^ PRINCETON, N. J. *% 
 
 Presented by (3Ter\ .C^\ Q\ \)i^Ood^r\\j\\ ^ VC 
 
 BV 4905 .B6 1868 
 
 Bonar, Horatius, 1808-1889 
 
 The morning of joy 
 
MORXIXG OF JOY; 
 
 A SEQUEL TO THE xMGHT OF WEEPIXG. 
 
 •'3o2 romtt^ m tit mornfns," 
 
 PSAL. XXX. 5. 
 
 REV. HORATIUS BOI^'AR, D.D., 
 
 AITTHOE OF "HTMSS OF FAITH AITB HOPE," « NIGHT OP 
 "VTEEPIXG," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 
 No. 53.0 BKOAD-WAT. 
 
 1868. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PA.6B 
 PREFACE V 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ANTICIPATIONS 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCH 11 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EAENESTS OF THE MORNING ... 32 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE USE OF THESE EARNESTS .... 49 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MORNING-STAR 59 
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 THE MORNING ,75 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE VICTORT OVER DEATH .... 93 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 THE REUNION 108 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD .... 128 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE KINGDOAI 150 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE GRACE 171 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 THE G.ORY 
 
 190 
 
MORKIXG OF JOY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ANTICIPATIONS. 
 
 The Church of God on earth is not what 
 Ehe seems ; nay, is what she seems not. She 
 is not a heggar, yet she seems one ; she is 
 a King's hride, yet she seems not. It was 
 so with her Lord while here. He was not 
 vrhat men thought him ; he was what 
 they thought him not. 
 
 It is in this way that the world is put to 
 shame, its thoughts confounded, its great- 
 ness ahased before God. And it is in this 
 way that Divine wisdom gets large space 
 over which to spread itself, step hy step, 
 and to open out its infinite resources slowly 
 
 B 
 
Z THE ANTICIPATIONS. 
 
 and with care, (like one exhibiting ni« 
 treasures,) that no part, no turn in all its 
 windings may be left unobserved. It is 
 not the result only that God desires that 
 we should see and wonder at, but the pro-' 
 cess by which it is reached, so unlikely to 
 effect it, yet so steadily moving forward to 
 its end, and so strangely successful in bring- 
 ing about that end. The planting of the 
 " trees of God " in Eden, in full strength 
 and fruitfulness at once, was not such an 
 exhibition of wisdom as that which we 
 ourselves see in yearly process before us, 
 when God out of a small, shapeless seed 
 brings a stately pine or palm. 
 
 In truth, this is the law of our world. 
 It might not be so at first in Eden, when 
 only the result was given to view ; but it 
 has been so since, and is so now, for God 
 is showing us most minutely how " fear- 
 fully and wonderfully " all things are 
 made, and we among the rest, in soul and 
 in body, in our first birth and in our 
 
THE ANTICIPATIONS. 8 
 
 second, in our natural and in our spiritual 
 growth. 
 
 The tree, in winter, is not what it ap- 
 pears — dead; nay, it is what it appears 
 not — alive ; full in every part, root, stem, 
 and branch, of vigorous though hid- 
 den vitality, a vitality which frosts and 
 storms are but maturing, not quenching. 
 All summer-life is there ; all autumn 
 fruitfulness is there ; tliough neither visi- 
 ble. It wraps up within itself the germs 
 of future verdure, and awaits the coming 
 spring. So is it with the church, in this 
 age of wintry night; for it is both night 
 and winter with her. Her present condi- 
 tion ill accords with her prospects. No 
 one, in looking at her, could guess what she 
 either is or is to be ; could conceive what 
 God has in store for her. For eye has 
 nothing to do with the seeing of it, nor ear 
 with the hearing of it. No one, in observ- 
 ing her garb or her deportment, or the 
 treatment she meets with at the hands of 
 B 2 
 
I THE ANTICIPATIONS. 
 
 men, or the sharp, heavy discipline through 
 which slie is passing, could take the mea- 
 sure of her hopes. Faith finds difficulty 
 in realizing her prospects, and she can 
 hardly at times credit the greatness of her 
 heritage, when thinking of what she is and 
 remembering what she has been. 
 
 It often seems strange to us, and it must 
 seem much more so to unfallen beings, that 
 saints should be found at all in such a 
 world, — a world without God, a world of 
 atheists, — a Avorld that from the days of 
 Cain has been the rejecter of his Son, both 
 as the sacrifice for sin and as the heir of 
 all things. It is not on such a spot that 
 we should naturally expect to find sons of 
 God. Next to hell, it is the unlikeliest 
 place for a soul that loves God to dwell in, 
 even for a day : and if a stranger, travers- 
 ing: the universe in search of God's little 
 flock, his chosen ones, were to put to us 
 the question, "Where are they to be found," 
 certainly he would be astonished when told 
 
THE ANTlCirATIONS. 5 
 
 that they were in that very woild wheie 
 Satan reigned, and from which God had 
 been cast out ! Would he not say, " Either 
 this is a mistake and a chance, or else it is 
 the very depth of unfathomable wisdom." 
 For we do not go to the crater's slope for 
 verdure ; nor for flowers to the desert ; nor 
 for the plants of heaven to the shores of the 
 lake of fire. Yet it is so with the church. 
 It is strange perhaps to find a Joseph in 
 Egypt, or a Rahab in Jericho, or an Oba- 
 diah in the house of Ahab ; but it is more 
 amazing to find saints in the world at all. 
 Yet they are here. In spite of every thing 
 ungenial in soil and air, they are here. 
 They never seem to become acclimatized, 
 yet they do not die out, but are ever re- 
 newed. The enemy labours to uproot 
 them, but they are ineradicable. Nay, 
 they thrive and bear fruit. It is a miracle ; 
 but yet so it is. Here the great Husband- 
 man is rearing his plants from generation 
 
 to generation. Here the great Pottei 
 B 3 
 
S THE ANTICIPATIONS. 
 
 fashions his vessels. Here the great 
 Master-builder hews and polishes the stones 
 for his eternal temple. 
 
 Thus, then, one characteristic of the 
 church is, the unlikeness of her present to 
 her future condition. It is this that marks 
 her out, that isolates her, as a gem in the 
 heart of a rock, as a vein of gold in a mine. 
 Originally she belonged to the mass, but 
 she was drawn apart from it, or it fell from 
 off her and left her alone, like a pillar 
 among ruins. Outwardly she retains much 
 of her former self; but inwardly she has 
 undergone a change that has assimilated 
 her to " the world tp come." Thus her 
 affinities and her sympathies are all with 
 that better world. Her dwelling is still 
 here, and in external appearance she is 
 much as she used to be ; but the internal 
 transformation has made her feel that this 
 is not her home, and filled her with an 
 ticipations of the city and the kingdom to 
 come, of which she has been made the 
 
TITE ANTICirATlONS. 7 
 
 heir. Her kindred according to the flesh 
 are here, but she is now allied to Jehovah 
 by the ties of blood, and this draws her 
 soul upwards. 
 
 Cut off from a home and a heritage 
 here, yet assured of both hereafter, she of 
 necessity lives a life of anticipation. Giv- 
 ing credit to the message of grace, and 
 resting on the blood of Him through whose 
 cross that grace came down to her, she an- 
 ticipates her acquittal at the judgment. 
 Realizing her oneness with the risen and 
 ascended Christ, she feels as if already seat- 
 ed with him in heavenly places. Looking 
 forward to the arrival of the King, she an- 
 ticipates the kingdom. In darkness she 
 anticipates the light; in sorrow she an- 
 ticipates the joy ; in the night she antici- 
 pates the morning; in shame she antici- 
 pates the glory. "All are mine," she says, 
 " whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or 
 the world, or life, or death, or things pre- 
 sent, or things to come ; all are mine ; fol 
 
8 THE ANTICITATIONS. 
 
 I am Christ's, and Christ is God's." In 
 these anticipations she lives. They make 
 up a large portion of her daily heing. 
 They cheer her onward in spite of the 
 rough wastes she has to pass through. 
 They comfort her ; or when they do not 
 quite succeed in this, they at least calm 
 and soothe her. They do not turn mid- 
 night into noon, but they make it less op- 
 pressive, and take off " the night side of 
 nature." 
 
 " I am not what I seem," she says to 
 herself; "and this is joy. I am not the 
 beggared outcast that the world takes me 
 for. I am richer far" than they. They 
 have their riches now, but mine are com- 
 ing when theirs are gone. They have 
 their joys now ; but mine are coming when 
 theirs have ended in eternal weeping. I 
 live in the future ; my treasure is in 
 heaven, and my heart has gone up to be 
 where my treasure is. I shall soon be seen 
 to be what I now seem not. My kingdom 
 
THE ANTICIPATIONS. 
 
 is at haiifl ; my sun is about to rise ; 1 
 shall soon see the King in his beauty ; I 
 shall soon be keeping festival, and the joy 
 of my promised morning will make me 
 forget that I ever wept." 
 
 Thus she lives in the morning, ere the 
 morning has come. She takes a wide sweep 
 of vision, round and round, without a limit • 
 for faith has no horizon ; it looks beyond 
 life, and earth, and the ages, into eternity. 
 
 Beyond the death-bed and beyond the 
 gi-ave, she sees resurrection. Beyond the 
 broken hearts and severed bands of time, she 
 realizes .and clasps the eternal love-links ; 
 beyond the troiibles of the hour, and be- 
 yond the storm that is to wreck the worlds 
 she casts her eye, and feels as if transported 
 into the kingdom that cannot be moved, 
 as if already she had taken up her abodfc 
 in the New Salem, the city of peace and 
 righteousness. Beyond the region of the 
 falling leaf she passes on to the green 
 pastures, and sits down under the branches 
 
10 THE ANTICIPATIONS. 
 
 of the tree of life which is in the midst 
 of the paradise of God. Losing sight of 
 the bitterness of absence from the beloved 
 of her heart, she enters the bridal-chamber 
 and tastes the bridal joy ; keeping festival 
 even in the desert, and enjoying the sab 
 bath rest amid the tumults of a stormy 
 world. 
 
CHAPTER n. 
 
 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 We are not of the world, though we are 
 %n the world. So " we are not of the 
 night," though we are in the night. We 
 are " children of the day ; " we belong to 
 the day, and the day belongs to us, as our 
 true heritage, though it has not yet dawned. 
 Hope rests there; and though deferred, will 
 not always tarry, nor when it comes will it 
 shame our trust. " When the desire Com- 
 eth it shall be a tree of life." 
 
 Night is around us still ; but it is not 
 merely one of weeping, it is also one of 
 watching. No sorrow is to make us less 
 watchful ; nay, much more. So far from 
 tribulation throwing us off our guard, it 
 
12 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 should lead to added vigilance. It pre- 
 vents our falling asleep, as we should cer 
 tainly do were all peaceful and prosperous. 
 It makes the night more cold and bitter to 
 us, thereby rendering us more weary of it, 
 and more eager for the day. Were the 
 night air mild, and the night sky clear, we 
 should grow contented with it, and cease 
 to watch for day-break. 
 
 This is our night-watch. To this the 
 Master has appointed us during his absence. 
 " Watch ye therefore ; for ye know not 
 when the master of the house cometh, at 
 even, or at midnight, or at the cock -crow- 
 ing, or in the morning : lest coming sud- 
 denly he find you sleeping. And what I 
 say unto you I say unto all, Watch,''^ 
 (Mark xiii. 35 — 37.) It is the prospect of 
 morning and of the Master's return tliat 
 keeps us watching, — especially in these 
 last days, when watch after watch has come 
 and gone, and he has not yet arrived. 
 " His going forth is prepared as the morn 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 2S 
 
 ing" (Hos. vi. 3) ; and that morning can- 
 not now be distant. 
 
 The church must fulfil ner night-watch, 
 AVhether long or short, perilous or easy, 
 she must fulfil it. It is watching to which 
 she Is specially called ; and sadly will shes 
 belie her profession, as well as disobey hei 
 Lord, if she watches not. She need not 
 think to substitute other duties for this, as 
 more needful, more important, or more in 
 character. She dare not say, " 1 love, I 
 believe, I pray, I praise, why should I also 
 watch ? will not these do instead of watch- 
 ing, oris not watching included in these ?" 
 Her Lord has bidden her watch, and no 
 other duty, no other grace, can be a substi- 
 tute or an excuse for this. 
 
 She is to believe ; but that is not all ;• she 
 is also to watch. She is to rejoice ; but 
 that is not all ; she is also to watch. She 
 is to love ; but that is not all ; she is also 
 to watch. She is to wait ; but that is not 
 all ; she is also to watch. She is to long • 
 
14 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 but that is not all ; she is also to ttatch. 
 This is to he her special attitude, and no- 
 thing can compensate for it. By this she 
 is to he known in all ages, as the watching 
 one. By this the world is to he made to 
 feel the difference hetween itself and her. 
 By this she is specially to show how truly 
 she feels herself to he a stranger here. 
 
 Men ask her. Why stand ye gazing up 
 into heaven ? Her reply is, " I am watch- 
 ing." Men taunt h^r, and say. Why this 
 unrestfulness ? Her reply is, " I am watch- 
 ing." Men think it strange that she runs 
 not with them to the same excess of riot 
 (1 Peter iv. 4.) She tdls them, " I am 
 watching." They ask her to come forth 
 and join their gaiety, to come forth and 
 sing their songs, to come forth and taste 
 their pleasures, that thus they may teach 
 her to forget her sorrows. She refuses, 
 saying, " I dare not, I am watching.'* 
 The scoffer mocks her, and says. Where is 
 the promise of his coming ? She heeds not. 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 15 
 
 but continues watching, and clasps her 
 hope more firmly. 
 
 Sometimes too a feeble, doubting, or, it 
 may be, inconsistent saint, asks in wonder. 
 How are you so strong, so hardy, so able 
 for the struggle, so successful in the battle ? 
 She answers, " I watch." Or he asks, 
 How do you keep up a tone so elevated, 
 and maintain a walk so close, so consist- 
 ent, so unearthly ? She answers, " 1 
 watch.'* Or he asks. How do you over- 
 come sloth, and selfishness, and love of 
 ease ; or check fretfulness and anxiety, or 
 gain the victory over a delaying spirit ? 
 She answers, " I watch." Or h^ asks. 
 How do you make head against your fears, 
 and challenge danger, and defy enemies, 
 and keep under the flesh ? She replies, " I 
 watch." Or he asks, How do you wrestle 
 with your griefs, and dry up your tears, 
 and heal your wounds, nay, glory in 
 tribulation ? She answers, " I watch." 
 
 Oh what this watching can do, to on* 
 c 2 
 
16 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 who understands it aright! Faith alone 
 will not do. Love alone will not do. Ex- 
 pectation alone will not do. Obedience 
 alone will not do. There must he watching. 
 And this watching takes for granted the 
 suddenness and uncertainty of the day of 
 the Lord. It does not say, the Lord must 
 come in my day ; but it says, the Lord may 
 come in my day, therefore I must be on the 
 outlook. This may come is the secret of a 
 watchful spirit. Without it we cannot 
 watch. We may love, and hope, and wait ; 
 but we cannot watch. Our lamps are to 
 be always trimmed. Why ? Not merely 
 because the Bridegroom is to come, but 
 because we know not how soon he may 
 come. Our loins are to be always girt up. 
 Why? Not simply because we know that 
 there is to be a coming ; but because we 
 know not when that coming is to be.* 
 
 ♦ Thus one wrote two hundred years ago : " All ia 
 night that is here, therefore sigh and long for the dawn- 
 ing of that morning, and the breaking of that day of the 
 coming of the Son of man, when the shadows shall He* 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 17 
 
 The Lord foresaw the spirit of im watch- 
 fulness into which his people would be apt 
 to fall, while he tarried, and he warns us 
 against it. He would have us always to 
 remember that there will be a danger o^ 
 our becoming easy-minded and earthly 
 content with his absence instead of mourn- 
 ing because of it; content with his de- 
 lay instead of joining in the primitive 
 cry, " How long." He saw that the world 
 ■would throw us off our guard; that few 
 "would really keep awake and watch ; that 
 many would get tired with watching, and 
 find out excuses for not watching ; that 
 many would sit down and try to make 
 themselves comfortable here without him. 
 Hence he so often repeated the warning — 
 
 Bwav. Persuade yourself that the King is coming. 
 Wait with the wearied night — watch for the breaking of 
 the eastern sky, and thi7ik that ye have not a morrow." 
 — Samuel Rutherford. If, as the same wTiter says, 
 "love is sick to hear tell of a to-morrow," how much 
 »crs of a thousaiid years ! 
 
 c 3 
 
'8 THE NKJHT- WATCH. 
 
 Watch! Hence he added, "lest coming 
 suddenly he find you sleeping.'*^ 
 
 His desire is, that we should be so 
 watching, that when he cometli and 
 knocketh, we may open unto him immedi- 
 ately. (Luke xii. 36.) And he pronounces 
 a special blessing upon those servants whom 
 he finds thus, promising that " he will gird 
 himself, and make them sit down to meat, 
 and will come forth and serve them." To 
 be in such an attitude of watchfulness as 
 that we shall be ready to open to him im- 
 mediately, is that to which he has promised 
 so special a reward, so wondrous an honour. 
 Ah ! who amongst us is in this condition 
 in these last days ? Should we be ready to 
 open to him immediately were he arriving 
 now ? Should we not be thrown into con- 
 fusion at the news of his coming, like 
 servants unprepared for their master's re- 
 turn, and not counting on it so soon? 
 Should we not have to be getting ready^ 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 19 
 
 when we should be opening the door? 
 Should we not be running to put on our 
 needful and proper raiment instead of go- 
 ing forth to welcome him ? Ah, what con- 
 fusion in the household, what amazement, 
 what fear, what bustle, what running to 
 and fro, would there be in our day, were 
 the tidings to be brought us, " the Lord 
 has come ! " 
 
 In the repeated command to watch, there 
 is much of rebuke. The Lord could not 
 trust us to remember it of ourselves, or 
 obey unbidden. Had he been able to 
 count on perfect love in us to himself — 
 love full and deep like his own, would he 
 have thought of such a command I w^ould 
 it have been needed ? It would not. All 
 that would have been needful would have 
 been to tell us that he meant to return ; 
 love would have supplied the rest, and, of 
 itself, have made us watchful ; love would 
 have made it impossible that it should be 
 otherwise. It would have needed neithe? 
 
20 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 the command nor the declaration of uncer- 
 tainty and suddenness. It would have 
 anticipated all these. It would have acted 
 upon them unbidden. But the Lord could 
 not trust us. He could not trust our love; 
 and therefore he adds the command, there- 
 fore he reiterates the warning. It is 
 strange and sad indeed, that neither the 
 power of love, nor the awe of the command, 
 can quicken us into watchfulness or rouse 
 us into preparation. 
 
 The announcements of the suddenness 
 of His coming are very distinct and par- 
 ticular. There is nothing vague about 
 them ; nothing to take off the edge of the 
 warning which they contain. They are 
 much more specific and repeated than those 
 of His first coming. His first advent took 
 the church by surprise, even though he 
 had set the time and numbered the years. 
 How much more then is his second coming 
 likely to surprise us, when, by the way in 
 which he has announced it, he has pre- 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 21 
 
 vented us from counting on any interval at 
 all ! Yet we watch not ! Neither his mea 
 suring the time in the one case, nor his 
 leaving it unmeasured in the other, pro- 
 duces the designed effect. " When the 
 Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on 
 the earth ? " 
 
 During this our night-watch, faith is to 
 be ever vigorous and in motion. For it is 
 the root of watchfulness. Without faith 
 one can hjirdly have the idea of what it is 
 to watch. For all the objects towards 
 which watchfulness turns, are connected 
 with things unseen, — an unseen Savionr, 
 and an unseen kingdom. 
 
 When first we knew the Lord and be- 
 lieved on him as the peace-maker, not only 
 were we freely forgiven, but we were de- 
 livered from a present evil world. Things 
 present fell off from us ; things to come 
 gathered round us. What was once 
 shadowy became real ; what once seemed 
 real seemed then a shadow. Christ's wordg 
 
22 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 became real words ; his truths real truths j 
 his promises real promises. All else ap- 
 peared unreal. The veil was not with- 
 drawn, but we realized what was within it. 
 The future did not become the present, nor 
 the invisible the visible ; but we felt as if 
 they were so. " Our faith was the sub- 
 stance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
 things not seen." Believing then that the 
 Lord is coming, that the time is short, that 
 the interval is uncertain, and that his arrival 
 will be sudden, we watch. Unbelief throws 
 us off our guard ; but faith sends us to our 
 watch-tower. We know what our Lord 
 meant when he said, " Blessed are they 
 that have not seen and yet have believed." 
 Or, altering the words of our Lord, may 
 we not also say, " Blessed are they that 
 have seen and yet have not believed ?" To 
 see and yet not to believe, is one of the 
 things that faith teaches us, and one of the 
 things that quicken watchfulness. We 
 look upon a world full of ungodliness, and 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 2S 
 
 yet believe not that God has forsaken the 
 earth. We see the world's wisdom worship- 
 ped, but yet believe not that it is wisdom. 
 We see the power of evil, and yet believe 
 not that evil shall triumph. We see con- 
 fusion every where, and yet believe not but 
 that order is God's law. We see a divided 
 church, and yet believe that the church is 
 one. We see mighty kingdoms ruling, and 
 yet believe not that they shall abide. We 
 see the saints trodden down, but yet be- 
 lieve not in their shame or extinction. We 
 look upon the tomb of the righteous, and 
 yet believe not that he is dead. We see 
 the church's persecutions and defeats, and 
 yet believe not only that she is conqueror, 
 but invincible. We see the march of Anti- 
 christ, but yet believe not in his progress, 
 save as a progress to doom. We see the 
 world's joy, and yet believe not that it is 
 joy. We see the saint's sorrow, and yet 
 believe not that he is sorrowful. We see 
 night, thick, deep night around us, but 
 
24 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 yet we believe not in the night, but in the 
 day. 
 
 Thus faith triumphs. We believe, we 
 trust, we hope ; and, so doing, we stand 
 above the world. We lift up our eyes to 
 the hills whence cometh our help. We 
 look towards the east, where the dawn 
 breaks. We watch for the morning. Our 
 night-watch has been long and weary ; 
 but the morning will soon end it.* The 
 watching, the waiting, and the hoping 
 will then be done, but the loving will be 
 for ever. 
 
 We ivatch : for we know of no interval 
 between us and the Lord's appearing. 
 The hour of our meeting with him, and 
 with those whom we have loved and lost, 
 may be nigh at hand. Sooner than we 
 think, we may be joined together insepar- 
 d,bly, our bodies clothed with resurrection- 
 
 * '* Tell her that the day is near the dawning, the 
 sky is riving, (cleaving,) our Beloved will be on us ere 
 erer we be aware." — Rutherford. 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 25 
 
 health, and our souls rejoicing in holinese 
 and love. 
 
 We watch ; for it is night, and though 
 we are not children of the night, still the 
 night with its shadows rests heavily upon 
 lis, making us with wistful keenness to 
 look out for its passing away. We grow 
 more dissatisfied with it as it deepens. It 
 brings so many griefs, it gathers round us 
 so many temptations, it calls up so many 
 dangers, it gives courage to so many 
 enemies, that we grow troubled at its last- 
 ing so long. Yet we cannot shake it off. 
 God's purpose must be served, and his 
 time must run oiit. Till then let us pos- 
 sess our souls in patience, whilst watch- 
 ing for day-spring, and stirring up our 
 souls with the assurance that we know of 
 nothing between us and the ending of our 
 long: nisrht-watch. 
 
 We ivatch ; for the day is ours, with all 
 that it contains of gladness and sunshine. 
 We are weary of the night, and we rejoice 
 
26 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 that it IS not ours; though we are in it j 
 but that the day is ours. Just as we can 
 say, " the kingdom is ours," so we can say, 
 " the day is ours." And we watch for it 
 as being ours. Its light is ours ; its blue 
 sky is ours ; its mild air is ours ; its cheer- 
 ful sounds are ours ; its friendly greetings 
 are ours ; all that it calls forth of joy, and 
 health, and purity are ours. Need any won- 
 der that we should watch for such a day ? 
 We vxitch ; foi the night is far spent. 
 Not only do we know of nought before vs 
 ere the Lord arrive ; but we know of much 
 behind us. Hours, years, ages have gone 
 by. And if the whole night was to be 
 brief, only " a little while," then surely 
 very much of it must now be over. " The 
 night is far spent," says the apostle \ liter- 
 ally, it is " cut oiF," it \^ foreshortened, that 
 is, it is becoming shorter, it is drawing to 
 a close.* Behind us are lying centuries oi 
 
 • 7j i/u£ irpoE/coi/^Ei/, Rom. xiii. 12. Thus Rutherford 
 expresses the idea of the passage. After telling us that 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 2? 
 
 tears and shadows ; the greater part of the 
 little while Jiiust be past ; the day must be 
 at hand. The nearness makes the thoiisht 
 of day doubly welcome. We bend towards 
 it with warm longings ; we strain our eyes 
 to catch the first token of it ; we rouse 
 ourselves to vigilance, knowing that now is 
 our salvation nearer than when we be- 
 lieved. 
 
 How it disappoints, how it damps, to be 
 told, there are centuries more of this night- 
 watching still to come ! Could that be 
 proved, it would sadly chill our hope. We 
 might at once come down from our watch- 
 tower and give up our expectations. To 
 " look for and haste unto the coming of 
 the day of God,"* would be no longer a 
 
 " the blast of the last trumpet is now hard at hand," he 
 adds, " this world's span-length of time is now drawn 
 to less than half an inch." 
 
 * 2 Peter iii. 12. — The margin has the true render- 
 ing here, " hasting the coming of the day of God." By 
 looking, and praying, and watching, we hasten that day, 
 though it be fixed in the purpose of God ; just as we are 
 instruments (by prayer, &c.) in the conversion of a 
 friend, though that also depends en the purpose of God. 
 D 2 
 
£8 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 duty. The last generation of the church, 
 living at the close of the millennium, might 
 get up into the watch-tower, but for us, 
 watching would be a name, a mere attitude 
 of form or show. 
 
