maginable in
earthly relations, but also, which hardly is, we have no absolute
proof of His existence, nor of His mind towards us. Even as far as
this, is matter of faith and not of appearance. We have no token, no
communication, from Him. I suppose there hardly ever was a Christian
yet, living under the present dispensation, entirely dependent upon
his faith, who has not at some time or other had the dreadful thought
cross his mind--overborne by his faith, but still not wholly
extinguished, "What if it should not be true after all?" And much and
successfully as we may contend with these misgivings of unbelief, yet
that frame of mind which is represented by them, that wavering,
fitful, unsteady faith, ever accompanies us. The distress arising from
it is known to every one who has the Christian life in him. Only those
never doubt who have never believed: for doubt is of the very essence
of belief. But some poor souls are utterly cast down by the fact of
its existence--shrink from these half-doubting fits as of themselves
deadly sin, and are in continual terror about their soul's safety on
this account: others, of stronger minds, regard them truly as
inevitable accompaniments of present human weakness, but of course
struggle with them, and evermore yearn to be rid of them.

Now if what we have been saying be true,--and I have endeavoured not
to go beyond the soberest inferences from the plain language of
Scripture,--if so much be true, then the moment of departure from the
body puts an end for ever to this imperfect, struggling, fitful state
of faith and doubt. The spirit that is but a moment gone, that has
left that well-known, familiar tabernacle of the body a sudden wreck
of inanimate matter, that spirit is with the Lord. All doubt, all
misgiving, is at an end. Every wave raised by this world's storms,
this world's currents of interest, this world's rocks and shallows, is
suddenly laid, and there is a great calm. Certainty, for doubt--the
sight of the Lord, for the conflict of assurance and misgiving--the
face of Christ, for the mere faith in Christ--these have succeeded,
because the departed spirit is "with the Lord"--companying with Him.

Before we follow this out farther, let us carefully draw one great
distinction. We must not make the too common mistake of confusing this
sight of the Lord which immediately follows on the act of death, with
that complete state of the glorified Christian man, of which we shall
hav