is no aversion of the mind from itself. The cognition is
a fixed quantity. Given the soul, and the knowledge is given. If it be
holy, it is always conscious of the fact. If it be sinful, it cannot for
an instant lose the distressing consciousness of sin. In neither instance
will it be necessary, as it generally is in this life, to make a special
effort and a particular examination, in order to know the personal
character. Knowledge of God and His law, in the future life, is
spontaneous and inevitable; no creature can escape it; and therefore the
bliss is _unceasing_ in heaven, and the misery is _unceasing_ in
hell. There are no states of thoughtlessness and unconcern in the future
life, because there is not an instant of forgetfulness or ignorance of
the personal character and condition. In the world beyond this, every man
will constantly and distinctly know what he is, and what he is not,
because he will "be known" by the omniscient and unerring God, and will
himself know in the same constant and distinct style and manner.

If the most thoughtless person that now walks the globe could only have a
clear perception of that kind of knowledge which is awaiting him upon the
other side of the tomb, he would become the most thoughtful and the most
anxious of men. It would sober him like death itself. And if any
unpardoned man should from this moment onward be haunted with the
thought, "When I die I shall enter into the light of God's countenance,
and obtain a knowledge of my own character and obligations that will be
as accurate and unvarying as that of God himself upon this subject," he
would find no rest until he had obtained an assurance of the Divine
mercy, and such an inward change as would enable him to endure this deep
and full consciousness of the purity of God and of the state of his
heart. It is only because a man is unthinking, or because he imagines
that the future world will be like the present one, only longer in
duration, that he is so indifferent regarding it. Here is the difficulty
of the case, and the fatal mistake which the natural man makes. He
supposes that the views which he shall have upon religious subjects in
the eternal state, will be very much as they are in this,--vague,
indistinct, fluctuating, and therefore causing no very great anxiety. He
can pass days and weeks here in time without thinking of the claims of
God upon him, and he imagines that the same thing is possible in
eternity. While here u