The Object of Hope

The exercise of hope necessarily supposes an object. We could as soon conceive of an effect without a cause, as a hope without an object. It means, as we have shewn, the desire and expectation of something which the mind apprehends at the time to be both desirable and probable. It is the 80ul*8 act in coveting, reaching after, and looking for, something future and something good. Now what ia the object of Christian hope?

First — Viewing it in its widest latitude of meaning, hope may contemplate, and be considered as exercised in regard to, many things even in this world. Any future good yet to be possessed and enjoyed in reference to our religious state and well-being, may be an object of hope. Is some important and difficult duty to be performed at a future time, it is an object of hope to be enabled by divine help to discharge it. Here is something good, something future, and something to be both desired and expected. Or is some affliction seen looming with portentous form and aspect in the distance, then to be sustained under it, and carried through it, is a future good to be desired and expected, and is therefore an object of hope. Or is there the appearance of some spiritual good of any kind seen in futurity, and some ground to expect it, here also is an object of hope. In short, in this view of the matter, hope runs through the whole course of our spiritual as well as our natural life.

It is in this reference the word is generally, if not universally, used in the Old Testament. The future state, though not totally unrevealed under the Mosaic economy, was touched upon with extraordinary reserve, rarely proposed as an object of hope, and as rarely employed as a motive to righteous conduct. In the Jewish Theocracy, which was in fact an earthly government, administered by God as its political sovereign, temporal and national blessings, and immediate divine interpositions for bestowing them, were the objects of the hopes of the Jews as such. Hence, see the language, which will be found in Hosea ii, 5 — 9, and very many other passages of the prophets. It is true God is said to be their hope, but this means that their desires and expectations of future good things rested on his promise and perfections. I do not say that the pious and intelligent Jew had no hope of etemid glory. I believe he had; but I mean that the hope spoken of in the Old Testament generally referred not to this, but to temporal benefits.

Secondly. — Christian hope, in its most general exercise, refers also to those great events which belong to the kingdom of Christ on earth, and which are promised in the Word of God. Such, for instance, as the following:

The conversion and restoration qf the Jews, This is an event set forth in many passages of the Old Testament, and in a few of the New Testament, — Luke xx, 24, Somans xi. This is confidently expected by nearly all professing christians. They may not, and do not, agree as to the mode or the time in which this is to be done, nor whether they will be restored to their own land; but, with few exceptions, they expect their conversion to

OBJECT OF HOP. 55

Christ. Is it not surprising that among these exceptions should be found Martin Luther, whose strong, coarse language on this subject astonishes us? “A Jewish heart,” he says, “is so stock, stone, iron, devil hard, that it can in no wise be moved. They are young devils, damned to hell. To convert these devil’s brats, as some fondly dream, out of the epistle to the Romans, is impossible.” In these revolting words the great Reformer, who filled the world with astonishment at the strength of bis faith in God, shews how the mightiest believer, who has the strength of a giant, may sometimes have the weakness of a child. Had he forgotten the conversion of three thousand Jews under one sermon; or the history of other conversions? The conversion of the Jews impossible! Marvellous unbelief, after the conversion of Saul of Tarsus! O Luther, thou whose faith shook the Vatican to its foundation, hast now that faith shaken by the hard-heartedness of a Jew! If tkou hadst no hope of this, blessed be God, thou standest almost alone in thy stubborn despair.

The conversion of the Jews is an event transcendently interesting in itself, and. must be followed with such important results, not only to their own nation, but to all the nations of the earth, that it ought to occupy a much larger share of attention among professing christians than I fear it does. I deplore it, while I scarcely know how to account for it, that this subject should interest the Nonconformist bodies, both Wesleyan Methodists and Dissenters, much less than it does the pious members of the Church of England. It is not, I think, to their credit that the seed of Abraham, the descendants of apostles, and the nation of whom, ‘’ as concerning the flesh,” our Lord came, should, in the present state of the Jews, receive so little of their sympathy, and so small a share of beneyolent and zealous co-operation for their conversion. And why is this? Because they have so little hope concerning them. It cannot be justly pleaded, in excuse for this indifference, that they are waiting for the visible manifestation and personal reign of Christ, when the nation will be converted by miracle; for among them there are very few who hold what is called the pre-millenarian scheme. And it is a little remarkable that those who do hold this view of prophetic Scripture, and expect a national conversion of the Jews, at, and by, the second advent of our Lord, should be the most zealous worn for their individual gathering; thus indicating how mudi and how laudably their heart is set on this blessed consummation. What a glorious and important event will li be, whenever and however it will take place. How firmly should we believe it, how confidently hope for it, how earnestly pray for it, and how unweariedly labour for it.

Connected with this, as an object of christian hope, is the conversion of the Qeniile natuma. Who that makes any pretension either to the love of God or man, or that has any concern for truth and righteousness, or that has any regard even for the civilization of the human race can survey the moral condition of the world at this moment with any other feelings than those of the apostle, when his spirit was stirred at Athens, “to see the city wholly given to idolatry P” In the object that moved his whole spiritual nature to pity, indignation, and grief, there was much to veil the moral deformity of the scene. Philosophy threw over it the covering of its schools, its sages, and its systems. Architecture and sculpture adorned it with their most exquisite productions. Histoij enriched it with the most exciting assodatioDa;.

OBJECT OP HOPl. 67

Eloquence and oratory emblazoned it with their magipfiascinations; and yet, with all this, it was idoUdry; and therefore none of these things could either change or conceal its nature, or reconcile Paul’s mind to its abominations. What then should be our feelings now jm looking over six hundred millions of idolators, most (^ them sunk in a superstition which, while it insults heaven with its wickedness, disfigures, defiles, and degrades the earth with its barbaric shapes of vulgar and horrid deformity. The idolatry of our day has everything to disgust our taste, as well as to shock our piety.

Here then is the object of christian compassion, hea-> thendom in its present condition; and here the object of christian hope, heathendom in its future renewed and christian state. How infinitely desirable is the conversion of all these nations to Christ; «how desirable for this wilderness, where every poisonous weed grows, and every ravenous beast roams, to rejoice and Uossom as the rose; for this desert to be converted into the garden of the Lord; for all these nations to be restored to Christ, to be made subject to his sceptre, and obedient to his laws. How is it we do not more intensely long for this glorious change P How is it we can be so contented to go on as we now do? With an unconverted world in our eye, and a converted one in our hope, it would seem as if we should deem all the efforts of christian zeal now made by our various societies, as no better than lukewarmness, as only a mere apology for the true missionary spirit.

