I. I have already announced that during this Advent season I would call your attention to the state of the blessed dead. My object in so doing is simply that we may recall to ourselves that which Scripture has revealed respecting them, for our edification, and for our personal comfort. And I would guard that which will be said by one or two preliminary observations. With Death as an object of terror, with Death from the mere moralist’s point of view, as the termination of human schemes and hopes

W e stand to-day at this point in our consideration of the state of the blessed dead. They depart, and are with Christ. “This day,” the day of the departure, they are consciously, blissfully, in His presence. Their faith is turned into sight: their misgivings are changed for certainty: their mourning for joy. Yet, we said, their state is necessarily imperfect. The complete condition of man is body, soul, and spirit. The former of these three, at all events, is wanting to the spirits and souls of

W e have traced the condition of the blessed dead, from their departure and being with Christ, to the glorious day of the resurrection. Their spirits are safe in His keeping, till that day when He shall call their bodies out of the graves, and they shall be once more complete in manhood, body, soul, and spirit. And our present consideration is, What, on that resurrection, is the next thing which shall befall them? Now the best, because the most general text on this matter, is that in Heb. ix. 27