And what are those? Some of the souls of the righteous, whom thou didst formerly relieve with "the mammon of unrighteousness;" and who are now commissioned by your common Lord, to receive, to welcome you "into the everlasting habitations?" Then the angels of darkness will quickly discern they have no part in you. So they must either hover at a distance, or flee away in despair. Are some of these happy spirits that take acquaintance with you, the same that travelled with you below, and bore a part in your temptations? That together with you, fought the good fight of faith, and laid hold on eternal life? As you then wept together, you may rejoice together, you and your guardian angels perhaps, in order to increase your thankfulness for being " delivered from so great a death." They may give you a view of the realms below; those "Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell." See on the other hand, the mansions which were "prepared for you, from the foundation of the world!" Oh what a difference between the dream that is past, and the real scene that is now present with thee! Look up! see! "No need of the sun in that day, Which never is follow'd by night! A pure and a permanent light.” Look down! What a prison is there! ""Twixt upper, nether, and sur rounding fire!" And what inhabitants! What horrid fearful shapes, emblems of the rage against God and man; the envy, fury, despair, fixed within, causing them to gnash their teeth at him they so long despised! Meanwhile does it comfort them to see, across the great gulf, the righteous in Abraham's bosom? What a place is that! What a "house of God, eternal in the heavens!" Earth is only his footstool; yea, "The spacious firmament on high, And all the blue ethereal sky." Well then may we say to its inhabitants; "Proclaim the glories of your Lord, Dispersed through all the heavenly street; So rich a pavement for his feet." And yet how inconsiderable is the glory of that house, compared to that of its great Inhabitant! In view of whom all the first-born sons of light, angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven, full of light as they are full of love, "Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes." 13. How wonderful then, now the dream of life is over, now you are quite awake, do all these scenes appear! Even such a sight as never entered, or could enter, into your hearts to conceive! How are all those that awake up after his likeness, now satisfied with it!" They have now a portion, real, solid, incorruptible, "that fadeth not away." Meantime, how exquisitely wretched are they, who (to wave all other considerations) have chosen for their portion those transitory shadows, which now are vanished, and have left them in an abyss of real misery, which must remain to all eternity! 14. Now, considering that every child of man who is yet upon earth, must sooner or later wake out of this dream, and enter real life; how infinitely does it concern every one of us, to attend to this before our great change comes! Of what importance is it to be continually sensible of the condition wherein we stand! How advisable, by every possible means, to connect the ideas of time and eternity! So to associate them together, that the thought of one may never recur to your mind without the thought of the other! It is our highest wisdom to associate the ideas of the visible and invisible world; to connect temporal and spiritual, mortal and immortal being. Indeed, in our common dreams, we do not usually know we are asleep, whilst we are in the midst of our dream. As neither do we know it, while we are in the midst of the dream which we call life. But you may be conscious of it now. God grant you may, before you awake in a winding sheet of fire! 15. What an admirable idea for thus associating the ideas of time and eternity, of the visible and invisible world, is laid in the nature of religion! For what is religion? (I mean scriptural religion, for all other is the vainest of all dreams.) What is the very root of this religion? It is Immanuel, God with us! God in man! Heaven connected with earth! The unspeakable union of mortal with immortal. "truly our fellowship (may all Christians say) is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. God hath given unto us eternal life: and this life is in his Son." What follows?" He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." For Yet I could 16. But how shall we retain a constant sense of this? I have often thought, in my waking hours, "Now, when I fall asleep, and see such and such things, I will remember, it was but a dream." not, while the dream lasted; and probably none else can. But it is otherwise with the dream of life; which we do remember to be such even while it lasts. And if we do forget it, (as we are indeed apt to do,) a friend may remind us of it. It is much to be wished, that such a friend were always near: one that would frequently sound in our ear, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead!" Soon you will awake into real life. You will stand a naked spirit, in the world of spirits, before the face of the great God! See that you now hold fast that "eternal life, which he hath given you in his Son." 17. How admirably does this life of God branch out into the whole of religion? I mean, scriptural religion. As soon as God reveals his Son in the heart of a sinner, he is enabled to say, "The life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. He then "rejoices in hope of the glory of God," even with joy unspeakable. And in consequence both of this faith and hope, the love of God is shed abroad in his heart; which, filling the soul with love to all mankind, "is the fulfilling of the law." 18. And how wonderfully do both faith and love connect God with man, and time with eternity! In consideration of this, we may boldly say, VOL. II. "Vanish then this world of shadows: Lord appear, appear to glad us, SERMON CXXVI.