R.B.R. 
 
 tf13 
 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 The blessed de 
 Conf Pam l2mo #473 
 
"THE BLESSED DEAD WAITING FOR US." 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHES IN 
 
 ST. JAMES' CHURCH, 
 
 MARIETTA, GEORGIA, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 FESTIVAL OF ALL SAINTS 
 
 NOVEMBER 1st, 1S63, 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. SAMUEL BENEDICT, 
 
 RECTOR OF THE PARISH. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST. 
 
 fton, dwrrjjia: 
 
 BURKE BOYKIN & CO., STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS. 
 1863. 
 
"if i go and prepare a place for tou, i will come again and 
 receive you unto myself." 
 
 "This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven, 
 shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven." 
 
 "From whence also wb look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 "Looking for that blessed hope." 
 
 "Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God." 
 
 "When He shall appear we shall be made like Him." 
 
 " Even so, comb Lord Jesus." 
 

 THE FLOWERS COLLECTION 
 
 Heb. XI, 40 : " that thy without us shall not he made perfect. 
 To-day is All-Saints' day. We to-day commemorate all 
 those who " having finished their course in faith, do now 
 rest from their labors." That long line of faithful ones, of 
 whom St. Paul, in the chapter of which the text is the con-^ 
 elusion, gives only a few note-worthy Scripture names, has 
 been year by year, rapidly and steadily augmenting. It 
 now includes many familiar to our minds and clear to our 
 hearts. Towards that great " cloud of witnesses" all living 
 saints are steadily advancing and rapidly passing. A few 
 years and we, too, shall have been numbered with the dead. 
 God grant to all of us, that then we may be reckoned among 
 thosej of whom a future generation may take up the strain of 
 Apostolic rapture, " These all, having obtained a good 
 report through faith, received not the promise, God having pro- 
 vided some better thing for us } that they, without us, should 
 not be made perfect." 
 
 Yes, we can hope for no better condition after death, and, 
 before the resurrection, than all the saints of all the former 
 ages have enjoyed. They, in their triumphant, their blessed 
 state, still wait for us. How near this thought brings all the 
 departed good to us 1 not gone on to their eternal, their final 
 reward, and* for the present separated from us in hope and 
 sympathy ; but, still with us in a state of expectancy, with 
 us, waiting for a still brighter day, for a still more glorious 
 fruition. Abraham and Moses, and Joseph and David, and 
 all the saints of the world's earlier days have not yet receiv- 
 ed the promise! Why? " God having provided some bet- 
 ter thing for us" also, (for that is what the verse plainly 
 means: not that God has provided some better thing for us. 
 than he did for them, but that God for us, as for them, has 
 provided some better thing, than in this world is offered to 
 
4 A SBftMOtf* 
 
 Us, and, therefore, they do not receive it in advance of us ;) 
 "God having provided some better thing for us" also, " that 
 they without us should not be made perfect." (a.) 
 
 In these words, is, we say> contained the doctrine of the 
 intermediate state of the departed saints; a doctrine which 
 comes naturally to our thoughts, when we dwell upon the 
 memory of those who, once with us in the communion of' 
 the Church on earth, are still with us in the communion of 
 Christ's body, although taken from our presence and our 
 sight. One with us still ! How ? As the angels are ? No, 
 not so. In a closer^ in a still nearer sense. Still related to 
 us, by the ties of a mortal nature ; still destined with us to 
 
 Notes. — (a.) The advantages in this life conferred upon us do far exceed 
 those granted to saints in the earlier ages. But there seems to be no suck 
 comparison intimated in these words, or hinted at in this chapter. Our faith 
 needs some better thing in the future, to sustain us Under earthly labors and 
 Bufferings, just as theirs did,'v. v. 10, 13, 16, 27, 35. The systematic contrast 
 between the Jewish and the Christian dispensations, seems to have passed out 
 of St. Paul's mind at the middle of the tenth chapter. From that point, all the 
 faithful, are, in his view, members of the one family of Abraham's spiritual seed, 
 and heirs with him of the same promise, and bound to live, And labor, and 
 Buffer, and conquer through faith, And to this victory of faith it is necessary 
 that some tetter thing should be held out to us, of which "faith is the evidence,'' 
 some future re\vard "hoped for," of which faith is the present "substance.'* 
 To adhere, in this verse, to the idea previously set forth of some better thing 
 granted to us in this life than to the Jews was vouchsafed, complicates the in» 
 terpretation, and confuses the sense. 
 