And as this is an object of desire, so is it also of expectation.. We are not left to only one half of hope, to dedre a consummation which we have no reason to anticipate. We have the revealed purpose, the declared intention, the fixedp unalterable, and uncontrollable resolution of God, to change the condition of the whole earth: these nations are to be converted to Christ. To quote texts in proof of this would be to fill pages with them. David tells us ‘’ That all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the people shall worship before him,” Psalm xxii, 27. Isaiah says, ‘’The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,” chaj). xi, 6. Jeremiah assures us that the time shall come when “They shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know ye the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least even unto the greatest,” chap, xxxi, 24, Heb. viii, 11. Ezekiel informs us that the ‘living waters shall come forth from the temple, and flow through the earth, and that every thing shall live where the river comes,” chap, xlvii. Daniel tells us that ‘’ the stone cut out of the mountain shall fill the whole earth,” chap, ii, 35. Haggai says that God ‘’ will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come,” chap, ii, 7. Zechariah speaks of ‘’living waters going out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. And Jehovah shall be king over all the earth; and in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one,” chap, xiv, 8, 9. And Malachi, when about to close the book of Old Testament prophecy, thus writes, ‘’ From the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, says Jehovah, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place, incense and a pure offering shall be offered to my name: for my name shall be great among the heathen,” chap, i, 11. Nor is the New Testiiment silent on the subject. How explicit is the language of the Apostle Paul in Rom. xi,

OBJECT OP HOPE. 59

where he speaks of the conversion both of the Jews and of the Gentiles. In that delightful chapter, his object is to prove that though at that time the nation of the Jews, as. such, was cast off, yet that their rejection was neither total nor final; for there was an election of grace then of all who believed in Christ, and were received into the church, and that the time would come when the nation as such would be restored and grafted into the true olive tree. “Blindness in part,” he says, “has happened unto Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” So that we gather from these words, that there is still to be a conversion of the Grentilcs, compared with which all that has yet taken place, shall be only as a small measure of ingathering, not the fulness, for this fulness is not to come till the Jews are to be converted. Some doubt may exist as to which of these events will take precedence of the other. I am inclined to think that thrae will be a considerable ingathering of the Gentiles prior to the general conversion of the Jews; that then, when the Gentile world has sunk into a lukewarm and comparatively dead state, the Jews will be converted, and their conversion will then act upon the Gentile world with such a power as to be as life from the dead. Then will come the fulness of the heathen into the church of Christ. Let the redeemed church rise up then in the eager attitude of joyous anticipation. Let her shake off her remaining sloth. When the hand of God has rent by prophecy the veil of futurity, and actually shows us the earth reposing in millennial peace, and shining with millennial splendour, under the sceptre of Christ, when the song of Jubilee poured forth by a regenerated world, is already heard by the ear of faith, shall hope be low and languid P

But another part of the object of christian hope, as regards the earthly prospects of the church, is the downfeUl and utter subverdan of Mahommedaniwi, The three great works of the devil are Idolatry, Mahommedanism, and Popery; and it is probable that their destruction will be contemporaneous. The rise, progress, and wide extension of the Mahommedan power have been a matter of perplexity to many minds, as neutralising the argument for the divine authority of Christianity, arising from its great diffusion. The success of the Arabian impostor, however, is easily accounted for, by the adaptation of the doctrines, precepts, and institutions of his religion, to the prejudices and inclinations of the tribes among whom they were first promulgated; by the ignorance, semi-barbarism, and minute division of these Arabian hordes; and above all, by the resistless force of his conquering arms. The Koran or death was his watchword. *’ But if we carefully attend to the nature of the religion of Christ, the means by which it was propagated, and the opposition it had to encounter, we must be convinced that its speedy and extensive reception, are facts which can be only satisfactorily accounted for on the supposition that this religion is true, and has been in all ages the peculiar object of the favourable superintendence of the Governor of the world. But its principles and precepts, its doctrines and duties, are opposed to the strongest prejudices and vrishes of the depraved understanding and heart. Its doctrines are equally removed from the absurdities of the popular faith, and the refinements of the schools of philosophy, and its injunctions are at open variance with the strongest passions of fallen human nature. Mahommedanism was propagated by the

OBJICT OF HOPBr 61

sword, Christianity only by persuasion.”* How beautiful is this contrast drawn by Bishop Sherlock :« —

*^(to to your natural religion; lay befdre her Mohammed and his disciples arrayed in armour atid in blood, riding in triumph over the spoils of thousands and tens of thousands who fell by his victorious sword; show h the cities which he set in flames, the countries which he ravaged and destroyed, and the miserable distress of all the inhabitants of the earth. When she has viewed him in this scene, carry her into his retirements; show her the prophet’s chamber, his concubines and wives; let her see his adultery, and hear him allege revelation and his divine commission to justify his lust and his oppression. When she is tired with this prospect, then show her the blessed Jesus, humble and meek, doing good to all the sons of men, patiently instructing both the ignorant and the perverse. Let her see him in his most retired privacies; let her follow him to the mount, and hear his devotions and supplications to God. Carry her to his table to view his poor fare and hear his heavenly discourse. Let her see him injured, but not provoked; let her attend him to the tribunal, and consider the patience with which he endured the scoffs and reproaches of his enemies. Lead her to his cross; and let her view him in the agony of death, and hear his last prayer for his persecutors; ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

‘* When natural religion has viewed both, ask which is the prophet of God? But her answer we have already heard; when she saw part of this scene through the eyes of the centurion who attended at the cross; by him she spake and said, * Truly this man was the Son of God.’”

* The Three Gatherings: a preetovf little Mianonarj work, by Dr. John Brown, of Bdinbnh.

9^ OBJBCT OF HOPE.

‘The Mahommedan power, symbolised in the book of the Apocalypse by the “false Prophet,” is, with the Papal Beast, to be cast into the lake that bumeth with brimstone and fire. And, to allude to its chosen emblem, its crescent is growing more and more pale, and will one day be lost amidst the splendour of the Sun of Righteousness. Signs of decay in the strength of Islamism are exhibited in various parts of the earth, and especially in Turkey, its central power. The late concessions of the Sultan in favour of liberty of conscience, even to Mussulmans if they embrace Christianity, however short they may fall of what some imagine to be the state of the law, or however they may be resisted by the prejudices of his subjects, are a considerable step towards the overthrow of that proud system which, for nearly twelve centuries, have thrown its baleful shadow over so large a portion of the world. The existence in Turkey of unrestricted toleration to the operations of christian zeal, which are now carried on by the American missionaries, for the conversion of the members of the Greek and Armenian churches, must pave the way for the reception of the gospel by the Turks; and it is an undoubted fact, that hundreds of Turks are now purchasing a copy of the Scriptures. British connection with Turkey should by all legitimate means be maintained, if not from political motives, for christian ones. France and Austria would give all their countenance and support to Popery, and Bussia to what is as bad, to the superstition of the Greek Church. Protestantism and evangelical religion look to England, under God, for their protection, if not for their existence in Turkey. Those devoted men Arom the United States are now rekindling the long-extinguished lamps of the seven golden candlesticks in Asia Minor,

• ■

and He who in days of yore walked amidst them, is again commencing his stately goings in that region of darkness and desolation.* Let christian hope, then, anticipate the subversion of Mahommedanism.

As Protestants, aware of the dreadful nature of Fopery we place the destruction of this awful and terrible system among the objects of our fervent desire and assured expectation. We regard Popery as the master-piece of Satanic craft and malice: his richest trophy, and his proudest triumph. The Pope is more his Vicar, than that of Christ, upon earth, and the Yatician his chosen seat of dominion among men. Idolatry was a great invention; Mahommedanism was a mighty stretch of diabolical qraft. But Popery transcends both. The other two were devices without the pale of revealed religion; this is within it. They opposed Christianity; this corrupts it. They try to destroy it; this goes far to make it destroy itself. The permission of its existence is the deepest mystery of God’s government, next to the introduction of moral evil into the universe. And in the history of the human race, its prevalence over so large a portion of the civilized world, and in the brightest eras of science, learning, and liberty, is one of the most puzzling phenomena of roan’s intellectual nature. There is no accounting for this prevalence of a system, which shocks the reason by the monstrosity of its doctrines; opposes revelation by its polity and ceremonies; enslaves the conscience by its sacerdotal assumptions; penetrates into the secrets of courts, cabinets, and families, by its all searching confessional; and conspire against the

* Few of the InstitationB set up by the spirit of Christian zeal are more sntereBting or more deBerring of support, than the “Turkish Missions Aid Society,” which has been formed to support the efforts of the American JfiMJonariet in Turkey.

liberties of mankind by its civil and eccle8ia8tica tyranny — but upon the principle laid down by the apostle, where he says that” God shall nd upon them a strong delusion to believe a lie.’’

