LECTURE V.

"IT DOTH NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE Shall be."

1 JOHN iii. 2.

WHILE gazing upon such openings into future happiness as this, we are often conscious of an indistinctness. There is a vastness, an intensity, a magnificence, not to be denied, but on that very account most difficult to be appreciated. It is general, bodiless, impalpable. Metaphor scarcely offers any aid. Comparison hardly yields any illustration. They as much bewilder as they explain. Nothing is defined. Impression takes the place of idea. A confused majesty overpowers us. It is not like star coming forth after star, each beautiful and a resting-place for the eye: it is as the mighty firmament, in all the depths of its concave and with all the constellations of its glory, covering and perplexing the eye at once. There is no relief, no repose, no distribution. We are amazed with sublimity. We are absorbed in immensity. We wander on and meet no confines. We search around, and find no parts. All that affects us is the illimitable and the unimaginable. There is no manner of similitude. It is the unbroken and undelineated mass. The mind

aches with the oppression of its effort and attention. It staggers beneath this burden of bliss, this sun-light splendor. An inferior disclosure, that which was more shaded, more subdued, would be rather welcome than this excess, this infinity. Our vision fails. The wings of the soul falter and fold. We cannot awaken from the trance.

Do we, then, complain of this transcendence? Do we murmur at so much bliss and glory? We speak thus in order to ascertain, whether there be that which can afford fixedness and precision of thought concerning heaven, which can bring it into the compass of strict and legitimate conception, which can make it intelligible as well as sure?

So full is the delight, so rich is the interest, of heaven, that its exclusion of all known and possible evils is the feeblest claim to our notice, the lowest call to our aspiration. Yet when we read how every cause of grief and desolateness has ceased, it is told with a manner so beautiful and touching, that it is difficult to dwell upon it as only a negative description; it imposes itself upon us as absolute and all-comprehensive. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more." "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

A passing reference may be made to the hieroglyphical representations of heaven. All figures are pressed into them. Light and verdure and living water,-palm and harp and regal diadem, are but

We

specimens of their diversity and multiplicity. maintain that in all this lavish profusion, there is nothing casual and nothing wasted: a meaning is to be extracted from every type. We rest not in themselves: they are poor and unworthy when compared with what they signify. We ask but one right of interpretation, the most reasonable and necessary. Figures are employed only because the ideas they would convey cannot be more abstractedly presented, and, because, whatever those ideas are truly, we are compelled by the substitution of figures for them always to conclude, how far nobler they must be than any mediums which only struggle so ineffectually to unfold them.

The mystery of the celestial state is not a purposed reserve, that which might be, but is not, told. No concealment is sought. No veil obtrudes. No haze interposes. The realities themselves forbid the realisation. The objects are too large for admeasurement and too bright for discernment. They master sense. They outgrow analogy. They task faith. Language is no invention to speak them. Hope is no passion to anticipate them. They alike subsist beyond experience and prepossession. They are not of a nature to be taught. Their knowledge, in our present state, could not be imparted.

"It doth not yet appear what we shall be." Yet this shuts us not up to the suspense of a merely privative idea. It lays an absolute condition of things, a perfect consciousness, for the foundation of the future destiny. There is a very lofty sentiment in this confession of ignorance. It labors with meaning,

and swells with expectation. It tends mightily and greatly. It takes to itself wings and flies towards heaven. There is in it a throbbing ecstasy of undefined instinct. It is a prophecy hastening to its fulfilment: desire desiring its consummation. It is a dark saying upon the harp, resounding and tremulous as its strings: yet not less a sure word, a faithful saying: a vision of the Almighty which for a time tarries, but in the end shall speak out and shall not tarry. Withal there is in this language a breathless pause, well-nigh an impatience. It is earnest intentness. It heaves as the bosom of the heir on the eve of possessing his inheritance. It glows like the brow of the warrior whom the next onset must crown with victory. It quivers with rapture and with awe, like the touch of the newly-anointed high priest, when preparing to draw aside for the first time the curtain of the most holy place. And still is there something in the tone of the expression that breathes of a resigned, attempered, confidence. It is crossed by no vexatious doubt, and chilled by no depressing suspicion. "The hope is laid up in heaven," and we "hear of it before," even now, "in the word of the truth of the gospel." We know what withholdeth. The limitation and inferiority of our mortal state restrain its instantaneous manifestation. We have considered it in itself. It is not arbitrarily delayed. Its own essential excellence forbids. Its grandeur would baffle our faculties. It is too large for our littleness. It is too strong for our weakness. It is too spiritual for our sense. Nor is it here that it could be evolved. The scene could

not contain nor bear it. The difficulty is only increased when we turn our thoughts to ourselves. Our probation is not finished. The government under which we are placed has not completed its history. Great events are to arise. Comprehensive predictions remain to be fulfilled. The præmillennial apparatus is not complete. The millennium has not begun to count its ages. The postmillennial measure of iniquity is not full. The end is not yet. And least of all, need we wonder that this issue is not hastened, when we consider our own unfitness. Where is our affinity and equipment? Where is our preparation for that which we shall be? The mansions were long since reared, but the days of our purifying are not numbered. The works were finished from the foundation of the world, but we have not worthily labored to enter into that rest. The marriage feast is spread, but the fine linen, which is the righteousness of the saints, is not sufficiently white for those mysterious espousals.

But this is our defence. We are mocked by scorn and scoff. Our soul is exceedingly filled with contempt. We are taunted. Where are the proofs of favor attached to the saints? What profit have they? What is their reward? We concede that there is little which is apparent, nothing strictly sensible; that there is much to try and perplex our faith. This should, however, be remembered, that when we argued the immortality of the soul, and consequently of a future state, we rested no small portion of the proof upon the mixed and imperfect character of the present life.

Had we found a visible Providence,