 The Presbyterian divine^ Dr. McKuight, while needlessly laboring to incor- 
 porate both ideas in his paraphrase of this verse, yet uses the following words, 
 " God having foreseen that by the Gospel He would bestow some better means 
 vf faith on us in order to our becoming Abraham's spiritual seed, resolved 
 that the ancients without us, should not be made perfect, by receiving the 
 promised heavenly country. For He determined that the whole spiritual seed 
 of Abraham, raised from the dead, shall be introduced into that couutry in a 
 body at one aUd the same time; namely, after the geheral judgment." And in 
 his annotations, he says more fully : " Made perfect, here signifies made com- 
 plete, by receiving the whole of the blessings promised to believers. * * * 
 These blessings are the resurrection of the body, the everlasting possession of 
 the heavenly country, and the full enjoyment of God as their exceeding great 
 reward." The Apostle's doctrine, that believers are all to be rewarded togeth- 
 er and at the same time, is agreeable to Christ's declaration, who told His de- 
 ciples that they were not to come to the place He was going away to prepare 
 for them, till he returned from heaven to carry them to it. St. Jo. xiv, 3. 
 Further, that the righteous are not to be rewarded till the end of the world, is 
 evident from Christ's words. St. Matth, Xiii, 40, 43. In like manner St. Peter 
 hath told us, that the righteous are to be made glad With their reward, at the, 
 revelation of Christ. 1 Pet. iv, 13. When they are to receive a crown of glory 
 thatfadeth not away. 1 Pet. v, 4. St. John also tells us, that when He shall 
 appear, we shall be made like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 1 Jo. iii, 2." 
 
 The following are a few of the many passages bearing on this truth. Let 
 them be consulted in order : Dan. xii, 2, 3. St. Jo. V, 29. St. Lu. xiv, 14, 
 xx 36. Pom. viii, 23. 1 Cor. xv, 54. 2 Cor. iv, i4. 1 TheS; iv, 14-17. 
 Heb. ix, 28. 1 Pet. i, 3-7. St. Matth. xiii, 43. St* Matth. xxv, 21, 34, 46. 
 Col. iii, 4» Ps. xvii, 15. 1 Jo. iii, 2. 2 Tim. iv, 8. 
 
A SEftMON* O 
 
 the glad bursting of the resurrection morn ; still to pass with 
 us the ordeal of the judgment; still with us to hear the ap- 
 proval "well done" from the lips of our Judge; and still, 
 With us, to be admitted for the first time, "to the kingdom 
 prepared" for us and for them "from the foundation of the 
 world." There is, we maintain, in this doctrine,a peculiarly 
 sweet and animating reflection : the dead in Christ, our own 
 loved ones gone before, still waiting for us, still delaying their 
 entrance into their highest glory, till we with them can enter 
 there. 
 
 We consider this doctrine as it is here so plainly stated, in 
 a two-fold aspect ; 
 
