This imperfect outline and pathway of the argument will suggest its general character, as well as its conclusiveness. Dr. Hamilton then refers to the rewards themselves, as distinguished by their spirituality from the secular promises given to the Jewish nation; and thus concludes the lecture :

Dr. Hamilton's auditors would be prepared, by this solemn close, for the subjects to which, in the following (the fifth) lecture, their attention would be called. This lecture is devoted to the consideration of that "Heavenly State," for the attainment of which we are commanded to labour. That the Lecturer designed to attempt no presumptuous soaring, but to observe the limits which the Scriptures establish, would be evident to them as soon as his text was heard :-" It doth not yet appear what we shall be ; or, if not, so soon as they had listened to the opening statements. Organ never poured forth preluding strains more beautiful and solemn :

entire significance, in our present state unknowable, it is neither altogether new, nor altogether future :—

an

Nor must we suppose, notwithstanding this state of future being so far surpasses all our hearts can conceive, that its superiority consists in any element or perception which shall constitute abrupt reversal of all we know, or violent estrangement from all we feel. It is not the shock of a bewildering surprise. The mind does not reel beneath the sense of the utter new. "It doth not yet appear;" yet are there signs and intimations. The scale, whose degrees the saints had begun to climb, is only so much higher than they had supposed. The paradise, whose overhanging flowers they had plucked, is but so much lovelier than they had hoped. There is something actual, known, experienced, on this side of heaven from which we may deduce some of the characteristics which distinguish it; from which we learn by necessary inference what it is; on which we found this hallowed knowledge and anticipation; by which we may descry, as quick reflections from a mirror,

glances and glimpses of that blessed condition.

And this is the idea which we now seize. There is a present germ in the Christian soul which seeks a nobler expansion. There is a yearning which tells of congeniality with something far higher than that which has been attained. It is the bias of nature, original and renewed. It reaches forth to the things which are before; it mounts to the things which are above. Faithful to this "" power that worketh in us," the evangelic hope soars toward the world to come, with sufficient warrant for its certainty, with sufficient presage for its direction, amidst escaping shoots of light which lead and cheer its expatriations. When we yield ourselves to this celestial impulse, kindling and energizing in us, we have the foretaste which assures the banquet, the cluster which pledges the vintage. Well may we believe, when thus it can at once foreshow and substantiate the region after which it longs. (Page 242.)

But not only are there the foretastes given by the present inward kingdom of God, but also general notions which we may reason out and expand from what we know must be the case in the heavenly state. For instance, perfect law is there loved and obeyed. What must be the blessedness thence arising! There must be the perfect development of social good-will. The mind itself, as we now know it, and know it to be circumscribed, must pass over all those circumscriptions, and expatiate in its own comparative perfection of exercise and enjoyment. And so will it be with the new creature, and with all its spiritual prerogatives and delights. The glorification of the body, its deliverance from all evil, its constituted fitness for such a soul, and such a condition; closer, clearer fellowship with God and Christ;-to all these, and more, Dr. Hamilton refers, arguing or illustrating them with his wonted ability, and making the lecture, to the pious mind, as instructive as it is beautiful. Conjectural details he never attempts to supply. He thus shows the modesty unfailingly associated with true greatness. But certainly established facts he never overlooks; and these, under his investigations, yield a description which, though general, is general as the bright cerulean vault above us, spanning the heaven in its glory.

We gave the opening paragraphs of the lecture, and we now add those with which it closes, only regretting that we have not been able to give any of what comes between. All this blessedness, he says, is eternal; and proceeds thus to the end :

If the certainty were that all this must end, however distant and still unknown the period, that oppressive conviction could never flee the spirits of the blest. It would hang like a dark cloud over every scene. It would haunt every thought. How every voice would falter

in its hymn! How every hand would quiver as it struck its harp! Suspicion would hasten the drawing nigh of that doom. Deep, dread suspense would anticipate its approach. The vesture would seem to decay, and the crown to dim, while yet they were unimpaired.

amidst its brightest bloom. "The twelve foundations" would seem to shake long before they sunk away. Was it but the pageant of ages? Must it, when they expire, dissolve? It is an inconceivable catastrophe! No reason, no fitness, could explain it. Faint was the shriek of Sin,-embodied by our bard in hideous form,-when she brought forth, full-armed, her monster son, and "fled, and cried out, Death,"-and hell "back resounded, Death,"-in comparison with the horror which would awaken in these "nations of the saved!" Their last look, their clinging hold, their dying groan, their annihilation! It is an unholy, lawless dream,-alike impossible to be true, and impious to imagine !