 It has ever been Satan's object to inter- 
 pose some object between the church and 
 her Lord's arrival ; but never did he light 
 upon a more specious, more successful de- 
 vice than that of making the interposed 
 object a glorious and blessed one. To no 
 other would the church have listened. 
 She would have shrunk and turned away 
 from a thousand years' sorrow ; but. she is 
 attracted and dazzled by the promise of a 
 thousand years' rest and joy. Yet, is the 
 interposition of any fixed interval, (be it 
 sad or joyous,) lawful or scriptural ? If the 
 Lord's advent be thrust into the distance, 
 it matters not what may be introduced to 
 fill the interval. If the Hope of the 
 church be hidden, it is of small moment 
 whether it be by a shroud of sackcloth or 
 by a veil of woven gold. 
 
THE NIGHT-A\JATCH. 29 
 
 God deals with the church as one. 
 Though consisting of many generations, he 
 looks upon it as one hody. And in refer- 
 ence to her hope, he has so framed his 
 revelation, that every generation of the 
 church should stand upon the same footing 
 as the last. How has this heen done ? 
 How has the first age, and how have all 
 
 subsequent ages, been placed in the same 
 
 • 
 
 position as the last ? Simply by concealing 
 
 the interval. In this thing it has been 
 truly " the glory of God to conceal a mat- 
 ter." (Prov. XXV. 2.) For by this method, 
 so simple and so natural, each age of the 
 church has been made to feel, precisely as 
 the last will feel, — to watch, just as the last 
 will watch, when the Lord is in very deed 
 at hand. And thus that body which is 
 spread over centuries, has at all times been 
 made to occupy a position and present a 
 character, the same as if it had been a 
 body whose life and actings were summed 
 up in one generation. So thart any known 
 d3 
 
80 THE NIGHT-WATCH. 
 
 interval interposed before the advent, alters 
 the posture, destroys the character, and 
 breaks the oneness of the church, while it 
 defeats the object which God had so 
 specially in view in keeping the times and 
 seasons in his own power. 
 
 Often, since the Lord left the earth, has 
 the watch been changed and the guard re- 
 lieved. God has not tried too sorely the 
 faith of any one age by making the watch 
 too long. In mercy he has cut down man's 
 age from patriarchal longevity to three- 
 score years and ten, lest the overwearied 
 watchers should sink under the toil and 
 hardship. It is this that makes unwatch- 
 fulness so inexcusable. Adam, or Seth, or 
 Methuselah, or Noah, might have had the 
 edge of their watchfulness blunted by the 
 long conflict of nine hundred years ; but 
 what excuse have we for heedlessness? 
 Our time of service is brief, and to fall 
 asleep or grow impatient, would indicate 
 sad indolence and unfaithfulness. " "What ! 
 
THE NIGHT-WATCH. 31 
 
 could ye not watch with me one hour ? 
 watch and pray, lest ye enter into tempta- 
 tion." If the Lord come not in our day, 
 by his personal presence to end our watch- 
 ing, we still cannot complain of over- 
 endurance or exhaustion, seeing we shall 
 be so soon relieved and taken into his 
 nearer presence, there to watch in rest 
 and joy and light, as here we have watched 
 in weariness and grief and darkness.* 
 
 * " Blessed consummation of this Aveary and sorrow- 
 ful world 1 I give it welcome, I hail its approach, 1 
 wait its coming more than they that watch for the 
 morning. Over the wrecks of a world I weep ; over 
 broken hearts of parents, over suffering infancy, over 
 the unconscious clay of sweet innocents, over the un- 
 timely births that have never seen the light, or have 
 just looked upon it and shut their eyes for a season, 
 until the glorious light of the resurrection-morn. O 
 my Lord, come away ! Hasten with all thy congregated 
 ones. My soul desireth to see the King in his beauty, 
 and the beautiful ones whom he shall bring along \*-itb 
 him; when I shall see these sweet babes, snatched 
 from a parent's weeping eyes, and a parent's sorrowful 
 yet joyful heart." — Irving's Lectures on the Revelation, 
 vol. i- p. 77. 
 
CHAPTER m. 
 
 THE EARNESTS OF THE MORNIWO. 
 
 The true morning has not yet broken ; 
 hardly does it give forth any sign of break- 
 ing, save the deeper darkness that is the 
 sure foreteller of the dawn. 
 
 It is still night upon the earth ; and 
 *' the children of the night " are going to 
 and fro in the world's streets, doing *' the 
 unfruitful works of darkness;" "walking 
 in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, 
 revellings, banquetings, and abominable 
 idolatries ; " yielding to the " flattering 
 lips " of the seducer, that " lieth in wait 
 at every corner," in " the black and dark 
 ni^ht " (Prov. vii. 9 — 21) ; making " pro- 
 vision for the flesh," by " living in rioting 
 
THE EARNESTS OF THE MORNINQ. 33 
 
 and drunkenness, in chambering and wan- 
 tonness, in strife and envying " (Rom. xiii. 
 13) ; compassing themselves about with 
 sparks of their own kindling, which only 
 sadden the gloom and make us feel more 
 truly that it is night. 
 
 It is still night to the church ; a night 
 of danger, a night of weariness, a night of 
 weeping. Her firmament is dark and 
 troubled. The promise of morning is sure, 
 and she is looking out for it with fixed and 
 pleading eye, sore tried with the long 
 gloom. Yet it has not arisen. It is still 
 deferred — deferred in mercy to an unready 
 ^orld, to whom the ending of this night 
 ^hall be the closing of hope, and the seal- 
 ing of ruin, and the settling down of the 
 mfinite darkness. For " the Lord is not 
 slack concerning his promise, as some men 
 count slackness, but is long-suffering to 
 us-ward, not willing that any should perish, 
 but that all should come to repentance." 
 
 But though it is night, there are times 
 
84 THE EARNESTS OF 
 
 both in the saint's own history and the 
 church's annals, which may be spoken of 
 as 7?iorm?fgs even now. Such was the 
 " morning " to Adam when Seth was born 
 to him after Abel's death. (Gen. iv. 25.) 
 Such was the " morning " to Noah when 
 the flood dried up, and the face of the 
 earth was renewed. Such was the " morn- 
 ing " to Jacob when the tidings came to 
 him that Joseph was yet alive. Such was 
 the " morning " to Naomi when Ruth and 
 Boaz wiped off the tears of widowhood, 
 and when in her old age she '^ saw her 
 seed," and " took the child and laid it in 
 her bosom." (Ruthiv. 16.) Such was 
 Hannah's " morning " when, after long 
 years of bitterness, " the Lord granted her 
 petition," and " she w^ent her way and was 
 no more sad." (1 Sam. i. 18.) Such was 
 the " morning " that dawned on Job wlien 
 the Lord accepted him, and turned his 
 captivity, giving him twice as much as he 
 had before, " blessing his latter end more 
 
THE MORNING. 95 
 
 than his beginning."* Such was Israel's 
 " morning " when the Lord turned back 
 the captivity of Zion, " making them Hke 
 men that dream/' filling " their mouth 
 with laughter and their tongue with sing- 
 ing," in the day of their deliverance from 
 exile. 
 
 Thus there are "mornings" ever and 
 anon bursting on us now. They are in- 
 deed little more than brief brightenings of 
 the darkness — lulls in the long tempest 
 that is to rage unspent till the Lord come. 
 Still we may call them '' mornings," just 
 as we give the name of mid-day to the dim 
 kindlings of the -sky at daily noon, in the 
 six months' arctic night, when the sun 
 
 * Job xlii. 9 — 12. Yet even here there seems an 
 allusion to the trtie morning yet to come, and an intim- 
 ation that all this restored fulness was but an " earnest." 
 For, as has been remarked, while Job has all his sheep, 
 oxen, &c. exactly doubled to him, his children are 7iot 
 doubled. He had lost seven, and he gets back but 
 sevefi ; for he must look to the resurrection-morning 
 for the restoration of his seven lost ones, and not till 
 iuen is he to get the double. 
 
36 THE EARNESTS OF 
 
 keeps below the horizon. Or, better and 
 truer, we may call them earnests of the 
 morning — that morning which is to out- 
 shine all mornings, and to swallow up alike 
 the darkness and the light of a present evi? 
 world. Dim and transient as al*e these 
 earnests, they are unutterably gladdening. 
 They cheer the heavy darkness and are 
 pledges of sun-rise. 
 
 Our life on earth, " the life that we 
 now live in the flesh," is thus made up of 
 many nights and many mornings. It is 
 not all one night, nor is it all one day. 
 Every thing pertaining to it seems to re- 
 volve or alternate. It. is a life of sinking 
 and rising, of going and returning, of 
 ebbing and flowing, of shade and bright- 
 ness. The health of the soul seems in 
 gome measure to need such changes, 
 just as the soil owes much of its fruit- 
 fulness to the vicissitudes of the sea- 
 eons. 
 
 As there is no even continuance of 
 
■xaX MORNINO. 37 
 
 constant good, so there is no equal pFessure 
 of unbroken evil. As the season of calm 
 is brief, so is the burst of the storm. The 
 days of darkness are many — more in num- 
 ber than the days of light, yet they do not 
 last always. " Many are the afflictions of 
 the righteous," yet there are breaks in the 
 line of evil, for it is added, " the Lord de- 
 livereth him out of them all." 
 
 Our God has so fashioned us, and so 
 regulated our circumstances, that each 
 grief has its crisis, its spring-tide, after 
 which it seems, as if by a law, to recede. 
 Not only can the soul not bear beyond a 
 fixed amount of pain or pressure without 
 giving way, but it cannot be kept too long 
 upon the stretch. If the tension is pro- 
 tracted, the " spirit fails," the mind breakg 
 down. Or if this is not the case, callous- 
 ness comes on; we grow stupid and in- 
 sensible. Affliction loses its power by be- 
 ing too heavy or too long. 
 
 The highest mountain has its iummit ? 
 I 
 
JI8 THE EARNESTS OF 
 
 the deepest mine-shaft has its lowest level. 
 Nor, in general, are these long in being 
 reached. So even when there 'is sorrow 
 upon sorrow, there is respite between, or 
 gladness at the close of the dark series. 
 The outer and the inner world have, to 
 some extent, the same laws of alternation 
 and relief. Tides and variations seem 
 needful in both. Thus it was in the life of 
 David. At one time he stood with glad- 
 m^ss in the courts of his God ; at another 
 h' bemoaned himself, saying, "When shall 
 I come and appear before God ? " At one 
 time he went with the multitude ; at 
 another he wandered in solitude and exile. 
 At one time he kept holy day with the 
 thousands of Israel, joining in the voice of 
 joy and praise ; at another his tears were 
 his meat day and night. At one time his 
 soul was cast down and disquieted within 
 him ; at another he praised Jehovah as the 
 health of his countenance. At one time 
 he could look with open eye upon the 
 
THE MORNING. 39 
 
 glory of Jehovah in his house ; at anothei 
 he could only reniemher him from the land 
 of Jordan and of the Hermonites from the 
 hill Mizar. At one time deep called unto 
 deep, all God's waves went over him ; at 
 another the Lord commanded his loving- 
 kindness and opened his mouth in song. 
 Such were the tides of David's history — 
 the vicissitudes of day and night in his 
 varying course. True type of every saint's 
 history, not only in the old age of shadows, 
 but in our own I True example of the 
 changes and tossings marked out for the 
 church in her course on earth from shame 
 to glory \ What else are we to look for till 
 the Lord come ? In the first age of the 
 church, in the time of righteous Ahel, it 
 was so. " The evening and the morning 
 were the first day." In the last age of the 
 church, just ere the second Adam is brought 
 in, it shall be no less so. " The evening 
 and the morning were the sixth day." 
 Then comes the world's seventh and 
 B 2 
 
40 THE EARNESTS OP 
 
 brightest day — a day of cloudless splen* 
 dour, unbroken and unending. 
 
 How wise, how gracious that it should 
 be so ! One firmament of gloom, spanning 
 our whole life-time, would be intolerable. 
 One long heavy chain of grief, with which 
 we could never get familiar, and on which 
 we could never learn to look calmly ; or 
 one linked succession of griefs, ever tearing 
 open old wounds and adding new ones, 
 would wither up existence and blight life 
 before its prime. Man's nature could not 
 bear it ; man's heart would sink under it, 
 unless made totally callous by some un- 
 natural process, or .sustained by daily 
 miracle ; in which case grief would cease 
 to be grief, and there could be no such 
 thing as trial or chastisement at all. 
 
 Hence, He who " knoweth our frame 
 and remembereth that we are dust," not 
 only " stayeth his rough wind in the day 
 of his east \vind ;" but often, for a season, 
 bids both be still, and breathes on ur only 
 
THE MORNIKO. 41 
 
 with the freshness of the mild south. Foi 
 thus has he spoken, " I will not contend 
 for ever, neither will I be always wroth ; 
 for the spirit should fail before me, and the 
 souls which I have made." (I&a. Ivii. 16.) 
 Such then is God's purpose concerning us, 
 and such his reasons for it. The purpose 
 is a gracious and a tender one ; no less so 
 are the reasons for it. He tells us, that 
 though he does, at seasons, contend with 
 us, yet he will not prolong the contest be- 
 yond a certain time or limit ; for in such a 
 strife, who could stand before the Mighty 
 One ? " In measure when it shooteth forth 
 thou wilt debate with it " (Isa. xxvii. 8) ; 
 that is, he will set bounds to the sorrow 
 and the smiting which cannot be over- 
 passed ; he will say to them, even in their 
 fiercest course, " Thus far shalt thou go, 
 and no farther.*' P'or were he to allow 
 that tide to roll on unhindered, who, even 
 of his own chosen and beloved ones, could 
 E 3 
 
42 THE EARNESTS OS" 
 
 withstand its rush, or sustain theinselvei 
 amid its deepening waters ? 
 
 Yet let us not forget what the sorrow 
 has done for us while it lasted ; and what 
 the night has been, though dark and sad. 
 
 It has been a night of grief, yet a night 
 of blessing; a night in Avhich there may 
 have been many things which w^e could 
 wish forgotten, yet many more which we 
 should wish to be remembered for ever. 
 Often, during its gloom, we called it 
 " wearisome," and said, " When shall I 
 arise and the night be gone?" (Job vii. 4.) 
 Yet how much was there to reconcile us to 
 it ; nay, to fill us with praise because of it! 
 It was then that the Lord drew near, and 
 the world was displaced, and self was 
 smitten, and our will conquered, and faith 
 grew apace, and hope became brighter and 
 niore eager, and the things that are unseen 
 were felt to be the real and the true : Jeru- 
 salem that is above was seen by us as oui 
 proper home. 
 
THE MORNING.' 43 
 
 It was then that \ve had " soiigs in the 
 night'' (Psa. xlii. 8.) Our " reins in- 
 structed us in the night seasons." (Psa. 
 xvi. 7.) It was " in tlie niglit that we re- 
 membered the name " of our God, (Psa. 
 cxix. 55,) and " desired him with our 
 souls " (Isa. xxvi. 9) ; " meditating on 
 him in the }fight-w3.tches.'' (Psa. Ixiii. 6.) 
 It was " in the f?ight " that " he led us 
 with a Hght of fire." (Psa. Ixxviii. 14.) 
 It was in the 7i?ght that " the dew lay 
 upon our branch," (Job xxix. 19,) and 
 with the dew there came down the manna; 
 for the manna and the dew fell together, 
 (Num. xi. 9,) so that out of the bosom of 
 the darkness there came at once nourish- 
 ment and freshness. It was then that we 
 were taught sympathy with a groaning 
 creation, taking part in its " earnest ex- 
 pectation," and waiting for resurrection 
 even as it is looking out for restitution ; it 
 was then that we were taught to know our 
 high office, as those who have the first- 
 
44 THE EARNESTS OF 
 
 fruits of the Spirit, " to lead (as one ha« 
 written) the choir of all-complaining na- 
 ture;" for it was then that the Spirit's 
 power came forth upon us to tune the 
 chords of our. manifold being, that they 
 might give forth the true note of mingled 
 hope and sadness, peculiar to creation in its 
 present low estate; and when we were 
 fretting under the touch, and perhaps, with 
 sentimental weakness, talking of broken 
 strings and a blighted life, the hand of the 
 great Master-tuner was upon us, giving to 
 each rebellious chord its proper tension, 
 that from the re-tuned instrument there 
 might come forth that special harmony 
 which he desires to draw from it in this 
 present age — that special harmony by which 
 he is to be glorified on earth, until Eden 
 comes again and the wilderness blosboms 
 as the rose.* 
 
 • Thus even the philosophic German could express 
 the apostolic thought respecting creation, and give 
 utterance to his sympathies : " When I stand all alone 
 at night in open nature, I feel as though it were a spirit 
 
THE MORNING. 45 
 
 It was then that we could make the 
 utterance of Jacob's patient faith our own, 
 " I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord ; " 
 subscribing ourselves to our fellow saints 
 as " your companion in tribulation and in 
 the kingdom and patience of Christ " 
 (that is, in patient waiting for liis king- 
 dom). It was then that these words of 
 blessed cheer fell so sweetly on our ears, 
 *' He who testifieth these things saith. 
 Surely I come quickly," drawing forth 
 from our lips the glad response, ^ Even so, 
 come, Lord Jesus." And it was then that, 
 while learning thus to plead " make haste," 
 we also learned to say with the Bride, 
 " A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved 
 
 and begged redemption of me. Often have I had the 
 sensation as if nature, in wailing sadness, entreated 
 something of me, so that, not to understand what she 
 longed for, cut through my very heart." — Goethe, 
 quoted by Olshausen on the Romans. And another has 
 thus written : " Even in the things of the world around 
 us there is an element of life, a yearning of what is 
 bound, which, like that Memnon statue, unconsciously 
 taakes symphony when the ray touches it from abore." 
 HJCHijBERT, cited by the same. 
 
46 THE EARNESTS OP 
 
 unto me, he shall lie all night in my 
 
 bosom." (Sol. Song i. 13.) 
 
 Blessed and profitable, however, as we 
 have found the night with its still seclusion 
 and solemn teachings, it is not the morn- 
 ing nor the day. And its very d^irkness 
 makes us long the more for the anticipated 
 sun-rise — for " the flight of shadows and 
 the eternal day-break." 
 
 Nor are we hindered from desiring the 
 day. Impatience is forbidden, but not de- 
 sire. Lefe us possess our souls in patience, 
 for he is neither the brave nor the believ- 
 ing man who says, " Let me die, for the cup 
 is bitterer than I can drink;" but he who 
 under the sorest grief can say, " Let me 
 live on and be useful, whatever may be the 
 bitterness of the cup." But still we may 
 long for the ending of the night. As in 
 sickness we may long for health, and put 
 forth all fit means for its attainment ; so in 
 darkness we may cry earnestly for the 
 dawning, especially because we know that 
 
THE MORNING. 47 
 
 God has a day in store for us after the 
 night is done — a day which is to be far 
 more than a compensation for all previous 
 sorrow. For every night God has pro- 
 vided a morning, so that as we have many 
 nights, we have also many mornings even 
 here. They are not indeed " mornings 
 without clouds," but still they are morn- 
 ings whose cheering light lifts up the 
 heavy spirit and brightens the faded eye. 
 
 But for the world, the children of the 
 night, the heedless, pleasure-loving world, 
 what morning is there, or what earnest of 
 the morning? None. Or at least it de- 
 serves not the name of morning. Their 
 "sorrows are multiplied," because they have 
 hastened after other gods. Their joy is but 
 a moment. Their consolation is no better 
 than a dream. They serve a god that can- 
 not save, and that cannot comfort. Their 
 portion here at the best is emptiness ; and 
 the end is the eternal blackness and the 
 infinite despair. The tidings of God's 
 
48 THE EARNESTS OF THE MORNTNG. 
 
 free love they heed not ; but the tidings of 
 his wrath they shall ere long be made to 
 heed ; if now they turn not to him who is 
 entreating of them this one favour, that 
 they would bring their sins to him for 
 pardon, and let him bear all their griefs 
 and carry all their sorrows. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE USE OF THESE EARNESTS* 
 
 -'* Now for a swifter race ! " was the re- 
 solve of one over whose path sorrow was 
 beginning to darken heavily. " Now for 
 a busier and more useful life ! " was the 
 utterance of another, as he rose from his 
 knees, after pouring out the bitterness of 
 his grief into the ear of God. 
 
 In these cases tribulation was taking its 
 true course and working its right end. It 
 had gone dow^n to the most sacred depths 
 of the renewed heart, and was calling up 
 buried feelings of devotedness that had re- 
 mained dormant, but not extinct, under a 
 mass of worldliness. It smote our selfish- 
 ness, our narrow-mindedness, our §lotl^ 
 r 
 
60 THE USE OP 
 
 our flesh-pleasing, and reminded us that 
 we had no time to loiter or to sleep. Tear- 
 ing off the veil which prosperous days had 
 flung over our eyes, it pointed to the vanity 
 of things "seen and temporal," till the 
 vastness of the unseen and the eternal so 
 grew upon us, that we rose up and went 
 forth, resolving on a swifter race and a 
 busier life on earth. 
 
 Still there was a hinderance. The very 
 trial that stirred us up also weighed us 
 down, unknitting our strength, and caus- 
 ing us well nigh to faint. The pressure 
 staid our swiftness, and the deep wound, 
 still bleeding, enfeebled us. We sought to 
 run, but were often held back ; and when 
 Vie would have gone forth to do the work 
 of God, we were constrained to turn aside 
 and go alone, that, in weeping and plead- 
 ing, we might relieve our heavy hearts. We 
 may at times seem to escape from the sor- 
 row, and, in the fire of zeal, almost forget 
 its bitterness ; yet it returns to us in full 
 
THESE EARNESTS. 61 
 
 strength, and we feel as if a chain were on 
 our limhs. There is not indeed the bond- 
 age arising from any uncertainty as to the 
 relationship in which we stand towards 
 God. These fetters fell from us when we 
 received God's record of forgiving love, and j 
 knew what it is to be freely pardoned. ^ 
 These fetters no amount of trial can re- 
 impose on us, if " we hold the beginning j 
 of our confidence stedfast unto the end." ^ 
 Nay, it is often in a day of grief that we 
 realize most blessedly how completely 
 grace has set us free. But though there is 
 no re-placement of our chains, and no bit- 
 terness of bondage again tasted, still chas- 
 tisement is '* not joyous but grievous ; " and 
 *' being grievous " it sometimes disheartens 
 and disables us, so that we cannot do the 
 same amount of service, or undergo the 
 same degree of toil for God, as otherwise 
 we might have done. At the first light- 
 ing down of the stroke this is always felt, 
 for we are men in the flesh, and the flesh 
 p 2 
 
52 THE USE oy 
 
 gives way. " The spirit truly is willing, 
 but the flesh is weak." And for a con- 
 siderable time this continues to be experi- 
 efnced ; shorter or longer, according to our 
 natural characters, or according to the 
 specialties of the trial. 
 
 Hence it is that affliction is often 
 more a season of preparation for service 
 than a time of actual service, save only as 
 patience is service, for " they also serve 
 who only stand and wait." Let us not fret, 
 then, nor be cast down, because we feel dis- 
 abled for zealous service for, a time. Le*; 
 it suffice us to know that we are pre/mrino 
 for this. And when the load is lifted off 
 or becomes lighter, then we run with 
 speedier foot, the7t we labour with fuller 
 strength and freer heart. We cannot ex- 
 pect to be wholly free from sorrow here, for 
 some amount of trial is always needful to 
 keep us from forgetting that this is not our 
 rest, — that this is the night and not the 
 day ; but still these intervals of calm and 
 
THESE EARNESTS. 53 
 
 Bunshine are precious times, — times of 
 blessing ; times of service ; times for the 
 swift race and the busy life. 
 
 These mornings here, coming after the 
 nights that thicken over us, are most 
 profitable. They not only relieve the 
 " o'er-fraught heart," but are seasons in 
 ■which we find leisure to learn lessons of 
 "wisdom and holiness, which in the time of 
 the sorrow we had overlooked or put from 
 us. The returning elasticity of spirit en- 
 ables us to rise from our depression, now 
 that the weight has in some measure been 
 lifted off. Too continuous a pressure of 
 grief is apt to make us moody, selfish, 
 desponding, slothful. It narrows the circle 
 alike of vision and of sympathy, and dries 
 up the springs of our nature. But when 
 peace returns after a season of trouble, we 
 seem doubly fitted as well as nerved for 
 duty. The trial has sobered and mellowed 
 us. It has taught us to endure hardness 
 as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. It has 
 
 F 3 
 
54 THE 13 SK OP 
 
 rubbed off excrescences. It has made us 
 less selfish, less contracted in soul. It has 
 taught us to look round with sympathy 
 upon a suffering world and a weeping 
 church. It was as if we had been taken 
 aside for a season into some quiet nook or 
 dark cave, from which, while alone and 
 imdistracted, we could look out unobserved 
 upon the multitudes that passed and re- 
 passed. And having been thus brought to 
 form truer, riper judgments, we are led 
 forth again to act — to act more unselfishly, 
 more zealously, yet more stedfastly and 
 soberly. 
 
 Our life, after a night of trial has passed 
 over us, should be a life of truer aims, of 
 steadier walk, of higher level, of keener, 
 purer vision. If not, we have suffered in 
 vain. 
 
 During the night, much was of necessity 
 hidden from us. But the morning dis- 
 closes what the night had hidden. It 
 shows us how desperate the struggle was 
 
THESE EARNESTS. 66 
 
 between us and our God, of which at the 
 time we were hardly aware. It shows the 
 amount of patience, love, and faithfulness, 
 that have been expended on us by God. It 
 shows the extent of the evil in u-s which 
 had drawn down the chastening. It puts 
 us in a position for bringing into practice 
 the knowledge of the world's vanity and 
 wretchedness which sorrow had taught us. 
 Thus the morning carries out the lessons 
 of the night, and gives us opportunity for 
 exemplifying them. And thus the alterna- 
 tion of trial and rest which makes up our 
 lot on earth, is in truth but a succession of 
 lessons, and of opportunities for practising 
 them. " Day unto day uttereth speech, 
 and night unto night showeth knowledge." 
 (Psa. xix. 2.) 
 
 Thus trial prepares for service. It nerves 
 us, it braces us for toil. It shows us what 
 alone is worth living for, so that when the 
 force of it is in some measure abated, we 
 find ourselves ready to start anew for the 
 
66 THE USE OF 
 
 race, ready to wield the weapons of our 
 warfare with a firmer and more skilful 
 nand. 
 
