THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

CHRISTIANITY affirms our future existence its postulate. It is not the revelation of the fact, but a description of its nature, and a provision for its beatification. And it is for him who impugns "the word of life," still to bear the burden of his own immortality as he can! The only difference between him and his fellow-travellers towards eternity, is, that he has thrown away the torch and the staff, which the others acknowledge to enlighten and help them. The argument must rest with the infidel: he must prove that man is not immortal: for this is the obligation on any one who sets himself in defiance of general consent.

Now, whatever is, may still be; a body impelled into motion, continues in motion: and the presumption is, that man, who at present exists, will always exist, unless the strongest reasons can be opposed. Is such a contrivance likely to perish? And if he continue to exist, should not his being, as it advances, become more grave? Extricated from its littleness of pursuit, and disciplined of its frivolity in taste? Is not his immortality the pledge of a more solemn state of things? Can the grub of time be the butterfly of eternity?

Death will, however, be urged as the palpable extinction of the being. But The no man will assert that then a single atom of the body is destroyed organic structure is altered; fibre and fluid are decomposed; the whole enters into new combinations, but not a particle is lost. Why may not the same be true of the soul? It was held by the body-the body has been affected by mechanical causes which could not reach the soul-the soul has become disengaged. Many changes took place in that body through life, and yet the soul was the same. And to the last, amidst the wreck of its corporeal vehicle, how often does it triumph. I speak not of the hero, the martyr, the patriot, who kisses the plock, the chief who chaunts the death-song-but of one whose springs of life are shivered, and all his vigours spent. There a lambent fire plays, which no chill and damp of death can extinguish. There a might puts forth itself, victorious in that grasp, beneath which all things wither. And have we not witnessed the holy spectacle? The mind rising in majesty, while all its barriers were falling from around it! It is then greatest when it might be expected to yield-then freest when it might be expected to waver-then boldest when it might be expected to shrink! "Death is thus a spontaneous act, a more ardent prayer of the mind*." Are not then the probabilities strongly in favour of the soul's independence and indestructibleness? And should a desire be felt to confuse the properties of matter and spirit, of which the human being in his present state is compounded, we shall again remit the disputant to the common sense of mankind. All allow them to be as different things, as differing And whatever physiological and inconvertible properties can prove them. hardihood has dared, we wait with perfect composure for it to prove, that man is a mere machine; that intellect is the result of organization and a modification of matter, most subtilized and alternated; that thought is an effect of refined substance and arrangement, even though it will allow, that no more of grossness enters into its nature than into the effluvium of a rose, and the tone of a

• De Stael.

vibration. And if soul and body be such foreign essences, how can it be supposed that they are subject in themselves to the same accidents, or perish by the same fates?

And on the supposition that there is no immortality for man, let the sceptic attempt to vindicate the character of his God. It cannot be denied that it is the fervid aspiration of our nature, that the cessation of being is regarded by us as the greatest possible infliction, and that each yearning of our bosom disposes us to "give all that we have for our life." Something of this feeling, we admit, may have been benevolently given, though death were the last scene of all, as a precautionary instinct, that we might prize and guard so important a deposit. But this is a nobler tending of our being. It cannot bear that its garner of affections and its treasure of purest delights shall, in a moment, be crushed. It cannot endure that its high studies, and wonderful acquirements, shall be instantaneously blotted into night. It cannot brook the sudden transition from the intellectual soul, into the sleepless clod. And yet the theist must conceive that the Deity has raised these hopes to crush them, and taught men to ascend a mount, whence they might descry the boundless prospect, that they might die on that mount. And thus represented cruel to man, he is described as equally unjust to himself. His creatures made capable of understanding him, are perplexed with his conduct, but confide in its destined explanation. They have only seen "a part of Him." They have heard but a passage of an infinite history, and beheld but a scene of the eternal drama. They "wait the great teacher-Death and God adore." But while their spirits are rapt in anxiety, they perish in the suspense! Ready to burst into the song of wonder, love, and praise, their lips are sealed in endless silence.

