Parish Papers Part 5

Our joy in heaven will, above all, be derived from the perfection of our moral being. We shall be "without fault before the throne of G.o.d."

"He shall present us to Himself without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle, or any such thing."

Truly and beautifully has Sir Thomas Browne said,--"There is no felicity in what the world adores: that wherein G.o.d himself is happy, the holy angels are happy, and in whose defect the devils are unhappy--that dare I call happiness; whatsoever else the world terms happiness, is to me an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of happiness than the name." Following out this thought, let us reverently inquire in what chiefly consists the joy of G.o.d, or what especially const.i.tutes His glory. Now, He is glorious in that creative mind by which things are made so wisely with reference to the end which each has to serve; and made so beautiful and grand in their sculptured forms and harmonious colours. He surveys all His works, and rejoices in them as "very good." He is glorious also in that miracle of a wondrous providence by which without a miracle the wants of all the endless worlds of His creatures are supplied; and by which responsible persons also are created and trained to glorify and enjoy Himself for ever. But while perfection beams in every feature of the Divine mind, His glory, His joy, is in His _character_. Not His power, but the character which wields the power; not His wisdom, but that which His character accomplishes by it; not His majestic sovereignty, but that majestic character which stamps His reign as one of right and therefore of might, commanding, irresistible. This is the glory which He made to pa.s.s before the eyes of Moses when upon the mount; which shone in the face of Jesus Christ the Holy One of G.o.d; and which fills the souls of the rapt seraphim when they cry, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord G.o.d of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory!" Thus G.o.d is happy and most blessed because He is "glorious in holiness," or, in one word, because "His name is _Love_."

And in what, moreover, does the happiness of the angels consist, but in sharing this life of G.o.d? These bright ones, indeed, experience joy in contemplating His works of creation and redemption, and have been glad in acquiring truth throughout many ages; but the atmosphere which they breathe, the light in which they dwell, is love. They are happy not merely in what they hear, or see, or know of the things of G.o.d, but chiefly in what they are towards G.o.d himself. They know Him, and this is life eternal.

And, finally, it is in the defect of this in which devils are unhappy.

For Satan, as he "goes to and fro in the earth, and in walking up and down in it," may hear those sounds of loveliness which delight our ears, but they are no music to his jarring and discordant spirit; and he may behold those sights of loveliness which delight our eye, but he does so as the prowling lion who perceives no grandeur in the glorious mountains which echo to his savage roar. Nor does the exercise of his subtle intellect afford him joy, because it is not in harmony with truth, nor with the G.o.d of truth; but is as a "wandering star, to which is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." And therefore, though he is a king, he is king of darkness, and carries h.e.l.l in his own bosom, whether he moves among the beauteous bowers of Eden, or dwells for days upon earth, in the wilderness, in the holy temple, or on the high mountain, with even G.o.d manifest in the flesh beside him.

He has no holiness, no love, and therefore no peace or joy.

And thus does our joy depend on our fellowship with G.o.d in character.

Other things _may_ be, this _must_ be, if we are to be happy. Other things are required to give our joy fulness; this is essential to give it existence. For the body may be deprived of all pleasurable sensation, and the intellect unable to grapple with the simplest problem, "in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and those that look out at the windows are darkened, and the daughters of music are brought low,"--yet the light of joy may still shine in the soul, so long as the mind can discern that "G.o.d is," and the heart feel that "G.o.d is love." Not, therefore, in the gratification of his sentient tastes; nor in the certainties of pure intellect; nor in science, which "can put forth its hand and feel from star to star;" nor even in the exercise of that genius--so like His own creative power!--whose contrivances change the aspect of the world, and whose glorious flights can speed to airy regions "which no fowl knoweth nor the vulture's eye hath seen:" not in those outer courts of G.o.d's great temple has the Father willed that His immortal children shall find their true life, but in the holy of holies only of His own immediate presence, and in the possession of the spirit of life and of love which is in His first-born Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And this was the glory and joy which Jesus himself manifested on earth, when "He had no place to lay his head;" and was "despised and rejected of men;"

and His "countenance was marred like no man's;" when He carried His cross; and revealed to us that true life which He died to obtain, and rose from the dead to impart to us by His Spirit. He did not come to teach us to become artists, orators, or men of mere intellectual cultivation, capable of creating a hero-worship. The race who built Nineveh and Thebes, or produced the artists, orators, poets, historians, or the world--conquerors of Greece and Rome, needed no such teaching as this. But He came to reveal to men--who, whatever else they knew, did not know their Maker, but "changed the truth of G.o.d into a lie"--that eternal life of love which was with the Father, so that in its possession they might have fellowship with the Father, with the Son, and with one another, and in this way only have His own joy fulfilled in themselves. He taught us to follow Him, "with all lowliness and meekness," and thus "to walk worthy of G.o.d who hath called us to His kingdom and glory!"

