But these sentiments, however calculated to fill irreligious persons with dread and melancholy, can produce no despondency in those who, like Anna, are accustomed to the truths of religion, and derive the chief pleasure both of their youthful and decrepit age from the services of religion. With regard to death itself they are taught that his power is limited to the body, and that it is restricted even to a short period over this inferior part of our nature; and as to its consequences, they cannot incessantly frequent the temple, and be occupied in devotion, without learning the value, as well as the reality, of those considerations which are drawn from eternity. They know that "this corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal put on immortality," and that then "there shall be no more death." And what do these expressions imply, but, the entire renovation of our nature?--Man is mortal, because he is sinful; and, consequently, the removal of sin will prove the extinction of death. It is only by the introduction of moral evil that the earth has been converted into a vast cemetery, and life become a short and rugged passage to the sepulchre; but when it shall no longer prevail, our sanctified nature will inherit the abodes of purity and undecaying existence. It is this consideration which endears celestial felicity. Exemption from death implies deliverance from sin, and the Christian wishes to possess a character which God shall approve, and to be cleansed from those stains of guilt which infect his present being, and render him offensive to his Father in heaven. Were he destined always to be unholy, he would scarcely contemplate immortality as a blessing; but because he has reason to anticipate "a waking" from the sleep of the grave, in the divine "likeness," he realizes a period in the bright annals of his future being, when he shall no longer have occasion to exclaim, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The pains of separation, too, which afflict this mortal state, cannot exist in that "better country." Society will unquestionably prove one considerable source of the happiness of heaven, where immortal beings will be so circumstanced and capacitated, as both to receive and impart enjoyment. The very nature of man is constituted social; and though our circumstances in this life often render temporary separations unavoidable, in a perfect state of society they must be needless; consequently they will not be suffered to impair the joys of paradise.
The most afflictive of all separations, is that which is occasioned by death. In all other cases, a lingering hope may exist of a reunion at some period however distant; at least the possibility of it is cheering: but, even if there be no reasonable expectation of this, the very consciousness that our friend is still alive, still on earth, still capable of receiving and performing acts of kindness, still able to communicate with us by letter or by message, to participate our pleasures, to sympathize with our sorrows, and to pray for our welfare, is consoling in every vicissitude;--but when death sets his awful seal upon our companion, relative or friend, we cherish a deeper feeling of grief, and cannot look to any earthly means of consolation--but we can look to a heavenly one! Whatever resource fails, the religion of the Bible supplies inexhaustible springs of comfort. God is on high--Jesus "ever lives"--Christians know they shall soon pass into a world where the happy circle will never be broken, the communion of kindred spirits never cease, the day of blessedness never decline, the sabbath of immortality never terminate.
It is in the temple also, that those who like Anna receive just impressions from its services, and live in a state of holy intercourse with God, learn to appreciate the capacities of a spiritual mind for progression in wisdom and felicity, and by consequence to cherish the noblest anticipations of their own future possible elevation of character. How many unfinished schemes are frustrated by death! Our plans of futurity, our purposes of gain, or our resolves of usefulness, may be ended in one short hour. Here the labours of the industrious, the studies of the learned, the investigations of the philosopher, and the career of the pious, close. The grave silences the voice of the preacher, and paralyzes the hand of the charitable. Here the arguments of a Paul end--here the silver tongue of an Apollos is speechless--here the hands of a Dorcas cease to manufacture for the poor, whose unavailing tears cannot recall departed piety.
But who will define the limits of possible attainment in knowledge and excellence in a state of deathless existence? Society is always improving, even in the present world, amidst all its imperfections. The researches of past ages have transmitted a vast stock of wisdom to their successors, both in reference to natural science and religious truth. Who can tell what discoveries a Newton might have made, had he possessed a terrestrial immortality? or who can conceive what heights and depths of divine knowledge might have been disclosed, had the apostles of Christ been permitted to live to the present period, and had it been the will of God that they should have received a constant succession of revelations?
In both these cases, not only has death terminated this series of bright discovery, but this earth is not the destined place, nor time the destined period, for those manifestations of eternal wisdom, which we have reason to believe will take place in another world. Those impediments to knowledge, and those reasons for concealment, which at present exist, will be removed, and truth open all her treasures to immortalized and sanctified spirits. The consequence of the progressive disclosure of spiritual things, of the works and ways of God, will be progressive improvement: and, as in consequence of the clearer development of truth in the Gospel, "he who is least in the kingdom of heaven, is greater than John the Baptist;" so when all the shadows and clouds that bedim our present existence shall have disappeared, and a ray of heaven pours its glorious illumination upon the mysteries of time, the least in the paradise of God will be greater than the most distinguished in his church on earth. And as we never shall cease to improve in knowledge--for there will be no termination to our spiritual researches--there will probably arrive a period in eternity, when he who at the resurrection will be least in the heavenly world in capacity and glory, will become greater in consequence of ever new discoveries, than at that moment will be the greatest of the redeemed universe. And the meanest Christian on earth may indulge the hope that, at a future age, even he may become superior in knowledge, in love, in capacity, and in glory, to what the brightest seraph or the tallest archangel, is at present in the heaven of heavens; for who can tell what God may do for beatified souls? who dare limit the operations of his mercy, or who can imagine to what an elevation of wisdom and felicity an emparadised believer may attain?
Progression is the law of a thinking being. And why should it not operate upon holy intelligences in the future state, as well as in the present? and why not when "there shall be no more death," to an incalculably greater extent? Why should not every new idea acquired in that world become a seed of truth in the mind, that shall spring up and bear fruit, multiply and expand, without restriction and without end?--
There is not in religion a nobler or a more animating sentiment, than this perpetual advancement of the soul towards perfection. Life has its maturity and decline, nature its boundaries of beauty, human affairs their zenith of glory; but, in "the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness," every thing will be eternally upon the advance--there will be no end to the path of knowledge--present acquisitions will be the basis of subsequent acquirements--we shall be continually outshining ourselves, by making nearer approaches to infinite goodness--and the whole moral creation will be forever beautifying in the eyes of God.
The Woman of Samaria.
Chapter IV.
Account of Christ's Journey through Samaria--he arrives at Jacob's Well--enters into conversation with a Woman of the Country--her Misapprehensions--the Discovery of his Character to her as a Prophet--her Convictions--her Admission of his Claim as the true Messiah, which she reports in the City--the great and good Effect--Reflections.