 These intervals of brightness, then, are 
 the true seasons for labour. These earnests 
 of the morning should be prized as oppor- 
 tunities specially afforded us by God for 
 strenuous labour. If thus laid out, how 
 blessed will they be found ! They are brief, 
 for tribulation is our lot on earth, not 
 ease ; but this should only arouse to new 
 vigour ; for if they be thus brief, we have 
 no moments to idle away. 
 
 But it is here that so many stumble. In 
 trial they call upon the Lord and vow their 
 life to him. Through evil report and good 
 they will follow him ; on the rough way 
 or the smooth they will walk with him ; 
 by labour, by sacrifice, by watchfulness, by 
 costly gifts, they will prove their love, and 
 zeal, and constancy ! Good words and sin- 
 cerely spoken ! But so were the words of 
 the disciple, *' If I should die with thee, I 
 
THESE EARNESTS. /57 
 
 will not deny thee in any wise." He 
 Bpoke what he truly felt, but when the 
 hour came, the resolution was not to be 
 found. So with us. Trial calls forth 
 many a high thought and prompts to noble 
 purposes. Yet how seldom do these 
 thoughts ripen ; how often do these pur- 
 poses die ! Peace returns, sunshine bright- 
 ens over us, our broken strength knits 
 again, and we sink back into sloth ! The 
 calm hour for which we longed, that we 
 might do something for God, has come, 
 but it finds us nearly as heedless and selfish 
 as before we entered into the storm. 
 
 This must not be. Why were we smit- 
 ten, but just that we might be stirred up ? 
 And why were we delivered, but just that 
 we might work more strenuously, more 
 efficaciously ? How sad, then, that both 
 the trial and the enlargement should fail 
 of their purposed end ! 
 
 These times of enlargement are times of 
 light and gladness. In these mornings 
 
58 THE USE OF THESE EARNESTS. 
 
 joy has come to us. It is not the mere 
 reaction from sorrow; it is not mere 
 familiarity with suffering; it is not oblivion 
 of the past ; it is not the calm of over-spent 
 feeling. It is joy from the Lord. And 
 ** the joy of the Lord is our strength." He 
 who gave us the night has given us also 
 the morning. He who called up the storm 
 has brought back the^ calm. So that it is 
 his joy in which we rejoice ; and this joy 
 is our strength. Let not this strength lie 
 idle. The calm will not last ; the clouds 
 will soon return ; and it concerns us to lay 
 out well the brief hour of light. " I must 
 work the works of him that sent me while 
 it is day ; the night cometh when no msn 
 can work." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MOKNING-STAB. 
 
 It was " very early in the morning,** 
 while " it was yet dark," that Jesus rose 
 from the dead. Not the sun, but only the 
 morning-star, shone upon his opening 
 tomb. The shadows had not fled, the 
 citizens of Jerusalem had not awoke. It 
 was still night — the hour of sleep and of 
 darkness, when he arose. Nor did his 
 rising break the slumbers of the city. 
 
 So it shall be " very early in the morn- 
 ing,'* when "it is yet dark," and when 
 nought but the morning- star is shining, 
 that Christ's body, the church, shall arise. 
 Like him, his saints shall awake when 
 the children of the night and darkness 
 
60 THE MORNING-STAR. 
 
 are still sleeping their sleep of death. In 
 their arising they disturb no one. The 
 world hears not the voice that summons 
 them, or if it hears, shall only say, " It 
 thunders," as did the unbelieving Jews 
 when the Father's voice responded to the 
 prayer of Jesus. (John xii. 29.) As Jesus 
 laid them quietly to rest, each in his own 
 still tomb, like children in the arms of 
 their mother ; so, as quietly, as gently, 
 shall he awake them when the hour ar- 
 rives. 
 
 He is the Morning-star. " I am the 
 root and offspring of David, the bright and 
 morning-star." (Rev. xxii. 16.) And this 
 name is given to him not only because of 
 the glory of his person and the brightness 
 of his appearing, but because of the time 
 when he is to appear. 
 
 The first act, at his appearing, when he 
 comes in glory, — the first indication of his 
 arrival, while yet aloft *'in the air," is 
 likened to the shining of the morning-star. 
 
THE MORNING-STAR. 61 
 
 Afterwards he shall come forth as " the 
 Sun of righteousness," filling the whole 
 earth with his brightness, and shadowing 
 the nations with his healing wings (Mai. 
 iv. 2) ; but at first he shows himself as the 
 Morning- star, — big with the hope of day, 
 yet not the day ; brighter than other stars 
 and eclipsing all of them, yet not the Day- 
 star; forerunner of the sun, yet not the 
 sun ; foreteller of the dawn, yet not the 
 dawn.* 
 
 Hence his promise to the conqueror is, 
 " I will give him the morning-star " (Rev. 
 ii. 28) ; that is, I will give myself to him 
 AS the morning-star ; I will show myself to 
 him as such ; I will confer on him this 
 ])re-eminence, this special blessedness. 
 
 We read in Scripture of " the eye-lids of 
 
 * " Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, 
 If better thou belong not to the dawn : 
 Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn 
 With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere. 
 While day arises, that sweet hour of prime." 
 
 Paradise Lost, Book V. 
 
62 THE MORNING- STAR. 
 
 the morning ; " and the morning-star \h 
 the first beam shooting from under these 
 lids as they begin to re-open, that the eye 
 of day may again irradiate the earth. It 
 is only they who awake early that see the 
 first opening of these eye-lids, or gaze upon 
 the morning-star, or breathe the morning 
 freshness, or taste the morning dew. So 
 is it with those of whom it is said, ** Bless- 
 ed and holy is he that hath part in the 
 first resurrection." To them come the 
 quickening words, " Awake and sing, ye 
 that dwell in dust.'' (Isa. xxvi. 19.) Into 
 their tomb the earliest ray of glory finds its 
 w^ay. They drink in the first gleams of 
 morning, while as yet the eastern clouds 
 give but the faintest signs of its uprising. 
 Its genial fragrance, its soothing stillness, 
 its bracing freshness, its sweet loneliness, 
 its quiet purity, all so solemn and yet sc 
 full of hope, these are theirs. Oh the 
 contrast between these things and the dark 
 night through which they have passed ! Oh 
 
THE MOKNING-STAR. 63 
 
 the contrast between these things and the 
 grave from which they have sprung ! And 
 as they shake off the encumbering tuif, 
 flinging mortality aside, and rising, in 
 glorified bodies, to meet their Lord in the 
 air, they are lighted and guided upward, 
 along the untrodden pathway, by the beams 
 of that Star of morning, which, like the 
 star of Bethlehem, conducts them to the 
 presence of the King. 
 
 There seem to be more periods than one 
 (if times so very brief may be called by 
 that name) opening out upon us when the 
 Lord comes.' Just as there are more scenes 
 than one, and more acts than one, in " the 
 day of the Lord," so there are more periods 
 than one. And it is interesting to notice 
 these in connexion with the Morning- 
 star. 
 
 All the time up to the moment of his 
 appearing is reckoned night. Then the 
 scenes change, and, step by step, the day 
 with its full sunshine is brought in. First, 
 
 G 2 
 
64 THE MORNING-STAR. 
 
 there is the period of the Morning-star, 
 during which the dead saints awake and 
 the living saints are changed ; then that 
 which is sown in corruption is raised in 
 incorruption, that which is sown in dis 
 honour is raised in glory, that which is 
 sown in weakness is raised in power, that 
 which is sown a natural body is raised a 
 spiritual body ; and then they that have 
 long dwelt in dust awake and sing. In 
 every land they have found a grave, aiid 
 every land now gives up the sleeping clay. 
 They come forth " in the beauties of 
 holiness from the womb of the morning,'* 
 like the ten thousand times ten thousand 
 dew-drops of the night, made visible by 
 the morning-star, and sparkling to its far- 
 coming glory. (Psa. ex. 3; Isa. xxvi. 19.) 
 It is long since " light was sown for the 
 righteous," (Psa. xcvii. 11,) and this is the 
 first-fruits of the harvest. 
 
 Next there is tjie period of the twilight. 
 This is the time when " the light shall not 
 
THE MORNING-STAR. 65 
 
 be clear nor dark," like " the morning 
 spread upon the mountains." (Joel ii. 2.) 
 Then has the last battle-strife begun ; then 
 the Lord with his rod of iron is breaking 
 his enemies in pieces like a potter's vessel ; 
 then he cometh forth from his place to 
 punish the inhabitants of the earth for 
 their iniquity ; then, with all his saints, he 
 executes the infinite vengeance, delivers 
 Israel, destroys Antichrist, lays waste the 
 world with sore calamity and purging fire. 
 " Before the morning he is not," says the 
 prophet, foretelling the ruin of the great 
 enemy of Israel and the church. (Isa. 
 xvii. 14.) * 
 
 Next there is the morning. The enemy 
 has disappeared ; each wreck that marked 
 
 * It is either to this or the close of the preceding 
 period that such passages are to be referred : " All the 
 bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee." 
 Ezek. xxxii. 8. " The day of the Lord is darkness and 
 not light." Amos v. 18, 20. "While ye look for light 
 he turn it into the shadow of death." Jer. xiii. 15. 
 "The light is darkened in the heavens thereof." laa* 
 V.30. 
 
 g3 
 
$6 THE MORNING-STAR. 
 
 either his dominion or his destruction ii 
 jone. The face of the earth is renewed, 
 the storm is hxid to rest, and the glory of 
 an unclouded sun and an unsullied firma- 
 ment makes creation sing for joy. The 
 voice of the Beloved is heard, " Rise up, my 
 love, my fair one, and come away. For, 
 lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and 
 gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; 
 the time of the singing of birds is come, 
 and the voice of the turtle is heard in our 
 land ; the fig tree putteth forth her green 
 figs, and the vines with the tender grape 
 give a good smell. Arise, my love, my 
 fair one, and come away." (Sol. Song ii. 
 10—13.) 
 
 Lastly, there is the day in its full 
 brightness. For the path of this Just One 
 is like the shining light that shineth more 
 and more unto the perfect day. Of that 
 day, earth has never seen the like. For 
 that day it waits in patient hope, strug- 
 gling hard, meanwhile, with darkness, and 
 
« 
 
 THE MORNING- STAR. 67 
 
 labouring to throw off its long sad weight 
 of ill. 
 
 It is as if the glory of the Lord, when 
 first coming within sight of the earth, 
 showed itself in the far distance, as the 
 star of morning ; token most welcome and 
 hopeful, recognised at once by those who 
 knew the true light of the world, and who 
 had often in other days looked out wist- 
 fully for the Star of Jacob. It is, next^ as 
 if the same glory, when it neared the earth, 
 showed itself in terrible majesty as the 
 sign of the Son of man, in seeing which all 
 the tribes of the earth mourn (Matt. xxiv. 
 30 ; Rev. i. 7) ; fDr just as in the morning- 
 watch the Lord looked through the pillar 
 of fire and cloud and troubled the host of 
 the Egyptians, (Exod. xiv. 24,) so, when he 
 Cometh with clouds, " all kindreds of the 
 earth shall wail because of him." It is, 
 next, as if the same glory of the Son of man, 
 coming still nearer, took up its destined 
 position, and spread its skirts over earth as 
 
<58 THE MORNING-STAR. 
 
 did the pillar-cloud over the tents of Israel. 
 It is, lastly, as if this glory, this more than 
 Shechinah-splendour, showed itself as the 
 Sun of righteousness, bearing healing in 
 his wings, wherewith he heals the 7iations, 
 so that the inhabitant shall no more say, I 
 am sick ; wherewith he heals the earth, so 
 that the curse takes flight ; wherewith he 
 heals the air, so that it poisons no more. 
 Then day shall utter speech to day in a 
 way unheard of before; then shall their 
 line go throughout all the earth, and their 
 words to the end of the world, when out of 
 that " tabernacle which he hath set for the 
 Sun," that Sun shall come forth as a bride- 
 groom out of his chamber, rejoicing as a 
 strong man to run a race. Then shall 
 come to pass the saying that is written, 
 " Behold, the glory of the God of Israel 
 came from the way of the east, and his 
 voice was like the noise of many waters, 
 
 and THE EARTH SHINED WITH HIS GLORY.'* 
 
 (Ezek. xliii. 2.) 
 
THE MORNING-STAR. 69 
 
 "With all of these in succession the saints 
 have to do, from the lime that they are 
 roused out of their tombs by the first 
 beams of the Morning-star, to have part in 
 the first resurrection. But it is only the 
 first of these that we are now considering. 
 
 The promise " to him that overcometh " 
 is, "I will give him the morning-star." 
 (Rev. ii. 28.) Of all the blessings symbol- 
 ized or indicated by that star, he is made 
 partaker. The first streak of dawn is his. 
 He is summoned from the dust to meet 
 morning ere yet one ray of it has touched 
 the earth. -The first glimpse of the long- 
 waited-for glory his eye shall see, when 
 other eyes abide in darkness. In this first 
 token of a coming Lord, his soul shall re- 
 joice. At this, the first sound of the return- 
 ing Bridegroom's voice, he shall go forth 
 with ready love. The first objecLthat 
 shall meet his eye on awaking from the 
 tomb, shall be the Star of Jacob. 
 
 This earnest of creation's better day 
 
70 THE MORNING-STAB. 
 
 is the portion of the saints. The deliver- 
 ance of creation is at hand. The time of 
 ** the manifestation of the sons of God " is 
 come. Now, arrayed in light, themselves 
 the sons of light, they shall shine as the 
 brightness of the firmament and as the 
 stars for ever and ever. Now, transformed 
 into the image of the Morning-star — them- 
 selves the stars of morning, they prepare 
 to sing together over the new creation, 
 when its foundations shall he fastened and 
 its corner-stone laid by Him who is to 
 make all things new.* Death is now 
 swallowed up of victory ; the grave is 
 rifled ; the spoiler is spoiled ; ashes are 
 exchanged for beauty ; the light that was 
 quenched is rekindled ; the sonow passes 
 into joy ; and the darkness of a brief night 
 ends in the upiising of the endless day. 
 
 As for those that " are alive and remain 
 unto the coming of the Lord," though they 
 
 • See Job xxxviii. 6/ 7, where the reference is ol 
 course to the old creation. 
 
THE MORNING-STAR. 71 
 
 shall not go before those that are asleep, yet 
 they shall not be behind them in the bless- 
 edness. They shall have the same privileges 
 of the early morning, — the same honour, 
 the same glory. Their eye shall look upon 
 that Star ; and it shall be to them all that 
 it is to those who were " dwelling in dust.*' 
 Living in the last days of a God-denying 
 world, — days dark and hateful as those of 
 Noah or of Lot, — their righteous souls 
 vexed from day to day with wickedness 
 " that cannot rest," " casting up its mire 
 and dirt " on every side, — danger pressing, 
 conflict thickening, persecution assailing, 
 sorrows multiplying, — how welcome shall 
 that sign be to them, springing up like 
 hope when all is hopeless, and fore-token- 
 ing life, refreshment, rest, gladness, to the 
 troubled and despairing earth ! 
 
 Like the anxious watchman on some 
 fortress, they have been wearying for the 
 morning ; and it has come at last ! Like 
 
/2 THE MORNING-STAR. 
 
 the belated traveller, pressing on over hill 
 and moor and rock and waste and thicket, 
 they have been seeking at every turn to 
 catch the light of their cottage window ; 
 and it is seen at last ! Like the tempest- 
 tost apostle, wlien neither sun nor stars for 
 many days appeared, " they wish for day." 
 and live glad beyond measure at the tokens 
 of its approach. The glimmer of the light- 
 house has hitherto been their comfort and 
 their guide. By it they have shaped their 
 way and cheered their hearts. But, of a 
 sudden, the beacon seems to sink away, 
 and ere they are aware, its light is lost 
 amid the far-outrivalling brightness of the 
 Morning- star. 
 
 But upon the unready and unwatching 
 world that Star rises mth no ray of bless- 
 ing. It rises only to shed '' disastrous 
 blight," and give token of the desolations 
 that are at hand. For as when Noah en- 
 tiered the ark the flood burst forth, or as 
 
THE MORNING-STAR. 73 
 
 when Lot entered Zoar the fire came 
 down, so when the saints are caught up 
 then the wrath is poured out and the door 
 is shnt. 
 
 Till then the gate of peace stands wide 
 open, and into the chambers of safety all 
 are beckoned. The most unready of all the 
 children of men may go freely in ; for the 
 grace Uiat invites makes no exceptions, but 
 welcomes the un worthiest. It would fain 
 allure the seekers of vain joy, from joys 
 that are so vain. " It would fain win the 
 heart of the sorrowful, who mourn and yet 
 have no comforter, because they have no 
 God. It would fain draw in the secure 
 into a place of true safety, ere the storm 
 arise that is to break in pieces the strong 
 foundations of the earth. 
 
 Children of the earth ! — you especially 
 ■whose sorrows are multiplied, and whose 
 hearts are sick with disappointment, — give 
 heed to the gracious warning. Enter the 
 
74 THE MORNING-STAR. 
 
 hiding-place and be safe for ever. Thrice 
 blessed, are those griefs and disappoint- 
 ments that lead you out of lying refuges 
 into the sure covert from the storm, that 
 call you from the joy of the world into the 
 joy of God. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MORiriNG. 
 
 ** The watchman said, The morning 
 Cometh" (Isa. xxi. 12); and though, while 
 making this answer, he forewarns us of 
 night, he also assures us of morning. There 
 is a morning, says he, therefore do not give 
 way to faintness of spirit ; but there is a 
 night between, therefore take warning : 
 that you may not be surprised nor dismay- 
 ed, as if the promise were broken, or some 
 strange thing allowed to befall you. 
 
 There may be delay, he intimates, be- 
 fore the morning, — a dark delay, for which 
 we should be prepared. During this he 
 calls to watchfulness : for the length of the 
 night is hidden, the time of day-break is 
 II 2 
 
76 THE MORNING. 
 
 left uncertain. We must be on the out- 
 look, with our eyes fixed on the eastern 
 hills. We have nothing wherewith to 
 measure the hours, save the sorrows of the 
 church and the failing of hearts. 
 
 During this delay the watchman en- 
 courages us to " inquire," to " return," to 
 '* come." He expects us to ask '^ how 
 long," and say, " When will the night be 
 done?" He takes for granted that such 
 will be the proceeding of men who really 
 long for morning. To the hills of Seir 
 they will again and again return, to learn 
 from the watchman what is the promise of 
 day. For no familiarity with the night can 
 ever reconcile them to its darkness, or 
 make morning less desirable and welcome. 
 
 It is right for us to desire the morning, 
 to hope for it, to weary for it, to inquire as 
 to the signs of it hour after hour. God 
 has set this joy before us, and it were 
 Btrange indeed if, when compassed about 
 with so many sorrows, we could forget it. 
 
THE MORNING. 77 
 
 or be heedless as to its arrival. For the 
 coming of the morning is the coming of Plim 
 whom we long to see. It is the coming of 
 Him " who turneth the shadow of death 
 into the morning." (Amos v. 8.) It is the 
 return of Him whose absence has been 
 night, and whose presence will be day. It 
 is the return of Him who is the resurrec- 
 tion and the life, and who brings resur- 
 rection with Him ; the return of Him who 
 is creation's Lord, and who brings with 
 Him deliverance to creation ; the return 
 of Him who is the church's Head, and 
 who bring§ with Him triumph and glad 
 ness to his church. 
 
 All the joy, the calm, the revivifying 
 freshness of the morning are wrapt up in 
 Him. When He appears, day appears, 
 life appears, fruitfulness appears. The curse 
 departs. The " bondage of corruption " is 
 no more. Clouds, storms, troubles, sorrows 
 vanish. The face of nature reassumes the 
 emile of unfallen times. It is earth's fes- 
 H 3 
 
78 THE MORNma. 
 
 tival, the world's jubilee. " The heavens re- 
 joice, the earth is glad, the sea roars and the 
 fulness thereof, the fields are joyful and all 
 that is therein, the trees of the wood re- 
 joice, the floods clap their hands, and the 
 hills are joyful together before the Lord ; 
 for He has come, for He has come to judge 
 the earth ; with righteousness shall he 
 judge the world, and the people with his 
 truth." (Psa. xcvi. 11 ; xcviii. 7.) 
 
 This morning has been long anticipated 
 Age after age it has attracted the church's 
 eye, and fixed her hope. On the promise 
 of it her faith has been resting, and towards 
 the hastening of it her prayers have gone 
 forth. Though afar off, it has been de- 
 scried, and rejoiced in as the sure consum- 
 mation towards which all things are moving 
 forward according to the Father's purpose. 
 " There is a morning " has been the word 
 of consolation brought home to the bur- 
 dened heart of many a saint when ready to 
 say, with David, " I am desolate," or with 
 
THE MORNING. 79 
 
 Jeremiah, " He hath set me in dark places 
 as they that be dead of old." 
 
 Let us dwell for a little on some of these 
 Old Testament allusions to the morning. 
 Let us take first the 30th Psalm. 
 
 David had been in sorrow, and in com- 
 ing out of it he makes known to the saints 
 his consolations : — " Sing unto the Lord, 
 O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the 
 remembrance of his holiness. For there is 
 but a moment in his anger ; in his favour is 
 life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy 
 
 COMETH IN THE MORNING." (Psa. XXX. 4,5.) 
 
 The earnest of that morning he had already 
 tasted, but the morning itself he anticipates. 
 Then joy has come. Then he can say, 
 (verse 11,) " Thou hast turned for me my 
 mourning into dancing : thou hast put off 
 my sackcloth, and girded me with glad- 
 ness." But it is the voice of a greater than 
 David that is heard in this Psalm. It is 
 one of Christ's resurrection Psalms, like 
 the 18th and the 116th. He was "lifted 
 
80 THE MORNING. 
 
 up," SO that his foes were not made to re- 
 joice over him. He cried, and was " healed." 
 His " soul was brought up from the grave." 
 There was anger against Him " for a mo« 
 ment," when as the sinner's substitute he 
 bore the sinner's curse. But in Jeliovah's 
 favour there was " life." He had a night of 
 weeping, a night of " strong crying and 
 tears," when his soul was " sorrowful even 
 unto death," and when beneath the waves 
 of that sorrow he sunk, commending his 
 spirit into the Father's hands. But it was 
 a night no more. Morning came, and with 
 morning, joy. Coming forth from viie tomb, 
 he left all his sorrow behind : his sackcloth 
 was put off, and he arose " girded with 
 gladness." He found morning and joy ; 
 and he is " the first-fruits of them that 
 slept." His rising was the rising of his 
 saints. There was a morning for him, 
 therefore there shall be one for us, — a 
 morning bright with resurrection -glory. 
 Let us next take Psalm forty-ninth. 
 
THE MORNING. 8l 
 
 These are Christ's words, as is proved from 
 the quotation of verse 4th in Matt. xiii. 
 85. He summons the whole world to listen. 
 He " speaks of wisdom," for he is Wisdom. 
 He points to the vanity of riches, and 
 their insufficiency to redeem a soul ; and 
 who knew so well as he what a ransom 
 Was needed ? He sees men going on in 
 their wickedness, self-confidence, and vain- 
 glory. He proclaims their madness and 
 guilt, — speaking of them as incurable from 
 generation to generation. He contrasts 
 the end of the wicked and the end of 
 the righteous ; " like sheep the former are 
 laid in the grave," — buried out of sight, 
 forgotten, unmourned. " Over them the 
 righteous shall have dominion in the 
 MORNING." The morning then brings do- 
 minion to the righteous, — redemption from 
 the power of the grave. In this Jesus re- 
 joiced ; in this let us rejoice. This joy of 
 the morning was set before him ; it is the 
 same joy that is set before us. Dominion 
 
82 THE MORNING. 
 
 in the morning is that to which we look 
 forward, — a share in the first resurrection, 
 of which they who are partakers live and 
 reign with Christ. 
 
 Look again at the forty-sixth Psalm. It 
 is the utterance of the faith of Israel's 
 faithful ones, in the time of " Jacob's 
 trouble." The earth is shaken (verse 2, 
 compared with Haggai ii. 6 ; and Heb. 
 xii. 26, 27) ; the sea and the waves roai 
 (ver. 3, comp. with Luke xxi. 25) : but 
 there is a river whose streams gladden 
 them. God is in the midst of her. Nay, 
 " God helps her when the morning ap- 
 PEARETH," (ver. 5, margin,) just as in t/ie 
 morning watch he looked out from the 
 fiery cloud and troubled the Egyptians. 
 Then the heathen are scattered at his 
 voice, — he sweeps off every enemy, he 
 makes wars to cease, and sets himself on 
 high over the nations, as King of kings, 
 " exalted in the earth." From which we 
 S^»'iLox that the morning brings with it de- 
 
THE MORNING. 83 
 
 liverance from danger, — victory over ene- 
 mies, — the renewal of the earth, — peace to 
 the nations, — the establishment of Mes- 
 siah's glorious throne. What a morning 
 of joy must that be, for the church, for 
 Israel, for the whole earth ! — resurrection 
 for the church, restoration for Israel, re- 
 titution for the earth ! 
 
 Look at the 110th Psalm. We see Jesus 
 at Jehovah's right hand, — waiting till his 
 enemies be made his footstool ; and then 
 He who said unto him " Sit," shall say 
 " Arise." (Psa. Ixxxii. 8.) He is yet to 
 have dominion on earth, and to sit upon 
 the throne of his father David. Instead 
 of " a gainsaying people," as he had in the 
 day of his weakness, he is to have " a will- 
 ing people in the day of his power ; " all 
 arrayed in the beauties of holiness ; more 
 numerous and resplendent than the dew 
 from the womb of the morning. Willing- 
 ness, beauty, holiness, brightness, num- 
 ber ; — these shall mark his people in that 
 
84 THE MORNING. 
 
 morning of joy which his coming shall 
 produce. ** The dew (says one) is de- 
 posited in greatest plenty about the break- 
 ing of the dawn, and refresheth with its 
 numerous drops the leaves and plants and 
 blades of grass on which it resteth; so 
 shall the saints of God, coming forth from 
 their invisible abodes out of the womb of 
 the morning, refresh the world with their 
 benignant influence; and therefore are they 
 likened to the dew, for all nature is so 
 constituted of God, as to bear witness of 
 that day of regeneration which then shall 
 dawn." * 
 
 Read also " the last words of David," 
 (2 Sam. xxiii. 1 — 4,) in which, as in the 
 72nd Psalm, " the prayers of David are 
 ended," or summed up. " There shall be 
 a just one ruling over men, ruling in the 
 fear of God ; as the light of the morn- 
 
 * It is interesting to notice, that while David speaks 
 of " the womb of the morning " in connexion with the 
 dew, Job asks, *' Who hath begotten the drops of dew f 
 out of whose womb came the ice ?" Job xxxviii. '28. 
 