I have dwelt, perhaps, at unnecessary length upon this part of my subject, yet I am anxious to quicken in you the conviction of what you cannot doubt, that our moral nature can be satisfied only with G.o.d's likeness. So is it now; so will it be for ever. The sweet peace which the believer enjoys in G.o.d here; the elevating delight he experiences from contemplating His character, and saying, "My Father, let Thy name be hallowed! let Thy kingdom come! let Thy will be done!"--his joy in the possession of the graces of the Christian life, are not foretastes only, but earnests also, and pledges of the coming fulness, the first-fruits of the approaching harvest. "We shall be like Him!"

Oh blessed consummation, before which everything else vanishes in comparison! Our souls cleansed from every stain of guilt, and made white in the blood of the Lamb; and washed, too, from all the pollution of sin with the waters of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, shall be "faultless," "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." The pure and holy G.o.d resting on us as His own work through His Son and Spirit, shall rejoice in that work as _perfect_; and every redeemed soul will be as a mirror in whose transparent depths the Divine glory is seen reflected. Oh comforting and exalting thought! that the weakest and most imperfect, yet true child of G.o.d, who possessed any real faith or real love, is thus at last "glorified together with Christ"--their confessions of sin for ever over; their sense of their own emptiness lost in a sense of Christ's fulness; their ardent longings for unsullied holiness gratified as no faith or foretaste here realised, even feebly, in their hours of most pious fervour! Should it not delight us to think of even one whom we have known and loved really possessing such joy as this; and ought we not to give united thanks to G.o.d for their happiness with G.o.d, even while we sorrow for their loss to ourselves during our earthly pilgrimage?

IV.

OUR SOCIAL LIFE.

Man is a _social_ as well as a sentient, intellectual, and moral being; and as such he will have joy in the presence of G.o.d in heaven.

We are made for brotherhood. It was in reference to this original craving of the heart for society that G.o.d said of man when he came perfect from His hands, "It is not good for him to be alone." The fact of solitariness is, indeed, unknown in G.o.d's intelligent and moral universe. With reverence, I remark, that G.o.d has existed as Father, Son, and Spirit, three Persons in the unity of the G.o.dhead. We cannot, indeed, conceive of G.o.d, whose name is love, existing from eternity without a person like Himself as an object of His love. Certain it is, however, that for the creature to have joy in himself alone, is impossible. Isolation would, in time, produce insanity. The heart will lavish its affection upon the lowest forms of animal creation, or upon ideal beings, rather than feed upon itself. But there can be no solitude to him who knows there is a G.o.d, nor who possesses any religion; for religion is love to G.o.d. And even where the society of men is shunned, and solitude fled to by the weary, this is often, after all, but an unconscious protest in favour of brotherhood; the bitterness of one who, having sought it from men in vain, feels as if robbed of his brother's affections, which he had a right to possess as a portion of his inheritance.

But while G.o.d has planted in every breast this pa.s.sion for congenial society, and has supplied to so great an extent its want by the family inst.i.tution into which we are born in our early years, and by the "troops of friends" who accompany us during our pilgrimage, and by the fellowship of the Christian Church, in proportion as that fellowship is not a mere name, but expresses the intention of Christ in gathering His people into a society,--there are, nevertheless, innumerable drawbacks here to anything like its full gratification. Take away the time consumed in the necessary and often absorbing labour of life, and during the unavoidable separations and partings from those we know and love, how little is left for the cultivation here of the truest friendships. We are, moreover, severed as yet by death from all congenial minds among past generations, and from those who are yet to come. Of the many now alive whose hearts would beat to ours, could we only meet and know them, how few can stand together on the small s.p.a.ce allotted to us on the earth's surface. Then, again, of those whom we know best and love best on earth, and who know and love us best too, oh, what mutual ignorance must necessarily exist of innumerable thoughts and feelings lying deep clown in our inner man, half hidden, half revealed, even to ourselves, but altogether incommunicable and unutterable by word or sign to others! We may at times be conscious that we stand with them on the same lofty summit, and gaze on the same prospect, but the atmosphere is too rare to permit of any heard communication between us. And thus in no case can there be, not the meeting, but that blending of soul with soul by which one being, without losing his individuality, seems completed in the being of another. Add to all this the granite walls that rise up between us during our wanderings in this desert--the differences, not only from intellect, pursuits, rank, education, but also from character, and those sins and infirmities of which all more or less partake, such as pride, vanity, prejudice, envy,--one and all making sad drawbacks from the fulness of joy which we are capable of deriving even now from intelligent and holy society. We are made to realise this fact in reading the history of the holiest society that ever was on earth, that of Jesus Christ and His apostles. Only three years together, often separated during this brief period by dark nights, stormy seas, long journeys, and the sin and ignorance OR their part which made Him exclaim, "Nevertheless I am not alone, for the Father is with me,"

intimating that, without this Divine sympathy, He was indeed alone in His joys and in His sorrows amidst His brethren. After His departure, how soon were the apostles scattered, and how seldom did they meet!

