SERMON XXV – William Elbert Munsey
“NOW WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY.”
” For Now we see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face ; no* I know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”— i Cor. xiii. 12.
THE word translated in the text “glass ” in the original Greek means a mirror, which was made in those clays of metal and polished, not of glass, and compared with glass was an inferior reflector. Substitute the idea of a polished metallic mirror for that of a looking-glass, and we have the meaning and strength of the text. The text includes two antitheses, or anti-theses. “For now we see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face,” this is one : ” Now I know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I am known,” this is the second.
I. The first thesis of both antitheses, reads thus : Now we see through a glass, darkly-*ow I know in part.” Their sense is, that invisible, spiritual, and heavenly things, are ” now,” in this life with reference to us involved in the deep- est mystery. Approach the system of revealed religion. The very first truth which stands prominently upon its pages, as its central fact, Royal Head, the intelligent sensonum, is that tremendous and mysterious entity we call God— eternal in space, eternal in duration, a unity in its essence, a trinity in its personality, and infinite in its perfections.
Christianity is a mystery. A redemptive and compensa- tory scheme, bursting from the mind of God as His master- piece; bearing in artistic and resplendent delineation the symmetrical image of its perfect Author, meeting the de- mands of its moral law, satisfying the perfections of God, pardoning and purifying the sinner, readjusting the sundered and distracted relations of universal being, restoring the unity and equilibrium of God’s system, adapting itself to all peculiarities of mind, soul, nature, character, and condition of all men of all nations and ages, could not with relation to the human mind in this life, but be profoundly mysterious.
Experimental religion is a mystery. Christ could not explain so as to be understood by the carnal mind: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” You may have felt the happiness it imparts flash along the fibres of your spiritual nature like electric fire ; you may have felt it thrill your heart with the richest music, till you stood jubilant upon every tuneful string of a soul replete with harmony and instinct with bliss — but its nature, its mode of communica- tion, and attending phenomena, constituted a mystery at once incomprehensible and unutterable.
The portentous future is shrouded in mystery. We walk upon the verge of an awful darkness about which we know but little. O great future ! interminable, inconceiva- ble, unknown ! What are your employments, your joys, your mysteries ? We cannot cease to be, we do not want to be annihilated. God has kindled a star of future existence upon the rocky shores of time, and throwing back its beams it lightens up our journey. But what is beyond? Confound- ing and impenetrable darkness.
But let us discuss the topic deducible from the theses under consideration in its especial application to the system of revealed religion. The system of revealed religion has its mysteries — mysteries inexplicable and profound ; mys- teries whose depths no human mind can fathom, whose occult and intricate mazes no human eye can trace ; mys- teries upon the brink of which the soul pauses awe-stricken, as if brought up upon the verge of some fearful abyss ; mysteries within whose hallowed precincts we dare not ven- ture. The fiat of Jehovah has marked out the boundaries, and an irreversible decree flashes like the sentinel flames of Eden to guard what God claims as His own secrets. Be- cause the system of revealed religion has its mysteries, infidelity pronounces it false. The argument is that mystery is fatal to the very idea of a revelation — that mystery and rev- elation are contradictory terms.
Hear the following opposition arguments :
1. If that which the system of revealed religion professes to reveal is involved in a mystery, so that man, for whose benefit the revelation is intended, cannot possibly understand it, then the objection is valid. But what it professes to reveal is clear to every intelligent and enlightened mind. It professes to reveal facts, whose relations to infinity in many instances render the modes of their existence and production necessarily incomprehensible to us. Our minds are finite, therefore they are only capable of originating and entertaining finite ideas. The mind cannot originate an idea transcending in its nature, extent, and modifications its own powers ; neither can it entertain such an idea. It cannot comprehend an idea superior in its capacity to one it can originate. I know that few men ever tax their minds to their utmost capacity for original conception, but I repeat, the mind cannot comprehend an idea superior in its capacity to one it is able to originate. An attempt, therefore, upon the part of the system of revealed religion to reveal any mode of existence and causation which is related to the in- finite, and which cannot from that fact be understood by the mind, would be to introduce upon its pages a mystery of such a nature as actually to contradict its character as a revelation.
