Our identity is in our intellectual and cordal receptivity; our joy in the character and measure of this. Treas- "How canst Thou brook his foolishness? Why, he'll not lose a cup of drink for Thee. Bid him but temper his excess; Not he he knows where he can better be, As he will swear, Than to serve Thee in fear." HERBERT. "THIS day my brother has been five years absent from the body and present with the Lord, and knows more, and loves more, than all earthly saints together." Stay a moment, Robert. None that knew David M'Cheyne will doubt that he is now in heaven; nor will those who believe the Bible deny that "to die is gain," or question that his present are greatly superior to his former circumstances. But the assertion that "he knows more, and loves more, than all earthly saints together" wants authority. 66 Nay, but I think it is an authorized conclusion. Is not heaven described as a glorious inheritance; as a world of light and of knowledge; as containing the throne of God and the Lamb; and as having no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lights it, and the Lamb is the light thereof?" Undoubtedly, all this is true; and David M'Cheyne's condition is immeasurably improved. He has access to the Source of light and love, no longer subject to the impediments and disabilities of humanity. His knowledge and his love are pure. Your first remark opened a question as to the measure of knowledge and of love in heaven, -a practical and most important question. "But, can you doubt that attainments made in heaven are incomparably superior to those made here?" I do not doubt it, in the least. But your remark implied far more than this; namely, that death immediately raises each Christian not only to heaven, but to an eminence, in knowledge and in love, so great as quite to annihilate all comparison of saints on earth with saints in heaven. Let us suppose that Elijah, Daniel, Paul, and John, were now living; and for David M'Cheyne we will substitute some believer of feeble faith, small intelligence, indolent habits, and "a constitution of soft, yielding, treacherous debility," five years ago departed to heaven. Our supposition is of a true Christian, though a feeble one. Would you venture the assertion, He now knows more, and loves more, than Elijah, Daniel, Paul, John, and all earthly saints together? In one particular Death is the great leveller; he brings all men to the grave; he ushers each and every one, by the same portal, into the spiritual state; but here his functions cease. He has no voice in the distribution of rewards; the Father hath kept these in his own power, and they will be given to those for whom they are prepared by him. For us the grave question is, Upon what principles does the preparation of the Father proceed? The prevailing notion appears to be, that even though men make shipwreck of life, and though trained swimmers may get some advantage in fording the Jordan of death, yet, for the rest, it will so turn out that-some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, like Paul and his fellows at Melita - they will all escape safe to land, and that God will then pour out his gifts on all, with lavish and indiscriminate munificence. Where is the warrant for such a notion as this? It is at war with good sense, reason, and revelation. It supposes God to have no preference, and man to have no motive for one kind of life rather than another. The unchanging characteristics of God, as he himself has revealed them. to us, are arrayed in opposition to every such notion. But the notion goes further, and assumes that to shuffle off this mortal coil is all that is required to admit any true believer to the triumphal chariot with horses of fire, in which he shall traverse the heavenly plains with the speed of light, rushing on to knowledge and to glory at a rate reducing all earthly acquisitions to utter insignificance. Let this notion become truth, and it annihilates God's distinctive characteristics. His counsels from the beginning of the Bible to the end of it are to this effect: Take heed; beware; watch and pray; keep thy heart with all diligence; even the righteous shall scarcely be saved. He exhibits the highest standard, perfect conformity to himself; and warns every Christian to take heed lest he fall short of it. |