Its present aspect, especially as compared with its condition little more than half a century ago, may beget, in some minds, a doubt as to its ultimate downfall. We have been told of the various risings up of the human mind in revolt against the tyranny of the Papacy, and how they have been successively vanquished or withstood, till its destruction is really become a hopeless object. Be it so, with those who look only to human means, and ‘* who err, not knowing the Scriptures.” Let timid hearts and unbelieving minds quail. Its utter downfall is an’ object of assured christian hope. Not only is its destruction desired, intensely desired, but confidently expected. The book of the Hevelation, with whatever’ obscurity it may speak of the details of times and seasons, publishes the great fact, reveals the grand catastrophe in outline, of the complete and final overthrow of the Antichristian powers. Faith sees the mighty angel with the mill-stone in his hand, while hope stands waiting exultingly, yet patiently, to see him dash it in the flood, and to hear him say, ‘* Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.” — chap, xviii. 21.

Here, then, is the object of the christian’s hope, so far as earth and time are concerned — a redeemed, regenerated, holy, happy world. It is for this he longs, and prays, and labours: and this he confidently expects, because God has promised it: here is the foundation, and justification, and encouragement, of all his efforts for the conversion of the nations to Christ. All our Mis* sionaiy Institutions are based upon this hope. This is the spring of all our energies, and the stimulus of our labours. This sustains us under sacrifices and self-denial, discouragement and defeat, delay and disappointment. We have God’s command as our warrant; God’s promise for our support; God’s glory for our end; and God’s approbation for our reward. Amidst the restless tides, the perpetual vicissitudes, and the mighty revolutions of human affairs, we go on with our missionary enterprise, assured we shall not labour in vain. It is a work of faith, a labour of love, and therefore we carry it on with the patience of hope.

Thirdly, — But, after all that has been said on these objects, the christian hope, that which is so frequently «poken of by the apostles in their writings, has respect to something ulterior, to something above our earth, and beyond the range of time. It penetrates the veil that conceals the unseen world, and lays hold of the invisible realities of eternity. Hope is one great part of the life of true religion; and religion, while it imposes many obligations, and confers many blessings upon earth, points heavenwards. It is a messenger from Paradise come to fetch us there, and which bestows many favours upon us by the way.

I. — In this relation the first object of christian hope is an entrance into heaven immediately after death, I am aware that this is neither the sole nor the highest object of christian desire and expectation; and that of course, the felicity of the christian in his disembodied state, is not complete; and also that less is said about his death and entrance into glory, than about the day of Christ’s second coming, and the scenes of that glorious advent. Yet iometkin is said abput it, and therefore something

6S OBJSCT OF HOPS.

should be thought about it. Be it so, tfaat our felieity is not complete till the resurrection morning, and that the revelation of Christ is the event to which the sMied writers direct our attention; yet, is it nothing to throw off the burden of the flesh? Nothing to have done with sin and sorrow, care and fear, labour and weariness disease and death? Nothing to have passed through the dark valley, and to arrive safely in the kingdom of light and glory? If the jvo^-milleiiarians think too little of. Christ’s second coming as an object of hope, the premiUenarians think too little of death as a time of the believer’s emancipation. The apostle* s mind, at any late, appears to have been much taken up with the idea of his going to heaven at his death, when he said, “For me to die is gain: I have a desire to depart and be with Christ We are confident, I say, and willing to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord.” Our Lord, who attached great importance to Uiis word, directed the atteo* tion of his people to it, where he says, “Be thou faithful unto deoithy and I will give thee a crown of life.” So did fais beloved apostle in that precious declaration, “I heard a voice saying unto me. Write, Blessed are the dead whioh die in the Lord.” — Bev. xiv. 13.

That the believer continues a conscious existence after death till the resurrection, and enters upon his eternal repose immediately after dissolution, is evident ftom the language of the apostle just quoted. For would not every one, unbiassed by system, conclude from Us language that he hoped to be with Christ immediately on his departure, and that, in fact, he desired his departure purposely to be with him? Had h not expected this, would he not rather have desired to remain? for surely he most have thought it better to live aQ4

OBJECT OF HOr«« 67 labour for Christ, than lie iaim unconscious state in the grave. Nay, if this were not the case, would not his decease be a going away from that presence of Christ which he enjoyed upon earth? How could he be absent m the body at all, if the soul were to sleep with it till the resurrection P Nothing can be dearer or more certain than that the apostle thought he should at his death go to heaven. And the materialist must, in order to get rid of this fact, be drawn on to deny that he spoke by inspiration, and was labouring under mistake when he penned these words. The existence of separate spirits was intimated in several passages of even the Old Testament. ‘^ Then shall the dust return to the earth, and the spirit to Grod who gave it.” — Eccles. xii, 1. “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.” ‘’ My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” — Psalm lxxiii, 24 — 26. “The righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace, they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.” — Isaiah lvii, 2. Our Lord has settled this point not only in his promise to the penitent thief, when he said ‘* This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,” but when he said to the Jews, ‘’ But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the Grod of the dead, but of the living.” — Matt, xxii, 31, 32. We are also told that the martyr Stephen departed saying, “Xiord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Other passages might be quoted in proof of this doctrine: — Romans viii, 10, 11; Matt. X, 28; Luke xvi, 22, 28; 2 Cor. v, 1 — 4; 2 Cor. xii, 2, 3; 1 Thes. v, 10; 1 Peter iii, 18 — 20; and 2 Peter i, 13, 14. p 2

Neither our reason, nor our experience, nor on? observation, can enable us to comprehend, or even con* jecture, how our disembodied spirits will exist and act separated from their earthly companion. Whether, indeed, they are pure spirit at all, we can hardly say, some being of opinion that God only is this, and thai even angels have some refined material dwelling; and if our souls are pure spirit, we cannot conceive what relation they have to space, and how they communicate with each other. These, and many other questions, suck as the place of their residence, their occupations, and the means of inter-communion, which an inquisitive curiosity and a fruitless speculation might ask, and which no divinity or philosophy could answer, may sometimes engage and perplex the thoughts of believers. Theories have been hazardously launched by men of inquisitive and speculative minds upon the place and condition of disembodied spirits. I pass by the monstrous and unscriptural dogma of the Popish Purgatory, and advert only to those notions which have been held by Protestant writers. Bishop Horsley, a man of vast intellect, of pro* found research, and in many points, of sound theology yet fanciful both as a critic and a theorist, has a sermcm on this subject founded on 1 Pet. iii. 18, 20, “Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in pri« son, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” On this passage, and one or two more, the Romanists real their doctrine of Purgatory, with which it has nothing in the world to do; for the preaching of Christ to the spirits in prison is here limited to the antedi* luvians, whereas the souls alleged to be in Purgatory are those of the human race generally. Moreover, no Eomanist I suppose, asserts that Christ now goes to preach to the souls in Purgatory. The meaning of the passage is this: the spirits in prison are the souls of the wicked antediluvians, to whom Christ by the ministry of Noah preached, while the ark wa being built.

