A FUTURE STATE.

Nor a few of the principal motives by which our Maker enforces his authority are drawn from the future; and not from a distant period of our present life, but from a life itself to come. Thus, as it is appointed to men once to die, so after death is the judgment, when every man shall receive according to his works, and the grand retribution of human conduct be accomplished. We are thus conducted at once to the sentiment that death is not the termination of our existence, but that there is a life beyond it; since, if it be not so, all such appeals are unintelligible and unreasonable.

Now the doctrine of a future state has been the subject of much cavil, and of occasional denial. Some have affirmed that there is no hereafter, and more have wished that there were none; while many consign the thought of it to regions of doubt and uncertainty, as one upon which nothing positive can be said, and to which no tangibility or impressiveness can be given, Let us take up the subject, therefore, and see whether it deserves thus easily to be thrown aside.

It needs scarcely be remarked, that a man who denies a future state sets himself in opposition to the general consent and belief of mankind. It is a fact that most, if not all nations, in all ages, have, in methods more or less disfigured by their own inventions, entertained such a belief; and it is difficult to conceive how such an idea should become so generally prevalent, unless founded in truth. Nor do we dwell on the strangeness of the denial; although it might be said, with great justice, that the denial of a future state is strange, since it exhibits a man renouncing his highest dignity, and his amplest prospects. When a man is told, that though he must shortly die, he may yet live, and shall live for ever, one would expect the tidings to be hailed with rapture; and if there be those who can find gratification in rejecting it, we can scarcely err in believing that it is chiefly because they apprehend a future existence would bring no happiness to them. Without dwelling, however, on

this topic, we come at once to the evidence afforded us by divine revelation, to which alone we must bow, as being autnoritative here, and to which we appeal, as "bringing life and immortality to light." What, then, is the testimony which the Scriptures bear, in relation to a future state?

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Here let us attend, in the first place, to the general evidence which the Scriptures afford of the existence of a different state of being from our own. And surely a decisive proof of this may be derived from the fact, that many of the motives which God has suggested to us are drawn from such a state. our Maker represents to us the joys and sorrows of another world, in order to influence our conduct in this, it is not only a natural but an inevitable conclusion, that the world of which he speaks is a reality, and not a fiction. To suppose that he would use, as motives, things which have no existence, would be to cast an awful imputation upon himself, and to reduce his word to the level of a fraud.

In addition to this, we have various instances on record, in which communication between the two worlds has actually taken place. Visitants from the invisible state have made their appearance on earth, with no inconsiderable frequency; and in conjunction with these ministering spirits, the Supreme Ruler of the world has occasionally honoured our world with special manifestations of his presence. Besides, beings from the visible world have been known to enter into that which is unseen. We do not refer to those who have died, and of whom the impugner of a future state might suppose that they had perished; but to those who have departed from the present state without dying. Such was the case with Enoch, who "was not, for God took him ;" and who was known at the time to have been taken to a different state of existence, as a testimony "that he pleased God:" such, also, was the case with Elijah, who was visibly trans ported from the earth by "a chariot of fire, and the horsemen thereof." The latter of these prophets subsequently appeared in this world, when he stood with our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of three of his disciples, on the mount of transfiguration. Now, upon the supposition that there is no other state of existence than the present, all this is perfectly unintelligible.

In connexion with these decisive evidences of the existence of a future state, it is important that we hear the Word of God on another point,—that death does not terminate the actual existence of man. The two favoured individuals to whom we have referred did not die; and it might be thought unfair to reason from these cases to those in which men endure the com

mon lot. But that in every case there is this transition into another state, we infer from Scriptural authority:-"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Eccles. xii. 7. That the spirit's returning to God who gave it imports its continued existence, appears from another passage in the same book (chap. iii. 21): "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" Here the "going downward to the earth" plainly denotes the extinction of the brute spirit, in opposition to the continued existence of the human. To the same point we may apply the argument drawn by our Lord from the customary phrase by which God is called the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; seeing that, as "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," it follows that they still live, while their bodies are in the grave. Decisive on the same point is the language of the apostle concerning his own anticipations:-"I have a desire to depart," says he, "and to be with Christ, which is far better." And again: "We are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; and willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord." That his sentiments on this subject did not apply only to himself, appears from his epistle to the Hebrews, in which he speaks generally of the "spirits of just men made perfect." Heb. xii. 23.