For years Paul was not acquainted with any of them, and possibly never met them all, while he was quite unknown by face to many of those Christian churches who read his letters, and revered his name. The apostle John complains that he could not communicate to his friends the many things he had to say by pen and ink, and longs for personal intercourse. "I trust," he says, "to come unto you and speak face to face, that _our joy might be full_." Ah, there is no tabernacling here with Jesus, nor yet with Moses or Elias! But such a dispensation is no doubt wise. It marks the condition of those who have no continuing city here, but who look for one to come. It also greatly helps to weaken, on the one hand, our tendency to idolise the creature, and to strengthen, on the other, our faith in G.o.d, who abideth for ever, and thus to unite us to one another, both now and in the end, more truly than we ourselves as yet understand. But, nevertheless, the joy from Christian intercourse experienced here is among the most precious gifts of G.o.d, and its value is enhanced by the prophecy which it contains of the glorious future. Union is the gospel watchword; it is the grand result of redemption; for holy union is holy love, the drawing of heart to heart, because all are drawn by one Spirit, through one Saviour, to one G.o.d, a union which is to be perfectly realised in our future social state, when we shall be fellow-citizens with the saints in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Now, consider what ample resources heaven affords for the cultivation of the social affections among those of the highest intellect, taste, and moral worth in G.o.d's universe, "But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living G.o.d, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general a.s.sembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to G.o.d the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant." Here we have summed up the society in our future home.

We shall there enjoy the society of the _angels_. We know about those holy beings, but we do not know themselves as yet. But how often does it happen to us in regard to our earthly friends, that those who are unknown to us in our early years even by name, become in our latter years indissolubly bound up with our history and our joy? And thus the angels, whom on earth we have never seen, will, nevertheless, when the manhood of our being is reached, become our intimate friends and dear companions for ever. Let us not forget, however, that the angels know each saint on earth more intimately than the saints themselves are known by their nearest friends. "For are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" But this fact suggests another a.n.a.logy between our social relationships with men and angels,--viz., that as earthly friends who have been acquainted with ourselves and our family history during the forgotten days of infancy, are met by us, in after-years, not as strangers, but with feelings of sympathy and intimacy akin to those awakened by old kindred; even so will the saint, on reaching heaven, find G.o.d's angels to be, not strangers, but old friends who have known all about him from the day of his birth until the hour of his death.

It is true that these high and holy ones belong to a different order of beings from ourselves, and this, we might be disposed to think, must prevent the possibility of their sympathising with us. But let us remember, that while in material forms there is no one common abiding type, by which, for example, the vegetable, beast, bird, or fish are formed; yet that it is quite otherwise with intellectual and moral beings, who are all necessarily made like G.o.d, and therefore like one another. And, finally, though we might conjecture that beings possessed of such vast stores of knowledge, the acc.u.mulated wealth of ages, and of such high and glorious intellects, would necessarily repel our approaches by the awe they would inspire in a child of earth when with all his ignorance he enters heaven, yet let our confidence be restored by remembering the fact, that in them, as in the great Jehovah, all majesty and wisdom become attractive when combined with, and directed by love. The love which enables us to cling to the Almighty and love Him as a Father, will enable us to meet the angels in peace, and to love them as brethren. And thus I am persuaded that a saint on earth, compa.s.sed about as he is with his many infirmities, would even now feel more "at home," so to speak, with angels, because of their perfect sympathising love, than with most of his fellow-men, because of their remaining pride and selfishness.

But "just men made perfect" also form apart of the society above.

Their number is daily increasing. Day by day unbroken columns are pa.s.sing through the golden gates of the city, and G.o.d's elect are gathering from the four winds of heaven. There are no dead saints; all are alive unto G.o.d, and "we live together with them."

But I further remark in reference to all this glorious society, that there shall be _perfect union_ among its members. That union will not be one of sameness; for there can be no sameness either in the past history, or in the intellectual capacity of any of its members. How vast must be the difference for ever between the history of Gabriel, the thief on the cross, the apostle Paul, and the child who died on its first birthday! There is, moreover, every reason to believe that each person must retain his own individual features of mind and peculiarities of character, there as well as here. All the stars will shine in brilliancy, and sweep in orbits more or less wide around the great centre, but "each star differeth from another star in glory."

