The Inheritance

Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. — COLOSSIANS i. 12.

thing is often set against another in the experience of the Christian; and also in the every-day procedure of the providence of God. So fared it with Jacob that night he slept in Bethel. A stone was his pillow, and the cold hard ground his bed; yet, while sleep sealed his eyelids, he had God himself to guard his low-laid head, and dreams such as seldom bless a couch of down. A ladder rose before him in the vision of the night. It rested on earth, and reached to the stars. And forming a highway for a multitude of angels, who ascended and descended in two dazzling streams of light, it stood there the bright sign of a redemption which has restored the intercourse between earth and heaven, and opened a path for our return to God.

Now, the scheme of salvation, of which that ladder was a glorious emblem, may be traversed in either of these two ways. In studying it, we may descend by the steps that lead from the cause to the consumma-B tion, or, taking the opposite course, we may rise from the consummation to the cause. So — as a matter sometimes of taste, sometimes of judgment — men do in other departments of study. The geographer, for example, may follow a river, from the lone mountain-tops where its waters spring, down into the glen, into which, eager to leave sterility behind, it leaps with a joyous bound; and from thence, after resting a while in black, deep, swirling pool, resumes its way, here spreading itself out in glassy lake, or there winding like a silver serpent through flowery meadows; until, forcing a passage through some rocky gorge, it sweeps out into the plain, to pursue, ‘mid shady woods and by lordly tower, through corn-fields, by smiling villages and busy towns, a course that, like the life of man, grows calmer as it nears its end. Or, starting from the sea-beach, he may trace the river upwards; till, passing town and church, tower and mill, scattered hamlet and solitary shepherd’s cot, in some mossy well, where the wild deer drink, or mountain rock beneath the eagle’s nest, he finds the place of its birth. The botanist, too, who describes a tree, may begin with its fruit; and from this, whether husky shell, or rugged cone, or clustering berry, he may pass to the flower; from that to the buds; from those to the branches; from the branches to the stem; and from the stem into the ground, where he lays bare the wide-spread roots, on which — as states depend upon the humbler classes for power, wealth, and worth — the tree depends both for nourishment and support. Or, reversing the plan, with equal justice to his subject, and advantage to his pupils, he may begin at the root and end with the fruit.

The inspired writers, in setting forth salvation, adopt sometimes the one course, and sometimes the other. With Paul, for instance, the subject of heaven now introduces Christ, and now from Christ, the Apostle turns to expatiate on the joys of heaven. Here, as on an angel’s wing that sheds light on every step, we see him ascending, and there descending, the ladder. Taking flight from the cross, he soars upward to the crown; and now, like an eagle sweeping down from the bosom of a golden cloud, he leaves the throne of the Redeemer to alight on the heights of Calvary. As an example of the ascending method, we have that well-known passage in his epistle to the Romans — “For whom he did fore know, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first- born among many brethren: moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” There we pass from the root to the fruit, from the cause, step by step, to its effects; here again Paul guides us upward along the stream of blessings to their perennial fountain. He first shews the precious gift, and then reveals the gracious giver; the purchase first, and afterwards the divine Purchaser. From the crown of glory, flashing on the brow of a Magdalene, he turns our dazzled eyes to another crown, a trophy hung upon a cross; a wreath of thorns, armed with long sharp spikes — each, in place of a pearly gem, tipped with a drop of blood. He first introduces us to heaven as our inalienable heritage, and then to the throne and person of him who won heaven for us. He conducts us up to Jesus, that we may fall at his feet with adoring gratitude, and join in spirit the saintly throng who dwell in the full fruition of his presence, and praise him throughout eternity.

The words of my text, and those also of the verse which follows it, are introductory to a sublime description of Jesus Christ — a picture to which, after considering these preliminary verses, we intend to draw your attention. To the eye both of saints and sinners it presents a noble subject. If his great forerunner felt himself unworthy even to loose the latchet of his shoes, how unworthy are these hands to sustain a theme so sacred and sublime. May he who ordaineth strength “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings,” without whose aid the strongest are weak, and by whose help the weakest are strong, fulfil among us his own great and gracious promise — “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me!”

