him, "Have you a sweet sense of your acceptance in Christ?" he replied: "I have the delightful conviction that I shall be with him." At another time, he said: "Ah! my dear children don't know how much I love them;" and, when his three sons were brought around his death-bed, he affectionately embraced them, and, with much solemn earnestness, said to them: "Serve God! serve God! serve God!" "His bodily sufferings at the last," says Mr. Johnson, "" were very great. I uttered some Scripture passages in his hearing, such as, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,' &c., &c., on which he exclaimed: 'I know it-I know it; but the pain-the pain!'” He lingered till a quarter before seven o'clock on the following sabbath morning, the 3rd of May, 1846, when he fell asleep in Jesus, in the 62nd year of his age, and the twenty-sixth of his ministry. Mr. Wills was interred in the burialground adjoining his chapel. On that occasion, the Rev. Messrs. Johnson, Puller, Bone, Horn, and Holmes, preceded the body; the Rev. Messrs. Gunn, Pearsal, Neller, Moreton, Jennings, and Riddle, bore the pall; Mr. Riddle gave out the hymn, "Hear what the voice from heaven proclaims;" Mr. Thorn read and prayed; Mr. Pearsal delivered an address; Mr. Neller gave out the hymn, “Absent from flesh; O blissful thought!" Mr. Johnson delivered the funeral oration; and Mr. Bone concluded with prayer at the grave. It was the particular wish of the deceased that his brother-in-law, the Rev. T. G. Stamper, of Uxbridge, should, if his feelings would permit, preach the funeral sermon. That he did, in a most impressive manner, from 2 Tim. i. 12, "I know whom I have believed," &c. The chapel was densely crowded, the attention of all present powerfully arrested, and very beneficial, it is hoped, was the result. The expenses of his well-conducted funeral were discharged by the members of his late church and congregation. Thus lived, and thus died, a most valuable and useful minister of Christone, the excellence of whose character was most transparent-the soundness and uniform holiness of whose sentiments were finely exhibited, in his public labours and his private deportment-the affectionateness of whose temper was beauti fully expressed to his beloved partner and children—and the results of whose pastoral exertions have so strikingly evinced, that God was with him to bless him, and to render him a blessing to many, very many, immortal souls. Farewell! farewell, dear servant of God! Thy sufferings were intense, but of short duration. Thou art gone to thy Lord! Thy rest is attained! Thy crown is won! Thy bliss will never be interrupted-will never end! "Soul, adieu! This gloomy sojourn Holds thy captive feet no more; T. W. THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. [We have been so much gratified and instructed, by the perusal of an article in the last number of the British Quarterly, on "The Doctrine of Future Punishment," that we feel persuaded our readers will thank us for laying before them the following admirable extract, conceived in the true spirit of Christian philosophy. We recommend the whole article to the attention of biblical students, as eminently calculated to undo the dangerous speculations which have appeared of late on this subject.-EDITOR.] "Our opponents appeal to metaphysical reasoning, when they assert that any amount of misery which is interminable, must surpass any amount, however severe it may be, which will terminate in annihilation. But is such an assertion consistent with the common sense and feeling of men? Does not every man admit that he must be conscious of a very great amount of misery, before he would look to annihilation as his refuge from woe? The assertion is unsupported by evidence, and, proposed as an argument, is utterly worthless. "The great fallacy appears in the assumption, that misery is infinite, because it is interminable, although nothing infinite can be predicated of a finite being. A spirit has not infinite perfections because, with its attributes indestructible, it will live for ever. Angels are not infinitely good and happy because they will be good and happy for ever. Infinite misery admits of no gradations; but endless sufferings may differ❘ in the degree of their endurance. If, at the present moment, the degrees of misery are various, surely both the less and the more severe may continue comparatively the same through eternity! As soon as we allow gradations of misery, we concede the notion of its infinity, and make its proportions commensurate with a finite standard. "But confining our attention to the duration of an attribute, we observe, that infinity of duration, ascribed to that which has a beginning, is a manifest contradiction in the terms. Finite attributes can never grow into infinite. The beginning of the endless suffering is, and ever will be, the date from which the computation can be made. We have a line on which we can reckon, recede as we continually may from its terminusa solid ground which we can fathom, rise as we continually may above its surface. The rule of the computation is the rule, not of infinity, but of an infinite series of finite quantities, and is therefore computable in every possible number of the progression of its series. "We are not to be told that misery will become infinite because it is endless; for, at every point of the infinite series, it will be as far from infinity as from its termination. So much may suffice for the fallacy which confounds infinity with an interminable series of finite numbers, measurable in every point of their progression. "That God, consistently with his justice, may create a being capable of becoming wicked, and therefore of becoming miserable through the whole of its existence, is undeniably true. Indeed, according to the scheme we controvert, God has already created many such beings. Every sinner rejecting the gospel makes himself miserable as long as he exists. Why, then, is it inconsistent with the justice or the goodness of God to create an immortal being, capable of becoming wicked, and so for ever miserable, by its own misconduct? No reason, which would not as well apply to the creation of a mortal, can be adduced for the creation of