Rather be it our part and pleasure to meditate heaven in its glories and raptures because thus eternal. Let the "everlasting joy" be now upon our heads. Let us endeavour to conceive those lengthened measures of duration, which we must renew and still renew, though all is endless still. There shall not be lack, for there is "fulness of joy;' there shall not be satiety, for there are "pleasure for evermore.' And yet may heaven be seen in a certain development, agreeing with the progression of its inhabitants, through this eternity. "What we shall be," may always be an expe

rience to gain! It may rise continually in refinement and spiritualism! It may advance perpetually towards fuller impenetrations and transfusions of the Covenanted Godhead! So in the Apocalypse, thoughts of this order are not withheld. It opens in a temple, but at its conclusion there is seen no temple; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. There was silence, but afterwards the song never dies away. At the first we behold more of arrangement and activity, more of recent earthly remembrance and association; but at the end there rise more congregated wonders, more calm, more fixedness, more rest. All becomes more enlarged and ample, more elaborate and glorified: not the "living fountains," but the "river of life;" not a door just opened in heaven, but the twelve gates which are not shut night nor day; not the restraint of the sun from its smiting vehemence, but itself outshone, so that there is no need of its further shining; not the tree of life in the midst of the Paradise, but flourishing on either side of the river; not the dim and the distant mysteriousness of Him who sitteth upon the throne, but his tabernacle with men; not the throne of the rainbow mitigated and faint, but of peerless glory; not the throne of undefined Deity, but of God and the Lamb! (Page 295.)

Dr. Hamilton now comes to what in some respects actually is, and what by perhaps the generality of his readers will be considered to be, the most mysterious portion of his subject. With the doctrines of moral government, bringing before us the Great Creator as moral Governor, and intelligent creatures, such as angels and men, as moral agents, and subjects of moral government in the full and strict sense, many difficulties are connected. In these doctrines, punishments, properly so termed, are seen undeniably to be included; and we incline to think that it is this which really awakens the sense of difficulty. That sense of difficulty, we are growingly of opinion, is rather a matter of feeling than of argument. That man is the subject of such a government, in the abstract, is rather exalting than otherwise. We feel that elevation in the scale of being is thus given to us. And when, in further examining it, the subject of reward comes before us, that elevation becomes heightened by its connexion with the contemplated felicity. Nothing is presented which causes repugnancy. We are willing to be rewarded. And, so far as theory is concerned, we are willing to be governed, with a government involving in its administration the notion of punishment. The difficulty, in point of fact, (and is it possible, thus viewing it, to avoid suspecting its true source?) then begins, when the repugnancy begins; that is to say, when punishment is considered as something real, something to which we may become actually liable, something which we may actually deserve.

And yet, even here, what a solemn argument for the awful greatness of man is furnished, great in his lowest degradation, as well as in his highest

elevation. Great indeed is his capacity, if the heavenly state, such as we conceive it to be, may be his eternal felicity. God himself is the portion which he is everlastingly to enjoy; his cup is to overflow with the inexhaustible fulness of the divine blessing, continually poured out. Terribly great is his capacity of endurance; for what else is his punishment but the everlasting outpouring of the wrath of God? And how great must be his power of action, seeing that for acting wrong, for sinning, for violating the holy law of God, such is the extent of his guilt, that he merits the absolute forfeiture of the divine blessing, the full penalty and infliction of the divine curse. God is righteous, and in righteousness shall he judge the world; and in the course of that judgment, the righteous God shall take righteous vengeance; for one sentence that shall be pronounced is no less than this,"Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared "-not originally for you: you have freely, and of your own choice, exposed yourselves to it: prepared " for the devil and his angels!"

But if this really be one part of the government of God, administered in perfect consistency with his nature and character, how necessary that both that administration and that character be carefully studied by us! Of this also must we say, "It is no vain thing. It is your life."

Besides, if punishment, as such, and under its proper notion, be really a scriptural doctrine, it behoves us the more to study it, because, as belonging to man's moral nature, it belongs even to its fragmentary portions, and to all those subordinate relations in which he may be placed, in virtue of that nature. Here is almost the question of questions : "Does punishment really and rightly exist?" We root up the poisonous weed. We destroy the venomous serpent, and the rabid animal. We restrain the violent lunatic. Nay, we even correct by pain. We administer bitter medicine. We perform painful operations. And so, in the course of his government, does the wise and merciful God chasten his children, that they may be partakers of his holiness. But is there punishment? Is it a sanction of the divine law, an instrument of the divine government?

To this awful subject Dr. Hamilton devotes no fewer than three of his eight lectures, showing, by the space which he has allotted to it, and the elaborate discussion into which he enters respecting it, his deep conviction of its importance. Earnest and serious throughout, he is here more so than ever. He speaks like one who feels that the ministry of reconciliation is committed to him; and who, being anxious to persuade the sinner to be reconciled to God, descants on the danger to which he is exposed, not to gratify a malignant fanaticism in himself, nor to awaken in weak and credulous minds a superstitious terror and gloom, but to produce a necessary and most salutary alarm, to free his own soul from worse than blood-guiltiness by faithfully warning the sinner "to flee from the wrath to come," and to relieve, and if possible to gladden, his own feelings by urging him, likewise, to flee for refuge to the hope set before him, even to Jesus, by whom alone we can be delivered from the wrath to come."

In the three lectures devoted to the subject, Dr. Hamilton has references to the entire question throughout on the whole, however, we may describe each as having a particular thesis, the three covering all the subordinates, and uniting them in one. Lecture VI. thus refers generally to punishment as an instrument of the divine government: Lecture VII., to the future punishment of the wicked as scripturally stated: Lecture VIII., to future punishment as being, in the obvious, literal meaning of the term, everlasting.