Turning your attention, meanwhile, to the matter of these introductory verses, I remark —

I. Heaven is an Inheritance.

Examples, at once, of pride and poverty — how prone are men to attach importance to their own works, and to seek at least some shining points of goodness in them — like grains of gold in a mass of rock! We are loth to believe that those things for which others esteem, and love, and praise us, and even, perhaps, crown our brows with laurel, apart from Christ, have no merit; but appear in the sight of the holy and heart-searching God as, to use a Bible phrase, “filthy rags.” It is not easy to bring human pride, no, nor human reason, to admit that; to believe that the loveliest, the purest, the most virtuous of womankind, a mother’s pride and a household’s honour, must be saved, as the vilest outcast is saved — as a brand plucked out of the fire, or he of whom God said, “Take away the filthy garments from him. Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.”

These feelings arise in part, perhaps, from a secret suspicion, that, if our works be entirely destitute of merit, they must at the same time disincline God to save us, and disqualify us for being saved. But how base, unscriptural, God-dishonouring is this fear! One would think that the parable of the prodigal had been invented to refute it. There, recognising him from afar, God, under the emblem of an earthly father, runs to embrace his son, all foul and ragged as he is; he holds him in his arms; he drowns his confession in this great cry of joy, “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” Nature herself proves it false by every little child who lifts its hands and prayer to God as “Our Father which art in heaven.” What idea has he formed of God who expects less of him than he would expect of any earthly mother? Let her he a queen. She is a mother; and under the impulse of feelings that reign alike in palaces and in cottages, how would that woman spring from her throne to embrace a lost babe; and, weeping tears of joy, press it to her jewelled bosom, though plucked from the foulest ditch, and wrapped in tainted rags? He knows little of human nature, fallen as it is, who fancies any mother turning from the plaintive cry and imploring arms of her offspring because, forsooth, it was restored to her in loathsome attire. And he is still more ignorant of “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” who fancies that, unless man can make out some merit, he will receive no mercy. Blessed be his name, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Volumes of theology have been written, and long controversies have waxed hot, about the question — whether heaven is, or is not, in part, the reward of our own good works? Now it appears to me that there is one word in my text, whose voice authoritatively and summarily settles that matter; and would have always settled it, had not men’s hearts been fired with angry passions, and their ears confused with the din of battle. That word is — inheritance. What is inheritance? The pay of a soldier is not inheritance; neither are the fees of a lawyer or of a physician; nor the gains of trade; nor the wages of labour. Rewards of toil or skill, these are earned by the hands that receive them. What is inherited, on the other hand, may be the property of a new-born babe; and so you may see the coronet, which was won by the stout arm of valour, and first blazoned on a battered shield, standing above the cradle of a wailing infant. True, the ample estate, the noble rank, the hereditary honours were won. But they that won them are long dead; — “their swords are rust, their bodies dust;” and underneath tattered banners, once borne before them in bloody fight, but now hung high in the house of God, the grim old barons sleep in their marble tombs. The rewards of their prowess and patriotism have descended to their successors; who, holding these, enjoy honours and estates, which we do not grudge them, but which their wealth never bought, and their courage never won.

Thus the saints hold heaven. In the terms of a court of law, it is theirs, not by conquest, but by heritage. Won by another arm than theirs, it presents the strongest imaginable contrast to the spectacle seen in England’s palace that day when the king demanded to know of his assembled nobles, by what title they held their lands? “What title?” At the rash question a hundred swords leapt from their scabbards. Advancing on the alarmed monarch — “By these,” they replied, “we won, and by these we will keep them.” How different the scene which heaven presents! All eyes are fixed on Jesus; every look is love; gratitude glows in every bosom, and swells in every song; now with golden harps they sound the Saviour’s praise; and now, descending from their thrones to do him homage, they cast their crowns in one glittering heap at the feet which were nailed on Calvary. Look there, and learn in whose name to seek salvation, and through whose merits to hope for it. For the faith of earth is just a reflection of the fervours of heaven: this the language of both — “Not unto us, 0 Lord, riot unto us, but unto thy name give glory.”

