felicity, will 
 be his, whose name is found written in that book of life. 
 
 Whether our names will be in it, the day must declare. 
 But if they are to be in it then, they must be in it now. 
 
106 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 For after death there is not a single entry can he made 
 in that book. Those that die with their names unwrit¬ 
 ten in it will find no pitying angel in the other world 
 to 'write them down; while those who believe in the name 
 of the Son of God have, in the very moment they believe, 
 their names entered on that celestial record; and neither 
 time shall efface, nor any hand expunge, a single name when 
 once the registering angel has written it down. 
 
 The earth also keeps a register of its illustrious ones, 
 whose names are duly blazoned on its roll of fame. But 
 this terrestrial roll is a book of death , whose leaves are so 
 many sepulchral tablets, and the names written therein are the 
 names of the dead. But in the world of immortality, it is a 
 book of life which is kept, and only the names of the living 
 which are entered in it. And could we only compare these two 
 lists—that on which we chronicle the names of our illustrious 
 ones, in order that posterity may say, these were the mighty, 
 these were the great, these the famous of a former genera¬ 
 tion ; and that other in which God preserves the names of 
 his illustrious ones, what a difference would we find between 
 them! Flow many names, which are most conspicuously 
 blazoned on the former, will never once be found in the 
 latter? and how many names, which the historian never 
 thought worthy of a line, and which have passed away not 
 once whispered by the mouth of fame, will, nevertheless, be 
 found amongst the brightest names which are immortalised 
 in God’s book of life ? The earth, perhaps, does well to em¬ 
 balm the memories of her great ones; we can see no reason 
 to blame it, provided it adheres to the truth, for trying to 
 perpetuate by the chiselled urn and by the storied page the 
 renown of its heroic warriors, its puissant monarchs, its 
 learned scholastics, and its gifted sons of genius; but does 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 107 
 
 it ever pause to ask how many of those whom it is wreath¬ 
 ing with its brightest memories, God is letting drop into 
 oblivion in the world which is to come? We ask not of its 
 historians that they shall occupy their coveted pages with 
 the names or the deeds of God’s poor saints, all unknown as 
 they are to fame. But the historian might do well to con¬ 
 sider, that when his pages shall have been forgotten, with 
 the proud names they attempted to immortalise, the names 
 of these poor saints, whom he never mentioned, and whom 
 he would have blushed, in sooth, to mention, will be found 
 escutcheoned with the heraldry of heaven on the only last¬ 
 ing scroll of immortal fame. 
 
 But there are other books not named, which are to be 
 opened in the judgment; and what are these? 
 
 One of them doubtless will be the Bible. 
 
 For to the law and to the testimony every appeal will then 
 be referred. By the standard of the word every action and 
 every thought will then be tried. By the gospel the secrets 
 of all men will then be judged. That book, which many have 
 never read, will be there; and the reason demanded of them, 
 why they did not read it. That book, which many rejected, 
 will be there; and they will have to defend, if they can, their 
 rejection of it. That book, which the priests of superstition 
 kept back from the people till they perished in their ignor¬ 
 ance, will be there; and these blind leaders of the blind will 
 have to answer for it, how they dared .to shut the fountain 
 of knowledge which God had opened. That book, which the 
 blasphemer foully aspersed, will be there; and it shall be 
 seen whether he will venture to asperse it now in the pre¬ 
 sence of its Author. That book, wliich/the sceptic boasted 
 would be superseded by his science and philosophy, will be 
 there; and let him, if he can, when his science and philo- 
 
108 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 sophy have vanished away, predict its downfall now. That 
 book, which the pious cottager knew, “ and knew no more, 
 her bible true,” will he there; and, oh! how she will hail 
 the sight, the volume of her hope, the book of her trust 
 lying open before him, and He upon the throne, whose 
 name was all its charm to her simple but loving soul. 
 
 Another of the unnamed books which will be opened in the 
 judgment, is The book of God’s remembrance ; or that au¬ 
 thentic history of the earth which the recording angel is now 
 waiting down under the eye of heaven. Our histories even 
 when most copious and circumstantial; or our memoirs when 
 most graphic; or our autobiographies when they give us the 
 fullest insight into the inner life of their authors—what are 
 they, one and all of them, but the merest fragments, the 
 veriest compilations, when compared with this celestial 
 record. Here are no suppressed passages—no slurred pages; 
 but every thing—actions, words, thoughts—are faithfully 
 chronicled. Ah! what strange disclosures will that historic 
 scroll unfold on the day when it shall be opened in the 
 judgment. What will they think, those secret plotters of 
 mischief, when what they fancied had never passed the 
 muffled walls of their chambers of conclave and cabal will 
 be found all written down in this book? And what wall 
 those who plagued the earth with their wars, waged in the 
 name of liberty think, when they shall hear read from this 
 book, their secret motives of ambition, and vain glory, and 
 revenge; with all the petty stratagems and base manceuvres 
 they resorted to in order to compass their designs? And 
 those hidden wdiisperers, who used other men’s hands to 
 work their wicked deeds, how will they feel when this book 
 shall disclose who were the real moving spirits of evil, though 
 hooded by hypocrisy, they remained till now the unsuspected 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 109 
 
 authors of those crimes, for which the lesser villains had to 
 pay the penalty of their lives? And the persecutor and the 
 tyrant who flattered themselves, that because dungeon walls 
 can tell no tales, the shrieks and dying groans of their vic¬ 
 tims had never been heard, what will their surprise be, when 
 these shrieks and these groans, with the cruel sufferings 
 which wrung them from the tortured bosom, will be found 
 written down in this book; and what is more, the names of 
 those who inflicted those sufferings written down along with 
 them! And the worthless favourites of fame, those gifted 
 ones who prostituted genius at the shrine of sin, how will 
 their dis-wreathed brows pale when they shall hear from this 
 book their true character, as written down by the impartial 
 recorder; and not that which glozing pens had indited in 
 fulsome panegyric, or that which the flattering chisel had 
 graven on the lying tablet! 
 
 Let those also on the right hand listen while this book of 
 God’s remembrance is being read. That modest, shrinking 
 one, who did good as if by stealth; who, while her sisters 
 revelled in the gay assembly, would steal away to the ham¬ 
 lets of the poor, blushing lest even the night-shadows might 
 whisper of her deeds of Christian charity, must hear her 
 praises spoken now; and the poor, who had prayed blessings 
 on the head of the unknown one, shall now hear her name, 
 who, for their Lord’s sake, ministered to their necessities. 
 Yes, assuredly, there will that be read out of this book of 
 God’s remembrance which will take many on the right hand 
 by surprise; but what will astonish them ejen more are the 
 things which will not be read. Ah! were they not written 
 down then—their backslidings—their grievings of the Spirit 
 —their wandering thoughts—their faithless vows? Yes, 
 they were duly written down, every one of them; for the 
 
110 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 recording angel omits nothing; yet they shall not he read, 
 for who indeed could read them, blotted as they now are by 
 the blood of Christ. Every sin of the past is there; but 
 beneath the crimson erasure, no eye, not even God’s own, 
 shall ever read them there. “ In those days shall the iniquity 
 of Israel be sought for, .and there shall be none; and the 
 sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.” 
 
 Another of the unnamed books which shall be opened in 
 the judgment is Memory; or what will be memory there, at 
 least, though here it is often forgetfulness. On yonder 
 piece of rock, you perceive a few seams and scratches, which 
 tell you of the effects of the weather, which has peeled its 
 surface, but out of which you can gather no connected his¬ 
 tory. On your breaking that stone open, there lie spread 
 out before you the chronicles of ancient ages; for these fossil 
 remains are fishes which swam the primeval ocean, and rep¬ 
 tiles which crawled amid the mud wdiich chaos dropt from 
 its slimy bosom. As that stone, when whole, so is memory 
 often here—with some few traces on its surface, but scarce a 
 coherent history. As that stone, when broken, so will 
 memory be in the judgment; for then actions long forgotten, 
 thoughts passed out of mind, words which we imagined were 
 flung upon the w 7 ind will be there, and the introverted eye 
 will see them in the interior of the memory. You examine 
 a sheet of paper, which has been run over with a pen dipped 
 in some chemical solution, but the waiting is quite invisible; 
 and so is memory often here. But as that paper, when ex¬ 
 posed to the fire, reveals every letter of the secret writing, 
 so, when memory shall be brought to the fire of God’s 
 judgment, the writing, which seemed to have been totally 
 effaced, will be clear and legible. Even in this present life we 
 have experience how memory may be suddenly started out of 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 Ill 
 
 its forgetfulness. Far away, in some foreign land, you hear a 
 melody, which not since your early youth has fallen on your 
 ear, instantly the occasion on which you last heard it comes 
 up before you; she who sung it then, the room in which it 
 was sung, the precise spot in that room on which you were 
 standing, the furniture, the guests, the very pattern of the 
 carpet and of the paper on the wall—things you knew not 
 you were noticing at the time—come all rushing back on the 
 breath of that olden melody. The widow, who has worn 
 her weeds for thirty summers, comes unexpectedly on a 
 piece of chafed and dingy paper; it is a letter; the first 
 which he who is gone ever wrote to her; and, oh! what a 
 flood of girlhood’s bashful joys and blushing hopes come 
 rushing on her memory, who now can scarcely recall the 
 incidents of yesterday! Those who have been rescued from 
 drowning tell us that, in the last moment of departing con¬ 
 sciousness, their whole past life, in its minutest incidents, 
 passed before them as in a condensed vision, but more 
 vivid than any dream; and that they were able to com¬ 
 prehend the whole, while distinguishing every several part. 
 How easy, then, and without any miracle, but simply by the 
 force of association, will it be for the Judge to open the 
 closed book of memory, so that as in an instant of time it 
 shall reveal to those who are to be judged every action they 
 have ever done, and every word they have ever spoken! 
 
 Another of the unnamed books, if science is not wrong in 
 its conjecture, which will be opened in the judgment, is 
 The book of nature. Every word I utter, be it in faintest 
 whisper, and every movement I make, were it with foot as 
 stealthy as an Indian’s on the trail, produce an impression 
 on the air, the waters, and even the solid land. Now scien¬ 
 tific men tell us that these impressions are transfused into 
 
112 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 the very texture of nature, so that neither the rains of sum¬ 
 mer nor the snows of winter can ever wash them out, nor 
 any influence of time efface them. According to this hypo¬ 
 thesis, the material universe is a vast sounding gallery, which 
 at remotest ages will still continue to repeat our words—a 
 vast picture gallery, which, when centuries have elapsed, will 
 still exhibit our actions—and a vast telegraph, which, both 
 to distant regions and to distant ages, is conveying any 
 message our lips have ever spoken. Whether this be not one 
 of the many dreams of the enthusiasts of science, I will not 
 take upon me to say; yet in the bare possibility of its 
 turning out the case, that an indelible impression of our 
 words and actions may be made on the substances of the 
 universe; and that these impressions, though at present 
 invisible, may yet be rendered visible, so that in the judg¬ 
 ment we shall be surrounded with pictures of our past lives, 
 mirrored on the firmament and pencilled on the air, which, 
 turn us where we may, will still confront us;—the bare pos¬ 
 sibility of this, I say, is fitted to awaken alarm in the mind 
 of the sinner. 
 
 Such, then, are the books which are to be opened; and 
 when they have been read we can well understand how 
 there will be ample materials for coming to a decision 
 in the case of every individual. Or, if more were needed, 
 then may the witnesses be cited; for the secret associ¬ 
 ate, the sworn accomplice, the trusted confederate will 
 be there. And failing all others, there will be one, ready 
 to turn informant, even that subtle spirit of darkness, 
 who can witness to the crimes which he instigated the 
 sinner to commit; and who, liar as he is, will be com¬ 
 pelled to speak truth in the judgment. But who, after 
 the opening of the books, will demand the citation of the 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 113 
 
 witnesses? who on the left hand will ask to be confronted 
 with his accuser? 
 
 THE TIME OCCUPIED IN THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 On this point a very few sentences will suffice; and the 
 reason why I notice it at all is that since the time allotted for 
 the judgment seems much too short to investigate all the 
 cases that must come up, some indulge the imagination that 
 either what the Scriptures say of the past life of every indi¬ 
 vidual being canvassed is a mere figure of speech, or that the 
 day drawing to a close, before their turn comes, they will 
 escape a searching scrutiny. But neither of these is the case. 
 For there is no need that we understand the term “ day” 
 here to mean a literal day, or a period of twenty-four hours 
 in which the earth completes a revolution on its axis. There 
 are various measures of the day, as it occurs in Scripture. 
 The days of prophecy reckon each of them a year; the 
 days of creation, probably each of them an indefinite period— 
 an eon or an age. The judgment-day, therefore, need not 
 be interpreted as a literal day, or the interval between the 
 rising and the setting of the sun. Indeed, it can scarcely be 
 so; because, before that day, the sun will have ceased to 
 rise and set. The archangel will have sworn that time shall 
 be no more. 
 
 This, then, will not be' one of man’s days, by which he 
 counts the weeks of his years. But it will be the day of the 
 Lord—his “ great and terrible day”—of duration sufficiently 
 long for all the transactions of the judgment to be orderly, 
 leisurely, and thoroughly gone through. 
 
 THE SENTENCE. 
 
 Now that the materials for a decision on each individual 
 
 case have been collected, and the grounds of that decision 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 cannot fail to be palpable to all, there remains little else 
 now to be done than that the Judge shall pronounce the 
 sentence. 
 
 The bringing in of a verdict of guilty or not guilty can 
 scarcely be said to form part of the final judgment; for 
 already before the trial commenced, the Judge had separated 
 those who were to be acquitted from those wl o were to be 
 condemned. The question to be determined, therefore, was 
 not, Is this one innocent? or that other guilty? But the 
 matter for judgment was to ascertain the amount of right¬ 
 eousness in the one case and of unrighteousness in the other, 
 so that the sentence may award to each a corresponding 
 reward or punishment. And be it reward or punishment, 
 with an exact and impartial hand it shall be meted out. 
 Every man shall receive the just recompense of his deeds. 
 To all on the right hand there will be awarded the blessed¬ 
 ness in heaven; but not to all to share equal honours in 
 the kingdom of their God; for as one star differeth from 
 another star in glory, so shall the redeemed shine with 
 a greater or a lesser brightness, according as they have 
 abounded in holy deeds while upon the earth. And while 
 none of those on the left hand will escape the misery of 
 hell, yet some will be plunged into its hotter flames; the 
 furnace being heated for each in the measure of his own 
 deserts. 
 
 THE BREAKING UP OF THE ASSIZE. 
 
 What is generally regarded as the sentence, we take rather 
 to be the closing w r ords of the Judge at the breaking up of 
 the grand assize. The business of the court is now over; 
 why, then, tarry any longer? So turning to those on his 
 right hand, the Judge will say, “ Come, ye blessed <#' my 
 
THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 115 
 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world. Let us go hence, for it needs not 
 that I remain any longer here, nor is it meet that you should 
 be detained from your blessedness; all is ready; the king¬ 
 dom was prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world; and in that kingdom I have prepared a place for 
 each, and for that place each has been prepared by 
 the Spirit; stand, then, no longer there, outside the 
 kingdom, but let us go in to share its seats of blessed¬ 
 ness for evermore—all is ready, and my Father waits to 
 welcome us.” 
 
 So, Jesus leading the way, the righteous have entered 
 into the chambers of safety; the marriage supper of 
 the Lamb is spread; each is being conducted to his own 
 place in that celestial banqueting house; and now the 
 door is about to be closed. When, hark! a cry with¬ 
 out : “ Lord, open unto us! oh! open and let us also 
 in ! A pit yawns beneath us—hell is enlarging itself— 
 we see its ascending flames—mercy, Lord, have mercy on 
 us! Help, oh! help us; for we cannot abide with everlast¬ 
 ing burning.” Thus they plead, and weep, and wail, 
 clinging to a forlorn hope as with the last gripe of despair. 
 But it is too late. Had they thus pleaded and thus wept 
 upon the earth, they would have been even now with the 
 welcomed ones at the marriage supper of the Lamb. But 
 prayers repeated now are an empty mockery—tears shed 
 now are only as many drops of bitter remorse—repentance 
 now is but that vulture-beaked agony which, in self-revenge, 
 can only tear its own bosom. Yet again, and still again, 
 they shriek out the cry for mercy; till at length, his patience 
 wearied out, the Judge pronounces their hopeless dismissal: 
 
 “ Bepart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared 
 
116 
 
 THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 for the devil and his angels!” And now they fall—they 
 sink “as a stone in the mighty waters;” deeper and still 
 deeper they sink—swifter and swifter still they go down, 
 down, down into the bottomless pit! 
 
VIII. 
 
 HEAVEN: THE PLACE. 
 
 4 
 
 Man puts forth the most strenuous efforts—many of them 
 not without danger—to make himself acquainted with the 
 planet on which he" lives. The naturalist will traverse its 
 arid deserts, and scale its glacial cliffs, that he may examine 
 some rare plant, or explore the source of some wilderness 
 river; the navigator will brave the storms of its icy seas, or 
 thread the labyrinth of its coral channels, if there is a chance 
 of his being able to add but a rocky islet or a narrow neck 
 of land to our terrestrial maps; the geologist laboriously 
 explores its sea beaches, and quarries its deepest ravines, in 
 order to decipher the hieroglyphics on its strata, or exhume 
 the fossil skeletons of its perished tribes; the chemist 
 patiently watches his crucibles and retorts, in the hope of 
 extracting some new secret from nature concerning her simple 
 substances. Thus does man strive to increase his knowledge 
 of this present world; and this is at it ought to be. For 
 it is surely proper that we know all we can of the house we 
 live in, so as to be able to make the most of it. Yet, on the 
 other hand, this world is not our permanent home; we merely 
 touch at it, so to say, on our passage to the other world. 
 And what is all the naturalist or the navigator, the geolo¬ 
 gist or the chemist, can tell us about the earth, more than may 
 chance to be told the emigrant concerning the seaports at 
 which the vessel touches which is carrying him to the land 
 of his adoption? It is of that land his thoughts are full. 
 
118 
 
 heaven: the place. 
 
 To it his hopes and wishes fly, swifter than the ship can 
 career over the waters. And if we also are emigrants sail¬ 
 ing on another ocean, whose tides and currents ever set in 
 one direction, even towards the eternal shore of the world 
 beyond, then surely we ought to be making some inquiry. 
 What is that world ? 
 
 This question we now purpose to consider. With the 
 Scriptures as our only source of certain information, we shall 
 endeavour by piecing together its detached revelations of the 
 other world, and by drawing from its incidental allusions to 
 it the inferences they suggest, to describe the two great sec¬ 
 tions of that world—heaven, or the home of the blessed ; and 
 hell, or the abode of the lost. If at times we venture a con¬ 
 jecture, we shall take care that it shall either be borne out 
 by some explicit statement in Scripture, or at all events be 
 consistent with its intimations, expressed or implied. 
 
 Heaven, or the home of the blessed, naturally falls to be 
 first considered. And what we shall attempt to say con¬ 
 cerning it, may perhaps be conveniently arranged under the 
 following particulars:—the place—the state—the inhabitants 
 -—the employments—the retrospect—and the prospect. 
 
 THE LOCALITY OF HEAVEN'. 
 
 There is sometimes a disposition to regard the celestial 
 world, as if it were one of sheer spiritualism, with nothing 
 in it material—a sort of aerial region where the inmates are 
 to float in ether, or to be mysteriously suspended upon 
 nothing. But any such view of his future home overlooks 
 the fact, that redeemed man is not always to continue a 
 disembodied spirit, but is to be clothed again with his cor¬ 
 poreal frame, which, so far as we can see, would feel itself out 
 of its element in any such impalpable expanse, or invisible 
 
heaven: the place. 
 
 119 
 
 ether-world. For though a spiritual, it is still to he a mate¬ 
 rial body ; and must, therefore, have a stable and solid plat¬ 
 form on which to move abroad; and also a substantial 
 panorama which will regale the senses by a variegated land¬ 
 scape, and modulated sounds, and light refracted into colours. 
 We therefore take heaven to be a material place, or local 
 habitation. But wdietker its matter will be made up of the 
 same chemical constituents as terrestrial matter—or whether 
 its light will exhibit the same combination of colours as 
 in our. solar spectrum — or whether its sounds will be 
 linked into the same harmonies, and the same articulate 
 modulations as upon the earth, are points on which we would 
 not hazard an opinion. For the physics of the other world 
 may open up to us new varieties which our science has not 
 dreamt of. 
 
 Now, if heaven is a place, it must have locality, or a geo¬ 
 graphical position, somewhere in space. But on this point 
 the Scriptures declare nothing positive; do not even indicate 
 in what direction we are to look for it. They speak of 
 heaven, no doubt, as being above us, and hell as being 
 beneath us; but, in so speaking, they make use of language 
 which rather conveys the popular impression than scientific 
 accuracy; just as when they speak of the sun as rising and 
 setting, or making the circuit of the heavens, while we know 
 that it is stationary, and only appears to revolve, in conse¬ 
 quence of the earth’s rotation on its axis. With regard to 
 space, at least when viewed from our planet, there is, in 
 fact, neither up nor down; since at the same moment while 
 we are lifting our eyes to a point in the firmament, which 
 we say is above our heads, there are those on the other side 
 of the globe who are lifting their eyes to a point, as above 
 their heads, which lies immediately under our feet. Tlius 
 
120 
 
 heaven: the place, 
 
 we and our antipodes have at the same instant two zeniths 
 diametrically opposite; and even to ourselves, in the course 
 of every rotation of our planet, the upper shifts to the lower, 
 and the lower becomes again the upper. When, therefore, 
 the Scriptures speak of heaven as being above us, though 
 they express a sort of instinctive feeling which every one 
 has, yet they do not, strictly speaking, determine, or even 
 indicate, its precise line or position in space. Nor was it 
 necessary they should do so. They very properly encourage 
 that natural impulse by which we raise our eyes and stretch 
 our hands upwards, when we address Him who sitteth in the 
 heavens, the hearer of prayer; for what matters it though 
 we, in these British isles, and the converted aborigines in 
 the islands of the Pacific, outstretch the supplicating hand, 
 and raise the supplicating eye in opposite directions, when 
 we know that He who sitteth on the circle of the universe 
 is at every point alike in its circumference? To have told 
 us this was of more consequence than had the Scriptures in¬ 
 formed us what may be the precise locality of heaven; seeing 
 that if, at death, we fall asleep in Jesus, our spirits shall 
 not miss their way, when they will have angel-guides, who 
 know it well, to conduct them to our Father’s house. 
 
 A modern astronomy has been able to map out the firma¬ 
 ment, and to calculate the longitudes of the most distant of 
 the stars; hut it cannot inform us whether any of these be 
 the celestial orb. Still, this same astronomy has made some 
 surprising revelations on the unity of the stellar heavens. 
 For it would seem to have proved that the widely scattered 
 star-clusters, instead of independent groups, are rather 
 branches of one great family, or sisterhood of worlds, with 
 gravitation as their common connecting bond. Our own 
 solar system at least is not an isolated group, since it is 
 
heaven: the place. 
 
 moving in space towards a particular star, around which it is 
 probably revolving, along with other systems, of which that 
 distant luminary is the common centre. 
 
 Now, it were hut an extension of the same arrangement, if 
 this vast star, carrying along with it its attendant systems, 
 our own among the others, is also revolving around some 
 other sphere of still vaster magnitude than itself. And shall 
 we say that the entire of the starry universe—all systems 
 with their suns, and all suns with their planets—is circling 
 in majestic orbit round one mighty central sun, the metropo¬ 
 litan star of the sidereal empire; and that in this star the 
 Eternal has his seat of government and his throne. It is a 
 conjecture which the Scriptures do not forbid; and besides 
 its consisting with our notion of the metropolis of the universe 
 that it shoull be at the centre of its vast domain, there is 
 something at once simple and sublime in the conception that 
 the successive creations, which have called system after system 
 into being, may have gone forth spreading outwards from 
 this centre, as if the fiat of the Creator, having once moved 
 the stillness of space, has continued to extend its world-circles, 
 even as a stone dropt into the middle of a tranquil lake goes 
 on spreading its water-circles, till the last shall dip its circum¬ 
 ference under the reeds which fringe the overhanging banks. 
 
 THE PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF HEAVEN. 
 
 % 
 
 Since heaven is a place it must have physical aspects— 
 some definite magnitude and form which shall distinguish it 
 from other places; also a scenery of its own, having distinct 
 features, both in the forms, the colours, and the distribution 
 of its objects. But neither on this point do the Scriptures 
 afford us any very explicit information. For their descrip¬ 
 tions of the material features of the heavenly world are in a 
 
122 
 
 HEAVEN : THE PLACE. 
 
 great measure figurative. Still, from these figures, we are 
 able to gather a certain amount of literalness. And these 
 three things, in particular, we think may he gathered from 
 the Bible descriptions of it:—that there will he great variety 
 in the physical aspects of heaven; that this variety will he 
 harmonised into unity; and that the whole, whether in its 
 variety or its unity, will be surpassingly magnificent. 
 
 1. There will be variety in the 'physical aspects of heaven. 
 If He who garnished this lower planet has robed it in a 
 mantle of ever-varying picturesqueness, can we suppose that 
 with a less artistic hand He has strewed its various beauties 
 over the celestial land? Shall every leaf on our forest-trees 
 have its own shade of green, and every flower its own blush¬ 
 ing hue; shall the waters have their sparkle, the fields 
 their verdure, and the mountains their towering summits; 
 shall softness neighbour with sublimity, and gracefulness 
 alternate with grandeur, and the celestial landscapes not 
 also be adorned with their contrasts and varied combinations ? 
 Had the Scriptures, therefore, been entirely silent as to its 
 physical aspects, we must still have anticipated that there 
 would he variety in heaven, seeing that variety enters into 
 our primary notion of beauty. But the Scriptures are 
 not altogether silent on this point; for the various simili¬ 
 tudes under which they represent heaven plainly indicate 
 that there will he variety in it. It is imaged to our vision 
 by turns as a world, a country, a city, a garden, a house. 
 There is here first the great whole, the world; then there is 
 a portion of that whole, with its distinctive scenery, a coun¬ 
 try ; then a section of this is set off or enclosed by its walls, 
 as a city; then, either out in that open country, or within 
 this walled city, there is a spot of rarer beauty, a garden; 
 and then, within this garden, a house or dwelling-place. As 
 
 I 
 
HEAVEN .* THE PLACE. 
 
 123 
 
 respects the earth, all this is literal; with regard to heaven, 
 very much of it may be only figurative. Yet we cannot fail to 
 perceive that there must be great diversity in the aspects of 
 a place which is set forth under so many different similitudes. 
 
 And it is easy to see the reason for this variety. We 
 will doubtless carry along with us our ideas of the beautiful 
 into the other w T orld; for suppose these taken away, and 
 you suppose our nature to be stripped of some of its finest 
 sensibilities. But, as we have said, variety enters into our 
 primary notion of beauty. Unless, therefore, our sense of 
 the beautiful is to be altered, and altered to the worse, no 
 mere monotony, however brilliant, would satisfy our desires 
 after that fairer loveliness which the earth has rather fore¬ 
 shadowed than actually unfolded to our view. And then 
 taste differs in different individuals. One delights in the 
 solemn forest, another in the open plain. One bends to 
 admire the lowly violet, another looks up to admire the 
 stately oak. One revels in the sublime, another in the pic¬ 
 turesque. Whence these diversities of taste arise—whether 
 from a difference in our mental or in our bodily organisation, 
 or from both—it matters not here to inquire; enough that 
 there are these diversities, according as God has been 
 pleased to mould and temper our several natures. Now, the 
 effect of grace is not to assimilate these diversities of natural 
 taste, but rather, by quickening each, to make their diver¬ 
 sities still more conspicuous. Observe, for example, what 
 variety of subject and of style there is in the Scriptures them¬ 
 selves; and who can doubt that the Spirit of inspiration 
 moved David to be the poet rather than the historian of 
 Palestine, because it found him endowed with a natural 
 genius for poetry? or that the same Spirit moved Jeremiah 
 to write the plaintive elegies of Judah, rather than its 
 
121 
 
 heaven: tiie place. 
 
 triumphal hymns, because it found him with a bosom natu¬ 
 rally strung for the plaintive and the pathetic? or that the 
 same Spirit moved Isaiah to break forth into his bursts of 
 sublimity, because it found him with the sublime spark in 
 his naturally fervid temperament ? And precisely the same 
 thing is to be observed everywhere in the operations of 
 grace on the human mind. Whatever natural taste is in 
 a man—be it for the simple or the sublime, the pathetic or 
 the fervid, the graceful or the grand, for symmetry in form, 
 or harmony in colour, or symphony in sound—whatever of L 
 natural taste grace finds in a man, which is not sinful, it 
 seizes on it, not to extinguish it, but to quicken it, to refine 
 it, to consecrate it to higher purposes. Now, if such is the 
 effect of grace, we cannot doubt what will be the effect of 
 glory, which is just grace consummated; even that what the 
 latter has improved, the former will perfect; and, therefore, 
 as here, so in heaven, there will be diversities of taste. So 
 that while there will be no lovely thing which will be unad¬ 
 mired by any, yet each will have his own preferences and 
 predilections for certain aspects of the beautiful rather than 
 for others; and to meet this diversity of taste we believe there 
 will be variety. An eye that seeks for the sublime will not 
 search in vain, for there will be sublimity in heaven; and 
 an eye that prefers a softer beauty will not search in vain, for 
 there will be softer beauty in heaven. An ear that delights in 
 loftier symphonies will not be unregaled, for in heaven there 
 will be the lofty symphonies of angels’ song; and an ear 
 that prefers a simpler melody will not be unregaled, for in 
 heaven there will be the simple melody of infant voices. 
 Those that rejoice in vastness of prospect will find it in the 
 celestial plains; while those that are fond rather to gaze on 
 some sequestered nook of retired loveliness will find many 
 
heaven: the place. 
 
 such among the trees which fringe the banks of the river 
 of life, which flows through the celestial paradise. 
 
 The multitude gathered into one home will indeed be so 
 great that no man can number them. There will be groups 
 from every period in earth’s history; denizens from every clime 
 of its triple zones; and representatives of every rank in social 
 life. There will be those of every grade of mental endow¬ 
 ments—prophets, apostles, philosophers, sages, and simple 
 swains; and those of every stage in human life—ancestors, 
 fathers, youths, and little children. Were so great a multi¬ 
 tude anywhere else than in heaven, their tastes would be 
 very heterogeneous; now, however, these have been harmon¬ 
 ised by their all being made perfect in holiness; yet will the 
 harmony not be that of sameness, but of diversity; and there 
 will be sufficient variety of physical aspect to employ and 
 please them all. Even the children will find their congenial 
 obj ects. And I sometimes feel as if out of the mouth of babes 
 we might do well to hear with more reverence their simple 
 and unsophisticated notions of heaven. A mother may 
 scarce refrain a smile, when after a walk in the country, her 
 child suddenly asks her, Will there be flowers and singing- 
 birds in the better land? But, who can tell but this child- 
 dream of heaven may be realised in a way that neither we 
 nor that mother have thought of. That if not exactly such 
 as these, her little one, if taken away, shall still have its 
 flowers; and shall listen, if not to the song of birds, yet to 
 notes which to it will sound the same. 
 
 2. The variety in the physical aspects of heaven will he 
 harmonised in unity. It is the blending of its many parts 
 into one harmonious whole, its varied forms into one full 
 symmetry, its many-toned sounds into one swelling harmony, 
 and its many hued-colours into one rich combination, that 
 
12G 
 
 heaven: the place. 
 
 makes this earth so fair and exquisite as it is. Mere variety 
 is not pleasing. It confuses, bewilders, and distracts. But 
 it is very different when there is unity in the variety. Have 
 you ever listened of a summer’s eve, when the murmur from 
 the brook, and the vesper-song of birds, and the gentle rust¬ 
 ling of the tree-leaves, and the half-hushed echoes of the 
 village voices, stole upon your ear, sound linked with sound, 
 in a sort of choral symphony? Or have you gazed on some 
 mountain sloping down as if to embrace the valley, and the 
 valley rising up as if to meet the mountain half way; while 
 the woodland is hanging over the rivulet, and the rivulet is 
 gliding softly through the woodland, till, if the mountain or 
 the valley, the woodland or the streamlet "were away, you 
 would feel that the landscape wanted something? 
 
 Now, if on this inferior planet of ours, the great Decorator 
 has been at such care to harmonise its manifold variety, can 
 we doubt that it will be so in that celestial land on which we 
 have reason to suppose He has expended all the resources of 
 his infinite art? Is there harmony here, and will there be 
 discord there? Orderly combinations here, and there con¬ 
 fusion? Unity here, and there the want of it? We cannot 
 believe that this will be the case. Indeed, the very simili¬ 
 tudes by which we have seen heaven to be represented show 
 that it will not be the case. It is a world, a country, a city, 
 a garden, a dwelling place: a world, and in that a country— 
 a country, and in that a city—a city, and in that a garden— 
 a garden, and in that a dwelling place. How natural the 
 gradation! How orderly they arrange! With what ease 
 each falls into the other! It is even as if you had a series of 
 concentric circles—one circumference enclosing many, and 
 one centre common to all. 
 
 3. The physical aspects of heaven , whether in their varieties 
 
heaven: the place. 
 
 127 
 
 or in their unity, will he surpassingly magnificent. When¬ 
 ever the sacred writers descant on the visible glories of 
 heaven, the images which they select are of the most beauti¬ 
 ful and very grandest description. There are the choicest 
 
 * 
 
 landscapes—the most gorgeous architecture—the most ex¬ 
 quisite music—and the sweetest fragrance. There are also 
 royal crowns—palm-branches of victory—the harper’s lyre, 
 and that of purest gold—the sheen of precious stones—and 
 white robes, such are worn at bridal feast. Such are the 
 emblems, if not the realities themselves, of the visible glories 
 of heaven; and they are most profusely scattered over it; for 
 even the gates of the celestial city are composed of precious 
 stones, its walls are thick studded with them, and its very 
 streets are paved with pure gold; while along these streets there 
 flows the river of life, and on either side of that river the tree 
 of life hangs its branches, laden with twelve manner of fruit. 
 
 But what, even more than the splendour of the description, 
 conveys to us an idea of the exceeding magnificence of heaven 
 are the particular specimens of earthly magnificence which 
 the sacred writers have selected when emblematising it. Is 
 it to be described as a country—as a city—as a garden; then 
 it is not every country, or every city, or every garden that 
 will suffice for its earthly type. But the country which 
 must be chosen is Canaan—that land-of brightest skies, and 
 loveliest landscapes, and richest fertility—which God himself 
 selected to be the country of his own peculiar people. And 
 the city which must be chosen is Jerusalem—the city of the 
 great King—“ beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole 
 earth.” And the garden which must be chosen is that first 
 paradise—first and fairest—which the Creator himself had 
 planted expressly to be the garden-home of our happy parents. 
 And, yet, though the specimens selected are of the very rarest 
 
128 
 
 heaven: the place 
 
 order of beauty and magnificence which the earth could fur¬ 
 nish, how immeasurably are they excelled by their heavenly 
 archetypes. Take one of them by way of illustration, 
 and let it be the choicest of them all—even the paradise 
 which bloomed in the summer-tide of the earth’s unsullied 
 loveliness. Never since has garden spread such beauties to 
 the sun—and yet how infinitely the celestial paradise excels 
 it. For in this is no forbidden tree—no serpent ambushed 
 among the houghs—no impending curse to blight its beauties 
 —and, instead of the tree of life confined to its centre, the 
 extended branches stretch along either side of the winding 
 river of life—and, instead of a single pair, a multitude which 
 no man can number walk the bou r ers of this better Eden— 
 and, instead of the shadowed glory of descended Deity, there 
 is the unveiled brightness of ever present Godhead; and He 
 who never honoured the first paradise by his sacred footsteps 
 shall be in the second paradise, to lead his glorified brethren 
 to its choicest spots, which He himself has prepared for them. 
 
 But what, perhaps, conveys even still more an idea of thQ 
 surpassing beauty and goodliness of the heavenly w r orld are 
 those differences in physical condition and aspect, which, 
 while taking their images from the earth, the sacred writers 
 point out between it and the earth. Thus, while our planet 
 is an orb of light and darkness—its diurnal period made up 
 half of day and half of night—they tell us that there is to 
 be neither darkness nor night in heaven. Then in heaven 
 there are no revolving seasons, at least there is no winter 
 there, with its boreal blasts scattering sere leaves, or with its 
 icy breath of frosts congealing the limpid streams. Neither 
 are there zones of varying temperature in heaven, as there 
 are upon the earth; for no arctic circles enclosing ice fields of 
 desolation girdle the poles of the celestial world, nor are 
 
heaven: the place. 
 
 129 
 
 there arid deserts scorched by tne rays of a tropical sun. 
 And there is no sea in heaven. No doubt its oceans add to 
 the picturesqueness and sublimity of the earth, yet is there 
 many a spot of sea-less beauty, where the booming waves are 
 
 never missed—and where the inhabitants feel that even with- 
 
 % 
 
 out an ocean the earth might still be clothed with a beauty 
 the most picturesque and sublime. And then the ocean has 
 unquestionably its drawbacks; for the terrestrial continents 
 are broken up and divided—and there be lonely islets cut 
 off from the mother land by dangerous channels—and there 
 be wave-worn beaches among which dwells the spirit of 
 storms, where we must hang forth the beacon light to warn 
 off the unwary vessel from the perilous headland—and there 
 be sandy shores whose surf-beaten furrows yield no harvest 
 except of sea-wrack—and there be scattered colonies and 
 divided emigrants, instead of the great family gathered into 
 one. The romance of ocean is one thing—its stern realities 
 are very different. Write its history, and you might dip 
 your pen in the tears of widows and of orphans, and wind up 
 every chapter with “ the cry of some strong swimmer in his 
 agony.” But in heaven there will be no melancholy waves 
 sounding the dirges of the drowned; for there is no sea there. 
 