Bishop Horsley considers the spirits in prison to mean the souls of good men in general, who are in some place of safe keeping, not viewed as a penal state, but only as in preservation until the judgment day, when they will be brought to the full participation of heaven, by the resurrection of the body, and the re-union of the soul with it. To these in their separate state, their place of seclusion from the external world, their invisible mansion, their place of unfinished happiness, consisting in rest, security, and hope, more than of enjoyment, the spirit of Christ went as soon as he expired on the cross, and preached the glad tidings that he had offered the sacrifice of their redemption, and was about to appear before the Father as their intercessor; a preaching fit to be adddressed to departed souls; and the antediluvians are mentioned to show that there were some even of them that were in this prison, and heard this preaching of Christ.

The object of the bishop, besides giving his view of the state of departed souls, is to explain and justify that most doubtful article of what is called the apostle’s creed, which says, “He descended into hell.” Will it be believed that even the venerable Calvin** as the Bishop calls him, hazarded the extravagant assertion that our blessed Lord actually went down into the place of torment, and there sustained the pains of a reprobate soul in punishment? The Bishop jiws what is very true, that the word “hell” both in the

70 OBJECT OF fiOPX.

Old Testament and in the New, generally means “the nnseeil world,” the world of spirits, including the spirits both of the good and bad. Now, to that part of the invisiUe state which contains the spirits of the good, our Lord went at his death; and this, he says, is the meaning of the creed ‘* He descended into hell,” and at that titte preached to the souls in prison. But this is a gratuitous assumption, no where else asserted in Scripture, and not proved by the passage itself on which it is founded. The article in the creed is, as I have said, most unhappily expressed, and leads the unlearned to suppose that Christ actually did descend to the place of lost souls. The simple meaning of the passage already given is, in my view, the true one — the spirits of the wicked antediluvians, then when the apostle wrote, were in prison, to whom in the days of their flesh Christ preached by the ministry of Noah. The Bishop’s view of the state of departed souls being in some limbo, as the casuits called it, but not in heaven, derives no support from this passage, nor «iy other. They are at death immediately in heaven with the Lord.

The better way is not to allow these difficulties to occupy our thoughts at all; to put them aside, and to be satisfied, as Paul appears to have been, with this one idea, that “we shall be ever with the Lord.” We need not ask how we shall see him without bodily eyes, or hear him without the organs of sound. Do we not sometimes realise his presence now P Are there not seasons when we can no more doubt that we are in communion with him than we can doubt our own consciousness? Yet we see him not, hear him not, touch him not. It is a purely mental exercise; it is the thinking power alone that is engaged. No bodily organ is employed, no sensation is transmitted

OBJ£CT OF H0P1« 71

to the tool along any nenre to the brain* It is a mental presence, and a mental bliss. If the soul is not ont of the body, which of coarse it is not, it is aeting without the bodily senses, and though an unhealthy state of the brain would prevent these exerdaes of thought, yet this does not prove that the soul is so dependent upon the brain f<»r its operations, that it cannot act without it. Still I admit that though perfectly happy, as far as it can be in a disembodied state, it is not till the resurrection in a petfeet state of its full and final bliss.

But the supreme object of Christian desire and expec* tation is that which the apostle has set forth in his epistle to Titus, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ,” chap. ii. 13» Before we come to the consideration of my design in bringing forward this passage, I will give a brief exposition of its meaning, so far as it contains a description of the person of Christ. Critics of the highest authority in Greek literature, read it as I have rendered it. Our version makes a distinction between the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, representing them as two persons, and both appearing together at the last day. The proposed emendation speak a but of one, and that one Christ. “In this passage,” says Dr. Smith, “The coalescence of the two nouns, ‘God and Saviour’ as the attribution of the one person, ‘Jesus Christ’ is maintained upon the rules of the Greek idiom. We are obliged to construe it so, unless we would violate the determinate use of the language, the constant practice of the sacred writers, and the evidence arising from the uniform testimony of the Christian fathers, to whom the language of the. New Testament was vemaeular.” ‘* The Latin writers” says Dr. Wordsworth

“aa many as convey their sense of the Iheamng of St. Paul’s words, strictly agree, with two poor and doubtful exceptions, with the uniform voice of the Greek interpreters; so that it is the more to be regretted and wondered at, that our English translators should have deprived us of that interpretation which was the only one ever preached in all the ancient churches.” In support of this view of the meaning of the passage, it may be alleged that a visible glorious appearing, — for if a glorious appearance, it must be a visible one, — is in the current language of the New Testament applied to Christ, and not to the Father, or to the Godhead. No one accustomed to Paul’s views and mode of writing, can well doubt that when he used this language he had his eye throughout on the Son of God, and that he expected no other manifesta« tion, even of the great God, than what would be made in and through him. And we may fairly argue that this is the view which most ordinary readers would take, and firom which they would conclude that Jesus Christ is truly and properly divine. Nor is it conceivable, that if Jesus Christ were only a mere man, a prophet, a teacher, though the chief of all men, and the greatest of all prophets, that his appearance would be thus represented as the supreme and ultimate object of hope to the whole christian church through all the ages of its entire earthly history*

Christ, then, is to appear. He is now the object of belief: He is hereafter to be the object of vision. We are now blessed in believing on him: we shall hereafter be more blessed in seeing him. We are not to imagine that this contradicts his language to Thomas, when he rebuked him for his incredulity in the following language, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have be« lieved.” — John xx. 29. Our Lord is not here comparing believing with seeing, so much as speaking of the different degrees of faith. Happy, or worthy of commendation, are they who have not seen, and yet have, upon credible evidence, believed. There were some of the apostles, or other persons perhaps, who, calling to recol* lection Christ’s own predictions, had, upon the report of others, believed that he was risen from the dead; while Thomas demanded the evidence of his senses. Their faith was much stronger than his, and more en-* titled to commendation. From hence it seems probable that there might have been somewhat of boasting on the part of Thomas, in his speech on the evening of the resurrection, as if he were a man of too strong an understanding to be easily imposed upon. He would not believe that his Master was risen on such trivial evidence as the reports of the women: nothing would satisfy him but ocular demonstration. And while our Lord praised those among the disciples who had believed credible report — full well knowing that through all future ages faith must be grounded on the evidence of authentic testimony, and not on that of the senses- — he intended to bestow his commendation on all who should from that time believe on him through the inspired report of his witnesses. His language, therefore, is not a comparison between the blessedness of believing and seeing, as if there were more happiness in the former than in the latter; for then the least believer on earth would be more blessed, than the highest apostle in heaven. It is simply an eulogium on all those, who, till the coming of Christ, instead of demanding the evidence of sense, or tnore proof than God has given us of the mission of his Son, should, with meekness, humility, and candour, yield to that which he has given us. It was for our encouragement these gracious words were spoken. We hare not seen him, but we have abundant evidence that he is what he said he was, the Son of God; that he did what it is said he did, died for our offences, and rose again far our justification: and therefore in him whom we have not seen we believe; and believing him, we love him, and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of gloiy.