But while the Scriptures amply testify that the soul of man prolongs its existence in defiance of the stroke of death, it may be alleged that, at all events, the body is reduced to irrecoverable decay; and that man, as man, a compound of body and soul, can exist no more. Upon this point, therefore, let us hear a third time the oracles of God. "If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands." Job xiv. 14, 15. The plain reference of this passage is to the state of the body subsequently to its death; and its import is as plainly, that at the appointed time God will raise it from the dead. In the same book (chap. xix. 25, 26), we have the well-known words, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

This is the language of the Old Testament: let us now examine the New. The doctrine of the resurrection was expressly taught by our Lord: "This is the will of him that

sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." John vi. 40. "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John v. 28, 29. Those who denied the resurrection, Christ in his day reproved for their error, as “not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." The doctrine which he taught on this subject was illustrated by his deeds; for on more than one occasion, the dead were actually raised to life by his word. The same truth was at length exemplified in his own person, when he arose triumphantly from the tomb; and in the instances of the numerous sleeping saints who arose in conjunction with him, " and appeared unto many." We find the apostles inculcating this doctrine, amid the ridicule of the schools, and the threatenings of pain and death. At Athens, Paul "preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection;" though the men of boasted wisdom "mocked" at the tidings which “ this babbler” brought them: and when accused before Felix, he confessed his "hope toward God"-as allowed likewise by his adversaries-" that there should be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Acts xvii. 18; xxiv. 15. The evidence on this point may not be inappropriately concluded by referring to the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians; where the same apostle, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, most closely argues the question, and brings us to this conclusion:-"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive;" and then death, "the last enemy," shall be "swallowed up in victory."

Such, then, is the inspired testimony, that there is a state of being distinct from that which is at present ours; and that, notwithstanding death, there is a future life for us. What can be said to such evidence?

If it should be affirmed that the doctrine of a future state, had it been anciently received, should have been placed among the sanctions of the Mosaic law, we supply an answer: First, the fact that a future state was known in the very earliest ages is demonstrated by the translation of Enoch, intended, as it is declared to have been, for a testimony of God's approbation; for if he had been merely missed, and it had not been known

what had become of him, his removal could not have answered this purpose. The book of Job, also, which, as we have seen, distinctly contains the doctrine, proves it to have been held in later patriarchal times, and probably in the very age of Moses. Secondly, that the law of Moses, considered as a judicial law, should not be directly enforced by a reference to the future, was an arrangement in perfect harmony with the peculiar relation in which the Israelites stood to God. Jehovah, as the king of Israel, exercised over them an extraordinary providence, in rewarding obedience and punishing transgression by immediate and temporal blessings and calamities. By the nations around them, the present enjoyments, and all the varied events of life, were ascribed to idols; and the Israelites themselves were prone to idolatry. It was, therefore, of importance for their own sakes, as well as out of regard to the existing circumstances of mankind, to exhibit Jehovah as the sole distributor of every present good and evil. But the superiority of the true God could not be exhibited in the present world by a comparison of his power in the distribution of future and invisible rewards and punishments; it was necessary that the sanctions of the Jewish law should be drawn from rewards and penalties administered in the present state of existence. And when this superiority was once proved thus, it was easy to conclude that the same immutable Being would in a future world punish the obstinately rebellious, and bless his pardoned and sanctified people.

If it should be alleged that the Scriptural doctrine of a future state is contrary to reason and philosophy, (what poor guides are reason and philosophy in such a case!) we should unhesitatingly deny the assertion. Though reason and philosophy might not have been able to discover the fact, the doctrine of a future state, now it is discovered, is in perfect and delightful harmony with them: or if there be any contradiction, let it be pointed out. Let the impugner of this doctrine tell us, what evidence arises from his researches into the nature of matter and spirit, to convince him that the soul must die with the body, and cannot exist without it. If he does not believe that spirits do exist without bodies, his creed annihilates the whole race of angelic beings, and even God himself; and if other spirits can exist apart from matter, why not man's? If it were left to mere reason, and we did not know the fact, it might seem much more rational to doubt the conjunct existence of matter and spirit, than their separate existence; and much more easy to prove that a spirit could not act with a body, than that it could not act without one.