lose their limbs, their organs of sense, and even the greatest part of their bodies, and yet remain the same living agents: so that we may infer, that they might lose the whole body and still exist the same.

The same may be inferred, if we consider our body as constituted of organs and instruments of perception and motion. Optical experiments show that we see with our eyes in the same sense as we see with glasses; both being instrumental in preparing objects for, and conveying them to the perceiving power. In dreams, we find we possess a latent power of perceiving sensible objects, in as strong and lively a manner, without our external organs of sense, as with them. So in regard to our power of moving or directing motion by will and choice; upon our losing a limb this active power remains unlessened: it can walk with an artificial leg. A man determines that he will look at such an object with a microscope, or if lame that he will walk to such a place with a staff a week hence. His eyes and his feet no more determine in these cases than the microscope and the staff. Thus our organs of sense and our limbs are certain instruments which the living persons ourselves make use of, and there is no probability that the alienation or dissolution of these instruments is the destruction of the perceiving and moving agent.

Our powers and capacities of reason, memory, and affection, are independent of the body; so that we have no ground to think that the dissolution of the body will be the destruction of those powers. In some diseases, persons the moment before death appear to be in the highest vigor of life. They discover apprehension, memory, reason, all entire; with the utmost force of affection; sense of a character of shame and honor; and of the highest mental enjoyments and sufferings, even to the last gasp.

Our capacity of happiness and misery makes the question of a future life of great importance, and the thought that our

happiness or misery depend upon our actions here adds to its importance. We see in the present state a system of rewards and punishments. Pleasure and pain are the consequences of our actions: and we are endowed by the Author of our nature with capacities of foreseeing these consequences. All we enjoy and a great part of what we suffer is put in our own power. We are to provide ourselves with and make use of that sustenance which He has appointed to preserve our lives, if we do not, they are not preserved. Some by the use of certain means have ease and quiet, while others will follow those ways the fruit of which they know beforehand by instruction, example, and experience, will be disgrace and poverty, and sickness and untimely death. The pain which we feel upon doing what tends to the destruction of our bodies, say, by wounding ourselves or by too near approaches to fire, are associated by the Author of Nature to prevent our doing what thus tends to our destruction; and show as plainly as by a voice from heaven, that, if we acted so, such pain should be inflicted upon us. Thus the whole analogy of nature agrees with the general doctrine of religion that God will reward and punish men for their actions.

Let us now examine the circumstances in the natural course of punishments at present, which are analogous to what religion teaches concerning a future and an eternal state of punishment. Punishments now often follow, or are inflicted in consequence of actions which procure present advantage, and are accompanied with much pleasure for instance, sickness and untimely death are the consequence of intemperance, though accompanied with the highest mirth and jollity; and these punishments are often much greater than the advantages or pleasures obtained by the actions. These punishments or miseries are often delayed a great while; sometimes till long after the actions occasioning them are forgotten; and after such delay, they often come suddenly, with violence and at once. The excuse of

the natural thoughtlessness of youth does not prevent the consequences of early rashness and folly; the success, happiness, or misery of the whole future life depend in a great degree upon the manner in which they pass their youth. We have seasons and opportunities for procuring advantages at certain times, which, if neglected, can never be recalled. If the husbandman lets his seed-time pass without sowing, the whole year is lost to him beyond recovery. Though men may sometimes retrieve their affairs, and recover health and character, there is a certain degree which, if exceeded, no reformation is of any avail; repentance is too late to relieve; poverty and sickness, remorse and anguish, infamy and death, the effects of their own doings, overwhelm them beyond possibility of remedy or escape.

These things are not accidental; but proceed from the general laws by which God governs the world in the natural course of His providence: and they are so analogous to what His word teaches us concerning the future punishment of the wicked, that both would naturally be expressed in the same words; "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me."1

There are many analogies in history to the teachings in the Word of God connecting the salvation of the righteous with the perdition of the wicked. The signal preservation of the Lord's people has generally been connected with the destruction of His enemies. It was thus when Noah and his household were saved, and the rest of the world were 'Prov. i. 24-31.

destroyed; when Lot and his family were saved, and Sodom and Gomorrah were burnt; when the Israelites were delivered and the Egyptians were drowned; when Mordecai and the Jews were preserved, while Haman and his followers were slain, etc. We are told that it will be so at the end of the world, when the saints shall be delivered and the nations gathered against them shall be destroyed by fire from heaven.' It will be so at the last day, when the great final separation shall take place, when the wicked "shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." "

2

Our Saviour often made use of the analogies of nature in his parables, especially in those describing the kingdom of heaven and the great harvest at the end of the world. The parable of the man who sowed good seed in his field, into which his enemy came and sowed tares, and the explanation of it, are full of instruction: "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of the world." Paul, likewise, in his description of the resurrection, refers to an analogy in nature. He uses a short method with the skeptical inquirer who asks, "How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.""

1 Rev. xx. 8, 9.

Matt. xiii. 24-30, 36-43.

2 Matt. xxv. 46.

4

1 Cor. xv. 35.

CHAPTER XLVI.

NEW MANIFESTATION OF GOD-THE GREATEST EVENT IN HISTORY-THE MOST WONDERFUL BEING-THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN-FOUNDATION OF A NEW UNIVERSAL KINGDOM.

THE

HE most wonderful, and by far the most important event in all history, was the coming of the "Creator of all things," the eternal Son of God, into the world his taking a human nature;2 joining it with his divine, and then, as the Messiah or Christ, suffering and dying to redeem and save a chosen people. It is the great fact of history: the key which opens history and enables us to understand it. Through it alone we learn the purposes and workings of Him who makes history: the past is explained, and the future is revealed to us. Take the life, sufferings, and death of the "Lamb of God," and their results, out of history, and it becomes to us a sealed book: as it is described by John in Revelation, "no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon:" until He who is "in the midst of the throne, a Lamb as it had been slain," omnipotent and omniscient, prevailed to open the book and to loose the seals thereof. In history, as well as in the way of salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ is the "Light of the world.""

Let us take a glance at the previous revelations of himself made by the Creator, and at the effects they had produced. During the four thousand years then past, God had been

1

3

1 John i. 3, 10; Col. i. 16, 17; Heb. i. 2, 10. 2 John i. 14; Phil. ii. 6, 7. John x. 15; Titus ii. 14; Rev. v. 9. 4 Rev. v. 3, 5, 6. 5 John viii. 12.