 We have dwelt thus long on the physical aspects of heaven, 
 or the appearances of the place, because we feel persuaded 
 that the sacred writers would not have described them with 
 so much minuteness as they do, unless they were intended 
 to serve some important use. And it is not difficult to see 
 what that use is to be—even to minister to that physical 
 eujoyment of which we will once more be capable, when 
 our bodies have been restored to us in the full bloom and 
 vigour of immortality. It were strange, indeed, if with an 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 heaven: the place. 
 
 eye that can delight in beauty, man were to find no beauty 
 in that elysium where he is to spend his eternal years. 
 Strange, if with an ear that can relish sweet sounds, he were to 
 find no music among the groves of that paradise where he is 
 to walk for evermore. Surely it were better for him to 
 remain always a disembodied spirit, if heaven is a mere aerial 
 abode of dimness and mystery. Better that his eye which 
 death had closed, and his ear which was shut in the grave, 
 were never opened again, if the new heavens and the new 
 earth are destitute of those sensible glories which he found 
 so profusely scattered over the heavens and the earth which 
 were of old. We have no sympathy, therefore, with that 
 sheer idealism, or transcendental spiritualism, whether of 
 philosophy or of piety, which would strip heaven of all the 
 warm and sensible accompaniments that give such an expres¬ 
 sion of life, and colouring, and attractive scenery to our pre¬ 
 sent habitation; and which would not stop its process of 
 etherealising until it has attenuated all that is palpable to 
 the senses into a sort of spiritual phantasma, which were 
 meagre, and imperceptible, and utterly uninviting to the eye 
 of mortals here below. 
 
 We are well aware, while saying this, that the pleasures of 
 taste and imagination are not by any means the highest 
 pleasures of which a human soul is capable; and that it is 
 not by the outward senses our purest enjoyments can enter. 
 And it is a melancholy fact that while the chords of a 
 natural sensibility may be alive to the slightest touch of 
 beauty or of harmony, there may be no spiritual sensibility 
 giving forth its corresponding emotions. For it is not nature 
 by her magnificent originals, nor art by its magical imita¬ 
 tions, that can awaken a soul out of its spiritual insensibility. 
 These may present to it their most alluring images, and 
 
HEAVEN : THE PLACE. 
 
 131 
 
 address to it their most affecting appeals; yet will there 
 come from it no holy responses, any more than the loose and 
 broken strings of a harp will answer to the harper’s touch; 
 until the Spirit of God has again set right the instrument 
 which sin has so sadly disarranged. 
 
 Those, therefore, who yield themselves up to the fascination 
 
 which the beauties of nature and the charms of art throw 
 
 around their imagination and their taste, will do well to be 
 
 on their guard, lest they be allowing these to divert their 
 
 attention from more important concerns. And those whose 
 
 eye will kindle at the sight of beauty, and their bosoms 
 
 thrill at the voice of music, will also do well to beware lest 
 
 they confound what be the mere sensibilities of nature with 
 
 the sentiments of grace. But let it not be supposed that 
 
 the pleasures of sense may not be united with the pleasures 
 
 of spirituality; or that the appreciation of physical loveliness 
 
 is incompatible with a state of the most exalted piety. For 
 
 we know it to be otherwise. When an individual of a refined 
 
 natural taste and sensibility is renewed and sanctified by the 
 
 Divine Spirit, it is far from being the case that the beauties 
 
 of nature cease to afford him delight, or that her charms 
 
 become insipid to him. On the contrary, he now surveys 
 
 nature with a quickened eye, and relishes the scenery of her 
 
 * 
 
 landscapes with a fuller gusto. For now, which was not the 
 case with him before, God is seen in them all. The face of 
 nature is no longer to him as a veil to hide the glory of its 
 Creator, but it is as a lovely mirror in which he beholds the 
 reflections of that glory. Every flower, and tree, and moun¬ 
 tain—every fleecy cloud and shining star—are as the steps of 
 a material beauty, by which his soul can ascend to more vivid 
 conceptions of him who is the All-beautiful, the All-fair, the 
 All-good. 
 
132 
 
 HEAVEN I THE PLACE. 
 
 Now, if it be thus with a renewed soul upon the earth, 
 then how much a purer pleasure, and a more exalted enjoy¬ 
 ment, must spring up within that soul, when, itself made 
 perfect in holiness, it shall be able, by means of a body from 
 which every fleshy defilement has been purged away, to con¬ 
 template the visible glories of heaven: where every form will 
 entirely reflect the Creator’s image—every beam of light be 
 his shekinah—every sound the echo of his voice—everything 
 beautiful, the emblem of his greater beauty—and everything 
 sublime, of his more infinite sublimity. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE FUTURE EARTH. 
 
 What of the present earth, after the flames of the great con¬ 
 flagration shall have burnt it up ? Is it, as some suppose, 
 to be reduced to ashes, or to wander as a blackened planet, 
 drear and tenantless, through the wastes of space? Or is it, 
 as others conjecture, after its purgation by fire, to become f 
 the future heaven of redeemed man? We cannot well adopt 
 either of these suppositions. For, on the one hand, we 
 would be loath to suppose that a planet which has had so 
 eventful a history is to be flung away at last, as a blackened 
 ember, snatched from the fires of doom. But then, on the 
 other hand, we cannot see how an abode, which has yet to 
 be prepared for them, can be the heaven of the blessed, 
 when Christ expressly calls it “ a kingdom prepared for them 
 from the foundation of the world.” There appear to us, 
 besides, to be other weighty objections against the supposi¬ 
 tion that this earth is to be the permanent abode of the 
 redeemed. We do not see, for example, how they could all 
 be accommodated on it. No doubt, if there were no more 
 sea, the habitable area of our globe would be very nearly 
 quadrupled; and even with the present distribution of land 
 and water, it might be made capable of containing a vastly 
 greater number of inhabitants. There are immense tracts 
 of uncultivated wastes which might be reclaimed, and immense 
 stretches of desert which might be made to blossom as the 
 richest gardens of the tropics; and if the breath of summer 
 
134 
 
 THE FUTURE EARTH. 
 
 were made to blow warm round the poles, there are buge 
 ice-fields which might melt into green verdure. Still, even sup¬ 
 posing the great fire were to drink up all its oceans, and not 
 to leave a single rood of wilderness, we may doubt whether 
 even standing room would be found upon it for that multi¬ 
 tude which no man can number. Then we have to consider 
 the uranalogical position of the earth; how that it is as if 
 a far outlying orb, a sort of frontier planet, inconceivably 
 remote from the great central world, which is the peculiar 
 habitation of Deity. Now, for the redeemed to be sent back 
 permanently to the earth, would, we cannot help thinking, 
 be something like a virtual banishment from their Father’s 
 house. We are not forgetting that man’s physical nature 
 is to undergo a great transformation, by which his powers 
 of vision, of hearing, and of locomotion, will be immensely 
 increased. But even if his eye were to be so strengthened, 
 that looking up from the earth he could descry the seraph- 
 circled throne—and his ear were to be so quickened that it 
 could catch up the floated notes of the angels’ song—or 
 even if, as swiftly as he can now waft the wish, he were then 
 able to transport himself at will from earth to heaven, and back 
 from heaven to earth—or even supposing that between the 
 upper and the lower paradise there were to be opened up modes 
 of communication, analogous, shall we say, to the electric 
 wires by which even at present messages are made to fly, as 
 on the lightning’s wing—even granting all this, it scarcely 
 consists with our idea of the redeemed going to dwell with 
 Christ in his Father’s house, if they were permanently to 
 reside on this lower planet. 
 
 Dut if we do not see our way to adopt the opinion that 
 this earth is to be man’s future heaven, so neither can we 
 reconcile ourselves to the belief that it is either to become a 
 
THE FUTURE EARTH. 
 
 135 
 
 heap of aslies, which whirlwinds might scatter on the fields 
 of space—or to be left to wander as a drift-planet, like a 
 burnt-out ship deserted of its crew, whose blackened hulk is 
 the sport of the waves. Its past history will not allow us 
 to entertain this idea, nor even the idea that man is to have 
 no more connection with it after the final judgment. For 
 as geology informs us, the terrestrial house took immense 
 periods to prepare it for its human tenant; and we cannot 
 easily suppose that a mansion which was millions of years in 
 building is to stand only for a few thousand years. And 
 geology also informs us that the sepulchres of the ancient 
 earth were reclaimed from the empire of death to become 
 once more the abodes of the living; so that we cannot 
 but think that the sepulchres of the modern earth will 
 also be reclaimed, not merely by their being emptied of 
 the bodies which they contained, but by its being again con¬ 
 verted into a habitation for the living. Then we know, from 
 the sacred record, that this earth, as a lost or forfeited 
 patrimony, has been redeemed by the Elder Brother for 
 those sons and daughters of the family, who are themselves 
 redeemed by him; for the meek shall inherit the earth. 
 But is the ancestral inheritance to be restored to them 
 only as “a vale of tears”—a w T orld.they often sigh to get 
 out of? Or yet again, we cannot bring ourselves to imagine 
 that a world which has been the birth-place of the Son of 
 God, and the theatre of human redemption, is, just at the 
 time when the work of redemption will be shining out in its 
 brightest glories, to be blotted out from the firmament, as one 
 would blot out from his memoranda some idle jotting which 
 had best be forgotten. 
 
 There no doubt occur certain expressions in connection 
 with the great conflagration, which, if literally interpreted, 
 
136 
 
 THE FUTURE EAETH. 
 
 would imply the utter extinction of the earth. But then, in 
 that case, it is not the earth alone that is to perish, but 
 along with it the entire firmament of stars. If ruin is to 
 wrap the one planet, then its innumerable sister planets are 
 to share the same fate. For the like catastrophe, whatever 
 it may be, we are expressly told, is to overtake the heavens 
 and the earth. “ But the day of the Lord will come as a 
 thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away 
 with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
 heat, the earth'also and the works that are therein shall be 
 burnt up.” (2 Pet. iii. 10.) “And I saw a great white 
 throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth 
 and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for 
 them.” (Rev. xx. 11.) 
 
 Now, surely any such universal devastation, as would be 
 implied in the extinction of the earth and the heavens, is 
 not for a moment to be thought of. But we must rather 
 seek for an interpretation of those passages which will recon¬ 
 cile with the conservation of the sidereal universe, and, if so, 
 then also with the conservation of the earth. That interpre¬ 
 tation would appear obviously to be this: that the sacred 
 writers describe the ocular appearances, which, amid fire, 
 and smoke, and noise, the heavens will assume. They will 
 not literally pass away, but will only seem to do so. In like 
 manner, while the earth will seem as if it were being anni¬ 
 hilated in the furnace flames, it will not actually be so. 
 
 If the language of Scripture is carefully and candidly con¬ 
 sidered, it will, we think, be found to warrant the expecta¬ 
 tion that, after the dissolution of its present framework, this 
 earth will again be decked out anew, in all the graces of its 
 unfading verdure, and of its boundless variety. “The 
 heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements 
 
THE FUTURE EARTH. 
 
 137 
 
 shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless we, according to 
 his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness.” (2 Pet. iii. 12, 13.) 
 
 Observe, there is still to be an earth. A “new” earth it 
 is called ; but can this mean an earth created out of nothing—• 
 one with which we have no historical associations—no hal¬ 
 lowed memories—on which we never set foot, and whose 
 landscapes our eyes had never beheld? For what could be 
 the supposable uses, to us at least, of such an earth as this? 
 What possible interest could we feel in it? How could its 
 existence, or its aspects however glorious, add to our happi¬ 
 ness? We might miss the old earth, for with it many a 
 memory most hallowed is linked; but I cannot conceive, 
 amid the multiplicity of brighter planets which will be 
 clustered round us, what need there would be for this new 
 earth, if it is merely to fill up the hand-breadth of space 
 which had been left empty by the annihilation of the old. 
 No; this “new” earth must be our own old earth renewed 
 or renovated after its purification by fire. And is it to be 
 thus renewed simply that it may shine as a pale planet in 
 the sky? We cannot think so. But to what use then is it 
 to be put? It may not, as we have said, be the heaven or 
 the permanent abode of the redeemed ; but suppose it to be 
 a province or colony of the celestial continent—say that 
 bands or companies of the redeemed are occasionally to alight 
 upon it—as happy pilgrims not unwilling to revisit the 
 planet of their nativity; and that it will never be entirely 
 without some of these. How much it might help to increase 
 the gratitude and the love even of the redeemed, if they were 
 thus at times to frequent each sacred spot—that especially 
 where the Saviour was born, and those also where they them¬ 
 selves v'ere born again! Is it saying too much that they 
 
138 
 
 THE FUTUEE EAETH. 
 
 would return to heaven to wake up their harps to louder 
 praise, after having talked over the story of redemption in 
 the world where it was achieved, and -after having renewed 
 old associations beside the places with which they are enlinked 
 in their memories? 
 
X. 
 
 HEAVEN: THE STATE. 
 
 Having spoken of heaven as a place, we now proceed to 
 speak of it as a state. 
 
 And here we not only feel ourselves to be on firmer ground, 
 Scripture being more explicit and copious in its statements; 
 but we also feel that instead of having to ascend, as it were 
 by an effort of the imagination into an untrodden region, 
 heaven by the aid of a present experience is brought down 
 to us. Of the material glories of the heavenly place all that 
 we can find on the earth are their emblems only—their sym¬ 
 bols, or dim foreshadowings. But of the spiritual glory of 
 the heavenly state, it is not the emblems merely, but its very 
 essence, that we are to seek for in this our present state. 
 Death may usher us into an entirely different scene from 
 any that we have ever beheld; but death will not create in 
 us an entirely new character from that which we now possess. 
 
 i 
 
 It may be that the earth, with all its beauties, does not con¬ 
 tain the materials out of which any one of the celestial land¬ 
 scapes could be wrought; but unless our present happiness 
 contains within it the materials of the future happiness, that 
 happiness can never be ours. For heaven, as a state, is not a 
 commencement, but a consummation. Holiness, piety, love, 
 humility, which are the elements in the character of the 
 righteous in a state of glory, do not begin there to spring up 
 from the seed; but are as the sapling which has been trans¬ 
 planted into a more genial soil. 
 
 t 
 
14:0 
 
 heaven: the state. 
 
 Thus, then, in conceiving of heaven as a state, we have 
 more of actual experience to go upon than when we have to 
 conceive of it as a place. But at the same time there are 
 aspects of the heavenly happiness revealed to us in Scrip¬ 
 ture, which our present experience enables us to realise 
 rather by contrast than by comparison. We would, there¬ 
 fore, begin our description of heaven, as a state, by referring 
 to what may be called a new experience. 
 
 The Bible-descriptions of the heavenly state might seem 
 almost to be contradictory. For at one time they set it forth 
 as so entirely different from anything we have ever had 
 observation or experience of, that one may scarcely form even 
 a conception of it. While at another time they represent it 
 as bearing a close resemblance, in some respects approaching 
 almost to identity, with the holy experience of the saints on 
 earth; as if here they had the foretaste, and in heaven the 
 fruition, of an enjoyment, which differs not so much in kind 
 as in degree. 
 
 But you will see that there is really no contradiction 
 between these representations, if you consider how much it 
 depends on the character of the individual himself, what 
 impressions the outward aspect and circumstances of a place 
 are to make upon him. It has justly been said that true 
 happiness has no locality. For where there is inward peace 
 and contentment the very wilderness will seem clothed with 
 verdure; while discontent or a guilty conscience are enough 
 to people a paradise with frighting phantoms. An Elijah 
 could find happiness, when a hermit on the solitary banks 
 of Cherith, and a John equal happiness, when a prisoner on 
 Patinos’ rocky isle; while an Ahab was fretting himself 
 with spleen in his royal palace, and a Nero was haunted by 
 the spectres of a guilty memory in his imperial halls. 
 
heaven: the state. 
 
 141 
 
 ) 
 
 Now, though in its aspects and material accompaniments, 
 heaven may not be so unlike this present earth as many 
 apprehend it; yet, owing to one point of dissimilarity, they 
 will be so totally unlike, as if they did not possess one single 
 feature in common. And that point of total dissimilarity 
 will be found in the character of the inhabitants. Those 
 who are living on the earth are sinful beings; the inmates 
 of heaven are beings altogether sinless. And while we are 
 far from saying that the two places are identical; for the 
 imagery of heaven is surpassingly more splendid than is the 
 imagery of the earth; and the glories of a visible creation 
 shine with a far greater variety and beauty in the celestial 
 than they do in the terrestrial firmament; yet this alone 
 would by no means account for the very great difference of 
 feeling and emotion with which the two places will be con¬ 
 templated. Were it possible for a dweller on the earth, who 
 has been born again of the Spirit, but with his sanctification 
 still incomplete, to be transported to heaven, we. believe he 
 would feel himself at a loss to discover wherein lies the so 
 great superiority which he expected to find in it over the 
 earth which he has just left. And why so? Because he 
 would be looking on the celestial glories through the medium 
 of his own mental impurity, and his impressions of these 
 glories would be mixed up with the notions of his own sin¬ 
 fulness. But we know that, before any human soul is to 
 enter heaven, every vestige of moral impurity will have been 
 removed from it; and also when the bodies which are to 
 occupy heaven shall be raised from the tomb, that there will 
 
 not be found remaining in them a single taint of physical 
 
 / 
 
 defilement; and, therefore, we are not surprised that the 
 same Scriptures which tell us this should represent heaven 
 as that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart 
 
142 
 
 heaven: the state. 
 
 of man conceived. For here is an eye such as we never had 
 to look with before, even an eye which is spotless in its 
 vision as God’s own; and here is an ear such as we never 
 had before to listen with, even an ear in which unrighteous¬ 
 ness does not breathe a single discord; and here is a mind 
 such as we never had before with which to conceive, even a 
 mind which is altogether holy, and, therefore, in perfect uni¬ 
 son with the mind of Him who is the thrice Holy One. 
 
 This, indeed, will he a new experience to us—to be 
 without sin ; in soul and in body to be altogether with¬ 
 out it; not to have a vestige of it even remaining in us. 
 No wonder, then, if we can barely form a conception of how 
 outward objects will appear to us, or how they will affect 
 us, when we, who have never cast a glance hut sin obscured, 
 and never felt an emotion hut sin more or less disturbed, 
 shall have a character of absolute sinlessness. No wonder, 
 indeed, if we can hut dimly and partially conceive of such a 
 state, when the very minds by which we have to form the 
 conception are themselves still mantled by the darkness, 
 and misguided by the delusions, of that sinfulness, which 
 ever cleaves to us as long as we are here, hut from which we 
 shall then he entirely delivered. 
 
 A PARADISE OF SPIRITUALITY. 
 
 If any thought that, when describing the physical aspects 
 of heaven, we presented it only as a paradise of sense, let 
 these now learn that it is also, and greatly more so, a para¬ 
 dise of spirituality ; that it is not the mere circumstances 
 or the outward conditions of the place, but the qualities, 
 which make up the character of the inmates, that 'will con¬ 
 stitute the blessedness of the celestial world; not the orderly 
 movements of its material mechanism, but the rightly- 
 
HEAVEN : THE STATE. 
 
 143 
 
 adjusted movements of their moral nature; not the sym¬ 
 phonies of its audible music, but the harmony of their holy 
 affections; not the grandeur of its outward magnificence, 
 but the inward graces of their spiritual mindedness. Could 
 we conceive a human soul which, on leaving the body, has 
 carried along with it the elements of its carnal and corrupt 
 nature, to be admitted into heaven, how could it possibly 
 find itself at home in a place which is so entirely the oppo¬ 
 site of all its former resorts? or how could it feel itself drawn 
 to associates who, both in their character and their occupa¬ 
 tions, are so completely different from its former companions? 
 And if we could conceive the body, which this unsanctified 
 soul once animated, to be raised again as it was buried— 
 corruptible, dishonoured, weak—and the two when re-united, 
 to be admitted into heaven, what conceivable enjoyment 
 could such a being find there? A music, which is a mere 
 harmony of sounds, he might perhaps relish; but a music, 
 which is a hymn of perpetual praise, would soon become 
 intolerable to him. The crown of immortality he might 
 perhaps be willing to wear, but to cast it, as these others are 
 doing, at the feet of Immanuel, as alone worthy to wear it, 
 this would be humiliating to him. When he sees the bright 
 company of the illustrious magnates of glory, he might per¬ 
 haps feel an ambition to be enrolled among their number; 
 but when he discovered that their only renown is their being 
 sinners saved by grace, and their only desire is to serve Him 
 who redeemed them, then in their company he would feel 
 himself as companionless as any hermit in his unsocial cell. 
 He would be ready to wish for the shades of evening and 
 the silence of night to shut out these sights and to suspend 
 these sounds, which are a weariness to him; and when told 
 that there is no evening, no night, in heaven, then would he 
 
144 
 
 IIEAYEN : THE STATE. 
 
 desire to be out of a place, and away from a society, with 
 which he has no congenial assimilation, nor any one sym¬ 
 pathy in common. 
 
 Now, that which would make heaven so distasteful to the 
 unholy is the very essence of its sweetest and its most rap¬ 
 turous transports to the holy. Even that while it is a 
 paradise of sense, where the glories and the beauties of a 
 material magnificence, and the riches of a material abun¬ 
 dance, minister to their physical enjoyment, these, after 
 all, are only the accessories, and not the essence of their 
 happiness. For their pleasures will be spiritual rather than 
 sensuous; and hence their joy will be as a well of living 
 water springing up within them, from the love and possession 
 of spiritual excellence, and not as a stream flowing, from 
 without, except as the small tributary helps to sv r ell the 
 current of the mighty river, or as the summer shower 
 mingles its falling drops with the full-brimmed ocean. 
 
 And it is in this that we discover the immeasurable supe¬ 
 riority of the heaven which the Bible reveals over those 
 heavens which man has attempted to create for himself. In 
 the former, we have altogether a loftier conception of happi¬ 
 ness ; in the latter, only a low conception enlarged. Itevela- 
 tion prepares us for a new experience; imagination simply 
 repeats, in a richer colouring, the old. Hence it may easily 
 be seen the sort of a heaven which man would work out of 
 his past experiences. What has pained or displeased him, 
 he will drop out of the picture; and what has afforded him 
 pleasure he will retain. The latter, seen through the magni¬ 
 fying glass of the imagination, is to constitute his heaven. 
 No matter how low soever the pleasures may be, if he can 
 only make them large enough, they suffice to constitute the 
 ultimatum of his wishes as tb the future. After this fashion 
 
heaven: the state. 
 
 1-15 
 
 mankind have set to create for themselves manifold heavens. 
 And as the tiling created can never be of a higher nature 
 than that which creates it, these heavens which a carnal 
 imagination has created are all mere paradises of sense— 
 some of them paradises of sensuality. Our warlike pagan 
 ancestors were wont to listen to their hards, while they sang 
 in runic strains of a heaven which rang with the clash of 
 arms, and after victory with the riot of revelry. The chase- 
 loving aborigines of the western continent have their tradi¬ 
 tions of the happy hunting grounds, where the braves of the 
 tribe, after death, are to renew their wild adventures of the 
 forest. The false prophet of Mecca, knowing the voluptuous 
 temperament of his followers, promised them a heaven 
 where they would drink nectared wines, and would listen 
 to the songs of the daughters of Paradise, and he 
 attended by houris, beings of resplendent beauty and 
 immortal youth. 
 
 If the comparison shall not be thought too insignificant for 
 such a subject, the heaven which man creates for himself is 
 as the feast which one might prepare for an epicure; as if 
 you said, here is simply an animal with a fastidious palate, let 
 then the dishes be of the highest flavour, and the wines of the 
 richest vintage, and no more is needed; your guest has come 
 merely to eat and drink, or, in softer phrase, to enjoy the 
 luxuries of the table; and anything in the shape of “ the 
 feast of reason or the flow of soul” would only interrupt his 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Such, in sooth, seems very much to be the estimate at 
 
 which man lias been content to rate himself in picturing 
 
 his future heaven. Sinking his intellectual nature in great 
 
 measure and his spiritual nature entirely out of view, he has 
 
 allowed imagination to set him down as a mere creature cf 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 HEAVEN .* THE STATE. 
 
 sense—an epicure or voluptuary of some sort—and to pro¬ 
 vide a heaven for him accordingly. 
 
 But how very different from this is the heaven of the 
 Bible. There, indeed, man’s sensuous nature, if we except 
 what is merely animal, is not ignored; but it is his higher 
 nature which is chiefly to he attended to. And' mark the 
 gmazing difference which results from this. First, of course, 
 the enjoyments are of an infinitely higher order; but, 
 secondly, they are also such as assume the supremacy of 
 character, or that true happiness is an elixir which is dis¬ 
 tilled from the alembic of a man’s own moral nature. There 
 may be certain external accompaniments necessary to evolve 
 it; just as, in the case of fragrant flowers, there must he the 
 sunshine, and the showers, and the breath of winds. . But it 
 is not these which eliminate the aroma, else would every 
 flower have the same odour, and the blade of grass, on which 
 the same sun shines, and the same showers fall, and the same 
 winds blow, be as sweet-scented as the violet. Nay, so much 
 does it depend on a vital chemistry, and the internal appara¬ 
 tus of the plant itself, that while the balm-tree is extracting 
 its healing balsam, the wormwood is decocting bitterness, 
 and the hemlock poison, from the same external elements. 
 Even so will it be with the happiness of heaven. Outward 
 circumstances may modify it, but inward character will make 
 it. “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but 
 
 righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” 
 
 0 
 
 NO MORE TEARS. 
 
 The absence of bodily pain to the healthy is only a nega¬ 
 tive enjoyment, a non-feeling, if we may say so, of which 
 they seldom trouble themselves to think. But to the invalid, 
 who is subject to the paroxysms of some excruciating malady. 
 
heaven: the state. 
 
 147 
 
 relief from pain amounts to a positive pleasure; and much 
 more so is this the case when the suffering is on the mind. 
 We take it to he the same in heaven. For, in the case of 
 the angels, who never shed a tear, nor ever knew what it 
 is to feel a pang, we do not suppose that the absence of 
 sorrow and suffering can amount to a positive enjoyment, 
 or otherwise contribute to their blessedness, except on the 
 maxim that “ignorance is bliss.” But to their human associ¬ 
 ates, who have come from a vale of tears, to have to weep no 
 more, and whose sufferings have abounded, to be altogether 
 free from pain, and whose life had been one prolonged 
 struggle and weary toil, to be now at rest, this will be posi¬ 
 tive happiness. Even in this life we have some experience 
 of the rapturous joy which will rush into the breast on the 
 departure of grief or terror; but this experience can only 
 very faintly shadow forth what those in heaven must feel, 
 from whom all fears, all griefs, all pains have passed away, 
 entirely and for ever. They will never shed another tear, 
 will never have another pain. The past, with its sorrows, 
 its struggles, its privations, its fears, and those tremulous 
 hopes, which are even more painful than fear, is gone for 
 ever; and the future will be without not only the presence, 
 but even the presentiment, of sorrow or suffering of any kind. 
 
 No tears in heaven! How much is included in these few 
 words! There are no bodily ailments there; no poverty or 
 privation there; no sick chamber, or dying bed, or grave¬ 
 yard there; no weariness, or fatigue, or night-watchings 
 there; no sad adieus or hurried partings there; no domestic 
 unhappiness, or estranged friendships, or breath of slander, 
 or wounding word there; no mental disorders or perturba¬ 
 tions there; nothing, in short, that could start a tear or 
 move a sigh will be there. 
 
/ 
 
 IIS HEAVEN : THE STATE. 
 
 The language, however, in which the Scriptures express 
 the complete deliverance of the inhabitants of heaven from 
 all their former sufferings and sorrows is peculiar. We might 
 have expected to hear that God had wiped away their tears; 
 but what we are told is, that “ God shall wipe away all 
 tears from their eyesas if we are to imagine that a 
 tear might start, or a dim suffusion spread, in the eyes even 
 of the redeemed, not at anything which can happen in 
 heaven itself, but when some saddened memory of the past 
 has flitted up before them. But if it were possible for a tear 
 to start, it will not be allowed to fall; for God shall wipe it 
 away. Or if a sad memory could be supposed for a moment 
 to shade their happiness, it will instantly dispel as a thin 
 summer cloud, when the sunshine appears the brighter from 
 the momentary obscuration. 
 
 It is a point on which one can hardly refrain from specu¬ 
 lating, What will be the effect of memory upon the blessed¬ 
 ness of the redeemed? There are certain reminiscences 
 which it is easy to see will increase their happiness; for such 
 is their effect upon us even here. But there are other 
 reminiscences, which, w T ere they to come up hereafter—and 
 one can scarcely suppose that they will not come up—it 
 is difficult to see how they will not bring along with them 
 a shade of sadness. We are to bear in mind, however, that 
 as in heaven we will look with other eyes upon the present, 
 so with other eyes we will look back upon the past. With 
 regard to the sins which we have committed upon the earth, 
 
 I cannot imagine but that we will remember them in heaven, 
 and probably with a far more vivid impression of their 
 enormity than we had at the time or afterwards. It is, 
 indeed, true that these transgressions will have been blotted 
 out from the book of God’s remembrance, so that He will 
 
heaven: the state. 
 
 149 
 
 not charge or upbraid us with them any more for ever; yet, 
 and just because God has been so generous as to forget 
 them, we ourselves will not be equally forgetful. Doubtless 
 memory will at times see them rise out of the waves of 
 oblivion which had rolled over them; but, instead of stand¬ 
 ing aghast at the sight, I can imagine memory rather to be 
 filled with triumphant joy, and, like another Miriam, to touch 
 the timbrel, and raise the song of victory; for these which 
 the sea has given up are not the living bodies, but the 
 drowned corpses of those enemies who, instead of the slayers, 
 are themselves the slain. 
 
 hope’s fruition. 
 
 He who has sung in so mellifluous numbers of the pleasures 
 of natural hope has confessed that it is distance which lends 
 enchantment to her view. And how often is the prospect 
 brighter than the reality! For the gossamer visions, which 
 anticipation weaves with its airy threads, will seldom bear the 
 rough handling of actual experience; and not always from the 
 real substance do the shadows which it gilds take their 
 aureate hues. While painting the Hesperides of Hope as a 
 garden of golden fruit, the Greek 1 poets did well to make 
 it be watched by a dragon. And the fabled tree of the 
 desert, whose apples tempt the pilgrim with their luscious 
 clusters at a distance, but which turn to dust in his 
 hand, is no inapt similitude of the difference between hope 
 and reality. 
 
 But Christian hope also has its visions—its visions espe¬ 
 cially of the future glory. And are these likewise doomed 
 to disappointment? Will the reality here fall short of the pro¬ 
 spect? When distance has given place to proximate vision, 
 will the enchantment be dissolved ? Far from this indeed. 
 
150 
 
 heaven: the state. 
 
 For the brightest vision which hope ever was able to weave 
 of the heavenly state, when compared with that state itself, 
 will fall more immeasurably short of it than does the first 
 gray stripe of morning dawn come short of the full splendour 
 of the meridian sun; or than the bit of paint-work by which 
 the artist attempts to imitate the iris of the sky comes short 
 of the glorious hues of the bow itself when it spans the cloud. 
 If, therefore, Christian hope is destined also to disappoint¬ 
 ment, it will not be with the heavenly realities, but with 
 itself that it will feel disappointed,—that it had formed so dim 
 and inadequate an anticipation of them. 
 
 We believe every man presents to himself some certain 
 happiness which he fondly anticipates will be Ms heaven; 
 and that every man images to himself some certain misery 
 which above all else he would dread as Ms hell. This ideal 
 of perfect bliss, however, is variously pictured by hope, 
 and this ideal of misery variously foreshadowed by fear, 
 according to the temperament and the condition of the indi¬ 
 vidual. To the man of action the prevailing idea of heaven 
 is one of activity. To the toiled and work-weary it is one 
 of rest. The invalid on his tossed pillow is fond to think of 
 it, as that land where the inhabitants shall none of them say 
 that he is ever sick. It fills the exile’s dreams as the happy 
 country where all are citizens. To the mourners at the tomb 
 it is the future home where death-divided friends shall be 
 re-united. Thus does hope dip its pencil in the colours of 
 the breast when it would picture forth the blessedness of 
 heaven. “ My chief conception of heaven,” said Eobert Hall, 
 a sufferer from the first to the ]ast hour of his pilgrimage, 
 “ my chief conception of heaven is rest.” “ Mine,” exclaimed 
 the amiable Wilberforce, “is love; love to God and love to 
 every bright and happy inhabitant of that glorious place.” 
 
heaven: the state. 
 
 151 
 
 And both were right; for to the weary heaven is rest, and 
 to the loving it is love. Even as does hope, so inspiration 
 itself has dipt its pencil in the colours of the breast when it 
 would paint the blessedness of heaven; for it gives to it the 
 hues with which the minds of those to whom it presents it, 
 would be most fain to invest it. To the pilgrim fathers, who 
 found no fixed dwelling place in the wilderness, heaven was 
 presented as a country, a land of rest where the pilgrim’s 
 wanderings would cease. To the Israelites, whose highest 
 distinction was to be the descendants of the great patriarch 
 of their nation, heaven was presented as being in Abraham’s 
 bosom. To the apostles of Christ, who had given up all to 
 follow him, leaving kindred and home for his sake, heaven 
 was presented as his Father’s house of many mansions, in 
 which He was to prepare a place for them. To those who 
 would have to mourn the downfall and desolation of Jerusa¬ 
 lem, the city where all their ancestral memories and all 
 their hallowed associations centred, heaven was presented as 
 the new Jerusalem. To those whose eyes were familiar 
 with the gardens of the East, with the vine-clad valleys 
 and cedar-crowned mountains of these lands of the sun, 
 heaven was presented as the paradise of God. To the thief 
 on the cross, who was dying as an outcast from his race, 
 a felon whom his kindred would blush to ow T n, heaven was 
 presented as a state of social intercourse with the Saviour 
 himself. 
 
 Let Christian hope then be indulged in its varied visions 
 of the heavenly blessedness. Itebuke it not, ye w eary ones, 
 if it paints it as rest; nor, ye suffering ones, if it presents it 
 as the land where there are no tears; nor, ye loving ones, if it 
 portrays it as a state of perfect love. Each several antici¬ 
 pation will be realised; and if others shall find it more than 
 
152 
 
 heaven: the state. 
 
 you anticipated, then, though it will be to them what they 
 hoped for, not any the less to you will it be that special hap¬ 
 piness for which you longed. 
 
 THE GLORY THAT EXCELLETH. 
 
 That any of a race, which is the offspring of parents who 
 were outcasts from an earthly paradise, should be admitted 
 into the heavenly habitations, even were the position assigned 
 them the very low r est place—a menial’s place, if such there 
 be in God’s own house — were an honour unspeakably beyond 
 what we might have ventured to anticipate. And what shall 
 we say, then, if these were to be admitted to a rank equal, 
 nay, superior to that of the angels—and were to be treated 
 not as servants, but as sons—and were to have assigned them 
 not a seat upon the footstool, but on the throne itself, which 
 the glorified Redeemer occupies, and were to be installed as 
 kings and priests to reign with him for evermore. Such a 
 vicissitude of fortune as this might well have been regarded 
 as an ' extravagant dream of the imagination, did we not 
 know that it is actually to happen. Truth, it has been said, 
 is often stranger than fiction; and if we might apply such a 
 saying to the case before us, assuredly it will have its ample 
 verification in the fortunes of the redeemed. For the out¬ 
 casts are to be received into the heavenly home—those who 
 had sold themselves as servants of unrighteousness are to 
 be exalted to the dignity of sons of God—the members of a 
 degraded race are to be raised not only to equality, but to a 
 rank higher than the angels; for these glorious beings, con¬ 
 fessing the superior dignity of the fraternal relation of the 
 redeemed to the Saviour, will open their ranks to allow them 
 nearer to his person than themselves. 
 
 Surely in comparison with this those vicissitudes of earthly 
 
heaven: the state. 
 
 153 
 
 fortune, by which peasants have risen to be princes, and 
 Eastern slaves to occupy the throne of the Sultan, sink into 
 insignificance. The most romantic dreams of fiction itself 
 are tame in comparison. It does not surprise us, therefore, 
 to find even an inspired apostle at a loss for words to describe 
 this amazing honour, this exceeding weight of glory. He 
 seems to have caught a glimpse of it, but when he would 
 have transferred it to his pages, the pen, though dipt in 
 heaven’s Own inspiration, was unequal to the task. “ It doth 
 not yet appear what we shall be.” Nor do we wonder to be 
 told that the redeemed themselves, as if overpowered with 
 the weight of honour that has been put upon them, are repre¬ 
 sented as snatching the crowns from their own unworthy 
 brows, to cast them at the feet of Immanuel. Ah! but for 
 this humility their honour would sit ill upon them. Even 
 when by his own talents, without a patron’s help, a man has 
 worked his way to distinction and fame, pride or self-com¬ 
 placency are as very spots of mildew on his laurels. And of 
 all most hateful forms of a hateful thing, is haughtiness in 
 one who, from being nobody, has risen to a high position. 
 What a spectacle then—were such a thing conceivable— 
 would pride be in heaven. Yes, indeed, what a spectacle if 
 man were proud there; he who was in the mire when God 
 took him by the hand, and who owes what he now is entirely 
 to sovereign grace. 
 
 That there will be degrees of glory in heaven is in accord¬ 
 ance alike with the dictates of natural reason and the decla¬ 
 rations of revelation. Yet will each be supremely blessed, 
 according to his capacity. To use a quaint illustration from 
 one of our old divines, the inhabitants of heaven will resem¬ 
 ble vessels of different measures; though some will hold 
 more than others, yet each will be full. And then, what 
 
154 
 
 heaven: the state. 
 
 indeed alone constitutes true honour, every one will be in his 
 proper place—of the rank which grace has fitted him to 
 adorn, and at the post which it has qualified him to fill. 
 And, further, there will be no jealousy in heaven. Neither 
 will the more exalted look down with scorn, nor the less 
 exalted look up with envy; but all will be fired with one 
 emulation to ascribe their honour to him who has redeemed 
 them. 
 
 By the prospect of an honour so exalted, I would fain 
 move those who are still seeking their honour of men, to be 
 done with chasing what is but a shadow, and to strive to 
 secure the enduring substance. And here I would make my 
 appeal to an instinct of our common nature; for thus low 
 would I come, if “ by any means I might gain some.” All 
 then do not expect fame; but all do desire that when their 
 dust is laid in the cold tomb, their memory may not be 
 buried along with it. The very hermit, who has sought to 
 be forgotten while he lives, flatters himself that the fawns 
 wiiich he has tamed to keep him company will at least miss, 
 if they cannot remember, him when he is dead. This desire 
 not to be forgotten is so much an instinct in our nature that it 
 will not extinguish. But why should we attempt to extin¬ 
 guish it? Why rather, if this prophetic spark from the 
 soul’s immortality can be fanned into a holy flame, not try 
 to fan it by the breath of revelation? Instead of curbing 
 this sublimest of nature’s aspirations, would it not be better 
 to teach it to soar on the wings of Christian faith? For it 
 is not the desire to be remembered that is to be censured or 
 condemned; but the way in which the majority of mankind 
 endeavour to get this desire realised. They think to rear a 
 memorial of themselves by leaving a name behind them. 
 And so far w r ell, if that is a name which posterity will praise 
 
heaven: the state. 
 
