confirmation of which we owe to Revelation, we next seek to know in what manner the spirit lives: let us first observe, that human knowledge on the subject may be expressed in these brief words, "The souls of the just are already in the hands of God, and it is certain that their bodies will be raised, and again united to them by His almighty power."-Dr. Hammond.

Now it is to the first part of this sentence, The souls of the dead are already in the hands of

let him not mourn over it as if it were Socrates." So likewise, and in the same strain, does Cicero speak of death, as the glorious day when he shall go into the great assembly of spirits, and shall be gathered to the best and bravest of mankind who have died before him.

That the human mind should thus have arrived by philosophical deduction, assisted probably by tradition, however faint and remote, gathered from the Egyptians and running back centuries to Mosaic origin, is not here brought forward, as an evidence of truth; but as showing how gratefully sensible we should be, of the inestimable advantage enjoyed by the Christian over the Heathen world. That prospect of futurity, which was dimly perceived, and by the most learned only; the master minds of the Grecian and Roman empires; is in this our day brought home with joyful certainty, to the cottage door of the humblest and the poorest.

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Their philosophy which Plato, and after him, Cicero, define to be Scientia rerum Divinarum et humanarum cum causis," was a well conceived and pleasing Hypothesis; but vouchsafed to us are immutable truths, established on the sure evidence of the Bible, and which are open to all who have ears to hear, the unlearned and the learned.

God," that I would invite consideration, for I cannot but think, that much of the reluctance with which mankind look forward to death, arises from want of reflection, a too undefined belief, a vague apprehension, as to the state of our released spirit.

Had we no other guide than our own imperfect power of reasoning, we might, even thus, arrive at a calm conviction, that the Creator of the universe, whose mercy is over all His works, whether those works are a system of starry worlds, all revolving according to the law of a master hand, or the minutest insect invisible to the naked eye, but cared for in its formation not the less marvellously, would not leave man's immortal spirit "to be imprisoned in the viewless winds," or to wander, without object or destination, round the precincts of that grave, which contains the decaying form it once animated. We might be firmly assured, that while the body is resolving itself into its original dust, awaiting the day of its resurrection, the far more important and essential part of man, his soul, which cannot die, is not without its appointed home in a new state of existence, when its allotted career on earth is accomplished. And as regards

the nature of that appointed home, may not human reason go yet farther, without presumption, on a subject of such momentous interest, and say, shall He to whom a thousand years are as yesterday, and from whom no secrets are hid, shall He not judge wisely and mercifully for us at the hour of death, as in the great day of judgment, when all things are finished?

But the human mind is not left to exhaust itself. in conjecture. Blessed be God we have the sacred volume before us, and open to all of us, wherein we may seek the wisdom our better spirit craves. Not carelessly will we assume authority where it does not exist. The duty expected of us in weighing well, and with the full powers of the mind, the truths laid open to us in the Bible, has already been shewn. Let us now in like manner remember, that indifference to instruction given, is not more reprehensible, than the awful presumption, by which a single text is sometimes wrested to a purpose, and passages separated from their context, so as to assume a more convenient meaning, however contrary to the general harmony and design of divine precept. Those, for instance, which would excuse the necessity of works, as the

inseparable result of Christian faith, on the authority of St. Paul, when reproving the ceremonial observances of the "Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites; forgetting that "by its fruit is the good tree known," and who has said, "If ye love Me, keep My commandments." "Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."†

Thus cautioned, let us consult, first, St. Luke xxiii. 43. "Lord remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," (said unto Jesus, the penitent malefactor on the cross). "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise!' "'

What must mean so

What may this mean? direct and clear a promise? How read ye? To me it reads as a plain, simple, hopeful, blessed truth, not applicable to the individual sinner only, or having peculiar reference to times, or persons, but conveying to all, two distinct and important facts. First, that our departed spirit at once and immediately, "To day," enters into its new state

↑ Matt. vii. 21.

of existence; is carried to its destination, as Lazarus at his death, was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And, secondly, that such state of existence, such destination of the soul, is the result of, and determined by, God's foreknowledge or judgment, at the moment that earth ceases to be our dwelling place.

This is the unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from our Saviour's use of the word " 'Paradise," which in those days was understood to be the happy abode of departed spirits, contradistinguished from a place of punishment. And be it not forgotten that our Lord's instruction was always adapted to the understandings of His hearers in a remarkable degree.

Men to whom we look up, at the present day, as authority, on account of their learning and piety, concur in the same view of Paradise. "It is the region appropriated to good souls," writes Dr. Hales. The learned Parkhurst observes, that "Paradise is the blessed state of faithful souls between death and the resurrection. Such is the sense of Paradise in the New Testament." Dr. Whitby remarks-" Our Saviour must have used the word Paradise in the sense in which the Jews