Let, then, the unbeliever consider his case. He is hastening to judgment' He will soon enter into eternity. His rejection of Christianity does not, in the slightest degree, alter these laws of his being. For him there is no pause, no choice. He is borne resistlessly forward: however his spirit may recoil, his step cannot. Each moment, each pulse, testifies his progress. He is always accountable, and shall live always.-REV. R. W. HAMILTON

REFLECTIONS ON DEPARTURE.

REV. T. BINNEY.

KING'S WEIGH HOUSE CHAPEL, EASTCHEAP, MAY 25, 1834.

"Arise, let us go hence."-JOHN, xiv. 31.

I CAN easily perceive, by the aspect of the congregation this afternoon, that many of you have been led here on account of the peculiarity of our circumstances; that you have come to listen to the last sermon, and to mingle in the last Sabbath-day meeting in this place of worship. On this account, therefore, brethren, instead of an introduction, I will begin with an application. There is another last sermon, and another last meeting: the opportunity will come in which you will be sitting and listening to the last sermon that you will ever hear on earth; the moment will come when the voice of some preacher will be addressing the Gospel to your ear, and to your heart, for the last time. Aye, and there is another meeting in which you will mingle, the last meeting, in which the wicked and the righteous will be mingled together on earth, and when they will be separated, and when " every eye shall see him," and when you shall be there.

Now, brethren, do you ever think of this? You come to listen to the last sermon, and you come to meet in this last assembly; but do you ever think of this other assembly in which you will assuredly stand? That voice which once shook Sinai, will be heard again, and you will hear it: the lips that are now pronouncing mercy, and offering salvation, and ready to pronounce pardon, will pronounce a blessed welcome to his disciples, and will pronounce the sentence of condemnation to those who refuse it; and you will hear it. Oh, let us think of this, brethren; and let us lay to heart this serious recollection: and may God in his mercy grant, that the few observations I may suggest from the passage I have just read, may fall in with this great end, which you ought ever to keep in view-the preparation for that last meeting between you and God.

You can easily perceive, that I shall merely attempt to shew, in a few different applications, some of the various illustrations of which these words are capable; passing rapidly over them to bring them to bear on our own peculiar circumstances, and then adverting a little on their application to ourselves.

Of course, brethren, in meditating on this passage, the very first application of which any of you would think, would be that in which they were primarily used: you would apply them to the Son of God in the solemn moment when they were uttered, and you would bring before your mind the circumstances that have combined to give interest and impression to them. "Arise, let us go hence."

And where was he going? He was going to the garden, to agony, to the baptism of blood, to the meeting with the prince of the power of the air, to that great and awful conflict in which the prophecy was to be fulfilled, that he should present his soul an offering for sin, and bear the burden of the world's atonement. This was the last night of the Redeemer's life. He had been eating the passover with his disciples; he had been delighting them with his calm and blessed instruction, with his holy promises and consolatory statements: and then, at the close of his discourse, he said, "Arise, let us go hence." He could use these words with ideas, and with anticipations, and with impressions, of which they knew nothing. They had been sitting listening to his voice; he knew that in a little time they would be scattered, and that all would forsake him and flee. The traitor had gone, and made his arrangements, which arrangements were rising to their completion; and our Lord saw this, and felt the moment advancing and approaching: yet there was nothing, either like fainting under the prospect, or rashness, or precipitancy, or passion; but all was calm and tranquil: there was the grandeur, and sublimity, and magnanimity, which ever appeared in his character and conduct; and he calmly said, "Arise, let us go hence." He felt whither he was going: "I will not talk much to you hereafter: for the prince of this world cometh, nevertheless he hath nothing in me; but he cometh that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so do I. Arise, let us go hence."

That moment was approaching on which the eye of God had dwelt from all eternity: for, I apprehend, that the offering of the Son of God in our nature, for the sin of the world, as it was a manifestation of the perfections of God which had never been surpassed, and which never can be repeated, so it was something to draw down the attention of angelic society to comprehend the lessons they were to learn there of the grandeur and perfections of the divine nature. It was something on which the eye of God was fixed; in which there was to be a manifestation to the whole intelligent universe, of lessons which they could learn nowhere besides and there was now just approaching all that particular work which Christ came into the world to perform, and now was approaching the time in which it was to be accomplished. Arise, let us go hence."