The mysteries of revealed religion are the mysteries of modes, not of facts ; but the revelations of revealed religion are the revelations of facts, not of modes. And there certainly is a distinction between mystery as to a fact, and mystery as to a mode : the fact of the existence of a God may be clear, but the mode of His existence is necessarily incom- prehensible to us. The reasons of all the mysteries of revealed religion are found in the relations of its facts, and the constitutional inability of the intellect to comprehend these relations. A moment’s reflection is sufficient to convince every man that the origin, nature, attributes, adjuncts, relations, subjects, designs, and ends of revealed religion are such, that its facts are compelled from necessity to stand related to the supernatural and infinite. If the objector admits this, and he is compelled to do so, then, let him urge the mysteries of revealed religion as an evidence of its falsity, and he is logically driven to the alternative that nothing is true that sustains any relation to the infinite, or that -the finite mind of man is equal in discovering and investigating power to all the difficulties involved in the nature and existence of any truth, however intimate in its relations to the Great Infinite it may be, either in being or principle. The objector must renounce his objection or he is necessarily impaled upon one of the horns of this logical dilemma.
2. Revealed religion contains a sufficiency to promote the ends for which it was intended, and that is enough. If the revelations of its facts, without the revelation of its modes, is sufficient to accomplish the salvation of man, the ostensible and positive design it was intended to effectuate, nothing more can be demanded of it in all reason. To require more would be as unreasonable as to require Geology to teach us Chemistry, Chemistry to teach us History, History to teach us Philology, 01 any one of them to teach us all the others, or whatever caprice and curiosity may deem fit to dictate, or to be condemned as false. The revelations of revealed religion are sufficient for life and salvation. Ask the martyrs. Ask the splendid examples of Christian piety which have adorned every age of the world, and glitter like gems of the purest water upon every page in history. Ask those lofty specimens of Christian character formed amid the fires of affliction, and perfected in the crucible of human trial. Ask the expiring saint as he dies with a smile of triumph and a shout of victory. If the revelations of revealed religion are sufficient for life and salvation, a further revelation would be a supererogation ; and a supererogation in any pait of the scheme of religion by Divine appointment, would be fatal to the idea of Divine Perfection.
3. If it is true that the mysteries upon the pages of revealed religion is evidence that the whole system is false, it is true as a general principle. It is axiomatic that nothing is true in an especial application, unless it is true in all applications under the same conditions. Therefore as a result, many things may be both true and false. The knowledge of some men is superior to the knowledge of some other men. To those of superior knowledge a certain thing may be clear and properly understood, hence with reference to them it is a truth. To those of less knowledge the same thing may be obscured in mystery, hence with reference to them it is false. Such an absurd conclusion is a logical annihilation of the objection.
4. If the mysteries upon the pages of revealed religion is evidence that the whole system is false, and it is axiomatic that nothing is true in an especial application unless it is true in all applications under the same conditions, everything which involves a mystery is false. Then all nature is false, and what the world calls natural religion is false too. I use the phrases “revealed religion,” and “natural religion,” according to their popular acceptation; really I do not believe in the existence of any such thing as natural religion , I do not believe a system of religion can be deduced from reason or nature, and if it could I do not believe the human mind could do it. But proceeding upon their hypothesis, they extol the revelations of the book of nature as complete, consistent, and clear ; and condemn the revelations of the book of revealed religion as mysterious and difficult. Yet, nature has mysteries as profound and inexplicable as revealed religion.
Do you understand celestial, atmospheric, and geological phenomena ? Do you understand the philosophy of motion, and how it is communicated from one body to another ? Do you understand the laws governing the equilibrium of forces essential to the existence and architectural grandeur of God’s universe — its worlds, atoms, fluids, essences, yea, life itself? Do you understand the philosophic, original, and executive causes of the great facts of gravitation, attraction, repulsion, and impulsion ? In every assigned cause is the quantum of inherent power, necessary to produce the effect, visible ? Matter, motion, force, time, and space, have furnished themes for elaborate controversies among the philosophic and literary in every age ; which would not be if the revelations of the book of nature were complete, consistent, and clear.
What are the laws governing chemical affinities, combination, and decomposition ? What are the laws of organic life and growth ? By what wondrous alchemy are the particles of matter transmitted into the green leaf? Why does one little seed and plant produce wheat, another barley, and another corn ? — Why not ‘* chance …. of some other grain ? ” What is the philosophy of color ? How is it that apparently the same particles of matter are formed into the fair color of the fragrant Jessamine and the darker and more variegated hues of the beautiful rose ? Cast a seed in the ground ; it enlarges ; in a few days the germ sends up a stem and down a root ; the radicles imbibe the nutriment, and it mounts up- ward as if by magic ; soon its long conical blades drop in verdant curves to the earth, and the flower upon its top drops a dust upon its silken flower on its side, and a long ear ot golden corn rewards the farmer’s toil — every grain possessing the reproductive power of the first. Do you understand it ?
