The Future States. THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. HUMAN philosophy, (says Bishop Courtenay,) both natural and moral, has been proved by experience as unable to approach the truths revealed in Scripture concerning the Day of Judgment, as to decide the fate of a disembodied soul. It can indeed, furnish some reasons for conjecturing that our present earth shall finally be broken up and ruined, if not actually annihilated. (See pages 193-194.) But that all shall be together abolished, that one period shall be the fulness of time for all, is contrary to every anticipation. "The day of the Lord," nevertheless, shall come as a thief in the night, suddenly as the deluge; and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and all things being on fire, shall be dissolved; the earth and heavens shall flee away before the face of God, and no place be found for them. So it is written, so it is decreed. * * * * * The principles upon which judgment shall be executed on the "Dreadful Day," are yet more remote from human conjectures than is the universality of the judgment. That our earth and all visible worlds shall on one and the same day be abolished utterly; that nevertheless the human race, even all in whose nostrils has ever been the breath of life, shall in bodily form survive that awful period; that new heavens and a new earth shall be created, not to be destroyed, but to endure for all eternity; these are truths which, one and all, baffle the researches and should humiliate the pride of human philosophy. But it is a still greater wonder, (an apparent evil, too, more extensive and more desperate than any which philosophy can detect; and which in all our inquiries concerning the origin of evil should be carefully kept in sight,) that a few only of mankind shall rejoice in the restitution of all things; a few only shall receive the gift of eternal life; while the many, not being rescued by the Redeemer from their natural fate, shall go away into eternal punishment, and suffer a second death. On this subject of future punishment, both as regards its duration, and the number of those to whom it will be awarded, God's Revelation far surpasses our conjectures. For His dealings with man partake of His own infinity. No moral reasonings, no alarm of a guilty conscience, could enable a heart unvisited by the grace of God to draw so broad a line of distinction, to divide the human race into classes so unequal in amount, and whose destinies should differ infinitely. The actual extent of human depravity and guilt, and consequently, the severity of punishment, would not have been known, but for Revelation. That all had so far erred, and altogether become abominable, that a superhuman sacrifice was necessary to atone for their guilt, and a supernatural impulse upon their hearts to enable them to please God, are truths beyond reason, yet on which turns the whole history of man, present and future; and by which alone can be explained the wide distinction which shall be made hereafter. With God there shall be no neutrality, for man no middle state, less blissful than heaven, more tolerable than hell; for none shall be accepted but through the Redeemer: for the rest remains only "a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation." 66 Cowley, in his Pindaric Ode-The Resurrection-draws this fearful picture of the Last Great Day. After telling us that Virgil shall see the whole World burnt to ashes like Troy, he proceeds: Whom Thunder's dismal noise * And all that Prophets and Apostles louder spake, And all the creatures' plain conspiring voice Could not, whilst they liv'd, awake, This mightier sound shall make When dead t' arise And open tombs, and open eyes, To the long sluggards of five thousand years.+ Some from Birds, from Fishes some, *The Poet notes: "No natural effect gives such impressions of Divine fear as Thunder; as we may see by the examples of some wicked Emperors, who though they were atheists, and made themselves gods, yet confessed a greater Divine power when they heard it, by trembling and hiding themselves. And Lucretius speaks it of Epicurus, as a thing extraordinary and peculiar of him, that the very sound of Thunder did not make him superstitious. Yet the Prophets and Apostles' voice is truly termed louder; for, as St. Paul says, the Voice of the Gospel was heard over all the habitable world." The ordinary traditional opinion is, that the World is to last six thousand years, and that the seventh thousand is to be the Rest or Sabbath of thousands: but I could not say sluggards of six thousand years, "because some of them would be found alive who had not so much as slept at all. The next perfect number, (and verse will admit of no broken ones,) was five thousand." By this license, however, the World loses one thousand years! The Happiness of Heaven. Some from Earth, and some from Seas, And where th' attending soul naked and shivering stands As dispers'd soldiers at the trumpet's call Haste to their colours all. Unhappy most, like tortur'd men, Their joints new set, to be new rack't again. To mountains they for shelter pray, 219 The mountains shake, and run about no less confus'd than they. THE HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN. The Happiness of Heaven will be a happiness of vision and of knowledge; and we shall there pass from the weakness of our native ignorance, from the dark and twilight of our former notions into the broad light of an everlasting