SERMON VI. THE SOULS OF THE DEAD NOT PERMITTED TO REVISIT THE EARTH. MAN sees but the present clearly and distinctly; obscure is the past, concealed from him the future. The images of what has past in our own life fade away more and more every year, and one object after another recedes from the light of certainty into the twilight of uncertainty, which is spread over all former time, and is lost in thick darkness at the point where our consciousness, for the first time, like a ray of light, illumined our being. More hidden from us than the past is the future. Human sagacity, indeed, foresees some few things, but this is but as a drop in the stream of future events, and all foresight ends at the grave. Beyond this all is veiled from us in the deepest obscurity. We shall continue to be, we shall receive retribution: so much we know. But no human eye penetrates into the mysterious land of reward, and never, never has it been permitted to any deceased being to return to this life, and inform us of things beyond the grave. For all which credulity or superstition has not seldom related of apparitions of the dead, has been found, on examination, either a fraud or illusion. Fruitless too has it been, when friends have entered into an agreement, that whichever of them died first, would appear again to the other, or would, at least, give him a visible proof of his being still in existence for such a reappearance has never resulted; the kingdom of the dead is firmly closed, and no mortal ever breaks its mysterious seal. But unbelief seizes on this with eagerness; on this account it triumphs and laughs at the hope of the believer, as a pleasant, but groundless delusion. Every thing which reason, every thing which religion offers, of power to elevate the soul to the hope of immortality, it thinks to confound with a single word. It says openly, that if there were an immortality, one of the dead must some time appear again upon earth; and it declares undisguisedly, that it will hold the expectation of immortality to be an idle hope, until one of the dead shall have risen and returned into the land of the living. The virtuous also and believer, cannot sometimes refrain from wishing, that the departed might again appear to the living, and by their presence and their assurance might make them certain of an immortality, and instruct them as to the nature of the life after death. They flat ter themselves, that unbelief would thereby be fully confuted, every doubt overcome, the necessity of a virtuous life incontrovertibly demonstrated, and a general improvement of the human race infallibly effected. This was also the hope which the rich man, in the instructive story of this day's Gospel, entertained. But Jesus contradicted it, and gave the assurance, that unbelievers would not believe, and the vicious would not become virtuous, even if the dead could and might reappear and preach amendment. To convince you of this, you will, perhaps, my friends, think it difficult. You still, perhaps, believe, that such appearances must produce a great effect. But, in truth, neither more faith nor more virtue would, on this account, be found amongst men. Let us now consider further on this subject, and for the strengthening of our faith, and to invalidate so common an objection against immortality, let us endeavour to be persuaded of the truth of the assurance of Jesus. LUKE xvi. 31. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. THE narrative of Jesus concluding with these words is one of the most instructive to be found in Scrip |