tions upon which it might be secured. We must turn then to the process by which the gospel brings out into active existence the noblest and purest traits of our nature, if we would know what is the most powerful means of impressing the soul with the certain reality of "the life which is to come." By delivering man from the defilements of sin, the gospel ennobles him, and this most effectually puts upon him the stamp of immortality: so that the bare suspicion that one thus ennobled by communion with God, and filled with divine aspirings, is to perish at death, is too revolting to be endured for a moment. It puts the doctrines of God's benevolence and justice, yea, of his very being, into the same vessel with the doctrine of a future retribution, so that if the latter be wrecked upon the shoals of unbelief, the former must be also. It calls upon the parent, the child, the friend, to believe and feel this truth, by appealing to the horror which chills the soul at the bare suggestion that the loved ones who are departed are utterly perished, and that nothing remains of them but the dust of their graves. It asks the the Christian believer, struggling with evil and longing for higher reaches in holiness, whether he can credit for a moment the belief that prayer and hope are chimeras. It summons us to the bed of death, where gleams of holy confidence in the future are seen shining through the chinks of the frail tabernacle; it takes us to the funeral pile of the martyr, and to the deep dungeons, and the dens, and caves of the earth, to behold the victims of injustice and cruelty which no HUMAN law could restrain nor punish; and surrounded by these witnesses, it leaves us to feel that the condition of perfectness now enjoyed by the "just," is not a less substantial reality, than this present condition of imperfection, in which they once "groaned, being burdened."

II. Let us now procced to consider the FOUNDATION of the heavenly perfectness of the spirits of just men into whose communion we are brought by the gospel.

This is sufficiently indicated by the word here employed to characterize them. They are called "JUST" men, a title which, when used in Scripture, has a much larger sense than when used in common speech. In the latter case, it indicates simply an adherence to the laws of equity between man and man, and he is called a "just" man who does not defraud nor injure in any way his fellowman. But the scriptural sense of this important word is, conformity to all the laws of God, and therefore it covers as well our duties to God, as those we owe to man. Moreover, in the duties we owe to man, it embraces as well the obligations of benevolence as those of strict equity. In this primary sense of the word "just,"

and its equivalent "righteous," those only can claim the appellation, whose works of piety toward God, and of benevolence and justicc toward man, are perfectly conformed to the two tables of the Law.

You will ask me, are there, have there ever been, any such upon earth? And the answer must be now, what it was in all former days (we give it in the language of the word of God), “there is not a just man upon earth, who doeth good and sinneth not; there is none just, (righteous) no, not one;" and our observation confirms the truth of the awful declaration. So that if a perfect personal conformity to the righteous Law of God be a necessary condition of the entrance of men into the company of heaven, we may again ask, who can hope for admission?

This view of the condition of all men, in the eye of God's Law, makes it indispensable to bring in that other sense of the word "JUST," which is known only in the word of God, and according to which it is synonymous with the word "JUSTIFIED." A believer can be called just only in this scriptural sense. He is a JUSTIFIED man, just by faith; declared "just" in the eye of the Law, not because he is so inherently, but by the gracious imputation to him of a justness (righteousness) not his own but another's, even Christ Jesus, the end of the Law for justness (righteousness) to every one that believeth. By the Divine grace the merit of the works and suffer. ings of the surety is counted to him for justness (righteousness) and on that account he is called and treated as "just" in the view of the Law.

You see then that the peculiar provisions of the Redemption plan, where justice and compassion join in their divinest forms, constitute the foundation of the heavenly perfection now enjoyed by the spirits of "just" men. For the truth of this view, (were we to undertake the duty of arguing it at length,) we should be obliged to refer you to the whole economy of God; to the gospel representations of the fall and ruin of man, and the distinct declaration that he is saved by grace, through the Redemption which is in Christ Jesus. We might (were it needful) show how this truth is involved in the glory of the cross how God set forth the Mediator to be a propitiatory sacrifice, for the express purpose of declaring his own "justness in the very act of remitting past sins, so that he might be "just in the act of justifying the ungodly who believe in Jesus. (Rom. iii. 20-31.) We will not, however, vindicate this truth from the sophisms of self-righteousness, for it is self-righteousness after all which underlies all the violent opposition which this "offence of the cross," has met with from moralism, and ritualism under various forms. If there be any here who still doubt that it is of such

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"just" souls that the general assembly and church of the firstborn is composed, we shall content ourselves with summoning themselves to testify. Hear their own lips renounce all reliance upon "their own righteousness: " bowing before the Throne, this is their doxology: "Unto him that loved us and hath washed us from our sins in his own blood, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever." Nor is this the doxology of a part only, but of all. Not one self-delivered soul, not one who does not count himself a monument of grace, can be found among all the children of the fall, who now are or ever will be part of that blessed company. Each one of them bears the name of "God and of the Lamb" upon his forehead, (Rev. xxii. 4 :) and will throughout eternity delight to ascribe every thrill of joy, every honor, every holy affection which enters into his perfectness, to "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