If you confess ignorance of the laws of organic life, what is the sum of your knowledge of the higher laws of animal life? Do you understand the wonderful mechanism and economy of your own bodies ? The laws of muscular motion— the authority of the will over the organs of motion ? The laws governing the dilatations and contractions of the heart — governing the secretions and circulation of the fluids ? This body is a chemical laboratory. Here the elements, sub- stances, and gases of nature are combined, decomposed, eliminated and transmuted, and a magnificent system of organized and embodied functions is kept in active and harmonious existence for fourscore years. The anatomists and physiologists themselves, are confounded. Where is your soul ? How do you grow ? How do you live ? How do you die ? How do you think ? How do you reason ? How are perceptions produced ? Explain your consciousness of the present, your memory of the past, your anticipations of the future. Why, and how, are you affected by the beautiful, sublime, and pathetic ? Why do the memories of the old family-altar bring a tear to your eye ?
The microcosm, man, is the greatest mystery in the universe. His own existence and nature, involving such powers as they do, perplex and confound his own understanding. Left to the light of nature, without the revelations of revealed religion, one makes him a mere machine in the hands of an inexorable fatality ; another denies him a soul and makes him a material clod j others refine and compound him till he is lost beyond self-recognition, till he only exists in the ideal, and not in the actual life. One deifies, another canonizes him, and another degrades him. The Theophilanthropist in- vests his reason with sovereignty and worships him ; other bind him hand and foot with chains of appetite and cast him into the dungeons of sin, an accursed reprobate. One makes him immortal ; another makes this little transitory life the whole of his existence, death the consummation of his aspi- rations and hopes, and the grave his eternal home. In fact the world is indebted for its knowledge of the leading principles of Anthropology and its kindred sciences, to the Bible.
All nature, organic and inorganic ; animate and inanimate ; terrestrial and celestial ; solid, liquid, aerial and ethereal, is teeming with wonders and crowded with mysteries. If the mysteries of revealed religion is evidence that the system is false, according to the principles already laid down, nature is false too, and any system of natural religion which is claimed to have been deduced from it must be false also. The objector is compelled to renounce his objection to revealed religion, or he must also renounce what he is pleased to term his natural religion, and take up his abode in the darkest cave in the hell of atheism. Between the renunciation of revealed religion and a Godless, soulless, beingless, atheism, there is nothing — if he let go one, he falls into the other. Hold fast to your religion.
But every doctrine and fact of revealed religion ought to be as demonstrable and intelligible as pure mathematics. Well apply the same rule in nature and natural religion too ; the same reason which makes it essentially proper in one, makes it essentially proper in the other. But admit this for the sake of argument. Asymptotical curves when extend- ed continually approach, but never meet. This is demonstrable, but I venture to say that it is not intelligible to any man upon the face of the earth. Express the third of one decimally, adding a cipher to the remainder and continuing the division, it is three into ten three times and one over, world without end. Here we have a number eternally di- vided by three, and losing two-thirds of itself forever, with- out the possibility of ever exhausting it. This also demonstrative, but is it intelligible ? God demands no more of us in religion than He does in anything else. Therefore let us act with reference to it as we do in everything else.
The mysteries of revealed religion, in all cases, have a reason for their existence, which neither nature nor science have in many instances for their mysteries. Many things in nature and science are mysterious which would be useful and proper to us if we knew them ; nothing of this character is mysterious in revealed religion. Whatever is mysterious in revealed religion, is also mysterious in nature. Nature reveals nothing which is not revealed in the Bible ; yet the Bible reveals many things about which nature is as dumb as death and as silent as the grave. If the argument of the objector is worth anything it turns with full force against the claims of what he calls natural religion.
Strange ! men will lay hold upon the most frivolous and inconsistent objections, and stubbornly maintain them, if they cast but a shadow of a doubt upon the truth of Revelation. They have resorted to the most glaring sophisms, and with dogged and infernal tact have employed the most wily and insinuating diplomacy, to array nature against the truths of revealed religion ; but insulted nature proudly hurled back their empty honors, and tore to shreds the garment of infallibility, with which they would clothe her, and meekly sitting at the feet of Revelation acknowledges its supremacy, and thundered its truth throughout all her departments. They endeavored to enlist nature’s sciences — nature’s daughters • — in antagonism to the Revelations of the Word of God; but they declined the contest, and now, hand in hand, they stand in perfect harmony around Revelation, corroborating its truths, and illustrating its teachings.
