without." (Gen. ix. 21, 22.) The shameless and unnatural conduct of Ham is best exposed by the modest and affectionate behaviour of Shem and Japheth; for "they took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father: and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness." (Gen. ix. 23.) The Spirit of God is the author, the Father of spiritual life to every man; and the contempt and mockery with which He would be received, when making Himself naked and known to the third part of men, is what is prefigured in the conduct of Ham. " And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him." The serpent's spiritual seed was not created in Adam, but was an addition to the human family, resulting from the fall and final restoration of man, all embraced in the one purpose of God; so that Ham's being the younger son, was a figure of their being the younger branch of the human family. "And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." (Gen. ix. 25-27.) This prophecy has been literally fulfilled in this world; and the state and destiny of the descendants of Ham in this life, is a figure of the state of the seed of the serpent in the life to come. The impenitent shall be the slaves of the righteous, shall be vessels of dishonour, but, as such, serviceable for the use of redeemed men. The black colour of the sons of Africa is a figure of that spiritual darkness which shall reign in every impenitent creature. The meaning of

this is, that they shall never know God except through their senses. When His Spirit enlightened them, and they tasted the good gift of God, and were warned by their conscience of the powers of the world to come, they received not the love of the truth, and their foolish hearts were darkened. They are clouds without water; human bodies, animal natures without the light of life. To know God in the soul, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, is eternal life. Not to know God in the soul, and not to know Jesus Christ, is eternal death. Believers should be able, by a comparison of their state before receiving the Spirit, with their state under His enlightening influences, to understand what is meant by the blackness of darkness in the mind of an intelligent and rational creature. They have probably felt what it is to have their Father's countenance hid from them for a season, and they will be able to imagine what a torment theirs would be if, throughout eternity, His presence were withdrawn from their souls. This then is the chief ingredient in the punishment of the wicked, and let no one say theirs is not a pitiable case. Some may imagine that because men can live apparently happy in this life without the heart-knowledge of God, that therefore if the state of the lost be no worse, they will be somewhat comfortable. To carnal minds this may sound like good reasoning, and they may console themselves with the hope, that the eternal withdrawal of the light of life from their nature will be something like a relief, for they have felt their consciences very troublesome to them. This is just their sin; and if they but knew the joy and the peace of communion with God, they would say, that to lose that, and yet live for ever without it,

would be the intolerable burnings of a lake of fire and brimstone. The cry of Jesus upon the cross reveals what was the peculiar anguish of His soul in the hour and the power of darkness. When He cried with a loud voice, saying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He proclaimed, with great distinctness, what would be the peculiar bitterness of the cup of God's wrath, put into the hands of the wicked in the world to come. If that were all, truly they might eat, and drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die. But joined with this gross darkness there will be the resuscitation, in its pristine power, of the immortal aspirations of a god-like nature, felt to an extent unknown to any sinful unenlightened person since the fall. That pride of life which beat so high in Eve's breast, as to give point and power to the suasions of the tempter, shall be reawakened in them; and if in this world unrenewed man, with his immortal nature so unsuitably yoked, may venture sometimes to envy the state of happiness enjoyed by irrational animals, how much more tormenting must be the gnawings of that worm of immortality which dieth not in the nature of the impenitent, when their external form and use will be a nearer resemblance to the beasts of this world that perish, than to their own present divinely human form and use? for the irrational animals in the present state of being, are to man what the wicked will be to the saints in the world to come. The wicked shall descend in the scale of being; their transubstantiation will make them externally objects of everlasting shame and contempt; while the greatness of their torment will be, that possessing forms so degraded, and appropriated to uses so dishonourable, they shall have so much more of the inward but

darkened craving of an immortal nature. The righteous shall ascend in the scale of being; and their transubstantiation will clothe them externally with glory and honour; while within them shall dwell all the fulness of God, and they shall know the very perfection of all happiness: one sensation of want or pain they shall never, never feel; they shall be ever ascending upward in celestial glory, and expanding outward in divine knowledge and love. At the very outset, after the resurrection, the separation between the righteous and the wicked will be as wide, in point of enjoyment, and nature, and form, as that which now exists between the rational and irrational animals of the present life. What it shall be, eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive. The righteous shall see them, and be served by them, but like the visits of angels to this present world, their glory shall be unseen by the wicked. The impenitent shall dwell amid gross spiritual darkness; they shall see with the eye of the body, and feel by the touch of the hand, but that glorious light of God which is so dazzling, that no flesh could see it and live, they shall never see; the brightness of glory they shall never behold, and the joy unspeakable and full of glory they shall never feel. Their stings shall be extracted, and that which they have abused shall be destroyed. Their wills, by which alone they could have had freedom, had they exercised them in obedience to God's will, after having been permitted by God to work in disobedience in this life, preparing His people for glory, and ripening themselves for shame, these rebellious wills, having finished their work and accomplished God's purpose, shall then be virtually destroyed; for it is written, "He that leadeth into cap

tivity, shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword." (Rev. xiii. 10.) "Christ took part of flesh and blood; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” (Heb. ii. 14.) Observe, it is not said that Christ destroyed death merely, but "that through death he might destroy the devil," personally. Christ's death was real upon the cross, so Satan's destruction must be a real thing; not utter annihilation, but the virtual destruction in his nature of what destroys others, and that is, his rebellious will. The sword with which the devil has killed is both a civil and a spiritual sword. With the former he killed the bodies of men, with the latter he killed the souls of men; and the two united together became the abomination that maketh desolate. Both these will be taken from him. In the new state of things there will be no implements of mischief within the reach of the impenitent; and the Holy Spirit will there be present so powerfully in the minds of all, recalling past wickedness and presenting divine truth, that they will, like Balaam, without one exception, prostrate themselves and say, I have sinned. In other words, conscience shall be armed with such terrible powers as to produce an effect equivalent to the extinction of the will of each man. Satan's fall, like lightning from heaven, which is the end of his spiritual dominion, is the result of the outpouring of God's Spirit; and the effect is twofold: the obedient will He makes free, because of its submission to God's will; the disobedient will He makes a slave, because of its opposition to God's will; so that while the obedient spirit is made free, and has a will of its own, the disobedient spirit may be said to have lost its will when it lost its freedom. Thus the bondage, and the colour, and