sees

complacency. No alloy of sin, no mixture of infirmity, now attaches to any of their services. Their devotion never becomes languid; their benevolence never fluctuates or fails. The Lord Jesus has not now to address them in terms of mild reproof, as well as of complacent regard. He beholds in them nothing but the reflection of His own character; and as He thus of the travail of His soul,' He experiences a holy satisfaction. And the saints of Christ, now with Him in heaven, delight in Him without interruption, and with more serene satisfaction than ever they could do on earth. The glories of His character shine forth to their admiring gaze; and they are drawn to Him by a sweet and powerful attraction. Thus, also, there is perfect sympathy between Christ and His people. They think as He thinks; they feel as He feels. In a yet higher degree than when they toiled and suffered below, Christ dwells in them and they in Him. And, yet further, there is happy intercourse between Christ and His saints in heaven. They have no longer to realise His presence, and to hold communion with Him, by faith: they 'see Him as He is,' and His presence diffuses a sacred joy through their souls. There is a vivid consciousness of His friendship and love, pervading their minds; they even feel that His glory is theirs, at the same time that they own Him as their Lord, and bow to every intimation of His will. And we may reverently conceive, that sometimes they are permitted to converse with Him,-that they listen to His words, and mark with profound emotion the out-beamings of His excellences. This, at least, is certain, that the Saviour reveals to them the fulness of His grace, and opens to them sources of delight which are ever fresh and exhaustless (Rev. vii. 17).

But we have now to pass to the solemn and deeply affecting subject of the condition, in the intermediate state, of the lost,of those who have rejected the grace of Christ, and whose probationary course has closed in impenitence and guilt. The representations of their condition found in the discourses of

our Lord and in the writings of the Apostles are fearfully impressive. We have seen how our Lord, in one of His parables, describes the position of the rich man who passed into eternity from a career of self-indulgence :-"The rich man also died, and ̧ was buried and in Hades 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 he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame' (Luke xvi. 22-24). So, too, on another occasion, He solemnly affirmed, respecting the place of future punishment, that there 'their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched' (Mark ix. 48). In His parable of the marriage-feast, He represents the king as saying to his servants respecting the man who came to it without a wedding-garment, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth' (Matt. xxii. 13).

In respect to these representations of the condition of the lost, the question naturally suggests itself to every earnest mind, whether they are to be literally interpreted. A feeling of reverence must restrain us from positive and bold assertions on this subject; but the view that many of them are figurative may be consistently held, while it must ever be maintained that they indicate a state of awful suffering. The observations of Dr. Richard Winter Hamilton on this subject strikingly illustrate this sentiment :- Looking into the revealed page, we discover a most uniform representation that there is a place of suffering, and not that the mind is its own place; that there is painful fellowship among the sufferers; that the Divine wrath afflicts their souls; and that sensible suffering is consequent upon a raised body and a physical restoration. One identification is dreadly recurrent. The elemental fire is the selected medium of the retribution, or of describing it. It is not the flame which bursts from within the sinner,-it is something distinct from himself: he is "cast into it," he is "tormented in it,” it is "the furnace of fire," "the lake of fire." There are allusions, all

foreign to the native self-actings of the soul:-the "stripe," the "horrible tempest," the "cup of wrath," the "mist of darkness," the "taking vengeance," "the tormentors," "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish," rendered. As some of these descriptions seem incapable of a literal interpretation, none may require it. We express our near approach to a conviction, -it is all we dare,—that they must not be verbally understood. Inconsistencies too violent, we think, forbid it. .. But concede, or demand, that these can be only figures. They are figures, of least, of an alarming kind. Why are figures, and of such an order, employed? Because the naked truth, the absolute reality of the retribution, cannot be set before our mind. It is too intimate, too intense, to be made known in any abstract manner. There is no idealised, soul-like language fitted to impress and explain it. To supply the deficiency images are sought. But, therefore, it follows that if the full force of these images be understood, still a vast amount of signification lies beyond them, they being, after all, confessedly inadequate, except to shadow out the fact. Nor can guilty presumption more egregiously err than when it soothes itself by the thought that these are only images: they are only images, and consequently what they intend is inconceivably more severe. "Who knoweth the power of Thine anger? even according to Thy fear," the darkest apprehension and foreboding, "so is Thy wrath." The comment of the Rev. Richard Watson on the words of our Lord in Mark ix. 48, 'Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,' is well deserving of our attention. After adducing some considerations to show that the phrase appears to have been a highly metaphorical mode of expressing the highest penalties of the Divine justice upon guilty nations and individuals,' he adds, As the worm itself dies not, but destroys that it feeds upon, and as a fire unquenched consumes that upon which it kindles, so when temporal judgments are expressed by this phrase, the utter

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*The Revealed Doctrine of Rewards and Punishments,' pp. 322-324. 8vo. ed. 1847.

Lect. VI.,

destruction of persons, cities, and nations appears to be intended; but when it refers to a future state, and the subject of punishment is, in itself, or by Divine appointment, immortal, the idea is heightened to its utmost terror; their worm of reflection and remorse ever gnaws; and the fire, which represents the severity of accumulated judgments, is never quenched.'

In considering the condition of the lost, during the intermediate state, we must not omit to reflect that there are before them the terrors of the final judgment. That day, which will be one of holy triumph to the people of Christ, will be to them one of confusion and dismay. Then they will be constrained to acknowledge, however reluctantly, the sovereignty and glory of the enthroned Redeemer; and, as the proceedings of that day terminate, they will be for ever banished from His presence.

We have spoken of the intermediate state as an imperfect one; but we do not regard it as one of a second probation. The people of Christ, when they pass to His presence, are eternally secure; and they who have rejected Him during their earthly probation are undone. We may refer to our Lord's parable of the rich man and Lazarus, as showing that there is no transition from the abodes of darkness to the realms of light; and we are again and again reminded that the future judgment will have respect to the deeds done in the body.' Thus are we taught that the limits of our connection with earth, and of our state of trial, are the same.

CHAPTER III.

THE RESURRECTION.

IT is obvious that the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead

is one of pure revelation. Nature throws no light upon it; and no considerations derived from the changes which living beings undergo could suggest the hope, that the body which is consigned to the tomb in dishonour and decay will be raised again to enjoy a higher life than was realised on earth. But He who is the Resurrection and the Life' holds forth to all His people the assurance of their ultimate triumph over death.

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In the Scriptures of the Old Testament there were intimations of this truth. We may refer especially to the memorable declaration of Job:-'For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me' (Job xix. 25-27). We may refer, also, to the prediction found in Dan. xii. 2: 'And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.'

But it is in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that this truth is most clearly set forth. In the discourses of the Saviour Himself the doctrine of the resurrection is emphatically taught, as it bears both on the righteous and the wicked. In that remarkable conversation with the Jews of Jerusalem which is recorded in John v., our Lord, after affirming His participation, as the Son, in the loftiest powers and prerogatives of the