When Astronomy, crowned in beauty, came tripping down the heavens, her astral train borne by cherubs, and sweeping in queenly magnificence amidst the misty ranges of the nebulae, they rushed to worship her, she repelled them — “Worship God” — and sheaving the beams of light, and plucking the stars of heaven, she wove a garland of stellar beauties, and to their amazement and consternation approached Revelation, crowned its brow and proclaimed it true.
Zoology, next in turn, was called upon to oppose the in- creasing power of revealed truth. Homo was the genus, and the various types of the human race were the different species, and each species had a different origin. The unity of the human species, and a common origin, the doctrine of Moses, was denounced as false, and the decline and final extinction of revealed religion was predicted, and confidently expected. But in the hour of conflict, Zoology, itself, stepped out of its shambles, through the weight of its testimony and influence into the scales of public faith, and established the truth of Bible story. Geology was their last resort, and its opposition was declared to be formidable and fatal. But this, the youngest daughter of nature, crowned with spar and sandalled with granite, came up from her caverns and piled her fauna and flora, her rocks and fossils at the foot of Revelation’s throne, and pronounced its truth. Revealed Religion is supreme, and nature and her sciences are but its witnesses.
Many random and careless readers and thinkers, however, who read the Bible only in their leisure hours to fill up the interstices of their time, and never devoted an hour of patient thought to the study of revealed religion in their lives, have pronounced many things mysterious in the system which God intended should be understood. Men ought to study the system of revealed religion. Study it like they study mathematics, logic, and languages. Study it with every capability with which they are endowed. Study it till the mind arrives at its highest power in the scale of its polarity — that point at which it forgets every other thing, and is able to pour the full strength of its aggregated energies into it — flashing, and burning, and penetrating, in their intellectual plenipotence. They ought not to expect to understand, without study, the subjects and facts of this the grandest of systems ; a system comprising within its boundaries the in- finite and the finite, God and man, heaven and hell, time and eternity — and which of itself is the ” wisdom of God,” the Minerva of heaven.
To investigate the truth and claims of revealed religion, to interpret its doctrines, and understand its requirements, is the work and province of human reason. There are no such fields in the universe to exercise the reason, as our religion affords. New beauties break, and break forever, upon the vision, as the student advances. It is adapted to all types and varieties of intellect, all grades and degrees of intellectual power. Its metaphysics are the highest, its philosophy the profoundest, its fields the broadest, its subjects the sublimest, its principles and pursuits the most ennobling. Our religion does not ignore reason, but like every other subject of study — and to no greater degree — it requires the exercise of rea- son within the boundaries of certain defined limitations. A few safe rules of limitation may be laid down as governing the exercise of reason in the study of revealed religion in common with every other subject of study.
1. The reasoner must remember that his intellect is finite, therefore not able to discover, investigate, and demonstrate all the principles and relations of those truths which are related in their existence and causation to the infinite.
2. The reasoner must keep in mind that reason is based upon comparison. That is, reasoning consists in comparing an unknown truth with a known truth, to investigate the qualities of the unknown. It always implies two things, the unknown about which he reasons, and the known with which he compares it.
3. His known truth with which he compares his unknown truth, must sustain a definable and specific proportion to the unknown. And there is no proportion between any two things, unless when the one is taken from the other or added to it, it creates a corresponding change in the other, equivalent to a change effected in any mathematical quantity when some number is taken from it or added to it.
4. The things compared must be of the same nature. I will use Mr. Watson’s illustration : By comparing body with body we can very truthfully say, ” two cannot occupy the same place at the same time.” But we cannot say this about spirits, for we do not know what relation they have to space, or each other. Body must be compared with body, and spirit with spirit.
5. The specific qualities involved in the comparison must be the same. We cannot compare the hardness of platinum with the color of gold, but we may compare the hardness of one with the hardness of the other, and the color of one with the color of the other. We cannot compare the faith of Abraham with the courage of Elijah, but we can compare the faith of Abraham with the faith of Elijah. Investigate revealed religion and many of its mysteries will fade away. Observe the five rules laid down for the limitation of reason in its investigation, and that which remains from necessity a mystery on account of its magnitude or the condition it sustains to the infinite, you will accept with your faith, and God will bless you.