-On Faith. "Now faith is the evidence of things not seen," Heb. xi, 1. 1. MANY times have I thought, many times have I spoke, many times have I wrote upon these words; and yet there appears to be a depth in them, which I am in no wise able to fathom. Faith is, in one sense of the word, a divine conviction of God and of the things of God; in another, (nearly related to, yet not altogether the same,) it is a divine conviction of the invisible and eternal world. In this sense I would now consider,— 2. I am now an immortal spirit, strangely connected with a little portion of earth: but this is only for a while. In a short time I am to quit this tenement of clay, and to remove into another state, "Which the living know not, And the dead cannot, or they may not tell!" What kind of existence shall I then enter upon, when my spirit has launched out of the body? How shall I feel myself? Perceive my own being? How shall I discern the things that are round about me; either material or spiritual objects? When my eyes no longer transmit the rays of light, how will my naked spirit see? When the organs of hearing are mouldered into dust, in what manner shall I hear? When the brain is of no farther use, what means of thinking shall I have? When my whole body is dissolved into senseless earth, what means shall I have of gaining knowledge? 3. How strange, how incomprehensible are the means whereby I shall then take knowledge even of the material world? Will things appear then as they do now? Of the same size, shape, and colour? Or will they be altered in any, or all these respects? How will the sun, moon, and stars appear? The sublunary heavens? The planetary heavens? The region of the fixed stars? How, the fields of ether, which we may conceive to be millions of miles beyond them? Of all this we know nothing yet: and indeed we need to know nothing. 4. What then can we know of those innumerable objects, which properly belong to the invisible world? Which mortal " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into our hearts to conceive?" What a scene will then be opened, when the regions of hades are displayed without a covering! Our English translators seem to have been much at a loss for a word to render this. Indeed two hundred years ago it was tolerably expressed by the word hell, which then signified much the same with the word hades, namely, the invisible world. Accordingly, by Christ descending into hell, they meant, his body remained in the grave, his soul remained in hades, (which is the receptacle of separate spirits,) from death to the resurrection. Here we cannot doubt but the spirits of the righteous are inexpressibly happy. They are, as St. Paul expresses it, "with the Lord:" favoured with so intimate a communion with him, as "is far better" than whatever the chief of the apostles experienced while in this world. On the other hand, we learn from our Lord's own account of Dives and Lazarus, that the rich man, from the moment he left the world, entered into a state of torment. And "there is a great gulf fixed" in hades, between the place of the holy, and that of unholy spirits, which it is impossible for either the one or the other to pass over. Indeed a gentleman of great learning, the honourable Mr. Campbell, in his account of the middle state, published not many years ago, seems to suppose, that wicked souls may amend in hades, and then remove to a happier mansion. He has great hopes, that" the rich man," mentioned by our Lord, in particular, night be purified by that penal fire, till, in process of time, he might be qualified for a better abode. But who can reconcile this with Abraham's assertion, that none can pass over the "great gulf?" 5. I cannot therefore but think, that all those who are with the rich man in the unhappy division of hades, will remain there, howling and blaspheming, cursing and looking upwards, till they are cast into "the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." And, on the other hand, can we reasonably doubt, but that those who are now in paradise, in Abraham's bosom, all those holy souls, who have been discharged from the body, from the beginning of the world unto this day, will be continually ripening for heaven; will be perpetually holier and happier, till they are received into the "kingdoin prepared for them, from the foundation of the world?" 