Oh, no: we cannot put believing above seeing. There is joy and peace in believing, just as there is joy in the well-authenticated report that some dear friend or relative, who is pursuing our interests abroad, is alive and well, remembers us, and will soon return to us. Every letter that brings glad tidings of his love, and activity, and purpose of coming back, gives us delight. Believing is in this case a happy state of mind; but what is this to the bliss of seeing him, of beholding him in full pros perity and health, of feeling ourselves in his arms, hearing his voice, and beholding his smiles. Those only can conceive of such raptures who have experienced them. Yes, and so it will be in regard to Christ. We do rejoice in faith. To believe what is testified of Christ must be followed with unutterable joy, when that faith is intelligent and strong. We do not wonder the apostle should say, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say, rejoice.” But what is this to the vision of the Saviour? Old Jacob rejoiced in the report which his sons brought him of Joseph’s state and splendour in Egypt; but what was this compared with the almost overpowering rapture of seeing his glory, and feeling his arms clasping him to his bosom? What deep and solemn emotions are produced by the emblems of Christ’s broken body in the supper of the Lord. How highly, susceptibto minds which are much under the power of imagination profess to be moed by the masterpieces of painting. Yet these, with the exception of Eaphael’s picture of the Transfiguration, and a few others setting forth the Last Judgment, generally relate to the scenes of his humiliation. But what artist can ever attempt to rise to the glorious appearance of our great Grod and Saviour Jesus Christ? It were almost blasphemy to attempt it; and though it may seem like an expression of Vandalism to say it, yet I am sometimes inclined to wish that -the arts had left the person and work of Christ without their circle of objects, as too sacred or too grand for pictorial representation. The sculptor may pourtray in marble, and the painter on canvass, the humanity of Christ, but they cannot exhibit to the senses the divinity with which it is mysteriously united; they may delineate the outward cross on which that humanity was nailed, but they cannot eet forth the inward cross of the soul of the divine sufferer; they may give vivid expression to the pason of grief and the virtue of patience which the countenance exhibits, but not the divine power by which they are Bustained; they may excite our sympathies, but by all their genius, can do nothing to strengthen our faith; so that all their images and their pictures, however they may gratify our taste, do very little to increase our knowledge, and invigorate our hope. It is the inspired detail of all this, as recorded by the sacred writers, that alone can answer these ends.

We have only to believe, and hope, and wait, and the divine reality of a revealed Saviour shall be exhibited to the senses of the body of the resurrection. In what magnificence of language, in what splendour of imagery, in what sublimity oi thought, have the sacred writers set forth this stupendous event of the second advent of Christ. I will here collate, and hope the reader will turn to them, a few of the passages in which this is brought before us. Our Lord himself begins the description: — Mat. xxv, 31; the apostles follow, — 1 Cor. XV; 1 Thes. iv, 13 — 18; Col. iii, 4; 2Thes. i, 7 — 10, ii,8; 2 Peter iii, JO — 13; 1 John iii, 2; Rev. 1, 7, XX, xxi, xxii.

I enter not on the controverted subject of his pre-millennial or post-millennial cx)ming. In whatever sense it is understood, it is the supreme object of the christian hope, as set forth in the New Testament. Alone and apart from all the events that stand connected with it, no christian mind can be insensible to its profound and absorbing interest. Were it possible to call from the grave any of the great geniuses that have adorned, blessed, and elevated our common nature, what intense interest would they excite. Would not scholars travel to the ends of the earth to see Homer or Virgil; philosophers to see Plato, Socrates, Bacon, or Aristotle; poets to see Shakspeare, Milton, or Dante; mathematicians to see Euclid, Newton, or Pascal? And, coming from the world to the church, who that could command the means would not cross oceans and continents to see Abraham or Moses, Daniel or Isaiah, Paul or John, Luther or Cranmer? But what are any of these but stars of various magnitudes to the sun? Let any one ponder the expression — the gloeious appeaeance op oub GREAT God and Savioub! What a sublimity is in the idea. The manifestation of the Creator of the Universe; the manifestation of the Redeemer of a lost world; the manifestation of Him who unites in his one person the uncreated glories of the Godhead, and all the milder beauties of the perfect man. In that one ineffable manifestation, to have the controveiiy of all ages about the person of Christ settled beybnd the possibility of doubt or dispute; to have it made plain to every mind that he is indeed the great God as well as our Saviour; to see thus before us in full robed majesty, for the confusion of his enemies, and the consolation of his friends, the God-man.

Such is the ultimate hope of the believer, and well might the apostle call it the blessed hope; an adjective that expresses, and but feebly expresses, for what can fully express, all the happiness it even now imparts to those who indulge it; much less that which will be enjoyed when this desired and expected good will realise it, and the soul shall enjoy the full fruition of it.*

In connexion with the appearance of Christ, will be the resurrection of the dead. This also the pre-millenarians and the post-millenarians hold in common, though they differ as to the place of residence and other circum* stances of the saints immediately after their resurrection.

* I ftfam remark that I enter not upon the controversy about the Tisible personal reign on earth of our Lord Jesus Christ, during what is called the millennium. I am not, I confess, a belierer in that opinion. And yet, when I consider how many of the most spiritual of God’s redeemed faxoily, and of the most devout and earnest students of the Scriptures, have embraced it, and add to this the consolation it gives to their hearts, and the life it imparts to their hopes, I am almost led to doubt whether I am not in error in rejecting this doctrine. But the conflicting hypotheses of t)iose who have given themselves to the study of unAilflUed and symbolical prophecies, the conftitation which their most positive expository statements of the meaning of prophetic scripture have received, together with the unfounded hopes which many entertain of an hourly expectation of the appearance spoken of by the apostle, have led me to conclude that the views of the millennarians have not the solid foundation which they seem to imagine. However, with them I most entirely concur in the opinion, that the second advent of Christ is the great object of christian hope, fbont which far more is said in the 19’ew Testament thap about th9 believer’s •ntnioe at death into he»?e%

It is probable that christians dwell too little on this grand article of their belief, and are taken up too exdusively with the soul and its heavenly bliss. It is conceded that the body is an inferior part of our complex nature. But it u a part, and as truly the workmanship of God as the soul. It is the most exquisite material organism in the universe, and an essential part of our manhood. Man is not man without it. Christ died to redeem the body as well as the soul, and as the purchase of his blood, it has, on that account, a great value. It was formed to be a habitation, yea, a temple of the soul, and though smitten into ruin and desolation by death, it is to be rebuilt in a more glorious form at the resurrection. “Christ,” says the apostle, “is Lord both of the dead and the living,” He has established his throne upon the sepulchre, and stretched his sceptre over the domain of the King of Terrors, who is his vassal prince. He ovnis, watches, and guards the sleeping dust of his saints. Hence we may with comfort yield up in death not only our spirits, but our poor bodies, into his hands, and say with our poet, —

God, my Bedeemer, lives.

And often from the skies.
Looks down and watches all my dust,

TiU he shall bid it rise.