II. I will now notice, briefly, the second theses of both antitheses. They read thus: “But then face to face — but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Their sense is, that ” then,” in the future state, we will have a more satisfactory and thorough knowledge of invisible, spiritual, and heavenly things. That “then” we will see those not by reflection as we see them here, but face to face ; not by representatives as we see them here, but see the things them- selves. That while our knowledge of them in this life is confined to a “part,” that “then” it will approximate the whole. That while we know so small a ” part ” of them here as to be unable to form a knowledge of the whole, that ” then ” we will see enough of the parts as to be able to ar- rive at a satisfactory knowledge of all of them. That we will see so many sides of an octagon as to be able to know that it is an octagon — so great a part of the circle as to be able to determine its curve and calculate its size, and form a reliable knowledge of all sides of it. The degree of this knowledge is to be as perfect as we are known. And that our names, faces, natures, characters, histories, and destinies, will be known in that future state, and well known, surely cannot be denied, if the denier has to make his denial good.
The text is written to Christians ; therefore, is descriptive of a blissful future state, where darkness shall give place to light ; ignorance to knowledge ; where mysteries shall eternally dissipate and grow dimmer, and realities eternally advance from the dispelling gloom and grow brighter ; where our opportunities for seeing and knowing will be grander and vaster. In fact the text confines itself to the revelations of a future state in its adaptations to the human intellect, characterized by higher intellectual achievements.
That its knowledge will be more extensive is clear for several reasons : 1. The intellect will no longer be embarrassed in the exercise of its powers by a coarse, plodding materiality. I am not a sensist, or empiric, but because of the intimate and sympathetic relation between mind and body in this state, the intellect is dependent for its immediate knowledge of eternal things upon material sensation. Its field of research, therefore, with reference to external things, must be within the compass of material senses. The quantity of knowledge received can never exceed the individual powers of the sense which constituted the channel of ingress upon the intellect. If a solitary physical sense, therefore, is defective or imperfect, from bodily deformity, disease, or old age, its knowledge of external things by a direct process is lessened in the same ratio.
Again, the intellect cannot form a truthful conclusion from many premises, unless it has a clear understanding of all of them at the same time ; and it cannot intelligently entertain but one idea at the same time. Its apprehensive powers must therefore be highly transitive. It must be able to pass from one object to another more rapidly than light. It must be semiubiquitous. This slow material body with its gross organs, prevents the necessary rapidity of the spirit’s motion, thence the intellect lacks symmetry, and its conclusions of- ten amount to philosophic monsters, and metaphysical mal- formations.
Again, in virtue of the intellect’s incarnation in a material body, it is brought remotely under the embarrassing control of the material laws, which govern rocks, clods, and dust. Would it aspire, and rise higher? It is imprisoned in a body which is bound to the earth by the laws of gravity — laws which dampen its ardor, and continually remind it of barriers it cannot break through, of fetters it cannot sunder, of limits it cannot transcend in this world.
Again in this world the body grows old and dies before the intellect masters the elementary principles of knowledge. The little boy must close his primer, the chemist his laboratory, the geologist drop his pick and spade, the astronomer break his orrery, the geometrician spoil his diagram, and die in the very beginning of their studies. But in the future state, if it be before the resurrection the spirit will have no body ; if after the resurrection the body will be so perfect in its structure and functions, so refined, sublimated, spiritualized, and immortalized in its constitution, it cannot possibly embarrass or impede the intellect in the exercise of its powers, in any of the ways mentioned. How vaster the facilities for the acquisition of knowledge !
2. Because of the absence of sin. God’s universal system is a perfect unity. The soul was a unit in this unity. Sin a foreign element in the system touched the nature of that soul, and naturally threw it out of the organized whole. And as a result the intellect fell behind the advancement of universal being. Like a harp marred and cracked, with broken strings and all out of tune, it was banished from sight in a dark dusty corner. Sin reversed man’s constitution, debasing the spiritual and elevating the sensual. It brought the intellect under the control of passion and prejudice, which embarrasses it in the discovery and understanding of truth, hence crippling and fatal errors in philosophy and religion.