THE MORNINO. 85 
 
 INO shall he arise, the Sun of an uncloud- 
 ed morning, shining after rain upon the 
 tender grass of the earth." Not till that 
 Just One comes is the morning to dawn, for 
 he is its light ; and from his countenance 
 is to break forth that light in which all 
 earth is to rejoice. Then the darkness ot 
 the long night shall disappear, and the 
 brief tribulation tasted in the time of ab- 
 sence be forgotten in the abounding blessed- 
 ness of his everlasting presence. 
 
 Let us hear how, in " the Song," the 
 bride refers to this same morning. She 
 rejoices in the Bridegroom's assured love, 
 and her desires or longings are not ques- 
 tionings as to the relationship in which 
 she stands to him. This is with her a set- 
 tled thing, for she has tasted that the Lord 
 is gracious. *' I am my beloved's, and mj 
 beloved is mine." What direction then do 
 her longings take ? Her " eyes are towards 
 the hills," over which she expects to be- 
 hold him coining like a roe. Thus she 
 
86 THE MORNING. 
 
 pleads with him not to tarry; "Make 
 haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a 
 roe, or to a young hart upon the mountains 
 of spices." (viii. 14.) Thus also she an- 
 ticipates the morning of fuller joy, even 
 while enjoying present fellowship ; " He 
 feedeth among the lilies until the day 
 break and the shadows flee away." (ii. 16, 
 IT.) And thus the Bridegroom himself, 
 feeling, if one may so speak, the loneliness 
 of the night, and that it is " not good to 
 be alone," longs, like herself, for day, and 
 resolves to climb the hills, where he may 
 not only be regaled with freshest odours, 
 but may catch the earliest gleam of dawn : 
 " Until the day break, and the shadows 
 flee away, I will get me to the mountain of 
 myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense." 
 (iv. 6.) On that hill let us meet him in 
 faith, and watch with him in hope, yet 
 ever remembering, that though this joy 
 which faith gives here is unspeakably 
 comforting, it is not the gladness of the 
 
THE MORNING. 87 
 
 marriage supper, — it is not the blessedness 
 of the bridal day. For he himself, while 
 telling his disciples, " Lo, I am with you 
 always," says also this, " I will not hence- 
 forth drink of this fruit of the vine until 
 the day that I shall drink it new with you 
 in my Father's kingdom." (Matt. xxvi. 
 29.) 
 
 Thus we see all kinds of joy brought 
 within the circle of this morning. It is a 
 morning of joy, because it is the morning 
 introduced by Him, who s^id, " These 
 things have I spoken unto you, that my 
 joy might remain in you, and that your joy 
 might be full " (John xv. 11) ; by Him " in 
 whose presence there is fulness of joy, and 
 at whose right hand there are pleasures for 
 evermore." (Psa. xvi. 11.) But let us 
 mark the different kinds of joy and the 
 different figures denoting it. 
 
 There is the joy of deliverance from 
 
 overwhelming danger. This was the joy 
 
 af the Jews when their adversary perished, 
 i 2 
 
88 THE MORNING. 
 
 and Mordecai was exalted; " The Jews had 
 
 light, and gla-dness, and joy, and honour, 
 .... the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast 
 and a good day." (Esther viii. 16.) Such 
 shall be the church's joy in the morning of 
 her great deliverance. There is the joy of 
 escape from captivity and return from exile, 
 such as made Israel feel " as men that 
 dream." Such shall be the church's joy 
 when her long captivity is done. *' Then 
 shall her mouth be filled with laughter, 
 and her tongue with singing ; having sowed 
 in tears she reaps in joy." (Psa. cxxvi. 2.) 
 There is the joy of harvest (Isa. ix. 3) ; and 
 such shall be the church's joy. There is 
 the mother's joy when her pangs are over, 
 and the child is born into the world. (John 
 xvi. 20.) With such joy shall we rejoice, 
 and our joy no man taketh from us. The 
 joy in reserve for us is manifold and large ; 
 it will abide and satisfy ; it is the joy of 
 the mornijig ; — a long glad day before us ; 
 no evening with its lengthening shadows. 
 
THE MORNING. 89 
 
 no night with its chills and daikness. 
 " There shall he no night there, and 
 they need no candle neither light of the 
 sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, 
 and they shall reign for ever and ever." 
 (Rev. xxii. 5.) 
 
 The prospect of this morning — this 
 '* morning of joy " — nerves and cheers u« 
 under all our trihulation. Were this morn- 
 ino- an uncertaintv, how dark would the 
 
 ni'^ht seem ! how difficult for us to fight 
 o 
 
 against faintness and despair! But the 
 thought of morning invigorates and hraces 
 us. We can set our faces to the storm, for 
 behind it lies the calm. We can hear the 
 parting, for the meeting is not distant. 
 AVe can afford to weep, for the tear shall 
 soon be wiped away. We can watch the 
 tedious sick bed, for soon " the inhabitant 
 shall not say, I am sick." We can look 
 quietly into the grave of buried love and 
 cherished hope, for resurrection shines be 
 yond it. Things may be against us herre, 
 I 3 
 
90 THE MORNING. 
 
 but they 9xefor us hereafter. The lier^ ii 
 but an hour ; the hereafter is a whole 
 eternity. 
 
 But for the world — the heedless, plea- 
 sure-chasing world, they have no such 
 brightenings for their dark hours of sor- 
 row. No morning comes to them. Their 
 sun sets, but rises not again ; their life 
 goes down in darkness, without a hope. 
 It is night — night infinite and endless, to 
 them ; " the blackness of darkness for 
 everl" No healing of their wounds, no 
 wiping away of their tears, no binding up 
 of their broken hearts ! They reject the in- 
 iinite sacrifice, they sport away their day 
 of salvation, and their history winds up in 
 judgment and the second death. " If they 
 speak not according to this word^^ (says 
 the prophet,} " there is no morning for 
 them,'^ (Isa. viii. 20, margin.) This word, 
 " which by the gospel is preached unto 
 them," (1 Peter i. 25,) they slight or scorn, 
 and vengeance overtakes them for rejec* 
 
THE MORNING. 91 
 
 tion ! " Therefore," says the same prophet, 
 "• shall evil come upon you ; thou shall not 
 know its morning.'' (Isa. xlvii. 11, margin.) 
 A.n evil without a deliverance, a night 
 without a morning, is their portion ! 
 
 Sad closing of a life-time's weariness! 
 Joy they have never known, though its full 
 cup has often been handed to them by 
 God, and they pressed to drink it ! For 
 what is each message, each summons, each 
 warning, but God saying to them, " Come 
 share my love, come taste my joy ! " Sor- 
 row they- have known, for how could they 
 miss knowing it in such a world ! Heavy- 
 burdens, keen griefs, sharp stings, bitter 
 memories, hard misgivings, intolerable 
 forebodings, dark self-questionings, " What 
 am I, or what shall I be?" all these, 
 crowding in upon a soul that has no God, 
 pouring into a heart that has no outlet for 
 its sorrows in the bosom of a Saviour, are 
 enough to dry up life's springs even when 
 
92 THE MORNING. 
 
 deepest * Yet all these are but the be- 
 ginning of sorrows ! There is a fuller cup 
 yet to be given to them to drink — eternal 
 wormwood! Then the heart would fain 
 break, but cannot. . For the sorrow is as 
 eternal as it is infinite. They shall seek 
 for death, but shall not be able to find it ; 
 for the second death is the death that 
 never dies. 
 
 * Goethe, the world's favourite, if one may so speak, 
 confessed when about eighty years old, that he could 
 not remember being in a really happy state of mind 
 even for a few weeks together ; and that when he 
 wished to feel comfortable he had to veil his self- 
 consciousness ! And the following is the closing sen- 
 tence of his self-biography : " Child ! child ! no more. 
 The coursers of time, lashed, as it were, by invisible 
 spirits, hurry on the light car of our destiny ; and all 
 that we can do, is in cool self-possession to hold the 
 reins with a firm hand, and to guide the wheels, now to 
 the left, now to the right, a stone here, a precipice 
 there. Whither it is hurrying who can tell ? And who 
 indeed can remember the point from which it started ? " 
 Alas ! for the poor world, that, with all its refinement 
 and poetry and philosophy, knows not whither it is 
 hurrying ! As if no voice (more than man's) had ever 
 gaid, '• I am the way, and the truth, and the life." 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 
 
 The issue of the conflict between the 
 saints and death was decided when the 
 Lord arose. He met the enemy on his own 
 territory, his own battle-field, and over- 
 came. He entered the palace of the king 
 of terrors, and there laid hold of the strong 
 man, shaking his dwelling to its founda- 
 tions as he came forth, carrying away its 
 gates along with him, and giving warning 
 of being about to return, in order to 
 complete his conquest by " spoiling his 
 goods," and robbing him of the treasures 
 which he had kept so long,— the dust of 
 sleeping saints. 
 
 The first act of spoiling the strong man 
 
94 THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 
 
 of his goods begins at the resurrection. Of 
 this we have already spoken generally; 
 but the subject is so largely dwelt upon in 
 Scripture, that something more special is 
 needed. For it is a hope so fruitful in con- 
 solation to us who are still sojourners in a 
 dying world like this, and yet so little 
 prized, that we must not pass it slightly by. 
 Let us look at it in the aspects in which 
 the apostle spreads it out before us in the 
 15th of his first Epistle to the Corinthians. 
 The vision which he there holds before 
 us, is one of glory and joy. It is a morning 
 landscape, and contrasts brightly with pre- 
 sent night and sorrow. It draws aside the 
 veil that hides from view our much-longed- 
 for heritage, showing us from our prospect- 
 hill the excellence of the land that shall so 
 Boon be ours, — plains richer than Sharon, 
 valleys more fruitful than Sibmah, moun- 
 tains goodlier than Carmel or Lebanon. 
 The then and the now, the there and the 
 here, are strangely diverse. Here the mor- 
 
THE TICTORY OA^ER DEATH. 95 
 
 tal, there the immortal; here the corrupt- 
 ible, there the incorruptible ; here the 
 earthly, there the heavenly; here the do- 
 minion of death, there death swallowed up 
 of victory ; here the grave devouring its 
 prey, there the spoiler of the grave coming 
 forth in resurrection-power, to claim each 
 particle of holy dust, undoing death's handi- 
 work, spoiling the spoiler, bringing forth in 
 beauty that which had been laid down in 
 vileness, clothing with honour that which 
 had been sown in shame. 
 
 " The trumpet shall sound, the dead 
 shall be, raised incorruptible, and we shall 
 be changed ! " All this " in a moment, in 
 the twinkling of an eye." Other changes are 
 gradual, this sudden. There is the ebbing 
 and the flowing; there is the growing up in- 
 to manhood, and the growing down into old 
 age ; there is the slow opening of spring into 
 summer, and of summer into autumn ; but 
 this shall be unlike all these changes. It 
 shall be instantaneous, — like the lightning's 
 
96 THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 
 
 flash, or the twinkling of an eye. He who 
 spake and it was done, shall speak again, 
 and it shall be done ; he who said, Let there 
 be light, and there was light, shall speak, 
 and light shall come forth out of the grave's 
 thick darkness. 
 
 " This corruptible shall put on incorrup- 
 tion ! " There will be an entire casting 
 aside of mortality with all its wrappings of 
 corruption, with all its relics of dishonour. 
 Every particle of evil shall be shaken out 
 of us, and " this vile body " transfigured 
 into the likeness of the Lord's own glo- 
 rious body. We entered this world mortal 
 and corruptible; all our life long we are 
 imbibing mortality and corruption, becom- 
 ing more and more thoroughly mortal and 
 corruptible ; the grave sets its seal to all 
 this, and crumbles us down into common 
 earth. But the trumpet sounds, and all tliis 
 is gone. Mortality falls off, and all per- 
 taining to it is left behind. No more of 
 dross or disease in our frame. We can then 
 
THE VICTORX OVER DEaIH. 97 
 
 defy sickness, and pain, and death. We 
 can say to our bodies, be pained no more ; 
 to our limbs, be weary no more; to oui 
 lips, be parched no more ; to our eye, be 
 dim no more. 
 
 " O death, where is thy sting?" He 
 that hath the power of death is the devil, the 
 old serpent, and he torments us here. Sin 
 gave him his sting, and the law gave sin 
 its strength; but now that sin has been 
 forgiven and the law magnified, the sting 
 is plucked out. The stinging begins with 
 our birth; for life throughout; is one un- 
 ceasing battle with death, until, for a season, 
 death conquers, and we fall beneath his 
 power. But the prey shall be taken from 
 the mighty and his victims rescued for 
 ever. Now sin has passed away, and what 
 has become of death's sting, — its sharpness, 
 its pain, its power to kill ? It cannot touch 
 the immortal and the incorruptible ! 
 
 " O grave, where is now thy victory ? " 
 A conqueror all along hast thou been,— 
 
98 THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 
 
 never yet baffled, — thy course one perpe- 
 tual triumph, — the ally of death, following 
 in his footsteps; not only smiting down the 
 victim, but devouring it, taking it into thy 
 den, and consuming it bone by bone, till 
 every particle is crumbled into dust, as if 
 to make victory so sure that a retrieval of it 
 would be absolutely impossible. Yet thy 
 victories are over; the tide of battle is 
 turned in the twinkling of an eye. Look 
 at these rising myriads, — thou canst hold 
 them no longer : thou thoughtest them thy 
 prey, when they were but given to keep 
 for a little moment. See these holy ones, 
 without one spot, not one stain on which thy 
 sting, O death, can fasten ; not a weakness, 
 which might encourage thee again to hope 
 for a second victory ! All thy doings of six 
 thousand years undone in a moment ! Not 
 a scar remaining from all thy many wounds; 
 not a trace, or disfigurement, or blot, — all 
 perfection, — eternal beauty ! And look at 
 these other holy ones, also glorified ! They 
 
THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 99 
 
 have not tasted death, nor passed down 
 into the grave. Over them thou hast had 
 no power. Thou hast waged war with 
 them in vain. They have seen no corrup- 
 tion, atid they remain monuments that 
 thou wert not invincible. They have de- 
 fied thy power, and now they are beyond 
 thy reach ' 
 
 Ah, this is victory ! It is not escaping 
 by stealth out of the hands of the enemy, 
 it is conquering him ! It is not bribing him 
 to let us go; it is open and triumphant 
 victory, — victory which not only routs and 
 disgraces the enemy, but swallows him up, 
 • — victory achieved in righteousness, and in 
 behalf of these who had once been *' law 
 ful captives." 
 
 And the victor, who is he ? Not we, but 
 our Brother-king. His sword smote the 
 mighty one, and under his shield we have 
 come off conquerors. The wreath is his of 
 victorious battle, not ours ; we are the tro- 
 phies, not the conquerors. He overcame 
 
 K 2 
 
100 THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 
 
 How? By allowing himself to be overcome ! 
 He plucked the sting from death. How ? 
 By allowing it to pierce himself ! He made 
 the grave to let go its hold. How ? By 
 going down into its precincts and wrestling 
 with it in the greatness of his strength. He 
 brought round the law which was against 
 us to be upon our side. How ? By giving 
 the law all that it sought, so that it could 
 ask no more either of him or of us. 
 
 How complete the victory over us seem- 
 ed for a while to be ! yet how complete the 
 reversal ! These enemies are not only con- 
 quered, but more than conquered. No 
 trace of their former conquests remains. 
 We not only live, but are made immortal. 
 We not only are rescued from the corrup- 
 tion of the grave, but made incorruptible 
 for ever. 
 
 Victory, then, is our watchword. We 
 entered on the conflict at first, assured of 
 final victory by Him who said, ** I am the 
 resurrection and the life; he that believeth 
 
THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. lOi 
 
 on me, thoiigli he were dead yet shall he live, 
 *iid whosoever liveth and helieveth on me 
 shall never die;" — ^by Him who to all his 
 many promises of spiritual life and blessing 
 added this, " and I will raise him up at 
 the last day." When taking up sword and 
 shield, we were sure of success; we could 
 boast when putting on the harness as he 
 that putteth it off in triumph. Victory was 
 our watchword during every conflict, even 
 the hardest and the sorest. Victory was 
 our watchword on the bed of death, in the 
 dark valley, when going down for a sea- 
 son into the tomb. Victory is to be our 
 final watchword when re-appearing from 
 the grave, leaving mortality beneath us, 
 and ascending to glory. 
 
 " Then shall Jehovah God -wipe away 
 tears from off all faces." (Isa. xxv. 8; xxx. 
 19; XXXV. 10; Ix. 20; Jer. xxxi. 12; 
 Rev. vii. 17 ; xxi. 4.) We shall weep no 
 more. The furrows of past tears are effaced. 
 Tears of anguish, tears of parting, tears of 
 K 3 
 
102 THE VlCTORr OVER DEATH. 
 
 bereavement, tears of adversity^ tears o 
 heart-breaking sorrow, these are forgotten. 
 We cannot weep again. The fountain of 
 tears is dried up. God our Lord wipes 
 off the tears. It is not thne that heals the 
 sorrows of the saints, or dries up their tears 
 it is God; God himself; God alone. He 
 reserves this for himself, as if it were his 
 special joy. The world's only refuge in 
 grief is time, or pleasure ; but the refuge of 
 the saints is God. This is the true heal- 
 ing of the wound ; and the assurance to us 
 that tears once wiped away by God cannot 
 flow again. 
 
 " The rebuke of his people shall he t&ke 
 away from off all the earth.'* (Isa. xxv. 8.) 
 As he is to do this for Israel, so also for the 
 church. Rebuke, reproach, persecution, 
 have been the church's lot on earth. The 
 world hated the Master, and they have 
 hated the servant. The " reproach oi 
 Christ," (Heb. xi.,) is a well-known re- 
 proach. Shame for his name is what his 
 
THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. lUj 
 
 iaints have been enduring, and shall en- 
 dure until he comes again. But all this 
 is to be reversed. Soon the world's taunt 
 shall cease. They shall scorn no more ; 
 they shall hate no more ; I hey shall revile 
 no more, and no more cast out our names 
 as evil. Honour crowns the saints, and 
 their enemies are put to shame. It is but 
 one day's reviling before men, and then an 
 eternity of glory in the presence of God 
 and of the Lamb. Then the name of saint 
 shall be a name of glory, both in earth 
 and heaven. 
 
 Why shrink then from the world's re- 
 proach, when it is but a breath at the 
 most, and when we know that it so soon 
 shall cease ? Why not rejoice that we are 
 counted worthy to suffer shame for the 
 name of Jesus, when we know that all that 
 afflicts us here is not worthy to be compared 
 with the glory that shall be revealed in 
 us ? The morning, and the glory which the 
 morning brings with it, will more than com- 
 
104 THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 
 
 pensate for all. Let us be of good cheei 
 then, and press onward, through evil re- 
 port as well as through good, having 
 respect unto the recompence of reward. 
 
 " Creation shall be delivered from the 
 bondage of corruption into the glorious 
 liberty of the sons of God." That morn- 
 ing which brings resurrection to us brings 
 restitution to creation — deliverance to a 
 groaning earth. The same Lord that 
 brings us out of the tomb, roils back the 
 curse from off creation, effacing the vestiges 
 of the first Adam's sin, and presenting a 
 fresh memorial of the second Adam's 
 righteousness. Happy world ! when Satan 
 is bound, when the curse is obliterated, 
 when the bondage is broken, when the air 
 is purged, when the soil is cleansed, when 
 the grave is emptied, and when the risen 
 saints take the throne of creation to rule 
 in righteousness with the sceptre of the 
 righteous King. 
 
 Resurrection is our hope ; our hope in 
 
THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 105 
 
 life, our hope in death. It is a purifying 
 hope It is a gladdening hope. It com- 
 forts us when laying in the grave the clay 
 of those whom we have loved. It cheers 
 us when feeling the weakness of our own 
 frame, and thinking how soon we shall lie 
 down in dust. It refreshes and elevates 
 when we remember how much precious 
 dust earth has received since the day of 
 righteous Abel. How sweet that name — 
 RESURRECTION ! It pours life into each 
 vein and vigour into each nerve at the 
 very mention of it ! 
 
 It is not carnal thus to bend over the 
 clay-cold corpse and long for the time when 
 these very limbs shall move again ; when 
 that hand shall clasp ours as of old ; when 
 those eyes shall brighten ; when those lips 
 shall resume their suspended utterance ; 
 when we shall feel the throbbings of that 
 heart again ! No. it is scriptural, it is 
 spiritual. Some may call it sentimental ; 
 but it is our very nature. We cannot feel 
 
106 THE rrCTORT OVER DEATH. 
 
 Otherwise, even if we would. We cannot 
 but love the clay. We cannot but be loth 
 to part with it. We cannot but desire its 
 reanimation. The. nature that God has 
 given us can be satisfied with nothing less. 
 And with nothing less has God purposed 
 to satisfy it. " Thy brother shall rise 
 asrain." " Them that have been laid to 
 sleep by Jesus will God bring with him '* 
 We feel the weight of that mortality 
 that often makes life a burden ; yet we 
 say, " Not that we would be unclothed, 
 but clothed upon, that mortality may be 
 swallowed up of life." We lay within the 
 tomb the desire of our eyes, yet we cling 
 to the remains, and feel as if the earth that 
 struck the coffin were wounding the body 
 on which it falls. At such a moment the 
 thought of opening graves and rising dust 
 is unutterably precious. We shall see 
 that face .again. We shall hear that voice 
 again. Not only does the soul that filled 
 that clay still live ; but that clay itself 
 
THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 107 
 
 shall be revived. Our risen friend shall be 
 in very deed — form, look, voice — the friend 
 that we have known and loved. Our 
 risen brother will be all that we knew him 
 here when, hand in hand, we passed 
 through the wilderness together, cheered 
 with the blessed thought that no separa- 
 tion could part us long, and that the 
 grave itself could unlink neither hand! 
 nor hearts. 
 
CHAPTER Vra, 
 
 THE REUNION. 
 
 The family has been all along a scatter- 
 ed one. Not only has it been scattered 
 along the ages, but it has been dispersed 
 over every land. " Children of the dis- 
 persion " might well be the name of its 
 members. They have no continuing city, 
 nay, no city at all that they can call their 
 own ; sure of nothing here beyond their 
 bread and raiment ; no where able to reckon 
 upon a certain dwelling, yet having always 
 the promise of it some where. 
 
 Besides this scattering, arising from their 
 being thus called out of every kindred and 
 nation, there are others more bitter. There 
 b the scattering which persecution makes, 
 
THE REUNION. 109 
 
 when it drives them from city to city. 
 There is the scattering which adversity 
 makes when happy circles are broken up, 
 and their fragments sent far asunder. 
 There is the scattering which oftentimes 
 jealousy and contention and selfish rivalry 
 produce, even among the saints. There is 
 the scattering which bereavement makes, 
 when strong ties are broken, and warm 
 love spilt like water on the ground ; when 
 fellowship is rent asunder, and living 
 sympathies chilled by death, and tears of 
 choking anguish are all the relief of lonelir 
 ness and sorrow. 
 
 As Israel was scattered among the nor 
 tions, so have the saints been ; not indeed- 
 like Israel, because of the wrath of God 
 against them, but still scattered every 
 where. " The Lord shall scatter thee 
 among all people, from the one end of the 
 earth even unto the other," (Deut. xxviii. 
 64,) were God's words to Israel, and the 
 
 L 
 
110 THE REUNION. 
 
 church feels how truly they suit her con- 
 dition as a scattered flock. 
 
 In primitive times, and often since that, 
 in days of trouble and persecution, it was 
 truly and literally a scattering^ just as 
 when the autumn wind shakes down and 
 tosses the ripe leaves to and fro. But in 
 our day it is not so much a scattering, as a 
 simple dwelling asunder, — ^by the calling 
 out of every nation the few that make up 
 the little flock. It is a gathering out^ but 
 not a gathering together. It is one family, 
 yet the members know not, see not each 
 other in the flesh. They are drawn by 
 the Father's hand, and according to the 
 Father's purpose, out of kingdoms and 
 families wide asunder. They have no 
 local centre, either of interest, or of resi- 
 dence, or of government ; no common 
 home, no common meeting-place, save that 
 which faith gives them now in their Head 
 above, or that hope which assures them 
 
THE KEUJSION. Ill 
 
 of in Iho world to come, where they shall 
 come together, face to face, as one house- 
 hold, gathered under one roof, and seated, 
 around one table. 
 
 This separation and apparent disunion 
 is not natural or congenial. For there is 
 a hidden magnetic virtue which uncon- 
 sciously and irresistibly draws them to- 
 wards each other. Separation is the pre- 
 sent law of the kingdom, but this only 
 because election is the law of the dispensa- 
 tion. There is an affinity among the mem- 
 bers which neither time nor distance 
 can destroy. There is a love kindled they 
 know not how, kept alive they know not 
 how, but strong and unquenchable, the love 
 of kin, the love of brotherhood : 
 
 No (ligtance breaks the tie of blood, 
 Brothers are brothers evermore.— 
 
 And they feel this. Knit by the ties of a 
 
 strange and unearthly union, they have a 
 
 conscious feeling of oneness which nothing 
 
 l2 
 
112 THE REUNION. 
 
 can shake. Deep hidden in each other's 
 " heart of hearts," they can not consent to 
 be perpetually asunder, but eagerly antici- 
 pate the day of promised union. 
 
 But there is another kind of separation 
 which they have had to endure. Death has 
 torn them from each other. From Abel 
 downward there has been one long scene 
 of bereavement. The griefs of parting 
 make up the greatest amount of earth- 
 ly suffering among the children of men. 
 And from these griefs the saints have not 
 been exempted. Bitter have been the 
 farewells that have been spoken on earth, 
 — around the death-bed, or in the prison, 
 or on the sea-shore, or on the home- 
 threshold, or in the city of strangers, — the 
 farewells of men who knew that they 
 should no more meet till the grave gave 
 up its trust. Death has been the great 
 scatterer, and the tomb has been the great 
 receiver of the fragments. 
 
 Our night of weeping has taken much 
 
THE REUNION. 113 
 
 >f its gloom and sadness from these rend- 
 mgs asunder. The pain of parting, in the 
 case of the saints, has much to alleviate it, 
 but still the bitterness is there. We feel 
 that we must separate, and though it be 
 only for a while, still our hearts bleed with 
 the wound. 
 
