how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." Acts xx. 31, 34, 35.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PLEASURES OF THE HEAVENLY STATE.

MANY of the descriptions given us by the inspired writers, of the glory and happiness of heaven, present to our regard an assemblage of metaphors, at once distinguished by beauty and by force, and equally adapted to enchant the imagination and to captivate the heart. On these figurative and symbolical representations, it is no less delightful to dwell in idea, than it is difficult to expatiate in language. They exhibit to our enraptured minds an aspect of boldness and of brilliancy which almost interdicts the efforts of the expositor. We feel that to expand would inevitably be to enfeeble, and that the attempt to elucidate would be, in effect, to darken the bright and beauteous emblems by words without knowledge. Were there then no descriptions of heavenly blessedness except such as are decidedly allegorical, the endeavour to discourse at length on the nature of that felicity would be in itself unwise, and in its result unsuccessful. But, thanks be to "the Spirit of wisdom and revelation," we have, in the sacred vol

ume, other representations of celestial happiness of a different character, and in a different form. Most interesting and instructive are those occasional intimations of the nature of its enjoyments, which we find interspersed throughout the book of God. These it should be our delight diligently to collect and to compare. They would be found to present to our minds materials of thought more copious by far than our previous anticipations; they would exhibit a richer variety, and a greater amplitude of information than we ever expected to obtain. Our conceptions of heavenly blessedness, instead of being vague. and indefinite, would become more distinct and impressive; it, would be less difficult and more pleasurable, to fix our minds upon this glorious subject, with the grasp of steadfast contemplation; and we should be brought under the power of additional incentives to seek, with impassioned ardour, glory, honour, and immortality. Let me then invite you to elevate your thoughts to the pleasures of the heavenly state; and may the Spirit of light and life illumine "what in us is dark; what is low, raise and support.'

Let me direct your thoughts,

I. To the glory of that world, which is to be the scene of future blessedness.

That it will be admirably adapted to impart delight to those for whose residence it is designed, we may be assured from the representations of the Lord Jesus Christ. "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all

the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matt. xxv. 31-34. The paradise, in which man was originally placed, was admirably adapted to every desire and every capacity of his corporeal constitution. The scenery around him surpassed in beauty every . poetic vision of Elysian fields. The ground produced, without the necessity of toil, an abundant supply of food. Innumerable diversities of colours, of odours, of flavours, and of sounds, were fitted to regale every sense, and to render every object conducive to delight. Characteristically different and incomparably superior may we suppose to be the happiness provided in the world above for disembodied spirits of the human race, and for angelić spirits never designed for a dwelling-place of flesh and blood. Vain would be, on our part, the attempt to conceive distinctly of a world adapted to orders of spiritual intelligences, whose modes of perception, and communication, and enjoyment, are perfectly independent of corporeal organs. But the world which is prepared for the future and eternal abode of the redeemed of our race, must be a

world adapted for the blessedness of glorified spirits, inhabiting glorified bodies. When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him; then shall the trumpet sound, and the dead shall be raised, incorruptible, and the living shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, since flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. It is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body. He who shall appear in his glory shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body. See 1 Cor. xv. All that partakes of the nature of imperfection, incumbrance, and impediment, shall be no more; and the body, now spiritual, shall be so constituted as to facilitate the activities and to heighten the enjoyments of the perfected spirit. How glorious then must be the world fitted to be an appropriate and adequate sphere of pleasurable existence to human beings, now bearing resemblance to angels, and even displaying, in all its unsullied purity, the moral image of their God!

On the Son of God devolved the mighty task both of preparing a world of blessedness for its destined inhabitants, and of preparing the inhabitants for the world of blessedness. Before paradise was lost, before Eden was planted, before the foundation of the world was laid, the wondrous plan of human redemption was formed and matured in the

counsels of heavenly wisdom and heavenly love. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.” Eph. i. 3, 4. Blessed be the Son of his love, who undertook the amazing and unrivalled work of rescuing from deserved perdition, a multitude which no man can number of our apostate race, and of preparing for them a world worthy of the resources he possessed, the expectations he excited, the love he displayed, and the sufferings he endured. When about to quit the world which had been the scene of his voluntary sorrows, he said to his disconsolate followers, "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John xiv. 2, 3. Who, my reader, can tell by what marvellous and unparalleled process of power, of wisdom, and of love, he is now engaged, in the regions of glory, in carrying forward to completeness that preparation! When I am directed to conceive of a course of preparation on the part of Him, by whom all things were called into existence; "who spake, and it was done; who commanded, and it stood fast," Psa. xxxiii. 9; my mind, is overwhelmed with the mingled emotions of astonishment and delight, and with rapturous anticipations would I be looking for that blessed hope, the glo