ately God's mercies and its own requitals
during life past, there would of necessity be conflict: there would be
bitter self-loathing, there would be pangs of repentance. It would
seem, then, that during the incomplete and disembodied state, this is
not so; but that all of this kind is reserved for a day when account
is to be given in the body of things done in the body: and we shall
see, when we come to treat of that day specially, how its account will
be, for the blessed dead, itself made a blessing.

Again, as all evil will be at an end, and all conflict,--so will all
labour, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the
Spirit, for they rest from their labours." Now labour here is a
blessing, it is true: but it is also a weariness. It leads ever on to
a greater blessing, the blessing of rest. Christ has entered into His
rest; and the departed spirit shall be with Christ: faring as He
fares, and a partaker of His condition. Any who have lived the
ordinary term of human life in God's service (for it is only of such
that we are now speaking) can testify how sweet it is to anticipate a
cessation of the toil and the harassing of life: to be looking on to
keep the great Sabbath of the rest reserved for the people of God.
What more may be reserved for us in the glorious perfect state which
shall follow the resurrection, is another consideration altogether:
but it clearly appears that the intermediate disembodied state is one
of rest.

And let none cavil at the thought, that thus Adam may have rested his
thousands of years, and the last taken of Adam's children only a few
moments. Time is only a relative term, even to us. A dream of years
long may pass during the sound that awakens a man; and a sleep of
hours appears but a second. What do we know of time, except as
calculated by earthly objects? Day and night, the recurrence of
meals,--these constitute time to us: shut up a man in darkness, and
administer his food at irregular intervals, and he loses all count of
time whatever. Surely, then, no cavil on this score can be admitted.
In that presence where the departed spirits are, one day is as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Let us conclude with a consideration, to a Christian the most glorious
of all. The spirit that is with Christ in nearest presence and
consciousness, knows Him as none know Him here. Here, we speak of His
purity, His righteousness, His love, His triumph and glory, w