 But there is reunion. And one of the 
 joys of the morning is this reunion among 
 the saints. During the night they had 
 been scattered, in the morning they are 
 gathered together. In the wilderness they 
 have been separated, but i» the kingdom 
 they shall meet. During this age they 
 have been like the drops of the fitful 
 shower ; in the age to come they shall be 
 like the dew of Hermon, the dew that de- 
 scended upon the mountains of Zion, one 
 radiant company, alighting upon the holy 
 hills, and bringing with them refreshment 
 to a weary earth. Then shall fully be 
 answered the prayer of the Lord, "That 
 they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art 
 l3 
 
114 ■ THE KEUNION. 
 
 in me, and I in thee, that they also may be 
 one in us : that the world may believe 
 that thou hast sent me. And the glory 
 which thou gavest me I have given them ; 
 that they may be one, even as we are one : 
 I in them, and thou in me, that they may 
 be made perfect in one ; and that the world 
 may know that thou hast sent me, and 
 hast loved them as thou hast loved me." 
 (John XV ii. 21—23.) 
 
 "I will smite the Shepherd, and the 
 sheep of the flock shall be scattered 
 abroad." (Matt. xxvi. 31.) Such is our 
 present position — a smitten Shepherd and 
 a scattered flock ! But the day is at hand 
 when "he that scattered shall gather," 
 and there shall be a glorified Shepherd and 
 a gathered flock; not merely one flock, 
 one fold, and one Shepherd, but one flock 
 gathered into the one fold around the 
 one Shepherd, the scattering ceased, the 
 wandering at an end, the famine ex- 
 changed for the green pastures, the danger 
 
THE REUNION. 115 
 
 forgotten, and the devouring lion bound. 
 Then shall fully come to pass the prophecy 
 regarding the issues of the Surety's death, 
 *' that he should gather together in one 
 the children of God that were scattered 
 abroad." (John xi. 52.) Then what ia 
 wiitten of Israel shall, in a higher sense, be 
 fulfilled in the church : " Behold, I, even I, 
 will both search my sheep, and seek them 
 out. As a shepherd seeketh out his 
 flock in the day that he is among his 
 sheep that are scattered; so will I seek 
 out my sheep, and will deliver them out of 
 all places where they have been scattered 
 in the cloudy and dark day. I will feed 
 them in a good pasture, and upon the high 
 mountains of Israel shall their fold be. 
 And I will set up one shepherd over them, 
 and he shall feed them, even my servant 
 David; he shall feed them, and he shall 
 be their shepherd." And a? the. ingather- 
 ing of Israel is to be a blessing diffusing it- 
 self on every side, so is the reunion of 
 
116 THE liEUNION. 
 
 the scattered church to be to the world ; so 
 that we may use Israel's promise here 
 also : " I will make them and the places 
 round about my hill a blessing ; and I 
 ■will cause the shower to come down in his 
 season ; there shall be showers of blessing." 
 (Ezek. xxxiv. 11—26.) 
 
 This reunion is when the Lord returns* 
 When the Head appears, then the members 
 come together. They have always been 
 united, — for just as the Godhead was still 
 united to the manhood of Christ, even 
 when his body was in the tomb, so the 
 oneness between the members, both with 
 each other and with their Head, has been 
 always kept unbroken. But when he 
 comes, this union is fully felt, realized, seen, 
 manifested. " When Christ who is our life 
 shall appear, then shall we also appear with 
 him in glory." (Col. iii. 4.) 
 
 This reunion is at "the resurrection of 
 the just." Then every remaining particle 
 of separation is removed, — soul and body 
 
THE REUNION. 117 
 
 meet, — both perfect ; no trace of " this 
 vile body," or this dust-cleaving soul. The 
 corruptible has gone, and the incorruptible 
 has come. Our reunion shall be in in cor- 
 ruption ; hands that shall never grow pal- 
 sied clasping each other, and renewing 
 broken companionships, — eyes that shall 
 never dim gazing on each other with purer 
 love. 
 
 This re-union is in the cloud of glory, 
 in which the Lord comes again. When he 
 went up from Olivet, this cloud received 
 him, and fain would his disciples have 
 gone up along with him. But into that 
 glorious pavilion, — his tabernacle, — shall 
 they yet ascend ; there to meet with him, 
 and to embrace each other, coming to- 
 gether into that mysterious dwelling-place, 
 from the four winds of heaven, " out of 
 every kindred, and nation, and tongue, and 
 people." 
 
 This reunion is the marriage-day, and 
 that cloud-curtained pavilion the Bride* 
 
118 THE REUNION. 
 
 groom's chamber. There the bride is now 
 seen as one. And there she realizes her 
 own oneness in a way unimagined before. 
 There too the marriage-feast is spread, and 
 the bride takes her place of honour at the 
 marriage-table, — "glorious within," as well 
 as without, — not, like the hai-lot-biide, 
 decked with purple, and scarlet, and gold, 
 and gems (Rev. xvii. 4; xviii. 16); but 
 "arrayed in fine linen, clean and white." 
 (xix. 8.) 
 
 It is to this reunion, and to the honours 
 that shall then be given to the whole church 
 at once, that the apostle refers, when he 
 says, that " they (the Old Testament saints, 
 to whom the promises came) without us 
 should not be made perfect." (Heb. xi. 39, 
 40.) Thus he intimates that the actual 
 possession of the thing promised has not 
 yet been given. It is deferred until the 
 Lord come, in order that no age, nor sec- 
 tion, nor individuals of the church should 
 be perfectly blest and glorified before the 
 
THE REUNION. 119 
 
 rest ; for all must be raised up together, all 
 caught up together, all crowned together, 
 seeing they are one body, — one bride.* 
 He points to the day of the Lord as the 
 day of our common introduction into the 
 inheritance, — the day of our common re- 
 entrance into Eden, — the day when, as one 
 vast multitude of all kindreds, we shall 
 enter in through the gates into the city ; — 
 the day of our common crowning, our com- 
 mon triumph. For it is to be one crowning, 
 one enthroning, one festival, one triumph, 
 one entrance for the w^hole church, from 
 the beginning. The members are not 
 crowned alone, nor in fragments, nor in 
 sections ; but in one glorious hour they re- 
 ceive their everlasting crowns, and take 
 their seats, side by side, with their Lord, 
 
 * The words, " God having provided the better thing 
 for us," form a parenthesis, and are thrown in for the 
 purpose of showing that the " good things to some," 
 that is, the inheritance, belong to us, as much as to the 
 ancient saints, y^ho got the promise. 
 
120 THE REUNION. 
 
 and with each other, in simultaneous glad- 
 ness, upon the long-expected tlirone. 
 
 The preparations for this union have 
 long been making. They began with us 
 individually, when first the scattered frag- 
 ments of our souls were brought together 
 by the Holy Ghc.st, at our conversion. Be- 
 fore that, our " hearts were divided ;" and 
 this was our special sin. (Hos. x. 2.) But 
 then they " were united," — at least in some 
 measure, though still calling for the un- 
 ceasing prayer, "Unite my heart to fear 
 thy name." (Psa. Ixxxvi. 11.)* It was 
 first the inner man that came under the 
 power of sin and was broken into parts ; 
 then the outer man followed. Both were 
 
 * The peader will call to mind Augustine's remark- 
 able statement to this effect, concerning himseli^ though 
 he does not refer to either of the above passages. 
 Speaking of God as his delight, " dulcedo non fallax, 
 dulcedo felix et secura," he adds, *' colligens me a dis. 
 persione in qua frustratim discissus sum ; dum ab uno 
 te aversis, in multa evanui." — Confessions, Book II 
 chap. 1. § 1. 
 
THE EEUNION. 121 
 
 created whole in every sense of that word, 
 and both have ceased to be whole in any 
 sense of it. When restoration begins, it 
 begins with the reunion of the inner 
 man, and in the resurrection passes on to 
 the outer, bringing together the two re- 
 stored parts. It was the individual that 
 first was subjected to sin, and then the 
 7nass. So it is the individual that is first 
 restored. And this is the process that U 
 now going oh under the almighty, vivify- 
 ing, uniting energy of the Holy Spirit. 
 But the reunion is not complete till one- 
 ness is brought back to the mass, to the 
 body, — till all those members that have 
 been singly restored, be brought together, 
 and so the body made ichole. 
 
 It is for this we wait until the Lord 
 come. For as it was the first Adam that 
 broke creation into fragments, so it is the 
 second Adam that is to restore creation in 
 all its parts and regions, and make it one 
 again. The good and the evil then are 
 
 M 
 
122 THE REUNION. 
 
 parted for ever, but the good and tlie good 
 are brought into perfect oneness, — a oneness 
 so complete, so abiding, as more than to 
 compensate for brokenness and separation 
 here. 
 
 The soul and the body come together and 
 form one glorified man. The ten thousand 
 members of the church come together and 
 form one glorified church. The scattered 
 stones come together and form one living 
 temple. The bride and the Bridegroom 
 meet. Here it has been one Lord, one 
 faith, one baptism; there it shall be one 
 body, one bride, one vine, one temple, one 
 family, one city, one kingdom. 
 
 The broken fruitfulness, the fitful in- 
 constancy, of the cursed earth shall pass 
 into the unbroken beauty of the new crea- 
 tion. The discord of the troubled ele- 
 ments-shall be laid, and harmony return. 
 The warring animals shall lie down in 
 peace. 
 
 Then shall heaven and earth come to- 
 
THE REUNION. 123 
 
 gether into one. That which we call dis- 
 tance is annihilated, and the curtain drawn 
 by sin is withdrawn from between the upper 
 and the lower glory, and the fields of a 
 paradise that was never lost are brought 
 into happy neighborhood with the fields of 
 paradise regained; God's purpose develop- 
 ing itself in the oneness of a two-fold glory, 
 — the rulers and the ruled, — the risen and 
 the unrisen, the celestial and the terrestrial, 
 — the glory that is in the heaven above, 
 the glory that is in the earth beneath ; for 
 "there are celestial bodies and bodies 
 terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial 
 is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is 
 another." 
 
 Such scenes we need to dwell upon, that 
 as our tribulations abound, so also our con- 
 solations may abound. Our wounds hero 
 are long in healing. Bereavements keep 
 the heart long bleeding. Melancthon, with 
 a tender simplicity so like himself, refers 
 to his feelings when his child was taken 
 m2 
 
124 THE EEUNION. 
 
 from Lim by death. He wept as he re- 
 called the past. It pierced his soul to re- 
 member the time, when once, as he sat 
 weeping, his little one with its little napkin 
 wiped the tears from his cheeks.* 
 
 Recollections like these haunt us through 
 life, ever and anon newly brought up by 
 passing scenes. Some summer morning's 
 sun recalls, with stinging freshness, the 
 hour when that same sun streamed in 
 through our window upon a dying infant's 
 cradle, as if to bring out all the beauty of 
 the parting smile, and engrave it upon our 
 hearts for ever. Or is it a funeral scene 
 that comes up to memory, — a funeral scene 
 that had but a few days before been a bridal 
 one, — and never on earth can we forget 
 the outburst of our grief, when we saw the 
 bridal flowers laid upon the new-made 
 tomb. Or some Avintry noon r3calls the 
 time and the scene when we laid a parent's 
 
 * Memini cum infantula mihi lachrymas a genia 
 detergeret suo indusiolo, quo erat induta maue ; hie 
 gestus penetravit in amimum meum. 
 
THE EEUNION. 125 
 
 dust within its resting-place, and left it to 
 sleep in winter's grave of snows. These 
 memories haunt us, pierce us, and make us 
 feel what a desolate place this is, and what 
 an infinitely desirable thing it would be to 
 meet these lost ones again, where the meet- 
 ing: shall be eternal. 
 
 Hence the tidings of this reunion in the 
 many mansions are like home-greetings. 
 They relieve the smitten heart. They bid 
 us. be of good cheer, for the separation is 
 but brief, and the meetmg to which we 
 look forward will be the happiest ever en- 
 joyed. The time of sorrowful recollections 
 will soon pass, and no remembrance remain 
 but that which will make our joy to over- 
 flow. 
 
 Every thing connected with this re- 
 union is fitted to enhance its blessedness. 
 To meet again any where, or any how, or 
 at any time would be blessed ; how much 
 more at such a time, in such circumstances, 
 and in such a home ! The dark past liea 
 m3 
 
126 THE REUNION. 
 
 behind us like a prison from wli ich we have 
 come forth, or like a wreck from which we 
 have escaped in safety and landed in a 
 quiet haven. We meet where separation 
 is an impossibility, where distance no 
 more tries fidelity, or pains the spirit, or 
 mars the joy of loving. We meet in a 
 kingdom. We meet at a marriage-table. 
 We meet in the " prepared city," the New 
 Jerusalem. We meet under the shadow of 
 the tree of life, and on the banks of the 
 river of life. We meet to keep festival and 
 sing the songs of triumph. It was blessed 
 to meet here for a day ; how much more to 
 meet in the kingdom for ever! It was 
 blessed to meet, even with parting full in 
 view; how much more so when no such 
 cloud overhangs our future ! It was Messed 
 to meet in the wilderness and the land of 
 graves ; how much more in paradise, and in 
 the land where death enters not ! It was 
 blessed to meet "in the night," — though 
 chill and dark; how much more in the 
 
THE EEUNION. 127 
 
 morning, when light has risen, and the 
 troubled sky is cleared, and joy is spreading 
 itself around us like a new atmosphere, 
 from which every element of soitosv haa 
 disappeared. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 
 
 To love in absence, though with the 
 knowledge of being beloved, and with the 
 certainty of meeting ere long, is but a min- 
 gled joy. It contents us in the room of 
 something better and more blessed, but it 
 lacks that which true love longs for, the 
 presence of the beloved one. That pre- 
 sence fills up the joy and turns every shadow 
 into brightness. 
 
 Especially when this time of absence is 
 a time of weakness and suffering, and en- 
 durance of wrong; when dangers come 
 thickly around, and enemies spare not, and 
 advantage is taken by the strong to vex or 
 injure the defenceless. Then love in ab- 
 
THB PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 129 
 
 sence, though felt to be a sure consolation, 
 is found to be insufficient, and the heart 
 cheers itself with the thought that the in- 
 terval of loneliness is brief, and that the 
 days of separation are fast running out. 
 
 It is with such feelings that we look for- 
 ward to our meeting with Him " whom 
 having not seen we love," and anticipate 
 the joy of being for ever " with the Lord." 
 That day of meeting has in it enough of 
 gladness to make up for all the past. And 
 then it is eterxal. It is not meeting to- 
 day, and parting to-morrow ; it is meeting 
 once and for ever. To see him face to face, 
 even for a day, how blessed ! To be " with 
 him" for a life-time, or an age, even though 
 with intervals of absence between, how 
 gladdening ! But to be ^^^th him for ever, 
 — or always^ as it stands in the original, — 
 this surely is the very filling up of all our 
 
 joy- 
 Has not the Lord, however, been always 
 
 with us ? Has he not said, " Lo, I am with 
 
130 THE PKESENCE 
 
 you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world?" Yea. Xor ought the church to 
 undervalue this nearness, this fellowship. 
 It is no shadow or fancy ; it is reality. It 
 is that same reality to which the Lord re- 
 ferred when he said, "He that loveth me 
 shall be loved of my Father; and I will 
 love him, and will manifest myself to him" 
 (John xiv. 21 ) ; or, as the old versions have 
 it, " will show mine own self to him." For 
 when Jude put the question, " Lord, how 
 is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to 
 us and not unto the world ?" that is, " how 
 shall it be that the world shall not see thee, 
 and yet we who are. living in the world 
 shall see thee ? how is it that we shall have 
 thy presence, and yet the world have it 
 not?" "Jesus answered and said unto 
 bun. If a man love me he will keep my 
 words ; and my Father will love him, and 
 we will come unto him, and make our abode 
 with him." 
 
 So that thus we have had the Lord 
 
OP THE LORD. 131 
 
 always with us, nay, making his abode with 
 us. It was when first we gave credit to the 
 Divine testimony concerning the free love 
 of God, in the gift of his Son, that we drew 
 nigrh to him and he to us. It was then 
 that he came in unto us, and took up his 
 abode with us. It was when we heard his 
 voice and opened the door, that he came in 
 to sup w^ith us. And it is this conscious 
 presence, — this presence which faith real- 
 izes, — that cheers us amid tribulation here. 
 In the furnace we have one like the Son 
 of man to keep us company, and to prevent 
 the flame from kindling upon us. 
 
 But this is, after all, incomplete. It is 
 the enjoyment of as much fellowship as 
 can be tasted in absence, but it is no more. 
 Nor is it intended to supersede something 
 nearer and more complete, — far less to 
 make us content with absence. Nay, its 
 tendency is to make us less and less satis- 
 fied with absence. It gives us such a 
 relish for intercourse, that we long for 
 
132 THE PRESENCE 
 
 communion mere unhindered, — eye to eye 
 and face to face. This closer intercourse, 
 this actual vision, this bodily nearness, we 
 are yet to enjoy. The hope given us is to 
 be " with the Lord," — with him in a way 
 such as we have never been. 
 
 Let no one despise this nearness, nor 
 speak evil of it, as if it were material and 
 carnal. Many speak as if their bodies were 
 a curse, — as if matter were some piece of 
 mis-creation to which we had unnaturally 
 and unhappily been fastened. And others 
 tell us that actual intercourse, such as we 
 refer to, the intercourse of vision and voice, 
 is a poor thing, not to be named beside the 
 other, which is, as they conceive, the deeper 
 and the truer. 
 
 But is it so ? Is matter so despicable ? 
 Are our bodies such hinderances to true 
 fellowship? Is the eye nothing, the ear 
 nothing, the smile nothing, the voice no- 
 thing, the embrace nothing, the clasping 
 of the hand nothing? Is personal com* 
 
OP THE LORD. 133 
 
 munion a hinJerance to earthly friendships ? 
 Can the friend enjoy the friend as well afar 
 off as near ? Is it no matter to the wife 
 though her husband be unseen and distant ? 
 Granting that we can still love and receive 
 love in return, is distance no barrier, does 
 absence make no blank ? Do we slight 
 bodily presence, visible intercourse, as 
 worthless, almost undesirable? Is not the 
 reverse one of the most deep-seated feelings 
 of our nature ? And is it not to this deep- 
 seated feeling that the incarnation appeals ? 
 Is that incarnation useless, save as furnish- 
 ing a victim for the altar, — and pro\Tiding 
 blood for the cleansing of the worshipper ? 
 No. The incarnation brings God nigh to 
 ns in a way such as could not have been 
 done by any other means. He became bone 
 of our bone and flesh of our flesh, that we 
 might have a being like ourselves to com- 
 mune with, to love, to lean upon. 
 
 In that day when we shall be "with 
 
 N 
 
184 THE PRESENCE 
 
 the Lord," we shall know to the fall the 
 design of God in the incarnation of hia 
 Son, and taste the blessedness of seeing him 
 as he is. 
 
 The time of this meeting is his coming ; 
 not till then. Before that there is distance 
 and imperfection. I know that m the 
 disembodied state there will be greater 
 nearness and fuller enjoyment than now. 
 And this the apostle longed for when he 
 had the "desire to depart and be with 
 Christ, which is far better." Even before 
 the resurrection there is a "being with 
 Christ," more satisfying than what we enjoy 
 here ; a " being, with Christ" which is 
 truly " far better." Nor would I disparage 
 this blessedness. But still this is not to be 
 compared with resurrection-nearness, and 
 resurrection-fellowship, when, in a way up 
 till that time unknown, we shall be intro- 
 duced into the very presence of the King, 
 all distance annihilated, all fellowship com* 
 
OF THE LOBD. 135 
 
 pleted, all joy consummated, all coldness 
 done away, all shadows dissipated, and " so 
 we shall ever be with the Lord." 
 
 But, for the better understanding of this 
 subject, let us look to the way in which the 
 apostle handles it in administering comfort 
 to the Thessalonian church, some of whom 
 had been giving way to immoderate grief 
 for the dead. 
 
 The grief of the heathen w^as immoderate, 
 and their expressions of it equally so. No 
 wonder. Their hearts beat with as firm a 
 pulse as ours, and natural affection was as 
 strong with them as with us. The husband 
 mourned the wife, the wife the husband; 
 the parent mourned the child, the child 
 the parent ; friends wept over the grave of 
 friends. The breaking of these ties was 
 bitter ; and the special sting was, that they 
 had no hope of reunion. Death to them 
 was a parting for ever; not as when one 
 parts in the morning to meet at even, or as 
 when one parts this year to meet a few 
 n 2 
 
136 THE PRESENCE 
 
 years hence. It was a hopeless separation. 
 At the best it was a vague uncertainty, to 
 which deep grief gives no heed ; more com- 
 monly it was despair. Their sorrow was 
 desperate, their wound incurable. 
 
 The Thessalonian saints were sorrowing 
 as those that had no hope, as if they had 
 buried their beloved brethren in an eternal 
 tomb. For this the apostle reproves them. 
 He points out the hope, — a sure hope, a 
 blessed hope, a hope fitted to bring true 
 comfort. "Them that slce^^ in Jesus will 
 God bring with him." They are not lost ; 
 they have only been laid to sleep by Jesus, 
 and he will awake them when he returns, and 
 bring them up out of their tombs. Their 
 departure cannot be called dying ; it is only 
 sleeping. It has nothing of the despair of 
 death about it. Death has lost its sting ; the 
 shroud its gloom ; the grave its terrors. It 
 is an end of pain ; it is a ceasing from toil. 
 " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, 
 for they rest ftom their labours." 
 
OF THE LOKD. 13/ 
 
 But the apostle looks beyond the rest- 
 ing-place. "Thy brother shall rise agam." 
 God himself will uncover their tomb and 
 call them up, at the return of Him who is 
 the resurrection and the life. And this, says 
 he, " we say unto you by the word of the 
 Lord." He gives this consolation to them 
 as a certainty; having in it nothing vague 
 or doubtful ; a certainty proclaimed by him- 
 self and resting on the Lord's own words to 
 his disciples ere he left the earth, regarding 
 his advent, and the gathering of his elect 
 to him. 
 
 The Lord is to come ! This is the cer- 
 tainty. The Lord is to come ! And in that 
 coming are wrapt up all the hopes of his 
 saints. 
 
 Of these saints there will be two classes 
 when he comes. (1.) Those that are alive 
 and remain; the last generation of the 
 church. For, says the apostle elsewhere, 
 " We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be 
 changed." (1 Cor. xv. 51.) (2.) Those 
 n3 
 
138 THE PRESENCE 
 
 thxit have fallen asleep ; these forming the 
 
 larger number, doubtless; for the sleeping 
 
 ones of all ages shall be thtire It might be 
 
 supposed that the living ones would have 
 
 the advantage, as being alive when the Lord 
 
 arrives. But, no. It is not so. They may 
 
 have some advantages. They never taste 
 
 death. They are like Enoch and Elijah 
 
 They know not the grave. They see no 
 
 corruption. In their case soul and body are 
 
 never separated. They do not meet the 
 
 king of terrors, nor fall undei' his power.* 
 
 * Thus Richard Baxter wrote : "Would it not re>- 
 joice your hearts if you were sure to live to see the 
 coming of the Lord, and to see his glorious appearing 
 and retmue ? If you were not to die, but to be caught 
 up thus to meet the Lord, would you be averse to this ? 
 "Would it not be the greatest joy that you could desire ? 
 For my own part, I must confess to you that death, aa 
 death, appeareth to me aa an enemy, and my nature 
 doth abhor and fear it. But the thoughts of the commg 
 of the Lord are most sweet and joyful to me, so that if 
 I were but sure that I should live to see it, and that the 
 trumpet should sound, and the dead should rise, and 
 the Lord appear, before the period of my ago, it would 
 be the joyfullest tidings to me in the world. Oh that I 
 might see his kingdom come 1 It is the character of his 
 
OF THE LORD. 139 
 
 These are privileges ; and yet it might be 
 said, on the other hand, that these saints do 
 not taste the gladness of resurrection ; that 
 they are not conformed to their Lord in 
 this, that he died and rose. Still the end 
 in both cases is the same, — the one shall 
 have no advantage, no pre-eminence over 
 the other. Both are "presented faultless 
 before the presence of his glory with 
 exceeding joy ;" both equally faultkss^ 
 though each has undergone a different 
 
 samts to love his appearing and to look for that blessed 
 hope; 'The Spirit and the bride say Come; even so, 
 oome, Lord Jesus.' Come quickl}- is the voice of faith, 
 and hope, arid love. But I find not that his servants 
 are thus characterized by their desire to die. It is 
 therefore the presence of their Lord that they desire, 
 but it is death that they abhor ; and therefore, though 
 they can submit to death, it is the coming of Christ 
 that they love and long for. If death be the last enemy 
 to be destroyed at the resurrection, we may learn how 
 earnestly behevers should long and pray for the second 
 coming of Christ, when this full and final conquest 
 shall be made. There is something in death that ia 
 penal, even to believers ; but in the coming of Christ 
 and their resurrection there is n')thing tut glorifying 
 grace." Workn^ vc!. xvii, p. 555— i 590. 
 
140 THE PRESENCE 
 
 process for the accomplishing of this. Thus, 
 the one being changed and the other 
 raised, they are formed into one company, 
 marshalled into one mighty army, and then 
 caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord 
 in the air. 
 
 The particulars of this coming, in so far 
 as the apostle gives them, let us briefly 
 look into. The Lord himself shall descend 
 from heaven. The same Jesus that as- 
 cended; he who loved us and washed us 
 fi-om our sins in his own blood ; he — his own 
 self — shall come — come in like manner 
 as he was seen go. into heaven. With a 
 shout. This is the shout of a monarch's 
 retinue, the shout of a great army. Just 
 as God is said to have gone up with shouts, 
 so is he to return ; return with the shout 
 of the conqueror, the shout of triumph. 
 The voice of the archangel, A solitary 
 voice is then heard making some mighty 
 announcement, such as that of the angel 
 standing upon sea and earth, and proclaim- 
 
OF THE LURD. I'^i 
 
 Jng that there should be time no longer 
 (Rev.'X. 6); or of that other angel, with 
 whose glory the earth was lightened, cry- 
 ing with a loud voice, Babylon is fallen 
 (Rev. xviii. 2) ; or of that other angel, 
 who cried with a loud voice to all the fowls 
 of heaven, "Come, gather yourselves unto 
 the supper of the great God." (Rev. xix. 
 17.) The trump of God. It is elsewhere 
 called "the last trump." (1 Cor. xv. 52.) 
 It is God's own trumpet, the trumpet that 
 awakes the dead ; not a voice merely,— as 
 if that were too feeble for such a purpose, 
 nor a common trumpet, but the trump of 
 God, one that can pierce the grave and 
 awake the dead. 
 