 1. In regard to the condition of the body. 
 
 2. In regard to the condition of the soul. 
 
 I. As to the body. Outside every city and town and 
 hamlet where human beings live, there grows up rapidly 
 and steadily, the more thickly populated city of the dead. 
 In Christian lands, the clear lifeless forms are there disposed 
 with care, in recognition of the fact, that, in this condition, 
 a great and mighty transformation awaits them. Soon, very 
 soon, the population in these silent streets, and these lonely 
 tenements, far exceeds that of the busy town, with its bust* 
 ling crowds, and its homes of gaiety and happiness. Every 
 year the stream flows on from the busy to the silent city ; 
 from the homes of the living and the loving, to the cold, 
 dark, unresponsive chambers of the tomb. Christian faith 
 may teach us, that the state of the soul is vastly more im- 
 portant than the disposal made of the material form, and 
 that he who has Christian faith will think only of the soul 
 of his departed friend; that, in his view, the body will be 
 only the deserted cell, the cast-off fetter, the forgotten au- 
 relia of the released, the exultant spirit. So, in one sense, 
 it does, But still, under Christian teachings, the resting- 
 places of the bodies of departed friends, are places of special 
 interest to the bereaved. There the heart naturally feels 
 that the loved one is lying. Despite the voice divine that 
 tells them " he is not here," the heart still clings to the form, 
 lifeless and mouldering, though it be, beneath the stone. 
 There is the father, the mother, the husband, the wife, the 
 
6 A SEHMOtf. 
 
 child, the friend, that once I loved. " Here he lies " is the tr J ae 7 - 
 the appropriate epithet on Christian tomibs. 
 
 And so he does. It is no mere concession to the dulness of 
 the mental vision that we turn to the graves of our dead ones, 
 with the yearning of loving hearts, and so tenderly guard 
 .their resting place. It is no mere yielding to the weakness 
 of the flesh, that we enclose the precious dust and so care- 
 fully mark the spot where it is deposited. Sere he does lie. 
 Not only the earthly form now turning back to dust; but here 
 lies the form that is to rise immortal, to stand with us at the 
 judgment, to enter with us the golden gates. True Christian 
 faith, sitting at the door of the sepulchre, thinks not only of 
 the form that was carried lifeless and corruptible to its last 
 earthly sleep ; but also, of the body that shall wake in im- 
 mortal energy and issue forth in glorious beauty. And so 
 as the Christian tends carefully and visits lovingly the place 
 where sleep the companions of the past, he feels that it is 
 with the companions of the future, rather, that he is holding 
 silent communion. 
 
 It is a mistake, into which even Christians fall, to speak of 
 the immortality of the soul, as if the body, too, were not im- 
 mortal. The immortality of the soul was a speculation of 
 heathen philosophy, and rested on the supposed indestructi- 
 bility of the spiritual part of man. The immortality of 
 man, body and soul, is a doctrine of the Gospel, and rests on 
 the revelation of God, and gathers its confirmation from the 
 resurrection of the man Christ Jesus. Those Christians, who, 
 in their conceptions of heavenly felicity, leave the body cut 
 of account, and make the disembodied spirit at once to mount 
 up to the highest glory and enter upon its perfect reward, 
 seem to me, to be rather believers in Plato than in Christ. 
 for it surely is around the tomb, that His disciples are taught 
 to anticipate that perfect day, when mortality shall put on 
 immortality, when weakness shall gird itself with strength, 
 when corruption shall be raised in incorruption, and when 
 all the blessed children of the resurrection shall "inherit the 
 kingdom prepared for" them "from the foundation of the 
 world." 
 
 The fact then that the body is to be raised and made a par- 
 
A SERMON. 
 
 ticipator in the full, final reward, proves the doctrine of which 
 I speak. 
 
 II. But while the flesh thus rests in hope, the spirit is in 
 its proper place. Where that place is exactly, we care not 
 to discuss. It is called Paradise in more than one passage ; 
 in one other, it is Abraham's bosom ; and, in others, the in- 
 visible place, denominated in the Psalms, and in the Acts, 
 hell i. e. the covered place, because no human eye can pen- 
 etrate its shades. In the old heathen mythology, this place 
 of the dead was beneath the surface of the earth. There were 
 bright elysian fields, the counterparts of the pleasantest spots 
 of the upper world. In these the spirits of the good dis- 
 ported themselves as they had been wont to do in the hap- 
 piest days of their earthly life. And that was all. The 
 body was left forever. It was the soul, and the soul alone, 
 in its disembodied state that occupied their contemplations 
 of the condition of the departed. 
 
 Now the Scriptures, all in harmony, teach us this one coo- 
 sistent truth, that after death the body rests in the grave, 
 and the spirit in its separate condition, is in the place of de- 
 parted spirits, wherever it may be, but not in the state of 
 perfect glory destined to it hereafter. 
 
