HAPPINESS HEREAFTER. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I INCLOSE a letter which will explain itself. The subject to which it relates is so interesting and practically important-for it is not a question of barren speculation-that I trust it may be found suitable for publication in your pages. J. M. H. I READ your letter with pleasure, indicating, as it does, that your mind is directed to the consideration of the only subjects of real, because of eternal, importance. I cordially join in your regret that you remained so short a time in this parish, and were so suddenly removed; and I regret also that while you did remain your avocations and mine prevented me from having more conversation with you than I had. One profitable use, however, we may derive from all the regrets which the various changes of this shifting transitory scene create-they should teach us to avail ourselves speedily of every means of grace which Providence casts in our way, before it be removed: and, as we have opportunity, to do good unto all men. The subject of your letter is of deep importance, and one on which it especially behoves us that our views should be clear, correct, and practical. We should study to reconcile, in our own religious experience, those two grand and primary truths which Scripture reconciles but by frequent juxta-position and reiterated assertion, and which are the two great pillars of the kingdom of heaven-first, that through the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified: and next, that without holiness no man can see the Lord. While we abhor the blasphemous thoughts of mixing up anything of our own with the atoning blood of Jesus, in order to our pardon or justification; and even after justification utterly disclaim any thoughts of merit in those good works which we perform, or, to speak more properly, which God hath wrought in us by His Spirit; yet, at the same time, we should clearly and practically recognize the vital importance the indispensable necessity-of holiness of heart and life. I cannot, of course, attempt to offer any comment upon a sermon CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 63. S which I have not myself heard or read. But as far as I can collect from your brief notice of it, both the preacher and you are correct in your views; but with this difference, that you view opposite sides of the subject: you speaking, and most truly, of the utter insufficiency of any works of ours to our justification; he speaking, most truly also, of the efficacy of the believer's holiness, and growth in grace, in fitting and preparing him for higher degrees of happiness and glory in the life to come, But the question here arises, Are there different degrees of happiness, or of misery, in the future state? You seem to doubt this, and may perhaps have been led into this opinion from a superficial view of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, to which you refer. But this parable relates primarily, as do most of our Lord's parables, to the Jewish church, and is designed, by asserting the sovereignty of God, and the freeness of His grace, to justify Him in calling the Gentiles into His church here at the eleventh hour; and bestowing upon them equal privileges and means of grace now, and equal blessedness hereafter, as upon the Jews, who had been called early in the morning into the vineyard, and borne the burden of the ceremonial law. This it was for which they murmured against the good man of the house: though-observe well-he was not, in this, taking from them any thing to which they were entitled, or which he had promised them, in order to bestow it upon the others; but merely, in the infinitude of his benevolence, bestowing freely upon those others, from his own exhaustless treasures of grace, the same favour as upon them. Now had they been in a right spirit, so far from murmuring against this, they should have rejoiced at the privileges conferred upon others, and admired the benevolence of the giver. But the parable may be applied, not to nations only, but to individuals also, and is, blessed be God, daily illustrated in the conversion of sinners, even at the eleventh hour, as by a mighty hand and stretched out arm. Free grace converts a Paul from a persecutor into a preacher of the faith which once he destroyed, and renders him not a whit behind the very chiefest of the Apostles: or, in later days, a profligate Colonel Gardiner into a saint, far outstripping many who had commenced their Christian course long before him; who had been, as it were, sanctified from their mother's womb, and had grown in early, in baptismal grace. But that this parable is not designed to teach that there is an universal equality of condition in the future state, I think clear, not only from the reason of the case, but also from this, that many express declarations of Scripture teach a different doctrine. That the wicked will be punished according to their different degrees of guilt, is clear from St. Matthew xi. 24, "It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee;"- - from Matthew xxiii. 14, "Therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation ;"-from Luke xii. 47, 48, "That servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." And that there are different degrees of happiness and glory, is clearly pointed out by our Lord, in the Parable of the pounds, (Luke xix.) where one is placed over ten, another over five, cities, according to the measure of his improvement of the pound com mitted to him. St. Paul teaches the same doctrine, when he tells us But in perfect harmony with this, there is another view of the subject, which should never be lost sight of, and to which perhaps your attention was more particularly directed. A holy God could give to his creatures none other than a perfectly holy law. Nor could He compromise for a partial and imperfect obedience, and thus sanction sin, of any kind, or in any degree. His law must be, and actually is, expressly accompanied with this sanction, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." God's law, too, differs from man's law in this, that it claims to regulate, not merely the deeds and words, but also the thoughts and desires and purposes of the heart. This spiritual character of God, and of His law, once seen, the most self-justifying and self-righteous moralist must immediately admit that he has broken it, and consequently can no more be justified by the law which he has violated and transgressed than can the vilest sinner. As to justification, both stand upon the same level. The man who has committed only one murder can no more be justified by the law than the man who has committed fifty; and if he is to go unpunished, it must be by appealing to mercy, not to justice. Now this is the condition of the whole human race. We have all broken God's holy law, not in one, but in ten thousand instances; for not a single action of our unconverted lives was in motive pure, and fit to meet the holy eye of God. We are therefore debtors in ten thousand talents and have nothing to pay: because even if we were to serve God perfectly for the