We have thus, in this and the preceding discourse, considered the kind and quality of that knowledge which every human being will possess in the eternal world.  He will know God, and he will know himself, with a distinct, and accurate, and unceasing intelligence like that of the Deity.  It is one of the most solemn and startling themes that can be presented to the human mind.  We have not been occupied with what will be around a creature, what will be outside of a man, in the life to come; but we have been examining what will be within him.  We have been considering what he will think of beyond the tomb; what his own feelings will be when he meets God face to face.  But a man’s immediate consciousness determines his happiness or his misery.  As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.  We must not delude ourselves with the notion, that the mere arrangements and circumstances of the spiritual world will decide our weal or our woe, irrespective of the tenor of our thoughts and affections; that if we are only placed in pleasant gardens or in golden streets, all will be well.  As a man thinketh in his heart, so will he be in his experience.  This vision of God, and of our own hearts, will be either the substance of heaven, or the substance of hell.  The great future is a world of open vision.  Now, we see through a glass darkly, but then, face to face.  The vision for every human creature will be beatific, if he is prepared for it; will be terrific, if he is unprepared.

Does not the subject, then, speak with solemn warning to every one who knows that he is not prepared for the coming revelations that will be made to him when he dies; for this clear and accurate knowledge of God, and of his own character?  Do you believe that there is an eternal world, and that the general features of this mode of existence have been scripturally depicted?  Do you suppose that your present knowledge of the holiness of God, and of your own sinful nature, is equal to what it will be when your spirit returns to God who gave it?  Are you prepared for the impending and inevitable disclosures and revelations of the day of judgment?  Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God, who came forth from eternity eighteen centuries since, and went back into eternity, leaving upon record for human instruction an unexaggerated description of that invisible world, founded upon the personal knowledge of an eye-witness?

Whoever thus believes, concerning the record which Christ and His apostles have left for the information of dim-eyed mortals who see only “through a glass darkly,” and who know only “in part,” ought immediately to adopt their descriptions and ponder them long and well.  We have already observed, that the great reason why the future state exerts so little influence over worldly men lies in the fact, that they do not bring it into distinct view.  They live absorbed in the interests and occupations of earth, and their future abode throws in upon them