 This place is called hell, as where in the Psalms, David 
 says, "Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither shalt 
 thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption." Of which con- 
 fidence of David, St. Peter, in his Pentecostal address, as- 
 serts that it was of Christ's soul that David, as a Prophet, 
 sung. He "spake of the resurrection of Christ, that His 
 souf was not left in hell, neither His flesh did see corruption." 
 This place, or at least one portion of this place of departed 
 spirits is Paradise ; for to the penitent thief our Lord prom- 
 ised "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." For its 
 locality we do not contend. The word Paradise is a sweet 
 word, and carries back our thoughts to Eden's garden of per- 
 fect and delightful beauty, where man talked face to face 
 with God, and innocent and immortal, lacked nothing to his 
 present enjoyment or his future expectation. The word 
 strictly means a kind of park or pleasure ground, and is sug- 
 gestive of peacefulness and repose. In our conception of 
 
8 A SERMON. 
 
 such an earthly paradise, there may be included the idea of 
 a noble mansion, to which these lovely grounds belong. In 
 such an earthly paradise, the invited guests who have already 
 arrived, may wander at will, amid its cool shades and fra- 
 grant breezes, pleased with a thousand charms of sight and 
 sound, happy in their present delightful repose, and in the 
 expectation of the rich entertainment to which they have 
 been called. In such a state of actual joy and of still more 
 joyous hope, they wait till the time shall have fully come, 
 till all the guests shall have arrived. Then the doors of the 
 mansion are thrown open and all go in together and sit down 
 at the banquet. So in the Paradise of God, (b) the blessed 
 dead, full of present peace and of joyous hope wait for us. 
 In such a happy state, and with such a blessed hope, a few 
 years, or even a few centuries, are in comparison with the 
 eternity before them, but a waiting moment. They wait in 
 joy, and when the appointed time shall come, when the num- 
 ber of the elect shall be completed, then again, as once for 
 Jesus, our ascending Lord, so now for those, who are made 
 like unto Him, shall the everlasting gates lift up their festal 
 heads, and all the saints together shall go in and sit down at 
 the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. 
 
 We hold this to be the one great central fact of all the glo- 
 rious truths concerning the invisible world, and man's con- 
 dition therein, at which Scripture gives us transporting 
 glimpses, more or less distinct : i. e. Christ is the Resurrection 
 and the Life. The Resurrection and therefore the Life. First, 
 He raised Himself, and so became the Giver of Life. Through 
 death He overcome death. By His raising His human body, 
 
 (6.) Does not this view satisfactorily explain such passages in Scripture as 
 are quoted against the doctrine of the intermediate state? Such passages are 
 Acts vii, 59. Phil, i, 23. 2 Cor. v, 6, 8, xii, 4. On this last passage, Dr. Mc- 
 Knight says : " Clement, of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Irenasus, Tertullian, 
 and most of the ancients, except Origen, and among the moderns Bull, Whitby, 
 Bengel, &c, were of opinion that the Apostle had two different raptures." The 
 language of Bp. Bull is, "First he had represented to him the most perfect joys 
 of the third or highest heaven, of which we hope to be partakers after the 
 resurrection ; and then, lest so long an expectation should discourage us, he 
 saw also the intermediate joys of Paradise ; and for our comfort tells us, that 
 even these also are inexpressible." Sermon III, on the middle state, &c. Ols- 
 hausen, while dissenting from the idea that St. Paul speaks of two visions, yet 
 says, " The distinction between an upper and a lower paradise * * entirely 
 corresponds with the Biblical doctrine." 
 
A SERMON. 9 
 
 and re-uniting it to the human soul, He burst the dominion 
 of the king of terrors. Till His resurrection, He was not 
 Himself delivered from the power of death and the captivity 
 of the grave. But when on the third day He came forth, 
 the conqueror of death and hell, then the triumphant exul- 
 tation began to be shouted, " Oh, Death ! where is thy sting? 
 Oh, Grave! where is thy victory?" Not till He had over- 
 come death, and wrested from him everything that he had 
 subdued to his power, do the Scriptures exhibit Christ as the 
 Life giver. "Because I live, ye shall live also." Or, as St. 
 Paul, who so plainly points to the bodily life, " If Christ be 
 not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins." 
 
