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Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2781, 12 January 1878, Page 4

Sermons A SURE PROMISE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. By C. H. Spukgeon. Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the lifo that now is, and of that which la to comb.— 1 Tim., iv., 8. Beloved friends, there Is another life beyond this fleeting existence. The fact was dimly guessed by heathens. Man has scarcely ever been befooled into the belief that death is the finis of the volume of his existence. Hardly yet, have we been able to discoTer a people with no idea of an after state.. And this truth, dimly guessed by heathens, was more fully wrought out by the greatest of their philoeophero. What was thus Burmifed and guessed at by the great thinkers of antiquity and the universal voice of maa, has been brought to light by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are not left now to speculate nor to rely upon unaided reason. We have been fold on the authority of God, sometimes by the lips of prophets, at other times by the lips of Hit own Son, or by His inspired apostles that there is a world to come, i world of terrors to the ungodly, buta world of promised blessing to the righteous. My dear reader, if it be bo, \ what will the world to come be to you? Will I you inherit its promise? You may easily; answer that question by another—Have you! godliness ? If you have, you have the promise of the life.to come. Are you ungodly ? Do you live without God, without faith in God, without love to God, without reverence for God? If. you are, the world to come hoe nothing for you but a fearful looking for of. judgment.

Notice, first, that this promise concerning the world to come is altogether XTKIQUB. I say, a unique promise, for, observe, in* fidelity makes no promise of a life to come. It is the express business of infidelity to deny that there is such a life, and to blot out all the comfort which can be promised concerning it. Man is like a prisoner shut up in a coll; a cell all dark and cheerless, save that there is a window through which he can goza upon a glorisus landscape. Infidelity come* like a demon into the cell, and with desperate hand blocks up the window, that man may Bit for ever in the dark, or may have the boasted light of a farthing candle called free thinking. It is marvellous to see the zeal men will display is propogating this notion that a man dies as does a dog. How can men be so earnest in proclaiming their own wretchedness ? Godliness hath promise of the life that is to come; infidelity can do nothing better than deny the ennobling revelation of the Great. Father, and bid us be content with the dark prospect of being put ont of being. Thoughtful, (aspiring), (rational) men, can ye be content with the howling wildernesses and dreary voids of infidelity ?

This promise; is unique because popery in any'of its forms promise us the life to come. I know ifc speaks as positively as Christianity does about the fact that there will be another life, but it gives us no promise of ifc, for what is the expectation of even the bett Humanists. We lirto heard, and therefore it is no slander to say it, of masses being said for the repose of the souls of the eminent Romanists ? Cardinals distinguished for their learning, confessors and priests for their zeal, and eren Popes reputed to be remarkable for their, holiness and even infallibility, have, when they died, gone somawhere, I know not where, but somewhere where they have needed that the faithful should pray for the repose of. their souls. That is a very poor look out for ordinary people like ourselves; for if,these superlatively good people are uneasy in their fouls after they die, and have, in fact, as certain of their prophets hare informed us, to be tossed from purgatorial furnaces to purgatorial icebergs, and then back again, until-by some means sin shall be burnt out or evaporated from them ; if I hat be their expectation, I think I should be inclined, as the Irishman said, to become a Protestant heretic, and go to Heaven at once. Godliness hath the promise of tbo world to come, but it is altogather unique in possessing such a promise. IJJo voice from the Vatican sounds half so sweet as that from Patmos: "I heard n voice from heaven Baying unto mo, Write, Blessed are the dead' which die in the Lord •from henceforth r Yea, eailh tbo Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." Neither superstition on the one band, nor unbelief on the other, so much as dares-to offer s promise as to the life to come.

It ie equally certain tliafc no promise of the life to cotue is given to wealth. Men hoard id, and gather it, and keep it, and seal it down by bonds and settlements, us if they could carry something with them ; but when they huTe gained their utmost, they do not find that tvcnltb has the promise even of this life, for it yields small contentment to the man who possesses it. "Their inward thought is, tliut their houses shall continue for erer; they cull their lands after their own names. Nevertheless, man being in honor übicleth not." As for the life to cotno, is there tiny eupposable connection between the millions of the miser's wealth and the glory that is to be revealed ? Kay, but, by so much the more as the man lives Tor this world, by so much tho moro.alioll h.e. bo.accused. He said, " I will ptill down myTjßriis and build greater; " but (fod calls him a. tool, and a fool ho.is, for When his at ul is required of bim,,whoao shall' these things' <"be P> 1'! Nay, \jp may grasp the Indies if yo will; ytf^roay ecek to compaes within your (stales i)\ tbe lands that ye can -'SefTfa'r ,»nd' «ride, but-ye eh*li be none the. nearer'hraren when.je;have reached the climpr,. There is._ no .promiee of the world Ihitis to c'omo inllie pursuits" of usury and covetousness.

Nor i* there any such promise to personal accomplishments and beauty. How many