rest of our lives, this would be only what is absolutely required, and must be required of us by a holy God. We could only say, "We are unprofitable servants-we have done that which was our duty to do:" and therefore could lay by no store of supererogatory works in order to atone for the past. No, there is none righteous; no, not one. All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; but are we justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood. This truth, that we are justified by faith without the deeds of the Law, is a foundation stone of the Gospel; and if pieced and patched with the rubbish of human works and human merits, will not support the mighty superstructure of eternal salvation. I call all works performed before justification, rubbish; not because I would pour contempt upon righteousness and true holiness, but because all works prior to justification and conversion are tainted by the corrupt nature from which they flow; because all are leavened and animated by worldly or selfish motives, none proceed from that pure love of God, and of man for God's sake, which the unconverted man cannot possess, and yet which alone can render any work acceptable in the sight of a holy and heart-seeing God. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. To the defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, because their mind and conscience is defiled. And even after conversion we can have no merit in the sight of God, not merely on account of the imperfection of our very best services, but also because all that is good in us is the effect of Divine grace, the evil only is our own. God by His Spirit hath wrought all our works in us. Who made thee to differ from another? What hast thou that thou didst not receive? These are questions which should silence all boasting, and put down every swelling of pride in the heart. But surely, though our justification be entirely free, and unmerited in any degree, yet when God has thus pardoned us freely for Christ's sake, and made us accepted in the Beloved,-when Christ has been made to us of God, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, God will feel and act towards His children whom He has adopted, and upon whom He has bestowed the riches of His grace, not as a weak and whimsical earthly parent, but as a wise and judicious, who looks with peculiar love and favour upon those who are most affectionate and duti ful, and even rewards the diligence of those who avail themselves of the teachers, and books, and other means of improvement which he himself, at his own cost, has provided for them,-though all the benefit of that improvement is entirely the child's, and fits him to occupy a position in the world more honourable and comfortable to himself. However mysterious and inscrutable the dealings of God in this life may be, with respect to the selection of the objects of His grace, and the means and degrees of grace communicated to each, yet assuredly Scripture, no less than reason, every where forbids us to think that there will be any thing arbitrary, or capricious, or unaccountable, in the judg ment of the great day. We are expressly told that every one shall receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad :-that every man shall be rewarded according to his works: that every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour:-that we shall not find our labour vain in the Lord: -and that he who gives a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, shall in no wise lose his reward: we are encouraged with the saints of old to look to the recompense of the reward, and exhorted not to be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not; and told that if we give diligence to make our calling and election sure, an entrance will be ministered unto us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. If, on the one hand, he who has passed the gate of death impenitent and unbelieving will infallibly find that there is no repentance in the grave, but that as the tree falleth so it lieth; and that just in proportion to his ungodliness, and impurity of his heart, will be his future misery; so, on the other hand, it were impossible to think that every one who has just passed as it were the boundary line of conversion, but who has made small advances in the Christian course, continuing through life though sincere yet weak and imperfect, is qualified and designed for equal happiness and equal glory, in the life to come, as he whose heart manifestly burns with love to God and souls, and whose whole life exhibits an ardent zeal to promote the object of the angels' song, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men.' (To be continued.) LETTER FROM BISHOP CHASE. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I HAVE again received from my friend and brother in the ministry of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, the Rev. B. C. C. Parker, another letter from good Bishop Chase to the Rev. Dr. Cutler, Rector of St. Ann's, Brooklyn, New York. It contains a just tribute to men of excellence; and is a good indication of the gratitude the Bishop retains towards those early friends. My kind friend and correspondent informs me that this letter was written in answer to one from Dr. Cutler, who on reading the "Reminiscences," in which the Bishop notices almost every circumstance of past attention paid him in England, wrote to the Bishop, and stated to him how much he was delighted in contemplating the view he had given him of various eminent Christian characters, and the satisfaction with which his mind recurred to them in the midst of the sin and corruption with which the world abounds. Dr. Chase's reply, I trust, will be read with interest, and, by its influence on the hearts of your Christian readers, help to further the good and holy cause in which the Bishop is engaged and when they look at the fruits of the good seed sown by our oldest Missionary Society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, above a century ago, as now exhibited in the present state of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, may it stimulate them to renewed and increased efforts in the great Missionary cause, and to say one to another, "Let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." I remain, &c. : W. C. H., A Vicar in the North of Devon. To the Rev. Dr. Cutler. Jubilee (Illinois) Sept. 10, 1842. "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,-I am glad that you seize the good and avoid the evil on the pages of my "Reminiscences." God opened the door and drew aside the curtain which covered from our view the moral and religious beauties of our mother the Church of England; and if this discovery hath brought forth CHARITY, the queen of Christian virtues, let Him receive the praise. Man is nothing more than an instrument at best, and, nolens aut volens, his deeds will be made to praise the great Jehovah. Had not the difference between two persons, by alluded to, existed, America would never have witnessed the extent of English excellence. In this view of the subject I rejoice; yea, and will rejoice. you |