The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-12-01
sERMoN.
BY Rev. Nielsen Ayrcs, Rector Of the Church Of Our
Saviour, Broadway aud AcElderry Street, Balti-
more, at Ascension Church, Westminster,
Md sunday Morning, November
9th 1888

Fparst. Ms = Christ also loved the Church
and gave himself for It. that he might sanctify and
cleanse il with the washing of water BY the word
that he might present it to himself a glorious
church NOT having spot or wrinkle or any such
thing: but that it should be holy and without
hemish"
THE GATE or HEAVEN.
II may be taken for granted that every one
of us here present wants to sget to heaven.
Yes. suppose, further than that, every one
oc US eyyects 20 get to heaven. We may talk
sometimes 10 one another, and even 10 our
selves, as though we thought the matter doubt
iu. Many people suppose that a proper
Christian humility requires OF them certain
reserve q tone of hesitation and uncertainty
in speaking of their own personal prospects
for the world to come, but downin the bottom
az their hearts they do not entertain any such
feeling. On the contrary they feel very con
fdent, perhaps more confident than is strictly
Unsuitable, certainly mere confident than they
like to say, of happy future in the world be-
yond. Otherwise cannot imagine how they
eaa appear so unconcerned as they do. II
man really felt any serious doubt in tile case,
knowing. as we all do, that only few feeting
wears at most separate us from the dread
hereafter he felt any real misgiung as to
his future-really thought It more than posi-
BILE that that certain future would be to HIM
one of unutterable misery and woe-l cannot
see how be would not be plunged into the
deepest misery and most awful anxiety. See
wonder prisoner on trial for his life. The
witnesses have been heard; the counsel have
made their arguments; the jury has retired to
find a verdict. His life is in their hands;
moment may decide his fate; he does not
know now whether tomorrow he shall be
free man or a convicted and doomed felon.
Would you look for him to be careless and
Indifferent. laughing, joking, amusing himself
with any trivial thing that comes to hand
Certainly, if you saw him so, you would argue
either this man has strong case and clear
conscience, he is very sure of acquittai, or he
is the most hardened wretch yet unhung:
And so we may say of ourselves and OF all
mankind Before them lie possibilities more
dreadful thousand-fold than await this pris
oner, heaven and hell hang in the balance OF
the future. They look at the balance, yes,
profess to be uncertain of the issue, and yet,
with supreme uneoncern, throw themselves
into the business or amusements OF the present
life. as though this present life we're all. Ger
tainly they are either very hardened wretches,
richly deserving the worst that can befall
them, or else they feel quite confident that Tor
them is reserved a future of bliss; and har-
deEed wretches they are not. Some are, per-
baps. though | am inclined to think that such
are not nearly So HutllGIOuc do bhCJ ebAO OAtSh
represented to be. ! believe with firm faith
in the good that is in humanity, none of us
are perfect; each has his faults, often very
grave ones, but each has his good qualities.
There is no man in the world so bad as not to
have good qualities, and very good ones; none
SO bad as not to have in him the stuff of which
saints are made. This am bound to believe,
forthe Lord Jesus sawit, and loved it, and came
down from heaven to gather it up and make
saints out of it. And it is simple fact that
his grandest saints have been made out of the
most unpromising material. The vile slum
of a publican's office furnished an Evangelist
to the church, st. Matthew; and the narrow,
bigoted, prosecuting Phariseeism furnished
the great Apostle, st. Paul. | do not believe
that the bulk of mankind are hardened and
hopeless wretches, and seeing the indifference
with which they regard the swift oncoming of
the unknown hereafter, am driven to con-
elude that they feel quite confident that for
them it is an hereafter of peace. Is it not a
fair inference? Well, some one answers,
perhaps they don't think that there is any
hereafter. No, that is not the case. | am
we'll enough aware that there is no means OF
demonstrating to a man that he has a soul,
and that his soul will live after his body dies;
and similarly there is no means of demon
strating any one of the axioms Of mathema-
tics. / cannot prove that whole is greater
than any of its parts, and you cannot prove It;
but neither of us doubt it. We are absolutely
certain that it is true. And so, though cannot
prove that have soul, / am absolutely GER
tain of it; and though cannot prove that my
soul shall live through eternity, entertain no
doubt Of it at all, and no other man really
doubts it. When a man argues himself into
the state of mind to doubt of these things he
is in a condition to doubt whether he is now
alive or dead; whether he lives in the world
or not; to doubt anything and everything,
however absolutely and sensibly certaiBfit may
be. All men are persuaded by their own
hearts that there is a life beyond the grave,
and all believe that in that life there is a state
of bliss and state of woe, some sort of a
heaven and some sort of hell, and / think
that most of them consider their own future
as altogether likely to be spent in heaven.
sincerely hope that they may not be mistaken.
Now the Holy Scriptures tell us something
about heaven, whittier we all hope and expect
to go, and their description of its nature and
glories answers so perfectly to what our own
hearts teach, that if there were no other reason
for believing them, this is enough to compel
our assent When we read what the Bible
says aboutit our reason and Judgment answer,
ssExactly! heaven must be like that. We
can't suppose that it would be any thing else
But in order to find this assent of the mind to
the Biblical description of heaven, we must
put away from us once for all the childish
notion that any part of the Bible is intended
to give an exact description of the physical
characters of heaven. The four square walls
of transparent jasper, and the gates of pearl,
and the streets of gold, and the sea of glass,
and the river of life, and the wondrous tree,
with its twelve manner of fruits, and the
144, 900 of the elect, and the white robes, and
the golden harps, and the branches of palm.
None of us surely expect to see these things
actually as they are here described! Nay,
these are all only glorious figures of an indie
seribable reality. These things we can fancy
to ourselves, ''but,n says the Scripture, 'eye
hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath en-
tered into the heart of man to conceive the
things that God hath prepared for them that
love him." They far surpass the utmost
stretch of imagination; they lie infinitely be-
yond the boldest flights Of the most daring
fancy. Read the Bibles descriptions of
heaven, and you must at once see that it is
but a vain attempt to attain the unattainable.
Gorgeous figure is piled on gorgeous figure,
magnificent metaphor on magnificent meta
phor, in vain endeavor to convey an idea that
all the resources of language are too weak to
convey, to draw picture of that which can
not be pictured. If you have stood to gaze
upon the glories of departing day, when ''The
bright sun folded upon his breast his robes of
rosy flame, and softly over all the west, &C.,
and then glanced at the canvas wherein the
artist has striven to depict in vain feeble
imitation of that inimitable grandeur and
beauty, then you may realize in some faint
measure how far the majestic beauty of heaven
transeends all that the most glowing words of
the Scriptures describe. Nay my brethren,
these words are not intended to give us
literal description of that loneliness that tran
scends all the powers of thought. The peace,
the rest, the happiness, the Joy unspeakable
and full of glory that await the saints in light
cannot be set before us in words Of human
speech. ''But, says the apostle, "God hath
revealed them unto us by His spirit and
here he gives us the key by which we are to
unlock these gorgeous and mystic descriptions.
They are to be spiritually discerned. They
set before us spiritual characters, and do we
not know that these are the highest and most
real characters of heaven as they are of earth.
A poor man fancies that if he could only
have this or that, which he has not, or be
here or there, where he is not, then he would
be happy. All foolish and deceitful heart!
Do YOU imagine that Johns Hopkins, the mer-
chant prince of Baltimore, with his untold
wealth and broad estates and overwhelming
possessions, was any happier, really happier,
than Johns Hopkins with his one little mar
row shop down town? He certainly did not
think SO himself Nay Johns Hopkins hap
piness depended on Johns Hopkins; not on