an immortal, the moral law and terms of their existence being precisely the same. The equity of the law under which the person exists, not the duration of his existence under it, is the only question referable to the justice of the Creator. The sinner of a hundred years old, miserable from the first hour he became responsible, has as good a defence against the equity of his sentence as the sinner of a thousand, or of any term, however indefinitely prolonged. If the law which inseparably connects sin and misery be unjust, now is the time to plead against it, and to assert our right to an exemption from the misery which our sins have brought upon us. But if it be just, it can never be revoked, however prolonged may be our sufferings. We take our stand, without hesitation, upon the self-evident principle, that if it be unjust to punish an immortal being, whose continued existence is stained by sin, with everlasting punishment, it is equally unjust to punish a mortal with misery, which extends through the whole of his limited existence. In both instances the law is the sameequally just or equally unjust. As an inevitable consequence of denying this statement, our opponents must maintain that God cannot justly create an immortal being, subject to the great moral law, which inseparably binds together sin and misery, although a moral agent can exist under no other law. "To all this it may be said in reply, that the injustice of everlasting misery consists in its being the punishment of sins committed in the definite period of the present life. But is this a complete view of the subject? That everlasting misery is the consequence of the sinfulness of this life, we are ready to affirm; but whether it be so directly or indirectly -as the sentence of the judge immediately carried into execution, or as the ulterior consequence of his sentence-is a question which, as we do not decide, our opponents have no right first to decide for us, and then to make their gratuitous decision the basis of an argument against us. If the sentence be, 'Depart from me into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,' the adjudicated punishment may be in the command to depart to the fire; and the declaration that it is everlasting, may be the publication of the law under which an immortal being must continue so long as he continues in sin. Who dare affirm that the sins of a future state will be exempt from punishment, or that the sinner will be no longer accountable to God? "Thus far our reasoning depends upon the inquiry-are the spirits of men naturally immortal? Most confidently we affirm, they are; and most anxiously we maintain the affirmation of what we regard as the fundamental principle of both natural and revealed religion. "In maintaining the natural and proper immortality of the soul, we do not assert that it may not be destroyed by an act of Omnipotence: our meaning is, that although the soul is not indestructible by the power that created it, it has in itself no principle of destruction or decay. Our opponents are not materialists; but when they speak of the immortality of the soul, they speak in terms which, we maintain, are inconsistent with the sound belief of its separate existence as an immaterial substance; and, moreover, they expose themselves to the charge of inconsistencies which do not belong to any other system, either of spiritualism or materialism. "The controversy upon the immortality of the soul has hitherto been considered to depend upon the existence of an immaterial substance, which retains its consciousness after the destruction of the body. If the thinking principle can be proved to survive the material organization, the controversy has always been considered as decided in the affirmative. If the spirit can live without the functions of flesh and blood, and act independently of material organs, what other death has it to fear? Escaping the danger of the dissolution of the body, where else, in its course through eternity, has it to fear destruction? Such fear is imaginary. At all events, we know nothing more likely to destroy the thinking principle, than the destruction of all the instruments by which it has ever acted. So far both materialists and their opponents have considered the controversy as tending to its settlement; but now we have a school rising up among us, in which the theory of materialism is repudiated, and the existence of a spiritual substance, independently of organized matter, is distinctly asserted; and yet its founders teach, that the spiritual substance itself is subject to a law of destruction like that of the body, which it may survive for centuries, or rather a law of destruction to which even matter itself is not subject—that is, to annihilation. Such is the new doctrine of the natural mortality of an immaterial substance, on which depends the theory of the limited duration of future misery. "But what is meant by the mortality of the soul? in other words, what is it for spirit to die, or what is dead spirit? The terms convey no idea. The substance and attribute are in palpable contradiction. Life, consciousness, thought, are, in the opinion of all men, except materialists, as much the essential properties of spirit, as extension and impenetrability are of matter. That body should exist without form is no more absurd than that spirit should exist without life. The death of the soul may be a figurative expression, but, understood literally, it conveys no idea whatever, unless annihilation be intended. But annihilation is an event of which we have no reason to suppose it ever has occurred, or ever will occur, in any part of the universe. No instance comes within the range of our observation. The analogies are all against it. The process is altogether imaginary. That anything should annihilate itself, or pass out of being by any properties of its own, is quite as inconceivable, and quite as absurd, as that it should create itself, or come into being without the exercise of Divine power. Omnipotence may create or annihilate, but while its creative energy appears in every variety of form, we can discover no trace of an act of annihilation. As God makes nothing in vain, so the resources of infinite wisdom