 And on this truth depends another. Till the moment of 
 His victory, Christ was in His state of humiliation. For 
 three days His body was held as the trophy of death, thus 
 far the victor even over the Life-giver himself. Thus far, He 
 was Himself the Captive. And can we imagine, that the 
 Paradise, to which His soul went, was the state of triumph 
 and the place where the conqueror of Death was received 
 with all the glory of the Victor over death and hell? No! 
 not till He led captivity captive, not till death's dominion 
 had been completely shaken off, not till all immortal, body 
 and soul, Jesus had overcome death, and reclaimed from him 
 all His human nature, did the city of our God, resound with 
 the hosanahs of triumph, and the challenged gates lift up their 
 heads, and the everlasting doors give way, to let the King of 
 Glory, the conquering Jesus in. 
 
 And then, is the disciple above his Master ? Shall the 
 servant, at once, after death, enter the full triumph of the 
 redeemed, while his body is in the place of corruption, when 
 so did not the Lord himself? No ! Certainly in this respect 
 "it is enough for the disciple to be as his Master, and the ser- 
 vant as his Lord." And in harmony with this view Scripture 
 teaches that our bodies shall in the tomb await a glorious res- 
 urrection ; that they are to be made like unto His glorious 
 body ; that our flesh shall rest in hope of the time when 
 Christ shall come again, and, in the form of the Son of Man, 
 shall call forth from their graves all His sleeping saints ; that 
 then before His bar the gathered nations shall be judged ; and 
 
10 A SERMON. 
 
 that then to His saints, in their restored human nature, body 
 and soul reunited, He shall address the welcome, "Come, ye 
 blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom." Then 
 shall come the blissful reception into the palace of the King 
 of Kings. Then shall the righteous enter "life eternal." Then 
 bearing the image of Him who reigns in glory, shall they in 
 His likeness be perfectly glorified with Him. 
 
 And we do maintain, that it is a false and marring view 
 of this great and symmetrical truth, to make the soul of the 
 departed saint, immediately after death, enter upon the per- 
 fect and final glory, (c.) Such a conception of the state of 
 the departed, reduces the body to a useless appendage to the 
 redeemed and glorified man, and not a part of the man him- 
 self; such a conception sinks the resurrection of the body to 
 a useless display of Almighty power, not longed for by the 
 saint, because not needed, in order to his further advance- 
 ment in glory. Such a conception makes the judgment but 
 the idle re-enacting of a long finished drama, and the sen- 
 tence of that day but the re-iteration of a welcome already 
 extended and already accepted. No ! Not so. Think of our 
 departed friends as we may — as happy as we may fondly be- 
 lieve them to be — at rest from all earthly labors, and that is 
 much — free from sin and temptation, and that is more — 
 secure in their title to their eternal inheritance, and that is 
 the great thing — in Paradise, the celestial ante-type of 
 Eden's perfections of beauty and of peace — in Abraham's 
 bosom, and so in the sweet companionship of all the saints — 
 present with the Lord, because absent from the body, and 
 
 (c.) "Now I do affirm the constant and consentient doctrine of the primitive 
 church to be this: that the souls of all the faithful, immediately after death, 
 enter into a place and state of bliss, far exceeding all the felicities of this world, 
 though short of that most consummate perfect beatitude of the kingdom of 
 heaven, with which they are to be crowned and rewarded in the resurrection." 
 Bp. Bull, Sermon III. 
 
 " It was the Popish Convention, at Florence, that first boldly denned against 
 the sense of the Primitive Christians. That those souls which, having con- 
 tracted the blemish of sin, are, either in their bodies or out of them, purged 
 from it, do presently go into heaven, and there clearly behold God Himself 
 one God in three persons, as He is. And this decree they made, partly to es- 
 tablish their superstition of praying to the saints deceased ; * * * but chiefly 
 to introduce their purgatory." Ibid. 
 