 These are the steps and the accompani- 
 ments of the advent. There is first the 
 shout of the angelic host, as the Rede3mer 
 leaves his seat above to take possession of 
 his kingdom here. This shout is continued 
 as he descends. Then, as he approaches 
 nearer, the multitude of the heavenly host 
 
242 THE PRESia^^OE 
 
 is . silent, and a solitary voice is heard, tho 
 voice of the archangel uttering God's mes* 
 sage; then comes the trumpet that calls 
 forth the sleeping just. They obey the 
 call. They arise. No holy dust remains 
 behind. They put on immortality. Then, 
 joined by the transfigured and glorified 
 living, they hasten upwards to the embrace 
 of their beloved Lord. 
 
 It is into "the clouds," or " cloud," that 
 they are caught up ; that cloud, or clouds, 
 Tvhich in all likelihood rested above Eden, 
 making it the place of "the presence of 
 the Lord" (Gen. iii. 8; iv. 14, 16); which 
 appeared to Moses at the bush ; which led 
 Israel over the Red Sea and through the 
 desert; which covered Sinai; which dwelt 
 in the tabernacle and in the temple ; which 
 Isaiah saw ; Avhieh Ezekiel described ; 
 which shone down upon the Son of God 
 at his baptism and transfiguration; which 
 received him out of sight at his ascension ; 
 which Stephen saw when breathing out 
 
OP THE LORD. 143 
 
 his soul; which smote Saul to the ground 
 on his way to Damascus ; which, last of all, 
 appeared to John in Patmos; and which 
 we know shall yet re-appear in the latter 
 day. Into this cloud of the Divine presence, 
 this symbol of the excellent glory, Jeho- 
 vah's tent or dwelling-place, the ark of 
 our safety against the flood of fire, shall 
 the sdnts be caught up when the Lord ap- 
 pears, and the voice is heard from heaven, 
 *' Awake and sing^ ye that dwell in dust :" 
 and as it was said in Israel, " the song of 
 the Lord began with trumpets" (2 Chron. 
 xxix. 27), even so w^th the trump of God 
 shall our resurrection-song begin. 
 
 Thus with songs shall we go up on high ; 
 our songs in the night being exchanged 
 for the songs of the morning. They shall 
 be " songs of deliverance," with which we 
 shall then be "compassed about" in that 
 day when we get up into our "hiding- 
 place" to be "preserved from trouble" 
 (Psa. xxxii. 7) ; when to " enter into our 
 
144 THE PRESENCE 
 
 chambers" and " shut our doors about 
 us," until "the indignation be overpast." 
 (Isa. xxviii. 20.) No longer in a strange 
 land or by the rivers of Babylon shall we 
 sing our songs; no longer in "the house 
 of our pilgrimage" or in the wilderness 
 shall we make melody ; but in the King's 
 own presence, in the great congregation. 
 in the New Jerusalem which cometh down 
 out of heaven from God. Then " standing 
 upon the sea of glass," and beholding the 
 "judgments of God made manifest" (Rev. 
 XV. 2 — 4), as Israel did when Pharaoh, and 
 his chariots sank like lead in the mighty 
 waters, we sing the song of Moses and the 
 song of the Lamb. 
 
 Thus " caught up" into the cloud, we 
 meet the Lord "in the air," as those do 
 who go forth to meet a friend already on 
 his way to them (Acts xxviii. 15) ; we meet 
 him in order that, being there acquitted, 
 acknowledged and confessed by him be- 
 fore his Father and before the angels, we 
 
OF THE LORD. 145 
 
 may form his retinue, and come w ith him to 
 execute vengeance, to judge the world, to 
 share his triumphs, to reign ',Yith him in his 
 glorious kingdom. (Zech. xiv. 5 ; 1 Thess. 
 iii. 13; Jude 14 ; Rev. ii. 26 ; iii. 21.) 
 
 Thus ^' meeting the Lord," we are to be 
 " ever with him." He with us and we 
 with him for ever. " So shall we ever be 
 with the Lord ; " that is, " as we then shall 
 meet, .so we shall never part ; " as is our 
 meeting, so is our eternal communion, our 
 continuance in the presence of his glory. 
 We shall see him face to face, and his 
 name shall be in our foreheads. Sitting 
 upon tlie same throne, dwelling under the 
 same roof, hearing his voice, having free 
 access to him at all times, doing his will, 
 going forth on his errands, — this shall be 
 the joy of our eternity. No distance ; that 
 is annihilated. No estrangement ; that is 
 among the things that are absolutely im- 
 possible. No cloud between ; that is swept 
 ftway and cannot re-appear. No coldness; 
 o 
 
J 46 THE PRESENCE 
 
 for love is always full. No interruption ; 
 for who can come between the Bridegroom 
 and the bride ? No change ; for he makes 
 us like himself, without variableness. No 
 parting ; for we have reached our home to 
 go out no more. No end ; for the dura- 
 tion of our fellowship is the life of the 
 Ancient of days, of Him who is " from 
 everlasting to everlasting." 
 
 " With the Lord ! " It would be much 
 to be with Enoch, or with Abraham, or 
 with Moses, or with Elijah, or with Paul ; 
 much to share their fellowship, to have 
 converse with them on the things of God 
 and the story of their own wondrous lives ; 
 how much more to be " with the Lord ! " 
 To be like Peter at his side, like Mary at 
 his feet, like John in his bosom. To have 
 met him in the streets of Jerusalem, or by 
 the sea of Galilee, or at Jacob's well ; to 
 have heard him name your name and 
 salute you, as he passed, with the wish of 
 *' peace ; " to have dwelt in the next house 
 
162 ' THE KINGDOM. 
 
 world. The thought that " the morning " 
 is to bring in that righteous kingdom, com- 
 forts us amid the clouds and thick darkness 
 of this night of weeping. 
 
 5. It is a kingdom of peace. War has 
 by that time run its course ; its spears are 
 broken and turned to ploughshares; strife 
 and hatred have fled. The storm has be- 
 come a calm, and the vexed sea is still. 
 Holy tranquillity breathes over earth. " The 
 mountains bring feace to the people, and 
 the little hills, by righteousness; — there 
 shall be abundance of peace so long as the 
 moon endureth." (^Psa. Ixxii. 3— 7.) "Up- 
 on David, and upon his seed, and upon his 
 house, and upon his throne, there shall be 
 peace for ever from the Lord." (1 Kings 
 ii. 33.) Far more truly than in the days of 
 Solomon there shall be '^ peace on all sides 
 round about " (1 Kings iv. 24) ; yea, the 
 Lord God will give rest on every side, so 
 that there shall be " neither adversary nor 
 evil occurrent." (1 Kings v. 4.) Every 
 
148 THE PRESENCE 
 
 thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my 
 spouse ; ihou hast ravished my heart with 
 one of tliine eyes, with one turn of thy 
 neck. H3W fair is thy love, my sister, my 
 spouse ! how much better is thy love than 
 wine!" (Sol. Song iv. 7—10.) 
 
 " Ever wifh the Lord ! " This soothes 
 all sorrow and sums up all joy. If even 
 here we can saj so gladly and so surely, 
 " I am persuaded that neither death, nor 
 life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
 powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
 creature, shall be able to separate us from 
 the love of God which is in Christ Jesus 
 our Lord," how much more gladly and 
 surely shall we be able to say it then ! 
 
 For ever to behold him shine, 
 For evermore to call him mine ! 
 
 This is what we look for ; this is our 
 watchword and our song even in the day of 
 absence and sorrow ; and it is this that 
 makes the expected morning so truly a 
 
OP THE- LORD. 149 
 
 morning of joy. " As for me, I will be- 
 hold thy face in righteousness : I shall be 
 satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.'* 
 (Psa. xvii. 15.)* 
 
 * "Hasten, O my Saviour, the time of thy return; 
 send forth thine angels, and let that dreadfu/, joyful 
 trumpet sound ; delay not, lest the living give up their 
 hopes ;■ delay not, lest earth should grow like hell, and 
 lest thy church by division be crumbled all to dust ; 
 delay not, lest the grave should boast of victory, and 
 having learned rebellion of its guest, should plead pre- 
 scription, and refuse to deliver thee up thy due. 
 hasten that great resurrection-day, when thy command 
 shall go forth and none shall disobey ; when the sea 
 and earth shall yield up their hostages, and all that 
 sleep shall awake, and the dead in Christ shall first 
 arise ; when- the seed that thou sowedst corruptible 
 shall come forth incorruptible ; and the graves that re- 
 ceived but rottenness, and retained but dust, shall return 
 thee glorious stars and suns. Return, O Lord, how 
 long ! O let thy kingdom come. Thy desolate bride 
 saith, Come ! For thy Spirit within her saith, Come ! The 
 whole creation saith. Come, waiting to be delivered from 
 the bondage of corruption. Thyself hath said, Surely I 
 come. Amen ; even so, come. Lord Jesus." — Baxteb, 
 Works, vol. xxiii. p. 449, 450. 
 
 03 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 That to which the " much tribulation" 
 leads us, is a kingdom. (Acts xiv. 22.) It 
 is to this that it ministers an ** abundant 
 entrance," (2 Pet. i. 11,) an entrance in 
 itself not joyous indeed, but grievous, yet 
 in its issues glorious. 
 
 Hitherto it has been midnight and the 
 wilderness; ere long it shall be morning 
 AND THE KINGDOM. For it is " in the 
 morning " that the righteous are to " have 
 dominion." (Psa. xlix. 14.) Just as the 
 night has been the time of down-treading, 
 and " wearing out," so the morning is the 
 time of having dominion, the time of 
 * bringing judgment to light." (Zeph. iii. 
 
THE KINGDOM. 151 
 
 6.) AVhen " the Just One shall rule over 
 men," he shall be " as the light of the 
 morning when the sun riseth, a morning 
 without clouds." (2 Sam. xxiii. 3, 4.) The 
 time when " the Lord shall help," is when 
 " the morning appeareth " (Psa. xlvi. 5, 
 margin) ; at evening-tide there is trouble, 
 but " before the morning he is not." (Isa. 
 xvii. 14.) The reign of Antichrist is over, 
 and the reign of Christ begins. The king- 
 dom of the unrighteous is broken to pieces, 
 and the kingdom of the righteous rises in its 
 stead. Lucifer, the mock " light-bringer," 
 the false "son of the morning," vanishes 
 from the heavens, and " the true light," the 
 "' bright and morning-star," takes his place 
 in the firmament, unclouded and unsetting 
 in his glory. " The kingdom and dominion, 
 and the greatness of the kingdom under 
 the whole heaven, is given to the people of 
 the saints of the Most High." fDan. vii. 
 27.) The church's weary burden is no 
 longer " How long, O Lord," but " The 
 
152 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice ! " (Psa. 
 xcvii. 1.) Her prayer " thy kingdom come," 
 is exchanged for the thanksgiving of the 
 " great voices in heaven," " The kingdoms 
 of this world are become the kingdoms of 
 our Lord, and of his Christ ; " " We give 
 thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which 
 art, and wast, and art to come, because 
 thou hast taken to thee thy great power, 
 and hast reigned ;" " Alleluia, for the Lord 
 God Omnipotent reigneth.'* (Rev. xi. 15; 
 xix. 6.) 
 
 That to which we are hastening on is not 
 merely an inheritance, but a royal inherit- 
 ance, — a kingdom. That for which we 
 suffer is a crown. " If we suffer, we shall 
 also reign with him." As we have been 
 truly fellow-sufferers, we shall be as truly 
 fellow-reigners. The suffering has been 
 real, so shall the reigning be. This is " the 
 recompence of reward" to which we have 
 respect when we " choose rather to suffer 
 affliction with the people of God, than to 
 
THE KINGDOM. 1" 
 
 enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." 
 (Heb. xi. 25.) This is "the better and 
 the enduring substance," for which ve ar« 
 willing to " endure the great fight of afflic- 
 tions," (Heb. X. 32, 34.) This is the sum- 
 Tning up of earth's toil and grief,-the issue 
 of a Ufe-time's conflict with weariness, and 
 wrong, and sin. 
 
 To think of trial as a preparation for the 
 kingdom is much ; but to look at it as an 
 entrance into it is more. At the end of 
 time's dark avenue stands the mansion- 
 house, the palace ! At the edge of our de- 
 sert-track lies the kingdom! The avenue 
 may be rugged under foot, thorny on every 
 side, and gloomy over head; the wilder- 
 ness may be "waste and howling;" yet 
 they are passages, - entrances ; they are 
 not interminable, and their end is gladness. 
 They usher us into a state which will, in a 
 moment, eiface the bitter past, so that it 
 " shall not once be remembered nor come 
 into mind." Thus, though in one aspect 
 
154 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 tribulation seems a path or gate-way fenced 
 with the brier, and hard to fight through ; 
 yet in another it is the conqueror's tri- 
 umphal arch under which we pass into the 
 kingdom ; so that while passing through 
 we can sing the song of him who long ago 
 went this way before us : *' I reckon that 
 the sufferings of this present time are not 
 worthy to be compared with the glory that 
 shall be revealed in us." (Rom. viii. 18.) 
 
 The thought of the kingdom cheers us, 
 and the stray gleams of it which faith gives 
 us are like the lattice-lights of a loved 
 dwelling, sparkling through the thicket, to 
 the weary eye of a benighted wanderer. 
 Yes, we are heirs of nothing less than a 
 kingdom, however unlike such we may 
 seem at present, and however ambitious it 
 may be reckoned to claim so much, and to 
 aspire so high. Robes of royalty shall soon 
 cover all our unseemliness; and beneath 
 the glory of a throne we shall bury all oui 
 poverty, and shame, and grief. 
 
THE KmGDOM. 155 
 
 But this is not all. The varied excel- 
 lences of that kingdom, as made known to 
 us by prophets and apostles, are such 
 as specially to meet our case, and con- 
 trast with our present condition. This 
 fitness, — this contrast make the thoughts 
 of the kingdom doubly precious and con- 
 soling. 
 
 1. It is the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. vi. 
 9.) Manx's kingdoms have passed away, — 
 those kingdoms under which the saints of 
 God have been trodden down. And now 
 all that is man's is gone, and nothing re- 
 mains but what is God's ! The glory of the 
 kingdom is this, that it is altogether God's. 
 It must, then, be perfect and blessed, — 
 wholly unlike any thing that these eyes of 
 ours have seen. If it were but a reforma- 
 tion of human kingdoms, if it were a mere 
 change of dynasty, the prospect of it would 
 be but doubtful comfort ; but it is an en- 
 tire passing away of the old, and a making 
 all things new. It is the return of God to 
 
156 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 his own world ; — and oh, what will not that 
 return effect for us ! His re-enthronement 
 is what we desire ; for it is this alone that 
 gives us the assurance of perpetuity and 
 stahility, against which no enemy shall 
 prevail. It was to that re -enthronement 
 that Jesus looked forward when about to 
 ascend the cross, and of which he spoke 
 twice over at the paschal-table (Luke xxii. 
 16, 18) ; as if this^were " the joy set before 
 him," because of which he " endured the 
 cross, despising the shame." (Heb. xii. 2.) 
 It is that re-enthronement that we also 
 anticipate as the day of our triumph, for 
 then shall we '" shine as the sun in the 
 kingdom of our Father." (Matt. xiii. 43.) 
 2. It is the kingdom of CItrist. (Col. i. 
 13.) This assures that we shall feel at 
 home there. It is no stranger who is to 
 seat us on the throne beside him ; but our 
 nearest of kin, — the Man who died for us. 
 It is the pierced hands that wield the scep- 
 tre. This meets our case. For we are 
 
THE KINGDOM. 157 
 
 strangers here, specially feeling not at 
 home in the courts and palaces of earth. 
 But then it shall he otherwise. Here we 
 are as men standing outside the kingdoms 
 of the world. They belong to the " prince 
 of this world," hut not to Christ, and there- 
 fore not to us. They greet us with no 
 friendly welcome. They have no honours 
 for us. They make us stand without. They 
 are to us what Pilate, and Herod, and An- 
 nas were to Jesus ; they bid us he Mrong- 
 ed and smitten, or, at least, look on while 
 we endure " tribulation, distress, persecu- 
 tion, famine, nakedness, peril, sword." 
 Much of the church's tribulation has arisen 
 from the kino^doms of this world vot being 
 Christ's. But in the age to come, it is 
 Christ that is to reign, all things being put 
 in subjection to him. He who is to reign 
 knows what it is to be hated by the world, 
 and knows, therefore, how to make up to 
 us, in his kingdom, for all the hatred where- 
 with we have been hated, and for all the 
 
158 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 Borrow which has bowed us down while 
 here. And such is obviously the point of 
 Christ's declaration to his disciples. (Luke 
 xxii. 2S — 30.) For having said to them, 
 " Ye are they which have continued with 
 me in my temptations," he adds, " and I 
 appoint unto you A kingdom, as my Fa- 
 ther hath appointed unto me ; that ye may 
 eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, 
 and sit on thrones, judging the twelve 
 tribes of Israel ; " thus linking together 
 present suffering /or Christ and future 
 Teigning with Christ, — present continuance 
 with him in trial, and future association 
 with him in his own kingdom, when he 
 returns to receive the crown. 
 
 3. It is a kingdom not of this world, 
 (John xviii. 36.) Th^ words '^ not of this 
 world " are, literally, " not out of, or not 
 taken out of, this worL . ; " just as when 
 Christ says, " Ye are of this world, I am 
 not of this world." (John viii. 23.) This 
 ivorld is wholly evil, and under the do« 
 
THE KINGDOM. 159 
 
 minion of the evil one. Its territory is undet 
 a curse. It is called " this present evil 
 world." (Gal. i. 4.) It lieth in wickedness. 
 (1 John V. 19.) Its kingdoms are compared 
 to hideous beasts of prey. (Dan. vii.) Satan 
 and his^ hosts, the rulers of the darkness of 
 this world. (Eph. vi. 12.) Thus every thing 
 pertaining to it is unholy. Now, the king- 
 dom to come is not fashioned out of its ma- 
 terials, so as to retain any thing of its like- 
 ness. Between the kingdoms of this world 
 and THE KINGDOM of the world to come, 
 there is no congeniality or resemblance. Of 
 " this world " it is said^ that it rejects the 
 Spirit, nay, it cannot receive him (John 
 xiv. 17) ; but that world is to be full of the 
 Spirit, for " the Spirit is to be poured from 
 on high, and the wilderness is to become a 
 fruitful field." (Isa. xxxii. 15.) Of this 
 "world Satan is king ; of that world Christ 
 is King. This world knows not God, neither 
 the Father nor the Son ; but in that world 
 '' all shall know him, from the least unto 
 f2 
 
160 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 the greatest." In this world all is dark- 
 ness ; in that woild all is light. This 
 world is to be fought against and over- 
 come ; that world is to be loved and en- 
 joyed. Thus the kingdom of which we are 
 the heirs, is as unlike this world as Eden 
 was unlike the wilderness. And it is this 
 that makes it so desirable. Had it re- 
 tained any fragments of this world's evil , 
 had it been a mere re-construction of its 
 carnal fabric ; had it taken up into itself 
 any of its corrupt qualities, thru our com- 
 fort were but poor in anticipating its ar- 
 rival, and counting on the exchange. But 
 it is not of this world, — and this is our joy. 
 We have had enough of this world to make 
 us long for its passing away ; and to wel- 
 come a kingdom in which no taint or trace 
 of it shall be found. 
 
 4. It is a righteous kingdom. " The 
 kingdom of God is not meat and drink," 
 that is, not a carnal kingdom, made up of 
 outward observances and sensual dainties. 
 
THE KINGDOM. ]gj 
 
 but "righieomness, and peace, and joy i„ 
 the Holy Ghost;" that is, a righteous 
 peaceful, joyful kingdom, dwelt in and per- 
 vaded by the Holy Spirit, so that all belon^. 
 ■ng to It must be like itself. (Rom. xiv 17°) 
 It IS a kingdom whose territory is the " new 
 earth, wherein dwcUeth rigMeou,„essr (^ 
 Pet. iii. 13.3 The " unrigkteou. shall „ot 
 .nherUit"(lCor.vi.9);butthe.,«,W, 
 alone shall possess it. (Dan. vii. 18.) The 
 "sceptre of this kingdom is ^ rujMeou. 
 sceptre." (Psa. xlv. 6.) He who w -eld:;: 
 w the HgUeom^in^ (Isa.xxxii. 1); and 
 
 •n h,s days shall the righteous flourish." 
 (Psa.lxxi.7.) It is a "crown of n>A,. 
 
 ^<>»^«m,'thatislaidupforus. (STimiv 
 80 And then shall " the work of nj/./ 
 
 .o«.«m be peace, and the effect of nV/,i 
 eomnes. quietness and assurance for ever " 
 
 asa.xxxii. 17.) The righteousness of th'is 
 kingdom makes it unspeakably attractive 
 
 to those who have been wearied out with 
 the unrighteousness of an unrighteou. 
 
162 ' THE KINGDOM. 
 
 world. The thought that " the morning " 
 is to hrlng in that righteous kingdom, com- 
 forts us amid the clouds and thick darkness 
 of this night of weeping. 
 
 5. // is a kingdom of peace. War has 
 by that time run its course ; its spears are 
 broken and turned to ploughshares; strife 
 and hatred have fled. The storm has be- 
 come a calm, and the vexed sea is still. 
 Holy tranquillity breathes over earth. " The 
 mountains bring peace to the people, and 
 the little hills, by righteousness ; — there 
 shall be abundance of peace so long as the 
 moon endureth." (^Psa. Ixxii. 3 — 7.) '^ Up- 
 on David, and upon his seed, and upon his 
 house, and upon his throne, there shall be 
 peace for ever ixom. the Lord." (1 Kings 
 ii. 33.) Far more truly than in the days of 
 Solomon there shall be ''^ peace on all sides 
 round about " (1 Kings iv. 24) ; yea, the 
 Lord God will give rest on every side, so 
 that there shall be " neither adversary nor 
 evil occurrent." (1 Kings v. 4.) Every 
 
THE KIKGDOM. 163 
 
 where shall be inscribed the motto upon 
 Gideon's altar, "Jehovah-Shalom." (Judg 
 vi. 24, margin.) " The beasts of the field 
 shall be at peace with us " (Job v. 23) ; for 
 " the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and 
 the leopard shall lie down with the kid, 
 and the calf and the young lion and the 
 fatling together, and a little child shall 
 lead them ; and the cow and the bear shall 
 feed, their young ones shall lie down toge- 
 ther. They shall not hurt nor destroy in 
 all my holy mountain." (Isa. xi. 6.) The 
 groans of creation shall then be over, and 
 its deliverance accomplished. All shall be 
 PEACE ; for the great peace -maker is 
 come. His name is King of Salem, that 
 is, King of peace. (Heb. vii. 2.) He is 
 called " the Prince of Peace^"* and " of the 
 increase of his government and peace there 
 shall be no end." (Isa. ix. 6, 7.) 
 
 With what longing hearts do we desire 
 the arrival of that kingdom, so unlike what 
 this troubled earth has yet known from the 
 
164 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 beginning hitherto. Each new sorrow stirs 
 the longing. Each new conflict makes us 
 glad at the thought that there is such a 
 kingdom in reserve. Were it not for this, 
 how we should "fret because of evil-doers;" 
 and how soon should our patience give 
 way ! But with our eye upon this kingdom 
 of peace, we can " glory in tribulation," 
 we can drink the bitterest cup, we can face 
 the thickest storm, we can endure the 
 rudest clamour; and when the world's up- 
 roar waxes loudest we can " lift up our 
 heads,, knowing that our redemption draw- 
 eth nigh." 
 
 6. It is a kingdom that cannot he moved, 
 (Heb. xii. 28.) All other kingdoms have 
 not only been moved, but shaken to pieces. 
 Great Babylon, " the glory of kingdoms," 
 has been a sand- wreath, raised by one tide, 
 and levelled by the next. So have all 
 others been, greater or lesser. One by one 
 they have been overthrown and crushed, or 
 they have crumbled down and become like 
 
THE KINGDOM. 165 
 
 the chaff of the summer threshing-floor. 
 But the kingdom that we look for is " the 
 EVERLASTING kingdom of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ." (2 Pet. i. 11.) It 
 abides for ever. Neither force nor age can 
 affect it. It rises out of the ruins of earth's 
 present empires, though unhke them all. 
 The things that can decay or moulder are 
 '' shaken," in order that they may be 
 ihaken off, and that those things that can- 
 not be shaken may remain. And thus 
 there comes forth the immovable king- 
 dom, — the kingdom into which sin comes 
 not ; in which change has no place ; into 
 which the curse eats not ; of which wisdom 
 and holiness are the strong pillars ; where 
 misrule is unknown; where order triumphs; 
 and of which the glory never dims. It is 
 joy to us in such a world of instability and 
 convulsion, to think of such a kingdom. 
 Driventto and fro with the changes of the 
 kingdoms we inhabit here ; wearied with 
 the falling and the rising, the casting down 
 
166 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 and the building up, we long for a king 
 dom that shall give us rest, a kingdom 
 that cannot be moved. From this uncer- 
 tainty and fickleness, how many of our 
 griefs have come! For what is there so 
 saddening, so sickening, as the thought 
 that every inch of ground beneath us is 
 shifting, — that every prop on which we 
 lean is breaking, that every twig to which 
 we cling is snapping? As we draw our 
 curtains around us, we know not what 
 change, what loss, what sorrow shall greet 
 us on the morrow. Or -though going forth 
 light-hearted and unburdened in the morn- 
 ing, we tremble to think what clouds may 
 have gathered over our dwelling ere the 
 evening has fallen. Such is the perishable- 
 ness, the changeableness of earth and its 
 kingdoms ! What joy to look beyond them 
 all, and see through their shadows the 
 EVERLASTING kingdom ! Nay, to be*lassured 
 that this kingdom is at han-d, and that ere 
 lonff He " who is without variableness o» 
 
THE KINGDOM. 167 
 
 shadow of turning," shall hid us welcome 
 .( to its unchanging rest; and He who is " the 
 Jsame yesterday, to-day, and for ever," shall 
 
 feeat us upon the eternal throne, 
 hy ( 
 ^ " Heaven," says an old writer, " is a com- 
 pany of nohle venturers for Christ ; " and we 
 may add, of "nohle sufferers too."— ;0f such 
 is the kingdom of h^ven ! It is in that 
 kingdom that we shall rest from our lahours, 
 and find the end of all our sufferings. We 
 shall find that we have not ventured too 
 much, nor laboured too much, nor suffered 
 too much. The glory of the kingdom will 
 make up for all. 
 
 " Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's 
 good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 
 Along with " the King of glory," we shall 
 take our place upon the throne, in that day 
 when, after " raising the poor out of the 
 dust, he shall set them among princes, and 
 make them to inherit the throne of glory ; " 
 when " the wicked shall be silent in dark* 
 uess and the adversaries of the Lord shaU 
 
168 THE KINGDOJL 
 
 be broken in pieces ; " when " the Lord 
 shall judge the ends of the earth, giving 
 strength unto his king, and exalting tlie| 
 horn of his anointed." (1 Sam. ii. 8 — 10.) 
 
 " Thy kingdom come ! " This is the bur- 
 den of our cries. Weary of man's rule, we 
 long for God's. Sick at heart with this 
 world's scenes of evil, — man spoiling man ; 
 man enslaving man ; man wounding man ; 
 man defrauding man ; man treading upon 
 man ; — we long for the setting up of the 
 righteous throne. Oh, what a world will 
 this he, when man's will as well as man's 
 rule shall he exchanged for Christ's rule 
 and will ; when God's " will shall be done 
 on earth even as it is done in heaven " ! 
 
 It is our joy to think that this kingdom 
 is near ; and that there are no centuries of 
 sin and wrong still in reserve either for the 
 church or for the earth. Its nearness is our 
 consolation.. The hope that it will come 
 cheers us ; but the thought that it is com- 
 ing soon cheers us more. For both faith 
 
THE KINGDOM. Il59 
 
 and hope are fed by the thought o^ nearness. 
 
 We do not fret at delay, nor grow faint and 
 
 disconsolate. Tet in some respects our 
 
 feelings are not unlike those thus described 
 
 by one of other days, 
 
 ... So tedious is this day, 
 As is the night before some festival 
 To an impatient child that hath new robes, 
 And may not wear them, . . . 
 
 Our bridal robes are ready, and we long to 
 put them on. Our priestly-royal raiment 
 is also ready, and we desire to exchange 
 for it these weeds of poverty, and shame, 
 and widowhood. Yet " in patience we 
 possess our souls." 
 
 We are on the daily out-look for a king- 
 dom, lifting up our heads knowing that our 
 redemption draweth nigh. It "will not tarry. 
 The signs of its approach are multiplying. 
 The shadows are still passing and repassing 
 along the grey cliffs, but their increasing 
 rapidity of movement shows a momentous 
 change at hand. Kingdoms are still rising 
 as well as falling, but the deep force of the 
 
170 THE KINGDOM. 
 
 vibrations — the brevity as well as the 
 abruptness of oscillation — betoken a crisis. 
 At this crisis the world's movements are 
 Drought to a stand. Then, touched by a 
 Divine hand, they recommence. A better 
 order of rule begins.* Satan has been 
 bound. (Rev. xx. 1 — 3.) " The oppressor 
 has ceased." (Isa. xiv. 4.) He who " smote 
 the people in wrath" is smitten. (Isa. xiv. 
 6.) The misgoverned world rejoices. " The 
 whole earth is at rest and is quiet ; they 
 that dwell in it break forth into singing." 
 (Isa. xiv. 7.) The anointed King has ap« 
 peared. The great kingdom has come I 
 
 • Ultima Cumaei venit jam carminis aetas, 
 Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo 
 Aspice venturo leetentur at omnia saeclo. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE GRACE. 
 
 Our fountain-head of blessing here ift 
 GRACE. It was to this grace or free love 
 of God that we came when first the con- 
 sciousness of want and sin awoke within 
 us. This grace of God we found to be 
 large enough for us, and altogether suit- 
 able ; so that while we felt ourselves unfit 
 objects for any thing else, we were just the 
 more, on that account, fit objects for grace. 
 Either for wrath or for grace we were fit, 
 but for nothing else — for nothing between. 
 We shrank from the wrath, and we took 
 refuge in the grace. Between the one and 
 the other, the blood of the accepted sacri- 
 fice had made a way, " a way of holiness ;" 
 q2 
 
172 THE GRACE. 
 
 we saw that way, we saw it to be free and 
 unchallenged, we fled along that way, and 
 soon found ourselves beyond the reach of 
 wrath, under the broad covering of grace, 
 nay, under the very wing of the gracious 
 One, of him who is *' full of grace and 
 truth." 
 
 It was the knowledge of this grace that 
 rooted up our doubts, that quieted our 
 fears, and made us blush for our unbelief 
 and suspicious mistrust. It is the know- 
 ledge of this grace that still keeps our souls 
 in peace, in spite of weakness, and sin, 
 and conflict. Being permitted to draw 
 upon it without limit and without restric- 
 tion, we feel that no circumstances can 
 arise, in which we shall not be at liberty 
 to use it, nay, in which it is not our chief 
 sin to stand aloof from it, as if it had be- 
 come less wide and free. With all this 
 large grace placed at our disposal, to draw 
 upon continually, what folly to be afraid of 
 enemies, and evils, and days of trouble I 
 
THE GRACE. 173 
 
 For thus saith the prophet, " Blessed is 
 the man that trusteth in the Lord, and 
 whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be 
 as a tree planted by the waters, and that 
 spreadeth out her roots by the river, and 
 shall not see when heat cometh, but her 
 leaf shall be green ; and shall not be care- 
 ful in the year of drought, neither shall 
 cease from yielding fruit." (Jer. xvii. 7, 8.) 
 It is in this grace that we "continue." 
 (Acts xiii. 43.) It is in this grace that we 
 " stand." (Rom. v. 2.) It is in this grace 
 that we are to "be strong." (2 Tim. ii. 1.) 
 It is this grace that we are to " holdfast." 
 (Heb. xii. 28, margin.) It is this grace 
 that is *' sufficient for us." (2 Cor. xii. 9.) 
 It is this grace that we desire for others, 
 saying, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 be with you." (Eph. vi. 24.) All is grace, 
 from the beginning to the end, unmingled 
 grace, in which no respect is had to aught 
 of good done, felt, thought, spoken by us. 
 So that the history of our life is wrapt up 
 Q 3 
 
174 THE GRACE. 
 
 in these blessed words, " Where sin 
 abounded, grace did much more abound." 
 (Rom. V. 20.) We have found that the 
 new sins of each hour, so far from closing 
 the founfain of grace against us, opened 
 new springs of grace for us — springs o^ 
 gi'ace which we should never otherwise 
 have known, nor thought it possible to 
 exist. Not as if sin were less vile on this 
 account. David's horrid sins were the 
 occasions of opening up new depths of 
 grace, unimagined before ; yet his iniquity 
 lost none of its hatefulness thereby. So 
 grace is ever gushing forth upon us to 
 sweep away each new sin, yet in doing so 
 it makes the sin thus swept away to ap- 
 pear more hideous and inexcusable. The 
 brighter the sun, the darker and sharper 
 are the shadows ; so the fuller the grace, 
 the viler the sin appears. 
 
 And as our personal history, as saved 
 men, is the history of abounding sin met 
 by more abounding grace, so is the history 
 
THE GRACE. 175 
 
 at large of all things in this fallen world. 
 What is all Israel's history, every step of 
 it, but the history of man's boundless sin 
 drawing out the more boundless grace of 
 God ? What is the church's history but the 
 same, so that each of the chosen and called 
 ones who make up its mighty multitude, 
 can say with him of old, whose name was 
 chief of sinners, "The grace of our Lord 
 was EXCEEDING ABUNDANT with faith and 
 love which is in Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. i. 
 14.) And what is even the history of this 
 material creation, on which the curse has 
 pressed so lofng and heavily, but the history 
 of grace abounding over sin and rescuing 
 from the devouring fire this polluted soil ? 
 
 All has been of grace hitherto. And all 
 shall be of grace hereafter. In this respect 
 there shall be no change. . 
 
 Yet this is not the whole truth. For 
 the brightest disclosures are yet to come. 
 The first coming of the Lord opened up to 
 us heights and depths of most wondroiw 
 
176 THE GRACE. 
 
 grace j but his second coming is to biing 
 with it discoveries of grace as marvellous, 
 and as yet unrevealed. That promise, 
 " The Lord will give grace and glory," 
 (Psa. Ixxxiv. 11,) seems specially to refer 
 to the time, when, after days of sad long- 
 ing, (verse 2,) and weary journeying 
 through the valley of Baca, (ver. 6,) we 
 appear in Zion before God, and standing 
 with the New Jerusalem we sing the song 
 of blessed contrast, " A day in thy courts 
 is better than a thousand," as if this new 
 outburst of grace, which meets us as we 
 enter the gates of pearl, overpassed all that 
 we had tasted before. The apostle Peter 
 also points forward to the same period foi 
 the full display of grace, when he speaks of 
 " the GRACE that is to be brought unto us^ 
 at the revelation, of Jesus Christ " (1 Petei 
 i. 13) ; indicating this to us, that in thaf 
 day, new and larger circles of grace shali 
 open out, just as the horizon widens when 
 the sun ascends. To this same day the 
 
THE GRACE. 177 
 
 prophet Zechariah points when he says, 
 " He shall bring forth the headstone with 
 shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.'' 
 (Zech. iv. 7.) But especially is this truth 
 taught us by the apostle Paul when he 
 tells us, that God's object in quickening us 
 together with Christ, in raising us up to- 
 gether and making us sit together in 
 heavenly places, is, that " in the ages to 
 come* he might show the exceeding 
 RICHES OF HIS GRACE in his kinducss to- 
 wards us through Christ Jesus." f Here 
 he heaps word upon word, as if he could 
 find none strong enough for his purpose ; 
 
 * ku Tots aliotTi ToTs ETTEp^ofxii/oii, that is, " in the 
 ages that are coming upon us." It is the same word as 
 is used in those two places in Luke, "looking after 
 those things that are coming on the earth," and, " as a 
 snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the earth." 
 Not as if this were confined to millennial times. Tliese 
 are called " the age to come," but these others are 
 ** the ages to come." 
 
 t Eph. ii, 7. . The word "exceeding" is a very 
 strong one, v-mptaXKovTa ttXovtov, and is the same 
 word used 2 Cor. iii. 10, "The glory that excelleth ;** 
 Eph. i. 19, " The exceeding greatness of his power ; ** 
 iii. 19, "The love of Christ i\i^ipasseth knowledge." 
 
17b THE GRACE. 
 
 it is not merely grace, but it is riches •/ 
 grace; nay, it is not this o?ily, it is exceed- 
 ing richer of grace ; riches of grace not 
 only excelling all other riches, but excel- 
 ling all those riches of grace that have 
 hitherto been known, as if past grace were 
 to be forgotten in the plenteousness of that 
 which is to come. 
 
 How often in Isi'aeVs past days, when 
 sin abounded, has grace come pouring in, 
 obliterating it all as if it had never been ! 
 But in the day when " the Redeemer shall 
 come to Zion and turn away ungod- 
 liness from Jacob," — at the moment when 
 their cry of despair may be, " Hath God 
 forgotten to be gracious f " shall grace come 
 in upon them like a flood, fuller and richer 
 than any thing that they or their fathers 
 knew, bearing down mightier obstacles, 
 and levelling higher mountains of iniquity. 
 For it is written, in reference to this time, 
 " Therefore will the Lord wait, that he 
 may be gracious to you .... he will be very 
 
THE GRACE. 179 
 
 gracious to thee at the voice of thy cry.** 
 (Isa. XXX. 18.) In that day shall " grace *' 
 not merely bring forgiveness to Israel, but 
 raise her to a height of glory in the earth 
 and eminence among the nations ; so that 
 the past shall not be remembered nor come 
 into mind. 
 
 How often in the church'' s past history 
 has grace been magnified ! Each age has 
 brought out to view new wonders of grace, 
 because of which she has praised the God 
 of all- grace. But the abundance of the 
 past is not all that is in store for her. Her 
 returning Lord shall bring with him all 
 the " exceeding riches of his grace," and 
 upon her shall these riches be expended. 
 When caught up into the clouds to meet 
 her Lord in the air and to be for ever with 
 him, she shall be led into the treasure- 
 house of grace and get a glimpse of its 
 vastness. Each step in her past course 
 has drawn forth a fresh out-flow of abound- 
 ing grace. Grace found her in the desert 
 
180 THE GRACE. 
 
 land and in the waste howling wilderness. 
 Grace drew her out of the horrible pit and 
 out of the miry clay. Grace washed her, 
 and " clothed " her, and " shod " her, and 
 "girded" her, and " decked her with orna 
 ments," (Ezek. xvi. 9 — 11,) giving her 
 beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourn- 
 ing, the garments of praise for the spirit of 
 heaviness. Grace strengthened her for 
 warfare, and hardship, and labour, making 
 her more than conqueror through him that 
 loved her. Grace comforted her in the 
 evil day, wiped away tears, poured in fresh 
 joys, and threw round her the everlasting 
 arms. Grace taught her to pray, and 
 praise, and love, and trust, and serve, in 
 spite of the ever-revolting heart within. 
 Grace kept her as a stranger and a pilgrim 
 here, without a city and without a resting- 
 place on earth, looking for the city of 
 foundations, watching for her Lord's ap- 
 pearing, amid all the heart-sickenings of 
 hope deferred, and wearying for the Bride- 
 
THE GRACE. 181 
 
 groom's embrace, undazzled and undis- 
 tracted by the false splendour of a present 
 evil world. But the grace that has brought 
 her thus far is not exhausted. For it is 
 absolutely boundless, like the heart of Him 
 out of whom it comes ; and as it raises the 
 church from one level to another, its own 
 circle is ever enlarging. 
 
 The resurrection-dawn, the morning of 
 joy, brings with it new stores of grace. We 
 had thought that grace could go no further 
 than it had gone here, in forgiving so many 
 sins, in saving us with so complete a salva- 
 tion ; but we then shall find that grace 
 had only begun to display itself. 
 
 It was but the first draught from the 
 deep well that we tasted here. Grace 
 meets us as we come up from the tomb to 
 load us with new blessings, such as eye 
 hath not seen nor ear heard. It clothes 
 us with the royal raiment. It seats us 
 upon the throne. It gives us the '* crown 
 of life " (Rev. ii. 10) ; the " crown of right- 
 
182 THE GRACE. 
 
 eousness.'* (2 Tim. iv. 8.) It makes ufl 
 pillars in the temple of our God. It writes 
 upon us the name of our God, and the 
 name of the city of our God. It gives us 
 " the morning-star." It gives us the white 
 stone, and in the stone a new nam« written 
 which no man knoweth, saving he that 
 receiveth it. It makes us to eat of the 
 hidden manna. It leads us back to the 
 tree of life which is in the midst of the 
 paradise of God. It brings us into the 
 bridal chamber ; it sets us down at the 
 marriage table, teaching us to sing, " Let 
 us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to 
 him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, 
 and his wife hath made herself ready." It 
 carries us into the midst of that city which 
 has no need of the sun, neither of the 
 moon to shine in it; whose wall is of 
 jasper, whose foundations gems, whose 
 gates pearls, whose streets translucent 
 gold. It gives us to drink of the pure 
 river of the water of life, clear as crystal. 
 
THE GRA.CE. 183 
 
 proceeding out of the throne of God and 
 of the Lamb. 
 
 All these things grace is yet to do for us 
 in that morning which is to dawn when 
 this night of weeping is at an- end. All this 
 glory — this excee-ding and eternal weight 
 of glory — we shall owe to the exceeding 
 riches of that grace which is then so mar- 
 vellously to unfold itself, heaping honour 
 upon honour, and gift upon gift, and joy 
 upon joy, without end for ever. 
 
 In this let us mark the difference be- 
 tween Christ and his church, the Bride- 
 groom and the bride. The same glory in- 
 vests both ; but the way of receiving it is 
 widely different. To him it is a reward of 
 righteousness, to her of grace. Righteous- 
 ness crowns him, grace crowns her. These 
 marvellous honours are in his case the 
 claim of righteousness, in hers the mere 
 award of grace. Of him it is written, 
 " Thou hast loved righteousness and hated 
 iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, hath 
 K 2 
 
184 THE GRAOE. 
 
 anointed thee with the oil of gladness above 
 thy fellows " (Psa. xlv. 7); while of her it 
 is said, " ^^'ho hath saved us and called us 
 with an holy caMing, not according to our 
 works, but according to his own purpose 
 and GRACE, given us in Christ Jesus before 
 the world began." (2 Tim. i. 9.) What 
 righteousness does for him, grace does for 
 her. And oh how boundless must that 
 grace be, when it can do for her all that 
 righteousness can do for him ! 
 
 That coming day of grace sheds light 
 ipon the present, by showing us how vast 
 and inexhaustible that grace is which is 
 oouring itself out from the bosom of the 
 Father through the blood of the Son. If 
 'ihese riches of grace be so exceeding great, 
 'ihen how is it possible for us to entertain 
 'the suspicion that so often haunts us now, 
 "* Is there grace enough for the pardon of 
 jins like mine, — grace enough to secure 
 Vv'elcome and acceptance to a sinner like 
 me?'" What I is there grace enough to re' 
 
THE GRACE. 185 
 
 ceive myriads, washing them clean and 
 presenting them blameless in the clay of 
 the Lord with exceeding joy, and is there 
 not enough for one ? Is there grace enough 
 to pour out such wondrous glory upon the 
 multitudes of the undeserving hereafter, 
 and is there not enough to bring forgive- 
 ness to one undeserving soul just now ? So 
 that in thus telling of the grace which the 
 ages to come are to unroll, we are proclaim- 
 ing good news to the chief of sinners, — 
 good news concerning the infinite large- 
 ness of grace, — good news concerning Him 
 out of whom this blessed stream is flowing. 
 Oh, what a rebuke to fear, to doubt, to 
 suspicion, to unbelief, is the truth concern- 
 ing these exceeding riches of grace yet tc 
 be developed 1 Is it possible that we can 
 go on, fearing, doubting, suspecting, mis- 
 believing, with the assured knowledge that 
 grace is so free and large, so sufficient to 
 embrace the whole circumstances of our 
 case, so suitable to each special want, each 
 B 3 
 
186 THE GRACE. 
 
 special burden, each special sin ? Shall we 
 
 dare to make more of the sin than of the 
 grace, of the want than of the supply, of 
 the burden than of the "relief? Shall we 
 not be ashamed to magnify oar sin beyond 
 the grace of God, and to reason as if the 
 orrace that can confer on us the kingdom 
 and the crown of Christ were not large 
 enough in compass to cover our sins ? Oh 
 the folly of unbelief I — folly without a 
 name and without an equal, to believe in a 
 grace willing to place us on the throne of 
 the universe by the side of the everlasting 
 Son, yet not willing to pardon us, — a grace 
 large enough to say, '^ Come, ye blessed of 
 my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you before the foundation of the world,'* 
 yet not large enougli to say, " Be of good 
 cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee ! " 
 
 " It doth not indeed yet appear what we 
 shall be." Yet, as the womb of grace knows 
 no abortions, we know " that he who has 
 begun the good work in us will perform it 
 
TUE GRACE. 18? 
 
 until the day of Jesus Christ." The grace 
 has not had full room to expand itself and 
 show all the vastness of its compass. Our 
 life is hid ; our glory is hid ; our inherit- 
 ance is hid ; our city has not yet come 
 down out of heaven from God. In the pit 
 of Dothan it did not appear what Joseph 
 was to be. His strange dreams did betoken 
 something, yet who could have thought 
 that he was to sit upon Pharaoh's throne ? 
 It did not appear what Ruth was to be 
 ■when she lived in Moab, a stranger to the 
 true God, or even when she left home and 
 kindred to cast in her lot with Israel. That 
 blessed scene of love and faith when " Or- 
 pah kissed " and " Ruth clave," giving 
 forth a heart of no common mould, did in- 
 timate something, but who could have 
 thought that she was to be a mother in 
 Israel, from whom Messiah was to spring ? 
 So we do not now wear the aspect of 
 that which we shall be. We do not look 
 like kings. And though at times, whe 
 
188 THE GRACE. 
 
 we get a glimpse of the promised crown, 
 and when a vision of its nearness passes 
 before us, our face flushes, our eye kindles; 
 our gait unconsciously assumes unusual 
 dignity, yet in general we look very unlike 
 that which we shall be. Sometimes the 
 star of nobility — the badge of our order — 
 flashes out from the sordid covering and 
 glitters on our breast, yet this is seldom ; 
 more seldom now in these last days than 
 formerly. For religion, even the best, has 
 sunk down from its primitive loftiness into 
 a tame, second-rate, inferior thing, and the 
 still-clinging garments of the old man cover 
 in or quench every rising ray of anticipated 
 glory. 
 
 What different beings grace would make 
 us would we but allow it ! Yet, instead of 
 allowing it, we put it from us, content with 
 just as much of it as will save us from the 
 wrath to come. We shrink from its fulness, 
 as if we should thereby stand committed 
 to a far holier walk and higher style of 
 
THE GRACE. 189 
 
 living than we are prepared for. For " the 
 grace of God that bringeth salvation teach- 
 eth us to deny ungodliness and worldly 
 lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and 
 godly in this present world, looking for 
 that blessed hope, even the glorious ap- 
 pearing of the great God, and our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that 
 he might redeem us from all iniquity, and 
 purify unto himself a peculiar people 
 zealous of good works." 
 
 The grace that flowed in upon us dur- 
 ing our long night has been large and 
 manifold ; but it is not ended with the 
 night. The morning brings with it new 
 stores of grace. When that grace unfolds 
 itself, then shall it appear what we really 
 are. Our present guise will fall from us, 
 we shall stand forth as 'Hieirs of God," and 
 he who hath given us grace shall also give 
 as glory; he who led us through the 
 night shall bring us forth to the joy of the 
 morning. 
 
CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 THE GLORY. 
 
 Not only a man's true life, but a man's 
 true history begins with his conversion. 
 Up till that time, he is a being without a 
 history. He has no story to tell. He is 
 but part of a world lying in wickedness, 
 having nothing about him worthy of a 
 record. 
 
 But from the moment that he is born 
 again, and thus taken out of the mass, he 
 receives a personality as well as a dignity 
 which fit him for having a history, — a his- 
 tory which God can own as such, and 
 «vhich God himself will record. From 
 that time he has a story to tell, wondrous 
 and divine, such as angels listen to, and 
 over which there is joy in heaven. 
 
THE GLORY. 191 
 
 In that broad ocean, there are millions 
 of drops ; yet they are one mingled mass 
 of fluid; no one of them has a history. 
 There may be a history of the ocean, but 
 not of its individual drops. But, see, yon 
 drop is beginning to part from the mass. 
 It takes hold of a sun-beam and rises into 
 the firmament. There it gleams in the 
 rainbow or brightens in the hues of sun-set. 
 It has now a history. From the moment 
 that it came out of the mass and obtained 
 a personality, it had a story to tell, a story 
 of its own, a story of splendour and beauty. 
 
 In those vast blocks of unquarried rock 
 what various forms are lying concealed ! 
 what shapes of statuary or architecture 
 are there! Yet they have no history. They 
 can have none. They ar^ but parts of a 
 hideous block, in which not one line or 
 curve of beauty is visible. But the noise 
 of hammers is heard. Man lifts up his 
 tool. A single block is severed. Again 
 he lifts up his tool, and it begins to assume 
 
192 THE GLORY. 
 
 a form ; till, as stroke after stroke falls on 
 it, and touch after touch smooths and 
 shapes it, the perfect image of the human 
 form is seen, and it seems as if the hand of 
 the artist had only heen employed in un- 
 wrapping the stony folds from that fair 
 form, and awakening it from the slumher 
 of its marble tomb. From the moment 
 that the chisel touched that piece of rock 
 its history began. 
 
 Such is the case of a saint. From the 
 moment that the hand of the Spirit is laid 
 on him to begin the process of separation, 
 from that moment his history begins. He 
 then receives a conscious, outstanding 
 personality, that fits him for having a his- 
 tory — a history entirely marvellous ; a 
 histoi'y whose pages are both written and 
 read in heaven ; a history which in its 
 divine brightness spreads over eternity. 
 His true dignity now commences. He is 
 fit to take a place in story. Each event in 
 his life becomes worthy of a record. " The 
 
THE GLORY. 193 
 
 rigbteous shall be in everlasting remem- 
 brance." 
 
 On earth this history is one of suffering 
 and dishonour, even as was that of the 
 Master ; but hereafter, in the kingdom, it 
 is one of glory and honour. " All the 
 time," says Howe, " from the soul's first 
 conversion God has been at work upon it, 
 labouring, shaping it, polishing it, spread- 
 ing his own glory on it, inlaying, enamel- 
 ling it with glory ; now at last the whole 
 work is revealed, the curtain is drawn 
 aside, and the blessed soul awakes." Then 
 a new epoch in its history begins. 
 
 What that history is to be, we know not 
 now. That it will be wondrous, we know; 
 how wondrous we cannot conceive. That 
 it will be very unlike our present one, we 
 know ; yet still not severed from it, but 
 linked to it, nay, springing oufiof it as its 
 root or seed. Our present life is the 
 under-grouvd state of the plant ; our future 
 life, the shooting, and blossoming, and fruit- 
 
194 THE GLORY. 
 
 bearing; but the plant is the same, and 
 the future depends for all its excellency 
 and beauty upon the present Night is 
 not the shutting up of day, bu: day is the 
 opening out of night. Day is but the 
 night in blossom, — the expanded petals of 
 some dark, unsightly bud, containing with- 
 in it glories of which no glimpses have 
 yet reached us here. It is moody senti- 
 ment, as well as false philosophy, to say as 
 one in our day has done, " Night is nobler 
 than day; day is but a motley-coloured 
 veil, spread transiently over the inniiite 
 bosom of night, hiding from us its purely 
 transparent, eternal deeps." Night is at 
 best but the beauty of death ; day, of life. 
 And it is life, not death, that is beautiful. 
 And if life on earth, in all its various forms 
 and unfoldings, be so very beautiful, what 
 will it not be hereafter, when it unfolds it- 
 self to the full, transfused throughout all 
 being, with an intensity now unknown, as 
 if almost becoming visible by means of 
 
THE GLORY. 195 
 
 the new glory which it then shall spread 
 over all creation. 
 