And with equal comfort may we yield up the bodies of our friends to his keeping till the morhing of the resurrection. Does not this strip the grave of part of its terrors, and invest the tomb with a kind of sanctity? It is not a prison where the body is incarcerated, but a chamber, where it sleeps under the guardian care of its Bedeemer. The apostle has said iore about the body as

a separate part of our nature than ev about the soul. Who can read that wondrous chapter in the epistle to the Corinthians without astonishment and delight? a chapter which proves its own inspiration. Whence, but m heaven, had this Jew such ideas, so far beyond all that Cioero ever knew, or Plato ever taught? or ever Moses or Isaiah revealed P

With the heathen philosophers the resurrection of the body was thought to be not only impossible, but undesirable even if it were possible. They had a notion that matter as distinguished from spirit was essentially and ineurably evil, and that, therefore, a resurrection would be a curse and not a blessing. Hence we find that when Paul preached this doctrine at Athens, the philosophers made him, on this account, the object of their ridicule. From his address to the Corinthian Churdi we learn that some of its members had drank into this error, and considered that the resurrection signified not a material quickening of the dead body, but a spiritual quickening of a dead soul. Others of the first Christians held the same notion, as is evident from what he says of Hyme* ^8eus and Philetus. This opinion is still professed, I believe, by the followers of Emanuel Swedenborg. To confute this notion, or at any rate the gieral opinion that there is no resurrection of the dead, is the de sign of the elaborate and conclusive argumentation in the chapter to which I have just alluded: an argument which the apostle founded on the resurrection of Christ — HE lived, died, and rose again, not as a private, but public person, the representative of his people; so that if e rose, they will also rise. Their resurrection is involved in his. Hence he commences liie chapter with, not only an assertion of Christ’s resurrection, but a summary of the evidence of it.

How is it then that Christians do not more frequently dwell on this grand and delightful truth? One reason perhaps is its mysterious nature, and most mysterious it is: how a body, which at death, is dissolved into all its simpk elements, and which elements may be taken up to form grass, flowers, trees, fruits, the bodies of animals, yea, of other meu, can be raised again, so as to be in any sense the same body, transcends all human conception; and yet it must be in some sense the same body, or its re-existence would be a creation, and not a resurrection. Yet it cannot be the same body, as regards its numerical particles, for the body is ever in a state of change, and the body we now possess is not, as to the numerical particles of which it is composed, the same as it was seven years ago; yet, as to identity, it is still the same body. What then will constitute its identity? No philosophy, no divinity can penetrate this mystery.

The apostle, in answer to the cavil, ‘* With what body do they come r” answers analogically by a reference to the grain sown, which dies before it rises into the blade and the ear. But this was not so much intended to explain the mystery, as to answer an objection. The cavil was» “How can a dead body become a living one?” The thing seems an impossibility; “Look, says he, “at the grain of com cast into the earth, is there not death before life there P” If you had never known or heard of the process of germination and vegetation, and had never seen the growth of a plant, would you not, when you saw the grain cast into the earth, when you saw it decay and turn to dust, deem it altogether improbable that it would in any form ever rise out of the ground P Yet, says the apostle, this does take place, and this should remove all objections against the idea of the resurrection of a dead body.

Th6te is an analogy, an imperfect one, it is admitted, and the main objection in one case would also be equally against the acknowledged and indisputable fact in the other. The apostle does not draw a parallel between the two cases, for they are not parallel. The whole of the grain does not die, there is a germ, which if the grain were deposited at a certain depth below the suiface, and protected from the quickening influences of the soil and the elements, would live for thousands of yeare; but we know of no such living, indestructible germ in the human body which is preserved from the power of the last enemy. And then this resurrection of the grain is by slow degrees of vegetation, whereas the body is raised at once perfect and glorious. The argument is altogether of a popular character, and must not be pressed too far. The objection was, that the body died and returned to dust and could not rise again: says Paul, in feply, You may make the same objection to the grain that is sown, that dies also. The main body of the kernel dies. In itself there is no prospect that it will spring up. The analogy may be carried a little farther than this, and be intended also to set forth, as far as such an illustration can go, the greatness and beauty of the change that will take place in the body by the resurrection. Look at the blade of wheat; see it in all the elegance of its form; the cylinder and joints of its stem; the freshness of its verdure; the gracefulness of its blade; the richness of the ear and crown of its berries, and compare all this with the grain from which it sprang, when in a state of decay in thd earth, and then see a faint emblem of the change to be made in our poor frail bodies by the resurrection.* Now consider what the apostle has said on this sub-

* Bee Bunies.

82 jObject of hope,

ject: — “It M 90vm in corruption** even while alive it is subject to painful, loathsome, and wasting disease; and when dead it falls under the process of putrefaction, and sinks into a state of dissolution and dust — but it is raised unsusceptible of pain, disease, decay, and disor* ganization. “It is sown in dishonour” — corruption itself is dishonour 1 it requires covering and conceal* ment before it descends to the grave, to hide its deformities and defilements, and when dead, it is hurried off to the grave, as too offensive for the fondest eye to look upon; but it shall be “raised in glory** for the apostle tells us, “our citizenship is in heaven, from whence we look for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body (the body of our humiliation,) by the mighty power, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.” — Phil. iii, 21. Can the idea of glory itself be carried higher than to be like Christ? See him transfigured on Mount Tabor, when his face shone as the sun, and his raiment glittered with a purity whiter than the snow, and he was one blaze of splendour. We are to be raised like that. ‘^ It is sown in weakness** In life it is feeble, soon weary, needing sleep, food, medicine, to keep it in working condition at all, often unfit for its occupation, and pressed down first by infirmity and then by age, and at last worn out, unable to resist the approach of death, and dropping into the grave, — but it is “raised in power * it shall be lifted above the frailties of humanity, no longer be a clog, but wings, to the soul, needing no more sleep, or food, or renovating treatment, but nerved with the vigour of immortal youth, and capable of the service of God without weariness or languor.” It is sown a natural** or “animal body** It now possesses a lower physical life like the brute animals, has animal instincts, passions, propensities, and appetites, and thus symbolises with the inferior creatures; it is supported in the same manner, and is, like them, subject to the law of mortality, — but it is ‘* raised a spiriiual Miy;’ from which the lower animal life will be extruded, and a new kind of physical existence introduced. It will still be a material body, but not an imimal one. Its organic structure will be entirely changed. Some of its senses will probably be extinguished, some of its purest ones retained, such as sight and hearing, though how this can be without its present material organisation is now a mystery; other senses, of which we can now have no more conception than the blind has of colours, or the deaf of sounds, will be added. In shorty ‘this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality.” Oh, the glorious sublimity, the mysterious magnificence, the rapturous incomprehensibility of these two words, as applied to the body, — INCOREUPTIBILITY and immoetality 1 We can enter but a little way into the poet’s words, —

Hy flesh shall slumber in the ground,
Till the last trumpet’s dreacual soond;

Then burst the chains with sweet surprise,
And in my Saviour’s image rise.

It is to this the apostle’s lofty language applies, where be says, “For we know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” — 2 Cor. v, 1-4. What an expression, “mortality swalloioed up of life /” Our little, feeble, short-lived self, body and soul, absorbed in, an ocean of life eternal.

G 2

Nor ought we to consider omr own resonrection apart from the resurrection of the whole redeemed family as the exclusive object of hope» At the coming of Christ the reign of the King of Terrors will come to an end; the iron sceptre which he has swayed for ao many centuries shall drop from his hand; he shall be depoaed from his throne; and he himself, the last enemy, shall be destroyed. Death itself shall die. Then shall coodc to pass the saying, ‘* Death is swallowed up in victoiyJ’ The countless hosts of believers of every age, diall come forth from their graves, when the living aainta, in a moment, at the last trump, in the twinkling of an eye, shall be changed, and the unimagined, unimaginable host ascend to meet the Lord in the air.