 155 
 
 for its moral worth. But surely I need not say that we can¬ 
 not by this means save ourselves from ultimate oblivion. 
 For a century hence, and who will speak of any of us? By 
 another generation even, how few will ever have heard of us. 
 The churchyard is not all a Westminster Abbey, where each 
 grave has its monumental marble; and even if it were, the 
 sculptured monument cannot for ever withstand the tooth of 
 time, nor the chiselled epitaph the friction of the years. It 
 is not then by the names which we leave behind us with 
 posterity, that we can be held in everlasting remembrance; 
 but this must be by the names which we take with us into 
 the eternal world. If, therefore, you wish to make your 
 memories imperishable you must apply to Christ for the 
 “ new name”—that name which you can take along with 
 you, and which will make you known and remembered even 
 among the celebrities of heaven. And what though, to get 
 that name, you may have to lose your repute with the men 
 of the world; you can well afford then to pass among them 
 little thought of or esteemed—can well afford to see without 
 envy the laurels of fame wreathed on the brows of earth’s 
 favourites—can well afford to be despised and pitied by its 
 great ones, whom it has decorated with its tinsel honours; 
 for your time to be known, to be remembered, and renowned 
 will come. And what though the world knoweth you not; 
 this is only what happened to your Lord. The earth wove 
 no garlands of honour, but plaited a crown of thorns for his 
 brow; it bent the knee only to mock him; not among the 
 list of its illustrious benefactors, but in the black calendar of 
 its criminals, did it inscribe his name. Yet the once despised 
 and rejected of men is now hailed as the King of glory, 
 receiving the homage of the hierarchs of heaven. And if 
 ye suffer with him, ye shall also reign with him—if yours 
 
156 
 
 heaven: the state. 
 
 now is the shame of his cross, yours hereafter shall be the 
 honour of his crown. 
 
 REALISM-NO MORE THE SEMBLANCE OR THE SYMBOL. 
 
 “ Now we see through a glass darkly,” and it is but the • 
 reflections, sometimes only the shadows, of things which we 
 see; and even these we generally look at through an artifi¬ 
 cial and coloured medium; for the mind being, so to say, 
 at once the eye and the atmosphere, almost every object is 
 tinged with its ever-varying moods; and then imagination 
 can so simulate reality, as often to impose upon ourselves 
 who conjured up its fantasies. The arithmetic of life is, at 
 best, only a calculation of relative quantities; and how 
 arbitrary, often how false, is the balance by which we weigh, 
 and the standard by which we measure! Ah! if we could 
 only learn to estimate things according to their actual, and 
 not their apparent, value, how often would our smiles have 
 to change places with our tears, and our laughter with our 
 sighs ! For what is this world, after all, but a passing 
 drama, on which the curtain will soon drop? and what less 
 foolish are those who allow themselves to be so much affected 
 by its unrealities, than is some seeker of pleasure, who, 
 entering a theatre for the first time, begins to envy the mock 
 princes who strut upon the stage, sparkling with false jewels, 
 or to shed tears when the fancied hero falls without a wound? 
 Yes; to the great majority of us this present state might 
 justly be said to be one of unrealism. 
 
 But how different will it be in the other world. When, on 
 the approach of death, a human spirit stands as 'with its foot 
 on the confines of that world, it already begins to see things 
 differently, now when the light of eternity has begun to fall 
 upon them; and with what amazing vividness will every 
 
HEAVEN I THE STATE. 
 
 157 
 
 object stand out, when it is at last beheld in the full blaze 
 of that uncreated light! Everything then will be seen as 
 it is; everything will be judged of as it is; everything 
 will he felt as it is; and everything will be valued as it is. 
 The superficialities of sense will be seen through; imagina¬ 
 tion’s airy enchantments will no longer allure; self-deception 
 will no longer impose on any one. The expectations of false 
 hope, and the terrors of false fears, mil have passed away. 
 The reign of unreality will be at an end; for then every 
 mental exercise, and every material object,—everything that 
 is seen, thought of, or felt, as well as the seeing it, the think¬ 
 ing of it, the feeling it, will be a reality. 
 
 The human imagination has ever busied itself in weaving 
 visions of a heaven. For every tribe of our scattered race, 
 whether it luxuriated amid the gardens of the tropics, or 
 had to wander among the sterilities of the icy latitudes, has 
 had its traditions of a paradise. But, ah! woes me, if my 
 hope had no more real heaven before it than any of those 
 fabulous paradises which man has ever been able to create 
 out of the visions of his own fancy! My reason turns away 
 from every one of these, exclaiming, Is there not a real 
 heaven? a heaven which, as a place, is real, and not any 
 fabled elysium? a heaven whose sights are real, and not airy 
 shadows? a heaven whose inhabitants are real, and not 
 phantoms or simulated forms? a heaven whose blessedness, 
 whose occupations, whose prospects, are all real? And revela¬ 
 tion replies, Yes, there is such a heaven. The heaven of the 
 Bible, 0 human soul, if it shall ever be thy happiness to 
 enter it, will be found to be no imaginary paradise, no fabu¬ 
 lous spirit-world, no dream-land of the fancy, but a city 
 which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. 
 
 It would be well if we felt more often the power of the 
 
158 
 
 heaven: the state. 
 
 world to come, were it only in having before our minds the 
 fact, that heaven is a reality. For it is to be feared that 
 very many think of it merely as some bright, but ill-defined, 
 vision of the imagination—some lofty aerial region—some 
 ideal or etherealised abode of myths and mystery. And 
 hence the objects of sense which surround them, and solicit 
 their attention by their visible forms, and their audible 
 sounds, and their tangible substances, not merely act as a 
 concealing veil to shut out the prospect of the invisible 
 world, hut do also fill the mind with the delusion that they 
 are the only realities; whereas, though you can thus handle 
 them, and see them, they are only the passing similitudes, 
 or the shadows rather, of the eternal verities. Oh! for 
 more of that faith, which is “ the substance of things hoped 
 for, the evidence of things not seen!” 
 
 Nor is heaven only a state of reality, as distinguished 
 from a state of visionary idealism ; but it is also a state of 
 reality, as distinguished from a state of religious symbolism. 
 Here we can only worship by means of symbols. Not 
 Judaism only has had its types, the Gospel must have its as 
 well. The sacraments are symbolic; so also are the sanc¬ 
 tuaries which we build to assemble in; so also is the weekly 
 Sabbath on which we meet. But in heaven symbols will be 
 done away; they will no longer be needed. There will no 
 symbolic temple be needed, where the living temple stands; 
 no symbolic weeldy Sabbath needed, where there is the eter¬ 
 nal Sabbatism; no symbolic sacraments needed, where the 
 Saviour himself is present in the body. 
 
 THE PERFECTION OF BLESSEDNESS. 
 
 It is not essential to perfect happiness that one being 
 shall be as blessed as another; for in that case there would 
 
heaven: the state. 
 
 359 
 
 be less happiness in heaven than there is upon the earth, 
 seeing that there every creature so completely realises that 
 God is infinitely more blessed than itself. But it is essential 
 to perfect happiness that a being shall be happy up to the 
 full extent of his conscious capacity; and such is the 
 heavenly blessedness. Every one there will be able exactly 
 to guage his capability; to measure the contents, so to 
 speak, of his nature; and he will feel that, through the 
 entire length, breadth, and depth of his being, there is 
 happiness. 
 
 But that happiness itself, who may describe it? What 
 shall we say of that amazement of holy delight when the 
 pure in heart shall see God? or of that filial ecstacy when 
 the gathered family have their Father in their midst? or of 
 the softer, and, if that were possible, the sweeter, transports 
 with which the ransomed brotherhood shall gaze on the 
 person and enjoy the society of the “ Elder Brother,” the 
 Saviour who redeemed them ? or of the endearing inter¬ 
 changes of more than friendship, where every heart is sensi¬ 
 tive only to love ? or of the unutterable tenderness of 
 gratitude which will be stirred ever and again by the 
 memories of the past—how much they sinned, and yet are 
 here more than forgiven? or of the ineffable peace, where no 
 breath of fear, nor the remembrance of past alarms, can 
 ever ruffle the breast, or disturb its halcyon repose? or of 
 the pleasures of hope, where no foreboding ever palpitates 
 the bosom, and no disappointment can ever move a sigh ? or 
 of the blessedness of obedience, where no service can ever be 
 a drudgery, and no work a toil? but where there will be the 
 most perfect unison of purpose and inclination between the 
 Creator and the creature; and where the congeniality be- 
 
 i 
 
 tween the moral nature of those that serve, and the service 
 
160 
 
 HEAVEN I THE STATE. 
 
 they perform, will be as complete as is the congeniality 
 between the appetites of our natural bodies and the food 
 which nourishes them; so that what only One on earth 
 could say, in heaven every one will be able to repeat, It is 
 my meat and my drink to do my Father’s will. 
 
XI. 
 
 HEAVEN: THE INHABITANTS. 
 
 Next in importance to a man’s own character is the charac¬ 
 ter of his associates; for on these two—mainly, of course, on 
 the first, but in no slight degree on the second—depends 
 whether he shall be happy or the reverse. Any description 
 of heaven, therefore, which would leave out of account its 
 society, wmdd be very far from complete. 
 
 THE DIVINE PRESENCE. 
 
 It is of course true that God is everywhere* By his ubi¬ 
 quitous presence He vivifies, while He fills, the remotest 
 solitudes of space—to us remote but to him near. His hand 
 guides alike the rolling planet and the drifted atom. He 
 shines in every sunbeam and moves in every floating cloud. 
 His voice is heard in the summer breeze as well as in the 
 thunder. Present with the seraphim, He is also near to the 
 sparrow on the house top. “He is not far from every 
 one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our 
 being.” Yet though God is literally ubiquitous—or present 
 at one and the same moment in every place—let us see 
 whether there is not a special sense in which He may be said 
 to be in heaven. Absolutely, or as respects his own essen¬ 
 tial presence, there can, we apprehend, be no difference; for 
 omnipresence does not any more than omnipotence seem to 
 admit of degrees. Yet as God has been pleased to manifest 
 his omnipotence more conspicuously by certain acts and ope- 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 rations, which, are, or, at least to us, appear to be, greater 
 achievements of power than some other of his works; so we 
 may presume that He can furnish to his creatures a more 
 sensible evidence of his presence in some one place than He 
 does in other places. And in that case, relatively to them, 
 He may be said to be in that place in a more emphatic sense 
 than He is anywhere else. 
 
 God, then, is truly omnipresent on the earth— never absent 
 from it, or from any creature upon it. Yet are there mo¬ 
 ments in the life of every man at which he feels as if God 
 were absent from him. Take first the case of the ungodly. 
 As their very designation implies, these are without God. 
 At first, when conscience, as a vigilant sentinel, gave warn¬ 
 ing of his approach, like their guilty sire in the garden, they 
 were afraid, and would flee under some covert to hide them¬ 
 selves from him; but by and bye the fear of detection is 
 stifled by repeated acts of sin, till at last they succeed in 
 putting away from them all thoughts of God. Take now 
 the case of the godly. What lamentation do we hear so 
 often from their lips as that God has hid his face from them, 
 and that they do not enjoy as heretofore the tokens of his 
 sensible presence. “ Verily thou art a God that hidest thy¬ 
 self, 0 God of Israel.” “ Oh that I knew where I might 
 find him! that I might come even to his seat! Behold, I go 
 forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot 
 perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but 
 I cannot behold him: he hidetli himself on the right hand, 
 that I cannot see him.” I repeat, then, that there are 
 moments in the life of every man at which he feels as if God 
 were absent from him at least in this present world. But 
 in the world to come no one has ever this feeling. Those 
 in hell never have it; for, banished though they be from 
 
heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 163 
 
 God’s gracious presence, yet in the lowest abyss of that bot¬ 
 tomless pit “ his right hand holds themand through the 
 clouds of its impenetrable smoke they can discover his eye 
 always fixed upon them. And certainly in heaven none will 
 ever have the feeling that God is absent from them. For 
 they see him—they live in the unveiled light of his counte¬ 
 nance—and between them and the visible glory of his imme¬ 
 diate presence no interceptive cloud ever moves. They are 
 a family at home with their Father in the midst. 
 
 I have preferred to put the matter thus, rather than 
 
 attempt a more explicit definition of the sense in which his 
 
 saints shall see God in heaven. It seems plainly intimated in 
 
 Scripture that his Godhead will be unveiled to them—and 
 
 his triune personality be manifested to them. That not as 
 
 by us in the works of nature his symbols merely; nor as by 
 
 the high-priest in the temple his shekinah only; but Himself, 
 
 in the uncreated effulgence of his essential glory, will be seen. 
 
 But when I feel how impotent my present sensuous nature 
 
 is to conceive of him as a pure Spirit—how either my reason 
 
 falls back upon itself exhausted by its efforts to realise him, 
 
 or I have to rebuke it for clothing him in some corporeal 
 
 « 
 
 form, which I know cannot belong to him; then do I feel 
 warned not too curiously to pry into the mystery of that 
 visible manifestation of the Godhead which those in heaven 
 behold. What it is, or in what manner we shall perceive it, 
 must be left until the vision shall declare itself. 
 
 But apart from any outward visible manifestation, there 
 is something in the bare thought of being sensibly near to 
 God, or consciously in his more immediate presence, which is 
 inexpressibly comforting. Have you ever seen a blind infant 
 in its mother’s arms: the sightless one cannot behold her 
 face, but, with its little hands, it feels it, and the orbs which 
 
164 
 
 heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 let in no light seem to be giving out a lustrous smile of con¬ 
 scious satisfaction. Not that we shall be as this blind child, 
 not seeing our Father in heaven, yet as to it the being near 
 its mother, on her bosom and within her arms, is a source of 
 inexpressible pleasure; so the consciousness that we will be 
 so near to God as if we were folded in his embrace, this, 
 even were there no open vision, would be a joy that is 
 unspeakable and full of glory. 
 
 JESUS IN THE MIDST. 
 
 The important fact which we are to carry along with us 
 here is the personal identity of the ascended Saviour. That 
 He who now sits enthroned the regnant monarch of the other 
 world is no other than He who in this lived and died the 
 Man of sorrows. That the brow which is circled with the 
 diadem of heaven, and the hand which wields its sceptre, is 
 the very brow which was crowned with thorns, and the same 
 right hand which was nailed to the cross. The Jesus who is 
 in heaven is therefore the very Jesus who was on earth— 
 the Jesus in whom we have believed. 
 
 Now, were we to compendise, in one single description, all 
 the glories and all the felicities of heaven, it would be this— 
 that it is the home of the Saviour. Such, assuredly, was the 
 view of Paul, when, gathering up into one absorbing desire all 
 his fondest wishes as to the future, he exclaimed: “I have a 
 desire to depart and to be with Christ.” And the Saviour 
 himself penetrating the secret of holy hope, and knowing 
 what was the highest ultimatum of its desires, or what w r ould 
 make heaven be heaven to it, thus reciprocated its wishes by 
 expressing his own: “ Father, I will that they also whom 
 thou hast given me be with me where I am ; that they may 
 behold my glory, which thou hast given me.” 
 
heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 165 
 
 Is this, then, our notion of the heavenly blessedness? Does 
 our longing wish to he in heaven itself arise not alone or 
 chiefly because it is so glorious a place, or because it is so 
 happy a place, or even because it is so sinless a place, but 
 because we shall there be with Him who hath redeemed us to 
 God by his blood? Do we anticipate his smile as the sun¬ 
 shine of our soul’s Paradise, and his presence as the chiefest 
 glory in the Eden of our bliss? More than all its crowns of 
 immortality—more than all its harps of pure gold—more 
 than its palms of victory—more than its white robes—and 
 more than its angel-choirs does the prospect of our meeting 
 with Jesus in heaven, and of spending with him our better 
 life, draw our desires heavenward? For while the magnet of 
 hope is strong, the magnet of love is stronger. These we 
 hope for, but him we love. 
 
 Were you to affirm that the Scriptures could have been to 
 us what they are, although filename of Jesus had never been 
 mentioned in them; or that the cross on Calvary could have 
 been to us what it is, although He had never died upon it, 
 the assertion would scarcely be more at variance with fact, 
 than if you were to say of heaven that it would be a place of 
 perfect happiness to the redeemed without the presence of 
 their Saviour. For we state but the simple truth when we 
 say, that there is not any one conception of it can rise to 
 their minds dissociated from him, which would afford them a 
 satisfying enjoyment. You might speak to them of its 
 throne, but what were it to them more than any other 
 throne, if He did not occupy it? or you might tell them of 
 its songs, but what w r ere these to them more than other 
 songs, if He w'ere not the burden of them? Now, there needs 
 not, indeed there cannot, rise to their anticipative hopes any 
 vision of heaven which the Saviour does not completely fill. 
 
166 
 
 HEAVEN : THE INHABITANTS. 
 
 Has it a throne? He sits upon it. Has it hymns of praise? 
 He is the theme. Has it no need of the sun, neither of the 
 moon to shine in it? it is because He is the light thereof. Is 
 there no temple therein? it is because He is its temple. Do 
 its inhabitants hunger no more, neither thirst any more? it 
 is He who feeds them. Do they walk among the trees of its 
 paradise and along its winding river of life? He is their 
 guide. And thus, as of revelation He is the Alpha and the 
 Omega; and of redemption the author and the finisher; and 
 of providence the sole administrator; so of heaven He is 
 both the centre and the circumference—the light of all that 
 is luminous and the life of all that lives—the fountain of 
 its fulness, the embodiment of its beatitudes, and the pledge 
 of its perpetuity. 
 
 I confess to a wish which sometimes rises in my breast, 
 that I had been privileged to attend my Saviour during his 
 earthly pilgrimage, when mine might have been the honour 
 to minister to his necessities, and to sit as a listener at his 
 feet. Ah! my heart well nigh becomes envious of your 
 exalted privileges, ye who heard him preach on the moun¬ 
 tain’s side or by the sea-shore; and of your still more 
 exalted privileges, ye who enjoyed his familiar companion¬ 
 ship. But why should I envy you? For though it has not 
 been mine, as it was yours, to see him or to hear him when 
 He was upon the earth, yet if I am one of his, I shall yet 
 see and hear him in heaven—shall gaze on the very coun¬ 
 tenance which ye gazed upon, and listen to the very voice 
 to which ye listened. 
 
 ANGEL COMPANIONS. 
 
 These glorious beings are the original inhabitants, the 
 natives, as one might say, of the place. And were there 
 
heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 167 
 
 nothing more than this, it were enough to excite a sacred 
 curiosity to see them. But there is more than this. For 
 these celestial spirits have much that they could tell us of 
 the wondrous history of redemption. They could tell us of 
 the deep astonishment which seized them, when the first 
 announcement of God’s intention to redeem our fallen race 
 was proclaimed in heaven; and of the still more profound 
 amazement with which they heard of the means by which 
 its redemption was to be achieved. They could tell us much 
 more than we yet know of the apostasy of their own com¬ 
 rades ; and what if we should learn from them that while it 
 was pride which caused these to fall, the pride was not so 
 much that of ambition to usurp a higher rank in heaven, 
 hut the pride of jealousy, that so high an honour was in 
 reserve for beings of a lower race. They could tell us with 
 what profound interest they beheld the creation of the sire 
 of that human race which was to he redeemed; and of the 
 increasing interest with which they watched the prophetic 
 development of the promised redemption. They could 
 tell us with what intense emotion they beheld the time 
 approach and the all eventful day at length arrive, when the 
 only begotten Son was to leave the bosom of his Father and 
 the glories of heaven, to become incarnate. They could tell 
 us, for they attended his every step, of many a scene in the 
 earthly life of the Saviour, which the pen of inspiration has 
 passed over, or hut partially narrated. They could tell us, 
 for they were present, of that jubilant day, when the heav¬ 
 enly arches rang with acclamations of welcome, when the 
 King of glory returned to occupy his throne. They could 
 tell us of the discoveries which they must have made in the 
 mysteries of redemption, when seeking to look into these 
 things with their pure and penetrating intellects. They 
 
168 
 
 heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 could tell us of many an affecting scene in the history of 
 conversions, and of many a surprising incident in the pro¬ 
 gress of the gospel among the nations of the earth. These, 
 and many things besides, could the angels tell us; and 
 who, then, does not feel a desire to enjoy their companion¬ 
 ship? 
 
 But there is more still than this. For between these 
 exalted beings and our human race there be ties of a very 
 close and tender nature. They are all “ ministering spirits 
 sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salva¬ 
 tion.How often and how willingly have they sped their 
 errands of mercy to this our earth! We see them not, for 
 they are spirits; and we hear them not, for they approach 
 with noiseless wing; yet are they ever round us, our pro¬ 
 tectors by day, and the guardians of our slumbers by night. 
 When some holy thought rises in our breasts, who shall say 
 that it may not be some good angel’s whisper? or when we 
 have escaped some threatened danger, may not the interpos¬ 
 ing shield have been some seraph’s wing? and when the 
 slow hours are moving with the weary night round the 
 bed of some dying saint, there be other than those anxious 
 friends waiting to catch the parting breath—even those 
 spirits of the sky who are to conduct this human spirit to 
 its heavenly home. Nor is it only when they are beside us 
 that these good angels thus keep watch and ward over us; for 
 as there are also evil angels, which are ever issuing from 
 their abodes of darkness, with the fell intention of doing us 
 harm, it is not improbable that, in the distant regions of 
 the firmament, there is many a contest waged on our behalf, 
 when these spirits of evil are repeatedly driven back by the 
 sentinel hosts from heaven, who are posted to watch their 
 movements and prevent their approach. How, then, can 
 
heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 169 
 
 we do other than feel a strong desire to see these glorious 
 beings who have taken so great an interest in our race, and 
 to whom we individually owe so deep a debt of gratitude? 
 For it does not satisfy a grateful heart merely to feel thank¬ 
 ful, but it longs to express its thanks. Now, here are bene¬ 
 factors who have done us the most signal services, but to 
 whom we have never had it in our power to tell how deeply 
 we feel their kindness. Were it only that we might do this, 
 the anticipation of meeting with the angels must surely be 
 pleasing to us. 
 
 Then consider the lofty character for moral excellence 
 which the angels have always borne. What freedom from 
 envy towards our race, though they have seen it redeemed, 
 while their own associates are left to perish! what amazing 
 humility, though of rank so exalted, and endowed with such 
 transcendent powers! what tried fidelity; for though they too 
 were tempted, yet did they not fall! what devoted attach¬ 
 ment to Him who is their Sovereign and our Saviour! what 
 amity and good-will among themselves; for, though some 
 are of higher dignity than others, yet is there no envious 
 rivalry among them! Surely the prospect of having such as 
 these for our companions and familiar friends cannot be 
 other than highly pleasing. Do I wrong, then, as my spirit 
 sweeps down the stream of time, to indulge the vision which 
 rises to its view—these sons of the morning, who saw many 
 of its shining spheres first launched into space, discoursing 
 to me of the wonders of creation—these spirits of anti¬ 
 quity pointing out to me the dim foot-prints which were 
 written on the sands of time—these masters of the celes- 
 
 t 
 
 tial lyre instructing me how to' sweep its strings—these 
 gifted intelligences guiding me up the higher steeps of 
 sacred knowledge, from which redemption shall display 
 
\ 
 
 170 heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 the vastness of its plan, and unfold the harmony of its 
 several parts? 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 
 
 Though essentially one, in virtue of its union to its Head, 
 the Church of the living God has never yet held its general 
 assembly; never yet in any one temple have all its members 
 met to worship. Alas! not the distances of time, nor the 
 distances of place, alone, have broken it up into separate 
 congregations; but sects also have divided its communion, 
 and schisms have rent its bosom. The noise of controversy 
 has mingled with its messages of peace, and jealous rivalries 
 have kindled strange fires on its altars of love. One sighs 
 for the time, and fondly hopes it will yet arrive, when 
 the Church of Christ will be more visibly united; when, 
 within the borders of Zion at least, “ men will study war no 
 morewhen “ Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah 
 shall not vex Ephraim.” But even were a millennial age 
 to usher in this reign of universal peace, when no petrel of 
 the storm shall ever again be seen on the halcyon waves, 
 still the Church of Christ, though it w r ould then be visibly 
 one communion, could not literally be one congregation. 
 The separation which death had caused would still exist; so 
 that, as heretofore, there would be the Church triumphant 
 and the Church militant; and the separation which distance 
 causes would still exist; so that while there wmild be but 
 one communion, there would be many congregations. It is 
 not on the earth, but in heaven, that the unity of the Church 
 is to be perfectly displayed; when there shall be seen a spec¬ 
 tacle which the earth could never have exhibited—the uni¬ 
 versal Church assembled in one temple, as one congregation, 
 with one service, one psalmody, and one perpetual Sabbath. 
 
heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 171 
 
 It is not for ns to speculate as to the probable number of 
 the redeemed, or the proportion it will bear to the number 
 of the lost. Enough to know that, when the great com¬ 
 munion-roll is called, there will not be one amissing whose 
 name is found written therein. When the harvest-home of 
 eternity shall have arrived, the angel-reapers will be able to 
 report that the last sheaf has been gathered in; and He, 
 to whom the elect were given to bring them all safely home 
 to glory, shall be able to count the number, full tale, to the 
 Father. 
 
 s 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL MAN. 
 
 A so-called modern philosophy, reproducing an ancient 
 pantheism in somewhat altered form, predicts as the con¬ 
 summated happiness of man, his absorption into what it 
 terms the Absolute or All One. According to this philosophy 
 the finite is at last to mingle with and lose itself in the 
 infinite; as a drop which has fallen into the ocean becomes 
 an undistinguishable part of its mass of waters. But what a 
 mockery is this of our personal consciousness. Tell me that 
 I shall lose my individuality, and you talk idly to me then 
 of happiness; because, be this happiness what it may, I feel 
 in that case it would not be mine. But how much more 
 true to my nature and its hopes of a future life is the philo¬ 
 sophy of the Bible, than this philosophy, falsely so-called. 
 For it assures us that great as is the change which will have 
 passed upon him, each human being in heaven will retain 
 his personal identity and his individual consciousness. Fie 
 will know himself to be the same being who existed in a 
 former state, and will also know himself to be distinct from 
 all other beings. His understanding, his will, his emotions, 
 and his affections, he will know to be his own. So that when 
 
172 
 
 heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 he thinks, the thoughts will not be as the echoes of another 
 mind, hut the distinct utterances of his own; when he makes 
 a choice, it will not he some mysterious universal volition 
 that moves him, but his own free personal will; when he feels 
 the pulses of joyous emotion, it will not be as if some great 
 common heart were heating, but that his own heart beats true 
 to its own pulsations. In short, the same personal conscious¬ 
 ness, by which, in this present existence, each individual knows 
 himself to be himself, and not another, will survive within 
 him in his future existence; so that, then as now, whatever 
 his recollections of the past, or his hopes as to the future, or 
 his happiness in the present, will be his own. Not like a 
 drop in the ocean, which has no free motion of its own, but 
 must roll wherever its currents roll, be tossed with its tem¬ 
 pests, ebb and flow with its tides,—a thing lost to sight, 
 utterly undistinguishable from the waves which engulph it; 
 not as such a drop will the individual man be in heaven; 
 but rather as a dew drop on the morning flower, where each 
 liquid gem sparkles as a separate beauty, clustered along 
 with, yet distinct from, its fellows. 
 
 Individuality, then, will survive in our own consciousness; 
 but it will also survive in the perception of our associates. 
 For as we shall feel ourselves, so will they also know us to be 
 individual persons, each with a history and a happiness of his 
 own. Nay, I believe that individuality will be far more marked 
 and conspicuous a thing in the life to come than it is in our 
 present state. An individual may often steal through this 
 world almost unnoticed, and leave it altogether unknown. 
 He is carried along with the multitude, as a snow-flake is 
 carried b} r the river—melted and mingled with its stream 
 almost in the moment it falls upon it. But in the other 
 world individual man will be an object of universal interest. 
 
heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 173 
 
 There will be no passing in a crowd—no shrinking out of 
 sight—no such thing as privacy or seclusion there. In hell, 
 even amid its darkest gloom, the sinner will find no nook in 
 which to hide himself from observing eyes—no hermitage of 
 woe in which to endure his solitary wretchedness—no sepa¬ 
 rate cell where he can blush unseen and groan forth the bit¬ 
 terness of his anguish unheard. And in heaven, though the 
 humble saint might be willing to conceal himself within some 
 shadow, there will be no concealing shadows there. All is as 
 the light of day. The most retiring will be seen; the very 
 least will be honoured; and every one hailed as a brother. 
 
 THE ILLUSTRIOUS ONES. 
 
 That in the other world we shall be able, as we are in this, 
 to distinguish particular individuals, is plainly taught in 
 Scripture. Thus, to give one passage from among several 
 similar: “ And I say unto you, That many shall come from 
 the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and 
 Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat. viii. 
 11.) Here a multitude of strangers are to come from the 
 four quarters of the earth, and are ,to sit down with the 
 patriarchs in the kingdom of God; but how could this be 
 any special felicity, or mark of honour, to those strangers, 
 unless they were to know by sight at least these distinguished 
 individuals. The heavenly multitude, then, is not to be as 
 a nebulous cloud; but as a constellation, or rather a number 
 of constellations, where each star will shine distinct and re¬ 
 cognisable from the rest. There will be groups or companies 
 with their appropriate badges. The company of the patri¬ 
 archs will be there; and these, we should imagine, will be 
 easily recognised. The company of the apostles will be 
 there; and one naturally expects that some distinguishing 
 
174 
 
 heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 mark will set forth those who were the personal attendants 
 of the Saviour. The company of the martyrs will be there; 
 and we are told that these will he known by their crowns 
 circled as with flame. The company of those who have won 
 many to righteousness will be there; and of them we are 
 told that their star-like brightness will distinguish them 
 from others. 
 
 And as the several groups or companies will be dis¬ 
 tinguished by their appropriate badges or insignia, so in 
 each separate group there will be its conspicuous individuals, 
 who, among their illustrious peers, will stand forth still 
 more illustrious. 
 
 Among the prophets we shall doubtless be able to distinguish 
 Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah—among the psalmists, David and 
 A saph—among the martyrs, John the Baptist and Stephen—• 
 among the evangelists, Peter and John—among the pious 
 mothers, Jocliabed, Hannah, and Eunice—among the holy 
 women, Dorcas, Lydia, and Mary of Bethany. And how many 
 besides, who had they lived before the list of Bible worthies was 
 closed, would doubtless have found a place on the illustrious 
 roll; those ornaments of the post-apostolic Church, whose 
 names and virtues have had only uninspired pens to record 
 them, yet who will be owned not unworthy to rank in heaven 
 w r ith the celebrities of Scripture story. Now I freely own that 
 to me the prospect is a pleasing one, of having these illustri¬ 
 ous individuals pointed out to me in heaven. I have fondly 
 perused the record of their lives; their bright example, I 
 trust, has often sustained and stimulated me; to have tra¬ 
 velled in imagination over the scenes which their deeds and 
 their virtues have made memorable has been to me a delight¬ 
 ful pilgrimage; and, therefore, I again confess that the 
 anticipation of meeting these illustrious ones themselves 
 
HEAVEN THE INHABITANTS. 
 
 175 
 
 enters as no insignificant element into my notion of the 
 heavenly blessedness in its social aspects. 
 
 NEW FRIENDSHIPS. 
 
 We know that here spirits of more kindred feelings and 
 habits of thought are drawn together, and form special 
 attachments. Now, we see no reason to suppose that the 
 laws of social affinity will be altered. For our idea of the 
 heavenly society is not that every bosom will glow with 
 an undistinguishing flame equally towards all, without 
 any warmer inclinations towards some than towards others. 
 We rejoice, indeed, to think of it as a fraternity of love, 
 where every heart will receive and reciprocate the universal 
 good-will—each in all recognising his brethren, and all in 
 each a brother. But elevate a universal friendship to what 
 height of holy affection you please, if you make it one lofty 
 level, then its very universality, we suspect, would sink it 
 from the height to which you had thought to raise it—just 
 as a person who is traversing some extensive table land, 
 w r hich the horizon closes in on every side, loses the feeling of 
 elevation which he had when first ascending to it; and except 
 that the atmosphere is somewhat clearer, and the breezes 
 somewhat more bracing, he has much the same feeling as 
 those who traverse the lower plains. We cannot accept as 
 the ideal of perfect society, one jn which particular friend¬ 
 ships are merged and lost sight of in promiscuous companion¬ 
 ship; and, therefore, we cannot imagine that such will be 
 the society in heaven. We go rather for its types to 
 the family in Bethany, where Jesus, though He loved the 
 two sisters and their brother, yet loved Mary the most; 
 or to the upper chamber in Jerusalem, where the first 
 communion-table was spread, and where Jesus, while 
 
176 
 
 heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 loving all the eleven, yet drew a John to his bosom as the 
 most beloved. 
 
 With regard to those friendships which will he new-formed 
 in heaven, it would be idle to speculate. But this surely we 
 may affirm -with safety, that spirits who are more kindred in 
 their natures, or whose experiences have been more similar, 
 will doubtless find each other out, and be drawn together by 
 those elective affinities which draw snch together here below. 
 I can well conceive how two so much resembling each other as 
 an Elias and a John the Baptist, or a Moses and a Paul, will 
 be close companions, nay, more than companions, in heaven. 
 
 RE-UNITED FRIENDS. 
 
 With regard to this class of friendships, viz., those which 
 are former ones renewed, we cannot help feeling a still more 
 lively solicitude. Will there be recognition in heaven? Will 
 friends who took sweet counsel together here renew their 
 intercourse in the world which is beyond the grave? Will the 
 links which death has broken be re-united? That dear 
 departed one, whose image dwells in my fond memory, will 
 I meet him, and know him and he me, in our Father’s house 
 above ? That beloved child whom I clasp to a father’s bosom, 
 if it shall be our happy lot to enter heaven, will we know 
 each other as parent and child in the presence of our 
 Saviour? 
 
 These are questions to which the Scriptures cannot be 
 said to give an explicit reply; for nowhere in the sacred 
 volume is it expressly, or in so many words, affirmed that 
 there will be mutual recognition in heaven. And in the 
 absence of direct statement, some have attempted by an 
 elaborate argumentation from incidental allusions, and colla¬ 
 teral circumstances, to decide the point. But this has always 
 
heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 177 
 
 appeared to us to be a needless labour. We can well 
 understand with what delight to himself, and profit to his 
 readers, a writer might expatiate on so pleasing a subject. 
 But the minuteness of argument by which it has sometimes 
 been attempted to settle the initial question, whether there 
 will be mutual recognition in heaven? scarcely seems to put 
 the matter on that broad, palpable, and simple basis, on which 
 the Scriptures have put it. One would naturally seek for 
 some obvious, fundamental principle, which would summarily 
 decide, the one way or the other, a question of this nature. 
 Now, we think there is such a principle. Confessing nature 
 to be its forerunner—the voice of one crying in the wilder¬ 
 ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord—revelation does not 
 proceed to argue what the former has proved, but assumes 
 her intimations as true. In other words, when the oracle 
 within us utters its voice distinctly on any given point, it is 
 not the manner of the oracle without us to address us in 
 the way of argument upon that point. It does not re-open 
 the question or repeat the proof, if nature has stated it cor¬ 
 rectly, and satisfactorily concluded it. 
 
 Now, let us apply this simple and very obvious principle 
 to the question before us. If any one who listens to the 
 voice of nature’s social instincts, which are indeed as the 
 voice of Him who implanted them in our breasts, shall try to 
 prefigure to himself a condition of perfected social happiness, 
 without mutual recognition , we venture to affirm that he will 
 not be able to do so. Only under one supposition, and that 
 how sad a one, namely, that none of his former friends are to 
 be in heaven along with him, could he possibly conceive that 
 new friendships might compensate for the loss of old ones. 
 But let him entertain the hope that some of his former 
 
 friends are to be in the same home with him—gazing on the 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 same scenes—mingling in tlie same services—-perhaps stand¬ 
 ing by his side, yet he not to recognise them, nor they him, 
 and it is simply impossible for his social instincts to accept 
 any such condition as one of perfect social happiness. 
 
 Accordingly, such being the deliverance of nature itself, 
 we do not look for an explicit assertion, far less for any 
 formal argument, on the same point in Scripture. What 
 we rather expect to find is, that nature’s verdict will be 
 assumed as true, and accepted as conclusive. And this is 
 precisely what we do find. David assumed it, when speaking 
 of his dead child he said, “ I shall go to him, but he shall 
 not return to me.” And Christ assumed it, when he uttered 
 the parable of the rich man and Lazarus; in which we are 
 told that Dives, after his death, “ seeth Abraham afar off 
 (even at the distance of hell), and Lazarus in his bosom;” 
 that Lazarus whose friend he had not been, scarcely his 
 acquaintance, but whom he had seen, perhaps, with haughty 
 glance, a beggar laid at his gate. And Paul assumed it, 
 when he said to the Colossians, “ Christ we preach; warning 
 every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom; that we 
 may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus;” for how, 
 without knowing again his converts in their new and glorified 
 state, could Paul expect to present them at the iast day? 
 
 How soothing is this doctrine to the Christian mourning 
 his departed ones, who fell asleep in Jesus; and with what 
 force does it move all the most tender sympathies and fondest 
 hopes of those who are friends in Christ ! The prospect of 
 re-union, and mutual recognition when we shall be re-united, 
 cannot fail to shed a very soothing consolation, and to take 
 away the bitterest part of that other prospect—that the 
 dearest friends must part. Yes, part, indeed; but not for 
 ever. Ah! thou dear companion of my youth, I felt it sad 
 
heaven: the inhabitants. 
 
 179 
 
 to part from tliee; and thou dear companion of my age, I 
 shall feel it sad to part from thee! But must we say, Fare¬ 
 well—a long, a last farewell ? Not so; for we shall meet 
 again, to renew our friendship in the better land. 
 