But in the future state, there will be no sin. The soul will stand in harmony with everything else. Its relations to God and the universe will be restored and adjusted. The harp will be renewed, the broken strings replaced, and brought out of the dark dusty corner will discourse sweet music for- ever. The unity of man’s constitution, and the relations of its elements and powers, will also be perfectly restored. Removed from the generative and fostering influence of sin, passion, and prejudice, will have died, and the intellect un- fettered will rise above all error, and career with steady wing amid the stupendous heights of eternal truth forever.
In the future state, the redeemed will roam over the fields of eternity in search of knowledge. They will move and think at will. Unfettered by any arbitrary decree they will follow the impulses and promptings of their own nature, and in so doing will act in accordance with the will of God. Here is man at last in his proper sphere, elevated above all that is material and sensual ; above the necessity of taxing his intellectual energies with the solution of debasing query : ” What shall I eat, and wherewith shall I be clothed ? ” Mind at last enthroned a King puissant and imperial, and matter its servant.
Man at last in the bosom of his destiny, ultra-probationary and ultra-mundane, amid the vast tomes of the grand library of heaven in search of knowledge. — The physical laws of the universe, the mathematics of motion, the philosophy of physics, the rationale of metaphysics, the wonders of the atonement, the perfect principles of a perfect government, the nature of God, spirits, himself, the profound love of angels, will furnish subjects of study forever. He will converse with cherubims, listen to the disquisitions of arch- angels, the erudition of sages, and sit as a disciple at the footstool of the Son of Mary.
Man will learn on forever. An eternal progression ! Assimilation to the Divine intelligence by an eternal approximation, is the law of his progressive and aggressive mind. His capacity, therefore, his aptitude for the acquisition of knowledge, will be increased in proportion to his acquirements. This as an element in the progression makes the ratio of the increase, accelerative. An eternal progression ! I appeal to you. As you have ascended in the scale of progression, in place of discovering a limit, you have been more satisfactorily conscious of the capacity of your powers for in- finite advancement. In place of consciousness of a diminution of power as if approaching a limit, you have been conscious of an increasing strength equal to all the links and gradation of a chain as necessarily infinite as the Author of your being is — of pinions increasing in power with the difficulties and altitude of your ascent.
What a chain of progression ! commencing where we learn our first letter, who was the first man, when we repeated our first prayer at the knees of maternity, till dropping the rudiments and leaving the elementary principles of death, we take our first lessons in the science of angels and the metaphysics of heaven, and advancing from stage to stage, learn on throughout the endless whirl of eternity’s cycles. Dr. Doddridge learned the first principles of religious truth from Bible pictures, then from books, himself, experience, and nature, still advancing till he was called up to pursue his studies 9-mid the facilitating and brighter glories of a higher state. The Dutch tiles of the old fireplace at home lie has ex- changed for the graphic .imagery of the city and country of God. There the unwearied student of heaven’s mysteries is still engaged and advancing, and will be engaged and will advance while eternity has an undiscovered wonder, and God has a throne. By and by we will join him.
In all this there is no oppressive labor — mind never tires, the body does ; but then spiritualized and glorified, it will be no encumbrance. Tyros of time and sense, eternity is but the period of our pupilage, graduation never. Let us study below, and follow pursuits here, with reference to our matriculation and advancement above. Then we will know more about ourselves. The relations of soul and body ; their in- dividual powers; their respective value; their relations to God and universal being. We will know more about Redemption. Its history, developments, triumphs, and consummation. We will have a clearer insight into its relations to God, His system, to man, to law, to Justice, and mercy. We will know more about the principles of restoration and compensation, fundamentally involved in its structure, and their philosophic adjustment to each other. More about the doctrine of mediation, around which the scheme revolves, and from which its agencies borrow their power.
We will know more about Providence. By retrospection, with a mind relieved of its weights and cleared of its dark- ness, assisted by angels, sages, and results we can under- stand more correctly the operations of a system of Providential government, which subordinates Satan, sin, hell, and death, with all their hosts, influences, agencies, and efforts, to carry out wise and holy purposes. We can trace more accurately the hand moving in darkness, which gathered up the apparently isolated causes and effects of time, and wove them into one mighty plan, redounding in salvation to man and glory to God. We will no longer be perplexed with the rapid movements of flying cherubim ; confounded with the roar and intricate movements of compounded wheels ; with whirlwinds, clouds, fires, and darkness ; with ruined thrones and bleeding hearts ; no longer be awed with mysteries and bewildered with seeming contradictions.