 Dr. Whitby says : " And the Trent Council, sess. 25, hath laid this as the 
 foundation of the invocation of saints departed, that they do now reign with 
 Christ, and enjoy eternal felicity in heaven." Annotations on 2 Tim. iv, 8. 
 
A SERMON* 11 
 
 hence with him in a closer union than to us here is possi- 
 ble — in heaven, perhaps, if by heaven you simply mean some 
 happy place, away from this stricken, groaning world, and 
 nearer to the glory of God's immediate presence, where sin 
 and sorrow never enter— think of them, I say, as we fondly 
 may; but oh I let us not forget that a higher state, a more 
 glorious destiny, a fuller fruition yet awaits them, which 
 shall not be by them enjoyed till we, too, if we are so hap- 
 py, till we, too, are ready, till all the sons of immortality are 
 ready and Christ comes again. Then, side by side, we who 
 have taken sweet counsel together, and gone to the house of 
 God in company, shall be glorified together- — together receive 
 our reward— together go in at the heavenly mansion and sit 
 down at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. 
 
 Oh I this waiting for us of the blessed dead ! How closely 
 it still knits them to us ! Waiting for us! All of the same 
 company still. Waiting for us I Not to welcome us to their 
 perfect state. That is but half the truth. But waiting for 
 us, with us to be advanced and crowned. Half the truth, 
 did I say ! It is but the merest fraction of the truth. Glo- 
 rious and happy as we may conceive our departed loved ones 
 now to be, and happy as we may be when, in their paradise < 
 we enjoy their present joy, it will still be but the beginning 
 of an endless advance, the first step, although a lofty one, in 
 a succession of upward mountings into light and life ; the 
 first enlargings of a free spirit, that is more and more, and 
 forever more and more, to be filled with all the fullness of 
 God. Our departed friends, just across the dark river, in 
 those bright fields which 
 
 " — beyond the swelling dood 
 Stand dressed in living green," 
 
 Wait for us, to enter with us, as conquerors, into the Hea- 
 venly City. And then all immortal, body and soul, we in 
 one triumphal throng, with Jesus at our head, shall pass on 
 to the heavenly Zion, receive our crowns, and reign with Him 
 forever and ever. 
 
 At the old Grecian games, the victors in the amphitheatre 
 were removed from the arena to that part of the stadium, 
 
12 A SERMOtf. 
 
 where the judges sat, and where the prises had been 
 displayed. Not at once were the crowns put upon their brow. 
 The contests in the amphitheatre were still going on. One 
 by one the victors passed out of the place of conflict and 
 entered the place of honor and repose. Was anything 
 then wanting to their satisfaction? Their breasts swelled 
 with exultation. They occupied the place of honor — the 
 admired recipients of a nation's envy and applause- Yet for 
 a while they waited. Then when the games were ended, (d) 
 the judge pronounced the names of the victors in all the 
 games. Then the paeans burst forth ; then the crowns de- 
 scended ; then the palms were grasped, and the conquerors 
 went forth to banquet and song amid the ringing plaudits of 
 the rejoicing city. 
 
 So in our Christian course, which the Apostle likens to 
 these contests of ancient Greece. A long line of the conquer- 
 ors through faith have passed out of ,the arena of earthly 
 strife to the piesence of their Judge — to the post of securi- 
 ty — to the place of honor, of happiness and of repose. Still 
 they have not yet received the promise. The games of life 
 are still progressing. Other victors are to be added to this 
 faithful throng. Other crowns are to be won, Then when 
 all this earthly probation is closed, the Judge shall arise, the 
 victors shall be proclaimed, the crowns awarded, the harps 
 struck, the song awakened and the triumphal procession of 
 the redeemed shall take up its march to the uplifted gates;. 
 and the marriage of Christ and his spotless, perfect Church, 
 shall cause the golden streets of the New Jerusalem to re- 
 sound with the welcome acclaim. 
 