 When one thinks of the innumerable multitude which 
 shall be in heaven, we might imagine that former friends 
 might be there a long time without meeting. Imagine your¬ 
 selves to be gazing on some upland spring, where the warm 
 beams are playing among its crystal drops; as you see these, 
 one after another, floated to the . lip of the fountain, to be 
 carried down by the mountain stream which swells into a 
 mighty river as it rolls along the plain below, the thought 
 may rise in your mind, will these sister-drops^ thus separated 
 and hurried away from their native spring, ever meet again? 
 Perhaps they will be united on the way, or if not there, 
 at least when they reach the ocean. But, a re-union in the 
 ocean! These separated drops may be wafted by its tides 
 to distant shores, or tumbled by its storms from pole to pole, 
 for years, aye, for ages, before they meet again. And so, 
 when you see Christian friend after friend carried by the 
 stream of death away from each other and their native earth, 
 to join the innumerable company which has gone before 
 them, you might imagine that, like the divided drops in the 
 great sea, it might be ages before they shall meet again, 
 even though in the same heaven. But Scripture seems 
 to represent it otherwise. For to the thief on the cross, 
 Jesus said, “ To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” 
 
 There rises one perplexing thought in connection with our 
 mutual recognition in heaven. For if we know who are 
 there, then must we also know who are not there. But, ah! 
 to miss some loved one—a child, a parent, a wife, a husband, 
 a sister, a brother—will not this throw a shade of sadness 
 
180 
 
 HEAVEN I THE INHABITANTS. 
 
 even over a blessed spirit, and damp its heavenly joys? 
 That it will not do this we know; for “ God shall wipe away 
 all tears from their eyes.” Yet we must confess our ignor¬ 
 ance by what mitigating balm the hearts that else might 
 bleed shall be soothed and comforted. We could not now 
 anticipate any of our dear ones to be missing in heaven, and 
 feel that we could be perfectly happy. But we may not 
 judge of our feelings then, when the wisdom of God’s proce¬ 
 dure shall be made so manifest, and his sovereignty of choice 
 so entirely acquiesced in, by our feelings now, when we see 
 these things as in a glass darkly. Only this we know, that 
 even here grace has enabled many of God’s saints to rise 
 superior to the feelings of nature; and if grace can do this, 
 who shall say what glory may not accomplish? 
 
 There remains yet another group of the heavenly inhabi¬ 
 tants to be noticed—infant children; but this theme we deem 
 of sufficient interest to devote a separate chapter to it. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
XII. 
 
 LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 If one were to judge a priori, that is from what we might 
 have anticipated rather than from what we have actually 
 observed, we would certainly have concluded that the shafts 
 of death would have spared the young, at least those who 
 are still in infancy. But experience and our churchyards 
 tell another tale. For as all seasons belong to death, so are 
 all ages its victims. Not only the bended stalks which are 
 ripe for the sickle, but the scarce sprouted green blades, are 
 cut down in the harvest of death. With the sere leaves of 
 old life this insatiate gleaner sweeps the bright flowers of 
 young life into its promiscuous heaps. 
 
 Now this melancholy fact in the obituary of our race, the 
 death of its infants, has its explanation so far in the past. 
 For when we read it in the shadows of the fall, we can see it 
 to be a part of that primal curse, which, pronounced upon 
 the sire, was alsp. meant to embrace all his sons. Yes, from 
 a race which had become mortal by its apostasy, death must 
 be left free to claim its heritage, and select its hostages with¬ 
 out restriction. For there must be nothing in the time of 
 death’s coming, or in the ages of those to whom it comes, 
 which might make it appear as a natural event, or as what 
 merely happens in the course of nature. And so the links 
 which bind together our households, sin-doomed as they 
 are to separation, may not be left until, well nigh rusted 
 through by age, they are ready to break of themselves; but 
 
182 
 
 LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 while they are still sound and strong they must be wrenched 
 asunder or sawed through, as suits the fell divider. Not our 
 decrepit octogenarians only, whom we have been prepared to 
 part with, and who we almost wish were at their rest; but our 
 tender infants whose budding life we hope to see in flower, 
 and whom we wish to have with us to close our eyes when 
 our own time shall have come to depart—even these must 
 be snatched away from us, that we may learn the terrible 
 import of the primal doom: Thou, thou and thine, must 
 die. 
 
 But is it only in the past, and among the shadows of the 
 fall, that w'e are to look for an explanation of the death of 
 infant!? Does the future of our race, as now illumined by 
 the gospel, throw no light upon it? Is it only into the dirge- 
 poem of Paradise Lost that we are to introduce an elegy on 
 our departed infants? Is there no place in the epic of Pa¬ 
 radise Regained for their life-hymn to be inserted? We 
 cannot help thinking that there is. As respects us, their 
 bereaved parents, you may well record their death in tears; but, 
 as respect themselves, rather write it down as a life sooner 
 perfected than we had thought of—a flower which in the 
 moment it is plucked is sprinkled with the dews of immor¬ 
 tality, and placed among the other flowers in the paradise of 
 God. 
 
 INFANT SALVATION A DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 We grant that the salvation of infants is not explicitly 
 asserted in Scripture; but we do not think that it is any the 
 less distinctly implied. Some of the reasons which induce 
 us to be of this opinion we shall briefly state. 
 
 1. In the first place, then, if it is objected to the salvation 
 of infants that they cannot be subjects of saving faith, this 
 
LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 183 
 
 objection would go farther than those who make it would, 
 as we suppose, be inclined to carry it; for it would equally 
 shut out all infants from salvation. 
 
 But is it the case that personal faith is indispensable to 
 salvation? With regard to adults, or children who have 
 reached the age of responsibility, we, of course, admit, or 
 rather would assert, its indispensableness. But there would 
 appear to be a principle in the divine economy which leaves 
 room for the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to infants, 
 notwithstanding there cannot in their case be a personal 
 acceptance of that righteousness. The principle to which 
 we allude is the imputation of guilt to infant children, with¬ 
 out their having been actual participants in the sinful act by 
 which that guilt was contracted. Now it seems to us that 
 it is no more than the parallel of this, that righteousness 
 may be imputed to infant children, even although they do 
 not personally accept of it by faith. To say the least, the 
 circumstances in which death comes to them through the 
 imputed guilt of Adam would seem to make it possible for 
 God, carrying out the same principle, to extend salvation to 
 them through the imputed righteousness of Christ. For our 
 own part, unless righteousness is imputable to infants on 
 the same principle that guilt has been imputed to them, we 
 must confess ourselves unable to perceive the force of the 
 apostle’s argument in the fifth chapter to the Bomans, which 
 he winds up in these remarkable words: “ But where sin 
 abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath 
 reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through right¬ 
 eousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” 
 
 It will be observed that we have assumed that it is only 
 through the imputed righteousness of Christ that any mem¬ 
 ber of our guilty race can be saved. This we must maintain 
 
184 ' ' LITTLE CHILDEEN IN IIEAYEN. 
 
 alike, whether it be adult or infant. But in the case of the 
 latter, the righteousness is simply imputed, not accepted. 
 In the case of the former it is both imputed and accepted. 
 Yet will that infant, in heaven, who here could not lisp a 
 Saviour’s name, or raise its feeble cry for mercy, join with 
 the redeemed adult in the song of Moses and the Lamb 
 in ascribing its salvation to Christ, “ Thou hast redeemed 
 us to God by thy blood.” 
 
 2. Secondly, the doctrine of infant salvation appears to us 
 to be a necessary inference from the principle on which we 
 are told the last judgment is to proceed. There are two 
 laws, by one or other of which all men are to be tried : the 
 law natural and the law revealed. Those who have not 
 received the written law are to be tried by that law which 
 they have received, namely, the law of nature, which is 
 graven on their hearts. Now infants are not the subjects 
 of either of these laws. Certainly not of the law revealed, 
 which they cannot read, nor a single word of which can be 
 made to understand. Nor of the law of conscience, seeing 
 they cannot distinguish right from wrong. By what law 
 then could they be condemned? 
 
 3. Thirdly, we do not find within the whole compass of 
 the Bible one single allusion to the future punishment, or the 
 eternal misery, of infant children. Their wail of woe in the 
 world to come is never spoken of. Their banishment from 
 the presence of God is never hinted at. 
 
 4. Fourthly, the hell described in the Bible cannot be the 
 hell of infants, even supposing they were to perish. For one 
 chief element in the suffering of hell is remorse. This is 
 the worm there that never dies; the fire in the breast which 
 there is never quenched. But infant children could never 
 feel remorse. They have no actual sin with which to 
 
LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 185 
 
 upbraid themselves. They have never rejected the Saviour, 
 or trilled away the season of grace. If, therefore, children 
 dying in infancy are not to be received into heaven, where, 
 v r e ask, is the hell to which they could be sent? 
 
 5. Fifthly, if it shall be said that it is only the infant 
 children of believing parents that are saved, then, we ask, on 
 what ground are these saved, while other infant children 
 perish? We can think of only two alternative grounds on 
 which this could be explained. Either that infants born of 
 parents who are in a state of grace are also gracious; or 
 that they are saved because their parents are believers. But 
 can either of these positions be supported by Scripture ? Does 
 it teach that grace is ever born with us, or that it runs in 
 the blood? Or does it teach that faith is hereditary, or that 
 election is transmissible from sire to son? 
 
 But it may be said that the infants of godless parents do 
 suffer in consequence of parental crime. And so, indeed, 
 they do. But this w r e take to be one of those difficulties in 
 providence in this present w r orld, which we expect to see 
 cleared up in the world to come. That the innocent infant of 
 the drunkard or the libertine suffers in its tender body the 
 effects of its father’s crimes is proved, alas! too conclusively, 
 by its own stricken cries of pain ; and that it suffers even in 
 its spirit may be seen in its woeful looks, prematurely expres¬ 
 sive of sorrow, as if a blight had touched the young creature 
 on its opening its eyes on this weary wrorld. But is that 
 innocent’s body and spirit, should it die in its infancy, to be 
 withered for ever with the curse of its parent’s sins? Ah! 
 is it not enough, too much one is almost ready to exclaim, 
 that it has suffered on his account here? Say not that 
 death has taken it away for future suffering; but say 
 rather that death was sent in mercy to snatch it from this 
 
188 
 
 LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 world of pain to that better land where its father’s sins can¬ 
 not follow it. 
 
 6. Sixthly, it will perhaps be objected by some to the salva¬ 
 tion of infants, that it seems to ignore the doctrine of 
 election. But for our part we rather look upon infant 
 salvation as in itself a striking instance of election. Children 
 dying in infancy, we believe, to be saved as an elect portion 
 of our race; and that in their salvation, as such, the 
 sovereignty of grace, in its absolute elective choice, has one 
 of its most conspicuous manifestations. The case stands 
 thus: by the dispensation of death our race is divided into 
 two widely distinct portions—those who die before the age 
 of personal responsibility, and those who do not die until 
 that age is reached. Now, we presume it will be admitted 
 that it is by God’s predeterminate choice, what and how 
 many children are to be taken away in infancy. And if 
 these, being selected according to God’s eternal purpose for 
 an early death, are. on this account saved through grace, we 
 apprehend that this is a true case of election. For if their 
 election to eternal life is, as we believe it to be, implied 
 in their election to an early death, then the latter being 
 most free, sovereign, and unconditional, so is the former, 
 by inclusion in it, equally free, sovereign, and uncondi¬ 
 tional. 
 
 7. Lastly, there is one passage in Scripture, which, to our 
 own minds, is conclusive on the point. Certain mothers, on 
 one occasion, brought their little children to the Saviour, 
 that He might lay his hands upon them and bless them; but 
 his disciples, apparently from the notion that so young ones 
 were beneath the notice of their great Master, discouraged 
 these mothers in their attempt to approach him. But 
 Christ himself, so far from sympathising with his disciples, 
 
LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 187 
 
 opened his arms to the infants, saying, “ Suffer the little 
 children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such 
 is the kingdom of God.” How expressive these words ot 
 welcome to the infants. It was as if the Saviour had 
 said: Little children beneath my notice! what then would 
 heaven itself be to me? for with such as these—such in 
 simplicity of character, such in infancy of childhood—with 
 such as these—as young, and even younger, my Father’s 
 house is in a great measure filled. 
 
 WHY NOT AN EXPLICIT STATEMENT? 
 
 On first thoughts, one is apt to feel a shade of disap¬ 
 pointment that Scripture is not more explicit on the question 
 of infant salvation. For, by a single plain affirmative, how 
 many anxious breasts would have been relieved, and what 
 boding uncertainty would parental solicitude have been 
 spared! To be allowed to hope is much; but, ah! how 
 much more to have assurance! Can it be that He, who 
 knows a parent’s heart, would, without good reason, have 
 withheld the solace which a few words from His lips would 
 have poured round our hearts, when they bleed at their 
 riven roots from which a first-born has been torn away? 
 No; we believe it is not without a sufficient reason that our 
 heavenly Father has not spoken to us more explicitly con¬ 
 cerning our departed infants. 
 
 May we venture to assign the reason? That it is needful, 
 a measure of uncertainty, or at least of anxiety, should be 
 left on the minds of parents, with regard to their infants, 
 in .order that they may be stirred up to watch for the first 
 dawning of intelligence, of which, as of the break of day, it 
 is not easy to say when precisely it begins. Had the Scrip¬ 
 tures been more explicit than they are, parents might have 
 
188 
 
 LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 rested too much, upon it, and thus have been less anxiously 
 watchful about the conversion of their children, when ap¬ 
 proaching that age when it is difficult to say whether 
 responsibility has not begun. Ah! my child, if some boding 
 fears about thy salvation might have mingled with my 
 sorrow, if thou hadst been taken from me in thy infancy, 
 what cause I have to fear now, when thy infancy is past, 
 lest by my neglect I should peril thy salvation! 
 
 The hope that their children who die in infancy are saved 
 is inexpressibly soothing to pious parents; and may we not 
 entertain the belief that the doctrine of infant salvation is 
 sometimes blessed to ungodly parents, as a means of their 
 conversion? At the heart of yonder young mother Christ 
 had been knocking, but there was no room for him in her 
 affections, that little fondling which she nestled so in her 
 bosom having filled it quite. Christ, however, was resolved 
 to gain admission into that mother’s heart; and therefore he 
 bade death go and snatch away the little one from her arms. 
 Say ye it was cruel to smite the child instead of its mother ? 
 No, it was not cruel; for Christ will care for the child, and 
 has found for it a safer shelter than within her arms. Sud¬ 
 denly, as her bitter tears drop on its dead cheek, her 
 anguished heart breaks out into an apostrophe to its flitted 
 spirit: My child, my child! my first-born, thou art now 
 within thy Saviour’s arms, but shall I, thine unhappy 
 mother, ever be with thee there? Again she weeps, for 
 they have carried out her little one for burial; but her 
 tears fall on the holy page, and these are drops of a sweet 
 sorrow, for she has admitted Christ into her smitten heart, 
 and she feels now that she will meet her child in 
 heaven. 
 
 It certainly imparts an interesting aspect to the society in 
 
LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 189 
 
 heaven, that so large a portion of its inhabitants is to be 
 composed of little children. 
 
 THE FAMILY COMPLETE. 
 
 When I consider what a sunny gladness children throw 
 around our households, I confess that, as a parent, my idea 
 of the heavenly household would not be complete if there 
 are not little children in it. 
 
 And may we not entertain the thought that the family in 
 heaven will never be without its children. That, compared 
 with those who entered it at an adult age, those who entered 
 it in infancy will always remain infantile. Let us suppose 
 for example, that David and his child, whom he has now 
 joined in glory, go on at the same rate adding to their im¬ 
 mortal years, will they not continue relatively to each other 
 as the man and the infant ? And should this be the case, 
 as seems not improbable, then the family in heaven will 
 never be without its infantile members. But not infants in 
 the sense in which we use the term, to express a weak, pre¬ 
 carious, unconscious creature, younger perhaps than the year 
 which saw it born. Such, relatively to us, whose own 
 strength is but weakness, and our life a span, are the infants 
 in our families. But infancy in heaven will be measured by 
 a very different scale of comparison. Take manhood, not 
 as you find here, but as it will be in its state of perfection 
 hereafter, and what; you might conceive the infancy of such 
 a manhood to be, that w T e can imagine will our infant cliil- 
 dren be, when first they enter heaven. And if the two—the 
 infancy and the manhood—shall both go on pari passu, or 
 with equal step, in their endless progress, they will still be 
 the same relatively to each other, and thus the family in 
 heaven will never be without its several stages of human 
 
 i 
 
190 
 
 LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 life. Infancy, with its artless simplicity, but without its 
 weakness or its ignorance, will be there; and age, with its 
 matured experience, hut without its wrinkles or the decays 
 of nature, will be there. 
 
 There appears to us to be something exceedingly consola¬ 
 tory to pious parents, who have lost infant children, in the 
 view which we have just attempted to illustrate. For if the 
 family in heaven is never to he without its juvenile members, 
 then those parents will never be without children. Taken 
 away from them here, these will be restored to them here¬ 
 after—restored to them, we believe, as their children still. 
 The little one, who never delighted a mother’s ear by lisping 
 her name on earth, will in heaven doubtless know her, and 
 call her mother there. Once, but only for a few brief months, 
 it was her child; now, and for ever, it is her child. Happy 
 mother! how her hopes which withered round her heart 
 when the young flower faded in her arms, and they took it 
 away from her sight, will become green again, when the 
 faded flower shall be laid on her bosom, revived as by 
 God’s own breath, fresh and fair, sparkling with the dew- 
 drops of immortality. Ah! who, father or mother, would not 
 lose a child, to have it thus restored to them again in heaven? 
 
 THE CHORAL SYMPHONY COMPLETE. 
 
 The time was when the heavenly music might be said to 
 have wanted its full diapason. The lofty swell of angel 
 voices was there, reaching the higher notes; but, as yet, no 
 human voices struck in to raise the lower. And if among 
 these, the soft sweet voices of children were not heard, might 
 we not say that the diapase would still be incomplete, and 
 the lyre of heaven would still want a string? But now when 
 infant choristers take their part in the choral symphony, 
 
LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 191 
 
 tlie music of heaven is at last made perfect. Now, from 
 harmony to harmony the heavenly numbers run; and the 
 words of David—himself how sweet a singer—are verified in 
 heaven in their very fullest meaning: “Out of the mouth 
 of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.” 
 
 Never shall we forget the impression which was made on 
 our own mind, when within our great metropolitan cathedral, 
 we listened to the mingled voices of some four thousand 
 children, singing that noblest of hymns, the hundredth 
 psalm, to that noblest of tunes which the genius of Luther 
 has wedded to the words of the inspired bard. The effect 
 was literally overpowering ; a strange mingling of awe, 
 admiration, and delight, thrilled through our frame, while 
 our thoughts, as if borne on the swelling stream of the music, 
 were wafted into a vision of the future, when a conception of 
 heaven such as we had never felt before rose in grandest 
 sublimity, as we could imagine ourselves to be listening to 
 its hosannahs sung by its children-choirs. 
 
 THE HYMN OF PRAISE COMPLETE. 
 
 In creation’s hymn may we not suppose that there are 
 passages which, with full effect, can be sung only by the 
 angels—those sons of the morning who struck their virgin 
 harps at creation’s prime. Yes, ye elder minstrels of the 
 sky, it will be yours to sing the hymn of the stars; for ye 
 were the first to see them shoot forth their shining rays from 
 the depths of primeval night. And in redemption’s hymn 
 are there not passages which must be sung by redeemed man? 
 Angels may join with him in its paeans of victory; but it 
 will be his to raise its hosannah to the Lamb: Thou art 
 worthy to receive honour, and glory, and riches, and power; 
 for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by thy 
 
192 
 
 LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN 
 
 blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
 nation. But in that new song are there not stanzas which 
 the children will most fitly sing? In the great poem of 
 redemption, there be those touching episodes: the manger- 
 cradle at Bethlehem—the infant Saviour in his mother’s 
 arms—the divine child in the temple—the God-man taking 
 the infants into his arms and blessing them; and when 
 these are set to the heaveidy music, who are to sing them if 
 not the children? Yes; these will throw a life, a pathos, a 
 tenderness, into those parts in the great epic of redemption, 
 which even a Moses or a David, skilled psalmists as they 
 were, could scarcely equal. "While others sing of his man¬ 
 hood’s struggles and his dying hour, be it yours, ye children- 
 choristers, to sing of your Saviour’s childhood life. 
 
XIII. 
 
 HEAVEN: THE OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 * 
 
 What we shall have chiefly to consider are the occupations 
 of the redeemed, or the human inhabitants of heaven. But 
 it may be proper before proceeding to speak of these, briefly 
 to refer to those other beings who, along with man, are to 
 people the heavenly world. How are these to be engaged? 
 
 1. And first as to God himself. His works of creation 
 and providence will have been wound up and finished at the 
 general judgment as respects this present world; but we are 
 to bear in mind that it forms but a very small part of his 
 empire. It is one of the least among the thousands in the 
 firmament. And unless we were to suppose (what is by no 
 means likely) that the history of these innumerable other 
 worlds is to be wound up contemporaneously with that of 
 our own, there will still remain a wide and ample field for 
 the exhibitions of providence, such as it is at present. To 
 manage these multitudinous worlds, and to minister to the 
 wants of their myriad popidations, will still be part of the 
 divine occupation. Nay, more, judging from analogy, it 
 seems highly probable, that as was the case with our own 
 telluric orb, so among these already existing worlds, there may 
 be not a few which are still passing through their periods of 
 chaos and cataclysms; and which will not be ready to receive 
 at least their higher order of inhabitants till their surfaces 
 shall have undergone changes which it will yet take many 
 thousand years to complete. So that when time to man has 
 
194 
 
 heaven: the occupations. 
 
 closed, it may only begin to dawn upon tlie denizens of these 
 more recent worlds, which one after another, mayhap at long 
 intervals, shall reach their “ sixth day,” so to speak; or that 
 period in their creation-week, when there shall be ushered 
 upon their finished convexities those beings who are to stand 
 somewhat in the same relation to the inferior creatures there, 
 in which man at his creation stood towards the co-inhabi¬ 
 tants of his own planet. Here, then, we can perceive a wide 
 field for creative energy even in already existing worlds. But 
 may we not go farther, when we consider what ample room 
 there is in the illimitable stretches of space for the location 
 of additional worlds, and indulge the anticipation that in the 
 hitherto unoccupied parts suns shall yet shine and planets 
 roll. And if it is to be so that the blanks in space, which, 
 for aught we can tell, may be as innumerable as the years of 
 eternity, are to be gradually filled up by successive worlds, 
 then the period may never arrive when creation shall have 
 ceased to be part of the divine occupation. And, of course, 
 every creative act, which gives existence to a world, implies 
 that, so long as that world shall last, there will be a provi¬ 
 dential superintendence of it and of all the creatures upon it. 
 Who shall say, then, how far the works of creation and of- 
 providence, such as they have been from “ the beginning,” 
 may yet spread over the illimitable breadths of extension, 
 and stretch down through the endless ages of duration? 
 
 2. Then, secondly, with respect to Christ the Mediator. 
 We are told that wiien the present system or economy shall 
 have closed, there will come a change in the employments 
 which now occupy him and in the position which He now 
 sustains. Meanwhile He holds a most ample sovereignty, 
 which, it would appear, is in some sense to be curtailed. 
 For “ then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered 
 
heaven: the occupations. 
 
 195 
 
 up the kingdom to God, even the Father.” (1 Cor. xv. 24.) 
 Is Fie, then, altogether to resign the kingly office? or alto¬ 
 gether to abdicate the kingly throne? Are the affairs of 
 government to be no more part of his occupation? It can¬ 
 not surely be so, when we read, that “ of the increase of his 
 government and peace there shall be no end;” that “ his 
 throne is to endure as the days of heaven ;” that “ unto the 
 Son He (the Father) saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever 
 and ever.” 
 
 What, then, is meant by his delivering up the kingdom 
 to the Father? or what is the kingdom which He is to deliver 
 up? Plainly it is the kingdom which He now holds as Me¬ 
 diator ; for whatever of kingly prerogative or possession 
 appertains to him as “the eternal Son” must ever and 
 equally be his in common with the Father. Now the king¬ 
 dom which has been given to Christ as the Mediator includes 
 what may be called his kingdom proper—his Church, or the 
 people whom his Father has given him to subdue, to reign 
 over and to bring safely home to glory; and outside this a 
 subsidiary kingdom, embracing the entire territory of the 
 earth and the whole of its population. • This latter kingdom 
 does not essentially, but only by reason of existing circum¬ 
 stances, appertain to him as Mediator. Without his hav¬ 
 ing, in the mean time, this universal sovereignty of the 
 entire earth—its waters, its dry land, its firmament, and 
 the elements, and of all nations, and every human being 
 upon it—it would be physically impossible for him, unless by 
 constant miracle, to carry out the objects and achieve the 
 design of his kingdom proper. 
 
 But a time might arrive, when the purposes of his govern¬ 
 ment, as his people’s Lord and King, shall not require that 
 Fie any longer exercise a mediatorial sovereignty over the 
 
196 
 
 heaven: the occupations. 
 
 world at large. Suppose his saints to have been all gathered 
 in, the last of them safely housed in the mansions of glory; 
 where oceans have no longer to be crossed in order to reach 
 them—where dangers can no longer assail them—where 
 enemies can no longer reach them—then the necessity of his 
 being “ Head over all things for the Church ” has ceased. 
 He has his subjects all around him now, within his Father’s 
 palace, close to his own throne. There He can reign over 
 them, and spend his eternal years with them, securing their 
 complete blessedness, without concerning himself as Mediator 
 with that outward kingdom, of which, for their sakes, or 
 that He might bring them to he where and what they now 
 are, He took the weight and the responsibility upon himself 
 these many years. Now, then, let that kingdom be delivered 
 up to God, even the Father; let its government henceforth 
 he merged with the essential and eternal government of the 
 Godhead. He shall still reign, hut it will be over his own 
 people. To provide for their happiness, to regulate their 
 society, and to see to their interests, this will he his kingly 
 office, and this his kingly occupation, henceforth and for ever. 
 
 3. Then, thirdly, as respects the angels. Their employ¬ 
 ments also will have undergone a change, “when time shall be 
 no more.” For then will the heirs of glory have been removed 
 from the earth, so that there will no longer be any necessity 
 for the “ ministering spirits ” to descend to the terrestrial 
 scene which before they had so often visited. Yet, for their 
 former services, there will doubtless be substituted those 
 offices of kindness, which they will discharge, and right gladly, 
 for the redeemed in heaven. They will still minister to the 
 heirs of glory, hut under more happy auspices. And who 
 can tell, when the history of our planet is wound up, hut 
 that there may he many such another to which the angels 
 
197 
 
 heaven: the occupations. 
 
 > 
 
 will be sent as ministering spirits? so that the change will 
 be rather in the sphere than in the nature of their occupa¬ 
 tions. 
 
 But now we have to do more particularly with the occu¬ 
 pations of the human inhabitants of heaven. And here, it 
 must be confessed, that Scripture has shed only a dim and 
 scanty light. But, bare as are the hints which we have to 
 go upon, there need be no hesitation in pronouncing certain 
 current notions respecting the heavenly occupations to be 
 inconsistent with Scripture. 
 
 fai.se views. 
 
 One very common notion is, that the redeemed will be 
 engaged in perpetual singing; that the harp is never out of 
 their hands, and that their fingers continually sweep its 
 strings. Another very common notion is, that they will for 
 ever keep gazing, as if in a trance of mingled wonderment 
 and delight, upon the person of the Redeemer, their eye so 
 fascinated and filled with the glory of his appearance, that 
 all other objects shall be in a manper invisible to them. 
 Another prevailing notion respecting the heavenly state is, 
 that it is one of sheer repose—a sort of musing ecstacy or 
 reverie, somewhat as when one falls into a train of pleasing 
 meditation, from which he would rather not be aroused 
 to any active exertion. 
 
 Now, although the Scriptures are neither copious, nor 
 by any means explicit, concerning the occupations of 
 heaven, yet enough is revealed to show that the notions 
 to which I have referred present a very defective, and in some 
 respects a very distorted, view of what these are to be. 
 
 As to the notion that the redeemed are to be engaged in 
 
198 
 
 heaven: the occupations. 
 
 perpetual song, it probably has arisen from the frequency 
 with which this delightful part of worship is introduced into 
 the account which Scripture gives of the celestial temple; 
 and there is, besides, something congenial to the imagina¬ 
 tion in the idea of an unbroken melody—one continuous 
 psalm of life, rolling its wave-notes of song till silence, in 
 her farthest solitudes, listening finds a voice, and sends back 
 the repeating echoes. The effect of music is universally 
 acknowledged; and at any time when the heart feels itself 
 oppressed and straitened with its pent-up feelings, one almost 
 incontinently breaks out into singing,—as if on the winged 
 melody, better than in words only spoken, the restrained 
 emotions can find vent and utterance; and while the melody 
 is still murmuring round the heart, as w T ell as on the lips, 
 one has very much the feeling that, could he thus for ever 
 praise, it would be heaven indeed. But it is easy to see 
 that this notion of perpetual song, though pleasing enough 
 to the imagination, cannot equally satisfy the reason. For 
 there are more than emotions to be expressed in heaven; 
 there is intellect to be exercised by suitable studies, and 
 there are active powers to be employed in congenial services. 
 On soberer reflection, therefore, it does not appear that min¬ 
 strelsy can be our only ministration, or song our only service 
 in heaven. That there will be perpetual praise, reason 
 itself teaches us to expect; but this is a very different thing 
 from saying that there will be perpetual song. For there is 
 the praise of active obedience—the praise of holy contempla¬ 
 tion—the praise of faculties consecrated to the Creator’s 
 service, and of affections harmonious with his will. Now, 
 w r e believe that without there being always an audible music, 
 this praise will form part of heaven’s minstrelsy, fitly fill¬ 
 ing up the pauses of song. 
 
heaven: the occupations. 
 
 199 
 
 With regard to the notion that the redeemed are to be 
 ever gazing on the person of the Redeemer, as if there were 
 in his mere outward appearance a certain fascination to fix the 
 untiring gaze, this, no doubt, has arisen from the prominence 
 which in Scripture is given to Christ as the great central 
 object in heaven. And it has also some foundation in our 
 social nature. For when beyond all others, an individual 
 has engaged our affections and occupied our thoughts, we do 
 feel that we could gaze upon him ever so long, and that 
 while he is present our eye would scarcely be free to turn 
 upon other objects. Xenophon narrates the case of an 
 Armenian princess, who, after all the rest of the company 
 had expressed their admiration of Cyrus, upon being asked 
 what about this royal personage she admired most, answered 
 that she did not even look at him, because her whole atten¬ 
 tion had been absorbed in admiring another; nor do we 
 wonder at this, when the historian informs us that he who 
 stood by her side was her young husband, who had offered to 
 die for her. 
 
 So we can well conceive that on their first entrance into 
 heaven, the redeemed will for a while he so entirely absorbed 
 in the contemplation of him, who not only offered to die, 
 but did actually lay down his life for them, that they will 
 be incapable of paying much attention to any other object. 
 But when it is said that, after their first long ravishing gaze, 
 they will continue for ages doing nothing but looking on 
 Christ, we must express our dissent from such a view of the 
 occupations of the blessed. For neither, on the one hand, 
 can we think that they are to be made perfect in all the 
 powers and faculties of their nature, merely to be gazers; 
 nor, on the other haud, does it at all consist with our idea 
 of the true glory of Christ, that He is to sit upon his throne 
 
200 
 
 heaven: the occupations. 
 
 as a mere spectacle to be gazed at. Bather let ns say that 
 the sight of Christ, after they have recovered from the 
 transport into which for a time it will doubtless have 
 thrown them, will fire the redeemed with a desire to serve 
 him in some more active employment. For that love w T hich 
 could exhale itself in mere looks is at once too sentimental 
 and too selfish, to be the perfect love of heaven. What I 
 am I to sit thus idly gazing, great pleasure as it is, when lie 
 may have work for me to do? 
 
 As to the notion concerning the heavenly state, that it is 
 one of sheer repose—a quietism so complete as to admit of 
 no effort—a sort of muse or meditation, when the wrapt 
 soul will give itself up entirely to a mental ecstaey or reverie; 
 this probably has arisen from heaven being so often described 
 as a place of rest. But rest does not necessarily imply inac¬ 
 tion. There may be repose without supineness. The holy 
 Sabbath is a day of rest; yet it is not a day of idleness, on 
 w r hich no work is to be done. The tired labourer does not go 
 forth, as on yesterday, to his morning toil; yet not in indol¬ 
 ence is he to spend the day. Now the rest in heaven is a 
 Sabbatic rest. It is significantly called a Sabbatism —the 
 keeping of a Sabbath. There is an entire cessation from 
 toil—a resting from our earthly labours; the six days’ work 
 of time is done, never again to be resumed; but the Sab¬ 
 bath work goes on, for instead of sheer repose, or indolent 
 reverie, there will be ceaseless activity. And still it will 
 be rest; because, though ever working, the redeemed will 
 never weary. 
 
 We have said that Scripture is neither copious nor expli¬ 
 cit in its allusions to the employments of the redeemed. But 
 from what cursory descriptions have been given, we are able 
 to particularise some of the heavenly occupations, and, with 
 
heaven: the occupations. 
 
 201 
 
 respect to the others, to determine at least what will he their 
 general character. There will doubtless be activity, mani¬ 
 fold service, and sacred studies. 
 
 ENTIRE ACTIVITY-MENTAL AND BODILY. 
 
 One of the properties of matter is what the philosophers 
 call vis inertia —that power by which it resists any change 
 endeavoured to be made on its state of rest or motion; or, 
 more properly, that want of power either to put itself in 
 motion, or to stop itself when moving. But mind is not 
 thus inert; on the contrary,’ activity is its essential pro¬ 
 perty. Through all the orders of intelligent beings, not 
 excepting God himself, activity is a great normal law of 
 intellect. It is, therefore, impossible to conceive of a state 
 of blessedness or mental fruition for man, which will not 
 afford scope for the outputting and exercise of the activities 
 of his mental powers, and that in a far higher degree than 
 in his present state. For, energetic as his mind is here, it 
 has a prophetic consciousness of latent energies, which only 
 wait a more favourable condition of existence to draw them 
 forth. 
 
 It will sometimes happen with a faculty, that it is only par¬ 
 tially drawn out, by reason of another faculty being allowed 
 something like a monopoly, at least, more than its fair 
 share, of the mental work. The result of this misbalanced 
 exercise of its powers is unfavourable to the activity of the 
 mind. The neglected faculty struggles for a time to be em¬ 
 ployed, but at last gives up the unequal contest with its 
 more favoured competitor. Now in heaven there will be 
 nothing of this sort; but all the mental faculties will be 
 actively employed in the most entire harmony; for, like the 
 strings of a perfectly-adjusted harp, each will be in tune; 
 
202 
 
 HEAVEN : THE OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 and the mind itself, like a skilled harpist, will sweep every 
 string with the same consummate touch. 
 
 Then, here the mental powers rarely tell with their full 
 force or momentum, from w r ant of being sufficiently concen¬ 
 trated. They are too often put forth in divergent instead 
 of converging lines. Diversions and distractions innumer¬ 
 able divide and thereby weaken their action. But this 
 will not be the case in heaven. For there one grand, absorb¬ 
 ing, terminating object,—the glory of God, will draw to itself 
 every desire, converge upon itself every aspiration, and con¬ 
 centrate in itself the entire energised mental faculties. 
 
 Then, further, active as the mind itself is, it has here to 
 contend with the inertia of matter. For the body is a con¬ 
 stant clog and hindrance to its activity. But in heaven it 
 will be very different. There the glorified frame will be a 
 help and auxiliary to the glorified spirit. The lassitude and 
 languor of the body will be felt no more. 
 
 The heavenly state, then, wall be one of entire activity. The 
 mobile body and the motive spirit “ rest not day nor night.” 
 
 MANIFOLD SERVICE. 
 
 Even in this inferior and more contracted sphere, there is 
 manifold service for those who strive to do the will of God. 
 The great Work-giver varies the employments to which He 
 puts his servants. Imagine these to be transferred to the 
 higher and more ample sphere, and to be there employed by 
 turns, as God’s ministers, to do his commandments; as his 
 minstrels, to celebrate his praise; and as his messengers, 
 to go on his behests. Flow manifold the service! 
 
 Though the work in heaven will be greatly more multiform 
 and extensive than was the work on earth, yet it will be no 
 burden or heavy task. For, in the first place, the capacity 
 
HEAVEN : THE OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 203 
 
 for labour, if labour we may call it, will be amazingly 
 increased. * Then, also, there will be an entire congeniality 
 between the workers and their work. And, thirdly, they 
 will have the most perfect knowledge what their allotted 
 work is. For each human child redeemed has he not stood 
 beside the throne on high, with his eye intent to catch the 
 first indication of his Father’s will, and with his ear cpiick to 
 learn the first tidings of any piece of work that his Father 
 wishes to be done? The eager eye had caught up the wish 
 while yet unspoken; the quick ear has caught it up again 
 now wiien it has been spoken; and, therefore, there can be 
 no doubt, no pausing to ask, Am I in the path of duty? is 
 this my work? shall I do well to go through with it? 
 
 There will be worship as well as work in heaven. A part 
 of that worship will certainly be praise—the psalmody of the 
 voice, and the music of instruments. Generally the choral 
 harmony of many voices will swell the song; but w r e may 
 suppose that sometimes an individual minstrel will raise his 
 single voice—some David among the gifted singers—to whom 
 even angels will be glad to listen. And prayer, also, at least 
 in some of its forms, will be part of the heavenly worship. 
 Confession there will not be, where there is now no sin to 
 confess; but there will surely be adoration and thanks¬ 
 giving. And we cannot doubt but that there will also be 
 petition. For though the Heavenly Father will often anti¬ 
 cipate the wishes of his children, yet were it only that they 
 may have the luxury of asking, there will doubtless be the 
 making known of their requests; and whether in audible 
 words the desire be expressed to the ear, or by look or 
 sign exhibited to the eye of God, it matters not; in either 
 case it is prayer. 
 
 As God’s messengers, the redeemed will surround the 
 
204 
 
 HEAVEN : THE OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 throne with their loins girt ready to start on any errand, 
 were it to the utmost verge of creation itself, on which He may 
 send them. And may we not anticipate what some of these 
 errands will he? To our own earth the angels have often 
 come, and will continue their visits so long as there remains 
 upon it an heir of glory to be ministered unto. Thus have 
 they set us the example how the inhabitants of one world 
 may take an interest in, and perform friendly services to, the 
 inhabitants of another world; and is it presuming too far to 
 suppose that this example will he followed by the redeemed, 
 when, with their powers of motion immensely increased, they 
 shall go forth in their turn as ministering spirits to minister 
 to some of the scattered branches of the universal family? 
 Methinks I can hear them saying, We have been ministered 
 unto, and shall we not minister? 
 
 We have spoken of manifold service; and in this we would 
 be understood to include not the variety only, hut also the 
 amount, of work which will he done in heaven. Suppose 
 two individuals—the one employed in some congenial avo¬ 
 cation, into which he throws his whole soul, and devotes to 
 it his undivided time; the other labouring through a task 
 for which he has no liking, to which he bends his mind but 
 half, and gives to it only snatches of his time, need we say 
 which of these will accomplish the greatest amount of work ? 
 Or take any one who has ever attained to eminence, or 
 achieved anything notable, in art, literature, or science, and be 
 sure here is a man who had a passionate love of his profes¬ 
 sion, and who pursued it with the most patient and absorbing 
 application; and be sure of this also, that when a man 
 fulfils these conditions of success, he will not fail eventually 
 to be successful. Now, transfer this principle from earth to 
 heaven, and you will see that the active spirits there cannot 
 
heaven: the occupations. 
 