Such is the object of the Christian’s hope, as regards the resurrection of the body. Faith may and does be lieve it. Hope may and does desire and e3q)ect it; but imagination’s utmost thought, its most adventurous and brilliant conception, dies away, and confesses the feebleness of its effort. The wing of fancy, after a. few fluttering attempts to rise, droops, and piety hears and obeys the voice which says, “Wait, and you shall see 1”

In that day of consummation, that ‘’bridal of the soul,” the redeemed man will stand complete, glorified in body and soul, a fit inhabitant of a world of glory. How joyfully, exultingly, and triumphantly, will the happy spirit re-enter its material habitation, then transformed from a poor, dilapidated, mud-wall cottage, into a glorious man sion, a sacred temple, a royal residence, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. O, what awaits this humanity of ours! How death and the grave lose their terrors in this glorious prospect. How wonderful that the world should not lose its power over us, by the superior attractions of this scene of transcendent and incomparable glory.

But more is yet to be told; and all may be summed up in that word of mysterious meaning, of unfathomable bliss, and of inconceivable glory — heaven. This is the expression and summation of all the believer hopes for beyond the grave. This is the word which sheds such a lustre on the page of the New Testament, and distinguishes it so illustriously from the Old. But where, and what is it? Over one part of this question, the veil of silence is dropped by the hand of God, as it is over many other subjects; for “it is the glory of God to conceal a matter.” ‘* Many would have felt it a satisfaction had the Saviour, when he spoke of his Father’s house with its many mansions, told us the precise region of the family residence, so that looking out on the starry firmament we might have been able to fix on the sun, the moon, or some planet, and say, “Yonder it is; yonder is the world to which the spirits of my fathers have already gone, and to which I myself, ere long, am going.” How delightful it would have been, we are ready to think, to be able every day, or every night, to look up and see the light of our Father’s dwelling, just as a child in his journeying home from school can see his paternal home stand out conspicuously in the landscape. But this cannot be. It would not harmonise with the gospel scheme, which requires that from beginning to end we should walk by £nth, and not by sight; we are to see nothing while on earth, but believe every thing; just as when we reach heaven, we shall see every thing, and merely believe nothing. No matter where heaven is, since we know what it is. Locality is a small item in its bliss. We feel that now. The faithful wife would sooner dwell with her loving husband in a cottage, than be separated froih him in a palace. The affectionate child pines in a mansion for the home of his parents, though that is a scene of comparative poverty. Locality has infinitely less to do with happiness on earth, than the domestic and social relationships, ties, and affections. Still, we doubt not, that even heaven’s place will be a part of heaven’s glories, God ‘* is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” There is, perhaps, something more than fire in the ravishing description of the New Jerusalem, in the two last chapters of the Revelation. Not that for a moment we contend for a literality in that blaze of material splendour. But it may still be considered as intimating, in some degree, the visible glory of the residence of the redeemed family.

But whai is heaven? What is it, in turning the eye of hope to the future world, we are to desire and to expect P Here again, we say, God is silent about many things. “It does not yet appear what we shall be.” Many subjects cannot be revealed. We might as well attempt to explain to an infant prince his future state and glory as the puissant monarch of a mighty empire, as to explain to a child of God on earth all his future honour and bliss in heaven. There are felicities and occupations for which we have no terms, and no ideas. But how much is told us. Our Lord has summed it all up in that most sublime and comprehensive of all phrases, “Eteenal life” — everlasting existence, with all that can render it an eternal blessing. It is life, intellectual — physical — spiritual — social — in absolute perfection, and all this for ever. Such life, that compared with it, all we have known of life here deserves the name of death, rather than life; life so fidl, so rich, so abundant, as to exclude all pain, all care, all fear, all gnawing hunger, and parching thirst, all wearisome labour; in short, the body and soul to be so free from all the least interruption of enjoyment, as that through eternity there shall never be a moment when there shall not be a fulness of joy; when the happy immortal shall not be able to say, ‘’ This is LIFE.” Even the very negatives ascribed to the heavenly state, seem to make a paradise of themselves. Knowing to our regret what, as regards our sins, our sorrows, and pur cares, we now are it is a part of our bliss to know what hereafter we shall not be.

But let us now dwell upon the positive of heaven, and consider what we shall be. There is, perhaps, no term more frequently employed to set forth our future state than the word “glory. “None could have been more appropriately selected. It signifies, when used to describe material objects, brightness, splendour, dazzling effulgence. Hence we apply it to the sun, or any unusually bright light in the heavens. It means the perfection of material manifestation — that which reveals all things, beautifies all things, perfects all things. In figurative language, it means honour, renown, that which renders any person or thing illustrious. So that when we find the deficit* ency of ordinary words to set forth the greatness, the grandeur, and transcendental nature of any persbn, action, or thing, we call in the aid of this word, and exclaim, ‘^ It is glokious.’* What then must heaven be, which is a state of unparalleled, perfect, infinite “glory.” This, like the term “life,” conveys a more impressive idea of our future state than lengthened and laboured description. The apostle sums up heaven in one place thus: “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This. probably means not only the glory which God has prepared

88 pBJSCT OF HOPE.

for us in all its details; but the direct perception and en’> joyment which in heaven we shall have of Ood himsilf* The service, knowledge, and enjoyment of God, must form the loftiest employment of any creature’s powers, however exalted he may be, and the richest bliss his heart can know.” To know God, and Jesus Christ whom be hu sent, is eternal life,” not only the means of obtaining it but its essential felicity. In this world how little we know, how much less we enjoy, of God. To every unoon* verted man, creation, instead of illustrating the Deity, has thrown a cloud of obscurity over him; and even to the believer, he is seen in dimness and disguise; so that almost all he can do is to long after him in the world. But in heaven God will show himself personally to man; the thick veil shall be lifted up; the barrier of intercepttion, now so opaque apd impenetrable, will be removed. ‘’Then shall the great Father of the universe stand revealed to the eye of his creatures rejoicing before him, when all that design and beauty by which this universe is enriched, shall beam in a direct flood ol radiance fropi the original mind that evolved it into being i when the sight of infinite majesty shall be so tempered by the sight of infinite mercy, that the awe which else would overpower, will be sweetened by love, into a most calm, and solemn, and confiding reverence; and the whole family of heaven shall find it to be enough happiness for ever, that the glories of Divinity are visibly expanded to their view, and they are admitted into the high delights of ecstatic and ineffable communion with the living God.*’ But it may be asked, how will God reveal himself to the glorified inhabitants of heaven? “They shall see hia face.” Not that the essence of God can be seen any more in heaven than it is on earth. Jesus Christ will there be the image of the invisible GK)d. We shall see him, and thus will be verified to ns the words of the Saviour to Philip, ‘’He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” We find this representation to have been lulopted both by Christ and his apostles. “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.” — John xvii, 24. Our Lord speaks of this vision as constituting the very substance of our heavenly felicity. This glory, however, does not refer exclusively to his personal appearance, though this is included; but also to the completion of his mediatorial work, to the state and majesty in which he dwells, to the homage which is paid him, to the infinite stores of wisdom, grace, and power which he possesses; to all he is, has done, and can do, to bless the universe. He prayed that his disciples might be brought to see the wonderful contrast presented by his heavenly, to his earthly, condition. They had seen him as the Man of Sorrows, and he desires they should behold him as the Lord of glory. He knew the love his true disciples bear to him, and that they could have no higher happiness than to be with him, and see his exaltation and honours, just as Joseph desired his brethren to tell his father of all his glory in Egypt, from a knowledge of the pleasure it would convey to his paternal heart. In the sublime visions of the Apocalypse, where heaven is opened to our view, it is Christ who is represented as the glory of the place, lighting up all countenances with joy, filling all hearts with gladness, and making all tongues vocal with praise. He is the sun of that blessed world, the orb of that nightless, cloudless, and eternal day. This was the heaven Paul longed for when he desired to depart, even to be with Christ. That one idea of being with Ckrist filled his soul, and he thought it enough. To be absent from the body, and present

