Memory must wander back to earth to remind the soul for ever of its obligations to the Saviour who redeemed it from the sink of sin, and when it does travel back imagination must be the wing to bear it.

The first, and most natural impression, that every one gets on reading the Bible, concerning heaven, is that it is a locality somewhere in God's universe; hence the majority of Christians, without ever questioning the propriety of their belief, have intuitively that impression of another world. This impression is piously and pleasantly cherished, and can only be removed by that reckless speculative curiosity by which the holiest of divine truths are invaded and dislodged by such as are cruel and bold enough to take away the contents of our faith without feeling themselves responsible to furnish us with a better. Learned men who have examined the popular ideas on this subject, instead of casting them away, have found it pleasant to cherish and retain them as congenial with the deepest and holiest wants of the spirit. Hence also almost all who have expressed themselves on this subject, even without assigning any reason for it, have unhesitatingly expressed themselves as believing in a material heaven.

It may be objected, that these impressions may be wrong; and we may be referred to cases which seem analogous, where they have been wrong; as, for instance, the first impression we get of God on reading the scriptures, is, that he has a form like a man, having hands, feet, mouth, ears and eyes; but I answer, that this being spoken after the manner of men, is soon corrected by the distinct declaration that God is

a spirit, while with regard to heaven it is not so. The impression which we at first receive is not corrected by any plain declaration; on the contrary, continually strengthened and confirmed, as will shortly be seen. We conclude, therefore, that the sacred. writers would not make an impression which is so easily received, and which is so general, only to be

"The herald of a lie."

The general impressions which we receive on reading the Bible first have a great influence on those particular investigations which we afterwards make. We cannot avoid looking through these general impressions, and they will cast their shadow on all that we see; it is not at all possible, therefore, that God would so construct his revelation, in which immortality is brought to light, as to make these first impressions afterwards mislead us.

From these introductory considerations, which, though not without much force, are only presumptive, we pass on to consider the light which is thrown upon this subject by the sure word of inspiration. God has not left us in the dark upon a subject of so much. interest and importance in connexion with the future life.

It is plainly declared in Scripture that heaven is a locality. It is called a place. "I go to prepare a PLACE for you." The Saviour says farther, that when this place is prepared, he will come again and receive us to himself, that where he is we may be also. Here is reference to place; WHERE he is we shall be. We shall be together in the same locality, and that to behold his glory and to see him face to face.

It could not be a suitable abode for the saints, if it were not a local, material heaven. The saints will have bodies. Pure spirits may, for aught we know, exist differently; but the saints, having bodies, must have a material dwelling-place, because they are material. Can the abode of these bodies be less tangible than the bodies themselves? Certainly not. They cannot be suspended in air, or float in space eternally! Though the bodies of the saints will be, in some respects, no doubt, greatly changed-for we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trump-and they will be spiritualized in a way now unknown to us, yet they will be bodies still. "There is a spiritual body." Job felt confident that he should in his flesh see God. A human being consists of soul and body, the one material and the other immaterial; these two united make the man, and they must therefore be united again in the future world, if the man is to retain his nature. Hence we read, that they that are in their graves shall come forth, and that our vile bodies, as well as our souls, shall come under the transforming power of Christ's resurrection-life, and be fashioned like unto his glorious body. The Saviour's body rose as a first-fruit and pledge of the resurrection of our bodies, and at his resurrection "many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came of the graves," as an evidence that his resurrection had shaken off for ever the fetters of the tomb from his saints, and henceforth they shall live because he lives. In virtue of all this, the saints now rejoice in hope, and we "which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we

ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body." The body, then, will be raised and become a sharer with the spirit in the blessed gift of immortality. Whatever will be the refinement of this immortal man,-though raised in honour, in power, in incorruption, in spirituality, yet he has a body, and must therefore have a local platform, a physical substratum, for his future habitation.

The bodies of Enoch and Elijah are in heaven. "Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him." His body was made immortal, incorruptible, and glorified, without going through the change of death; and it was not to be found by his friends, that it might have the rite of burial, because God had translated it into heaven. "And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it." It was a visible translation. Elijah took his body with him, which, in form and appearance, was the same as that in which he wandered about on earth, for Elisha saw it go up. Where that body now is, there must be a local heaven, and it must be as material and tangible as the body for whose activities it is the platform.

The Saviour took with him into heaven a visible, tangible, material body. When he appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, and consequently in his resurrection body, they were terrified and affrighted, supposing him to be a spirit; but he said, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he

showed them his hands and his feet." Luke xxiv. See This he said to convince them that

also John xx. 29. he was not a spirit. He appeals first to their sight, "Behold my hands and my feet," then to their sense of touch, "Handle me, and see." In order to convince them still more fully that his resurrection body was a real human body, he did eat before them a "piece of broiled fish, and of a honey-comb." Soon afterwards, when he had given them satisfactory evidence that he was not a phantom, but the real and true human Christ, "he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.” He was visible to them "while they looked steadfastly towards heaven as he went up," until a cloud received him out of their sight. We are told also, that this same Jesus shall come again in like manner as he was seen going up. (Acts i. 11.) He has not, therefore, laid aside his human body, and become an invisible spirit, but he retains it, and will come in it when he shall come to judge the world. The same Jesus who died and rose is also in heaven now at God's right hand. There he is visible and occupies a place. There we expect to see him as he is;" we shall look upon him as the disciples looked upon him while he stood, sat, or moved in their midst. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom 1 shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold him, and not another." Where Christ's body is, there must be a material heaven.

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It is sometimes objected that saints will not have