He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still (Rev. xxii. 11).

A VERSE very much like this is found in Solomon: "the way a tree falleth, so it lieth." The doctrine of the text is:our experience and character must remain eternally unchanged after death, that when we expire our probation is ended, and there is no change that can ever take place in our nature, no change excepting the change of in creasing intensity, no change of character, and it is utterly foolish for people to be hunting for promises of a second probation after death. God will smite all those teachers who are selling themselves to the devil to offer the world a second probation.

This text looks strange; one half on the shores of Time, the other half on the shores of Eternity. Five years ago, when I walked over the suspension bridge at Niagara, I was struck with it; one little span and one end here, on this side, and the other away yonder, the connecting link between these two great countries. When passed over, one goes from one nation and form of government to that of another; yet the transit is so easily made. So, like the text, a man never -passed from Time to Eternity but went over this bridge. Every infant foot and every patriarch foot passed over it.

There are three principal truths revealed in this text:—

First. There is coming, in a few months, an hour that will absolutely fix our character and experience for ever—a crisis, — a moment of time that will fix to all eternity the character of your heart. In this world we are full of changes, — nature, friends, geo graphical charts, etc., — and the changes take place with every breath we draw; yet, right out of all this change, we are very soon going into a state of the unchangeable, where our desires and affections will be fixed to all eternity! If God would write that single thought upon our hearts, it would put every one under conviction. God makes provision for this change, through His Spirit, His Word, and His angels; and there are demons in the air, destroying beings in a way they know not of. Everything is pro vided for this change. So the gospel is at work, and evil spirits are at work, and change is taking place in human hearts and life; and yet the day is coming when the work of angels and demons will be done, and everything settled forever! When ungodly people die, there is no provision to change in the world to come; there is no chance for an unconverted sinner to repent after death. He has no desire or disposition to repent. Some say that the lost would desire your chance. They do not! The rich man in hell never repented one single atom. He prayed, but it was to a saint. He never referred to the Word or to Salvation; he simply desired to escape punishment. A block of ice can make itself boil as easily as a man can repent after death. The Holy Ghost leads to repentance, and there is no gospel pro vision for repentance after death. No one desires to be saved without the Holy Ghost operating on him; and when you put a soul beyond the Holy Ghost, it has gone into a state whence it never can change, nor desire to. Take a gallon of water that is boiling and put it in the Arctic region; it will freeze, and stay so! You take a human heart out of these boiling revival meetings, these genial and hallowed Sabbath services, and let that soul put itself beyond all that, without salvation, and it is like that gallon of water; it will to all eternity remain hard and unchanged. So no tempting devil can attack the saved after death, no seducing spirit come to mind or heart. Their souls have been washed in the blood of Jesus; they never backslide, and there is never any possibility of it. Jesus says, " Be thou faithful unto death; " you needn't mind anything after that; and God Almighty will take care you never backslide to all eternity.

The Scriptures teach us that we are going as rapidly as possible to that time when our souls will be crystallized forever. Death does not make a man better, or worse. We think when we see sinners in their graves, that death has put a black mark on them. They are just as they were five minutes before they died! Death sends no one to hell! A lot of good people are still in baby-clothes, afraid to use the word "santification"; and yet when they die, we say they are "sanctified." It is saintly living that God wants! Some do not want the word "sanctified" applied to them now, but when they are dead they will want their preacher to say it over them. Death does not sanctify you. Death simply puts God's lock and key on us, — that is all! When a warden locks in a prisoner, the turning of that key does not make him guilty; it simply locks him in!. So Death simply locks him in to his eternity. When dyers put in the mordant it fixes the color. You are changing the color of your soul every day, and death is only the mordant to fix the color of your experience forever! Think how soon you will die. You have seen the drops of rain fall from a cloud and change into a tranquil lake, from a changeful cloud to an un changing lake; so we drop into the smooth, unchangeable stream of Eternity from this ever-changing life.

Second. There are two elements that belong to every person's character; every sinner, two; every believer, two. There are four words in my text; two belong to the Christian, and two to the sinner. The words "unjust " and " filthy " belong to the sinner; the words "righteous" and "holy," to the believer; so you see a perfect contrast between the one and the other. "Unjust " — "righteous," — perfectly opposite; so the other two, "filthy" — "holy." So the "sinner " is opposite to the "believer" So all character is de scribed in the Bible as having two sides. You will find that sin has two sides to it; that is what the Church has not yet learned. The reason we do not under stand salvation better is that we do not understand sin. All sin has two parts; one is " unjust," and the other is " filthy." Every unconverted soul has those two parts. The word "unjust" means not just, not only that is "dishonest," but he is out of harmony with the law of God; hence he is guilty in the eyes of God! For every sin you commit you are making yourself more unjust before God. You can't commit any sin without being " unjust " in the eye of God's law, — outwardly or inwardly. "Filthy," also. We have not only our actual sins, but original sin. Sin may be by act and by nature. Every heart by nature is impure; the soul is unclean before you commit sin. Suppose a man could live fifty years and never commit a single sin, still his heart is unclean without salvation; he is born with a sinful nature. So when people commit sin they not only add to their sin but to their uncleanness. If you shoot an arrow into a white wall it will not only break the wall but it will soil it and make it full of scars — stain it. Now, for every sin people commit they not only break the law, but they add to the impurity of their moral nature; and unless the unconverted get a change wrought in their souls that will renovate their whole moral nature, they cannot get into heaven! " Salvation " is not " reformation," but a divine change wrought in your affections, and your heart is purged by divine grace, so that you will love and think and feel differently, and every stream from your soul will proceed from a different fountain.