appear, in adapting to new purposes whatever has accomplished the first design of its creation. Ancient worlds, as to their original form and use, have ceased, but every particle of their substance remains, and the discoveries of geology continually remind us that God preserves the relics of one state to be the materials of another; as if He who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales,' would not suffer an atom to be wasted. The bones of ancient quadrupeds, or shells of more ancient molluscs still serve to sustain the fruitful surface of the earth: they remain, like the stones of an older building, placed, in the economy of materials, for the foundation of a new edifice. Annihilation, we repeat, is an imaginary act, and the fossils beneath our feet warn us not to ascribe it to the Creator. "There is prevalent, as we are aware, an obscure and ill-defined notion that all things would cease to exist, were God to suspend the general laws by which he conducts, in their orderly course, the changes of nature. But why should it be so? Decay and dissolution are as much the result of the laws of nature, as growth and maturity. On the suspension of the law, by which certain substances imbibe the oxygen of the atmosphere, the blood would cease to be vital, but at the same time iron would cease to rust. The reparation of one substance, and the waste of another, are effected by the same law. 'Not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father.' The dissolution of the flesh in death, is as much the result of law as is its preservation in life. Were God to cease to act on earth, all things would be fixed, as in stereotype! No process would advance, but none would recede. Life would cease, because it depends on laws and changes; and so, for the same reason, would the natural process that we call decay. Matter would remain with its essential properties, and so would spirit. Extension would continue the attribute of matter,for what should change the shape of material things, when the laws of motion were abrogated? And what should disturb, in that universal stillness, the consciousness of mind? Colour would fade, as the undulations of light, on which it depends, suddenly subside; but the most delicate blossom of the spring, with its frail petals ready to fall when touched by the slightest frost, would be fixed immutable in that state of suspended law, as if it were carved in marble. On the repeal of the laws of heat, the dew-drop would become everlasting as an imperishable pearl on the unfading blade of grass. The powers of corrosion and dissolution, with which oxygen, nitrogen, and other elements act upon matter, are as much the ordinances of God, as the powers of sustaining life, with which they or their compounds are endowed. Without the interposition of God, the one class of laws would be as as inoperative as the other. But in such a state how should spirit be annihilated? It must remain with its essential properties, subject to no change, fixed in its consciousness, amidst the stereotype of all material things."pp. 112-116. THE SABBATH OF GOD PHYSICALLY NECESSARY TO MAN. A Paper read before the Ashton-under-Lyne Ministerial Association, BY R. G. MILNE, M.A. "THE sabbath was made for man." So spake the Lord of the sabbath. And in his assignment to the human family of one day in seven as a respite from secular toil, we find a proof positive of the philanthropy as well as of the wisdom of God. Much might be said to elucidate the aptitude of the weekly recurring sabbath to man's whole well-being. Whether we view him in his economic habits or moral relations, in his spiritual sympathies or physiological characteristics, this periodic holy day is to him a season of preeminent utility and of permanent necessity. To the last aspect of the sabbathquestion we must limit our present observations. And the conviction is strong on our mind, that were it more frequently insisted on that its institute is most salutary to man's physical welfare, that its due and sacred observance tends to invigorate health, to prolong life, to give a zest to labour, we might silence, if not enlist to our view of the sabbath of God, some who have habitually devoted their own energies to manual labour during its holy hours, and have persisted in exacting from their subordinates and underlings the same kind and amount of toilsome endurance on this as on other days. But what evidence have we that the quietude of the sabbath is apposite, yea, indispensable to the physical constitution of man? First. We infer this from the very existence and import of the sabbatical law. "Remember," spake the living God from Sinai, "remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates," Exod. xx. 8, 9, 10. Again: "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the Lord whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death," Exod. XXXV. 2. In recapitulating the laws, which had been enjoined at various periods of their pilgrimage in the wilderness, Moses, prior to his decease, affectionately admonishes the tribes met in solemn convocation: "Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work," &c., Deut. v. 13, 14. And Isaiah assures the Israel of his times: "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath," or, as Dr. Boothroyd renders it, "If thou cease from labouring on the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways," or, according to the Septuagint, "And wilt not lift up thy foot to any work," &c., Isa. lviii. 13, 14. From these and other passages, we ascertain it to be the dictum of Infinite Wisdom, that one day in seven shall be certified to man of every clime and class as a day of emancipation from menial employment and corporeal drudgery. Now, why an enactment so stringent in its prohibitions? Why this legacy of the sabbath to the working man, as "life's sweetest calm, poverty's best birth-right, labour's only rest?". -as an estate of time, which no human authority can abridge or alienate? To suppose that this statute was given to the human race, but at random and Not "any work" is the Divine prohibition, save that which is essential to health, charity, or worship; not "any work" which is sordid, lucrative, secular. |