6. But who can inform us, in what part of the universe hades is situated? This abode of both happy and unhappy spirits, till they are reunited to their bodies? It has not pleased God to reveal any thing concerning it, in the holy Scripture; and, consequently, it is not possible for us to form any judgment, or even conjecture about it. Neither are we informed, how either one or the other are employed, during the time of their abode there. Yet may we, not improbably, suppose, that the Governor of the world may sometimes permit wicked souls "to do his gloomy errands in the deep?" Or, perhaps in conjunction with evil angels, to inflict vengeance on wicked men? Or will many of them be shut up in chains of darkness, unto the judgment of the great day? In the mean time, may we not probably suppose, that the spirits of the just, though generally lodged in paradise, yet may sometimes, in conjunction with the holy angels, minister to the heirs of salvation? May they not "Sometimes, on errands of love, It is a pleasing thought, that some of these human spirits, attending us with, or in the room of, angels, are of the number of those that were dear to us, while they were in the body. So that there is no absurdity in the question; "Have ye your own flesh forgot, But be this as it may, it is certain, human spirits swiftly increase in knowledge, in holiness, and in happiness: conversing with all the wise and holy souls that lived in all ages and nations from the beginning of the world; with angels and archangels, to whom the children of men are no more than infants; and, above all, with the eternal Son of God, "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." And let it be especially considered, whatever they learn, they will retain for ever. For they forget nothing. To forget is only incident to spirits that are clothed with flesh and blood. 7. But how will this material universe appear to a disembodied spirit? Who can tell whether any of these objects that surround us will appear the same as they do now? And if we know so little of these, what can we now know concerning objects of a quite different nature? Concerning the spiritual world? It seems it will not be possible for us to discern them at all, till we are furnished with senses of a different nature, which are not yet opened in our souls. These may enable us both to penetrate the inmost substance of things, whereof we now discern only the surface, and to discern innumerable things, of the very existence whereof we have not now the least perception. What astonishing scenes will then discover themselves to our newly opening senses! Probably fields of ether, not only ten fold, but ten thousand fold "the length of this terrene." And with what variety of furniture, animate and inanimate! How many orders of beings, not discovered by organs of flesh and blood? Perhaps, thrones, dominions, virtues, princedoms, powers? Whether of those that have retained their first habitations and primeval strength, or of those that, rebelling against their Creator, have been cast out of heaven? And shall we not then, as far as angels ken, survey the bounds of creation, and see every place where the Almighty, "Stopp'd his rapid wheels, and said, This be thy just circumference, oh world?" Yea, shall we not be able to move, quick as thought, through the wide realms of uncreated night? Above all, the moment we step into eternity, shall we not feel ourselves swallowed up of him, who is in this and every place,-who filleth heaven and earth? It is only the veil of flesh and blood which now hinders us from perceiving, that the great Creator cannot but fill the whole immensity of space. He is every moment above us, beneath us, and on every side. Indeed, in this dark abode, this land of shadows, this region of sin and death, the thick cloud, which is interposed between, conceals him from our sight. But the veil will disappear, and he will appear, in unclouded majesty, "God over all, blessed for ever!" 8. How variously are the children of men employed in this world! In treading o'er "the paths they trod six thousand years before!" But who knows how we shall be employed, after we enter that invisible world? A little of it we may conceive, and that without any doubt, provided we keep to what God himself has revealed in his word, and what he works in the hearts of his children. Let us consider, first, What may be the employment of unholy spirits from death to the resurrection. We cannot doubt but the moment they leave the body, they find themselves surrounded by spirits of their own kind, probably human as well as diabolical. What power God may permit these to exercise over them we do not distinctly know. But it is not improbable, he may suffer Satan to employ them, as he does his own angels, in inflicting death, or evils of various kinds, on the men that know not God: for this end they may raise storms by sea or by land; they may shoot meteors through the air; they may occasion earthquakes; and, in numberless ways, afflict those whom they are not suffered to destroy. Where they are not permitted to take away life, they may inflict various diseases: and many of these, which we judge to be natural, are undoubtedly diabolical. I believe this is frequently the case with lunatics. It |