II. Heaven is a heritage of free grace. We have no such legal claim to heavenly glory as may be established to some earthly inheritance. In consequence of a distant relationship, in those sudden turns of the wheel of fortune, which — displaying the providence of Him who abases the proud and exalts the humble — throw one family into the dust, and another into the possession of unexpected riches, the heir of noble titles and broad lands has started up from the deepest obscurity. And so I have seen a man come into a court of law, and, producing some old moth-eaten Bible, with its time-worn record of births, and marriages, and deaths, all long ago forgotten, or some damp, musty parchment, or some inscription copied from a burial-stone, which the dispute has redeemed from decay and rank churchyard weeds, lay a firm hand on estates and honours won long centuries ago. Such strange events have happened. Heirs have entered on the property of those between whom and them there existed no acquaintanceship, nor friendship, nor fellowship; for whom, in fact, they entertained no regard while they lived, and whose memory they neither cherish in warm hearts, nor preserve in cold brass or marble. But it is by no such obscure connection or remote relationship, that “the inheritance of the saints in light” becomes ours. We are constituted its heirs by virtue of sonship; we, who were once afar off — the seed of the serpent, the children of the devil, the children of wrath even as others — becoming sons by that act of grace, which has led many to exclaim with John, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”

Thus heaven, presenting itself to us in one of its most engaging aspects, is not only an inheritance, but a home. Oh! how sweet that word! What beautiful and tender associations cluster thick around it! Compared with it, house, mansion, palace, are cold heartless terms. But home! that word quickens the pulse, warms the heart, stirs the soul to its depths, makes age feel young again, rouses apathy into energy, sustains the sailor on his midnight watch, inspires the soldier with courage on the field of battle, and imparts patient endurance to the worn-down sons of toil! The thought of it has proved a sevenfold shield to virtue; the very name of it has been a spell to call back the wanderer from the paths of vice; and, far away, where myrtles bloom and palm trees wave, and the ocean sleeps upon coral strands, to the exile’s fond fancy it clothes the naked rock, or stormy shore, or barren moor, or wild Highland mountain, with charms he weeps to think of, and longs once more to see. Grace sanctifies these lovely affections, and imparts a sacredness to the homes of earth by making them types of heaven. As a home the believer delights to think of it. Thus when, lately bending over a dying saint, and expressing our sorrow to see him laid so low, with the radiant countenance rather of one who had just left heaven, than of one about to enter it, he raised and clasped his hands, and exclaimed in ecstasy, “/ am going home.’1’’ Happy the family of which God is the father, Jesus the elder brother, and all the “saints in light” are brethren — brethren born of one Spirit; nursed at the full breast of the same promises; trained in the same high school of heavenly discipline; seated at the same table; and gathered all where the innocent loves of earth are not quenched, but purified; not destroyed, but refined! To that family circle every accession forms a subject of gratitude and praise; and every new-comer receives such welcome as a mother, while she falls on his manly breast, gives her son, or as sisters, locked in his arms, with theirs entwined around him, give the brother whom they have got safe back from wreck and storm, or the bloody fields of war. So when, on returning home after weary journeys and a tedious absence, we have found that the whole household was moved, and that all, down even to the tottering babe, with outstretched hands, and beaming faces, and joyful welcomes, were at the door to meet us, we have thought, it shall be thus at the gates of glory. What a meeting there of parents and children, brothers and sisters, and death-divided friends! What mutual gratulations! What overflowing joy! And, when they have led our spirit up through the long line of loving angels to the throne, what happiness to see Jesus, and get our warmest welcome from the lips of him who redeemed us by his blood, and, in the agonies of his cross, suffered for us more than a mother’s pangs — “the travail of his soul.”

Heir of grace! thy estate lies there. Child of God! thy Father, and Saviour, and brethren, and sisters, are there. Pilgrim to Sion, be ever pressing on and ever looking up! thy true home is there; a home above these blue skies, above sun and stars; a sweet, saintly, glorious home — whose rest shall be all the sweeter for the pelting of the storm, thy rugged path, the sorrows and the tears of earth — and whose light shall be all the brighter for that “valley of the shadow of death,” from which thou shalt pass into the blaze of everlasting day. Believer! I congratulate thee on thy prospects. Lift up thy cast-down head; let thy port, man, be worthy of thy coming fortunes. Bear thyself as one who shall wear a holy crown; as one who, however humble thy present lot, is training for the highest society. Cultivate the temper, and acquire the manners, and learn the language of heaven; nor let the wealth or poverty, the joys or sorrows, the shame or honours of thy earthly state, ever make thee forget “the inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.”