 205 
 
 fail to achieve great things, and overtake an immense amount 
 of work. For the service in which they are employed is alto¬ 
 gether congenial to their moral nature; to that service they 
 consecrate themselves soul and body, with a devotion which 
 never falters, a zeal which never cools, a perseverance which 
 never flags; in that service their whole time, or rather eter¬ 
 nity, is occupied; for “they serve God day and night.” 
 And then, besides, even beyond all this, is the motive which 
 sustains their efforts and stimulates their activity. They 
 work not for reward, nor for fame, nor simply to escape the 
 ennui of inaction; but they work from love and gratitude. 
 They serve Him who, for their sakes, consecrated himself 
 to labours manifold, and sufferings most exhaustive, from 
 which He found no rest till they laid him in the grave. 
 
 SACRED STUDIES. 
 
 Here the human mind is only preparing to commence its 
 studies, having time for little more than to master the bare 
 rudiments or mere alphabet of knowledge; and the earth is 
 but a preparatory or training school for this purpose. It is 
 in heaven that our student-life may be said really to begin. 
 
 The great theme of study will be truth—truth as multi¬ 
 fariously manifested in and by Him who is the truth. 
 
 1. One important branch of the heavenly studies, therefore, 
 will be the material universe, in its laws, operations, and 
 substances. How frequently, and in how sublime strains, 
 has the pious psalmist touched his harp to celebrate the 
 visible glories of creation. With equal poetry, and a subli¬ 
 mity even greater, has Job discoursed of the marvels of the 
 great deep and the magnificence of the starry heavens. And 
 indeed, in all ages, those who fear God are diligent to search 
 out the imprints of his glory and the marks of his liandi- 
 
206 
 
 HEAVEN : THE OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 work, which are visible in the material productions of his 
 creative energy. The man of science is able to reach the 
 higher altitudes of the universe, and to pierce into the pro- 
 founder mysteries of nature ; but, without the aids of science, 
 the pious peasant can trace on the simplest floweret of the 
 field the wondrous skill, which has given to it its graceful 
 form and dipped it in its lively hues. It required a Newton 
 to draw their secret from the stars; hut there is a voice in 
 these rolling spheres, as they hymn their Creator’s praise, 
 which it needs no philosophy to interpret. 
 
 Can it he supposed then that in our higher state of being, 
 where the opportunities of contemplating the wonders of the 
 material universe will be so much greater, the study of these, 
 as manifesting the glory of the Creator, will not form part of 
 our occupation? Not that, with some enthusiasts of science, 
 we would represent heaven as a school of natural philosophy; 
 or the redeemed as prosecuting mere technical science in its 
 various formal branches. We do not imagine that the phi¬ 
 losophy of a future state necessarily implies, that there will 
 he its astronomy, its optics, its chemistry, or its dynamics; 
 for these sub-divisions of science, while they add to its com¬ 
 pleteness, do also betray its imperfection,—that we have not 
 yet reached that universal philosophy to which these branch- 
 sciences are so many steps of gradual approximation. We 
 cannot, therefore, but regret that certain writers, in their 
 endeavours to disarm the prejudice which many feel against 
 the idea of science forming one of the studies in heaven, 
 should have rather alarmed than allayed that prejudice, by 
 speaking in a way which might lead one to suppose that the 
 redeemed are to be looking through telescopes among the 
 stars, or with prisms examining the properties and laws of 
 light, or with crucibles and chemical tests investigating the 
 
heaven: the occupations. 
 
 207 
 
 combinations of simple substances. Not, thus, by any means 
 do we suppose that the redeemed will be the students of' 
 mere technical or formal science. Nor do we suppose that 
 science itself will be the object of their pursuit. But that they 
 will survey with studious eye the material universe, the im¬ 
 mensity of worlds and systems which compose it, the variety 
 of design, of objects, and of scenery which abounds in it; in 
 order that they may discover, admire, and celebrate “ the mani¬ 
 fold wisdom of God.” Not in heaven itself only, but through¬ 
 out the boundless scene of the divine operations, they shall be 
 able to perceive and comprehend the contrivance and skill, 
 the riches of creative munificence, the vast designs, the exqui¬ 
 site adaptations, the miracles of power and intelligence, which 
 are displayed throughout ever} 7 part of the universal system. 
 And as each new discovery is made, another stanza will be 
 added to creation’s anthem; till, as sung by human lips, it 
 may at length equal, if not surpass, that which was raised 
 by the Sons of the morning when they sang the birth-ode of 
 infant worlds. Then will science have reached its noblest 
 study, when it shall unravel the mysteries and investigate 
 the law 7 s which govern a renovated creation. Then will it 
 have its true consecration, and fulfil its true uses, when it 
 shall constitute a hymn of praise to the Creator. 
 
 2. Another and more important branch of the occupations 
 of the redeemed will be the study of providence. 
 
 They have seen it in one world; they shall then behold it 
 in another world. They have beheld it as a mixed economy 
 of good and evil; they shall then see it as an economy of 
 pure and perfect goodness. They have contemplated it as a 
 method of government over one order of beings, namely, 
 man; they shall then have an opportunity of studying it as 
 a form of government, embracing two orders of being— 
 
208 
 
 heaven: the occupations. 
 
 angels and men. They have witnessed it as the administra¬ 
 tion of a remote and small province; they shall then be able 
 to study it as the loftier administration of the very metro¬ 
 polis of the empire. 
 
 But may we not give to the study of providence, as it will 
 be prosecuted in heaven, a still wider range? For, with 
 regard to those star-worlds, of which we know little else than 
 that they shine, may we not anticipate that the redeemed 
 will either actually visit them, when they can make observa¬ 
 tions on the spot; or that they will have so greatly an 
 enlarged vision as to be able to see from some celestial emi¬ 
 nence what is passing upon them. Now, if every one of these 
 worlds is peopled with inhabitants of a different species from 
 those of another; if the dispensations of the Creator towards 
 its inhabitants are such as have not been exhibited towards 
 any other world; if the arrangement of its destinies is dis¬ 
 played in a manner in which it has never been displayed 
 to any other class of intelligences; if, in short, every star- 
 world is a province of creation, which exhibits a special mani¬ 
 festation of the Deity, then what an amazing amplitude of 
 providence will the redeemed have to expatiate over in their 
 study of its manifold dispensations! 
 
 3. Another and by far the most important branch of the 
 studies of the redeemed will be redemption. 
 
 We know on the authority of an inspired apostle that one 
 portion of the celestial races have made redemption a special 
 subject of study; for, alluding to certain of its mysteries, he 
 adds, “ which things the angels desire to look into.” They 
 have two reasons for being thus wishful to increase their 
 knowledge of redemption: the first that, so far as we know, 
 it is the most stupendous exhibition that has ever been made 
 to his creatures, of the character and perfections of God; the 
 
heaven: the occupations. 
 
 209 
 
 other, that their own destiny would seem in some way, and 
 to some extent, to be mixed up with its history. Now the 
 first of these reasons holds in equal degree, and the second 
 in an immensely greater degree, why the human inha¬ 
 bitants of heaven should “desire to look into these things.” 
 But on this it needs not that we enlarge; so obvious is it 
 that redemption will be the theme of themes—the life-long 
 study of eternity. In this, through all its gradations, sanctified 
 intellect will find its most congenial subject. To explore the 
 mysteries and secrets of redeeming love, and find these mys¬ 
 teries grow with each fresh discovery; to climb the altitudes 
 and still descry its “heights” above them—to fathom the 
 profundities and still find its “ depths” unfathomed—to 
 travel over the immensities and still see its “ lengths and 
 breadths” stretching beyond—to understand the mysteries 
 and still find this mystery “ passing understanding;” what a 
 boundless prospect of progressive study will a theme so illi¬ 
 mitable open up to redeemed intelligences! 
 
 One cannot well help asking, what is the bearing of redemp¬ 
 tion on the destinies of other worlds, besides the one on 
 which it was achieved? If in any of these there are apostate 
 races, can the salvation which incarnate Deity procured for 
 our human race be extended to them also? Are the inhabi¬ 
 tants of other worlds, whether it affects their destiny or not, 
 aware, at least, of the fact, that He who is their Creator 
 became incarnate? These are questions, however, which 
 must be reserved until our study of redemption shall be pro¬ 
 secuted in the other world. 
 
 And, here, let us add, that the pleasure felt in the acqui¬ 
 sition of knowledge will doubtless be enhanced by the plea¬ 
 sure of imparting it. In this present state the Great Teacher 
 is pleased to employ those who possess knowledge to com- 
 
 o 
 
210 
 
 heaven: the occupations. 
 
 municate it to those who possess it not, and those who have 
 special gifts to impart of these to such as are less gifted. 
 And why may we not suppose that it will be the same in 
 heaven? That a Moses, for example, will expound to willing 
 listeners that law of God, which he had so profoundly stu¬ 
 died. Or that a Paul will unfold some of those “ things 
 hard to be understood,” which he has touched with a run¬ 
 ning pen. Or that a David, great master of the lyre, will 
 instruct the younger sons of glory, how to touch its loftier 
 strings. Or that a Eunice, so faithful an instructress of 
 her youthful son, will, as a mother still, gather round her 
 the children in heaven, to teach them the mysteries of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Nor is it only the more highly gifted wdio will thus find 
 employment. For where there is no pride, none of the 
 arrogance of knowledge, the very greatest will be willing to 
 learn from the very least, and the very least will have some¬ 
 thing to teach them. 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE RETROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 There is only one mind to which, strictly speaking, there 
 is neither past nor future, but all time, even eternity 
 itself, is one perpetual present, an unchanging now. That 
 mind is the Infinite. What to us, or other beings, is still 
 future, or has become past, is to God always present. We 
 speak, indeed, of the divine remembrance; but, in strict 
 accuracy, memory is not a divine attribute. So, also, we 
 speak of God’s foresight; but here, likewise, the language is 
 suggested by our own limited conceptions, for God needs not 
 to look forward, since to His vision the eternal futurities 
 are as proximate as if they were one ever-present moment. 
 To finite minds, duration is in a constant flux, and may be 
 said to have a double motion—the past rushing to meet the 
 future, while the future rushes as rapidly to meet the past. 
 The effect of this is not to cause a stagnation in any part of 
 the current. For the meeting waters of time produce no -eddy¬ 
 ing pause, as you will sometimes see when the clown-flowing 
 river and the advancing tide seem to contest the right of 
 way. The past glides into the future, and the future into 
 the past, with an ease and a rapidity which, as we might 
 say, has the effect of cutting the present shorter by one- 
 half. 
 
 In speaking of present time, we sometimes give to it an exten¬ 
 sion, which, so far as we are concerned, is altogether imagi- 
 
212 
 
 i 
 
 THE EETEOSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 nary. Thus we speak of the present century; hut this is made 
 up of a succession of years, some of which were passed away 
 before we were born, and some of which will still be future 
 when we shall be in our graves. So we speak of the present 
 year; but this, again, is made up of a succession of days, some 
 of which we have already seen pass away; but who can tell 
 whether we shall see the last of those that have yet to 
 run ? So we speak of the present day; but this, again, is 
 made up of a succession of hours, which pass us wing-footed, 
 never bating their speed, any more than the spinning earth 
 ever stops on its axis. So we speak of the present hour; 
 but even this is made up of a succession of moments, which, 
 fast as we can count them, are come and gone. Hence our 
 present is but an instant of time—this mere moment, half 
 of which is away ere its other half is come. And so, likewise, 
 our mental life would be but momentary, were it not that 
 we have the power of recalling the past and of anticipating 
 the future. Memory and hope give extension to our con¬ 
 scious existence; the former drawing it out backwards into 
 the years that are gone, while the latter draws it out forward 
 into the years that have yet to come. 
 
 Suppose, then, the question to be this: Is a human being 
 happy? It were vain to confine that question to the pre¬ 
 sent, which, as we have seen, is but a moment. He must 
 needs take it in the retrospect, or what of happiness does 
 memory bring back from the past ? and also the prospect, or 
 what of happiness does hope anticipate in the future? 
 Stretch the line of life across the mere point or instant of 
 present time, and as you find it on either side, so conclude 
 whether the human being merits to be called happy. 
 
 We now purpose to apply this standard to the blessedness 
 of heaven, and in this present chapter shall inquire what is 
 
THE RETROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 213 
 
 the retrospect of the redeemed, and how far it contributes 
 to their felicity ? 
 
 TIME HETROSPECTED. 
 
 The back-cast eye of memory will, from each new stand¬ 
 point in eternity, look athwart that portion of time which 
 the now glorified ones spent upon the earth; and the result 
 of this will be, that they will discover that many events 
 which they thought had passed and gone for ever, have, in 
 reality, been stored up and kept in reserve for them until 
 now; that many things, which they thought little of, or 
 which they did not think of at all, have, notwithstanding, 
 been woven into the web of their destiny, and made to work 
 out for them this exceeding weight of glory which they now 
 enjoy. Thus will the retrospecting of time, in one sense, be 
 equivalent to redeeming it; when those portions of it which 
 seemed to yield little or nothing are now found to have 
 been contributing to their then future but now present hap¬ 
 piness. 
 
 The retrospect of our earthly life might be thought, in 
 some respects, not to be a pleasing one; since it must 
 include sins and sorrows. But here two considerations are 
 to be taken into account. First, these sins and sorrows will 
 then be over entirely and for ever; and, therefore, as 
 they rise to memory, they can only have the effect, by the 
 law of contrast, of heightening our enjoyment. Then, 
 secondly, even in this our present state, we have so far the 
 power of omitting from our retrospect of the past, objects 
 which would be painful, and of fixing the mind on those 
 which are pleasing. Take the case of a forlorn female, 
 whose memory is started on a train of the past by some 
 pleasing association—say the opening of a rosebud in the 
 
214: 
 
 THE EETEOSPECT IN HEAVEH. 
 
 slim flower-pot which is set in her lattice window; imme¬ 
 diately her thoughts wander to the happy days of her girl¬ 
 hood, when she knew only gladness, and every prospect 
 was bright,—her young life like that folded bud now opening 
 to the sunshine. Now we have only to suppose that this 
 power of extruding unpleasant objects from memory’s pic¬ 
 tures shall be possessed by us in a still higher degree than 
 it is now, and in that case the retrospection of our past lives 
 will be the source of a very high enjoyment. 
 
 The scheme of providence, also, or the method of the 
 divine government in this present world, will be included in 
 the retrospect of time; and how very different will it appear 
 to the redeemed, when reviewed in the light which the last 
 judgment will have shed around it. What -was dark in it 
 before, how luminous now! What was intricate, how simple! 
 What apparently partial, how complete! Often had they 
 been obliged to keep silent, believing, indeed, that the Judge 
 of the whole earth would do right, yet unable at the time to 
 see the righteousness of his proceedings. But now they need 
 be silent no longer; for there is not a single difficulty which 
 has not been cleared up. Ah! could we only have seen 
 (they will be ready to exclaim) the links which were hidden, 
 we should never have begun to fear that the chain was 
 .broken or entangled. Could we only have foreseen the 
 issues, we should never have been so much perplexed about 
 the antecedent steps. Had we but kept in mind where our 
 view-point of providence was, not as here at the centre, 
 where its entire circle can be swept, but somewhere on its 
 circumference, where all that we could take in was but a seg¬ 
 ment of its curve, then we would have been less surprised 
 at apparent irregularities. 
 
 One is disposed at first to imagine that time—or at all 
 
THE RETROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 215 
 
 events that brief portion of it which is measured out as the 
 life-span of the individual—must appear very diminutive 
 w r hen it shall be looked back upon from eternity. But I 
 question very much if this will be the case. Nay, I 
 rather incline to think that years, and days, and hours, will 
 assume a dimension when we retrospect them from the 
 eternal world, which they never had when we measured them 
 by the revolving seasons, or by the circling hands on the 
 dial-plate, or the beating of the pendulum. It is a year— 
 the earth has once more travelled its orbit; and so we add 
 another unit to the age of the century. It is an hour—the 
 minute-hand has once more gone round the dial circle; and 
 so w T e add another unit to the age of the day. It is a 
 minute—the pendulum has made sixty beats; and so we 
 add another unit to the age of the hour. But that year so 
 quickly past—that hour so swiftly sped—that minute all so 
 momentary; ah! of what immense duration may they 
 appear when measured by the scale of eternity. You thought 
 they would seem as nothing, but not so do those in the 
 other world find them. Behold yonder seed-grain which the 
 husbandman has cast into the ground,; when it has sprung 
 up and ripened in the harvest time, it will be found to have 
 multiplied itself sixty, or seventy, or a hundred fold. And 
 even so will it be w r ith the thoughts, the words, the actions, 
 with which we are sowing the field of time. They also will 
 spring up again, to be gathered in the harvest of eternity, 
 multiplied manifold. A breathed thought, which here 
 lasted but a moment, may there become an endless pleasure 
 or an endless pain. A passing desire, which the heart flung 
 from it as rapidly as a spark might fly from a crackling thorn, 
 may, when reproduced in eternity, grow into a quenchless 
 passion or an undying rapture. A deed which was done 
 
216 
 
 THE EETEOSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 here in an hour or less, may, in the other world, cause 
 eternal despair, or wake up the soul to eternal praise. We 
 may say here, it is but a year,—a day,—an hour; and so in 
 sooth they are as reckoned by the clock; but what of this 
 hour, this day, this year hereafter, when their issues have 
 stretched out and prolonged themselves into the dimensions 
 of eternity ? What will these seed-grains of time count to 
 us when they shall be reaped in the eternal harvest? 
 
 Thus, the past of time, recalled by memory, will mingle, 
 as it were, with the eternity of the redeemed, and will very 
 sensibly swell the tide of their happiness. 
 
 ETERNITY RETROSPECTED. 
 
 The redeemed will look farther back than time. For 
 from that celestial eminence to which they will then have 
 been raised, their vision will be able to throw its glances 
 athwart the eternity that is past, taking in immensely more 
 of its dateless ages than they were able to do while upon 
 this lower earth. 
 
 Several circumstances will enable them to take this greatly 
 larger back-sweep of eternity. Thus, in the first place, with 
 an increase of their mental vision there will be, of course, a 
 corresponding enlargement of mental retrospect. We know 
 what the telescope, by its space-penetrating power, has 
 enabled the eye to accomplish in its survey of the distant 
 heavens. How it has been able to bring forth, from their 
 unapproachable remoteness, many thousands of stars, which 
 had lain concealed in darkness, which, till assisted by this 
 instrument, the eye attempted in vain to pierce. Now. 
 though we cannot well conceive of any corresponding instru¬ 
 ment with a time-penetrating power, by which the mind 
 could look into distant ages, as the eye by means of the 
 
THE RETROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 217 
 
 telescope can discover distant stars; yet we can easily con¬ 
 ceive of such an enlargement of the mind’s own vision, 
 whereby, without any mechanical aid, it shall yet be able to 
 sweep across the interminable vista of receding years, which, 
 with its present limited range, only appear the longer it 
 tries to reach them, to recede the farther into silence, and 
 solitude, and darkness. 
 
 Then, further, the very associations of the place where 
 they are will assist the redeemed in realising the past 
 eternity, in a way they could never have done upon the 
 earth. For the home in w r hich they then shall be is the 
 home of the Eternal Himself—the very habitations in which 
 He has spent his dateless years. In these same seats of 
 blessedness, too, where they will be enjoying the divine 
 society, the Eternal Son dwelt in the bosom of the Father 
 ere yet the concave of the starry firmament w r as arched, or 
 the foundations of the earth were laid. And there, also, in 
 these celestial chambers, which they shall then occupy, the 
 plan of redemption was devised, and the covenant of redemp¬ 
 tion decided upon. There, also, beside that very throne, 
 wdiich they shall then circle, the angejs struck their virgin 
 harps, and sang them first hymn. 
 
 And then, in the third place, without the supposition of 
 any new faculty, but simply by the force „of a mental law 
 which at present operates, the redeemed will have the dis¬ 
 tances of eternity brought near to them. The law to which 
 we refer may be illustrated by familiar examples, and it 
 holds true both with respect to time and space. Thus, sup¬ 
 pose we have heard of some distant region only by reports 
 sent home by those who have discovered it; these may give 
 a very graphic description of its physical aspects, of its 
 vegetable productions, and of its inhabitants; still it is a 
 
218 
 
 THE RETROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 distant picture,—so distant that we feel very much as if we 
 were straining our eye across the broad ocean to get a sight 
 of it. But let one who has been there describe it to us, and 
 what a magical effect his presence has to bring the picture 
 close to us! The mountains which this friend now at our side 
 has climbed, the animals which he has hunted, and of which 
 these are the skins, the rivers whose sources he has traced, 
 how much less distant they appear to us now, than when we 
 heard of them by report. It is the same with distant years 
 as it is with distant countries. Suppose, for example, that 
 we have been reading a description of a battle which hap¬ 
 pened nearly a century'' ago; the historian’s pen may have 
 described it with wonderful picturesqueness, yet we feel that 
 the shadows of a century have removed it far back from us. 
 But if we should happen to fall in with an aged veteran who 
 had fleshed his sword on that battle-field, as he narrates to 
 us the scene, we forget that it is now nearly a hundred years 
 since it was fought; for here is a living link beside us which 
 brings it near. Now, by the same mental law, the past 
 eternity will be brought near to the redeemed. For they, 
 also, will have a living link to connect it with their present 
 consciousness; seeing they will be in the immediate presence 
 of that Eternal Being, who not only existed during that 
 eternal past, but filled it and vivified it with thoughts and 
 purposes of redeeming love, of which they were the special 
 objects. Near to him, yea in his heart, they were present 
 then, though future ages had yet to roll ere they could have 
 a being. And now his presence brings that past 'eternity 
 near to them; for they forget its antiquity, and cease to ask 
 how long since then, when He, the Eternal One Himself, is 
 there,—his heart still full of the same love, his mind still 
 t occupied with the same thoughts, his purpose still unchange- 
 
THE RETROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 219 
 
 ably bent upon the same designs, which gave to that eternity 
 a history in which their histories were included. Yes, in 
 his proximity the remotest of its ages will become proxi¬ 
 mate. In his presence its years will cease to be past. In 
 him who was, and is, and is to be, they mil find that living 
 fink which will unite for them the eternal past with the 
 eternal future; and thus they will be able to realise the 
 glorious mystery, that their life is indeed eternal; that as it 
 is to be to everlasting with God, so has it been from ever¬ 
 lasting in God—a life as truly without beginning as it shall 
 be without end. 
 
 Thus looking back with a retrospect, winch will embrace 
 the distant, but to them no longer the dim, recesses of a 
 bygone eternity, and linking with their own present happi¬ 
 ness its past history, the redeemed will find their blessedness 
 amazingly augmented. For as upwards, and still upwards, 
 they trace the windings of the river of life which has been 
 flowing down through the ages; as nearer, and still nearer, 
 they reach its spring-head in the bosom of the Eternal; 
 and as they discover how this stream of mercy has ever flowed 
 for them, then will a feeling of God’s past eternity mingle 
 with their own present eternity, till there shall be, as it were, 
 the union of two infinites to make up the fulness of their 
 blessedness. 
 
 We have spoken of the retrospection of the bygone eter¬ 
 nity, to reach the nearest of whose ages the eye will have to 
 look across the entire breadth of time. But there is the other 
 eternity on the farther side of time, and this, also, the 
 redeemed will retrospect, or rather those portions of it which 
 shall have become preterit, for its whole the eye will never 
 see as past. 
 
 And what delightful reminiscences will this retrospect bring 
 
220 
 
 THE KETKOSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 up! Here are no sins, no sorrows, no separations, no regrets, 
 to be remembered. If tbe bygone eternity shall still be 
 shrouded in a measure of dimness, there will be no dimness 
 here. If time shall still throw up in memory’s survey some 
 darkling shadows, there will be no shadows here. It is as a 
 day without twilight, progress without pause, work without 
 weariness, joys without sorrow, sanctity without sin, pos¬ 
 session without fear, society without envyings, fulness with¬ 
 out repletion; a bright past, the prelude of a future equally 
 bright; a blessed foretaste of a blessedness that will w'ax but 
 never wane, flow without ebb, and continue without end. 
 
XV. 
 
 THE PROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 We liave considered the heavenly retrospect, or the back- 
 look which the redeemed ever and again wall throw across 
 time and the past eternity. But in taking the measure of 
 their happiness, the redeemed will look forward as well as 
 backward. And the question we have now to consider is 
 how will these prospects, through the opening vistas of a 
 future eternity, affect their happiness? Will they, as from 
 the ages past, so also, and still more, from the ages to come, 
 draw an augmentation of their felicity? 
 
 There are two things which greatly diminish our enjoy¬ 
 ment, the one a presentiment that it will not last; the other 
 an impression that through repetition it is becoming mono¬ 
 tonous. To both these drawbacks our earthly happiness is 
 subject. But the heavenly prospect is entirely free from 
 them. 
 
 HOPE WITHOUT ITS DARK FOREBODINGS. 
 
 “ Perfect love casteth out fear;” and the redeemed made 
 perfect in love will have the most implicit confidence in the 
 promise and assurances of God. Prospect and possession, 
 when his word is the connecting link, will to them have 
 equal certainty. Now, his word will have been passed to 
 them that their blessedness is to be eternal; his promise 
 pledged to them that they are to occupy the seats of happi¬ 
 ness in his own presence, and under his own eye, for ever- 
 
222 
 
 THE PROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 more. That no invading foe shall ever disturb their 
 peace—no casualty or accident ever imperil their security 
 —no subtle tempter ever enter the heavenly paradise to 
 deceive. Here, then, is a rock for hope to rest upon with 
 unshaken confidence, even the promise of God; and planted 
 on that rock, as its stand-point of prospect, hope in survey¬ 
 ing the future will give itself up to undisturbed visions of 
 perpetual bliss. No unbidden fear will ever whisper to it 
 that this happiness is not to last. No darkling cloud will ever 
 float across that summer firmament, foreboding winter. No 
 petrel will ever wing over this halcyon calm, the harbinger 
 of coming storms. 
 
 If you would see how much this entire absence of all fear, 
 or foreboding, must enhance the happiness of the redeemed, 
 you have only to reflect for a moment how it is with us in 
 this present life. For who is there among us but could 
 instance his own experience, that when our happiness is at 
 the full, there comes, whence or why we know not, some sudden 
 suspicion that it is too great to last; and thus hope itself is 
 often the prophet of disappointment, and our very smiles 
 are often the precursors of our tears. Even as there is at times 
 a calm upon the ocean, which is but the bated breath of the 
 winds preparing for the storm; so is there a mental calm, 
 whose very stillness frights the boding breast. And hence 
 one feels how much truth there is in the poet’s line— 
 
 “Man never is, but always to be, blest.” 
 
 For how often, when we might be happy, we are not so, 
 because we cannot persuade ourselves that the happiness will 
 continue. And, thus, when the cup is full, the tremble of 
 the hand spills some of the sweetest drops, in the very act of 
 raising it to our lips. And what are these boding fears 
 which thus suddenly fling their unwelcome shadow across 
 
THE PROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 223 
 
 our happiness, and cause the timid fugitive—hope, ere it has 
 well alighted, to spread its frighted wings? Are they not 
 often unaccountable, whence coming we know not, and how 
 caused we cannot tell? For unawares, without warning, 
 without any apparent reason, and often when we least expect 
 them, they dart through our minds like an arrow shot from 
 some invisible bow. And it is just this, their suddenness, 
 their apparent causelessness, their vague indefiniteness, which 
 gives them such a tremendous power to mar our happiness. 
 For could we only trace their origin, or discover their causes, 
 we might then reason ourselves out of them. But who can 
 reason himself out of what are perhaps the mere chimeras, 
 the mock images of his own distempered fancy. 
 
 It were indeed easy to furnish examples how these sudden 
 forebodings will often startle away our peaceful, happy 
 moments. Have you ever seen a young mother watching* 
 her sleeping child, how an unconscious sigh from her bosom 
 will mingle with the soft breathings of its slumber, and a 
 trembling tear will fall from her eye upon its ruddy cheek, and 
 she will start as if some one had spoken. But no one had 
 spoken ; it was only the whisper of her own boding heart she 
 heard, that her infant may be snatched away from her by 
 death. And thus it is ever with us here. We cannot let 
 ourselves be fully happy, from a fear that the happiness will 
 not prove lasting. 
 
 Now, from all such sudden presages and presentiments, 
 from all these vague misgivings and dark forebodings, the 
 redeemed will be entirely free. For they will be made per¬ 
 fect in love, and perfect love casteth out fear. They believe, 
 because God hath said it, that their happiness will be end¬ 
 less; and because they believe, so do they feel it to be 
 endless. Their future has no shadow; their horizon no 
 
224 : 
 
 THE PROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 cloud. But they yield themselves up to the undisturbed 
 vision of never-ending blessedness. Ah! endless happiness, 
 and to feel that it is endless, this surely is happiness indeed. 
 
 REPEATED ENJOYMENT WITHOUT ITS SATIETY. 
 
 Our pleasures lose much of their power by being often 
 repeated. Unless a certain measure of novelty and variety 
 mixes with them to give them zest, they very soon become 
 insipid. This is true alike of the pleasures of the intellect 
 and of the senses. Take, for illustration’s sake, the pleasures 
 which enter by the eye, and let us select the ocean as our 
 example. It is perhaps one of the very last objects one is 
 like to weary of. To what, then, does it owe its power to 
 draw us day after day to its shore, still with the expectation 
 of being pleased? It owes this power, we apprehend, to its 
 ever altering aspects. Now, you gaze upon it in its calm, 
 when, as from a polished mirror, it reflects every fleecy 
 cloud that lies cradled in the firmament; and its almost 
 imperceptible motion is as gentle as an infant’s in its sleep: 
 anon you are gazing on it when it is lashed by storms, 
 chafing at the rocky ramparts which hem it in, and flinging 
 the foam of its rage on their beetling brows. One hour its 
 tide is flowing, lipping up to your feet as you search for sea¬ 
 weed or shell: a few hours hence, and its tide begins to ebb. 
 You look across it now, and far as the eye reaches, nothing 
 meets it but one vast monotony ®f waters : you look again, 
 and that monotony is broken; for here a vessel heaves in 
 sight, and there a flock of sea-birds are dipping their pinions 
 in the brine. And thus the mighty main has a power to 
 please us perhaps longer than any other natural object; for 
 though its waters are older than those grey rocks which 
 girdle it, yet do they seem ever young; though its mass of 
 
THE PROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 225 
 
 waters is always the same, they appear ever to change; and 
 in these respects it may be taken as no inapt similitude of 
 the pleasures of the redeemed. These, when ages have 
 revolved, must, like the ocean, become old; yet, like it in 
 its age, they will still be new. Like it, also, they are 
 always the same; yet, like it, they are ever varying; and 
 thus the pleasures of eternity, though oft repeated, can 
 never pall—never lose their freshness, their novelty, or their 
 zest. But the longer the redeemed have travelled it, the 
 deeper will their conviction grow that there are still new 
 walks in the old field. And how could they suppose it 
 otherwise, with creation and its countless worlds, providence 
 and its innumerable wonders, redemption and all its mar¬ 
 vellous story, spread out full before them? 
 
 I have remarked that our enjoyments lose of their sweet¬ 
 ness, and may even become insipid, by being often or long 
 repeated. But to this there is one exception, namely, the 
 pleasure of gratitude, which does not lessen by repetition. 
 For the thankful soul never tires with telling what its bene¬ 
 factor has done for it; but the oftener it can repeat its thanks 
 the more delight it feels. 
 
 Now there are some of the enjoyments of the redeemed 
 which wall be repeated over and over again; but, then, these 
 are precisely such as are not weakened by repetition. As 
 they ever circle the throne, they will be ever and again hymn¬ 
 ing on their oft-used harps the praises of the Lamb. Or as 
 they converse with their happy associates, they will be ever 
 telling what the Lord did for their souls—the self-same story 
 often told. A nd they feel that they could do this throughout 
 eternity, with the freshness of a new pleasure—in this in¬ 
 stance new, although, or rather let us say, because often 
 
 repeated; for as we have said, the pleasures of gratitude, 
 
 P 
 
226 
 
 THE PEOSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 unlike most other pleasures, grow and gather strength by 
 being repeated. The songs of the grateful, however often 
 sung, are ever to their own ears, at least, a sweet melody; 
 and the story of the thankful, if it does not tire others to 
 hear it, will never tire them to tell it. 
 
 AN EXPANDING PROSPECT. 
 
 It is a mighty step a human spirit takes at death—a mar¬ 
 vellous stride in advance of its former position which it 
 makes in the moment it enters the eternal world. For the 
 first time it has tasted perfect liberty; for the first time has 
 drank the light of eternal day. The infant of an hour is 
 now wiser than its parents ; the peasant has discovered what 
 the philosopher pants in vain to know. The mere entrance, 
 then, into the other world is an immense step of advance¬ 
 ment. And as it begins in progress, so does the other life 
 hold on progressing. The redeemed “ shall mount up with 
 wings as eagles.” Like the imperial bird high perched on 
 its rocky eyrie, they also will begin their flight from a lofty 
 stand-point; and, like it, rising from high to higher, their 
 wings will ever be sunward. For continual progress is a 
 normal law of our nature. To be always advancing is the 
 prerogative of immortal being. Even when its progress may 
 for a time be arrested, hope must still aspire. 
 
 We sometimes speak of the future state as the perfection 
 of our being. But if by this is meant that we shall ever attain 
 to a terminal point, beyond which we are not to advance, 
 then so far from being perfection, it would be exactly the 
 reverse. For beyond that point there would still lie un¬ 
 trodden ground; and unless you were to quench hope and 
 stifle aspiration, my curbed spirit would pant to leap the 
 barrier,—a courser on an endless race. Tell it not it has 
 
THE PROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 227 
 
 attained, and is already perfect; when impelled by a very 
 law of its nature, forgetting those things which are behind, 
 it reaches forth to those things which are before. 
 
 As on earth then, so likewise in heaven, progress is a law 
 of human nature; but with this difference, that whereas the 
 progress of the saints here might be compared to what the 
 mathematicians call an arithmetical series, in heaven their 
 progress will be in a geometrical series. Each new advance 
 in glory is not merely an addition to the former, but a mul¬ 
 tiple of it. Thus, with an accelerating motion, the redeemed 
 will increase in knowledge, in their capacity of enjoyment, 
 in their fitness for higher occupations. 
 
 And what will be the effect of their progress? of this rapid 
 expansion of their faculties, their sensibilities, their endow¬ 
 ments ? Will it be that their minds will begin to outgrow 
 the subjects which are to occupy them? or that their sensi¬ 
 bilities will overshoot the pleasures which are to move them? 
 or that their capabilities will exceed the services that can be 
 assigned to them? Will this be the effect of the progress of 
 the redeemed,—to bring them, though not to the ultimatum 
 of their powers, yet to the ultimatum of their prospects? 
 Will the period ever arrive when they shall have to say, We 
 are still girded for the race, but we must double on our 
 course, for the ground is all gone over; we have powers to 
 do still greater things, but nothing greater remains to be 
 done; hope within us still whispers meliora , but the future 
 now must be a repetition of the past ? Will it ever be thus 
 that the progress of the glorified saints will come up with 
 their prospect? Not so, indeed. For as they advance, it 
 will still expand. The higher they rise, the greater will be 
 the dip of their horizon; or rather they will at length reach 
 such an elevation, will be able so to grasp eternity, and 
 
228 
 
 THE PROSPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
 anticipate its unfolding wonders, that there will he no horizon, 
 or line terminating the view on either side, but one wide and 
 ever widening prospect into a glory which excelleth, and a 
 fruition which surpasseth, any glory and any fruition which 
 they have yet experienced. 
 
XVI. 
 
 HELL: THE PLACE AND THE OCCUPANTS. 
 
 There is a class of sayings which, though not exactly pro¬ 
 verbial, have all the currency of proverbs, and which, if they 
 do not convey any very precise thought, nevertheless indi¬ 
 cate a certain state of feeling or opinion on the subject to 
 which they refer. As examples of this sort of semi-pro¬ 
 verbs, we might instance those which are so often heard when 
 reference has to he made to the great apostate spirit and 
 the place of future punishment. The former of these in 
 Scripture is called plainly by his name—Satan, the Devil; hut 
 in modern style you will hear him alluded to in a vague peri¬ 
 phrasis as the personage who must be nameless. The latter 
 also is spoken of in Scripture by its undisguised name— 
 hell, the bottomless pit; but this is too harsh, it seems, for 
 the euphoism of modern taste; so, if it is alluded to, it must 
 be as that place which may not he mentioned in ears 
 polite. 
 
 Now, as a straw will indicate the line of the current, or a 
 feather the direction of the wind, so these sayings, trifling 
 enough in themselves, indicate a certain state of feeling, if 
 not of opinion, on this whole subject of the future condition 
 of the wicked. For this nervous delicacy to speak of it in 
 plain terms must arise either from an intense conviction of 
 its awfulness, or from a wish to soften down the whole sub¬ 
 ject into a dim undefined generality. It is either that men 
 
230 
 
 HELL : 
 
 feel very profoundly about it, or that they wish to keep 
 themselves from doing so. And which of these is the case? 
 Not the former, I fear, otherwise the generality of mankind 
 would not be living as they do; nor, if they really were in 
 earnest, is it easy to see how they could thus dilute their 
 thoughts by weak and evasive circumlocutions. True earnest¬ 
 ness is generally terse and plain-spoken. It at least calls 
 things by their real names. The reason for this affected 
 euphoism and timid periphrase is, I suspect, the want of 
 deep conviction and earnest thought; together with a wish 
 to shirk or slur the matter in the most general way possible. 
 Now, with this we can have no sympathy. Nor dare we 
 imitate it. For, in the first place, it is not thus that Scrip¬ 
 ture deals with this solemn subject. It seeks about for no 
 softening phrases, in which to expose the wiles of the devil, 
 or exhibit the torments of hell. Ever when it speaks of 
 these—and this is not seldom—it uses the plainest and 
 most pointed language. Its descriptions are not written in 
 smoothed periods to please the ear of a modish fastidious¬ 
 ness ; nor are its pictures drawn in neutral tints from fear 
 of offending some very delicate taste. But plain-spoken on 
 most subjects, on this it speaks with special plainness. Then, 
 secondly, this periphrastic style of allusion to these,dread 
 realities of the eternal world is exceedingly dangerous; for 
 it is nothing else than if one were to spread a downy pillow 
 for anxiety to go to sleep, from which it may awake to learn 
 the stern truth when it is too late. I do verily believe that 
 it is by a chief artifice, a very master-stroke of subtlety of 
 Satan himself, that this false delicacy has become so com¬ 
 mon. For well he knows, that so long as men can be got to 
 drop a softening silky veil between them and the horrors of 
 hell, they will be less alarmed than they ought to be; and 
 
THE PLACE AND THE OCCUPANTS. 
 
