Henry Alford

“ How many in all ages, how many in our own age, have been ruined for ever by pursuing what they knew to be a shadow, till it was all too late to grasp the substance! How many now present here, are leading their lives under the same practical self-deceit at this moment; spending their labour for that which is not bread,—accounting as wealth that which they cannot carry away with them when they die: studiously and pertinaciously and elaborately pauperizing themselves, in this life and for the next! ”

“ There is set before us life and death. May we choose life, that it may be well with us; that we may wake from the bed of death and find ourselves with the Lord; that we may pass in joyful hope through the waiting and disembodied state, and wake at the morning of the resurrection to that fulness of completed bliss of which we have this day been speaking. ”

“ Men live, and work, and weary body and spirit, and die, before for themselves, and in their inner hearts, they find out the difference between appearance and reality. It is a process in which the wisest and best of us are as helpless as their inferiors, and make even more signal failures. The very man by whom the spirit of God spoke this proverb, filled as he was with wisdom, ran after the idle semblance of pleasure; "forsook," in his own solemn words, "the guide of his youth, and forgot the covenant of his God;" and ended a life of glory in idolatry, and apostasy, and shame. ”

“ It seems to me, my brethren, when we look at all these sources of blessed employment, though we are unable from our present weakness to follow them out into detail,—and when we think that perhaps after all in our earthly blindness we may be omitting some which shall there constitute the chief, it seems to me, I say, as if we should have to complain not of insufficient employ for the ages of eternity, but of an infinite and inexhaustible variety, for which even endless ages of limited being hardly seem to suffice. ”

“ But how shall such an one enter there, loaded as he is with all these trappings of pride, which he has borne on him so long that they have grown to him and become part of himself? See we not how hard it is for one rich in his own esteem, ever to enter into the Kingdom of God? And when the final trial of us all comes, how miserably poor will such an one be proved to be! Then it will avail him nothing that he thought well of himself,—or that others thought well of him. Such questions will not there be raised; nor will such riches be the commodities of that land where he must spend eternity. ”

“ Many a Christian’s spirit is set free from a body in perfect vigour and health. Let us take nothing but what is common to all who believe in and serve the Lord. Now what is our present state with reference to Him whom all Christians love? It is, absence. And it is absence aggravated in a way that earthly absence never is. For not only have we never seen Him, which is a case perfectly imaginable 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. ”

“ The bliss of the moment after death consisted in being with Christ: the bliss of unlimited ages can only be measured by the same. Nearness to Him that made us, union with Him who redeemed us, the everlasting and unvexed company of Him who sanctifieth us: what glory, what dignity, what happiness can be imagined for man greater than this? ”

“ It is by these men that all real wealth is sought out and amassed: that the mines of truth are dug, the rich veins of charity explored, the piles of treasure laid up which mankind shall one day inherit, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. ”

“ It is as if one bright light were lifted for us in the midst of a realm brooded over by impenetrable mist. For who knows whither the departed spirit has betaken itself when it has left us here? One of the most painful pangs in bereavement by death is the utter and absolute severance, without a spark of intelligence of the departed. One hour, life is blest by their presence ”

“ Whether a man thinks of himself honestly or dishonestly, manfully or cowardly, humbly or proudly, is a matter of the very first consequence to his usefulness, his truthfulness, his thoroughness, in every thing in which he can be employed.
Now the aim of very many men is, to be ever gathering around this object, self, fresh treasures of possession, new causes of admiration; to strive that it shall occupy continually more and more of their field of vision—engross more and more of their respect and deference. ”

“ Though greater than our thoughts can now conceive, the bliss of which we are speaking to-day is incomplete. The spirit which has been set free from the body is alone, and without a body. This is not the complete state of man. ”

“ And where such is the case, the man makes himself, and appears, rich outwardly to the world and the church. He has his reward: the esteem and perhaps admiration of those who can do him good, or make his earthly way cheerful: the easily-won applause of a dominant party: the power of saying with effect bitter and scornful things of men infinitely beyond him in religious attainment, but who think and feel for themselves, and say no more than they think and feel. ”

“ How many energies, now tied and bound with the chain of sin, would spring upward into action! How many imprisoned yearnings would burst their bonds, and carry us onward to higher degrees of good! And all these energies, all these yearnings, can exist in the disembodied spirit. It is in a waiting, a hoping state: the greater the upward yearnings, the greater the accumulated energies for God and His work, the higher will be the measure of glory to be attained after the redemption of the body, and the completion of the entire man. ”

“ But in the midst of these saddening reflections, hymns of joy seem to break suddenly upon us, and bright rays of light to pierce through the gloom where our thoughts have been dwelling; and a sound as the voice of a great multitude comes up about us, and glory as of the risen day is shed around,—and as we listen, we hear, "Thou hast made us to be kings"—and it may well be ”

“ The resurrection is for him not a resurrection of judgment, not one in which the judgment is the leading feature and characteristic, but it is only and purely a resurrection of, and unto life: one in which life is the leading feature and idea.
Thus for the blessed dead, the judgment has no dark side: “there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” But though it has no dark side, it has a bright one. Never for a moment do the Christian Scriptures lose sight of the Christian reward. Those who die in the Lord, like the rest of men, shall be laid open before the tribunal of Christ. ”

“ Let us conclude with a consideration, to a Christian the most glorious of all. The spirit that is with Christ in nearest presence and consciousness, knows Him as none know Him here. Here, we speak of His purity, His righteousness, His love, His triumph and glory, with miserably imperfect thoughts, and in words still more imperfect than our thoughts. We are obliged to employ earthly images to set forth heavenly things. The revelations of Scripture itself are made through a medium of man’s invention, and are bounded by our limited vocabulary. ”

“ Think then what will be that abiding torment, of remembering a life spent for nought; wealth thrown away; means of doing good despised; charity suffered to languish; a thousand claims of God's own asserting, the least of which if acknowledged might by His grace have made thee rich for ever, put by and scorned; thine own evil example of selfishness and greed followed, and bettered, as the world goes on. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All those years of toil, all those increases of comfort and luxury, all those investments so carefully considered and watched over, will eat into thy memory like a canker through the ages of eternity. We all, I suppose, are acquainted with the bitter pang of reflecting on lost opportunities. Nothing is keener in life ”

“ So, then, these holy dead who have died in the Lord will in that judgment have each his reward allotted him according to his service and according to his measure. Then the good that has been done in secret will all come to light. All mere profession, all that has been artificial and put on, will drop off as though it had never been; and the real kernel of the character, the fair dealing and charity and love of the inner soul, will be made manifest before men and angels. ”

“ This is his privilege of wealth: and meanwhile he cheats himself into the semblance of also possessing justifying faith, and the witness of God's Spirit, and the promise of the heavenly inheritance: whereas in reality, he hath nothing: all is empty within: words are all, and though words form an important portion of the fruits as also of the responsibilities of the Christian life, bare words will never save a man: and in the day of trial, many such a high talker will be found utterly and hopelessly destitute. ”