III. The heirs of heaven require to be made meet for the inheritance.

I knew a man who had amassed great wealth; but had no children to inherit it. He lost the opportunity, which one would think good men would more frequently embrace, of leaving Christ his heir, and bequeathing to the cause of religion what he could not carry away. Smitten, however, with the vain and strange propensity to found a house, or make a family, as it is called, he left his riches to a distant relative. His successor found himself suddenly raised from poverty to affluence, and thrown into a position which he had not been trained to fill. He was cast into the society of those to whose tastes, and habits, and accomplishments he was an utter and an awkward stranger. Did many envy this child of fortune? They might have spared their envy. Left in his original obscurity he had been a happy peasant, whistling his way home from the plough to a thatch-roofed cottage, or on winter nights, and around the blazing faggots, laughing loud and merry among unpolished boors. Child of misfortune! he buried his happiness in the grave of his benefactor. Neither qualified by nature, nor fitted by education, for his position, he was separated from his old, only to be despised by his new associates. And how bitterly was he disappointed to find, that, in exchanging poverty for opulence, daily toil for luxurious indolence, humble friends for more distinguished companions, a hard bed for one of down, this turn in his fortunes had flung him on a couch, not of roses, but of thorns! In his case, the hopes of the living and the intentions of the dead were alike frustrated. The prize had proved a blank; a necessary result of this fatal oversight, that the heir had not been made meet for the inheritance.

Is such training needful for an earthly estate? How much more for the “inheritance of the saints in light!” “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” No change to a condition how ever lofty — no elevation from the lowest obscurity to the highest honour, from abject poverty to the greatest affluence, adequately represents the difference between the state of sin in which grace finds us, and the state of glory to which it raises us. The most ignorant and debased of our city outcasts, the most wretched and loathsome wanderer of these streets, is not so unfit to be received into the holy bosom of a Christian family, as you are, by nature, to be received into the kingdom of heaven. A sinner there were more out of place than a ragged beggar in a royal palace, where, all gazing at his appearance with astonishment, and shrinking back from his defiling touch, he rudely thrusts himself within the brilliant circle. Compared with the difference between a man, as grace finds him, and heaven gets him, how feeble are all earthly distinctions! They sink into nothing. So unheavenly, in truth, is our nature, that unless we were made meet for the inheritance, we were no honour to it, nor were it any happiness to us.

What, for instance, were the most tempting banquet to one without appetite, sick, loathing the very sight and smell of food? To a man stone-deaf, what the boldest blast of trumpet, the roll of drums, stirring the soldier’s soul to deeds of daring valour, or the finest music that ever fell on charmed ear, and seemed to bear the spirit on its waves of sound up to the gates of heaven? Or, what, to one stone-blind, a scene to which beauty has lent its charms, and sublimity its grandeur, — the valley clad in a many -coloured robe of flowers, the gleaming lake, the flashing cascade, the foaming torrent, the dark climbing forest, the brave trees that cling to the frowning crags, the rocky pinnacles, and, high over all, hoary winter looking down on summer from her throne on the Alps’ untrodden snows? Just what heaven would be to man with his ruined nature, his low passions, and his dark guilty conscience. Incapable of appreciating its holy beauties, of enjoying its holy happiness, he would find nothing there to delight his senses. How he wyould wonder in what its pleasures lay; and, supposing him once there, were there a place of safety out of it, how he would long to be away, and keep his eye on the gate to watch its opening, and escape as from a doleful prison! Such an inheritance were to such a man like the gift of a noble library to a plumed, painted savage. As, ignorant of letters, he stalked from hall to hall amid the wisdom of bygone ages, and rolled his restless eyes over the unappreciated treasures, how he would sigh to be back to his native forests, where he might sit among his tribe at the council-fire, or raise his war-whoop, or hunt down the deer. People talk strangely of going to heaven when they die; but what gratification could it possibly afford a man whose enjoyments are of a sensuous or sensual nature, — whose only pleasure lies in the acquisition of worldly objects, or the gratification of brutal appetites? You hope to go to heaven! I hope you will. But, unless your heart is sanctified and renewed, what were heaven to you? an abhorrent vacuum. The day that took you there would end all enjoyment, and throw you, a castaway, upon a solitude more lonely than a desert island. Neither angels nor saints would seek your company, nor would you seek theirs. Unable to join in their hallowed employments, to sympathise with, or even to understand their holy joys, you would feel more desolate in heaven than we have done in the heart of a great city, without one friend, jostled by crowds, but crowds who spoke a language we did not understand, and were aliens alike in dress and manners, in language, blood, and faith.