Then we will know why the chariot of the stern God of war, its revolving wheels grinding flames from their heated axles, rolling their bloody rims in appalling grandeur above the mountain tops, was permitted to pass through our once happy land, and leave its smoky and desolating track along the highways of our national prosperity. Then we will know why our children fell on the battle-field, and died amid the roar of artillery and the crack of musketry, their life-blood staining the turf of a thousand battle-fields, with none to kiss their quivering lips, to wipe the dew of death from their paling brows, and to catch the last wish and whisper to send to loved one far away — and why they were piled uncoffined and promiscuously into yawning ditches, afterwards levelled by the broad straiks of the cannon’s carriage, where no father can ever rear the sculptured marble, or mother plant the creeping vine.
Then we will know the reason of our bereavements, the reason of our sufferings. God may tell us. Or sainted loved ones may lead by the hand to an arbor under the ex- tended branches of the tree of life, and upon the banks of that river which maketh glad the city of God, and there ex- plain in measured verse set to music, a thousand angels responding, till wrapt with thankfulness we rush to the foot of the throne and pour out our gratitude.
We will know more about Creation. We will know more about the laws and phenomena of the universe than we now know of this poor earth. Myriads of systems may lie beyond the galaxy, but we know it not. Then we may know ; yea, we may walk their burning orbs and praise our God in the language of other spheres. How vastly greater and more extended our view. Clamber up some mountain summit. Spread out before you are waving forests, dancing cascades, roaring cataracts, running rills, rolling rivers, mountains, hills, valleys, gorges, and rocks ; landscapes sweeping away until they melt in the distant azure. Stand there until sunset. Watch his parting beams shoot in level splendor from his setting disc, and kiss the ugly cloud and tissue it with emerald and tire, or fling a jewelled crescent upon its darkest wing. Banks of fog and vapor, gilded with gold, stand meta- morphosed into the giant battlements of some fairy city. Twi- light deepens, and the broad bending arch of the deep blue firmament from a thousand points of light, rains a steady shower of silver splendors over land and sea. How magnificent !
Now change your standpoint. Stand upon the lofty frontiers of heaven. Took down, down, to chaos, around and up, till creation kisses nihilism. The inimitable and inexpressible grandeur overwhelms the mind. Worlds roll below, worlds roll above, worlds roll around, and comets with disheveled hair of streaming fire glitter on the confines. The panorama of the universe is one of your textbooks.
Now turn about and look at the city itself, the grand old city of God, the seat of His imperial government, where the archives of all worlds are filed, the metropolis of His Empire, where all decrees are made and signed and all embassies arrive and depart, the royal emporium where eternity stores its commerce, the home of angels, the home of the elect ; and gaze upon its palatial hills and streets of flashing gold, its gleaming spires and crystal domes spangled with pearls and glittering with diamond frost, surrounded with walls of burnished jasper battlemented with ruby and turreted with sapphire. In the centre of the view is the mount where God sits enthroned, at whose base are the fountains of the river of life, which like a stream of liquid gems, embanked in emeralds and gravelled with diamonds, sweeps through courts and amaranthine gardens, laving the polished fountains of gorgeous palaces, winding this way till flowing beyond the walls it disappears like a tortuous line of shimmering silver amid the flowery escarpments of heaven’s eternal landscapes.
We will know more about the angels ; they will be our companions. More about demons ; their creation, fall, power, and destiny. More about hell ; it may be in sight. More about Heaven ; for it will be our home, and we expect to reside there forever. We will know more about Jesus ; his nature, love, merits, and work ; his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension ; his mediation, and intercession ; his humiliation and exaltation. We will see in Him human nature perfect, powerful, spiritual, incorruptible, immortal, beautiful, heavenly, glorious — and seeing him we will see ourselves, for we shall be like him.
We will know more about God. In fact, to know more about ourselves, Creation, Redemption, etc., is to know more about God. He will be all in all blessed forevermore. We will see Him ” face to face.” But before the stupendous glory of His essential existence, the co-ordinate magnificence of His perfections, we and what we know will sink to nothing. Yet there will be no painful oppression of mind or soul. The sublimities of His indiscerptible being will but quicken our powers for higher attainments in theology — Theos, logos, discourse on God or science of God.
Theosophic communications with Deity, theophany on His part, and love, reverence, and appreciation upon ours we will commune with Him, and He with us. He will be our Father and we will be His children, and under the aegis of His eternal protection we will take up our everlasting habitation.