Yet this want of sameness is what will produce the deepest harmony, such as one sees in the blending of different colours, or hears in the mingling of different notes. And I repeat it, the bond of this perfectness must be the same in heaven as on earth--love. For it is love which unites exalted rank to lowly place, knowledge to ignorance, and strength to weakness; thus bringing things opposite into an harmonious whole. See accordingly how the love which dwelt in "G.o.d manifest in the flesh," poured itself into the lowest depths of humanity, and met men far down to lift them high up; so that at the very moment, for instance, when Jesus was intensely conscious of His dignity, "knowing that he came from G.o.d and went to G.o.d," He even then shewed how inseparable was true love from true grandeur, for we read that "knowing" this, "He rose from supper and girded Himself with a towel, and washed His disciples' feet!" And as Jesus in the might of the same Divine affection bridged over the gulf which separated man from Himself and His Father, drawing the impure to Him the Holy One, that they might become holy; and the ignorant to Him the All-knowing, that they might become truly wise;--so shall the same Divine love include within its vast embrace all in heaven, from G.o.d seated on the throne down through the burning ranks of cherubim and seraphim till it reaches the once weeping Magdalene, and the once sore-stricken Lazarus, and the infant who has but the hour before left the bosom of its weeping mother! HOW glorious, again, is the thought that the poorest saint here--the most ignorant, the most despised, the most solitary and unknown--shall not only admire and love, but be himself the object of admiration and of love on the part of the highest spirit there. For the King who is not ashamed to call the poorest "brethren,"

will, in His adornments of their mind and heart, as well as of outward form, bestowed "according to His riches," make them in all things like Himself, and fit to move in regal grandeur with all saints and angels in the royal palace of his G.o.d. "Fear not, little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

After what has been said, it is unnecessary to prove what I have a.s.sumed as so evidently true; I mean the future recognition of our Christian friends. It is almost as unreasonable to ask for proofs of this as for the probable recognition of friends in a different part of the country after having been separated from one another during a brief interval of time. What! shall memory be obliterated, and shall we forget our own past histories, and therefore lose the sense of our personal ident.i.ty, and be ignorant of all we have been and done as sinners, and of all we have received and done as redeemed men? or, knowing all this, shall we be prevented from communicating our histories to others? Shall beloved friends be there whom we have known and loved in Christ here; with whom we have held holy communion; with whom we have laboured and prayed for the advancement of Christ's kingdom; and with whom we have eagerly watched for His second coming,--and shall we be unable throughout eternity, either to discover their existence or a.s.sociate with them in the New Jerusalem?

Are the apostles now ignorant of each other? Did Moses and Elias issue out of a darkness which mutually concealed them in heaven, and recognising one another for the first time amidst the light on Tabor's hill, did they then return into darkness again? Oh, what is there in the whole Word of G.o.d,--what argument derived from, our experience of the blessings of Christian fellowship,--what in the character of G.o.d or His dealings with man,--what in His promises of things to come laid up for those who love Him, that could have suggested such strange, unworthy, false, and dreary thoughts of the union, or rather disunion, of friends in their Father's home! Tell me not that special affection to Christian brethren, from whatever causes it may arise, is inconsistent with unfeigned love to all, and with absorbing love to Jesus. It is not so here, and never can be so from the nature of holy love, and was not so in Christ's own case when He the Perfect One lived amongst us. With supreme love to G.o.d, "He loved His church and gave Himself for it;" with love to His church He yet loved the disciples as "His own;" while again within this circle one of these was specially _the_ loved one; and beyond it "He loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus!" Tell me not that it is enough to know that our friends are in glory. I know this now in regard to some of them, as surely as I know anything beyond the grave; yet my heart yearns to meet them "with the Lord," and I bless Him that He permits me to comfort myself with the hope of doing so. Nor let it be alleged as an insuperable objection to all this antic.i.p.ated happiness, that knowledge of the saved would imply knowledge of the lost, and that this would balance the pleasure we hope for, by the great pain by which we, it is a.s.sumed, must thus be compelled to endure. For even admitting that such knowledge would be possessed at all, which is very doubtful; yet surely, at the worst, this is a strange way of escaping pain from the knowledge that some are lost, by taking refuge in the ignorance of any being saved! I shall not prove this further, but express my joy in heartily believing that we shall resume our intercourse with every Christian friend; that remembering all the past, and reading it for the first time aright, because reading in the full light of revealed truth, we shall know and love as we never knew and loved here; and shall sit down at that glorious intellectual, moral, and social feast, not with ideal persons and strangers, but with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with Peter, Paul, and John, and with every saint of G.o.d!

