fectly clear that the souls of God's saints, when they die, do not at once enter into that eternal inheritance, that third and highest heaven, which, at the resurrection of the body, and the final triumph over death and hell, is in reserve for them. But it is evident likewise, by the most certain testimonies of scripture, that the dwelling place which God hath prepared for them is full of light and joy and blessedness! That therein is nothing that defileth, but only the company of the saints! That it is an abode of rest and peace! No storm there, no, not so much as a wave! And that, above all, there are such communications of Christ to them that dwell therein, that He is the great centre and joy of it; and the departure of the saints into this their intermediate abode, is emphatically being with Him!

And if these things be so, and if future life and future bliss be thus, in all its

stages, intermediate and final, inseparably

6

connected with Him, so that apart from Him they have no existence at all; how ought we to struggle to make sure our portion and eternal inheritance in Him? Out of Him we are miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked! In Him all things are ours, things present, and things to come, life and heaven and all the bliss which are contained therein! In Him is light and glory! Out of Him is darkness and ruin, and the worm that never dies, and the flame that never shall be quenched! And though he be now in his glory, angels and principalities and powers being made subject to Him, yet we must come to Him as though He were yet hanging upon the cross. The most glorious title of Christ glorified, is Christ crucified! And so, being crucified along with Him, and nailing upon the cross the sins that are within us, let us be made partakers of his death, that so, at last, we may be made partakers of his resurrec"Lord, remember me when thou

tion.

comest unto thy kingdom." "Verily I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Amen. Lord, so be it!

VOL. II.

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SERMON XI.

ACTS xvii. 31.-"Because He hath appointed a day in the which He shall judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He hath ordained. Whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised him from the dead."

THIS is the reason given by St. Paul why Almighty God had sent forth his messengers, proclaiming the gospel from one end of the world to the other, and commanding men every where to repent; and awful and sufficient reason we must confess it to be. Because a judgment had been ordained, solemn, searching, and unchangeable. A day, too, had been appointed on which to hold it, deeply con

cealed within the purposes of the Eternal, and of whose coming knoweth no man! And shortly come it will, as surely as God is God, truthful and unchanging; come overwhelmingly and suddenly as a thief in the night!

It was not, however, that this was utterly new to men, for conscience and the thoughts of the natural heart, for ever accusing or excusing one another, had, from the very first creation, foretold, dimly in its circumstances, yet surely and terribly in the thing itself, the certainty of a reckoning to come! The heart, of course, in its natural darkness, knew not when, knew not how, and knew not where the judgment which God had thus concealed would be? But in all heathen nations you find how deeply-rooted and awful was the conviction of it! And how fearful they thought the retribution would be in the fire and chains and darkness, and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, with which men garnished in their fables the