AFTER DEATH.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1433, 7 May 1912, Page 5

AFTER DEATH.

, A STRIKING SERMON, NO ONE YET IN HEAVEN OS* HELL. BISHOP CROSSLEY'S VIEW. (By Telegraph—Special Correspondent.) Auckland, May C,' Bishop Crossloy has been criticised of late with roferonoo to some remarks of his regarding tho life after death. At St. 9 CaUedral last night ho replied in a sermon. Ho said:—"l have been congratulated on having got rid of my Christian philosophy of heavan and hell. I might just us reasonably have bcon oougratitiated oh getting rid of God Himself. Ono writer, the study of whoso works I recommend, says: 'No man has cvor yet cone to heaven. No man has IZI Hi k* ll huij'y judged i no man has tht i 3 »'' Hi! ? n . aUy dam!isii '' I -hold to the beiwf that heaven and hell do not supervene upon death." Christianity, continued Dr. Crosslov. domandod nothing that was either opposed to reason or contrary to tho moral flspiranM nS W),'ii Ivhlcll ,., God , had endowed llicm a". What was after death? He approached this sermon with .an intense sense of reservation. What should be noted was j the strongly marked reservation of those ! very creeds of their own Christianity. All that the creeds said about after death was enshrined in throe statements: "That our Lord descended into hell; that Ho will return, to judge, the living and tho dead.- and, lastly, "Wo look for tho resurrection of the body and tho lifo everlasting. Tho still more striking fact should ba noted oi' tho silonco in a largo pan of the only man who ever knew, ami that was Jesus Christ. They viewed the Mini aloofness and self-assertion of. Jeq, s of Aazaroth when He spoke of death or oi judgment, though in tho Jewish religious world in His day there was elaborate speculation upon the after death. There was a tremendous danger of building theories upon isolated tests, upon texts dissociated from tho recognition of tho spiritual progress unulo at the moment they wero said or written. There was a danger of forgetting that tho great minds of Christianity had not been at one throughout the centuries upon this great subject.

Bishop Crossley, continuing, said there was tho danger of assuming three things on certain witness: (1) Tho danger of assuming tho everlasting life of the devil; (2) the danger of assuming the ovcrlastjugiiess of sin; (3) tho danger of assuming the necessary overlastingnoss of yoursi'ff. There was to bo spccial note oil tho word "necessary." Tho question faced them: "Am I an animal, slowly developed, shorter lived than many other animals, and yet superior to all? Am I a body only? Olio tiling I know, my \brain is my own, but it is not me, Whasi is this T? Something obtains within mo that I can discipline, but not altogether control. There is personality that lias a most potent expression in memory. Memory is tho most mysterious thing in mysolY. Memory nets whether I like it or not. Memory' is a sort of self, but it does not. die. What alii I? I am, I believe, a spirit with ;i continued and uninterrupted oxistc-nca and a body that constantly change;;." • What was after death? There was on* certainty in after death. It was this: Tho Day of Judgment was the Inst day, and that last day throughout the Scriptures was associated with the return of 111® Son of Man. Was tho Day of judgment tho day of death? Ho raid that upon judgment and not until judgment depended heaven or hell. It' was clean against the New Testament to say tho Day o! Judgment was the day of one's death. If the Day of Judgment was not I tho day of death", what happened to tho soul after death? Jesus Christ had told the story of tho rich man and Lazarus, nnd in that story' there was nothing more clear than two things—the continuation of conscience and the identity of character. Thoso who believed that they were to bo judge! on tho day of their death must find it difficult to fix ideas of reality upon that tremendous real thing, tho ! Day of Judgment, which most clearly would not occur until tho return of Christ. If thcro was to bo a stage when memory and conscience continued to act after death, what was it? Christ on the Cross looked into the face of tho dying criminal, who had asked Him to remember him when ho came into His Kingdom, and he answered;- "To-day thou t-halt. bo with Me in paradise." Thov would get into dire confusion, said tlso Bishop, if they thought pisiudiso was heaven. The word had boor, used to describe the place of the sells that liad died waiting for the judgment after the Day of Resurrection. Christ said: "Touch mo not. I am not yet ascended unto your Father and My Father." Paradise was. what was described in tho creed as tho descent into hell. In the revised version, the word used was hades. Hadoa meant the unknown, the unseen place, the place of rest, and peace of conscience ana memory. Concluding, the Bishop said that tho long-held view of Hie Church of God was that heaven and th.it hell were not existai)fc for pcoplu lit I ill© Day .liu.gnienfr. They would pass into .a stage after death with character, personality, ana with memory.