But I have not as yet spoken of one friend there who will be the centre of that bright society--"Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant!" "I will take you to _Myself_," is the blessed promise. "We shall see Him as He is," is the longed-for-vision. "We shall be like Him," is the hoped-for perfection. To know, to love, to be in all things like Jesus, and to hold communion with Him for ever--what "an exceeding weight of glory!" Jesus will never be separated personally from His people; nor can they ever possibly separate their character, their joy, or their safety from His atoning death for them on earth, or from His constant life for them in heaven. It is the Lamb who shall lead them to living fountains of waters; and the Lamb upon the throne who shall still preside over them. The Lamb shall be the everlasting light of the New Jerusalem; and "Worthy is the Lamb!" will be its ceaseless song of praise. Beyond this I cannot go. In vain I endeavour to ascend in thought higher than "G.o.d manifest in the flesh," even to the Triune Jehovah who dwelleth in the unapproachable light of His own unchangeable perfections; and seek to catch a glimpse of that beatific vision which, though begun here in communion with G.o.d, is there enjoyed by "the spirits of just men made perfect," "according to His fulness," and therefore in a measure which to us pa.s.seth all understanding. But if any real spiritual intercourse with Jehovah is now "joy unspeakable;" if the hunger of the soul to possess more, fails often from its intensity to find utterance for its wants in words, what must it be to dwell in His presence in the full enjoyment of Himself for ever! There are saints who have experienced this blessedness upon earth to a degree which was almost too much for them to bear; and there are some who have had glories flashed upon them as if s.n.a.t.c.hed from the light beyond, just as the soul was loosening from the ligaments of the body, and preparing itself for flight from the prison-house to its own home--strange moments when things beyond were seen by the eye closing on the weary world, and overpowering bliss was experienced by the chilling heart. And if men, sinful men, yea, dying men, can behold such visions of joy even while dwelling in tabernacles of clay that are crumbling around them, what is the measure of that bliss which fills the souls of those redeemed ones at this moment in the temple above, in perfectly knowing and enjoying G.o.d, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! May the Lord give us all grace to love on earth such as we may hope to meet in heaven; and if we cannot as yet enjoy the communion of angels, may we seek for, and enjoy, the communion of saints!

V.

OUR ACTIVE LIFE.

It is unnecessary to do more than remind you how labour is essential here to our happiness. Rest from fatigue is indeed enjoyment; but idleness from want of occupation is punishment. Nor is this fact a part of our inheritance as sinners. Fatigue and pain of body from exertion may be so, but not exertion itself. Perfect and unfallen man, as I have already reminded you, was placed in the garden of Eden "to dress and to keep it." And this is what we would expect as the very appointment for a creature made after the image of Him who is ever working, and who has imbued every portion of the universe with the spirit of activity. For nothing in the world of nature lives for itself alone, but contributes its portion of good to the welfare of the whole. And man, as he becomes more G.o.dlike, rejoices more and more in the dispensation by which he is enabled to be a fellow-worker with his Father, and is glad in being able to give expression by word or deed to what he knows and admires.

And if all this holds true of man now, what reason have we for doubting that it shall hold true of man for ever? Why should this inherent love of action, and delightful source of enjoyment, so refined and elevated, be annihilated? and what shadow even of probability have we for supposing that the heaven revealed in Scripture is a world the occupations of whose inhabitants must for ever be confined to mere ecstatic contemplation?

This cannot be! Such a heaven has not been prepared for man. Arguing from a.n.a.logy, the presumption is that those mental and moral habits which have been acquired with so much difficulty, and at so much expense in this present world, will not be cast away as useless in the next, but find there such scope for their exercise as cannot possibly be afforded to them within their present limited sphere of action. But this presumption is immensely strengthened by what we know of the life of the angels, to which I have more than once alluded, as it bears so much upon the several topics discussed by us. These angels "excel in strength;" and they "do His commandments, and hearken to the voice of His word." As "ministers of His," they "do His pleasure." They are represented to us as ever actively employed as messengers of peace or of woe. They have destroyed armies and cities; delivered captives; comforted the disconsolate; and are represented as the future reapers of the earth's harvest. All this proves, at least, that the sinless perfection and happiness of heaven are not inconsistent with a life of busy labour; and that though G.o.d can dispense with the services of either men or angels, yet, as they cannot be happy without rendering such services to Him, He, in accordance with His untiring, ungrudging benevolence, satisfies this desire of their nature as created by Himself. Let it be remembered also, that men have acquired a wider experience than even angels, by reason of that very sin which might be supposed to render them less fit for the exalted services of heaven.

For the very storms and vicissitudes of earth have given a form and a strength to those "trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord,"

that could not have been acquired amidst the sunny skies and balmy air of the heavenly paradise. The saints of G.o.d have learned lessons here of patience, endurance, self-denial, and faith, that could not have been learned there. Like old soldiers, they have been trained by long campaigns and terrible combats with the enemy. On earth and not in heaven are Marthas and Maries with whom we can weep; and prodigals whom we can receive back; and saints in sickness, in prison, or in nakedness, whom we can visit, soothe, and clothe. And therefore is earth a n.o.ble school by reason of its very sins and sorrows. It is asked, indeed, in triumph, What employments can there be in heaven for saints? This question I cannot answer. The _how_ employed, and _where_, must be as yet mere conjecture. But who will be so bold as to deny, that in the new heavens and in the new earth, there may be employment for even those powers--such as inventive genius--which might seem to be necessarily confined to this our temporary scene? If we are through a bodily organisation to be for ever united to matter, why may not science and art be called into exercise then as well as now, in order to make it minister to our wants or desires? And even as regards the n.o.ble creations of artistic genius, why should the supposition be deemed as unworthy of the most exalted and spiritual views of heaven, that man may for ever be a fellow-worker with the Divine Artist who fills the universe with His own endless creations of beauty and magnificence? And can it be that our moral habits and Christian graces shall never be called into exercise in works and labours of love among orders of beings of whom as yet we know nothing?