III. The NATURE of this perfectness next demands our notice.

1. Need I say that it is a HOLY perfection? In the economy of God's moral government, holiness is as necessary to a perfect condition, as heat is necessary to animal or vegetable life. The enjoy ments which are found disjoined from this moral purity, are factitious and perishable. Holiness is the crowning glory of God. This gives lustre to his power and knowledge. This makes Heaven. I know that men are not ready to take this view. In their eyes, Genius, Intelligence, Power, are the primary objects of attraction; but in the eyes of angels, Holiness transcends them all. Not insensible to the other glories of the Godhead, but more overwhelmed with the bright atmosphere of holy purity through which they view them, they are represented as crying continually, not "mighty AND wise art Thou," but "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty." And when we, my hearers, see all things through this medium, as the saints made perfect do, we too will sing thus. Oh! for such a faculty divine !" Let us pray for it, and strive to reach it. Why should we allow ourselves to be so governed by what is seen and felt by the outward sense-as if we belonged to the sensuous who could see nothing even in an angel, but the bloom upon his wings? The highest forms of material glory are less than the spiritual. What is a jewelled crown to the soul which shines through the eyes of him who wears it? What is an universe of material grandeur to one single spiritual essence in whom the intelligence and purity of God are reflected?

When upon earth those now perfect spirits longed for this chiefly; and could we now hear the holy Psalmist, we should find his song

praising the grace which had rewarded those aspirations which, while he was here below, proved him to be a child of God, as when he cried, "I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness." And the disciple whom Jesus loved, could we single out his voice from that choral harmony, we should find it one of thanksgiving for the fulfilment of the confidence he thus beautifully expressed, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God: but it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him."

2. The perfection we are called to contemplate is a perfection of intelligent activity. The most that has been disclosed concerning the heavenly state, is its holiness. But into the conception of holiness there necessarily enters the idea of enlarged knowledge and active service. Holiness is not simply a negative condition, it is indeed the negative of sin, but it is more; it is the spring of the soul, its balance-wheel, its inspiration, its vital atmosphere, and especially will it prove to be a fountain-head of inexhaustible energies, where it is complete, as it is in the saints made perfect. If, even now, its faintest dawnings in the form of godly sorrow for sin, and trembling faith in Christ rouses the sleeper from the apathy of sin, to the labors and self-denial of the narrow road of duty to God, how much more will he mount as upon eagles' wings, run and not be weary, walk and not faint, when there shall be no more sin to enfeeble his faculties!

They take a very feeble, not to say false, view of the state of perfection, who make repose the predominant thought in their conception of the heavenly world. Such a heaven is akin to that of the false prophet, a condition no higher in dignity than the harem which forms the Mussulman's earthly happiness. It is true that we know but little of the forms of activity which a beatified soul shall assume; but this we know, that knowledge is to be acquired, and that implies mental activity; moreover, if angelic beings are employed in active service, there is no reason, at least in the nature of things, why the spirits of just men made perfect may not be. Can any one conceive of Paul, or David, or Isaiah, as fallen into a passive state of self-enjoyment, which can scarcely escape the charge of sloth? No; there are no spiritual voluptuaries in Heaven. They live with a vastly increased energy, every moment furnishing new fields for their inquiries, and new calls upon their love and service. Mysteries of nature and grace are to be studied, past history unrolled and pondered, works of love mingling with direct offices of worship. All are busy in knowing, doing and adoring. All are tending forward and upward toward the Infinite in an inter

minable but unwearying approximation. Without jar, confusion, or hurry, the motion of the soul is the REPOSING motion of the eagle.

"Ye cannot see

The stirring of his wings, and yet he soars."

If now, the emphatic word, "rest," so often applied in Scripture to describe the heavenly state, seem to any inconsistent with these views of a constant activity, let us

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3. Consider HAPPINESS as part of the perfection of the spirits of just men. We feel as if it were better to be silent here; for who can describe that exceeding and eternal weight of glory? CONTRAST, is our only means of reaching any suitable conception of the greatness and pureness of the joy that animates every soul which forms one in that throng of the justified and perfected. Contrast, say: what this present world is, that heaven is not. Take the history of the present life is it not the history of a discipline, which involves fighting within and fears without? Exclude then from your present Christian experience all painful misgivings and doubts, all anxious watchings, all struggles with sin in its numerous forms of temptation, all battling with ourselves, the evil one, and a false-hearted world: all efforts to drag along the reluctant soul in the way of duty: take away all carking care about the future, all alternations of hope and disappointment: remove the idea of separation from beloved friends, who, when torn up from our side, like trees torn from the soil, leave a yearning void which cannot be refilled imagine all the pain and shame of persecution for Christ's sake, all sights and sounds of anguish which assail us from the crowded haunts of life, taken away from the experience of the Christian life, and nothing left but a holy residuum of elevating and unchecked communion with God and holy beings-and you can easily see how the promise of "rest" shall be made good to the people of God. It is rest from sin first, and then from sin-begotten sorrow, and trials which sin has made necessary, and toils which sin has made irksome. You can also easily perceive, how such rest, which thus enters necessarily into the happiness of the blessed, is by no means incompatible with the fact of a continued and happy activity. The hour which admitted the spirits of just men into it, was, to them, as the sunset of painful, and the sunrising of joyful labor. Their happiness consists in the divine harmony in which all objects and persons shall move in relation to each other, and around the central sun, like the bright orbs which fill the heavens, ceaselessly revolve in their appointed courses, yet in such harmonious order, that they seem to be in beautiful repose upon the bosom of immensity.