Year: 1879

after death TO the state of bliss The idea of pur-
gatory was more agreeable to him than that of the
schoolmen. who would consgn US to waiting stu
por until the last trump is sounded.


IMMEDIATE OR PURGAToRIAL SALVATION


The question was whether all men who were Mt 10
their Lord would be admitted straight into His
presence after their death, whether they would
have to wait until ages had rolled round We have
no data on the subject and only upon pre-
sumption. analogies and Imagination which are not
after all, such poor stun as many men think As 10
knowledge we are wholly dependent upon the Lord
and His apostles What did He that His apos-
ties and We should understand? and what did His
apostles understand and mean for us ~ understand?
The central point of influence with the Saviour
earth was personal love. By that power He held His
disciples. and it was by that that He interpreted to
them the whole of their history. To be with Christ
was their chief desire. and such was the enthusiasm
of the love He wrapped about Him that every as
sociation could charm. inspirt and ennoble them.
There came time when they were subjected to
most hideous and shocking tribuation. Could he
sepulchre be the divinity whom they adored!
This dreaded separation from His disciples LED
to the discourse from which the text was
taken Suppose lover. when parting from his
sweetheart, should promise her that he would soon
return. Ii. then, he We're gone twenty years. he
would have disappointed her fond expectancy and
have practised gross deception Christ gave these
sweet assurances to His disciples before that awful
eclipse. But what IT, after ten thousand years of
sepulture and of slumber they should be permitted
to Join Him. what consolation would 1t have been TO
them to suck the bosom of such a hope! AS well
might you put babe upon granite rock and tell 1t
to draw its nourishment from that The great point
in Chrsts promise was that the separation would be



Elias on the mount gave them another powerful pre-
sumption tor this hope. Mr.. Beecher drew numer-
illustrations from the New Testament to show
that the belief of the apostles was in an immediate
stepping into glory after the end of life below The
opening of the heavens comforted Stephen the proto-
martyr. Familiar passages were quoted from First and
Second Corinthians, the Thessalonians, the Philip
plans, Timothy, the Hebrews and Revelation sup
porting the argument. Paul, at the beginning
of his preaching, held that Christ would
reappear during his time and during three hundred
years this more sensuous belief fingered in the
IN, Evar inu latte of pa hOw
showed that other ideas had arisen and were growing
in importance in his mind. Whole pages will be


turned 70 folly if to suppose that Paul believed
when he died that whole ages were to eapse before
he could see God. While ingenuity might get other
meanings from these passages Mr. Beecher held that
the whole teachings Of the apostles fayores bis in
depreciation All the images of Revelation. COM
ported with it, Mr. Beecher quoted the one passage.
God" refuting the dogma still held by many OF
corporeal resurrection After ages of stupor this
would be Furnishing first and Judging afterward.
There is this life and another and no intermediate
and Brooklyn to whom death would be comfort if
this life cheerfully it they knew there was only
a forty years desert of intermediateness almost
destroys consolation. We need heaven at
hand and we are working for not tar distant 1t
from which we catch the echoes now and then.