The Evil One often makes bad men think that wicked actions will not be punished; and then confirms them in iniquity through despair that amendment will be graced with pardon. Whatever we make our permanent character, that will continue. Those who stifle the moral sense, who do not rightly conform to natural and spiritual laws, will find themselves in appropriate surroundings. Every man will have that place and part in the future for which he has fitted himself. He who has not wilfully and utterly ruined his nature, who has not possessed due power, knowledge, opportunity, will be dealt with according to that he had, not according to that which he had not. To ensure that good which is hoped for, there must be action now on a present right resolve— "Each deed That carried shame and wrong shall be the sting The Spanish Gipsy. The opponents of Revealed Religion represent these transactions and processes as unnatural, and unreal, for which we have no proof in our present existence. They are utterly wrong; the same, or analogous processes, originate and sustain all that is in the world-material and immaterial. In matter are many inner processes of which we cannot unravel the secret, but trace the result in the ceaseless change of substance. There are transformations by which we have earths, metals, crystals, plants, animals, men. Not to mention that process of forming stone in some of the plants; there is another in the sleeping caterpillar by which the life, that has become another life, clothes itself with the colours and beauty of the rainbow. There are also transitions in every part of the organic system, from beginning to end. That speck, spot, spark of life, the germ which dies when it makes anything to live; lives on by transition of its life into the continual quickening of dead substance to form living bodies. Every outward act is by an inward process, and every inward process is by a yet more secret principle. We are sure that our character, whether we are bad or good, takes permanent form little by little, even as our bodies; and that this form is produced by the action of organic and other forces. The transition of things has been expressed in a low form— "The horseman serves the horse, The neatherd serves the neat, The merchant serves the purse, The eater serves his meat, 'Tis the day of the chattel." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ode. All earthly relations partake of that mysteriousness which binds whatever is to something else. The heroism of any living man has had some representation in a noble part of his near or distant ancestors, and will have some corresponding excellence in the life of one yet to come. The gout, the insanity, the physical and moral taint in the living, came, for the most part, from the dead; and, unless heed is taken, will be a living torment in children that are not yet alive. There is a continual physical, mental, moral transition : "Day and night, day and night, Dawn and darkness, gloom and light, On, still on, with measured tread, Over living, over dead." J. W. Roe. A most important matter to be remembered is that old things do not wholly pass away before the new begin. The seed sown in the ground does not die till the new life takes shape; all children are the fruit of a germ from the living. We cannot tell where matter ends, nor where spirit begins. There is a 'gradual and universal transition and transformation, by which supernatural energy makes natural things; then, not less slowly, passing through progressive grades, the natural re-enters the supernatural, many things having been added to it. Take example and proof. The Incarnation of our Saviour, decreed before the foundation of the world, was in preparation during the whole history of man. Adam the first was the seed-corn of Adam the second. In Adam's dying, Christ, as Saviour, began to live. Adam did not die until the potentiality of Christ's human nature was so planted in our nature by Divine Grace and Promise, that the birth of the Second Man, the Lord of life, was assured. "What Adam had, and forfeited for all; Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall." George Herbert, The Holdfast. This continuous universal process, by which low things are pervaded by the high, becomes particular, as to individuals; and definite, as to time. There was a precise moment when human nature, by operation of the Holy Ghost, was assumed; and the Son of God became the Seed of the Woman. There is a moment when the human heart and mind, by spiritual act, pass from the natural to the spiritual state, from death to life. Our Lord, in the flesh, as a Man, and as a saving Man, grew in wisdom and power (Luke ii. 52; Heb. v. 8, 9). We, like Him, being born of the Spirit, receive power to become sons of God (John i. 14); and participate in the Divine fulness (Eph. iii. 19). The Supernatural is not only a universal creating influence, it is specific and individualistic. It is not vaguely general, as indeterminate force; it is personality, the highest known symbol of the Divine Entity. Hence we know that the translation of Enoch and Elijah was into a place, and nearness to the Source of blessing. The Ascension of Jesus was to a centre of dominion; and the Human Form of Godhead not only revealed the Personality of the Eternal, but made known that we, as persons, are to know and possess a rule, only limited by Him who is infinite and eternal. The earthly dominion of the natural man is a figure of . heavenly dominion by the spiritual man. The glorified state and the degraded state are each twofold. The spirit, having done well, will be adorned with the glorified form of the body it so nobly disciplined; or, not having done well, will be clothed with the body of shame and inaptitude. The body, enlivened with the beatitudes of heavenly corporeity, will ever and ever add to the spirit's blessedness. The condemned body will be the degraded and degrading companion of the spirit in grief beyond any former grief. We are to regard the perfected spiritual man as of the noblest order amongst finite creatures, and fitted to highest services (I Cor. vi. 2, 3). He will be so assimilated to the world as to be percipient of all the properties of matter, and capable of whatever pleasures are proper to angels and glorified men. The complement of every faculty will be in symmetry with the utmost range of mind. The blissful amalgamation of a substantial essence of an individual spirit in one indissoluble union, so far as we can judge, affords highest means of life, of happiness, of service, of honour. The brightness and beauty of the new creation, in its contrasts and agreements, in its glowing effulgence, in its sweets, perfumes, melodies, harmonies, will give definiteness to the spirit's joys, in rich outwardness and in full inwardness; in such manner that whatever was good, in nature and in the natural man, is possessed; and, thereto, all other things are added. The sum of what we reason for is: the natural body is originated and shaped by the morphological power of life. The spiritual body, so far as Christians are concerned, is originated and built up by that power which enables us to become the sons of God; and, as new creatures, pass to high estate (1 Cor. ii. 12-14; 2 Cor. v. 6, 7). We consider that after death, in the intermediate state, this spiritual man is made able to assume the more substantial corporeity of the glorified man. Our body is now the shadow of the soul; our glorified body will be the lamp of our soul-a lamp of very beautiful fashioning. Now, a noble soul may dwell in a mean body all this will be changed; we shall not only be ourselves, but seem ourselves. The obedient shadow fails not to present Whatever varying passion moves within us." Dante, Purgatorio, xxv. 91. |