der the impenitent on earth indifferent to its power, there is no reason to believe that familiarity with suffering will at all diminish the agony of their disembodied spirits. It is indeed the insufferable blaze of truth that constitutes the chief misery of the lost, but such as it sometimes for a moment bursts upon their distracted vision in this life, such will it be with ever increasing vividness and intensity when their souls break away from these imperfect frames. The naked spirit knows no reaction, and the sense of God's wrath never becomes old. My fellow-sinner, when you observe in this life, the nature of sickness and suffering to destroy their own power, when you see the diseased limb losing its sensitiveness, or the long prostrate invalid becoming reconciled to his lot, think not that it will be so with you. It is written upon your own immortal nature, as well as upon the pages of God's word, that "the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched."

NOTE.

The preceding discourse was the first which Mr. Homer wrote. It was preached at South Berwick, May 3, 1840; afterwards at Danvers, Mass.

SERMON II.

THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN SUPERIOR TO THE ANGELS.

KNOW YE NOT THAT WE SHALL JUDGE ANGELS?-1 Cor. 6: 3.

THESE words have sometimes been thought to indicate that the saints will share in the administration of the general judgment. Such an idea however is not authorized either by reason or revelation, and it is highly improbable that the redeemed will turn away from their own award of justice, to pass sentence on "the angels who kept not their first estate." There is a mode of explaining the passage more consonant with the spirit and the idioms of scripture. The language of the bible often derives its significance from some single feature of analogy. The metaphors of animate and inanimate creation with regard to God and his people are not to be pushed to the extent of their literal meaning. When Jehovah is called a rock, or his people the sheep of his pasture, only a single view of their character and relation may be pre'sented. And so is it in the terms derived from civil and ecclesiastical polity. It is not intended to describe an office precisely similar to that in church or state, but only a condition marked by some similar qualities. When Christians are spoken of as kings and priests, it is not meant that they wear a crown or minister at an altar; that they sway a sceptre, or intercede for the sins of the people, but rather that in heaven,

they are exalted and honored like kings and priests on earth. Official relation is not at all designated, merely official dignity. In this way the office of a judge is most appropriately employed to image forth the same elevation. It is one of the most dignified and imposing of human titles. It brings before the mind the picture of venerable wisdom upon its elevated seat, dictating the noblest of sentiments to the noblest of pupils, and receiving the homage of the crowd. What more natural than that the beings, who are figuratively decked with the sceptre of royal dignity, and the mitre of sacerdotal rank, should put on also the vestments of the judicial station. They receive the admiring tribute of the world, and they may be styled the judges of the world. They are in some respects more glorious than the angels of God, and they may be said to judge those angels. The sentiment then, which I propose to illustrate as taught in the text, is this:

Christians in heaven will in some respects be superior to angels.

Our acquaintance with the angelic, as with other spiritual beings, is exceedingly limited. Sufficient, however, may be gathered from Scripture to teach the existence of an order of intelligences in many respects superior to men. They are represented as the counselors of Jehovah, and the swift ministers to do his will. They are the mediators of the old dispensation. Through them the Most High comes down to wrestle and to commune with men. In shining hosts they hover around Mount Sinai, and crowd the chariots of God as the "fiery law goes forth from his right hand." Sometimes they appear as ministers of vengeance to smite down the doomed of God, and strike with awe the beholders. Yet chiefly do they serve on errands of mercy and love. In airy columns they follow the tribes of Israel in their wanderings, and guide them to the land of promise. They watch over the elect of God in temporal and in spiritual peril, "encamping round about them to deliver them." They gather in choirs over the

shepherd-plains of Bethlehem, rending the still air of evening with unwonted anthems of praise. With refreshment and sympathy they visit Jesus in the solitude of his temptation, and they wipe the thick drops from his brow on the night of his agony. They stand by as he sunders the cerements of burial, and tell the news of his rising to those who are earliest at his grave. Arrayed in white apparel they explain on Olivet the mystery of his ascension, and the certainty of his second advent. They shall appear again to the gaze of men, when they come in the retinue of his judgment, by their presence to add to the imposing spectacle, and assist in the services of the great day of account.

For such offices and employments, most elevated and conspicuous must be their qualities. How beautiful must be "the face of angels," radiant with the lustre of the eternal throne. How enlarged must be "the wisdom of angels," attendants as they are upon the council-chamber of the All Wise. How vast must be their powers, when even "the winds and the lightnings" cannot outstrip their swiftness, or surpass their workmanship. Above all, how spotless must be their purity, looking upon God with a familiar gaze which could but drive the sinful to despair. Yet with all these splendid capacities, with all this ecstasy of devotion, they must be strangers to the joys of the redeemed. Even we, my brethren, frail though we be, imperfect in our best services, groping through life, many of us, on an almost starless pilgrimage; even we, the creatures of a day, who should tremble and turn pale at the approach of one of these winged messengers of immortality, are yet destined to enjoyments of which they can know but little. There are lights in heaven to be revealed to our vision which shine but dimly upon their souls. There are mansions reserved for us among the many in our Father's house, which they cannot enter. Hard by the altar, there is a place of sweet and humble devotion where we shall

love to linger, but where the highest archangel is too high to prostrate himself, or to cast his crown.

I. We will commence our proof of the proposition already laid down, by remarking, that Christians in heaven will be conscious of great advancement in their condition and char

acter.

There is a familiar principle of the human mind, upon which this source of happiness is founded. The law of progress is one of the fixed laws of our nature; and it is a most wise provision that this progress is not accidental, but the result and reward of personal effort. No great advancement can be made without toil and suffering, and the remembrance of the former pain is the chief ingredient in the present joy. The traveler, who has gained the desired eminence, feels a satisfaction in looking down over the steep and craggy rocks up which he has climbed, and through the dark ravines where he wandered weary and famishing; and it is a satisfaction which he could not have felt had an unseen hand planted his first existence on the spot of his triumph. There is pleasure by a winter fireside, in the companionship of loved ones, and the shelter of a thrifty mansion; but it is chiefly when the rugged inmate travels over again in fancy his perilous voyages, and again in memory" the storm howls through the rigging." We sometimes feel as if the horrors of shipwreck in the winter, of long and tedious wrestling with the pestilence, of marching front to front with death upon the battle field, were more than compensated by the gratification of the old veteran when he recounts in after years his tales of wonder, and the sentiment speaks out in his eloquent eye—

"All which I saw, and part of which I was."

Nor is this principle developed merely in circumstances of outward superiority. Not only do the rich and happy recur with satisfaction to the period of their poverty and distress;