day-a day which shall leave nothing undiscovered to us, which can be fit for us to know. Reason being then unclogged from the body, shall have its full flight, and a free, uncontrolled passage into all things intelligible. We shall then surmount those beggarly rudiments and mean helps of knowledge, which now by many little steps gradually raise us to some short speculation of the nature of things; our knowledge shall be then intuitive and above discourse, not proceeding by a long circuit of antecedents and consequents, as now, in the vale of imperfection, it is forced to do; but it shall then fully inform the whole mind, and take in the whole object, by one single and substantial act. Again, we are told, that in a future and a higher state of existence, the chief occupation of the blessed is that of praising and worshipping the Almighty. But is not the contemplation of the great works of the Creator, and the study of the ordinances of the great Lawgiver of the universe, in itself an act of praise and adoration? and if so, may not one at least of the sources of happiness which we are promised in a future state of existenceone of the rewards for a single and reverential pursuit after truth in our present state of trial,-consist in a development of our faculties, and in the power of comprehending those laws and provisions of Nature with which our finite reason does not enable us at present to become cognisant? The Recognition of each other by the Blessed. EVIDENCES OF THE RECOGNITION. BISHOP KING, in a poem entitled the Erequy, (17th century,) thus apostrophises the person whose departure from this life was the occasion of the composition: Never shall I Be so much blessed as to descry After some intervening passages, the poem concludes thus: With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive Till we shall meet and never part. These quaint lines exemplify an opinion which prevails very generally among Christians: namely, that in the future state of happiness of the blessed, they who have known and loved each other in this world will be the subjects of mutual recognition, and will be re-united and associated with each other, and contribute to each other's delight in that condition of perpetual blessedness. Bishop Mant observes that very little is said in Holy Writ, which can be judged to bear directly upon this subject; but, in the absence of this specific testimony, he does not desire to discredit the opinion, since it is calculated to enhance the innocent delights, and to alleviate the unavoidable sufferings of this present life; and to improve us in virtue, as well as to further our consolation and enjoyment. Scripture does not contain anything that militates against the opinion; but on the contrary, makes it ghly probable. The Recognition of each other by the Blessed. 221 Under the Old Testament, comfort was derived from the persuasion, that in a future life a re-union would be effected of those ties of affection which had been severed in this life. In what affecting language David explains the motives of his conduct, first during the illness, and then after the death, of his child: "While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." (2 Sam. xii. 23.) From his own explicit avowals, David comforted himself with the assurance, that the child whom God had taken from him in this life, he would restore o him in the life to come. From several passages in the Epistles, Dr. Mant derives a very considerable probability that St. Paul anticipated on the last day a personal knowledge of those on his part, and a personal re-union with them, with whom he had been connected in this life by the ties of personal offices and kind affection. That the recognition would be mutual, seems to be a matter of course. And it may, Dr. Mant apprehends, be further assumed, that the same faculty of recognition which would exist at the "day of Christ," and the commencement of the future state of existence, would be perpetuated during its continuance; and that a faculty which should be allowed to St. Paul, and to those with whom he was thus connected, would not be withholden from others, who had stood in relations of mutual attachment and endearment whilst on earth. The language of our Lord with reference to the Day of Judgment also renders this recognition of each other extremely probable. The Transfiguration of our Saviour, as recorded by St. Matthew xvii. and St. Mark ix. is not only proof of this recognition. Moses and Elias were talking with Jesus. Moses and Elias must then have been alive: not two unknown but two specific persons. It cannot properly be said that "Peter and James, and John his brother," the disciples present, recognised those whom they had never known in life; but the identity of Moses and Elias is declared, and that of course involves the question of recognition. Again, in the parable of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom,* and the rich man in torment, identity of persons, and recognition after death, are presented to us as facts in the understood order of Providence. That these are indeed the facts, may be clearly comprehended also from the definite and distinctive position of man in the sight of God. "Fear not, I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name." (Is. Alluding to the custom of those days, when men reclined at length, side by side, at their feasts, instead of sitting. Thus, also, St. John is described as "leaning on Jesus's bosom," at the last supper. |