Countless worlds may be teeming with immense populations, and who knows but such worlds may be continually added to the great family of G.o.d. And if throughout the endless ages of eternity, or in any province of G.o.d's boundless empire, there should ever be found some responsible beings who are tempted to depart from G.o.d by the machinations of wicked men or evil spirits,--permitted, then, it may be, as well as now, to use all their powers in the service of sin and against the kingdom of G.o.d,--and who being thus tempted shall require warning or support to retain them in their allegiance;--or if there be found others who are struggling in an existence, which, however glorious, demands patience, fort.i.tude, and faith in Jehovah; if there are now in other worlds, or ever shall appear any persons who need such ministrations as can be afforded only by those educated in the wonderful school of Christ's Church;--then can I imagine how G.o.d's saints from earth may have glorious labours given them throughout eternity, which they alone, of all the creatures of G.o.d, will be able to accomplish, when every holy habit acquired here can be put to n.o.ble uses there. I can conceive patience needed to overcome difficulties; and faith to trust the living G.o.d amidst evolutions of His providence that baffle the understanding; and indomitable courage, untiring zeal, gentle love, heavenly serenity and intense sympathy, yea, even the peculiar gifts and characteristics of each individual;--all having their appropriate and fitting work given them. "Now _abideth_ faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

And what immense joy will be experienced in each saint thus finding an outlet for his love, and exercise for his knowledge, and full play for his every faculty, in that "house of many mansions," with all G.o.d's universe around and eternity before him! I borrow the language of the great and good Isaac Taylor, who has written so eloquently and convincingly on this subject:--"There labour shall be without fatigue, ceaseless activity without the necessity of repose, high enterprise without disappointment, and mighty achievements which leave behind no weariness or decay;--where 'they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; shall walk, and not faint.'"

Let this thought teach us to labour in harmony with the will of G.o.d; so that we may never run counter to His wishes or His laws, but, both in the material and spiritual world, ever seek to be "fellow-workers"

with Himself.

Let it also comfort us when we see "such a one as Paul the aged" fall asleep after his day of toil: and strengthen us to bow our heads in meekness when we hear of the young man full of zeal and ardour, apparently fully equipped for G.o.d's service, suddenly cut down; or the self-sacrificing missionary, who seems to have spent his strength in vain, perish with no one in the wilderness to give him burial. Oh, think not that the work of the old saint who loved it so well, till the last hour of his existence, is ended for ever; or that the labours of younger brethren so unfinished here, shall never be resumed hereafter, and that all this preparation of years has been a mere abortion, a mockery and delusion! Believe it not! No day of conscientious study for Christ's sake has been spent in vain; no habit of industry or self-denial acquired for Christ's sake has been acquired in vain; nor will the burning zeal to do something for Him who died for them be ever lost in darkness or put to shame. Soul, spirit, and body, will yet do their work for which they have been so exquisitely adapted, and so carefully trained. He who has been "faithful over a few things will be made ruler over many things;" and "he who has been faithful in _a very little_, shall have authority over ten cities!"

Finally, this future life in heaven will be expressed in _praise_.