It is the curse of vice, that, where its desires outlive the power of gratification, or are denied the opportunity of indulgence, they become a punishment and a torment. Denied all opportunity of indulgence, what would a drunkard do in heaven? Or, a glutton? Or, a voluptuary? Or, an ambitious man? Or, a worldling? one whose soul lies buried in a heap of gold? Or, she, who, neglecting quite as much the noble purposes of her being, flits, life through, a painted butterfly, from flower to flower of pleasure, and wastes the day of grace in the idolatry and adornment of a form which death shall change into utter loathsomeness, and the grave into a heap of dust? These would hear no sounds of ecstasy, would see no brightness, wrould smell no perfumes, in paradise. But, weeping and wringing their hands, they would wander up and down the golden streets to bewail their death, crying — “The days have come in which we have no pleasure in them.” On that eternal Sabbath, — from which nor fields, nor news, nor business would afford escape, — what would they do, who hear no music in church bells, and say of holy services, “When will they be over?” Oh, the slow, weary march of the hours of never-ending Sabbath devotions! Oh, the painful glare of a never-setting Sabbath sun! Than go down to hell, than perish in the coming storm, they would turn their prow to heaven; but only as the last refuge of a sinking bark, — a safe, it may be, but yet a friendless shore. Unlike the happy swallows which David envied, thy altar, 0 God, is the very last spot where many would choose to build their nests!

Such is by nature the disposition of all of us. “The heart is desperately wicked.” “The carnal mind” has an aversion to spiritual duties, and an utter distaste for spiritual enjoyments. Nor is that all the truth. How ever it may lie concealed, like a worm in the bud, “the carnal mind is enmity against God.” Illustrating the familiar adage, “out of sight, out of mind,” this feeling may lie dormant so long as our enemy is unseen. But, let him appear, and his presence opens every old wound afresh, and fans the smouldering enmity into flame.

Therefore, the heaven that purifies the saint would but exasperate the hatred of the sinner; and the more God’s holiness and glory were revealed, the more would this enmity be developed — just as the thicker the dews fall on decaying timber, the faster the timber rots; and the more full the sunshine on a noxious plant, the more pestilent its juices grow. It is riot in polar regions, where the day is night, and the showers are snow, and the rivers are moving ice, and slanting sunbeams fall faint and feeble, but in the climes where flowers are fairest, and fruits are sweetest, and fullest sunshine warms the air and lights a cloudless sky, that nature prepares her deadliest poisons. There the snake sounds its ominous rattle, and the venomous cobra lifts her hood. Even so sin, could it strike root in heaven, would grow more rankly, more hating and more hateful than on earth, and man would cast on God an eye of deeper and intenser enmity.

Hence the need of being made, by a change of heart, new creatures in Jesus Christ. Hence, also, the need, which by reason of indwelling and remaining corruption, even God’s people daily feel, of getting, with a title to the heavenly inheritance, a greater meetness for it. In other words, you must be sanctified as well as saved. This work, so necessary, as we have seen, in the very nature of things, has been assigned to the Holy Spirit. It was the office of the Son to purchase heaven for the heirs. And it is the office of the Spirit to prepare the heirs for heaven. Thus renewed, purified, and at length wholly sanctified, we shall carry a holy nature to a holy place, and be presented “faultless, before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy.” But observe, more particularly,

IV. As heaven is the gift of God, our meetness for it is the work of God.

In my text, the apostle calls for thanks unto the Father. For by whatever instruments God executes his work, whether the means he uses to sanctify his people be dead books, or living ministers, be sweet or severe, common or striking providences, the work is not theirs, but his. Owing him, then, no less praise for the Spirit who makes us meet for the inheritance, than for the Son who purchased it, we give thanks to God. The church weaves the three names into one doxology, singing, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.”

Let me illustrate this point by a reference to the case of Lazarus. On the day when he was raised from the dead, Lazarus had two things to thank Christ for. His gratitude was due for what Jesus did without human instrumentality, and also for what he did by it; both for the “Lazarus come forth!” that rent the grave, and for the “Loose him and let him go!” that rent the grave-clothes; not only for life, but for the liberty with out which life had been a doubtful blessing. Doubtful blessing! What enjoyment had there been in life so long as the face-cloth was left on his eyes, and his limbs were bound fast in the cerements of the tomb?