 The Church of Christ, then, is to be considered in a three- 
 fold aspect, Here on earth, it is the Church Militant, where 
 the struggle is still going on, where the victories are to be 
 gained, if gained at all, and the prize of everlasting life se- 
 cured, if secured at all. Then beyond the resurrection of 
 
 (d.) So testify Theodoret and Theophylact. Dr. McKnight, however, on 
 what authority I do not find, says that all the victors of the day were together, 
 at the close of each day, proclaimed and crowned. The difference is unimpor- 
 tant. When all the contests of this earthly life are over, or what is the same 
 thing, when the day of probation comes to an end, then shall the crowns of im- 
 mortality be awarded. 
 
A SERMON', 13 
 
 the dead and the eternal awards of the Judgment, is the 
 Church Triumphant, where the victorious saints enjoy their 
 triumph together, the proclaimed, the received inheritors of 
 the kingdom and the crown. Between each one's death and 
 resurrection, there is the Church in another state, properly 
 called the Church Expectant, where, the contest finished, the 
 prize secured, the successful, happy champions of faith, in 
 present honor and delight, delay their entrance into the still 
 higher glory, till we whom they love, and for whom they 
 wait, shall have finished our course with joy, and are ready 
 with them, in body and soul, to " have our perfect consum-* 
 mation and bliss." For "they, without us, ghould not be 
 made perfect." Oh ! what an incentive here, to strenuous, 
 unintermitted labor in the Christian course. " Wherefore, 
 seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of 
 witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth 
 so easity beset us, and let us run with patience the race that 
 is set before us." Christian champion, have you among 
 this cloud of witnesses, a departed parent or child, husband 
 or wife, brother, sioter or friend, in whose communion on 
 earth you delighted ? He waits for }-ou there, Great as his 
 present joy may be, he waits for you to enter upon a higher 
 state of glory and felicity. Shall he wait in vain? 
 
 In this Church Expectant are many, who have recently, 
 very recently completed their course on earth. There are 
 many now there, who but lately drew near to this altar, and 
 participated in this feast of love. Within the five years that 
 I have ministered to you, in this part of the Church Militant, 
 six of the forty-six communicants whom I found here, have 
 been laid by me in the grave.(e.) Their spirits, we trust, are 
 in that blissful, waiting throng, waiting for us, who are here 
 
 (e.) In the order of their decease these are Jeremiah B. Elmer, a Vestryman 
 of the Parish, J. Mongin Smith, Junior Warden, Mrs. Eliza McDonald, Mrs. 
 Barbara Pulliam, Mrs. Mary W. Berry, Benjamin Green, Junior Warden. 
 
 Of the forty-six communicants on the Register five years since, fifteen have 
 removed, leaving only twenty-five of that number at this time on our commun- 
 ion list. Forty-four have been added by removal, sixty-seven anew, make the 
 sum total of communicants in these five years, one hundred and fifty-seven. 
 Of these additions two have died, and twenty-four removed, leaving our pres- 
 ent number one hundred and ten, as given below. In this are reckoned a very 
 few who on this (All Saints) day received their first communion. None are 
 included in this number however, who, resident it may be for a longer or 
 shorter time, have yet parish relations elsewhere in the Confederacy 
 
14 A SERMONv 
 
 to-day, mutely but eloquently calling to their beloved ones-, 
 to join them in their coming day of triumph. 
 
 In this view of the relation between the Church Militant 
 on earth, the Church Expectant in Paradise, and the Church 
 Triumphant beyond, the history of each Christian Parish, 
 becomes deeply interesting, and its Register extremely sug- 
 gestive. During the five years just closed, there have, in 
 this parish, been admitted to the Christian Church, by bap- 
 tism, seventy -eight children, and twenty-eight adults. In 
 the view, upon which, this morning, we have been dwelling, 
 these are one hundred and six members of Christ, children 
 of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. It would be 
 a blessed thought, that all of them shall ever thus remain ; 
 that their names shall never be blotted out of that book of 
 life, which will at the last great day be opened. 
 
 Within these years seventy-six of God's baptised children 
 have here renewed their baptismal promises and avowed 
 themselves the soldiers and servants of Christ, and have set 
 out in the Christian course, to win the prize of their high 
 calling. Here are seventy-six enlisted competitors for the 
 crown. How inexpressibly delightful it would be to the 
 pastor's heart, to believe that each admitted competitor, 
 Would so run as to obtain. 
 
