While liberation from this earthly clod thus enables the freed spirit to assume the full use of its powers, their vigorous and proportionate action will be called forth by its immediate proximity to the exciting objects of the unseen world. If our spiritual capabilities had not been restricted on earth, they would have found no objects adequate to engage them; they would have resembled the powers of a giant thrown away upon the labours of ordinary men, or those of mature age squandered amidst the occupations of children. But the case is different when a man has fully entered on the world to come. There, if his eye is fully open, he finds objects that fill all his regard —if his emotions are intense, he finds occasions worthy of their utmost power-if his actions are vigorous, he finds pursuits which demand all his strength. To be in such a state, fettered with bodily infirmity, would be as great an impropriety on one side, as to be unfettered in this world would be on the other; and verily, if a departed spirit can see and feel and do much, there is enough in the objects into the midst of which he will be thrown, and into close contact with which he will come, to waken and to occupy his utmost powers.

The future state will be marked by identity of character. The prevailing and cherished dispositions of men here will be their prevailing and cherished dispositions hereafter. Such is the express testimony of the sacred oracles, Rev. xxii. 11: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still." On this point, indeed, another sentiment has been held by many, (a sentiment which, however it is to be feared, is dictated rather by their wishes than their convictions,) that, however unsuited to a world of purity and holiness our present dispositions may be, when God removes us out of this, he will fit us for the next, and that in this manner all will be set right when we die. This opinion is no doubt well adapted to encourage those who wish to give the reins to their desires in the pursuit of present gratification; but, as it is decidedly contradicted by the Scripture we have just quoted, so it is altogether at variance with the reason of the case.

We ask, on the one hand, upon what ground a change of disposition is expected from the mere occurrence of death? It is manifest that death dissolves the organization of the body, and, for a time, the connexion subsisting between the body and the soul; but that it should have any tendency to alter the objects of our love and hatred-of our hopes or fears-is not

by any means so clear. For though we go into another world, the main objects that will appeal to us there, are the same as those which have engaged or repelled our affections on earth. Here we have had to decide, whether we would pursue God's will or our own-there, too, we must either do one or the other. That the mere fact of our being brought into the closest contact with things which have only been previously told us can produce no change, may be evident from the consideration, that the knowledge granted us on earth is declared to be fully suited, and sufficient to lead us to a right decision; so that if this has been despised, nothing is to be expected, in the form of a change in our sentiments, from its augmentation. "If we believe not Moses and the prophets, neither should we be persuaded though one rose from the dead," or though we ourselves were among them. If we have hated God and holiness in this world, we shall but hate them the more intensely when we are enabled to behold them still more clearly and closely in the next.

Then if the mere fact of our entrance into the unseen state could produce no change, we ask, on the other hand, upon what grounds it is imagined that God will, by a special act, exert his power for such a purpose? That he will graciously remove all remaining sinfulness and imperfection from those whose hearts have undergone that great change from the love of sin to the possession of holiness, which is implied in regeneration—the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul-we have reason to believe, and we rejoice in the prospect; but why should he interpose to alter a state of improper feeling, which a man has spent his whole life in producing, in defiance of his knowledge that it was wrong, and that it would render him miserable hereafter, as well as of innumerable commands, exhortations, and entreaties to abandon and amend it? The entire life of such a man has been a course of disobedience and hostility to his Makerwithout the shadow of repentance-and yet without any evidence, and contrary to all probability, it is to be taken for granted that God will gratuitously interpose to rescue him from the consequences of his own wilful folly and sin.

Besides, the occurrence of such a transformation at the period of death, would be utterly incompatible with the proceedings of the final judgment. It is true, that every man's character is to be examined—both that retribution may be allotted accordingly -and that the disclosure of every character may manifest the righteousness with which such retribution is made. But if the man who lived without God, is by the act of his dying made holy, such a process as the final judgment is made altogether

impracticable. There no longer remains any evil character to be brought to light, or even to be examined, while God will appear in the strange attitude of pronouncing the doom of the wicked upon a man who, whatever he may have been on earth, is at that moment holy: how could the punishment appropriated to sin be inflicted, in fact, upon a man that is holy? He would necessarily be free from the torment which dominant iniquity produces, and so would escape one part of hell entirely; while the sense of God's disapprobation, which is emphatically the sinner's punishment, however it might affect him, could not operate as must have been intended, and as it inevitably would, on the heart of the wicked. Such a change at the period of death, therefore, would lead to nothing short of the abandonment of the last judgment altogether, and the subversion of the whole system of moral government; and the very notion of it must be set down among those vain imaginations by which men have ever been striving to persuade themselves that they "shall have peace, though they walk in the way of their own hearts."