 231 
 
 also, that just in proportion as they speak in vague or 
 evasive appellatives about himself, they will be the more 
 easy a prey to his wiles. 
 
 We mean, therefore, in speaking of hell, that other part 
 of the invisible world which falls now to be discoursed of, 
 to use plain language. After the manner of Scripture, we 
 shall not consult a modish taste or a sickly fastidiousness, 
 but, as we can, shall set forth the naked truth; and if the 
 picture be an appalling one, wnuld God sinners may be 
 alarmed by it to flee from the math to come. 
 
 The place, its occupants, its penal sufferings, these are the 
 points of which we shall discourse. 
 
 THE PLACE. 
 
 As the Scriptures have not revealed to us the locality or 
 position in space of heaven, so neither have they of hell. 
 Where it is, whether within that portion of the sidereal 
 regions which have been explored by our telescopes, or in 
 some more distant portion which still lies beyond our tele¬ 
 scopic range, we know not. Neither do we know what it is. 
 One might, indeed, conceive of it as some darkling planet, 
 which, wrecked amid the hurricane of an ancient chaos, 
 now rolls drear and desolate through the trackless gloom, 
 where no sister planet shines; or as some solitary fixed star— 
 a star but not a sun—whose outer convexity is ever shrouded 
 by the smoke which rises dense and dark from internal fires, 
 which break through chinks or craters innumerable, and 
 which, sustained by some mysterious chemistry, never go 
 out, or diminish their flames. But where revelation has 
 been silent, any conjectures as to the physical aspects of hell 
 were useless. 
 
 That it is an actual place, having a specific locality some- 
 
232 
 
 hell: 
 
 where in space, is clearly enough indicated in Scripture. 
 That it is a place most drear and dolesome is as distinctly 
 indicated by the phrases, whether literal or figurative, which 
 the sacred writers have employed when describing it. 
 Among these we may note the following:—“ The place of 
 torment;” “the bottomless pit;” “ the hell of fire, where 
 the worm dietli not, and the fire is not quenched;” “ furnace 
 of fire;” “the lake of fire which burneth with brimstone;” 
 “everlasting burning;” “outer darkness;” “the blackness 
 of darkness;” “the ascending smoke of their torments.” 
 What a picture of concentrated horrors do these images fill 
 up ! Conceive of perpetual fire, and yet darkness deeper than 
 that of night! Imagine a lake swollen with waves of burn¬ 
 ing brimstone, as if some buried city, a second Sodom, lay 
 beneath the sweltering flood! and yet a pit unfathomed, bot¬ 
 tomless, than whose lowest depths there is a lower still! 
 Conjure to your minds a prison whose walls, floor, and roof 
 are of fire, and yet not the body of a single prisoner ever 
 reduced to ashes, nor so much as a link in his chain ever 
 melted in the fervid heat! Picture, if you can, those tor¬ 
 ments, for which despair itself would be at a loss to find 
 a more terrible image than that in the Scriptures, “the worm 
 that never dietli,” as if, in truth, some such foul reptile, with 
 greedy voracity, were ever gnawing the heart, but unable to 
 devour it, or deaden the sensibility of that keen organ to the 
 pain of its bite or the loathsomeness of its crawl. 
 
 But what perhaps more than these general descriptions 
 will convey to us the terrible character of the place of tor¬ 
 ment, is one specific comparison which is given of it in the 
 New Testament. It is there called Cehennah; the origin of 
 which name let me now explain. Outside the city of Jeru¬ 
 salem, in the valley of Hinnom, there was of old a place of 
 
THE PLACE AND THE OCCUPANTS. 
 
 233 
 
 infinite abomination, where, under idolatrous kings, the horrid 
 rites of Moloch had been celebrated; when Josiah overthrew 
 this idolatry, in order to defile for ever the valley which had 
 witnessed the detestable orgies, he caused be thrown into it 
 the bones of the dead, the greatest of all pollutions among 
 the Hebrews. From that time it became the common jakes 
 of Jerusalem, into which all the refuse of the city was cast 
 —carcases of animals, the dead bodies of malefactors, every 
 sort of offensive offal; and an incessant smouldering fire was 
 kept up to consume them. It was an outcast and detested 
 place—a vale of death and putrefaction—a very sink of all 
 uncleanness; where carcases were festering with worms, and 
 seething in the unctuous flames, the energies of corruption 
 always going on, and the elements of consumption always 
 administered. And such was the place which is chosen by 
 the Saviour as the emblem of hell; where, as in Hinnom’s 
 sepulchre of flame, the fire is never quenched; and as in 
 Hinnom’s sink of putrefaction, the worm never dies. 
 
 How far the language of the sacred writers, when speaking 
 of hell, is to be taken literally, we presume not to say. 
 Whether, for instance, there is to be in it material fire; or 
 whether actual darkness, such as shrouded Egypt when the 
 opacity could be felt. It may be the language is in great 
 measure figurative. At the same time we are not to alle¬ 
 gorise it so as to do away with the idea of physical or bodily 
 pain. For this undoubtedly will have to be endured in hell. 
 If heaven is a paradise of sense, so is hell a pandemonium 
 of sense. If in the one eveiy organ in the resurrection body 
 will be exercised in delightful occupations; so in the other 
 every organ of the resurrection body will be excruciated with 
 agonising pains. Yet also, as in heaven, the pleasures of 
 sense will be very subordinate to the pleasures of the mind; 
 
234 
 
 HELL : 
 
 so in hell the pains of sense, however intense, will be as 
 nothing compared with the pains of the mind. 
 
 THE OCCUPANTS. 
 
 1. Its original occupants, those indeed for whom we are 
 told it w r as prepared, are the fallen angels. What precisely 
 was the sin of these angelic apostates has been left in con¬ 
 siderable obscurity. It appears, however, that there was 
 among them one arch-apostate, a ringleader, as we should 
 say, who, by his superior intellect, succeeded in seducing 
 them from their allegiance to their rightful Lord ; and who 
 ever since they were cast down from heaven has retained a 
 sort of regal sway over them. This mightiest of the fallen 
 spirits is Satan. Our great epic poet has thrown a certain 
 nobility around this fallen hierarch. He has made him 
 utter the language of a lofty ambition; of a heroic pride 
 which is daring, yet dignified. Seated amid the ruins of 
 hell, himself a nobler ruin, the poetry of Milton has clothed 
 Satan in a melancholy grandeur. But we must confess that 
 we find no warrant for this in Scripture. There might per¬ 
 haps be such a fallen spirit as our great bard describes; but 
 assuredly Satan is not such a spirit. For he is an instance 
 of great intellectual powers, united with the basest, the vilest, 
 the meanest moral character. A liar and a murderer from 
 the beginning; there is no species of low cunning, or mean 
 artifice, or bare-faced falsehood, or wanton mischief, to which 
 he has not stooped. There is a meanness in his very ambi¬ 
 tion ; for foiled in heaven, he set up a petty princedom on a 
 remote planet, which, but for redemption, would have had 
 but an insignificant history. His boldness, too, has nothing 
 in it of real courage; but is sheer fool-hardiness, such as a 
 ruined gambler who has staked his last throw might show. 
 
THE PLACE AND THE OCCUPANTS. 
 
 235 
 
 In short we do not find one redeeming feature in the charac¬ 
 ter of this once mighty, but now the meanest of creatures. And 
 no better, we may well suppose, are his associates—the tools 
 and instruments of his will; and who, if less wicked than 
 himself, are so only because their less exalted intellects, never 
 having soared so high, could not therefore sink so low. 
 
 These, then, are the original occupants of hell. And when 
 one considers what they have turned this once happy earth 
 of ours into, well may we exclaim—what must hell, their 
 own abode, be! or what will it have become by the time 
 when the day for judgment shall arrive! 
 
 2. The other occupants of hell will be those of our human 
 race who have died in their sins. These have lent them¬ 
 selves to Satan to be the servants of his iniquity; and in the 
 same prison-house with him, as is fitting, they shall undergo 
 their punishment. Shut up in the same hell with devils! 
 how dreadful the thought; yet such shall be the fate of the 
 finally impenitent: “ Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever¬ 
 lasting fire, prepared Jor the devil and his angels ” 
 
 But does some sinner flatter himself that if it is with the 
 arch-fiend he is to be prisoned, he will at least have it in his 
 power, and it may be some alleviation of his torment, to 
 upbraid the tempter with having been the cause of his ruin; 
 then would we tell such an one, that Satan will fling back 
 upon him the charge, that often w r hen by him untempted 
 he wrought iniquity; that seldom did he need much temp¬ 
 tation to induce him to trample on the holy law of God; 
 that sometimes he did what even devils would have trembled 
 to do—what, indeed, they never dare to do—mock at sacred 
 
 t 
 
 things; and that he died with a lie on his lips, which is 
 never even breathed in hell—that Jesus Christ is not the 
 Son of God. Yes, and where the accusation is true that 
 
236 
 
 hell: 
 
 Satan did tempt the sinner to commit iniquity; oil! the bit¬ 
 ing mockery with which the fiend will tell him, what a fool 
 he was to be thus tempted; what idiocy in him thus to have 
 believed a liar. 
 
 There is one view of the inmates of hell w r hich is calculated 
 to fill the mind with images of darkest omen. They will 
 be the very offscourings of the universe, the moral waste and 
 refuse which has been swept, as by the besom of destruction, 
 into this pit of perdition. The apostates of heaven, the irre¬ 
 claimable sinners of the earth, will be collected into the same 
 hell, as if only one such accursed place could be permitted 
 to exist in God’s universe. Under the present economy, the 
 good and bad are allowed to intermix; the tares are suffered 
 to grow up along with the wheat. But a time is coming when 
 there must be an entire and final separation between them; 
 when the great Husbandman, with his fan in his hand, will 
 throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the gar¬ 
 ner, but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire; 
 when the great Vinedresser will cast forth every barren 
 branch that beareth not fruit, and every broken branch which 
 is already withered, that they may be gathered into bundles, 
 and, as we do with brushwood, be burned in the fire. There 
 will still be sin in the universe, but not, as heretofore, 
 in the same world with holiness. There will still be the 
 vicious, but these must not be allowed any longer to pollute 
 the habitation of the virtuous. But sin that it may appear 
 sinful, and sinners that they may be known to be sinners, 
 shall be gathered into one place. The felons of every race, 
 be it angelic or human, shall be driven into that penal 
 abode, bound to that desolate rock, which alone shall rear 
 its prison walls throughout the entire ocean-breadths of 
 space. Of that prison isle it shall be said, Here no virtuous 
 
THE PLACE AND THE OCCUPANTS. 
 
 237 
 
 footstep ever trod; here no ray of purity ever shone; here 
 nothing but sin and suffering has ever been, or ever will be. 
 
 Ah! demoniac wickedness, when by itself, to what lengths 
 can we conceive it going. And human wickedness, when by 
 itself, to what lengths we have known it to go. But the two 
 combined—each by the other goaded to its worst—who can 
 allow himself even in imagination to picture the lengths they 
 will go. 
 
 One shudders at the thought of a world of intelligent 
 beings, totally depraved in nature and by habit, living in 
 malice and envy, mutually suspicious, hateful, and hating 
 one another; and yet by very wickedness and hate compelled 
 into proximity, and maddened into an unhallowed confede¬ 
 racy against all that is holy, and him who is the Holy One. 
 
 There is also another view of the inmates of hell which 
 fills the mind with images of the most appalling aspect. 
 Character is progressive. It accumulates and shoots onward. 
 It gathers strength and amplifies itself. This is especially 
 the case when the character is evil. For, from the law of 
 habit, the progression of the mind in wickedness is tremend¬ 
 ous, and its inveteracy becomes such that it acquires strength 
 even from opposition. There may be witnessed, even in this 
 present world, the resistless force with which habits of con¬ 
 firmed wickedness will hurry on those who allowed them to 
 
 gain the mastery, even as the whirlwind will drive before it 
 
 / 
 
 the light sere leaves, or the rapids will sweep the fragile skiff 
 over the cataract. Now we have only to suppose this law of 
 habit to act with all its force in the other world, to see how \ 
 in a state of confirmed wickedness, where there is no longer 
 any check whatever, but where all the restraints of provi¬ 
 dence and grace are entirely removed, and every one is left to 
 the tyranny of his own evil will, the wicked will become 
 
238 hell: the place and the occupants. 
 
 more wicked, tlie unholy more unholy, and the filthy more 
 filthy. Is not this what Scripture means by “ the bottom¬ 
 less pit”—the pit of moral degradation down into which a 
 soul lost to God—lost to heaven—lost to itself—will plunge 
 deeper and deeper, thus by more sin drawing down upon itself 
 more wrath and more ruin, flashing, as if anew, the thunder¬ 
 bolts of heaven, and kindling, as if afresh, the flames of hell. 
 
XVII. 
 
 HELL: ITS PENAL TORMENTS. 
 
 The torments of hell! shall we attempt a full description 
 of them? Nay, for fully to describe them is impossible. 
 Their forecast shadow may be seen upon the earth; but it is 
 only their shadow, and even this wraps itself up in its own 
 darkness. For, besides those elements which enter into 
 human misery in this life, there enter into the misery of the 
 lost, elements which are not, and, indeed, cannot be, wrung 
 into the bitterest cup which mortal man may have to drink 
 on this side the grave. 
 
 Thus, w'e take it that such a thing as pure unmitigated 
 despair, a despair without any mixture of hope or desire what¬ 
 ever, is not known by any human being in this present life. The 
 blackest tear which can fall from the red eye of despair is never 
 such but that with some faint beam of hope it glistens as it 
 falls. The eye which shed that tearmay not have seen the beam 
 which brightened it, still it was there; for absolute despair 
 would seem to be impossible to our present state of being. 
 Hope may have its voice stifled, yet still it tries to speak. 
 It may be frozen into very icicles round the heart, yet still 
 in these icicles there is latent heat. It may be crushed, but, 
 like the trampled sandal-branch, it exudes its odour on the 
 foot which crushes it. Take even the wretched suicide, who 
 is rushing to the river’s brink to make the fatal plunge; 
 even in that maddened brain there is, alas! a miserable, yet 
 still a mitigating, hope—the hope that, when the cold waters 
 
240 
 
 HELL : 
 
 shall have closed over it, its sufferings will be at an end. 
 But in the place of future woe there is unmitigated despair. 
 There in no breast can there be any hope whatever, conscious 
 or unconscious. The idea even of self-destruction—that 
 last forlorn hope of the suicide—cannot be entertained by a 
 lost soul, even in its wildest desperation. Wben most mad¬ 
 dened by its sufferings, it cannot be so maniac as to dream 
 of ever, or in any way, escaping from them. We question if 
 it will even be able to desire to escape from them, so utterly 
 impossible will any means of escape be seen to be. The 
 most forlorn despair that a human breast can feel on earth 
 is hope itself compared with the despair in hell. For here 
 despair, in its last stages, sinks into a sullen stupified state— 
 becomes, as it were, the nightmare of a sleeping agony; but 
 despair in hell cannot sink into torpor, or stupefaction, or 
 a sullen resignation to its fate, but will ever have in it a ter¬ 
 rible liveliness, sensibility, and strength. Here despair, 
 shuddering, shuts its eyes ; but in hell despair cannot be¬ 
 come blind, but, with open eye, must look its fearful wretch¬ 
 edness full in the face. Here, in the chilly embrace of 
 despair, memory becomes oblivious,—the past a blank; but 
 in hell despair will ruminate on the past, and though every 
 recollection is a self-torture, memory will still try to remem¬ 
 ber more. Here, when the darkness of despair falls on a 
 human soul, foresight becomes blindfold,—the future is a 
 vacuum; but in hell despair, with a prophetic intensity of 
 anguish, will, even in its darkest hour, foresee a darker in the 
 distance. Here, when the worst is come, despair cries, I can 
 no longer bear it; but, 0 eternity! when in hell will the 
 worst have come? 
 
 Or, again, there is an anguish by which a human breast 
 cannot now be tom without its instantly becoming insensible 
 
ITS PENAL TORMENTS. 
 
 241 
 
 to pain, just as a nerve, which, feels excruciatingly when 
 pierced or punctured merely, loses all feeling when its last 
 filament is cut through. But there is no anguish, no amount 
 of suffering, no extremity of torture, which a human soul in 
 hell shall not he capable of enduring. That infirmity, which 
 sets a bound or limit to its power of endurance here, will 
 not be known there. On the contrary, its capability to 
 suffer will be increased by the increasing severity of its tor¬ 
 tures. Each successive stroke, instead of blunting or deaden¬ 
 ing its sensibility, will have the effect rather of quickening 
 it. The blow, which here would stun or stupify, will there 
 stimulate and sharpen. How solemnly is this set forth in 
 Scripture: “ Every one shall be salted with fire, and every 
 sacrifice shall be salted with salt.” Here evidently allusion 
 is made to the sacrificial law which enjoined that every meat 
 offering should be seasoned with salt, which, by its antiseptic 
 quality, would prevent the dead flesh from becoming tainted 
 or corrupt. Now, observe what is to be the preservative 
 element, the salt, as it w*ere, which is to prevent decomposi¬ 
 tion or annihilation in the persons of those who are to be as 
 a perpetual sacrifice to avenging justice,—it is fire; that is, 
 their very suffering, which we might suppose would consume 
 them, is to keep them from being consumed. The live flame 
 of their torment will keep them alive; the quick fire will 
 quicken their every sensibility. With our present organisa¬ 
 tion, protracted suffering wears out mind and body, till the 
 nerves become as dulled, and the feelings as deadened, as if 
 both were in that torpor which excessive cold induces. But 
 not so in hell. There the suffering is as fire, which, seeing 
 it cannot cause annihilation, soul and body both being alike 
 indestructible, will keep every faculty on the quick, and 
 every sensibility on the edge. There will be, as it were, life 
 
 Q 
 
242 
 
 HELL t 
 
 in their torments, which will give life, or a living sensitive¬ 
 ness, to every part which these torments can reach; and 
 there is no part which they will not reach. The cup of 
 human misery here is often as an opiated cup, which super¬ 
 induces sleep or stupor at last: but the cup which the sinner 
 shall have to drink hereafter will be a sleep-dispelling cup. 
 Here we speak of drowning care; hereafter, in the deepest 
 billows of its anguish, care will not drown. Here the syn¬ 
 cope, the swoon, the suspended animation, tell that ex¬ 
 hausted nature has reached the limit of its endurance; but 
 hereafter no syncope or swoon shall ever suspend the suffer¬ 
 ings of the lost. Here pain shortens life; but hereafter it 
 will help to prolong it, as if an elixir of immortality were 
 wrung out of its own agonies, which the soul must drink, 
 and cannot die. 
 
 This may suffice to illustrate what we meant in saying 
 that there enter into the sufferings of the lost elements which 
 cannot be mixed in any cup of suffering which mortal man 
 has to drink on this side the grave. 
 
 But we would also observe, that, while new elements of 
 suffering will be wrung into the cup which the wicked shall 
 have to drink hereafter, the old elements of a former suffer¬ 
 ing will be retained. Whatever of the bodily pains or the 
 mental anguish which the sinner had to endure here, as the 
 punishment of his sins, can be perpetuated or reproduced in 
 the other world, will be so; and thus, while there will be an 
 immense addition, there will be very little, if indeed any, 
 subtraction. 
 
 We had thought of attempting an enumeration of such of 
 the torments of the lost as it is possible to describe; but as 
 these rose up before us, the.spectacle became so appalling to 
 our own minds, that a consideration of others’ feelings for- 
 
ITS PENAL TORMENTS. 
 
 243 
 
 bids us to carry out our intention. A selection of one or 
 two from the dark catalogue is all that we can think of giving. 
 
 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SUPREME FOLLY. 
 
 This will plant the sting of perpetual self-reproach in the 
 bosoms of the lost; for they might not have been here, in this 
 place of torment: yea, they might have been yonder, among 
 these blessed spirits in the seats of glory. For was not the 
 same gospel preached to them—the same offer of salvation 
 made to them—the same free invitation addressed to them? 
 Were they not also warned; and would they not also have been 
 welcomed? Had they not ample time to repent; and every con¬ 
 ceivable inducement held out to them to believe in Jesus 
 Christ? Why, then, did they not do it? Ah! the folly of procras¬ 
 tination, yet they procrastinated; the infatuation of unbe¬ 
 lief, yet they were unbelievers ; the fool-hardiness of trifling 
 with conviction, yet thus they trifled. Conscience spoke, 
 but they would not listen to conscience ; and death, beating 
 at many a neighbour’s door, spoke, but they would not 
 listen to death; and the preacher, with solemn appeal, 
 spoke, but they would not listen to the preacher; and the 
 Scriptures spoke, and the Spirit striving with them spoke, 
 but they would not listen to the Scriptures nor to the Spirit. 
 Ah ! they have not come here unwarned. They have not 
 dropped into this abyss, because no one had ever told them 
 they were standing on its slippery edge. 
 
 They flung away their immortal souls. And for what did 
 they fling them away? Miserable gamesters ! they rattled 
 the dice as if they had been playing for gilded counters; 
 whereas the stakes w'ere eternity and their own souls. And 
 still they threw another cast, flattering themselves that they 
 came off the winners, when there turned up some brief hour 
 
241 
 
 HELL : 
 
 of pleasure, or some wretched handful of wealth, or some 
 breath-blown bubble of airy fame. And when they had 
 gotten these were they happy? No; they were miserable. 
 The pleasure left a sting. The wealth fired a fevered thirst 
 in their breasts, which rivers of molten gold would not slake. 
 The fame stirred a jealousy within them, which made them 
 fear to hear the voice of praise, lest it might be of another. 
 And yet for this so-called happiness—pitiable even then— 
 ah! how much more pitiable it looks now; they bartered 
 their immortal souls. The thought of it stings them, and 
 will continue to sting them through all eternity. 
 
 And there is one saying of Scripture which will plant a 
 double sting of self-reproach in the bosom of the lost: “The 
 wages of sin is death.” Yes, they worked hard, made 
 themselves very slaves to the master whom they served. 
 And for what did they thus slave and toil themselves? Ah! 
 fools that they were, this is their wages. For this hell they 
 worked. For these torments they toiled. For this misery 
 they laboured as any drudge might labour. Yes, it was for 
 these they slaved themselves, when all the whil e heaven might 
 have been theirs without any such weary wasting drudgery. 
 
 THE MAGNIFYING EFFECT OF CONTRAST. 
 
 How amazingly this will add to the misery of the 
 lost is strikingly illustrated in the parable of Dives and 
 Lazarus. Look first on the earthly side of the picture : 
 “ There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple 
 and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day.” Look 
 now on the other side of the picture : “ And in hell he 
 lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham 
 afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, 
 Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that 
 
ITS PENAL TORMENTS. 
 
 215 
 
 lie may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my 
 tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham 
 said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy 
 good things; but now thou art tormented.” Ah! that was 
 indeed to plant the scorpion’s sting, the viper’s fang ; in 
 memory. He was rich; now he is reft of all. He was 
 clothed in purple and fine linen; now he is wrapped in devour¬ 
 ing flames. He fared sumptuously every day; now he 
 piteously cries out for a drop of cold water. Surely if aught 
 could magnify the torments of hell, this contrast between 
 what the man once was and what he now is must have done so. 
 If memory could forget from what he has fallen, the pit might 
 not seem so bottomless ; but memory cannot forget this. 
 
 And then there is also the contrast between what the 
 sinner might have been and what he now is. Dives, lifting 
 up his eyes, saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. 
 The beggarwho sat at his gate—who fed on the crumbs 
 from his table—whose sores the dogs on the street did 
 lick—that beggar is now in heaven. And he, too, might 
 have been there! How dark and deep the downward look 
 into the pit below, after every such upward glimpse into the 
 glory above. Say you, why then look up ? why not forbid 
 the eye ever to wander in the direction of heaven? We 
 answer, because the lost sinner cannot help it. A fascination 
 will ever and again draw his eye heavenward. It will be a 
 necessity of his vision, a very part of his punishment, that 
 he must look up, in order that he may feel the more what 
 he is, by seeing what he might have been. 
 
 PASSION AND APPETITE SEIZING ON THEMSELVES. 
 
 There will be evil passions, and there will be foul appe¬ 
 tites in the breasts of the Wicked in hell. The same evil 
 
246 
 
 hell: 
 
 passions, and the same foul appetites that were in their 
 breasts here. But mark the difference. Here these evil 
 passions could vent themselves on some victim. Jealousy 
 could slander the innocent; cruelty wrong the weak; hatred 
 strike the defenceless; ambition wade to its goal through 
 the blood of the slaughtered; revenge stab the real or sup¬ 
 posed injurer. But in hell these evil passions will have to 
 turn upon themselves; like so many harpies, they must peck 
 and tear their own breasts. They will, therefore, become 
 remorse, which in its maddened anguish, having no other 
 victim to its fury, strikes its own bosom, and by self-torture 
 becomes self-avenged. 
 
 Here, too, the foul appetites of the sinner found indul¬ 
 gence. The drunkard could quaff his intoxicating cup—the 
 pleasure-hunter frequent the haunts of folly—the epicure 
 with dainties indulge his fastidious palate—the libertine 
 enjoy his sensualities—the miser hoard his gold. But in 
 hell these foul appetites, rampant and clamorous as ever, 
 will find no means of indulgence. They will become a tor¬ 
 turing, unsated desire. A thirst where there is no water— 
 a hunger where there is no bread. Libertinism will cry, Give, 
 give; but hell will echo back, There are no haunts of plea¬ 
 sure here. And mammonism will cry, Give, give; but hell will 
 reply, There is no gold here. And gluttony will ciy, Give, 
 give; but hell will answer, There is no glutton’s table here. 
 
 NO SYMPATHY. 
 
 Even guilty sorrow confesses to the pow r er of sympathy as 
 a mitigant of its w'retchedness. For a few words kindly 
 spoken will break down that sullen stoicism with which it 
 broods in silence, bearing its tortures of remorse, like an 
 Indian at the stake, who will not utter a cry, though he 
 
ITS PENAL TORMENTS. 
 
 247 
 
 knows it would relieve his suffering. Even the felon’s heart 
 owns to the touch of nature, when some Howard grasps his 
 hand, fettered as it is and foul with crime. 
 
 But in hell there will be none of this alleviation from 
 sympathy or compassion; for there will be no sympathy or 
 compassion there. Every one will be so entirely taken up 
 with his own wretchedness, that he will have no room left 
 for pity. Intense selfishness, the result of hopeless misery, 
 will have steeled every bosom against compassion. And 
 even if there were sympathy, it would be that of beings as 
 wicked and as wretched as themselves: a pity not sponta¬ 
 neous, but with the selfish motive of extorting pity in return. 
 Such sympathy would be as wormwood to a wounded spirit. 
 
 NO SENSE OF INJUSTICE. 
 
 It is a grand mistake in criminal jurisprudence to make the 
 punishment more than commensurate with the offence. For 
 in every such case the wrong-doer has a sense of wrong 
 received. The criminality of his owm act is overshadowed 
 by the magnitude of his punishment; and, instead of the 
 confession of a malefactor, he uttets the complaint of a 
 martyr. 
 
 But unspeakably terrible as will be the future punishment 
 of the wicked, there will not be one who dare say it is too 
 severe. Anything, therefore, like a sense of injustice will 
 never mitigate his sense of demerit. He may cry, “My 
 punishment is greater than I can bear;” but he will never be 
 able to say, that it is greater than he has deserved. 
 
 THE PROSPECT OF UNENDING MISERY. 
 
 This will be the most terrible ingredient in that bitter cup 
 which the lost shall have to drink. For there might be 
 
248 hell: its penal torments. 
 
 hope even in hell, were there the possibility of its torments 
 coming to an end at last. But eternity —this is the onlv 
 echo which the future will give back to the wail of despair, 
 when it would call on hope. 
 
 The wheels have revolved, wiio shall say how often; yet still 
 on the revolving rim are seen the- words, For ever. The 
 stream has rolled, who shall say how long; yet the echo of 
 its flow is still, For ever. The ages have multiplied, who 
 shall say how many; yet on the last as on the first is still 
 the same inscription, For ever. No hour, no day, no year, 
 no century, in hell, shall ever murmur forth, I am to be the 
 last. Time was pealed out by angel’s trump ; but the knell 
 of eternity shall never be wrung. Oh! these words, For 
 ever. Whisper them in the ear of the sufferer, and hope 
 immediately dies within him; or in the ear of the prisoner, 
 and instantly his chains become more heavy than he can 
 bear; or in the ear of the exile, and his heart breaks for 
 that home which he is never again to see. And, yet, the 
 sufferer, the prisoner, the exile, might say, No, not for ever; 
 death at least will put an end to our sufferings and our 
 sorrows. Yes, the instinct of self-preservation, though one 
 of the strongest in the human breast, is willing to quit its 
 hold of life, and lie down in the grave, where it shall not 
 hear these words, For ever. Ah! then, what pen could 
 v T rite, what tongue utter, what imagination picture, the feel¬ 
 ings of a lost soul, when to its agonising question, Will this 
 misery never have an end? eternity will send back its reply. 
 No, never, never. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 The infidel, whose divinity, if he has one at all, is clothed 
 with but the single attribute of benevolence, does not, of 
 course, admit the doctrine of eternal punishments into his 
 creed. Divine pity, in his view of it, must relent at the 
 sight of protracted suffering, and forgive the offender, no 
 matter what is to become of justice. Were the moral law 
 itself to be blotted out for ever, that, in his opinion, would 
 be a less disaster than that the lawbreaker should be left to 
 a hopeless doom. 
 
 Then there are those who will run the venture of entering 
 the unseen world wholly unprepared to meet their Judge ; and 
 that these should try to leave for themselves, as it were, 
 another chance, by expunging the doctrine of eternal punish¬ 
 ments, does not much surprise us. Nor does it greatly 
 astonish us that certain minds, of a soft, melting, sympa¬ 
 thetic texture, are sometimes heard to exclaim: “ Would it 
 were allowed us to hope that the sinner’s punishment may 
 not be eternal.” For who would not breathe, if heaven for¬ 
 bade it not, such a hope as this? Nay, if it were allowed, 
 who would not put up a prayer, that if not all, some at least 
 of the lost might yet be delivered from the prison house of 
 despair. 
 
 We have said that it does not surprise us that the infidel 
 at once expunges from his creed the doctrine of eternal pun- 
 
250 the eteenity of futuke punishments. 
 
 isliments; nor that those who are making no preparation to 
 meet their Judge should try to expunge it; nor that those 
 of a soft mental fibre should wish it were allowed them to 
 expunge it. But that any professing to receive the Bible as 
 a literal revelation from God should deny this doctrine, does 
 greatly surprise us. For if words can express it, then 
 assuredly it is revealed by Him who knoweth the future. 
 
 TIIE EQUATION OF TWO QUANTITIES. 
 
 Abundant exegesis has been expended on the terms of 
 duration which in Scripture are applied to future punish¬ 
 ments. And it is something to find that these terms may 
 imply endless duration, the Greek words being used by the 
 classical writers to convey this idea. Yet, for our own part 
 we must frankly confess, that if the point were to be decided 
 by mere grammatical interpretation, the utmost conclusion 
 which may be fairly reached is, that future punishments 
 may be eternal. But are they eternal? There is a very 
 obvious principle of interpretation which we take to be 
 decisive on the question. If identical terms are applied to 
 two different subjects placed in antithesis, in order to denote 
 their duration, then in both cases that duration must be 
 isochronous. Take, for example, such a sentence as this: 
 The wicked go away into punishment; the righteous into 
 life. This, as it stands, conveys no idea of the relative 
 duration of these two states. But now suppose the sentence 
 to be this: The wicked go away into everlasting punishment; 
 the righteous into everlasting life. This does indicate the 
 duration of the two states; and if identity of terms can 
 prove anything at all, the use of identical terms in such a 
 case as this must be held as proving that the misery of the 
 lost is to be of duration co-equal with the happiness of the 
 
THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 251 
 
 redeemed; so that unless the latter is to terminate, neither 
 will the former ever terminate—that if the day shall ever 
 arrive which is to see the fires of hell die out, it will also 
 witness the beatific glory of heaven itself extinguished. And 
 here comes in another principle as simple and certain as any 
 in mathematics, that when there is an equation between two 
 quantities, if the one is known, so of course is the other. In 
 the equation before us, there is no dispute about one of the 
 quantities—the perpetuity of the heavenly blessedness: and 
 we are surprised, therefore, that any dispute should have 
 been raised about the other. For if it is so that the two 
 terms of duration—that of heaven’s happiness and of hell’s 
 misery—are equated in Scripture, then we must either accept 
 or deny both. 
 
 We shall try the question, whether these are equated by 
 a single text. For this purpose we select the forty-sixth 
 verse in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew: “ And these 
 shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the right¬ 
 eous into life eternal.” From this text, as I have given it 
 from our English version, it appears as if two different adjec¬ 
 tives of unequal force were here employed; the weaker of 
 the two being used to qualify the punishment. But the 
 trutli is, that in the original, it is one and the same word 
 which occurs in both clauses of the verse; while there is 
 nothing whatever, either in the text or the context, to jus¬ 
 tify any difference in the rendering. It is, no doubt, true 
 that the Greek word does not always denote duration with¬ 
 out end; but this does not affect the point at issue, which 
 is, simply this—why should the same word, occurring twice 
 in the same verse, have different meanings assigned to it, 
 where there is nothing to indicate that the writer intended 
 this? Here, therefore, we maintain that if the Greek word 
 
252 THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 in the first clause does not mean literally without end, then 
 neither can it mean this in the second clause. If you cut 
 down its signification -when it is applied to the “ punish¬ 
 ment/’ in the same degree you must he prepared to cut down 
 its signification when it is applied to the “life.” Or to put 
 the case conversely; if you insist upon the w T ord having its 
 fullest meaning when it fixes the duration of the life, so you 
 must also insist upon its fullest meaning being given to it 
 when it fixes the duration of the punishment. For the term 
 being identical, the duration denoted by it must be isochron¬ 
 ous. If the punishment is to end, so is the fife to end. If 
 the life is not to end, so neither is the punishment to end. 
 
 A DIFFERENCE, BUT IN ONE DIRECTION. 
 
 We shall suppose that in the original text there had two 
 adjectives been used, differing in their force of meaning, as 
 our two English adjectives, everlasting and eternal do. Still 
 this would have furnished no argument against the endless¬ 
 ness of future punishments. We grant, of course, that 
 eternal is a stronger term than everlasting, since it includes 
 duration in both directions. It denotes that there is neither 
 beginning nor end. And the life here spoken of might well 
 be called “eternal” in the full sense of that term, seeing that 
 it is beginningless as well as endless. I say beginningless; 
 for what life is it into which the righteous are to enter ? 
 It is the very life—the very blessedness of God himself*. 
 That life and that blessedness which in him absolutely had 
 no beginning; and which to them, in the measure in which 
 they are able to realise it and receive it, will be felt as if 
 it had no beginning. 
 
 Now, such being the life in reserve for the righteous, it 
 would not have surprised us had we found it described by a 
 
THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 253 
 
 term more comprehensive than the term applied to the 
 punishment. For the latter is not in any sense from ever¬ 
 lasting. Nor is the place of punishment from everlasting. 
 The time was when neither of them existed. Punishment 
 cannot, strictly speaking, he eternal; because sin is not 
 eternal. There could be no pain, or penalty, or suffering in 
 the universe until there was wrong-doing. And it was time 
 enough to prepare a place of punishment, when there were 
 the guilty to be punished. So hell is not so old as heaven. 
 The seats of blessedness w T ere set up from everlasting; but 
 the abode of misery was not built until the rebel angels fell. 
 You will thus perceive that there is a difference in the 
 duration of the life and of the punishment. Exactly such a 
 difference as would be brought out by our two English 
 adjectives, eternal and everlasting. And this, perhaps, 
 was the reason why our translators introduced these two 
 renderings, though the original word is the same in both 
 clauses. 
 
 There is then a difference in the duration of the punish¬ 
 ment and of the life; but observe in what direction this 
 difference lies. It is entirely in the past; not at all in the 
 future. Everlasting, in its own direction , is as strong a term 
 as eternal is. Extend your flight backwards, through the 
 interminable vistas of the ages past, and you never can 
 reach a period when there was no heaven; but you do reach a 
 time when there was no hell. Travel back till even imagina¬ 
 tion is glad to rest its wearied wing, and you are still as far 
 as ever from the beginning of the blessedness of heaven; but 
 in the footprints of history itself, you may reach back to the 
 time when the first groan of misery was heaved in the place 
 of punishment. And thus you find that, in the direction of 
 the past, there is a difference in the duration of hell’s pains 
 
254 THE eteenity of futuee punishments. 
 
 and of heaven’s happiness, a vast and mighty difference; 
 even that between a thing being ancient, and its never having 
 had a beginning at all. But now extend your flight forward, 
 and you do not find any difference. Onward as the ages 
 roll, if you let your imagination float down their stream, you 
 can never reach a period, when there will be no hell and no 
 misery, any more than a period when there will be no heaven 
 and no blessedness. That word, “everlasting,” bears you 
 forward, and still forward, whether it be above or below, 
 through ages that shall never end. 
 
 I have dwelt the longer on the text cited from Matthew, 
 because an objection to the perpetuity of future punishments 
 has actually been founded on the difference in the terms, 
 “ everlasting,” and “ eternal.” The life, it is said, is here 
 described by a stronger term than is applied to the punish¬ 
 ment. But, as we have remarked, there is no such difference 
 in the original, nor any room for a difference at all, the 
 identical same term being used in both clauses of the verse. 
 And we have further shown, that even if there had been a 
 difference in the terms, such, for example, as in the English 
 words which our translators have adopted, still this would 
 only have proved a difference as to the past, none whatever 
 as to the future. 
 
 The idea of eternal punishment, even were the suffering 
 not very intense, has in it something awful and appalling. 
 What then must it be, when the sufferings are so extreme, as 
 those of the wicked are described to be. We frankly confess, 
 that nothing short of the explicit declaration of Scripture 
 could bring us to believe in such a doctrine. But seeing it 
 is revealed, we cannot allow the dread conceptions which it 
 raises, and which reason may shudder at, to stagger our faith 
 
THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 255 
 
 iii the doctrine itself, or shake our confidence in the rectitude 
 of Him who has revealed it. 
 
 But, is the eternity of future punishments so inconsistent 
 until correct notions of divine justice and benevolence as it 
 might at first sight seem to he, or as some represent it to 
 be? We do not think so. For the more the objections 
 urged against eternal punishments are examined, the more 
 evidently will they be seen to proceed from incorrect notions 
 of justice and benevolence, and on false assumptions as to 
 the real state of the question. 
 
