Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

156 THE TRUE DOCTRINE.consequences of persons' actions are not fully worked out when personsdie. Thus, for instance, ifc is known that the labours and writings ofmany infidels, who are long since dead, are still working for evil; and onthe other hand, the labours and writings of many good men are stillworkingout good.These consequences must, in a certain sense, come into theconsideration of their punishment or reward. Hence it is thought theirdestiny cannot immediately be decided. ]Jut to this it may be repliedthat God, who judges, knows how these consequences will work themselvesout, and is able, therefore, to give a just judgment as well at theday of death as at the end of the world. At the last day, when all consequenceshave run out their history, it will be proper that they shouldbe exhibited in a solemn public judgment, that all may see for themselvesthat all his ways are just and right. Besides, there is nothing unreasonableor unscriptural in the belief that the happiness of the righteous inheaven, and the misery of the lost in hell, will increase in exact proportionas the consequences of their actions on the earth are developing themselves,until the day of judgment, when the cup will be full,and then thefull draught of happiness or misery will be taken finally and forever IOh, what a moment will that be !795. " Some additional considerations will serve more completely stillto answer these and other objections, and reconcile the serious and thoughtfulmind to the idea that the souls of the saints are in heaven before theresurrection of the body.796. '^ We shall only gain proper ideas in reference to this interestingsubject when we have corrected our ideas of heaven, for many of them areevidently wrong. TVe are inclined to think of heaven as affording to thesaints a fixed or stereotyped condition, without attaching to it the idea ofdegrees and progression. When we maintain that the saints pass immediatelyat death into heaven, we do not mean that they enter then upon theirfinal condition, or into their highest state of perfection, but only that theyenter into that p^arc which is their final abode. When, for instance, achild is born into the world, it is in the world; but it is limited in itsobservations, actions, ideas, capacities, and enjoyments, and yet all thesearc in their state perfect ; all its faculties occupy their place symmetrically,and we have in the child a uniform but not a perfect being. Analogousto this may be the primary stage of our future celestial history. Thechild is in the world before it is born and during its infantile years, buthow different is it, and how different is the world to it, from what it willbe when all its faculties are ripe ! So in heaven. The child before selfconsciousnessappears to enjoy an indistinct and floating life, but happytoo ; so may it be with our future condition before the resurrection of thebody. The condition of the disembodied spirit will, no doubt, be somewhatisolated and lonely, (in a pleasant sense,) its happiness being derivedmuch, though not entirely, from the flow of its own harmonious existence,