While every man's character will be the same in the world to come as it has been in this, there is reason to believe that the manifestations and expressions of character will be of a much stronger and more forcible kind. We have already seen, that in the future state there will be a great expansion of the powers generally; and as our emotions of joy and sorrow, according to the position which we take up, whether in heaven or hell, will be of new intensity, so will naturally be those of love and hatred, aversion and delight. With an augmented capacity of discerning spiritual things, a nearer and more direct approach to them, and a stronger set of feelings then wrought upon by them,-whether we regard God and holiness with enmity or with love, our emotions respectively will have an intensity which they never have had before. In like manner, all the passions which will have any existence at all in the life to come, will exist as in gigantic stature; and whether they be of a kind to afford enjoyment or to create torture, they will act in both cases with a power by us now incalculable.

The future state will be characterized by endless duration. Our own existence there will never cease. We derive this idea from the description given of it as a victory over death, which, as "the last enemy," is said to be "abolished," or "destroyed," or "swallowed up in victory,"-language which could scarcely be employed, if, notwithstanding the resurrection of the body, its restored life should at any period have a termination. In addition to this, however, the life to come is expressly termed

a state of "immortality," in which "there shall be no more death." It thus appears unquestionable, that our existence has to run beyond the grave an endless bound;" and that it opens

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to us a prospect absolutely eternal.

The future state will be characterized, lastly, by unchangeableness. We do not mean, indeed, by this term, that our condition will admit of no alteration in its degree; but it will admit of none in its nature. Whether we are happy or miserable on our entrance into futurity, so we shall remain through the whole of its duration. The blessed will be for "ever with the Lord;" and the wretched punished "with everlasting destruction from his presence, and the glory of his power."

No question probably would ever have been raised respecting a matter so plainly revealed, and a termination of this probationary state so manifestly appropriate, if it had not borne with an awful and tremendous weight upon the feelings of ungodly men. But we close this argument by saying, that, whatever notion of limited suffering for the wicked any man may choose to entertain, he does it at his own risk. It is an invention of his own, and has not the slightest sanction from the oracles of God. Whether it may be so or not, they at least say nothing of it: yet if it had been so, it is incredible that they should not have spoken; and their silence justifies us in regarding the tenacity with which the notion is held, as the mere endeavour of a convicted criminal to shift off the anticipation of a punishment which he knows he cannot endure.

Only realize these things, and the fascinating influence of sin will wither in their presence. The very unwillingness which wicked men have shown to believe that a future state exists, is a demonstration that they feel the motives drawn from it to be of tremendous power. It is because they are such as they cannot bear, that they strive to obliterate and annihilate them. But the attempt is vain. Futurity is no fiction, but a reality, and a reality which will more than verify the amplest ideas which may be formed of it. Hear it, therefore, reader,—if perhaps you have been lulling yourself into a sweet but fatal slumber, by a notion as false as it is tranquillizing,-hear it, and reflect. Every cherished feeling and purpose will have its retribution in the world to come and if the joys and sorrows of eternity are of any weight with you,-if you think that the agonies of that world will outweigh the sensual gratifications of this--see that you purchase not your present pleasures at so vast and ruinous a price. If there is nothing in sinful sweets for which it is worth while to endure everlasting pains, reject them;

for, so surely as you exist, will there be "indignation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil." Rom. ii. 8, 9. Think not that having lulled yourself into slumber, you have succeeded in silencing the thunders of eternal wrath. Far from it: they are still uttering their voices in the loud and commanding sounds of truth. We charge you, hear it: it shall be the very first step towards safety. It is when sin is contemplated in the light which a future state casts upon it, and when its consequences, as thus viewed, are apprehended and felt, that Jesus Christ, as an all-sufficient Saviour, appears in his true nature, as "a hidingplace from the storm." He came to secure immortal souls from the curse which, in the next world, follows unpardoned sin for ever. He lives now by the Holy Spirit, granted in answer to his intercession, to impart to those who believe on him a new character, appropriate to the personal enjoyment of heaven. His Word addresses to each unawakened soul the affecting call" Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Ephes. v. 14. We charge you, hear it or if you will not, but will rather close your ear, that you may remain undisturbed in sin, prepare yourself, at all events, for that day of terror, in which the final bursting of the storm shall awake you to sleep no more.

THE ENGLISH MONTHLY TRACT SOCIETY,

27, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON;

AND

J. F. SHAW, ROOKSELLER, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, LONDON.

J. &W. Rider, Printers, Bartholomew Close, London.