What are the ordinary ideas entertained by many excellent Christians of this heavenly work, or the manner in which it is to be performed, would be painful to describe. But perhaps it is not too much to say that the heaven of many is little more than a grand, eternal act of worship by singing psalms of praise. No doubt the chief work of heaven is praise; for praise is but the necessary expression of love, admiration, joy. In what way this praise is to be expressed I know not: whether in the spontaneous exercise of individual souls, "singing as they shine" with hymned voice, and fashioned instrument of golden harp or angelic trump; or only by the rapt gaze of a spirit absorbed in "still communion;"--and whether in heaven as on earth there may be great days of the Lord on which the sons of G.o.d, gathered from afar, will come specially before the exalted Redeemer, when their joy, uttered by outbursts of harmony, shall wake the amphitheatre of the skies with impa.s.sioned hallelujahs,--who can as yet tell! But it _must_ be that each soul in heaven being for ever full of love, will for ever be full of praise. Every new sight of grandeur or of beauty, and every new contrivance of the Creator's wisdom or power, will but prompt the beholder to praise the wondrous Creator. Every intellectual height reached in the infinite progress of the soul, onward and upward, must awe it into a profounder sense of the glory of the great Intelligence. Every active pursuit will swell the tide of grat.i.tude and praise to Him the ceaseless worker, in whom all persons and things "live, move, and have their being;"--while the loving and holy soul, ever consciously dwelling in Him who is everywhere present, must derive from increasing knowledge of, and communion with the infinite and glorious One, a source of exulting, endless praise--praise which will be intensified by the sympathy and song of the great minds and great hearts of the "innumerable company of angels," and of "just men made perfect!" But if in that voiceful temple any one song of praise will, more than any other, issue from a deeper love, or express a deeper joy, that must be the song of the redeemed! For that is a "new song" never heard before by the angels in the amplitudes of creation, and which the strange race of mankind alone can sing; for there are peculiar notes of joy in that song which they alone can utter; and in their memories alone can echo old notes of sadness that have died away in the far distance. And what shall be their feelings, what their song, as they gaze backwards on the horrible kingdom of darkness, from whose chains and dungeons they have been delivered; and trace all the mysterious steps by which their merciful and wise Saviour led them safely through danger, temptation, and trial, and through the valley of death, until He bid them welcome with exceeding joy! What their feelings, what their song, as they look around and contemplate the new scene and the exalted society into which He has brought them, and meet the responsive gaze of radiant saints and of old familiar friends!

What their feelings, and what their song, as they gaze forward, and with "far-stretching views into eternity" see no limit to their "fulness of joy;" knowing that nothing can lessen it, but that everything must increase it through eternal ages;--that the body can never more suffer pain, or be weakened by decay;--that the intellect can never more be dimmed by age, nor marred by ignorance;--that the spirit can never more be darkened by even a pa.s.sing shadow from the body of sin;--that the will can never for a moment be mastered, nor even biased by temptation;--that the heart can never be chilled by unreturned kindness;--that the blessed society can never be diminished by death, nor divided in spirit, but that, along with saints and angels, all G.o.d's works shall be seen, all His ways known, all His plans and purposes fulfilled, all His commands perfectly obeyed, and Himself perfectly enjoyed for ever and ever! And then, at what might seem to be the very climax of their joy, to behold Jesus! And, seeing Him, to remember the lowly home in Bethlehem; the once humble artisan of Nazareth; and the sufferer, "who was despised and rejected of men,"

"the man of sorrows, who was acquainted with grief;" and the tempted one, who for forty days was with the devil in the wilderness;--seeing Him, to remember Gethsemane with its trembling hand and cup of agony; the judgment-hall and Calvary with their horrors of blood, of blasphemy, and mystery of woe;--seeing Him, to see all this history of immeasurable love not only recorded in the glory of every saint above, but embodied in the very person of that Saviour, and in that human form which was "wounded and bruised for our iniquities," and in that human soul that was sorrowful unto death, in order that He might be able to pour into the hearts of lost and ruined men all the fulness of His own blessedness and joy! What shall be the feelings, what the song of the redeemed, as all this bursts on their enraptured gaze! Oh, blind discoursers are we of such ineffable glory! Children-dreamers are we about this as yet unrevealed vision! What are all our thoughts but "fallings from us, vanishings" from "creatures walking among worlds not realised!" But let us pray more and more that the "G.o.d of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of our understanding being enlightened; that we may _know_ what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints;" for though "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which G.o.d hath prepared for them that love Him," yet "_G.o.d hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit!_"

FUTURE PUNISHMENT.

The subject of future punishment is one the consideration of which gives mental pain. We naturally shrink from it, would prefer to leave it alone, and to think, as we say, of something else.

But the question won't leave us alone, and we must think about it. It forces itself on our notice, and that, too, in our most thoughtful and sober moments. We cannot read the Scriptures without the dark vision pa.s.sing before our eyes with more or less gloom. Conscience whispers to us about it. It recurs to our thoughts amidst the penitential confessions and earnest prayers of public worship. The theme is constantly discussed in works and periodicals widely read, and not even professedly theological.

There are few, we presume, who will a.s.sert that every man, whatever his character may be when he leaves the world, shall after death immediately pa.s.s into glory, and be received into fellowship with G.o.d and His saints. With such a belief earnestly entertained, suicide would cease to be an evidence of insanity, and murder would become philanthropy.

Most men are prepared rather to believe, apart altogether from any Scripture statements on this momentous subject, that punishment of some kind or other must be awarded to crime at last, and in some degree proportionate to the character of the criminal,--that somewhere or other, by some means or other, not yet discovered or revealed, reformation if at all possible must necessarily be effected in order that peace and happiness may be secured. Man's undying sense of righteousness, and what _ought_ to be, is not satisfied by the prosperity which, in spite of every drawback, so frequently attends the most selfish and unprincipled villain to his grave. Like the Psalmist, we all are disposed to exclaim when contemplating such histories, "As for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death, and their strength is firm; neither are they plagued like other men....

Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than their heart can wish.... And they say, How doth G.o.d know? and is there knowledge with the Most High?"

But when we open the Word of G.o.d, it is impossible for any honest man to deny, that whether its teaching be true or false, the fact of future punishment is an essential portion of what is taught. By no conceivable perversion of the words of Christ, so often repeated on this subject, and by no interpretation of His parables, can it be denied that it was His intention to give the very impression which the universal Church has received, that there is a "wrath to come," and a state of being which to some is "cursed," and so very dreadful that, with reference to one of His own disciples, who is called "the son of perdition," the Saviour said that it would have "been good for that man had he never been born."

I must presume that this general statement regarding the teaching of Christ himself, not to speak of that of His apostles, requires no proof to any one who has ever read the Gospels. Punishment of some kind awaits the wicked after death. Yet if this much is admitted, we have surely already reached a conclusion which ought to fill with the most solemn awe the mind of every man who has any reverence for the Divine authority of Jesus Christ; or who even believes that He who represented Himself as saying, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,"--"Depart from me, I know you not, all ye workers of iniquity," and who narrated such a parable as that of the rich man and Lazarus, was one incapable of all exaggeration or evil pa.s.sion, and one who possessed the only perfect love which was ever manifested in humanity. The apostles, who express in language as strong and unhesitating the certainty and dread nature of future punishment, were men also who, more than any who have ever lived, loved their fellow-men, wept like their Divine Master for their sins, and devoted their lives, with untiring unselfishness, to rescue them from present evil and future woe. Now, if this be so far a true, if not a full, representation of the teaching of Christ and His apostles on this momentous theme, I may be permitted to put two questions of a practical and personal kind to my reader. One is,--Whether the knowledge of the character, apart from the authority, of Jesus and His apostles, who spoke in such language of the future history of some men in another world, ought not to make us pause with becoming self-distrust and reverence, if disposed to exclaim against the possibility of so terrible an ending as a thing "unjust,"

"revengeful," and "revolting to benevolence?" Who are we, what have we been, or what have we done for our fellow-men, that we should thus presume to have a more tender regard for their well-being than the Lord Jesus Christ or His apostles had, and to be incapable of entertaining or of uttering such "harsh thoughts" as they did about their future state?

The other question which I would humbly suggest for consideration is this:--What is your real belief in reference to man's future state?

Have you any faith in our Lord's teaching? Any firm practical conviction in the fact of future punishment? After you have made every possible deduction from the weight of Scripture testimony, and explained away every metaphor, parable, and dogmatic statement to the lowest possible point short of absolute denial of their truth in any fair sense of their meaning,--may I beg of you to consider what, or how much, remains to be firmly believed as the truth of G.o.d? For it does appear to me that there exists a wide-spread callousness and indifference, an ease of mind, with reference to the fate hereafter of unG.o.dly men, which cannot be accounted for except on the supposition that all earnest faith is lost in either the dread possibilities of future sin or of its future punishment. Men seem to have made up their minds that they have nothing to fear in the next world, whatever they believe, whatever they are, or whatever they do in this. We are, verily, not incapable of experiencing fear, but in a vast number of cases we are great cowards, in spite of all our bravery,--cowards when there is nothing actually present to alarm us; and each one of us seeks to his very utmost to keep danger or suffering far away from himself or from those he loves. Accordingly, the possible or near approach of mere bodily pain, or of domestic sorrow, or the antic.i.p.ated loss of money--not to speak of such horrors as public disgrace from loss of character, imprisonment, transportation as a felon, or execution as a criminal--would induce thoughtfulness, anxiety, wretchedness. Yet, strange to say, the very same persons who would tremble for such calamities as these, treat with indifference a coming punishment, which cannot, even in their own estimation, be less terrible, and which, as sure as Christ's words are true, they may themselves, because of their present character, be liable at any hour to enter upon and endure.

But many of those readers, who, up to this point, may heartily sympathise with me in my feeble efforts to quicken a more earnest thoughtfulness on this subject, will be disposed to avoid its further consideration. I would not blame them for so feeling. G.o.d knoweth I have no wish to "dogmatise" on this subject, but to approach it with real sympathy for the difficulties, the pains, the perplexities, which the n.o.blest, the truest, and the most reverential have experienced when they have attempted really to believe in it What chiefly induces me to submit a few thoughts upon a theme so solemn, is the "dogmatism"

and unworthy views of G.o.d which are attributed to all of us who cannot discover sunrise beyond the gloom; and the conviction also that a more thorough belief in the clanger of sin, as well as its inherent vileness, and a wholesome "terror of the Lord," would tend to "persuade men" to entertain with more earnestness the deliverance promised in the gospel.