 With the view of showing that this is the case, we shall 
 now proceed to examine some of these objections. 
 
 THAT PUNISHMENT OUGHT TO BE REFORMATIVE NOT PUNITIVE, 
 
 According to some, the only end or design of justice is 
 to reform the criminal, punishment being used simply as a 
 means of his reformation. But this theory of justice is at 
 issue with our simplest notion of crime, as being that which 
 in its own nature is blameworthy, and, therefore, to be 
 punished. It belongs to mercy, not to justice, to seek to 
 reclaim the offender back to virtue and happiness. Doubt¬ 
 less, mercy ought to temper justice; and, therefore, the idea 
 of reformation, whenever it can be done with safety, should 
 be combined with the idea of retribution. But there are 
 cases in which this cannot be done with safety to the common¬ 
 wealth ; and, therefore, a wise legislation would not attempt 
 it. Who would not rejoice to see our very prisons converted 
 into reformatories for the vagrant thief; but for the murderer, 
 what due punishment can there be short of death? Now, 
 if the sword of the magistrate, that by being a terror to evil¬ 
 doers, it may be a sufficient shield to them who do well, must 
 needs at times inflict a stroke which cuts off the offender 
 
256 THE ETEENITY OF FUTUBE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 for ever from the body politic; shall it be thought a strange 
 thing, if the sword of divine justice shall inflict the “ second 
 death,” which is to cut off obstinate offenders for ever from 
 the virtuous portion of his creatures ? 
 
 But even granting that the end of punishment is reforma¬ 
 tion, what, we ask, is to be done if the criminal will not 
 reform ? Is the unrepentant prisoner to be set at liberty 
 again to offend, and again to be punished ? This, indeed, is 
 the imperfect method to which human governments must 
 have recourse. But the divine government knows no imper¬ 
 fection. What then, we ask again, is to be done with sin¬ 
 ners in the other world, if they will not reform ? Are they 
 to be let loose from their prison to spread violence and crime 
 through the universe? Are they to be set at large to people 
 some peaceful planet with a race of desperadoes? Are they, 
 incorrigible sinners as ever, to be let out of hell, when it 
 must be known that they would immediately have to be 
 plunged back into it deeper than before? 
 
 We confess, indeed, that if in their place of punishment 
 lost spirits were to reform, or even to repent, it might seem 
 hard to shut them up in endless durance. But Scripture 
 nowhere indicates that they will either reform or repent. On 
 the contrary, it uniformly represents them as irreclaimably 
 wicked; as having the inclination, if only they had the 
 opportunity, of repeating all their former iniquities; as 
 brimming their cup of crime still fuller, by what sins they 
 can now commit. Scripture groups the inmates of hell into 
 two classes: the hopelessly despairing, who “ weep, wail, 
 and gnash their teeth,”—and where despair is there can never 
 be reformation; and the boldly defiant, untamed though 
 ever tortured, who “curse, swear, and blaspheme God.” 
 What then, we would ask once again, can await the irre- 
 
THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 257 
 
 claimable, tlie unrepentant, the incorrigible, except endless 
 imprisonment and ever-during punishment ? 
 
 THAT THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS IS A SYSTEM OF 
 
 TERRORISM. 
 
 This doctrine, it is alleged, cannot be promotive of virtue, 
 because it is fitted rather to frighten the sinner into becom¬ 
 ing holy, instead of his being left free to prefer holiness for 
 its own sake. You can never compel goodness, it is said, 
 
 and terror is a species of compulsion. 
 
 . * 
 
 Now, this objection overlooks several important considera¬ 
 tions. 
 
 In the first place, the doctrine of eternal punishments is 
 not an artifice or stroke of policy resorted to for the pur¬ 
 pose of scaring sinners; but it is a dire necessity of moral 
 law, which, wdiether it terrifies sinners or not, could not be 
 otherwise than it is. 
 
 Then, secondly, the objection is not borne out by experi¬ 
 ence ; for terrible beyond conception as their doom is, it is not 
 found to disturb the peace of the majority of sinners. They 
 might, we confess, be appalled by that phantom sheeted in 
 everlasting flames, wdiich waits to fold them in its fiery 
 embrace; but they are found to look it in the face unappalled, 
 or, turning away, forget that it is there. 
 
 Thirdly, while it is granted that mere terror can never 
 make a sinner holy, yet it may be, and often is, the means 
 of deterring him from iniquity. The law which punishes 
 murder with death will not make a man benevolent; but it 
 doubtless has often caused an intending murderer to stay 
 his hand, and in this way, at least, is promotive of virtue. 
 
 Fourthly, the appeal founded on the perpetuity of his 
 
 punishment is not the only appeal which God makes to the 
 
 R 
 
258 THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 sinner. For if there is eternal misery to appal, there is also 
 eternal happiness to encourage. Heaven, with its perpetual 
 beatitudes, is set forth to our view as forcibly as hell with 
 its quenchless burnings. If fear is conducted to the brink of 
 the seething abyss, that the sinner may flee from the wrath to 
 come, so is hope also led to the base of the celestial mountains, 
 when a voice is heard saying: Sinner, persevere up this steep, 
 and thou shalt yet stand on the sunlit summit, among those 
 who already are drinking at the fountain of endless life. 
 
 THAT THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS MAKES NO 
 
 DIFFERENCE. 
 
 If all are consigned to endless misery, then all, great sin¬ 
 ners and small, are treated alike. But those who say so, 
 forget that there are to be degrees of punishment in hell. 
 All will not be treated there alike. But those who have been 
 the greater sinners will be plunged in the deeper misery. In 
 no bosom will the gnawing worm ever die, but in some it 
 will gnaw with a keener agony than in others. The fire 
 will never be extinguished; but its flames will be fiercer in 
 some parts, and in these parts the greater criminals will have 
 their place. 
 
 And it is the very perpetuity of the punishment which 
 will enable justice to admeasure it most exactly, even as 
 if it were meted out drop by drop, according to every degree 
 of guilt. 
 
 THAT THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS IS INCONSISTENT 
 > WITH MERCY. 
 
 / 1 
 
 Those who urge this objection appear to us to forget that 
 the brightest aspect of mercy is when she is seen as the pro¬ 
 tectress of the penitent. Could her benign form be chiselled 
 
THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 259 
 
 in some material less cold than marble, with the hands 
 stretched over a Magdalene, the statue were worthy to 
 he set up at the gate of paradise. To wipe away the tears 
 which flow from repentant eyes, to soothe the breast which 
 will scarce be comforted because of its sins, to ensure the 
 returned prodigal of forgiveness, to lift the stricken penitent 
 from the dust—this is worthy of mercy. Let righteousness 
 rejoice in such acts. For besides the grace of compassion¬ 
 ateness, there is the grandeur of magnanimity in thus treat¬ 
 ing those who erred, but have repented. 
 
 But mercy, making no distinction between the repentant 
 and the unrepentant, could not be the guardian of the moral 
 universe. For what confidence could the good place in her 
 protection, or what pleasure could they feel in her approval? 
 And as to the wicked, they would by turns applaud and 
 despise her. If my child has committed a fault, and stands 
 before me with a sullen or defiant look, which tells me but 
 too plainly that there is none of the softening of sorrow, 
 what would that child think of me if I were to caress and 
 fondle him as if he had done no wrong? Young as he is, his 
 instinctive sense of propriety would make him almost recoil 
 from my embraces, as if he felt that I was degrading a 
 father’s love in thus lavishing it on a culprit child. But if, 
 when I see the starting tear, the quivering lip, the softening- 
 timid glance, I were to open my arms to the boding trembler, 
 with what alacrity he will rush into them, and how he will 
 cling to a father’s bosom, the same instinctive sense of 
 propriety teaching him that my paternal pity now is not a 
 mere fond weakness. 
 
 Having thus disposed of the objections which are com¬ 
 monly urged against the doctrine of eternal punishments, we 
 shall now attempt a brief vindication of the doctrine, first 
 
260 THE ETEENITY OF FUTUEE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 by giving what might be called an equivalent instance, and 
 then by presenting the real state of the question, as it is 
 set before the sinner in the Word of God. 
 
 AN EQUIVALENT INSTANCE 
 
 Could we find an exact parallel to eternal punishments in 
 this present world, this of course would silence all objections. 
 But this is plainly impossible, since the life of man is so 
 brief, and the period of the earth itself, during this economy 
 at least, is limited. Suffering here is often indeed pro¬ 
 tracted ; but it cannot in any case be perpetual. Failing a 
 parallel, we seek for an equivalent instance,—as for example, 
 one in which by being intensified, there is the same amount 
 of suffering as if it were perpetual; or in other words, where 
 suffering, by being infinite in degree, becomes equivalent to 
 suffering which is infinite in duration. 
 
 Now, an instance of this kind is to be found upon the 
 earth; and, its connection with the subject before us is the 
 closest possible. Let us then draw near to the foot of that 
 cross, on which the Son of God poured out his soul unto death 
 for sinners. Consider who was the sufferer,—even one who had 
 an infinite power of endurance, whose human nature, united 
 as it was with Godhead, could bear a fierceness of suffering, 
 which would have annihilated any mere creature. Was it 
 then a finite load of woe which caused Him, to bend under 
 it? Was it a conceivable anguish which wrung from that 
 heart its bursting cry, “ My God, my God, why hast thou for¬ 
 saken me?” No, surely here was the collected fierceness of 
 the divine wrath. Here was every flame, except remorse, 
 which justice could kindle in the breast. Here, compressed 
 into a few hours, was an eternity of suffering. Here, in one 
 piercing cry from the depths of this riven heart, broke forth 
 
THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 261 
 
 as muck of bitter anguish, as from any other heart it would 
 take eternal ages to wring. 
 
 Can we then witness these sufferings of the Saviour, and 
 doubt that the sufferings from which they were intended to 
 save must be eternal. Would God ever have subjected his 
 own Son to that intensity of anguish merely to save sinners 
 from a temporary misery? If the flames of hell, endured 
 through long yet ending ages, are to work repentance, and 
 purge away the sins of the lost, then we say, a thousand 
 times rather let every child of Adam in this sense have been 
 lost, than that the universe should ever have been startled 
 by the dying cry of its Creator! Yea, ten thousand times 
 rather let every human being have been saved by fire, if fire 
 can save, than by the blood of the Son of God! Ah! thou 
 pierced and bleeding Lamb, was it to save me only from 
 temporary suffering that thy tender flesh was thus torn, and 
 thy gentle breast was thus riven! 
 
 It has been tried to settle the question of future punish¬ 
 ments, by a sort of arithmetical computation. One party, 
 maintaining that there is an infinite demerit in sin, which 
 equates with an infinite duration of punishment, infer that 
 future punishment must be eternal. The other party again 
 hold that there can be no equation between the demerit of 
 acts which are commited in time, and their punishment if 
 spread through eternity, and that, therefore, future punish¬ 
 ments cannot be eternal. Now, if we must needs choose 
 between these two computations, we should certainly incline 
 to the former. But for our own part we would rather eschew 
 this arithmetic of moral infinites. Some may have discovered 
 it, but we pretend not to have found a calculus by which to 
 solve problems which contain such quantities as these. We 
 
262 THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 would rather hold ourselves to the arithmetic of fiuite 
 quantities—to magnitudes and to numbers of which we know, 
 or can find out the values. At all events, the question 
 before us does not require us to deal in these transcendental 
 mathematics. In the Bible it is solved in quite another 
 way. 
 
 THE CASE AS PUT IN SCRIPTURE. 
 
 It is put simply thus: In his abundant mercy, and though 
 freely to us, to himself at an amazing cost, God interposed 
 to provide the means of salvation to our guilty race. He 
 offers that salvation entirely as a gratuity, a free gift of his 
 full grace to sinners, irrespective of their past lives, however 
 wicked these may have been, on repentance and faith in his 
 Son, the Saviour. At the same time He gives all distinctly to 
 understand, that there is a set period within which salvation 
 is procurable, which period, though it varies in each case, has 
 in all cases one fixed terminal point—death. He, therefore, 
 warns sinners in language the most importunate, not to delay 
 even a single day in accepting salvation, seeing they do not 
 know but that at any moment death may carry them off, 
 closing to them for ever the period within which their sal¬ 
 vation is possible; and He assures them, one and all, that 
 now, this very moment, He is ready to receive them, if they 
 will only turn from the evil of their ways, and believe in his 
 Son whom He has sent to he the propitiation for their sins. 
 
 Such is the way in which the Scriptures put the case. 
 Nothing could he more explicit, more frank, more plain, than 
 God’s statement of how the matter stands. He is most 
 sincere in offering salvation to every sinner now, in this 
 present life. He is equally sincere in warning every sinner 
 that salvation will not be put in his offer hereafter—in the 
 
THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 263 
 
 world to come. Cut these two, now or never, asunder by 
 death as the divisor line, and, it is now or never, that a 
 sinner must be saved. 
 
 If then sinners, after being thus warned and thus invited, 
 shall notwithstanding let the period during which alone sal¬ 
 vation is procurable pass away, is it unjust, is it unkind, is 
 it anything like a heartless desertion of them, in God to leave 
 them to their chosen fate? Would He he true to his own 
 word were He to do otherwise? He allowed a period, limited 
 but sufficient, more than sufficient if sinners would not pro¬ 
 crastinate, in which they might have obtained salvation; He 
 warned them that the set period would not be extended, and 
 now, if they have sinned it away, or trifled it away,— 
 what can God do with them but leave them to their doom? 
 They have chosen it with their eyes open, and, if it is death, 
 endless death, their blood be on their own heads. If mercy 
 having told the sinner, over and over again told him, by 
 entreaty, and even by threatening told him, that he can 
 be saved only in this life; and if providence, as if to give 
 weight to mercy’s appeal, is daily and hourly by many a 
 sudden stroke, showing how hazardous it is to count on life, 
 even for another moment; if mercy, having thus pleaded 
 with the sinner, continues to plead with him almost to the 
 very brink of the grave, but is there, with his last breath 
 rejected, with the last motion of his dying hand repulsed, 
 what is even mercy then to do? 
 
 This is the form in which the Scriptures present the 
 question of future punishments, or what is the same thing, 
 the future doom of the sinner. “Now is the accepted time; 
 behold, now is the day of salvation.” “Seek ye the Lord 
 while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.” 
 “ How r shall w r e escape, if we neglect so great salvation ?” 
 
2G1 THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 “ And while they (the foolish virgins) went to buy, the bride¬ 
 groom came; and they that were ready went in with him to 
 the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also 
 the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to ns. But he 
 answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. 
 Watch therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the hour 
 wherein the Son of man cometh.” “ Because I have called, 
 and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man 
 regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and 
 w r ould none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your 
 calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your 
 fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a 
 whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 
 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they 
 shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.” 
 
 Put, as the Scriptures put it, the question of future pun¬ 
 ishments requires us to attempt no problem in the arith¬ 
 metic of infinites. For the question now is not simply and 
 solely, Do the sins committed in this life deserve eternal 
 punishment? We should not shrink from avowing oar 
 belief that they do. But this is not the sole question now. 
 There are other questions involved. First, for example, 
 wiiat else than endless misery can be the fate of a human 
 being who enters the other world with guilt on his head, no 
 matter what its amount, which now can never be removed? 
 Secondly, wiiat else than progressive wickedness will be the 
 career of an unholy being, wiio, in the other world, will be 
 shut out from all restorative means and agencies, and be 
 left without any restraint to his own evil will ? Take this 
 latter question alone, and it might be said to introduce a new 
 element into the case—that, namely, of sms committed in 
 the other world. Are these not punishable? Must they not 
 
THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 2G5 
 
 be punished ? And when can their punishment end, when 
 they themselves are never to end? If the guilt of the 
 wicked in hell is to go on accumulating, then the longer they 
 have sinned the less grows the difficulty, if any there was> 
 about the eternity of their punishment. For a period might 
 be conceived so remote, that we might at last venture even 
 on an arithmetical equation—a life-time past of count¬ 
 less ages spent in sin, with a life-time to come of countless 
 ages to be passed in punishment. Repeat this same equa¬ 
 tion, and you have still the same result; only at each repe¬ 
 tition the life-time on either side is immensely longer. 
 
 Do sinners complain that there is no remedial scheme in 
 the world to come? that only in this present world their 
 salvation is possible? Why, what if there had been no 
 remedial scheme at all; if neither in this world nor in the 
 world to come, salvation had been possible? Was God 
 bound to devise such a scheme ? was He under obligation 
 to extend mercy to our race? would it have been ours to 
 arraign the righteousness of his procedure, had He chosen to 
 deal with fallen man as He did with the fallen angels? We 
 do not hear any objection raised against the eternity of 
 their punishment. And yet they had no opportunity given 
 them to retrieve their miserable doom. 
 
 Seeing, then, it is so, that a fixed period, a set time, has 
 been determined on by God, during which any one of us 
 may, through his mercy in Christ Jesus, obtain pardon, and 
 be restored to his favour, what is the course which we ought 
 to adopt? Are we to wait, to put off, hoping, halting, hesi¬ 
 tating, but never actually closing with God’s offer of pardon 
 until the allotted period has passed away? No, surely, for 
 this would be the height of madness, the very supremacy of 
 folly. What then else are we to do? To wait until the 
 
266 the eternity of future punishments. 
 
 allotted time is about to close, flattering ourselves that since 
 pardon is within our reach, up to the very last hour of our 
 life, w T e may wait at least till then. Till then! When is 
 that then to he? Do we know the day of our death? or 
 knowing the day, do we know the hour of our death, whether 
 it is to be at morn, or noon, or night ? Or, knowing the 
 hour, can we tell the precise moment? and a moment too 
 late here is the loss of eternity. 
 
 Ah ! sinner, you do not know the moment, nor the hour, 
 nor the day, nor even the year of your death. The course, 
 therefore, which you ought to adopt, is to make sure not to 
 let the allotted period pass away, by coming to Christ now— 
 this very day—this very hour—this very moment. Time is 
 flying, oh ! how swiftly flying, and may be carrying on its 
 wing even now the sudden hour which has been counted 
 out as thy last. Wilt thou, therefore, not also fly—swifter if 
 thou canst than time—to Jesus, that when that hour shall 
 come it may not find thee out of him to perish hopelessly 
 and for ever. 
 
XIX. 
 
 PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 There are three radical facts clearly revealed in Scripture, 
 which we must start with and keep steadily in view, when 
 seeking an answer to the question, How is preparation to be 
 made for the other world ? 
 
 The first of these is, that man’s future life is his present 
 life continued without a moment’s suspension. “As the 
 tree falleth so it shall lie.” “He that is unjust, let him be 
 unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him he filthy still: 
 and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he 
 that is holy, let him he holy still.” Suppose a folded 
 flower to open while you are looking at it, as if at the touch 
 of a particular sunbeam, and you would have something like 
 a picture of what happens to a man in the moment of his 
 death. The sunbeams will go on developing the flower, but it 
 
 t 
 
 became a flower, or ceased to be a mere bud, in the moment of 
 its opening. So while eternity will go on developing man’s 
 future life, what it is to he through the endless ages it 
 became in the moment of its transition. That single instant 
 decides the question, What is to be my hereafter life ? For 
 though there are two worlds, there is in reality but one life 
 for man. 
 
 The second general fact which plainly follows from the 
 former is, that time, or speaking of the individual, that 
 portion of time which is allowed him as his life-season in 
 
268 
 
 PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 this present world, is the only period which will be given 
 him to prepare for the other world. When that season, be 
 it long or short, is run out, not another moment for prepara¬ 
 tion will he allowed him. Time may be redeemed while time 
 lasts, hut in eternity it is not redeemable. 
 
 The third general fact which plainly follows from the 
 other two is, that man’s present life is the preparation for 
 his future life. I have said that a moment, the last of our 
 life here, is decisive as to what our life hereafter is to he. 
 But then, that moment is not to he isolated from those that go 
 before. For, if a man’s death decides his eternity, it is his 
 life that decides his death. We would not limit the sove¬ 
 reign Spirit, nor do we forget such cases as that of the thief 
 on the cross. But as a general rule, (and it is only by 
 general rules, not by exceptional cases, it is safe for us to go), 
 to attempt to determine what a man’s death will be, apart 
 from what his life has been, were very much as if a mathe¬ 
 matician were to try to find out the last term in a series 
 without knowing either the first term, the common difference, 
 or the number of terms. Life, then, is the season for pre¬ 
 paration; or rather it is the preparation itself. Scriptime 
 brings out this fact under various similitudes, some of which 
 are very expressive; as, for example, when it compares time 
 to the spring, and eternity to the harvest: “Whatsoever a 
 man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This single com¬ 
 parison might indeed be said to exhaust the question. For 
 first, it settles what w r e are to reap; even that which we have 
 sown. If the seeds of a righteous life, then the reward of a 
 righteous life. But if the seeds of an ungodly life, then the 
 punishment which is due to such a life. Secondly, the com¬ 
 parison settles in what measure we are to reap, even in the 
 measure in which we have sowed. They who sowed sparingly 
 
PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 209 
 
 shall have a scanty harvest, while those will gather abun¬ 
 dantly who sowed plentifully. 
 
 Keeping these three general facts in view, we shall now 
 proceed to answer the question: How is preparation to be 
 made for the other world ? 
 
 FOR HELL NO SPECIAL PREPARATION NEEDED. 
 
 By this we mean, that in order to make a human being 
 completely miserable in the other world, it only requires that 
 he go on, as he is doing, in a career of sin. Let the wicked 
 only persist in their wickedness, and this will effectually 
 prepare them for future woe, or in the language of Scripture, 
 will make them “vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.” 
 For even suppose that God were not to smite the impenitent 
 sinner with his avenging hand at all; but were simply to say, 
 Leave him to himself,—let conscience, and memory, and his 
 own evil passions do their work upon him. What, I ask, 
 would be the condition of a human being thus left to him¬ 
 self? Ah! would it not be the most awful and deplorable 
 you can conceive? For place such an one viiere you please— 
 in heaven itself if that were possible—and he would still be 
 in hell, or rather hell w T ould be in him. The fire that is un¬ 
 quenchable would be his own unholy nature—the gnawing 
 worm that never dies would be his own guilty conscience. 
 
 Oh! if sinners would but think of this—that only let them 
 carry their unbridled passions with them into the other 
 world, and this will be hell to them—only let conscience do 
 its work within them there, and this will be hell to them— 
 only let memory bring up its forgotten recollections there, 
 and this will be hell to them—only let them take with them 
 their habits of confirmed wickedness, and this will be hell 
 to them. Yes, if we could only draw aside that simulated 
 
270 
 
 PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 show of happiness which veils over the real feelings of 
 
 4 
 
 wicked men, so as to see into their hearts, we should find 
 that they convert this present life into a preliminary hell, 
 tormenting themselves before their time. That under a 
 stoic placidity, there may be secret tortures keen as death. 
 That the hilarious laugh may he but the mimicry of a mirth 
 which tries to wanton with its wretchedness. That wealth, 
 fame, lofty station, may be but as the silken bandages which 
 conceal the cancer that is devouring the heart. Ah! envy, 
 if thou knewest all, not on these wouldst thou cast thy 
 mortified glances. Must thou also be another proof, that a 
 man can torture himself as with a brand snatched from the 
 burning pit—torture himself into very wretchedness, because, 
 in sooth, he cannot have that greater wretchedness, which 
 can afford to array itself in costly apparel. Yes, indeed, the 
 secret sorrows of the wicked are hard to bear. For baffled 
 ambition, even though the despot may still wield a sceptre, 
 how it stings! And exhausted lust, sated yet not satisfied, 
 how it tortures ! And impotent rage, how often in its mad¬ 
 dened fury does it cause the vindictive bosom to whip itself 
 with scorpion lashes! And awakened conscience, how it 
 keeps the eyes from slumber, and peoples the darkness of 
 night with avenging phantoms! 
 
 The sinner asks, Will there be material fire in hell; and is 
 it this I have to dread ? Idle question this for him to put; 
 for what were the fiercest flames that can scorch the body, 
 compared with the fiery tortures within? The sinner asks, 
 Will there be darkness in hell; and is it this I have to fear ? 
 Idle question this for him to put; for what were darkness, 
 even which could be felt, compared with the darkness of a 
 forlorn bosom? The sinner asks, Will there be chains in 
 hell; and is it these I am to be alarmed for? Idle question 
 
PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 271 
 
 this for him to put; for what are chains, even if forged of 
 adamant, compared with the chains which inveterate evil 
 habits rivet on the soul ? 
 
 It is, indeed, an awful thought, at which our own mind 
 has filled with horror, as it rose before us, that to prepare 
 himself for misery—unmitigated, eternal misery—a human 
 being has nothing to do but hold on in a course of wickedness. 
 
 FOR HEAVEN SPECIAL PREPARATION NEEDED. 
 
 It w r ere a bootless pilgrimage for an emigrant to set out 
 for a foreign country, if he knows that he would be denied 
 admittance into it; and that even if admitted, he is in no 
 w r ay fitted to reside in it. Now, as respects the celestial 
 country, towards which multitudes flatter themselves that 
 they are journeying, do they consider that they have no 
 natural right to enter it, indeed, are debarred and shut out 
 from it; and also that they have no natural fitness for it, 
 but are the most unfit conceivable either to mingle with its 
 society or take part in its services. 
 
 In the celestial sphere there are two poles, or fixed points, 
 about which all the stars appear to revolve; so are there two 
 aspects of heaven which might be called its poles, round 
 which all our ideas of it, centre and revolve. These are its 
 blessedness and its sinlessness. But being the place of the 
 blessed, it is plain that none who are accursed can be per¬ 
 mitted to enter it. i\nd being the place of the sinless, it is 
 equally plain that none who are sinful can be allowed to 
 enter it. Place now these, its two primary aspects, in juxta¬ 
 position with the two primary aspects of our fallen humanity, 
 and you will at once see that there is a double bar to our 
 admission into it. There is a legal disqualification; for it is 
 the place of blessedness, whereas our persons are accursed: 
 
272 
 
 PREPARATION EOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 and there is a moral disqualification; for it is the place of 
 sinlessness, whereas our persons are sinful. It is that one 
 spot in his universe, of which God has said: Here at least 
 there shall he nothing accursed and nothing unclean; but 
 we are that one race among his creatures, of which emphati¬ 
 cally He has pronounced that by nature it is both ac¬ 
 cursed and unclean. Never, therefore, can we enter heaven 
 until this double bar is taken out of the way; or until there 
 shall be written on our persons what is inscribed above its 
 own portals,—There is no curse and no sin here. 
 
 THE LEGAL DISQUALIFICATION MUST BE REMOVED. 
 
 In order to the removal of the legal disqualification, it is 
 so manifest that the curse must be removed, that instead of 
 stopping to prove this, we may at once assume it. For 
 surely it needs no argument to show that a sentence which 
 carried with it exclusion from an .earthly Eden must, so long 
 as it remains in force, stand as an effectual bar to our 
 entrance into the heavenly paradise. 
 
 But how is the curse to be removed? Are we ourselves to 
 do this? Can any tears we may shed wash it out? or any 
 expiation of suffering we can endure exhaust it? or any 
 reformation in our after lives cover it over? Not so; for 
 only He who pronounced the curse can remove it. And how 
 is even Fie to do this? By simply unsaying it? or by resil¬ 
 ing from it? or by scoring it out, as a creditor might draw 
 his pen through a bad debt ? No; this were to set aside all 
 the claims of justice; to treat the sentence itself as. an idle 
 threat; to hold out a bribe to lawlessness, and an encourage¬ 
 ment to sin, which might well appal the innocent, and 
 embolden the guilty to have no measure in their wickedness. 
 The curse, in order to its removal, must be endured. Not 
 
PEEPAEATION FOE THE OTHEE WOELD. 
 
 273 
 
 even the endurance of a part of it would make it consistent 
 with righteousness and truth for God to remit the other part 
 of it. If it had been excessive, more than the due punish¬ 
 ment of the offence, then there might have been some relaxa¬ 
 tion. For in that case to remit what was in excess would 
 have been only to make the sentence a just one. But where 
 there is nothing exacted but what is strictly due to justice, 
 and the sentence, severe as it is, is no more than barely 
 meets the offence, there can he no remission. 
 
 But justice might be open to accept a substitutionary 
 endurance of the curse; and in that case mercy, availing 
 herself of this alternative, might make provision for it. In 
 other words, seeing the sinner himself cannot endure the 
 curse, and survive what would annihilate his very being, 
 justice might consent that a substitute should endure it for 
 him, and mercy might provide that substitute. 
 
 What we have put as a possible or supposable case, is 
 the very thing which, in the gospel of his Son, God has made 
 known as his method of removing the curse. “ For what 
 the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, 
 God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 
 for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” “ Christ hath re¬ 
 deemed us from the curse of the law, being made^ a curse 
 for us.” 
 
 In order however, to the removal of the curse from myself 
 individually through its substitutionary endurance by Christ, 
 it is required that I accept him as my substitute. And, it 
 is by faith I am to accept him. Hence, the indispensable¬ 
 ness of this grace as a preparation for heaven. For he that 
 believeth not is still under the curse, and, therefore, is legally 
 barred from entering the abode of the blessed. 
 
 But suppose the curse removed, this no doubt takes away 
 
 s 
 
274: PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 the legal disqualification, or the sentence of exclusion, but it 
 does not give a right or title of entrance. There is a sup- 
 posable intermediate condition between being accursed and 
 blessed, viz., the being neither the one nor the other. And, 
 were a human being merely brought into this condition, 
 that is, no longer under condemnation, but still destitute of 
 any positive righteousness, his entrance into heaven would 
 not be secured. He were still without the passport. Accord¬ 
 ingly, in the economy of grace, there has been provision made 
 to meet this other necessity of the case. For He, who as 
 the sinner’s substitute did by suffering endure the curse in 
 order to its removal, did also, as the sinner’s surety, by obedi¬ 
 ence, work out a righteousness, which when imputed to US' 
 gives us a title to eternal life, or a right of entrance into 
 heaven. And here again faith comes in as a necessary pre¬ 
 paration for the other world; for it is by faith we accept 
 Christ as our surety, his righteousness being imputed to 
 them that believe. “Not having mine own righteousness, 
 which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of 
 Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” 
 
 Conceive that, as at the gate of Eden, there were also, at 
 the gates of the celestial paradise, cherubim placed with a 
 flaming sword which turns every way to guard the entrance. 
 Can any human soul pass through that wheel-like circle of 
 revolving flame? Yes, if that soul has been united to Christ 
 by faith, it may pass through, for it is invulnerable to the 
 keen edge of that fiery blade. Him that is accursed or un¬ 
 righteous it would cut asunder were he to approach within 
 the circle which it sweeps. But this soul, once accursed, is 
 now blessed; once unrighteous is now clothed with the very 
 righteousness of God; and, therefore, it may pass through 
 the flame-fenced portals, the cherubic sword itself pointing 
 
* PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 275 
 
 tlie way, and covering it as witli a shield of light while it 
 enters in, to eat of the tree of life. 
 
 THE MORAL DISQUALIFICATION MUST BE REMOVED. 
 
 We have seen that ere any of our race can enter heaven, 
 he must become possessed of a legal capacity of admission; 
 that Christ, by his atoning death and perfect righteousness, 
 has purchased this capacity for those who believe; that these, 
 by the very act of believing, are held to be in possession of 
 that capacity, just as he who has accepted a deed of inherit¬ 
 ance, or purchase, or dotation, becomes invested with all the 
 privileges which are thereby conveyed to the holder. But 
 the possession of a legal capacity is not enough. There 
 must be besides a personal capacity. If it is so, that with¬ 
 out the former no man can enter heaven, then it is equally 
 the case, that wanting the latter he could not enjoy heaven. 
 It w r ere of little avail to a man who is blind, to be ushered 
 into a superb gallery of paintings/ not one of wiiich he can 
 see. And it were of as little avail to a man who is deaf, to 
 be conducted where there are the sounds of a most enchant¬ 
 ing melody, not one of which he can hear. The former, 
 instead of a gallery which is adorned with the treasures of 
 art, might as well be in a dark cavern; and the latter, in¬ 
 stead of a concert-room, might as v r ell be amid the silence of 
 a dense forest. Or let us suppose the case of a man, wdio, 
 from some defect in the visual organ, cannot look upon a 
 picture without painful sensations; to him the darkened 
 cavern would be more welcome than the finest gallery of art. 
 While to a man who has a distaste for music, the silence of 
 the forest would be more tolerable than the finest passages 
 in the most sublime oratorio. Now, they are cases such as 
 these which more properly represent what would be the feel- 
 
276 
 
 PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 ings of an nnrenewed sinner, were he to be admitted into 
 heaven. He would not only fail to perceive its spiritual 
 beauties and to relish its spiritual enjoyments, from the want 
 of the requisite spiritual sensibilities, but these would be posi¬ 
 tively painful to him because of the utter incongruousness 
 which there is between them and his character. It is, there¬ 
 fore, not enough that there be the erasure of the sentence 
 of condemnation; but there must be also the eradication of 
 the defilement of our nature. Besides the passport of en¬ 
 trance, there must be likewise the preparation for enjoyment. 
 
 And for this provision has been made in the economy of 
 grace. For the blood of Christ, by which we are justified, 
 doth also sanctify us. By an ordinance as certain and 
 invariable as that by which the consequent follows its ante¬ 
 cedent, does sanctification follow justification. And there¬ 
 fore, every one, who by the latter is made meet in law 
 to enter heaven, will also be made meet in person. As cer¬ 
 tainly as his condition has been altered by the one, will his 
 character be altered by the other. As surely as the condem¬ 
 nation which would have excluded him altogether from 
 heaven has been entirely erased, will the moral defilement 
 which would have unfitted him for heaven be completely 
 eradicated. s 
 
 Compared with justification, which is instantaneous and 
 complete at once, sanctification is a slow work. Yet, though 
 slow it is not less sure. The works of human labour and 
 skill are often left incomplete. The husbandman who sowed 
 the furrows may not live to reap the harvest field. The 
 hand which reared the monumental column may itself be 
 smitten with feebleness, before it has had time to fix the 
 capital. And many an unfinished picture, statue, or poem, 
 like a broken fragment from the temple of fame, awakes a 
 
PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 277 
 
 sigh that the poet, the sculptor, or the painter should not he 
 immortal till after death. But it is not so with the works 
 of God, at least not so with his works of grace. In the 
 natural world it may happen that He does not always finish 
 what He has commenced. The flower may leaf which never 
 blossoms; the sapling take root which never becomes a 
 tree; the infant he born which is never to breathe the 
 breath of life. 
 
 But in the work of grace there has not been, there never 
 will be, a single instance of this sort. For when a soul is 
 once regenerated, the process of sanctification most surely, 
 though, alas! often very slowly, must go on, till the appointed 
 hour arrives, wdien that soul is to go forth out of the body, 
 to be presented before God without spot, or blemish, or 
 wrinkle, free from every fault or flaw of any kind. 
 
 Yea, the work of purification will still go on in that part 
 of the redeemed one which has been left to moulder in the 
 tomb; for as the soul had its hour of departure from the 
 body when it was entirely purified from the last remaining 
 taint of sin, so shall the body itself hate its hour of depar¬ 
 ture from the grave, when it also shall be altogether freed 
 from the foul and festering virus which had penetrated its 
 every particle, and pervaded all its members. 
 
 Sanctification is emphatically a work of God, and to this 
 it owes the certainty of its being completed ; but let it not 
 be supposed that we have nothing to do in it, further than 
 our being the material, so to speak, on which the Divine 
 Spirit operates. The clay in the hand of the potter, or the 
 marble under the chisel of the sculptor, are entirely passive, 
 and have no part whatever in determining the shapes they 
 are made to take, beyond the mere material laws which 
 regulate the adhesion of their particles. But God does not 
 
278 
 
 PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 work on a human soul as if it were clay or marble. He 
 imparts to it spiritual vitality at its regeneration or the new 
 birth; and henceforth its sanctification is carried on by the 
 combination of two vital forces—the co-operation of two living 
 agencies. The one, that of the Divine Spirit, which is supreme; 
 the other, that of the human spirit itself, which, though 
 subordinate, is yet indispensable to the carrying on and 
 completion of the process. “Work out your own salvation 
 with fear and trembling: for it is God which worketh in you 
 both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Thus, with 
 the soul,—and even as respects the body, though we can have 
 no share in its purification in the grave, yet are we called 
 upon while we have it still with us, to keep it under, to 
 crucify it in its fleshly lusts, and to use its members as instru¬ 
 ments of righteousness, so that when death comes there shad 
 he the less left for God to do to it, in that after process of 
 purification in which we cannot he fellow-workers with him.. 
 
 Now, here again, the indispensableness of faith as a pre¬ 
 paration for the other world is manifestly apparent. For 
 just as it is by faith, in a conscious and consenting act 
 of my will, that I embrace Christ as my substitute and 
 surety, who by his blood cancels the curse, and by his 
 obedience seals and makes sure for me a right of entrance 
 into heaven; so is it by faith, in the conscious and consent¬ 
 ing acts of my will, that I receive the Spirit as my.sanctifier, 
 who is to fit and prepare me for the enjoyment of heaven. 
 Let us, then, insist on the indispensableness of this grace. 
 Patience is needed; hut patience without faith will never 
 carry any human being to heaven. And labour is needed; 
 hut labour without faith will never work out a title to 
 heaven. And hope is needed; but hope without faith in¬ 
 dulges an idle dream, when it flatters itself with the expea- 
 
PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 279 
 
 tation of reaching heaven. And prayer is needed; but 
 prayer without faith can never he the effectual fervent 
 prayer of a righteous man which availeth much. And self- 
 denial is needed; hut self-denial without faith, were it to 
 wear the sackcloth of the mourner, and whip itself with the 
 lash of the ascetic, will never drive sinfulness out of a man. 
 And afflictions are needed; but affliction without faith will 
 be as the fire to the stubble, and not as the fining pot to 
 the gold. Show me a man who has all the other requisite 
 qualifications, hut who lacketh this one; and so long as he 
 is without it, I can predict of him that he will never enter 
 heaven. But why should I put the case thus, when the man 
 is not to he found who has all or any of the qualifications 
 necessary for heaven, if he is destitute of faith. For this is 
 the primal qualification—the seed of the plant, the root of 
 the tree, the spring of the well, the fountain-head of the 
 stream, the cause of the effect. 
 
