HEAVEN. INTRODUCTION. The soul, uneasy and confined from home, LIFT up your heads, ye heavenly pilgrims, and behold your home! Your earnest, longing eyes, turned upward, declare plainly that you seek a country. "Blessed are they that are home-sick, for they shall get home." As yet there is wo unto you, because you sojourn in Mesech, and are compelled to tarry in the tents of Kedar; but if you will, I shall speak comfortably to you, in the language of Canaan, by the way. Rest thee, then, upon thy staff, for even in this weary land whence ye go out, it is granted unto way-faring men to turn aside for a night, to refresh themselves with rest under the shadow of a rock. Strong in thy heart, it is true, are the drawings of thy Father, and of thy home; yet, in thy earnestness to gather the full harvest of heavenly fire-side joys, thou must not forget to enjoy the blessed first-fruits, which are granted thee as an earnest by the way. Wilt thou stop, then, brother pilgrim, till we commune (9) together in the joyful hopes of home, and refresh ourselves with visions of that heavenly land towards which our yearning hearts are aspiring? There is no subject upon which the mind ought to dwell more frequently, more joyfully, and more deeply, than that state of existence which lies beyond the grave. Whether it is acknowledged or not, this subject does, perhaps more than any other, occupy the thoughts of men. The hope of something better, and the dread of something worse, is always with man, to hang garlands of light and smiles, or of gloom and tears, along every path he takes through life. In the busiest hours, in the gayest circles, in the wildest confusion of earthly din and bustle, as well as in the hours of solitude, the powers of the world to come, at times, bear heavily on the spirit. This is natural, and it would be strange if it were not so. It is impossible that we, surrounded as we are by so many infallible evidences of our immortality, and tending consciously and fast toward an eternal state, should not often look, with trembling anxiety, beyond this life. The exile, while yet in chains on a foreign shore, thinks and dreams often of his home, but when he once leaves the shores of his captivity, and sails toward it, it becomes a subject of still deeper anxiety and greater longing; we are exiles on our way home, already are we driving fast and far upon the sea of life: and ought we not to look anxiously towards our landing-place on eternal shores? Who, with the Bible to direct his thoughts, and the Christian's hope to inspire his heart, can live without thinking much of heaven? He who has this hope in him looks and longs for its complete consum mation, as one looks and longs for the morning during a long and wretched night. It is somewhat strange that the future life does not occupy the attention of men-especially of Christians —in a different way from what it does. Their minds are thinking much of heaven, it is true, but it is only thinking, it is not earnest inquiry-it is not bending over and prying into it as the angels are said to bend over and look into the mysteries of salvation. The angels know that there is such a thing as salvation, but they are not satisfied with such a vague knowledge, they desire to look into it: so the saints ought not to be satisfied with merely knowing that there is a heaven, and content themselves with thinking of it in a general way; they ought to desire, by faith, and in the clear light of revealed truth, to go over and see the goodly land. Many Christians, however, go on through life with a professed hope of heaven, having nothing but some vague, undefined, and cloudy image of the land of their hopes before their eyes. It is a dreamy region in which their hopes swim.* Their thoughts *The greater part of Christians rest contented with the most vague and incorrect ideas of the felicity of heaven, and talk and write about it in so loose and figurative a manner, as can convey no rational or definite conception of the sublime contemplations and employments of celestial intelligences. Instead of eliciting, from the metaphorical language of Scripture, the ideas intended to be conveyed, they endeavour to expand and ramify the figures employed by the sacred writers still farther, heaping metaphor upon metaphor, and epithet upon epithet, and blending a number of discordant ideas, till the image or picture presented to the mind assumes the semblance of a splendid chaotic map, or of a dazzling but undefined meteor. The term Glory, and its kindred epithets, have been reiterated a thousand sometimes make excursions through it, but return because they have found no resting place. Man in analogous cases does not act so. He is prone to dive into his future history, and to measure and weigh its probabilities with an untiring curiosity. If he is about to remove to some unknown land, curious questions concerning it will be upon his mind during all the time he is making preparation, and he seeks in every way to inform himself concerning it; and it is strange how much he will soon know of it, even where the sources of information seemed at first exceedingly scarce. It times in descriptions of the heavenly state-the redeemed have been represented as assembled in one vast crowd above the visible concave of the sky, adorned with " starry crowns," drinking at "crystal fountains," and making "the vault of heaven ring" with their loud acclamations. The Redeemer himself has been exhibited as suspended like a statue in the heavens, above the immense crowd, crowned with diadems, and encircled with a refulgent splendour, while the assembly of the heavenly inhabitants were incessantly gazing on this object, like a crowd of spectators gazing at the motion of an air-balloon, or of a splendid meteor. Such representations are repugnant to the ideas intended to be conveyed by the metaphorical language of inspiration, when stripped of its drapery. They can convey nothing but a meagre and distorted conception of the employments of the celestial state, and tend only to bewilder the imagination, and to "darken counsel by words without knowledge.” Hence it has happened, that certain infidel scoffers have been led to conclude, that the Christian heaven is not an object to be desired; and have frequently declared, that "they could feel no pleasure in being suspended for ever in an ethereal region, and perpetually singing psalms and hymns to the Eternal"an idea of heaven which is too frequently conveyed by the vague and distorted descriptions which have been given of the exercises and entertainments of the future world.- Dick's Future State, pp. 181, 182. is because his earnest desire to know induces him to catch every item of intelligence that throws light upon the subject of his inquiries. Why do not Christians in like manner concentrate every ray of light that falls upon this world from that which is future, in order that they may, as intelligently and as comfortably as possible, journey toward it? Is it because their hopes to obtain, and their desires for it, are so weak and wavering? Alas! is not this the secret? The man who had bought a piece of land which was but an earthly trifle, must needs go and see it, though he thereby forego a rich feast; but he who professes to have an eternal inheritance beyond the grave, cannot forfeit a few of life's vain pleasures in order that he may examine it. Certainly such persons are not saved by hope! It may be said, that heaven is only indistinctly revealed to us. It is true, heaven is exhibited to us in revelation mostly in figures, images, and symbols; but these are not without meaning. Indeed they are used for the very purpose of making the ideas which they are intended to convey plaincr to us, and of giving us a more graphic description of those things which are unseen and eternal. We may know more of heaven from these figures, images, and symbols, than if it had been revealed to us by precept. In these we have envelopes of heavenly treasure, which we can unrol, and when unrolled the treasures are our own. These symbols are caskets to which the humble and inquiring Christian has the key. The Spirit is his commentator; "He takes of the things which are Christ's," and ours because they are his, "and shows 1 |