 " The wise shall inherit glory:'' (Prov. 
 iii. 35.) " The saints shall be joyful in 
 glorijr (Psa. cxlix. 5.) They are " ves- 
 sels of mercy, afore prepared unto glory:'' 
 (Rom. ix. 23.) That to which we are 
 called is " eternal glory:' (1 Pet. v. 10.) 
 That which we obtain is " salvation in 
 Christ Jesus with elernal glory:' (2 Tim. 
 ii. 10.) It is to glory that God is " bring- 
 ing many sons " (Heb. ii. 10) ; so that as 
 he, through whom we are brought to 
 it, is " crowned with glory and honour,'* 
 so shall we be. (Heb. ii. 9.) We are 
 " to rejoice with joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory:' (1 Pet. i. 8.) We are not 
 only " witnesses of the sufferings of Christ, 
 but partakers of the glory that shall be re- 
 vealed." (1 Pet. V. 1.) So that the word 
 of exhortation runs thus : " Rejoice, inas- 
 much as ye are partakers of Christ*s suf- 
 ferings ; that, when his glory shall be 
 
 82 
 
196 THE GLORT. 
 
 revealed, ye may be glad also with exceed- 
 ing joy." (1 Pet. iii. 13.) And the promise 
 is not only, " if we suffer we shall also reign 
 with him ; " but, ^' if we suffer with him 
 we shall be also glorified together." (Rom. 
 viii. 17.) 
 
 This glory, then, is our portion. It is 
 the " better thing " that God has provided 
 for us, and because of which he is not 
 ashamed to be called our God. This is 
 the glory that throws all present suffering 
 into the shade, making it to be eternally 
 forgotten. 
 
 Glory is the concentrated essence of all 
 that is holy, excellent, and beautiful.* 
 
 * " Glory, in the proper notion of it, is nothing else 
 but resplendent excellency, the lustre of excellency, or 
 real worth made conspicuous. Yet as there is an ex- 
 cellency conceivable in the nature of it, that excellency 
 whereof it is the splendour and brightness ; so we must 
 conceive a peculiar excellency of that very radiation, 
 that splendour itself, wherewith it shines into blessed 
 souls. In its very nature it is the brightness of Divine 
 excellencies; in its present appearance (that is, in 
 heaven) it shines in the highest excellency of that 
 brightness. In its nature it excelleth all things else \ 
 
THE GLORY. 197 
 
 For all being has its more and its less per- 
 fect parts. And its glory is that which is 
 most perfect about it, to which of course 
 that which is less perfect has, according to 
 its measure, contributed. Light is the glory 
 of the sun. Transparency is the glory of 
 the stream. The flower is the glory of the 
 plant. The soul is the glory of the man. 
 The face is the glory of the body. And this 
 glory is strangely manifold : " There is one 
 glory of the sun, and another glory of the 
 moon, and another glory of the stars, for 
 star differeth from star in glory." 
 
 What is really glorious is so hidden, so 
 blighted, so intermixed with deformity and 
 corruption here, that Scripture always 
 speaks as if the whole glory were yet in re- 
 
 in its present exhibition, compared with all its former 
 radiations, it excelleth itself. . . Glory is then to shine 
 in its noou-day strength and vigour. 'Tis then in its 
 meridian. Here the riches of glory are to be displayed, 
 certain treasures of glory, the plenitude and magni- 
 ficence of glory." — Howe's Blessedness of the Right* 
 
 s 3 
 
198 THE GLORY. 
 
 serve, — none of it yet revealed. So that when 
 He came to earth who was " the brightness 
 of Jehovah's glory," he was not recognised 
 as the possessor of such glory ; it was hid- 
 den ; it shone not. Few eyes saw any glory 
 at all in him ; none saw the extent or great- 
 ness of it. Even in his case it did not ap- 
 pear what he was and what he shall be, 
 when he comes "to be ylorified in his 
 saints." * 
 
 All that is glorious, whether visible or 
 invisible, material or immaterial, natural 
 or spiritual, must have its birth-place in 
 God. " Of him, and through him, and to 
 him are all things^ to whom be glory for 
 ever." (Rom. xi. oQ.) A\\ glorious things 
 come forth out of him, and have their seeds, 
 or germs, or patterns in himself. We say 
 
 * That which the world calls glory Scripture casts 
 scorn upon, as "a vain show," — "lighter than vanity," 
 mere emptiness ; while its name for glory is weight or 
 solidity, "i'i33 = — to which the apostle seems to refer 
 when he speaks of the " weight of glory." 2 Ck)x; 
 ir. 17. 
 
THE GLORY. 199 
 
 of that flower, " how beautiful ; " but the 
 type of its beauty, — the beauty of which it 
 is the faint expression, is in God. We say 
 of that star, " how bright ;" but the bright- 
 ness which it represents or declares, is in 
 God. So of every object above and beneath. 
 And so especially shall it be seen in the 
 objects of glory which shall surround us in 
 the kingdom of God. Of each thing there, 
 as of the city itself, it shall be said, " it 
 has the glory of God." (Rev. xxi. 11.) 
 
 Glory, then, is our inheritance. The best, 
 the richest, the brightest, the most beau- 
 tiful of all that is in God, of good, and rich, 
 and bright, and beautiful, shall be ours. 
 The glory that fills heaven above, the glory 
 that spreads over the earth beneath, shall 
 be ours. Bat while " the glory of the ter- 
 restrial " shall be ours, yet in a truer sense 
 '* the glory of the celestial shall be ours." 
 Already by faith we have taken our place 
 amid things celestial, " being quickened 
 together with Christ, and raised up with 
 
200 THE GLORY. 
 
 him, and made to sit with him in heavenly 
 places." (Eph. ii. 6.) Thus we have already 
 claimed the celestial as our own; and having 
 risen w^th Christ, we " set our affection 
 upon things above, not on things on the 
 earth.^^ (Col. iii. 2.) Far-ranging dominion 
 shall be ours ; with all varying shades and 
 kinds of glory shall we be encompassed, 
 circle beyond circle stretching over the 
 universe ; but it is the celestial glory that 
 is so truly ours, as the redeemed and the 
 risen; and in the midst of that celestial 
 glory shall be the family mansion, the 
 church's dwelling-place and palace, — our 
 true home for eternity. 
 
 All that awaits us is glorious. The.re is an 
 inheritance in reversion ; and it is " an in- 
 heritance incorruptible, and undehled, and 
 that fadeth not away." (1 Pet. i. 4.) There 
 is a rest, a sabbath-keeping in store for us 
 (Heb. iv. 9) ; and this " rest shall be glo- 
 rious." (Isa. xi. iO.) The kingdom which 
 we claim is a glorious kingdom. The crown 
 
THE GLORY, 
 
 201 
 
 which we are to jsvear is a glorious crown. 
 The city of our habitation is a glorious 
 city. The garments which shall clothe us 
 are garments " for glory and for beauty." 
 Our bodies shall be glorious bodies, fashion- 
 ed after the hkeness of Christ's " glorious 
 body." (Phil. iii. 21.) Our society shall be 
 that of the glorified. Our songs shall be 
 songs of glory. And of the region which 
 we are to inhabit it is said, that " the glory 
 of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is 
 the light thereof." (Rev. xxi. 23.) 
 
 The hope of this glory cheers us. From 
 under a canopy of night we look out upon 
 these promised scenes of blessedness, and 
 we are comforted. Our dark thoughts are 
 softened down, even when they are not 
 wholly brightened. For day is near, and 
 joy is near, and the warfare is ending, and 
 the tear shall be dried up, and the shame 
 be lost in the glory, and " we shall be pre- 
 sented faultless before the presence of hi» 
 GLORY with exceeding joy." 
 
202 THE GLORY. 
 
 Then the fruit of patience and of faith 
 shall appear, and the hope we have so long 
 been clinging to shall not put us to shame. 
 Then shall we triumph and praise. Then 
 shall we be avenged on death, and pain, and 
 sickness. Then shall every wound be more 
 than healed. Egypt enslaves us no more. 
 Babylon leads us captive no more. The 
 Red Sea is crossed, the wilderness is passed, 
 Jordan lies behind us, and we are in Jeru- 
 salem ! There is no more curse — there is no 
 more night. The tabernacle of God is with 
 us ; in that tabernacle he dwells, and we 
 dwell with him. 
 
 It is " the God of all grace " who " has 
 called us to his eternal glory by Christ 
 Jesus." It is " when the chief Shepherd 
 shall appear, that we shall receive the 
 crown of glory that fadeth not away." (1 
 Pet. V. 4, 10.) And this " after we have 
 suffered a while," and by suffering have 
 been *' made perfect, stablished, strength- 
 ened, settled." So that suffering is not lost 
 
THE GLORY. 203 
 
 upon us. It prepares us for the glory. And 
 the hope of that glory, as- well as the know- 
 ledge of the discipline through which we are 
 passing, and of the process of preparation 
 going on in us, sustains us, nay, teaches us 
 to '^ glory in tribulation." This is comfort, 
 nay, it is happiness. Strange in the world's 
 eye, but not strange in ours ! All that the 
 world has is but a poor imitation of hap- 
 piness and consolation; ours is real, even 
 now ; how much more hereafter ! Nor will 
 a brief delay and a sore conflict lessen the 
 weight of coming glory. Nay, they will 
 add to it ; and it is worth waiting for, it is 
 worth suffering for, it is worth fighting for. 
 It is so sure of coming, and so blessed when 
 it comes. 
 
 " The mass of glory,'* says Howe, " is yet 
 in reserve ; we are not yet so high as the 
 highest heavens." All this is hanging over 
 us, — inviting us on, stirring us up, loosening 
 us from things present, so that the pain of 
 loss, or sickness, or bereavement, falls more 
 
204 THE GLORY. 
 
 gently on us, and tends but to make U8 
 less vain and light, — more thoroughly in 
 earnest. 
 
 " That they may behold my glory," the 
 Lord pleaded for his own. This is the sura 
 of all. Other glories there will be, as we 
 have seen ; but this is the sum of all. It is 
 the very utmost that even " the Lord of 
 glory "could ask for them. Having sought 
 this he could seek no more ; he could go 
 no farther. And our response to this is, 
 " Let me see thy glory ; " yes, and the glad 
 confidence in which we rest is this, " As 
 for me, I will behold thy face in righteous- 
 ness; I shall be satisfied when I awake 
 with thy likeness." This is our ambition. 
 Divine and blessed ambition, in which 
 there is no pride, no presumption, and no 
 excess ! Nothing less can satisfy than the 
 directest, fullest vision of incarnate glory. 
 Self-emptied before the Infinite Majesty, 
 and conscious of being wholly unworthy 
 even of a servant's place, we yet feel as if 
 
THE GLORY. 205 
 
 drawn irresistibly into the innermost circle 
 and centre, satisfied with nothing less than 
 the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. 
 
 " The glory which thou gavest me I 
 have given them." (John xvii. 22.) No less 
 than this, both in kind and amount, is the 
 glory in reserve, according to the promise 
 of the Lord. The glory given to him he 
 makes over to them ! They " are made 
 partakers *f Christ," and all that he has is 
 theirs. Nay, and he says, " I have given ;" 
 as if it were already theirs by his gift, just 
 as truly as it was his by the Father's gift. 
 He receives it from the Father only for the 
 purpose of immediately handing it over to 
 them ! So that even here they can say, 
 *^ This glory is already mine, and I must 
 live as one to whom such infinite glory be- 
 longs." " Beholding, as in a glass, this glory 
 of the Lord, they are changed into the same 
 image from glory to glory." (2 Cor. iii. 18.) 
 To fret or despond is sad inconsistency in 
 one who can say, even under sorest pressures, 
 
206 THE GLORY. 
 
 " I reckon that the sufferings of this pre- 
 sent time are not worthy to be compared 
 with the glory that shall he revealed in us.'* 
 Look at them by themselves, and they do 
 seem at times most overwhelming ; place 
 them side by side with the eternal glory, 
 and they disappear. 
 
 " The riches of his glory," says the apos- 
 tle in one place (Rom. ix. 23) ; '* the riches 
 of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," 
 writes he in another. (Eph. i. 18.) Strange 
 expressions these ! Tliey carry us up to a 
 height of sucl' infinite glory and joy, that 
 we feel bewildered and overwhelmed. Just 
 as there are " rVhes of grace," and " riches 
 of mercy," and '•' '-iches of love," and "riches 
 of wisdom," so ttno are " riches of glory ;" 
 glory in abundance-., — such as shall make 
 us rich indeed ; glorw spread over our whole 
 inheritance, so that t-v shall " have all and 
 abound." Nay, this [^ory is that which 
 God counts his riche*', that which he 
 reckons the perfection o' ^ is inheritance, — ■ 
 
THE GLORY. 207 
 
 the ver) essence of its beauty and its bless- 
 edness. 
 
 " The liberty of the glory of the children 
 of God," writes the apostle, (Horn. viii.21,) 
 —thereby telling us that there is a glory 
 which is the peculiar property of the saints, 
 —a glory of which they can say, it is our 
 own, thereby marking it out from the glory 
 of all other creatures. This glory contains 
 lihertij. It sets free those who possess it. 
 Corruption had brought with it chains and 
 bondage; glory brings with it divine liberty I 
 It is not the liberty that brings the glory; it 
 is the glory that brings the liberty . Blessed 
 liberty! Freedom from every bondage ! Not 
 only the bondage of corruption and sin and 
 death, but the bondage of sorrow I For is 
 not sorrow a bondage ? Are not its chains 
 sharp and heavy ? From this bondage of 
 tribulation the glory sets us eternally free. 
 It is the last fetter, save that of the grave, 
 that is struck from our bruised limbs, but 
 when it is broken, it is broken for ever I 
 T 2 
 
208 THE GLORY. 
 
 And this liberty which the glory brings 
 to us is one which shall extend to the un- 
 conscious creation around us. We brought 
 that creation into bondage, covering it 
 with dishonour, and making it the prey of 
 corruption. It now groans and travails 
 under this sore bondage. But as it has 
 shared our bondage, it is also to share our 
 liberty ; and that same glory which brings 
 liberty to us shall introduce the oppressed 
 and dishonoured creation into the same 
 blessed freedom ! O longed-for consumma- 
 tion ! O joyful hope ! O welcome day, 
 when the Bringer of this glory shall arrive, 
 and the voice be heard from heaven, " Be- 
 hold, I make all things new." 
 
 Nor is it liberty only which this glory 
 contains in it, but power also, as it is writ- 
 ten, "strengthened with all might according 
 to the power of his glory." (Col. i. 11.) 
 This glory has, even now, a power-giving 
 energy, whereby we are strengthened '' to 
 all patience and long-sutrering with joyful- 
 
THE GLORY. 209 
 
 ness." Thus " rejoicing in hope of the 
 glory of God," (Rom. v. 2,) we are fitted 
 for all manner of tribulation and endurance. 
 Though still among the things " not seen," 
 it not only flings forward a radiance which 
 brightens our path, but iheds down a 
 strength which enables us to "run with 
 patience the race that is set before us." 
 And so, in an unholy world, we " walk 
 worthy of Him who hath called us unto his 
 kingdom and glory, ^' (1 Thess. ii. 12,) hav- 
 ing that prayer fulfilled in us," The God of 
 all grace, who hath called us unto his eter- 
 nal glory by Jesus Christ, after that ye 
 have suffered a while, make you perfect, 
 stablish, strengthen, settle you." (1 Pet. 
 V. 10.) 
 
 " Christ in you the hope of glory.^^ An 
 indwelling Christ is our earnest, our pledge, 
 our hope of glory. Having him, we have 
 all that is his, whether present or tc 
 come. He is the link that binds together 
 the here and the hereafter. We died with 
 
 T 6 
 
210 THE GLORY. 
 
 him, we went down into the tomb with 
 him, we rose with him, and our life is now 
 hid with him in God ; hut "when he who 
 is our life shall appear, then shall we also 
 appear with him in glory." (Col. iii, 4.) 
 
 The joy with which we rejoice is a joy 
 " unspeakable and full of glory/' or more 
 literally, a "glorified joy;" a joy such 
 as Paul had when caught up into paradise ; 
 a joy such as John's when placed in vision 
 within sight of the celestial city ; a joy 
 into whose very essence the thoughts of 
 glory enter ; a joy which makes the soul 
 which possesses it feel as if it were already 
 compassed about ^yith glory, as if it had 
 '' come to Mount Zion, to the city of the 
 living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an 
 innumerable company of angels, to the 
 general assembly and church of the first- 
 born which are written in heaven." (Heb. 
 xii. 22.) 
 
 "The glorious gospel of Christ,'* says 
 A.e apostle (2 Cor. iv. 4); and again, *' the 
 
THE GLORY. 211 
 
 glorious gospel of the blessed God/* (I 
 Tim. i. 11); or, more literally, " the gos- 
 pel of the glory of Christ," that is, " the 
 good news about the glory of Christ," 
 and '^ the good news about the glory of the 
 blessed God." As it is " the gospel of the 
 kingdom," or good news about " the king- 
 dom," that is preached, so it is good news 
 about " the glory." These good news God 
 has sent, and is still sending to this world. 
 In believing them, and receiving God's re- 
 cord concerning the glory, we become par- 
 takers of it, and continue to be so, " if we 
 hold the beginning of our confidence sted- 
 fast unto the end." These good news most 
 fully meet our case, however sad or sinful, 
 and shed light into our souls even in their 
 darkest and most desponding hours. 
 
 Our present " light affliction, which is 
 but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
 more exceeding and eternal w^eight of 
 GLORY." So that glory is not merely the 
 issue of the tribulation, but in some sense 
 
212 THE GLORY. 
 
 its product. Tribulation is the soil, and 
 glory is the blossom and the fruit. The 
 soil is rough and unseemly, but the pro- 
 duce is altogether perfect. It may seem 
 strange that out of such a field there 
 should spring verdure so fresh and fruit so 
 divine. Yet we know that such is the 
 case. How much we owe to that unlikely 
 soil ! Not only do all things work together 
 for good to us, but they as truly work to- 
 gether for glory. 
 
 Faith lays hold of this and prizes tribu- 
 lation, nay, glories in it ; so realizing the 
 joy as to lose sight of the sorrow, save as 
 contributing to the joy ; so absorbed in the 
 glory as to forget the shame, excepting in 
 so far as it is the parent and precursor of 
 the glory. 
 
 Most needful is it that we should realize 
 these prospects, these glimpses which God 
 has given us of what we are yet to be. It 
 is not merely lawful to do so for the relief 
 of the laden spirit, but it is most vitally 
 
THE GLORY. 21^ 
 
 important to do so for the health of out 
 soul, for our growth in grace, and for en- 
 abling us to press on with cheerful energy 
 in the path of service towards God and 
 usefulness to our brother saints or fel- 
 low men. 
 
 The man of sorrows had joy set before 
 him. And it was for this that he endured the 
 cross, despising the shame. (Heb. xii. 2. ) 
 He needed it, and so do we ; for He who 
 sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are 
 all of one. He found in it strength for the 
 bearing of the cross and the endurance of 
 the shame. So may we, for as the path he 
 trod is the same that is given us to tread 
 in, so the strength is to be found where our 
 forerunner found it. There is joy in store 
 for us, even as for him ; joy not only like 
 his own, but his own very joy. (John xv. 
 11.) This makes us wilUng to bear the 
 cross in all its weight and sharpness ; nay, 
 it lightens it SQ that ofttimes we do not feel 
 its pressure. We can glory both in the 
 
f 14 THE GLORY. 
 
 cross and the shame. We hare less of 
 these than he had, and we have all his 
 consolation, all his joy to the full. 
 
 When this is los^ sight of, selfish melan- 
 choly often fastens on us. We hrood 
 over our griefs till they engross ns en- 
 tirely, to the shutting out of all else. We 
 magnify them ; we spread them out and 
 turn them over on every side in order to 
 find out the gloomiest. We take credit to 
 ourselves for endurance, and thus feed our 
 pride and self-importance. We fret under 
 them, and at the same time grow vain at 
 heing the objects of so much sympathy — at 
 having so many eyes upc.i us, and so many 
 words of comfort addressed to us. 
 
 Nothing can be more unhealthy thar 
 this state of soul, i. r n, jre unlike that in 
 which God expects a saint to be. It shuts 
 us into the narrow circle of self. It con- 
 tracts as well as distorts our vision. It 
 vitiates our spiritual tastes, it lowers our 
 spiritual tone^ it withers and shrivels up 
 
/BiL GLORY. 216 
 
 our spiritual belntr, unfitting us for all 
 offices of calm And ^entle love, nay, hinder- 
 ing the right dv«;harge of plain and com- 
 mon duty. 1. is in iiself a sore disease, 
 and is the source of other diseases withcMt 
 number. 
 
 To meet this unhealthy tendency God 
 seeks to draw us out of ourselves. He does 
 so in holding up the cross for us to look 
 upon and be healed : but he also does this 
 by exhibiting the crown and throne. The 
 cross does not annihilate man's natural 
 concern for self, but it loosens our thoughts 
 from this, by showing us, upon the cross. 
 One to whose care we may safely intrust 
 self with all its interests, and in whose 
 pierced hands it will be far better provided 
 for than in our own. So the vision of the 
 glory does not make away with self, but it 
 absorbs it, and elevates it, by revealing the 
 kingdom in which God has made such 
 blessed and enduring provision for us, as to 
 make it appear worse than folly in us to 
 
216 THE GLORY. 
 
 brood over our case, and make self the ob- 
 ject of our sad and anxious care. If we are 
 to have glory as surely and as cheaply as 
 the lilies have their clothing, or the ravena 
 their food, why be so solicitous about self 2 
 Or why think about self at all, save to re- 
 member and to rejoice that God has taken 
 all our concerns into his own keeping for 
 eternity ? 
 
 Thus God beguiles us away from our 
 griefs by giving us something else to muse 
 over, — something more worthy of oui 
 thoughts. He allures us from the present, 
 where all is dark and uncomely, into the 
 future, where all is bright and fair. He 
 takes us by the hand and leads us, as a 
 father his child, out from the gloomy region 
 which we are sadly pacing, with our eye 
 upon the ground, bent only upon nourishing 
 our sorrows, into fields where all is fresh 
 and Eden-like ; so that, ere we are aware, 
 joy, or at least the faint reflection of it, has 
 stolen into our hearts, and lifted up oui 
 
THE GLOKI. 217 
 
 heavy eyes. He would not have us abiding 
 always in the church-yard, or sitting upon 
 the turf beneath which love is buried, — as if 
 the tomb to which we are clinging were our 
 hope, not resurrection beyond it; — ^he would 
 have us to come forth ; and having allured 
 us away from that scene of death, he bids 
 us look upwards, upbraiding us wifch our 
 unbelief and folly, and saying to us, — " They 
 whom you love are yonder ; ere long He 
 who is their life and yours shall appear, 
 and you shall rejoin each other, each of you 
 embracing, not a weeping, sickly fellow 
 mortal, but a glorified saint, set free from 
 pain and sin." 
 • There is nothing more healthy and ge- 
 nial for the soul than these anticipations 
 of the morning, and of morning-glory. 
 They are not visionary, save in the sense in 
 which faith is " the substance of things 
 hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'' 
 They transfuse the life of heaven through 
 our frame, either, on the one hand, making 
 
218 THB GLORY. 
 
 our languid pulse to beat more swiftly, or, 
 on the other, our feverish pulse to throb 
 more calmly and evenly. They act as re- 
 gulators of the sonl in its wild and incon- 
 stant movements, neither allowing us to 
 sink too low nor to soar too high. They 
 tend to steady our extreme impulses by 
 acting as a counterpoise to the weight of 
 grief which so crushes us with its pres- 
 sure. 
 
 They withdraw us from self and self- 
 broodings, they widen the circle of oui 
 sympathies, and throw back into the dis- 
 tance the fence of exclusiveness, which, in 
 times of suifering, we are apt to throw up 
 around ourselves. They check mere sen- 
 timentality, and forbid us to indulge the 
 flow of grief for its own luxury. They pro 
 hibit morbid gloom, which loves to shut 
 out socie^, and chooses loneliness. They 
 fill us with energy for facing the toils, and 
 with ready courage for braving the dangers 
 of the night; They animate us with the 
 
THE GLOKr. 219 
 
 ?alm but indomitable confidence of hope, 
 —a hope which expands and brightens aa 
 its object approaches. 
 
 The morning ! That is our watchword. 
 Our matin and even-song are full of it. It 
 gives the hue to life, — imparting colour 
 to that which is colourless, and freshening 
 that which is faded. It is the sum and 
 term of our hopes. Nothing else will do 
 for us or for our world, — a world over which 
 the darkness gathers thicker as the years 
 run out. Stars may help to make the sky 
 less gloomy; but they are not the sun. 
 And besides, clouds have now wrapped 
 them so that they are no longer visible* 
 The firmament is almost without a star. 
 Torches and beacon-lights avail not. They 
 make no impression upon the darkness ; it 
 is so deep, so real, so palpable. We might 
 give up all for lost, were we not assured 
 that there is a sun, and that it is hastening 
 to rise. 
 
 The church's pilgrimage is nearly done, 
 
220 THE GLORY. 
 
 Yet she is not less a pilgrim as jts end 
 draws nigh. Nay, more so. The last stage 
 of the journey is the dreariest for her. Her 
 path lies through the thickest darkness that 
 the world has yet felt. It seems as if it 
 were only hy the fitful blaze of conflagra- 
 tions that we can now shape our way. It 
 is the sound of falling kingdoms that is 
 guiding us onward. It is the fragments of 
 broken thrones lying across our path that 
 assures us that our route is the true one, 
 and that its end is near, — that end, the 
 morning with its songs ; and in that morn- 
 ing, a kingdom ; , and in that kingdom, 
 glory ; and in that glory, the everlasting 
 rest, the sabbath of eternity. 
 
 TBB MMO, 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 jSiic-Ji.A 
 
 aSm 
 
 
 
 V ""^ 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 0C1*i^ 
 
 '•'' '#i"' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAYLOKO 
 
 
 
 PHINTEOINUS A.