 It is a great point with the natural philosopher, when, 
 seeking to establish some truth in science, he can find what 
 is called an experimentum crucis—d* crucial experiment, 
 which is decisive of the question at issue, and confirms or 
 disproves it at once. Now, in the question before us, there 
 is a crucial experiment, an all-decisive test, which is faith. 
 We will, therefore, do w T ell to bring the question of our pre¬ 
 paredness for heaven to this decisive ordeal. Have we 
 faith? Not that faith alone is the preparation, but without 
 faith we never can be prepared. The root may be in the 
 ground, and yet the branches be comparatively barren; but 
 if the root is not in the ground there can be no fruit, and 
 very soon no branches. 
 
 Away, then, ya fond dreamers, who indulge the hope of 
 entering heaven, and yet are destitute of faith. Can that 
 
280 PREPARATION FOR THE OTHER WORLD. 
 
 hope of yours build for you another heaven than that which 
 God has prepared, and in which He dwells? If so, then into 
 that heaven ye might enter; hut if besides God’s heaven 
 there is and can he no other, then hear Him whose heaven 
 it is, and to whom alone belongs the right of granting an 
 entrance into it, when He tells you, that no child of Adam’s 
 race shall ever see his face in glory who has not believed 
 in his Son. 
 
XX, 
 
 / 
 
 SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 In one view of it, preparedness for heaven is a fixed quantity, 
 and in another view it is a variable quantity. It is fixed, or 
 the same in all, in this respect, that every believer is equally 
 justified and will he equally sinless when the work of sancti¬ 
 fication in him shall have been completed. But it is vari¬ 
 able in this other respect, that every believer does not equally 
 abound in holy deeds, nor attain to the same advancement 
 in the divine life, during the preparation process. 
 
 The heavenly blessedness may also be said to be both a 
 fixed and a variable quantity. It is fixed, inasmuch as every 
 redeemed person will be perfectly blessed; but it is variable, 
 inasmuch as this perfection of blessedness will be in the 
 measure of the individual’s capacity, and will, therefore, 
 vary according to that capacity. 
 
 Now, it is not a mere accidental coincidence, that while 
 preparation for heaven is in one respect a variable quantity, 
 the blessedness of heaven is also in a similar respect a vari¬ 
 able quantity. The one follows from the other by a law of 
 moral fitness. It is altogether an orderly and equitable 
 adjustment, that each one should have that place assigned to 
 him in the heavenly kingdom, which he is prepared to fill; 
 and that share in the heavenly glory awarded to him, which 
 he is capable of enjoying. 
 
 In the view of this adjustment, the question, How is pre- 
 
282 
 
 SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 paration to be made for lieaven? assumes a somewhat altered 
 form. Hitherto we have considered it as if it had been put 
 thus: How am I to be prepared for being admitted into 
 heaven at all? how to secure any place in the mansions of 
 eternal blessedness? But now we mean to advance the ques¬ 
 tion a step beyond this: How am I to be prepared for 
 occupying one of the higher seats of glory? If this present 
 world is the training school for the next, and this present 
 life a discipline or preparation for the life to come, how am 
 I to make the most of these? Above all, are there special 
 aids to preparation, by the diligent use of which I may hope, 
 through grace, to reach a high position in my heavenly 
 Father’s house, in which there be many mansions ? 
 
 A lofty position in heaven] some modest soul is ready to 
 exclaim, ah! were I but sure of obtaining any place there. I 
 could be a door-keeper in the house of my God,—could be 
 content to hold their harps, while the more gifted min¬ 
 strels pause in their song,—a servant’s place, w r ould be 
 an honour beyond what I deserve, to be allowed to fill. 
 Yes, indeed, an honour beyond what you deserve ; but is it 
 an honour beyond what you are encouraged to aspire to? Is 
 it a proper humility this of yours, or does it not rather arise 
 from your not yet fully realising your high vocation, and 
 rightly understanding your Father’s heart? You may be 
 content to be as servants in his house; but is it His wish or 
 will to make you servants there? We can understand your 
 feelings, and make allowance for them. They are what 
 perhaps every prodigal son feels, when he forms the resolu¬ 
 tion of returning to the paternal roof. “ I will arise and go 
 to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned 
 against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to 
 be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.” 
 
SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 2S3 
 
 But follow tliat penitent on his homeward way. Faint and 
 footsore with travel from a far land; in rags, and these 
 bemired with dust; the miserable shadow of his former 
 self, he looks not as one who could be received even as a 
 menial into yonder lordly mansion. But there is one 
 standing at its door, who has espied the wretched wayfarer, 
 and who, though feeble with age, hastens with the agile step 
 of younger days, to meet him. How the prodigal’s heart 
 beats against his wasted breast, when he discovers who it is 
 that thus hastens towards him. They meet; the father’s 
 arms are flung round his son’s neck; the kiss of forgiving 
 love is imprinted on his cheek. The son—the prodigal but 
 forgiven son—is the first to speak. But what does he say? 
 “ Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and 
 am no more worthy to be called thy son.” But where is the 
 rest of the purposed salutation—the contemplated proposal, 
 “ make me as one of thy hired servants?” Ah! he under¬ 
 stands a father’s heart better now. That embrace, that 
 kiss, those tears, forbid the words to rise to his lips. He 
 feels his own unworthiness; as deeply as before, he even now 
 feels that he deserves but a servant’s place. But he will not 
 insult a father’s ears —such a father as he now feels his 
 is—with such a proposal. 
 
 Was it not one of the objects which our Lord had in view 
 in the parable of the prodigal son, to rebuke that false humi¬ 
 lity which would hold itself content with any, even a ser¬ 
 vant’s place, in the heavenly Father’s house? 
 
 There are grades among the celestials, degrees of glory 
 in heaven. As in the lower, so also in the higher firma^ 
 ment, one star differeth from another star in glory. All will 
 not start on the race of eternity from the same point; nor 
 will all begin the ascent of the eternal ages from the same 
 
284 
 
 SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 elevation. And why is this? Because, in the first place, 
 all do not reach the same point, nor attain to the same ele¬ 
 vation, upon the earth; and, secondly, because the point at 
 which the believer closes his earthly race will he the point 
 from which he will start in the heavenly race; and the ele¬ 
 vation which he has attained in the earthly ascent will be 
 the elevation from which he will commence the heavenly 
 ascent. Surely, then, there can be no manner of doubt that 
 it is our duty to strive to reach an advanced closing point 
 here, that we may begin from an advanced starting point 
 hereafter; and, to gain an elevated ascent on earth, that we 
 may, from a high elevation, commence our ascending pro¬ 
 gress in heaven. 
 
 Let us consider, then, what special aids to preparation 
 there are, by diligently availing ourselves of which we may 
 secure so desirable a result. 
 
 PROVIDENCE AN AID TO PREPARATION. 
 
 Providence is an oft-repeated prophecy, an unbroken series 
 of predictions of a w r orld to come. For on no other prin¬ 
 ciple can we reconcile its manifold inequalities with our 
 notions of perfect goodness, wisdom, and beneficence. Every 
 page contains some unaccountable perplexity, until we feel 
 that we are perusing the handwriting of a seer who, in chro¬ 
 nicling a present history, is at the same time predicting a 
 future life which will he very different from that which now 
 is. And, in this way, if w T e rightly use it, providence be¬ 
 comes a preparation for the advent of our better life, just as 
 the predictions of the prophets were a preparation to the 
 ancient Church for the advent of the promised Deliverer. 
 
 And there is one feature in providence which is peculiarly 
 fitted to arrest our attention, when w r e thus view it as a pre- 
 
SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 285 
 
 diction of a hereafter life. In the case of nations and com¬ 
 munities, we can trace character to its finished issues, and 
 actions to their full reward or punishment in this present 
 world. On the ruins of a Nineveh, a Babylon, an Ephesus, 
 we can see it written as with an iron pen, that though ven¬ 
 geance may be delayed, it is certain to strike the retributive 
 blow at last. Opulence will not bribe the destroyer. Im¬ 
 pregnable walls will not keep out the avenger. Rivers of 
 blood will not extinguish the liavoc-brand until it has done 
 its appointed work. When the hour of doom is come, im¬ 
 perial armies will melt as snow-flakes when the sun shineth 
 in his strength; ancient institutions, which many centuries 
 had consolidated, will scatter as loose sand-drift; dynasties, 
 which had withstood the shocks of war and the wasting of 
 the pestilence, will fall as of themselves—fall to rise no more. 
 Providence thus proclaims the fact, which all history attests, 
 that the Nemesis of nations, of communities, of cities, exe¬ 
 cutes its work of vengeance in this w r orld. The sites of 
 innumerable ruins are the witnesses of it. Broken pillars, 
 as if spared by time for that use, are the tablets which 
 record it. In like manner nations and communities reap 
 the full reward of virtue and righteousness in this present 
 world. Of this we find a striking illustration in the case of 
 Philadelphia, whose Church had kept Christ’s word and not 
 denied his name; for while its sister cities lie prostrate in 
 the dust, it stands still erect—a column in a scene of ruins. 
 
 But in the case of individuals, we often fail to mark either 
 the full punishment of their crimes, or the full reward of 
 their righteous deeds in this present life. And why this dif¬ 
 ference between communities and individuals? Manifestly, 
 it is because the former, if they are to reap their punishment 
 or reward, must do so here, since it is only here that they 
 
28G 
 
 SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 exist. But the destiny of the individual can be deferred 
 until that hereafter which is beyond the grave; because, 
 then, the individual will still survive. 
 
 How solemnly, then, does providence address communities 
 that their destiny, whether for weal or woe, must be consum¬ 
 mated and closed in this present world. And how T much 
 more solemnly does it admonish the individual that his des¬ 
 tiny is postponed; that not in this transitory state can it be 
 disposed of, but must be deferred until eternity shall give 
 verge enough—sufficient length and breadth for its full de¬ 
 velopment. Yes, deferred till then; but if so, everyday 
 with its minutest incident, up to the very close of my pre¬ 
 sent existence, enters as a part of the web of my destiny. 
 The very last thread woven into it will re-appear. The 
 veriest filament which neither another’s nor my own eye may 
 perceive while still the shuttle of life is flying, will come 
 out when the finished pattern is spread out hereafter. Weave 
 as I may, warp and woof are stretched on the loom of 
 eternity. 
 
 THE MEANS OF GRACE AN AID TO PREPARATION. 
 
 These, as the appointed channels by which divine grace is 
 communicated to us, are, of course, aids to our preparation 
 for another world, by being the means of our growth in holi¬ 
 ness, in knowledge, in humility, and all those Christian 
 graces which alone can fit us for that world. 
 
 But there is another aspect of these in which the believer 
 may find them most valuable aids towards his preparation 
 for a future life, which is, when they are regarded as fore¬ 
 shadows or prefigurative symbols of better things to come. 
 Thus viewed, they greatly help me in projecting my mind 
 forward into that world vffiere the corresponding realities 
 
SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 28 T 
 
 are to be found. Say you they are but types, then do I look 
 for the antitypes; that they are but signs and symbols, then 
 do I expect the realities which they signify and symbolise. 
 And thus, again, as in providence, so in grace, I find myself 
 in the region of prophecy. Every ordinance becomes a 
 prediction. Worship is an adumbration. The song of 
 praise a prophet’s hymn. The sanctuary a tabernacle or 
 temporary fane of curtains, until the temple itself shall be 
 erected. 
 
 How helpful to preparation for heaven is this view of the 
 ordinances of grace. For is not prayer the prelude and 
 pledge of that nearer access which we shall yet have to God j 
 when not as here the desire “uttered or unexpressed” will 
 have to be wafted upwards from the footstool; and when not 
 by an exercise of faith merely, but literally, we shall stand 
 within the veil in the very presence of our Father in heaven. 
 And is not the weekly Sabbath, which, like the other days 
 of the week, has its morning and evening, only a symbol of 
 that perpetual Sabbath whose dawn without a twilight will 
 burst into noonday, and whose night will never come ? And 
 is not the sacramental table, which is spread in the wilder¬ 
 ness, a foreshadow of the marriage supper of the Lamb, when 
 the tables will be always spread and the guests will enjoy an 
 endless repast? 
 
 Now, if we were thus to use the ordinances of grace as but 
 the shadows of better things to come, the daybreak but not 
 the noon of our spiritual privileges, how greatly .they would 
 assist us in projecting our minds forward into the coming 
 glory. For hope having tasted of the antepast would only 
 long the more for the full feast; having partaken of the 
 grapes of Eschol, it will feel an increased desire to enter the 
 promised land, where are the vineyards in which these clus- 
 
288 
 
 SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 ters ripen, and where the vintage time is one perennial 
 season of crushing the gathered grapes. 
 
 THE DEATH OF FRIENDS AN AID TO PREPARATION. 
 
 As friend after friend departs, and who has not lost a 
 friend? we are reminded that this is not our home. Alas! 
 if it were, foolish would it be in us to let these sensitive 
 hearts of ours cling to any creature; for the most tender ties 
 are often the soonest to be broken, and the one we would 
 most fondly clasp is the very one whom death first tears 
 away from us. Shall we, then, not love? Yes, fond heart, 
 obey the instincts of thy nature, and allow thyself, if not too 
 closely, to cling round thy loved ones. They may be taken 
 from thee, and as thy fondness has been so shall thy sorrow 
 be; but must thou give way to a hopeless melancholy? Is 
 there to be no re-union? Is the severed twig to be whirled 
 away thou knowest not whither, by the storm which broke it 
 off? Is the sundered link to be buried in the ground to rust 
 into dust, never any more to form a part of its chain? Not 
 so. The broken link has been drawn upwards that the other 
 links which for a time are left below, may, each in their 
 turn, be more lastingly united to it than ever they were here. 
 And thus at each removal in a pious household, if there is 
 one link less in the chain below, there is a link more in the 
 chain above. 
 
 These oft-recurring breaks in our home-circles are there¬ 
 fore fitted to do more than merely to lessen our ties to earth. 
 For, take the case of a pious mother who has lost a little 
 one, how fondly she would have kept it wn need not ask; 
 how sadly she wept for it we have no right to ask; but now 
 when God has taken it away, would she wish it back ? Does 
 she not rather feel that ever since its removal, instead of 
 
SPECIAL AIDS TO PEEPAEATION. 
 
 289 
 
 one slie has now two homes—the one here where her surviv¬ 
 ing children gather round her, the other in heaven where is 
 the absent child; her child still though gone to he with God. 
 And does not this thought of the two homes with some of 
 her children in each, give her a mother’s interest in both 
 worlds, and make her doubly anxious that she and all her 
 children may be found at last “a family in heaven?” 
 
 AFFLICTIONS AN AID TO PREPARATION. 
 
 “ Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh 
 for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” 
 “What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? and whence 
 came they ? These are they which came out of great tribula¬ 
 tion.” Yes, many a saint who has not been bound to the 
 martyr’s stake has had the martyr’s baptism by fire for 
 heaven. Many who, though not with bleeding feet, have yet 
 had to tread a thorny path to paradise. Indeed, all, more 
 or less, have had to pass through the valley of shadows. 
 
 Nor think it anywise strange that God should have or¬ 
 dained affliction to be one of the special preparations for 
 heaven. By fire the gold is refined. By tempest the waters 
 of ocean are purified. The sapling which roots deeply is 
 the nursling of storms. The brawny arm has been sinewed 
 by labour. Such is the law in nature; and in grace there is 
 an identical law. The Christian graces are all of them im¬ 
 proved by the trials of adversity, and some of them could 
 scarcely exist at all without it. Where were patience, or 
 humility, or fortitude, but for adversity? 
 
 Even for present happiness affliction is a preparation. As 
 the crushed grape yields the joyous wine, and the wounded 
 balm-tree its healing balsam, and the pressed olive its bland 
 
 oil, so does the afflicted heart distil into itself out of its very 
 
 T 
 
290 
 
 SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 sorrows a peace, a contentment, a resignation, it liad other¬ 
 wise never enjoyed. And if for present, how much more for 
 future happiness is affliction a preparation. For what is 
 heaven? It is rest, joy, re-union, cloudless light, fruition, 
 abundance, peace. Heaven is rest; and what prepares the 
 pilgrim for repose hut weariness? Heaven is joy; and when 
 is pleasure so sweet as after pain? Heaven is fruition; and 
 when does hope so gladly seize the expected prize as after 
 repeated disappointments? Heaven is peace; and when does 
 peace from its dove-neck shake down so gentle drops as after 
 the storm and the strife, when the petrel’s wing is folded and 
 the sword is returned to its sheath? Heaven is cloudless 
 light; and why is the day-dawn so welcome but because it 
 has chased away the night? Heaven is abundance; and do 
 you need to ask the famished garrison or the starving cast¬ 
 away, why a cup of water tastes sweet as nectar, or a dry 
 morsel of bread as the choicest delicacy? Heaven is re¬ 
 union ; and when is the face of a friend so hailed with a 
 cheery welcome as after a long separation? 
 
 Nowise strange is it, therefore, that afflictions should pre¬ 
 pare the children of God for the coming glory. Had they 
 never tasted sorrow, the law of contrast might have been 
 dispensed with. But seeing they have drank of the bitter 
 cup, it is by drinking often, drinking deeply of it, that they 
 are to be prepared to quaff that other cup which brims over 
 without a sorrow and sparkles without a tear. 
 
 There would seem to be no exception to this law of pre¬ 
 paration. Even Christ himself became subject to it. By 
 sorrows which were wrung not always in tears, but sometimes 
 in blood, He was prepared for the joys that were set before 
 liim. And now the recollection of his human earthly suffer¬ 
 ings is a great augment of his human heavenly blessedness. 
 
SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 291 
 
 Can He forget that his brow, which is now circled with the 
 diadem of heaven, was once circled with a crown of thorns? 
 or that his hand, which now wields the sceptre of the nniverse, 
 was made in mockery to hold a broken reed? And if it is 
 so to him that past sufferings increase his present joys, must 
 we not conclude that it will be the same with all those who, 
 bearing his cross, follow in his steps? Not surely by another 
 path than He had to tread, or by another portal than He 
 had to pass through, can they expect to enter into their rest. 
 
 MEDITATION ON THE WORLD TO COME AN AID TO PREPARATION. 
 
 There is a law or principle in our nature, by virtue of 
 which an agreeable object, when steadily contemplated, 
 acquires an assimilating power over the mind. It is to this 
 principle Paul alludes when he says: "But we all, with open 
 face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are 
 changed into the same image from glory to glory.” It is as 
 if he had said: Let a man steadily contemplate the charac¬ 
 ter of Christ, and he will become Christlike. So, in like 
 manner, by the operation of the same assimilative law, let 
 us meditate much on heaven, and we will become more and 
 more heavenly-minded. 
 
 And there is 'every inducement to us to meditate fre¬ 
 quently on the better land. There is not a single melancholy 
 thought associated with it. Faith may meditate on it; for 
 there faith shall become vision. Hope may meditate on it; for 
 tli ere hope shall rise to fruition. Patience may meditate on it; 
 for there patience shall at last be crowned. Devotion may 
 meditate on it; for there devotion shall find perpetual wor¬ 
 ship. Humility may meditate on it; for there humility 
 shall be clothed with glory. Grief may meditate on it; for 
 there grief shall have its tears wiped away. Joy may medi- 
 
292 
 
 SPECIAL AIDS TO PREPARATION. 
 
 tate on it; for there joy shall enter into the blessedness of 
 God. Knowledge may meditate on it; for there knowledge 
 shall have its noblest studies. Charity may meditate on it; 
 for there charity shall be endless love. Age may meditate 
 upon it; for there age shall feel no decrepitude. Youth 
 may meditate upon it; for there youth shall be immortal. 
 
 I have said there is not a single melancholy thought asso¬ 
 ciated with heaven. Nor is there one with the place itself. 
 Yet is the passage to it not altogether free from clouds and 
 darkness. 'Fair and bright as is the prospect, there is one 
 looming shadow on the horizon. The celestial mountains 
 bathe their summits in eternal sunshine; but at their base, 
 and between us and them, there stretches “ the valley of the 
 shadow of death.” There is no passage but through that 
 valley. Who does not at times tremble at the thought that 
 he must pass through it? And yet the Christian need not 
 be afraid. It is safe to him , for he will have a guide; One 
 who himself passed through it at its darkest part, and knows 
 every footstep of the way. “ Yea, though I walk through 
 the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for 
 thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” 
 
 And it is perhaps well that there drop between us and the 
 future glory these shadows of the interlying vale; for, other¬ 
 wise, the prospect might be too bright for us. But now, to 
 the eye of faith, the sunlight beyond comes stealing through, 
 softened but not concealed. The cloud has a silver lining, 
 which tells that it lies cradled near the sun of immortality. 
 Death pales the glory down to a penumbra, which we know 
 will pass away when the eclipse is over. 
 
XXI. 
 
 BOTH WORLDS. 
 
 We have now, at some considerable length, directed the 
 reader’s thoughts to u the world to come.” The importance 
 of the subject no one can dispute. But we will hear it ^com¬ 
 plained by a modern infidelity that such contemplations as 
 these are calculated to withdraw men’s attention too much 
 from this present w r orld. Let the theologians have a care, 
 (this infidelity will say), lest by so constant a reference to 
 the future and unseen, they foster an indifferentism about 
 that which is present and palpable; and by obtruding so 
 often as they do a world of which we know so little, they 
 make it overshadow and obscure this actual existing world, 
 in which man meanwhile has his place, in which he has a 
 part to act, and which he has need to know better, and 
 make greatly more of, than he does. Give to this world its 
 due prominence—insist sufficiently on preparation for it; and 
 as for the other world, should such turn up, he will be found 
 best prepared for it who has acted well his part in this. At 
 all events, do not teach men, for the sake of what at best 
 is a prospect, to forego what they have in actual possession. 
 
 Now, we are at one with the infidel in thinking that a man 
 will do well to make the most of this world ; for we have as 
 strong an objection as he can have to anything which would 
 withdraw a man’s thoughts from present duty, or might 
 render him indifferent to the concerns of this present life. 
 But then the question is, Will our making it the main business 
 
294 
 
 BOTPI WORLDS. 
 
 of our life to prepare for the world to come, have the effect 
 of making us neglectful of the duties, or indifferent to the 
 interests, of this present world ? We venture to answer this 
 question with a decided negative. Nay, we go farther, and 
 maintain that the only effectual way to get a human being 
 to live to purpose here, either for himself or for others, is to 
 persuade him to live for the world to come. 
 
 We might here appeal to experience, and ask the infidel to 
 make out a fist of those who even he must confess have 
 proved themselves the greatest benefactors of the race. Will 
 he first mark off the names which stand forth as the most 
 illustrious on the page of fame—the men of loftiest genius, 
 of broadest sympathies, of largest philanthropy—the men 
 who have shown that they best understood the wants, the 
 aspirations, the capabilities of humanity, and have done 
 most to meet these wants, to guide these aspirations, and to 
 draw forth these capabilities—the men who have stamped 
 the impress of their own greatness upon the race, enlarged 
 the domain of knowledge, and awakened mankind to a con¬ 
 sciousness of what can be achieved. Will the infidel mark 
 off these names which even he would feel constrained to 
 inscribe on the highest niches of the temple of fame ; and 
 will he then tell us how many of them he could transcribe 
 into the lists of infidelity % How many Newtons in science, 
 how many Miltons in poetry, how many Addisons in lite¬ 
 rature, how many Howards in philanthropy, can his school 
 boast among its teachers ? Or will he now mark off the 
 names of those who, less endowed with genius, and less 
 known to fame, have in the quieter walks of usefulness spent 
 what powers they had in seeking to ameliorate the condition 
 and advance the progress of humanity. And among these 
 names which it were but an act of justice to rescue from 
 
BOTH WORLDS. 
 
 295 
 
 oblivion, will the infidel tell us how many he could inscribe 
 on his temple walls? 
 
 But not to dwell on the appeal to experience, w T e shall 
 proceed to argue the question upon the nature of the case. 
 There is the book which has revealed the world to come; 
 there is the religion which requires of us to prepare for that 
 world; there is the preparation prescribed. What have been 
 the achievements of that book? What is the spirit of that 
 religion? What the nature of that preparation? A simple 
 answer to these questions will be the most effectual refuta¬ 
 tion of the infidel dogma that there is danger of a man’s 
 becoming indifferent to the concerns and duties of this pre¬ 
 sent life, if he make it his chief business to prepare for the 
 life which is to come. 
 
 THE BIBLE HAS DONE MUCH FOR THIS PRESENT WORLD. 
 
 I ^ 
 
 It may fairly be assumed that were there not another 
 world the Bible would not have been given to man. To 
 reveal unto him that world, and to prepare him for it, are 
 its avowed objects. It is emphatically the book of the 
 future. Its every page inscribed with prophecy, it is itself 
 one grand prediction. 
 
 Now, the infidel objects to the Bible on this account, 
 alleging that it is calculated to exert a prejudicial effect on 
 men’s minds by wrapping away their thoughts from present 
 realities into a vision of the future. What men need to be 
 cured of is a dream-life of mere prospect, that they may 
 awake to an earnest life in grappling with the present. But 
 how can the Bible ever do this? 
 
 To this we simply reply, that, book of the future as it is, 
 the Bible has done more for this present w r orld than any 
 other book the infidel can name. If any one is indifferent 
 
296 
 
 BOTH WOELDS. 
 
 to the amelioration, the advancement, the social happiness, 
 the material well-being of the race, let him not say that he 
 has taken his example from the Bible. It has not come to 
 our earth to spurn it. It is not above concerning itself with 
 man’s physical condition. It is never so transcendental as 
 to overlook the terrestrial. With hopeful eye it saw' our 
 world to be improvable; and with helpful hand it has done 
 much to improve it,—how much let the history of science, 
 of the arts and literature, proclaim. 
 
 The Bible is a thing of light, and illumines whatever it 
 shines on; a thing of beauty, and adorns whatever it touches; 
 a thing of life, and quickens whatever it comes in contact 
 with. So it has illuminated, adorned, quickened literature, 
 science, and the arts. Imagination has felt its power, and new 
 visions have risen to its raptured eye. Taste has felt its 
 power, and become more refined. Intellect has felt its power, 
 and its thoughts have gathered greatness. Genius has felt 
 its power, and soared on a loftier wing. How could it be 
 otherwise; for shall darkness not disappear when the sun 
 shineth in his strength? shall the snows not melt when he 
 poureth down his heat? and the budded flower not unfold 
 when he bathes it in his fostering beams? If science, litera¬ 
 ture, and the arts, are now such that they are worthy of our 
 study, let us not forget how largely the Bible has helped to 
 make them what they are. When in literature we discover 
 a healthier instruction than was to be found on Homer’s 
 page, in arts a purer sentiment than was to be seen in 
 the marble of Phidias, in science a truer discovery and 
 a richer invention than was revealed to Archimedes, in 
 philosophy a profounder insight than Socrates attained, 
 let us see to it that we award the praise where it is 
 really due, even to that book divine which, by its light. 
 
BOTH WOELDS. 
 
 297 
 
 its power, its beauty, its living and life-imparting influ¬ 
 ences, has made literature, art, science, and philosophy, 
 what they are. 
 
 And in the face of such facts as these will it be main¬ 
 tained that the Bible is calculated to make man indifferent 
 to this present world? What! when itself has been the first 
 pioneer of social progress; the best promoter of the ameni¬ 
 ties and adornments of polite learning; the steadiest patron 
 of education; the richest magazine from which the painter, 
 the sculptor, and the poet have borrowed their subjects; the 
 never-failing source from which literature has gathered its 
 choicest phrases and its finest metaphors. 
 
 We affirm, then, and appeal to historic facts in proof of 
 the affirmation, that, in its material, intellectual, and social 
 well-being, this present world has been immensely benefited 
 by the Bible; that more than to any other book, or all 
 other books put together, the progress of its civilisation is 
 due to the Bible; that but for the Bible it never would 
 have been the world it is, in which, with all its drawbacks, a 
 man may after all spend life not unpleasantly to himself and 
 not unprofitably to others. Infidelity may sneer at the 
 Bible as an old book, and we accept the sneer as no dis¬ 
 paragement but true phrase. It is an old book—the oldest 
 by much the world has seen; this the early ages knew, and 
 what would they have been had it not blessed the earth 
 then—this these modern ages know, for it is blessing the 
 earth still—this the future ages will know, for it will con¬ 
 tinue to bless the earth to its latest generations. 
 
 ' Now it is this very book which has clone so much for 
 this present world that reveals the world to come. And 
 we simply ask, has it set the example of indifference to the 
 concerns or the duties of this present life? If those who 
 
BOTH WOELDS. 
 
 293 
 
 # 
 
 accept it as tlieir guide and counsellor will only follow in 
 its steps, are they the men who while living for that other 
 world which it reveals, will be found neglectful of the mis¬ 
 sion or remiss in the work which the God of the Bible 
 has given them to do not only in, but also for, this pre¬ 
 sent world,—a mission and a work which they know must 
 be finished before they leave it. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIANITY NOT INDIFFERENT TO THIS 
 
 PRESENT WORLD. 
 
 The spirit of Christianity is just exactly the reverse of 
 what would make a man indifferent about this present life. 
 For the spirit it breathes is hopefulness and love. 
 
 Will the infidel tell us how we may be hopeful concerning 
 this world if we adopt his system? Does blank atheism , 
 hold out any hope for it ? Give it over to an inflexible des¬ 
 tiny, or bind it to the car of fate, and can we indulge hope 
 for it? Resign it,—not the material globe itself merely, but 
 the rational beings who people it as w r ell, to mere mechanical 
 laws, and what hope can we entertain for it ? Does the in¬ 
 fidel point to science as the panacea for those innumerable 
 ills which beset the life of man? then he looks only to the 
 problem of his physical condition; or does he boast philoso¬ 
 phy as the panacea ? then this is to take up only the prob¬ 
 lem of his intellectual condition. But what of the schism in 
 the soul itself? What of the consciousness of guilt which 
 racks the breast? What of the battle with the elements of 
 evil which war within? Has science given, has philosophy 
 given, will either of them ever give, a satisfactory answer to 
 these questions? They bid us hope; and so far we will be 
 hopeful. But sanguine we can never be if they are to be 
 the only regenerators; and for this simple reason, that they 
 
BOTH "WORLDS. 
 
 299 
 
 have never fully gauged the evils with which they are try¬ 
 ing to grapple; have never taken the full measure of the 
 problem they are attempting to solve. 
 
 But here is Christianity. Let the infidel scout the idea 
 of its being a divine remedy as he will; this at least is cer¬ 
 tain, that it has gone down to the very depths, fathomed the 
 very lowest abyss, calculated the entire extent of the evil 
 with which it proposes to deal. It has taken no superficial 
 survey of the world’s condition; no partial or mere outside 
 view of man’s lapsed nature. Vastly humiliating—appalling 
 even—is the estimate it has formed of the state of things in 
 this present world. But does it bid us banish hope? does 
 it leave us to despair? No; it proclaims the case to be far 
 from hopeless. This fallen world may be raised up from 
 that dark depth,—may be raised, a regenerated planet, to 
 shine in its constellation as bright and fair as the fairest and 
 the brightest of its sister orbs. 
 
 Now, we ask, is this the religion which is to make us in¬ 
 different about the condition or the destiny of this present 
 world? What! the only harbinger of hope make us leave it to 
 a hapless fate! the only remedial scheme which fairly and 
 fully grapples with its ills lead us to despair! It promises 
 to do much; it has done something; will the infidel let it 
 have a fair trial, and then say whether that which is the re¬ 
 ligion of the future is not also the truest science and the 
 truest philosophy of the present? 
 
 But the spirit of Christianity is also love. And observe 
 the aspects which this benign affection assumes in the gos¬ 
 pel. It presents God as a father—here is paternal love. It 
 presents his regenerated creatures as made his children—• 
 here is filial love. It presents believers as brethren—here is 
 fraternal love. Fatherhood, sonship, brotherhood—these 
 
300 
 
 BOTH WORLDS. 
 
 are the relations into which the gospel brings God and man 
 —man and his fellow-men. 
 
 And is this calculated to make us indifferent about this 
 present world ? Indifferent about that which is my Father’s 
 workmanship—the manifestation of his perfections—the 
 object of his paternal care! Can I look with an indifferent 
 eye on the meanest insect which crawls upon the ground, 
 when I know that my Father formed it and feeds it ? Is 
 the modest snow-drop beneath my notice, when on its bended 
 leaf I can trace the signature of my Father’s hand ? Can I 
 look round on this earth, still fair though blighted; on its 
 woods and waters, its vernal fields and tangled forests, its 
 brimming oceans and its rolling streams—can I look on these 
 with indifference when the gospel teaches me to say, my 
 Father made them all? 
 
 And as to my fellow-men, does the gospel bid me regard 
 them as aliens, as strangers, about whose present well-being 
 I need not concern myself ? Does it say to me, Leave the 
 slave to wear his fetters, or the drudge to toil on at his ill- 
 paid labour, or the prisoner to pine in his chains, or the 
 widow with her orphans to battle with life as best they may ? 
 No ; it bids me look with a brother’s eye on the sufferings 
 and the struggles of humanity. Infidelity may have on its 
 lips the phrase “ universal brotherhood;” but whence has it 
 borrowed it ? If it has the true corresponding idea, where 
 did it learn it ? Was it science or philosophy which taught 
 us that all men are brothers; that no matter of what colour, 
 clime, condition, language, or lineage, the entire human 
 family is sprung from one primal pair? No; not science, 
 neither philosophy, but the Scriptures proclaimed the com¬ 
 mon parentage—the blood relationship, the brotherhood by 
 descent. And on this it has ingrafted a still sublimer idea— 
 
 i v -' 
 
BOTH WORLDS. 
 
 301 
 
 a new and higher brotherhood in Christ Jesus—the Elder 
 Brother of the family of God. 
 
 Now, how does Christianity teach us to regard these two 
 relations? Is the latter so transcendental and exclusive that 
 it ignores the former? On the contrary, Christian love is 
 such that it yearns over every member of the natural family 
 until he is received into the nearer and more sacred brother¬ 
 hood. And meanwhile that he is still as a strayed child of 
 the household, I am as a brother, confessing the ancestral 
 tie, the common parentage, to do for him what in me lies, to 
 better his condition. If he is poor, I am to minister to his 
 necessities ; if naked, I am to clothe him; if hungry, to feed 
 him; if in prison, to visit him; if friendless, to be his 
 friend. This am I to do to him, even if he is not yet my 
 brother by grace. 
 
 And the religion which inculcates this is to be represented 
 as making a man indifferent to the duties and concerns of 
 this present life 1 
 
 Infidelity may boast its brotherly Jove, but how little 
 depth, or enlargement, or constancy, can it have. The 
 affections of earth are transitory as itself. But combine the 
 idea of immortality with love, and then how firm, profound, 
 and indestructible it becomes. The negation of a hereafter 
 withers the affections; for to believe that man perishes at 
 death, as the beasts of the forest or the grass of the field, is 
 to rob the benign emotions of all that distinguishes them 
 from low animal instinct, or mere sensuous feeling. But, on 
 the contrary, when we extend our conceptions of human 
 nature and of the life of man, so as to embrace an unlimited 
 futurity, we give force and enlargement to every feeling, of 
 which human beings are the objects. Whatever affects the 
 weal or the moral condition of a fellow-creature, then par- 
 
302 
 
 BOTH WORLDS. 
 
 takes of the immensity of that boundless future into which 
 his destiny enlarges itself. Nothing whatever that concerns 
 him can henceforth be mean, or trivial, or narrow in my 
 eyes. Can science better his physical condition?—then 
 science is sacred in my eyes. Can philosophy elevate his 
 intellectual aims ?—then in my view philosophy is ennobled. 
 For be it what it may, anything which concerns this child of 
 immortality, by the very conception of his immortal being, 
 is enlarged, elevated, and enhanced. 
 
 THE BASIS OF CALCULATION IN PREPARING FOR THE WORLD TO 
 
 COME. 
 
 When an astronomer proceeds to calculate the distance of 
 one of the planets or fixed stars, he constructs an imaginary 
 triangle, of which the base is the diameter or radius of the 
 earth. And just as in his calculation of celestial lines and 
 magnitudes, the astronomer works upon a terrestrial basis, so 
 in the higher problem of another world, our base line, so to 
 speak, is this present world. In order to our having a right 
 conception of the heavenly happiness, it is necessary that 
 we have experience of earthly happiness. For there must be 
 some medium of anticipation—some ground of comparison. 
 
 Scripture, therefore, in announcing a hereafter life of hap¬ 
 piness, goes on the assumed fact that man may be happy in 
 this present life. And the happiness which it holds forth in 
 prospect is not altogether of another species, or totally dif¬ 
 ferent in kind, from any that we can experience here. Were 
 this the case, how then could we prepare ourselves for it ? 
 We could not form even a conception of it. Would we 
 image it; there is no likeness. Would we measure it; 
 there is no standard. Would we compare it; there is no 
 analogy. 
 
BOTH WOKLDS. 
 
 303 
 
 Let infidelity then cease to assert that in holding out the 
 prospect of a better life, the Bible encourages a misanthropic 
 indifference about this present life. So far from this it 
 counsels, nay, commands us to make the most of it. And 
 the reason is obvious. The more of present happiness we 
 secure, just so much the better able will we be to anticipate 
 the happiness which is in prospect, and for which we have to 
 prepare ourselves. The deeper we drink at every pure well 
 of enjoyment which gladdens this earthly life, so far from 
 our spirit’s thirst being satisfied, we will rather long the 
 more to fill our cup at the upper fountain. 
 
 The base line of the astronomer’s operations, we have said, 
 is the diameter of the earth. But how does he ascertain 
 that diameter? It is by the aid of those very stars whose 
 distances and magnitudes he is to calculate by means of it. 
 Now even so is it with this present world. If we would 
 estimate its actual value—would know what it is really 
 worth—would neither on the one hand undervalue it, nor on 
 the other hand exaggerate it, we must look outwards and 
 seek for data external to itself. 
 
 When we say that a man is to make the most of this pre¬ 
 sent world, we mean, of course, that he is not to under-esti¬ 
 mate it, and we also mean that he is not to exaggerate it: but 
 he is to make the most of it according to what it is really 
 worth, neither more nor less. And how is he to take the 
 just estimate? We reply, when, like the astronomer measur¬ 
 ing his base line by the stars, he calculates the value of 
 things temporal and terrestrial, by the things which are 
 eternal and heavenly. 
 
 ' We have thus combated the prejudice which the infidel 
 tries to raise against the theme which has occupied us in 
 these pages. And so far from finding it to be as he asserts, 
 
 i 
 
304 
 
 BOTH WORLDS. 
 
 that the contemplation of the world to come disinclines or 
 disqualifies a man from attending to the concerns and the 
 duties of this present life we have found exactly the reverse. 
 To strive to make the best of the world to come is the 
 surest way to make the best of this present world. And 
 thus every way the Christian has the advantage, seeing he 
 makes the best of both worlds. 
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS & COFRINTERS, GLASGOW.