 Twenty-one times have I joined in Holy Matrimony those 
 over whom I have uttered the prayer of benediction, "May 
 you so dwell together in this life, that in the world to come, 
 ye may have life everlasting." Would that in every case. 
 We could feel, that Christ and His Church were so present in 
 this earthly union, that, with assurance, we could anticipate 
 for every one a more glorious espousal, and a never-ending 
 re-uniom 
 
 Forty-three times have the words been said over the open 
 grave, " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Many 
 of these, we are sure, are now sleeping in Jesus, their flesh 
 resting in hope, their spirits joyously in Paradise awaiting 
 the day when corruption shall put on ineorruption, and mor- 
 tality shall be swallowed up of life. Oh ! that no sad fore 
 boding of a resurrection unto shame and everlasting con- 
 
A SERMON. 15 
 
 tempt, mingled with our anticipations of that glorious day 
 Over and over again, as we are to-day, soon to do, have 
 we gathered around this table of our Lord. One after anoth- 
 er has disappeared from our number, to join the greater com- 
 munion beyond the veil. Others have come in to fill their 
 places, till now where forty-six stood, five years ago, now 
 one hundred and ten are registered as the communicants of 
 this Parish. Month by month the sacrament of this com- 
 munion has been renewed. Your pastor's heart is animated 
 with the confidence that many here are going on from strength 
 to strength — till they appear before God in Zion ; that they 
 are growing more and more meet for the blessed supper above, 
 where none but the tried and the purified shall be admit- 
 ted. While on the other hand, his heart is saddened with 
 the reflection, that many seem to care little for their privil- 
 eges, and try little for their glorious crown ; and over some 
 such, even among his communicants, the sigh will arise, that 
 the records of the Church Militant, will not, perhaps be rati- 
 fied by the records of the Book of Life. The sad thought 
 will intrude, "that many" even here, are to be found, who, 
 at the last, "shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able." 
 
 Oh ! these records of the Church of Christ ! How they 
 speak of privileges and of responsibilities, of hopes and prom- 
 ises, of God's mercies and of man's accountabilities, of present 
 grace improved or neglected, and of future glory or despair ! 
 Let us ever, my brethren, remember that other book of God's 
 account, and strive so to keep our place in His family that 
 from the Church Militant on earth, we may pass to the bless- 
 ed company of the faithful dead, who, in the Church Expec- 
 tant, wait, in sure and certain hope, for their perfect consum- 
 mation and bliss in the Church Triumphant, in the immedi- 
 ate presence of Christ, our risen and glorified Lord. 
 
 " The Spirit and the Bride say, come — and let him that is 
 athirst come." Do not these sweet words of invitation from 
 the Bride of Christ, this gentle persuasion of the Holy Spirit, 
 come to you to-day, with a strange new power and tender- 
 ness — blended as they are, with the voices of the fondly re- 
 membered, the loved, the sainted dead? Can you not hear 
 
16 A SERMON. 
 
 them say, "Come, for all things are now ready." "Yet 
 there is room." Room at this table of our Lord, room in our 
 expectant ranks — room at that feast above, to which, we 
 wait, with you to enter. 
 
 And now to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith, 
 our risen and glorified Lord, be ascribed, with the Father 
 and Holy Ghost, as by the angels in Heaven and the saints 
 in Paradise, so by the Church on earth, all the honor and the 
 praise, forever and forever. Amen. 
 
 Almighty God, with whom do live the Spirits op those who de- 
 part HENCE IN THE LORD, AND WITH WHOM THB SOULS OP THE FAITHFUL, 
 
 after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh are in joy 
 and felicity: we give thee hearty thanks for the good examples 
 of all those thy servants, who, having finished their course in 
 faith, do now rest from their labors. and we beseech thee, that 
 we, with all those who have departed in the true faith of thy 
 Holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in 
 body and soul, in thy eternal and eveerlasting glory, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
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