with the Lord, was the prevailing wish of his truly christian heart. With this he cheered the spirits of the Thessalonians weeping over the graves of departed relatives: — ‘* So shall we be ever with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” — 1 Thes. iv, 18. How entirely this falls in with all our present ideas, both natural and spiritual* When our affection is very strongly fixed upon an individual, and our feelings are wrought up to a high pitch of intensity, it is the presence and converse of that individual which constitutes our chief joy. Any where, and any how, with them is our earthly Paradise. We want no other company. To be alone with them is our desire. JDoes not the christian understand and feel all this in reference to Christ? Is he not now the object of his supreme regard? Are there not moments when be has such views of Christ’s glory, such conceptions of his amazing mercy, such a sense of his love, such feelings of gratitude and affection, that he is ready to say, “If I feel all this now, when I only believe, what must be the felicity of beholding his full- orbed glory, of gazing upon his face, and hearing his loving voice. I can conceive of no higher heaven, no more perfect paradise, than to be in the presence of Him who died for me upon the cross?” There is something wonderfully impressive, delightful, and unique in thus resolving the bliss of heaven into a particular state of mind, and that state as consisting of an adoring and grateful love, for a being to whom we are indebted for redemption from an infinitude and eternity of torment, and to an infinitude and eternity of bliss; and who adds to all these claims upon our gratitude additional ones upon our homage and admiration, for his own infinite and eternal glories.

Among the felicities of heaven, and a rich one it is, such as at times makes the christian’s heart to leap for joy, is the spiritual perfection of our nature, “We shall be like him,” says the apostle, “for we shall see him as he is.” Nothing that defileth or worketh abomination shall have any entrance into that state. Only perfect holiness can produce perfect happiness, and that we shall have in heaven. The last stain will be effaced from our nature; the final stroke of absolute perfection will be given to our soul; the last filling in to the image of God in our spirit will be accomplished. We shall know the meaning, because we shall possess the reality, of that rapturous expression, “The spirits of just men made j)effect.” Cowper has strikingly expressed all this in one of his hymns: —

Bat thoii((h the poison larks within,

Hope bids me still with patience wait,
Till death shall set me free from sin,

Free firom the only thing I hate.

Had I a throne above the rest.

Where angels and archangels dwell.
One sin anslain within my breast.

Would make that heaven as durk as hell.

The pris’ner sent to breath fresh air.

And blessed with liberty again,
Wonld moam were he condemned to wear

One link of all his former chain.

Bat oh 1 no foe invades the bliss.
When glory crowns the christian’s head,

One view of Jesas as he is.
Will strike all sin for ever dead.

Nor must we omit as part of the object of christian hope, the society of heaven. Man is a social being.

Sditude was not good for him e?en in Paradise, nor would it be good for him in heaven. Companionsh seems wanting to every being in the universe, Gbd alone excepted. How large a portion of our happiness now arises from friendship, fellowship, and converse. It will be so above. What attractions does heaven present on this ground. There will be the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the glorious company of the apostles, the noble army of martyrs. There, all the holy men and women whose names shine with such splendour on the page of inspiration, both of the Old and New ltament, Abraham and Moses, David and Samuel, Paul and Peter, James and John; there, all that have adorned the pages of uninspired ecclesiastical history, the pious kings; the godly bishops; the zealous reformers, Luther and Melancthon, Calvin and Cranmer, Knox and Zwingle; there, all the faithful ministers, Wesley and Whitfield, Scott, Chalmers, Hall, and Jay; there, the devoted missionaries, Schwartz and Brainerd, Morrison and Carey, Martyn and Yanderkemp; there, the palm-bearing multitude which no man can number, gathered out of eveiy kindred, and tribe, and people, “which have washed their robes and made them white and clean in the blood of the Lamb.” All, all, sinlessly perfect, all with glorified bodies, exalted intellects, and stainless hearts. All freed from those infirmities which sometimes disturbed the communion of saints upon earth, and by hard speeches and bitter controversies grieved each other’s minds, now harmonised by perfect knowledge, perfect holiness, and perfect love. Oh, to be introduced to such society, to be one of them, to dwell with them, to maintain eternal converse with them! To be gathered together with them, and all to Christ I! This is heaven, and what a heaven 1

But are there no occupationa in heaven P Is it a state of glorified indolence, of paradisaic Tolnptuous ease, where the immortal spirit, the inquisitive soul, yearning after knowledge and made for activity, will spend eternal ages lounging through the streets of the New Jerusalem, or dosing in dreamy repose on the banks of the river of life, and in the shadow of the tree of life? Nothing of the kind. Heaven is a busy world, a place of universal activity, occupations worthy of glorified immortals will be found there. Now we know only in part; there shall we know every thing as we are known; knowledge is not only power, but bliss. It is that to the mind which water is to the thirsty palate; what it craves after when it has it not, and luxuriates in when it has. The whole universe will be thrown open to our contemplation* Space, and the material universe, will be one vast library, and its countless uullions of stars, so many volumes to read and study, in order to know the glories of creation. Providence, with all its vast machinery and complicated schemes, combining in its plan, the history of the mightiest nations, and meanest individuals, and all manifesting the wisdom, power, and love of God, will form another department of study, where happy spirits will have mysteries solved, which baffled the loftiest intellects on earth; but the object of deepest interest, of profoundest research, and most delighted inquiry will be the sublimest all God’s works, the scheme of Redemption. The attractions of the cross will be felt in heaven. It will be seen to be the focal point of God’s manifested glory. The conneaions, the bearings, the full and com* plete. results of Christ’s mediation, now so imperfectly known, will furnish a subject of study, never to be ex;. hausted, and a source of happiness which will ever satiate.

94 OBJECT OF HOFS«

but never surfeit. In heaven it is said, with beautiful simplicity, “His servants shall serve him,” in what way, we cannot now say; but it will be an employment worthy of the place, the servant, and the Master.

And all this /or ever. Eternity is the crown of heavenly glory. The greater the bliss of heaven is, the more necessary to its full enjoyment does it seem that it should be eternal. To look from such felicity through the vista of millions of ages, and see at that distance a termination, would throw a damp on all our joys, a shadow on our brightest scenes. But amidst this rapturous and sublime festivity, to be able to say, AU this for ever -^^ this U heaven. A slight enjoyment, if eternal, rises into a vast magnitude; but the addition of eternity to infinitude, surpasses all conception, except that of the omniscient intellect. And this is our portion, if we are Christians, “An inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” It seems too vast for our possession. Its magnitude creates a kind of incredulity. To live as long as God lives; we are ready to say, “Can it be?” Yet it is all that: there is an eternity before us in whick to grow in knowledge and bliss, and make approaches to attainments all-but infinite — eternity to tower firom height to height in glory — eternity to enjoy Grod and his works. How is it we think so little about it? How is it that such amaiing joys do not constant bliss create P How is it we do not enter more deeply and more constantly into the apostle’s expression, We rejoice in hope of the glory of God”? Because our faith is so weak — -our hope so languid — our time so occupied, and our attention so diverted from it» that we allow ourselves no leLsore to meditate upon it«