of their joy and glory at the coming of the great day!

Walking in reverent caution, but with the sure Word of God in our hands, more than this we dare not, less than this we cannot say. And we "speak to each other softly of our hope" in Christ, for all those who have fallen asleep in Him.

35

LECTURE III.

CONDITIONS OF MEN IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them." REV. xiv. 13.

IN resuming the subject with which we have been

concerned of late, after an interval, it is necessary to say a few words as to the point which we have, so far, reached, and to recapitulate the arguments which have been adduced.

We saw, then, that we have a certain warrant in Holy Scripture, from the words of our Lord to the penitent thief upon the Cross, and from the expressions used by St. Paul, for thinking that the spirit of man exists in a state of consciousness, when separated from the body, during the interval between death and the resurrection. And we saw that our Church echoes most distinctly this point, when conveying to the mourners in the Burial Service the expression of her consolation and hope; although she has withdrawn the Article once proposed with

reference to this subject, as not wishing to enforce her view on the conscience of any as a matter of necessary belief.

Strictly speaking, we have only been engaged, so far, with the simple question as to whether Holy Scripture does, or does not, teach that the spirit continues to exist in consciousness after death, in a separate, disembodied state.

But it was impossible to avoid anticipating in some measure the further question, which comes before us more expressly to-day, as to what is disclosed to us with regard to the condition of the spirit in the intermediate state.

We saw that the spirits of the righteous may reasonably be supposed to have passed into their Sabbath of needful rest, without which man's busy week-day of his life of discipline and probation would be sadly incomplete. They have gained a glorious compensation for their long period of distraction, arising from earthly cares and duties and relations, which it requires a strong effort of the will to spiritualize, so as to fulfil the spirit of the Apostolic injunction that "Whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we do," we should "do all to the glory of God." They rest now from their labours and their trials. Their life is inward now, whereas it was to a great extent outward before,*-a life, as it is expressed by Isaac * From Heard, p. 278.

Taylor, of "an intense consciousness of its own moral condition.' They are withdrawn from the dangers springing from what Scripture speaks of as "the flesh" within, our own nature so far as it is not renewed by the Holy Spirit of God;-from the attraction of "the world" without, with its fleeting and delusive pomp;-and from the spiritual influences of the Evil One, who is represented to us "as going about continually," with his secret malignant influence, "seeking whom he may devour." And to be thus conditioned is, in itself, we feel, to be in a state of greater fitness to receive Divine communications, which it is implied, perhaps, will be vouchsafed, when it is declared that the spirit is "with Christ," in greater nearness to its Lord, brought more within the range of the light and the warmth which flow forth to the spirit from its Spiritual Sun.

Equally intensified too, we cannot but suppose, must be the misery of those who have lived in persistent rebellion against the known will of God, when they have passed from the scene of earthly pleasures, interests, cares, and are severed from bodily powers and senses,-all which things served to divert the mind for a time, and hid the great realities of the spiritual realm from their view. And now the spirit is set free to see itself in its true state, more or less, as it is in the sight of an AllHoly God.

We are not to expect-according to the principles of the inquiry which I ventured to lay down at the first—any very distinct disclosure in Holy Scripture of the condition of the spirits of men in the intermediate state. Our Lord, it will be noticed, does not refer to it directly in His teaching at all. He only speaks of "Paradise" to the penitent thief, meeting, no doubt, mercifully his wants and his capabilities, and supplying him with the needful support which the word would convey to his mind. And St. Paul, who was caught up to the "third Heaven," to enjoy (as the expression may, perhaps, mean) a vision of God, and taken into " Paradise," to witness, it may be, the bliss of the spirits in their rest together there, this being, probably, granted him, to encourage him amid the difficulties and disappointments of his work on earth,-expressly declares that it was not allowed to man, perhaps that it was not in the power of man, to show what was thus revealed to his spiritual view.* Our Lord, we may well suppose, would not speak much, -would not have His Apostles speak much,-of the spirit world, as knowing the sensuous thoughts attaching to the idea of it in the minds of Jews and heathens alike at that time. It is on the duties of life here—on faith, and purity, and holiness, and love, now in this present time (as was said before),

* ἃ οὐκ ἐξὸν ἀνθρώπῳ λαλῆσαι. 2 Cor. xii. 4.