But we may make another application of the passage: we may bring it down into contact with our own feelings, and may apply it to several circumstances of Providence as they occur to ourselves. You might meditate upon the words in their application to several circumstances in life. It would not be improper to apply them to the very lowest application of which they will admit; to local removals of place and of habitation, when the voice of Providence and of God calls us from scenes and from situations where we have been surrounded by kindred and congenial society. We may be called away from our father's house, from all the society, and the endearing recollections that are there. Or we may be called from a particular habitation which we may have long occupied, where we may have felt and experienced much of the blessing of God; where we may have passed through many afflictions; the walls of which, so to speak, have listened to our prayers, and seen the wrestlings of our spirit, and listened to the manifestation of the divine goodness: and when the voice of Providence has said, “Arise, let us go hence," and we feel we must say to ourselves, “Let us go hence," there are many emotions which come upon the heart; and I should never envy that man his feelings, who had never experienced such emotions.

We may apply it to moral circumstances, when we may be called to depart from peculiar circumstances of enjoyment, comfort, and tranquillity, and to enter upon scenes of adversity and misfortune, when we are called to experience what is painful and distressing to our mind and heart.

You may give it a higher application still-to what is spiritual. I never like to be mystical in the application of Scripture; but I cannot help thinking, when I look at a passage like this, and the human heart and human history, I cannot help thinking of the language of Moses, “Come with us, and we will do thee good:" I cannot help thinking of the resolutions which have often been made, when these words have been uttered and carried home to the heart of a man by the Spirit of God; when he has determined to arise and go to his Father, when he has heard the voice of God saying, "Arise, and depart; this is not your rest ;" and he has broken from his fears, and he has arisen, and gone forth in the freedom of his spirit, rejoicing in that mercy which he receives by faith.

It may be applied in another way; it may be applied to the matter of death. Death is frequently spoken of as departure. Did you ever dwell upon the import of that word, departure? It conveys a grand truth: it is not extinction, but departure the positive removal, the going, the passing from one place to another; the continuance of consciousness, the continuance of every capacity, and every faculty, and of every feeling; and the passing, the departure of the intelligent spirit, of the mind, with all that makes it what it is, into another place, and another state. The whole of our philosophy, (justly understood,) the whole of the representations of Scripture, sustain this view of the circumstances of death-that the mind does continue its consciousness, and does pass into a state (and what a state to pass into!) where it is to experience, and to experience for ever, the results and consequences of what had been its moral principles and its moral habits; what has been its moral tastes and likings here, are to continue throughout all eternity, and to be the source of its torment, or of its beatitude. Oh, brethren, we feebly think, we must feebly speak, and feebly conceive, of the circumstances of death. You dwell upon it very little; many of you seldom think of it; you do not try to realize it: and if you were to try with ever such intensity, you could do it very imperfectly.

But if our time permitted, and we could take up several different characters, we might, perhaps, get a strong and intense impression of what a revelation there must be made to the conscious spirits of different individuals, who pass into eternity. If you were to take a man distinguished in this world, whose name is universally known, and who had been just satisfied with that, who had made that his god, his heaven, and his happiness, and had existed in his present distinction, and in what we may designate (though there is a contradiction in the terms) his atmosphere of earthly immortality, and never thought of any thing else; what a revelation is made to that man when he departs, arises, and goes hence, and finds that, to all virtuous and holy intelligences, he is an ubject of contempt and disgust! Yet that is what every godless soul must be, and what every mind must be which passes hence in a state of thoughtlessness, of disregard, opposition, impenitence, and rebellion against God. They feel conscious in a moment, as soon as they pass into that world, in which nothing bu: truth is felt in all its clearness and in all its fulness-the man who had heen something like a god here, in the view of mortals, feels hims f, in a moment, to all that is like God, and to all whose praise and applause are