HEB. ix. 27. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”

I. THIS passage, beyond all its solemnity, does honour to
man. It declares that death leaves his essential nature
untouched. After death he is still man. No affection, no
principle of human nature is lost.
II. These two appearances of man correspond with the
two appearances of Christ, the Representative Man of the
race. As Christ inherits to eternity what He acquired in
His earthly humanity, so shall we.
III. Our brief planetary existence is quite long enough
for the inner, the essential man, to take the stamp, spirit,
and general character of His endless after life.
IV. In the present outer court or vestibule of our
nature our essential humanity is in process of formation.
And who can fail to admire the justice and mercy of the
Divine provision by which the hereditary nature, formed
independently of our personal choice, is not permitted to be
our final nature; but every man’s final nature shall be the
result of the choice and co-operation of his own will and
personality.
V. A man is under no absolute necessity of considering
the bearings of his present life on his future. It is not
more time we want, but more will.
VI. Whether we are made out of heaven for heaven, or
out of more dusky elements for the dusky world, we shall
have to keep our appointment.
VII. By death we go into the searching room of truth.
That will not harm us if we invite the truth to search us
beforehand.
VIII. It is wise and friendly that time should close with
us and eternity open.
IX. Time is a surprising mercy before eternity begins.
X. Every man’s look forward depends on his look back-
ward.
XI. If the heavenly nature is not in us, it is impossible
that the judgment of God should put us into the society of
heavenly persons.
XII. You shall not be adjudged to a place outside
heaven, unless you adjudge Christ to a place outside your
souls.
John Pulsford.