elsewhere: no, for he had told them before, in the first chapter,
what he meant by heavenly places. God their Father, he says, had
blessed them with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in
Christ, in that He had chosen them in Christ before the foundation of
the world--and for what end? For the very end which I have been
preaching to you. 'That they should be holy, and without blame
before God, in Love.' That was heaven. If they were that,--holy,
blameless, loving, they were in heavenly places already,--in that
moral and spiritual heaven in which God abides for ever. They were
with God, and with all who are like God, as it is written, 'He that
dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.'

My dear friends, this is the heaven for which we are all to strive--a
heaven of goodness, wherein God dwells. And therefore an eternal and
everlasting heaven, as eternal as goodness and as eternal as God
himself; and if we are living in it, we have all we need. But we may
begin to live in it here. To what particular place our souls go
after death, Scripture does not tell us, and we need not know. To
what particular place our souls and bodies go after the resurrection,
Scripture tells us not, and we need not know. But this Scripture
tells us, and that is enough for us, that they will be in heavenly
places, in the presence of Christ and of God. And this Scripture
tells us--and indeed our own conscience and reason tell us likewise--
that though death may alter our place, it cannot alter our character;
though it may alter the circumstances round us, it cannot alter
ourselves. If we have been good and pure before death, we shall be
good and pure after death. If we have been led and inspired by God's
Spirit before death, so shall we be after death. If we have been in
heavenly places before death, thinking heavenly thoughts, feeling
heavenly feelings, and doing heavenly deeds, then we shall be in