He emerges from the grave’s black mouth a living, yet a startling, hideous object, from whose appalling form the crowd reels back, and terror-stricken sisters might be excused for shrinking. Shrouded like a corpse, smelling of the noisome grave, with the yellow linen muffling eyes and mouth, every door had been shut against him, and the streets of Bethany cleared of flying crowds by such a frightful apparition. Who would have sat beside him at the feast? Who would have worshipped with him in the synagogue? A public terror, shunned by his dearest friends, to him life had been no boon, but a burden, — a heavy load from which he had sought relief, where many a weary one has found it, in the deep oblivion of the tomb. Had Christ done no more than bid Lazarus live, I can fancy his unhappy friend imploring him to resume the gift, saying, Take it back; let me return to the quiet grave; the dead will not shun me; and I shall say to corruption, “Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister.”

In these circumstances, the conduct of our Lord illustrates that grace which, in whomsoever it begins a good work, will carry it on to the day of the Lord Jesus. Pointing to Lazarus — who was, perhaps, endeavouring at that moment, like a newly-awakened sinner, to fling off his shroud, and be free — he addresses the spectators, saying, “Loose him, and let him go!” And thus God deals with renewed souls. Liberty follows life. To his Holy Spirit, and, in a subordinate sense, to providence in its dealings, to ministers in the pulpit, to parents, teachers, and all other human instruments, he says, Undo the bonds of sin, — loose them, and let them go!

Now, to bring the subject home, have we not merely fancied, but have we felt, have we solid scriptural ground for believing, that the same spirit-freeing words have been spoken of us? Have we been freed from habits that were to us as grave-clothes? And, emancipated from passions which once enslaved us, are we now, at least in some measure, doing what David undertook, when he said, “I will run the way of Thy com mandments, when Thou shalt enlarge my heart?” In growing holiness, — in heavenly desires that, flame-like, shoot upward to the skies — in godly resolutions that aim at, if they do not always attain, a lofty mark — “in the lust of the flesh,” and the “pride of life,” nailed to a cross where, if not yet dead, they are dying daily, — in holy sorrows that, like a summer cloud, while they discharge their burden in tears, are spanned by a bow of hope, — in longings that aspire after a purer state and a better land, — in these things have you at once the pledge of heaven and the meetness for it? If so, “this is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.” As delightful as marvellous! What joy, what peace should it impart to the hearts of those who, feeling themselves less than the least of God’s mercies, unworthy of a crust of bread or of a cup of water, hail in these the bright tokens of a blood-bought crown — that coming event which casts its shadow before!

But if, without this meetness, you are indulging the hope that, when you die, you will succeed to the inheritance — ah! how shall the event, the dreadful reality, undeceive you! Ponder these words, I pray you, “Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord,” “AVithout are dogs,” “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Let no man delude himself; or believe that cunning devil, who, — unlike the ugly toad that, seated squat by the ear of Eve, filled her troubled mind with horrid dreams, — hovers over him in the form of a benignant angel, charming away his fears with “peace, peace, when there is no peace.” Believe me, that the only proof that God has chosen us is, that we have chosen him. The distinguishing mark of heirs is some degree of meetness for the heirship. In saints, the spirit is willing even when the flesh is weak; the body lags behind the soul; the affections outrun the feet; and the desires of those who are bound for heaven are often far on the road before themselves. By these signs thou mayest know thyself. Can you stand that touchstone?

Ere autumn has tinted the woodlands, or the corn fields are falling to the reaper’s song, or hoary hill-tops, like grey hairs on an aged head, give warning of winter’s approach, I have seen the swallow’s brood pruning their feathers, and putting their long wings to the proof; and, though they might return to their nests in the window-eaves, or alight again on the house-tops, they darted away in the direction of sunny lands. Thus they showed that they were birds bound for a foreign clime, and that the period of their migration from the scene of their birth was nigh at hand. Grace also has its prognostics. They are infallible as those of nature. So, when the soul, filled with longings to be gone, is often darting away to glory, and, soaring up ward, rises on the wings of faith, till this great world, from her sublime elevation, looks a little thing, God’s people know that they have the earnest of the Spirit. These are the pledges of heaven, — a sure sign that their “redemption draweth nigh.” Such devout feelings afford the most blessed evidence that, with Christ by the helm, and “the wind,” that “bloweth where it listeth,” in our swelling sails, we are drawing nigh to the land that is afar off; even as the reeds, and leaves, and fruits that float upon the briny waves, as the birds of strange and gorgeous plumage that fly round his ship and alight upon its yards, as the sweet-scented odours which the wind wafts out to sea, assure the weary mariner that, ere long, he shall drop his anchor, and end his voyage in the desired haven.