There are two words for the believer: he is "righteous" as opposite to the sinner's "unjustness;" so religion has two sides, a twofold thing, as in 1 John 1. 9: "If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous." Why does God use these two words here? Because God knows. So the Bible speaks of pardon and purity, two words for the sinner, and two for the saint. The word "righteous" means "justified" — upright and downright. A great many say, " I want to be better" and think that religion means to do - better. You may do better, and do better, and go to perdition. Suppose a man tells ten lies a day, and says he will do better and tell only five, he does do better, but, he is a liar still! The Bible does not say, "do better" but, "do right!" The word " righteous" means harmonious with the law of God; the word "holy" means harmonious with the nature of God. Conversion makes a man in harmony with God's law, and cleansing puts him in sweet harmony with the nature of God! So, if you will repent of your sins — whether one or one million — and believe on Jesus Christ as your only present Saviour, every sin will be wiped out by the sponge of Calvary, and you will stand as innocent in the eyes of the law as though you had never sinned. You will be " righteous," your heart free from guilt, in harmony with the law; for when God justifieth who can condemn? Pardon makes you straight before the law, and the word "holy" belongs to the believer. This word does not refer to the law, or a man's rectitude, but to the very instincts of his nature, the inward purity of his heart, his desires and will. Man has a nature that lies back of his will and love and moods, and the word "holy" means to be pure in the very nature of our souls." It means one in blessed covenant with God. God's nature is love. He hates all sin, and a holy heart hates it. So, as a sinner has two parts, so God's people are to be "righteous " before the law, and "holy" in nature.

Third. When these two men — the good and the evil — die, when they go into eternity they carry with them the elements of future suffering or future joy. The sinner is "unjust" and "filthy," and if he die thus, he carries in him the elements of twofold suffering forever. There is a local heaven and hell; a place where the evil are congregated, and a place where the people of God are assembled. Elijah and Moses have their glorified bodies there; Jesus is there, and the saints are there; they are not in the last heaven. Some one actually asked a brother if he believed in an intermediate state! Some get the notion that, when the wicked die, they go into the final place of pain, and the good into the final heaven. This is not taught in the Bible. They do not go there until the appointed time, which is the day of Judgment. The lost are carried to a dark realm to stay there until the Judgment Day. They cannot be judged until the Day of Judgment. There is a locality where people are carried from their death. When an ungodly person dies, he is borne to the regions of despair, reserved unto the Judgment Day; and he carries there the elements of his suffering. All who do not enjoy religion, unless you obtain salvation, you have in your own breast the latent forces of your future woe.

A great many do not realize that there is a hell. You are too much occupied. Your eyes and ears are filled with other things. Ten thousand things crowd in upon you, so that your conscience may be guilty, and your heart be vile; and yet you stifle your conscience and smother your soul, and you get so immersed in business that you forget you have a soul! But some day you will get sick, and you think it is only a trifling spell; but you get worse and worse, and soon you die. You think you haven't time to die; you have to work — rush — drive on; not time to get sick or die. But Death will put an icy hand on your pulse, and you give a few shuddering spells, and you die, and your soul goes out and it hovers over your body a few moments, and your spiritual eyes open, and you find you are dead; and an iciness steals over you, and you are got beyond the Holy Ghost — be yond loved ones, and all sunshine, — and an eternal frost settles down upon you, and all you refined moralists will blaspheme, and a black angel will bear you on against your will, and amid the silence of Eternity will bear you down; and when you are there, no flesh and blood around you, no newspapers to entertain you, no money nor clothing nor furniture to feed your pride, no social glass or smoke, — they have all vanished like a myth. Unclothed, a solitary ghost with nothing to do but think, and think, and think of the past with remorse, of the future with revenge, and of God with added terror. Oh, the loneliness! And I am telling the truth; it is coming. You are on the way! Then you will think till your mind reels; and you will think until your heart writhes in anguish! And though they be no external horror, you have in your own breast the elements of everlasting anguish! Oh, what fools to let a few things of flesh and blood drown us, when in a few years you have to go out and live all alone in that abyss of horror! And when the good man dies? His will is made; he has given all to God! I made my arrangements for eternity eleven years ago! It is all gone through with! So when you are called upon to die, it may be a surprise, but no grief. As your spirit passes out of the frail, sick body, you are embraced by the buoyant form of a waiting angel. You won't have to fly to heaven. The beggar was " carried " by the arms of angels; and as you are borne aloft you will take your place in the bright bowers of bliss! But sup pose there were no bowers of bliss, no harps of gold? You carry the elements of your own bliss in your own breast! And you are not only "righteous" but also "pure;" and you can soar, and sing as you soar "unto him who hath loved us, and hath washed us in his own blood, unto him be glory and power and dominion forever!" You only have one soul, and it is ALL you have. It is worth every thing to seek the salvation of your soul!