There may be, to some minds, an apparent objection to the renewal in heaven of the broken connexion of earth, in the verses immediately preceding our text. The Sadducees had raised an objection to the doctrine of Jesus, by mentioning the case of a woman who had seven husbands, and they wished to know if former connexions were revived, whose wife she would be in the resurrection? Our text was a reply to this objection; but before stating it, our Lord assured them that

they greatly erred, not knowing the Scripturesnor the power of God; for it is in this world only, that men and women marry, and are given in marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."

What are we to understand by this? that the relation of husband and wife are to be dissolved by death. and that hereafter there is to be no peculiar enjoyment resulting from the reunion of friends in heaven? If all the holy love that has existed between those conjugally united in life, is to be destroyed by death, then, too, must we conclude that every

other relation, such as father and child, brother and sister, &c., is to be dissolved, and souls go hence with weaned personal affections forever! If this be so, there is a sorry consolation for the afflicted as they stand over the corpses of their loved ones, to be assured that they are never, even in heaven, to recognise each other in the relation which had made their society on earth so sacred to each other, and the hope of a renewal of which, if permitted by God, might be the means of reconciling them to the present awful dispensation of his providence. For myself, I cannot think our Saviour intended to teach such a doctrine by his reply to the Sadducees. It is deserving of notice, that our Saviour did not tell the Sadducees that there could be no commingling of kindred spirits in the other world, no renewal of those virtuous affections that had been interrupted by death. He was replying only to a case under the Mosaic law, where, without much conjugal love it may be supposed, six brothers were successively obliged to marry the wife of their eldest brother deceased, to raise up children to transmit his name, and inherit his estate. Such marriages are not recognised in heaven, for there, no such motives of

He

conjugal union can exist. Being purely spiritual, like angels, they can die no more, and so of course, their marrying and giving in marriage are not necessary, by procreation, to supply for the losses which death occasions. It seems to me this was all which our Lord meant. He did not mean to deny the very doctrine to which the Sadducees objected, viz that of a renewal of virtuous love. did not acknowledge that their objection was fatal to this doctrine and thus give them up the argument. Neither reason nor Scripture authorize the opinion, that mere legal connexions, where love is not the binding principle, will be renewed in heaven; but reason and Scripture equally approve the idea that love on earth, whatever may be the relations to which it has given birth, will be perfected in heaven. And this is all which human hope could ask.

In this view of the subject, I see not why we need look upon death with so much terror. It is but the friendly hand that unlocks the prison, and sets the fettered soul free, in a world where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Where the spirit goes, to return to the God who gave it, we may not know. I agree with Pierpont, .that

God is everywhere, and most where love is. This world is a star, and the spirit need not go to other stars to find God, for God is in this world as much as in any other. I have no objection to the idea of our New Church brethen, that this world, and all the beings that inhabit it, are but the letter of what also exists here in the spirit; and that, when the body dies, the soul also ceases its connexion with the natural world and finds the spirit of the world fitted to receive the spirit of the body. If so, it may be true, as a poet long since sung,

"Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth,

Both when we wake and when we sleep."

Who knows but the spirits of departed friends are the guardian angels that are always hovering over us for good, and are the "angels which do always behold the face of our Father which is in heaven?" We know

not how this may be, but I am sure there might be consolation in the thought, as well as great help to virtue, if we realized that spiritual agents were about us, entering the very chambers of the soul, in close communion with our thoughts, and having a perfect knowledge of all our motives and all our actions. Of one thing we may be sure, Christ

is with us, by his spirit. "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."Though he has suffered death, yet he promised to come, and has come again, and presides over the moral and spiritual kingdom which he has erected in the world, and knows the thoughts of every heart, and the merits of every life. Let this consideration put us always on our guard, that we sin not against the laws of God, but that we strive in every possible way to approve ourselves to his holy Spirit, the comforter that is sent into the world, and which is ever ready to aid and comfort the sons of men.

AMEN.

PRAYER.

O THOU! who livest through all life, help us devoutly to thank Thee, that though death reigns in the earthly Adam, yet in the second Adam it is abolished; and that by his gospel he has clearly brought to light the doctrine of eternal life and immortality, for a redeemed world. Make us to praise Thee that this