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and all his pomp as naked as the meanest beggar; he must go, in solitude, divested of all he had except his soul, through the dark valley; he must pass into the eternal world, a disimbodied spirit, fixed in its unchangeable destiny of bliss or wo-stamped either with the image of God or the image of Satan! He must leave his splendid mansion and equipage behind; bid adieu to his groves and lawns, and the shades under which he reposed; and carry nothing with him, perhaps, but the guilty and the bitter recollection of having abused his earthly grandeur! What a fall from the pinnacle of prosperity to the bottomless abyss, the living fire, the never-dying worm! But the good man carries away with him his heavenly substance, retains the acquisitions of piety, riches of a kindred nature to the treasures of heaven his seed was sown to the Spirit, and, in that spiritual world, he reaps the fruit, even life everlasting-his spirituality, his love and devotion to God, and to the blessed Redeemer, qualify him to breathe the element of immortality-to enjoy the incorruptible inheritance reserved for him in heaven. Those primitive Christians, addressed in the text, have now for eighteen hundred years been partaking of the heavenly substance, with no decay of delight, and with a clear prospect of perpetual fruition; their felicity is the same as at the first mo

ment.

Let me briefly add, as an improvement of the subject, two or three practical reflections.

1. How much we are indebted to God for that kind of evidence of Christianity, which arises from the sufferings of its first disciples ! That Divine religion was attested, indeed, by the ample and triumphant evidence of miracles; but we do not behold those miracles; we believe the record concerning them, and the principal evidence of that record's veracity lies in the character and sufferings of the witnesses. Under the conviction of the reality of those miraculous powers which they had seen, and which they themselves exhibited, they proclaimed to the world the amazing history and doctrine of their Divine Master; and, in spite of imprisonment and spoliation, with the terror of a cruel martyrdom before their eyes, they persisted in bearing the same invariable testimony. "We cannot (they said) but speak the things which we have seen and heard." Nothing of the kind ever accompanied the rise and spread of a false religion. Nothing of the kind can be conceived to take place, while human nature remains the same, with out the basis of reality for a testimony so requited! We are reduced to the simple alternative of supposing either that human nature, in those first Christian sufferers, was not what it has ever been before or since, but had undergone some strange and unaccountable revolution; or that theirs was a true record-that the hand of God was indeed outstretched to sustain his infant Church; that the gospel was proved to be that revelation of God which it professes to be; and that they had the best reason to know whom they had believed. Unless we can suppose them to have acted upon principles utterly different from all other men, they must have been impelled by facts, such as they relate, to testify those facts to the world in defiance of such accumu

lated sufferings. Viewed in any other light, their conduct is inexplicable, and becomes itself a greater miracle than any which they have recorded.

2. How ought we to magnify that almighty grace which enabled them to suffer! How glorious the genius of Christianity which could produce such examples of moral heroism! What a divine force over the mind does that religion possess, which could render its disciples triumphant over the world and themselves, and more than conquerors, because of the truth! What an example was thus given of the reality of religion! What an evidence that it is no enthusiastic delusionno visionary speculation; that truly it is "not in word, but in deed, in demonstration of the Spirit and of power!" capable of reversing and transforming nature-of producing joy in the midst of suffering, exaltation in the midst of contempt! The true religion, my brethren, is nothing less than an affiance of the soul to God, an intimate and ineffable union of the human spirit with the Divinity; the soul that is impregnated with it has the seed of God within itself, and is truly "born of God." It is no sublime theory, false to our experience; but "behold, it makes all things new!" It opens waters in the thirsty desert-imparts exultation in the hour of death-causes Paul and Silas, though loaded with irons, to charm the watches of the night with hymns of praise. It opens a glimpse of heaven to the martyr's eye, and enables Stephen to behold Jesus standing at the right hand of God. It inspires the apostles not merely with patience amid suffering, but even with triumph; "they rejoice in tribulation also;" "they rejoiced that they were counted worthy not only to believe, but also to suffer for his name." The sufferings of Christ had consecrated sufferings to their hearts: they learned to regard their afflictions as tokens of their Divine adoption, and objects of their sacred ambition! "for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?"

3. And, lastly, let us apply their example for our own improvement. Let us also, my brethren, be anxious to imbibe the same spirit, and act this distinguished part of our religion. Remember that Christians are called to be separate in their character from the men of this world: "the people shall dwell alone." In former times they were signalized by patience: this is not so much the Christian grace peculiarly called into exercise by the present circumstances of the Church it is now that piety must rise above the world in a holy superiority to its alluring pleasures. The circumstances of the Christian profession vary; but Christian spirit is the same in every age: there must be the same essential feature of character in all the servants of God, amid all their diversified experience in passing through this world to heaven and that feature is spirituality. Never for a moment imagine that, because you are not persecuted like the early Christians, because you are not thrown into bonds, or spoiled of your goods, for the sake of religion, you are therefore permitted to dispense with the same vital principle of character which inspired their joyful reception of those afflictions. You must have the same decided preference of a heavenly to an earthly inheritance-the same faith mighty

to overcome either the temptations of the world, or its terrors; you must hold the same spiritual contact with God, with Jesus Christ, and the glory to be revealed; you must be influenced, in your heart and conduct, by the same supreme attachment to the LORD, as your portion, your end, your incomparable felicity. And now, my dear brethren, what danger there is, that, amid the smooth and alluring aspect of the age, amid an easy profession, surrounded by the smiles and accommodations of the world, you should lose that vital, that unchangeable, indispensable feature of Christianity--to be, not of the world, not conformed to its spirit, but transformed by the renewing of your mind! You may taste of its passing comforts, you may receive with gratitude the varied and delightful bounties which an indulgent Providence pours around your path; but if you suffer your heart to be engrossed by secular emoluments or enjoyments-if you seek any other object before the favour of God and eternal life, through Jesus Christ, you must be content to HAVE your portion here, and hereafter expect only the bitter remembrance of a heaven which was once abundantly proposed to your acceptance, but which you closed against your own soul! While, then, you rejoice in exemption from sufferings for the gospel's sake, and in the external tranquillity of the Church, “rejoice with trembling," and see that you use the world as not abusing it. Since "God, who in times past addressed the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son; we ought to give the more earnest heed to these things, lest at any time we let them slip, lest any of us should seem to come short of the promised rest; for how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ?"

It is not enough that you hear of these things; that you feel a transient charm and admiration while you listen to the tidings: you must pray, you must watch and strive, with persevering earnestness, that you may not be deceived and seduced by the smares and temptations that surround you; that you may manifest and maintain the character of strangers and pilgrims on earth, who seek a better country. You must be able to say, with the Psalmiş, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? there is none upon earth I desire in comparison with Thee. As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness."

VOL. IV.-S s

322

XLIII.

REASONS FOR SEEKING THE THINGS ABOVE.*

COLOSSIANS, iii., 1: If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.

[Preached at Broadmead, Bristol, Lord's Day evening, Nov. 11, 1827.]

THE resurrection of Christ is to be regarded as not only the great proof of his religion, but also the great source of support and consolation to his followers. The apostles use it not only in the former view, as the groundwork of their faith and preaching-" if Christ is not risen, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins"-but also as a powerful motive to a holy and heavenly life: "buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye are also risen with Him." They represent believers as virtually partakers of the exaltation of their Saviour; as "quickened together with Christ, and raised, and made to sit together with Him in heavenly places." "If ye then be risen," or, as it might be rendered, "since ye then are risen with Christ;" he appeals to them upon their own profession: it gives us an advantage to argue with any one on his own premises: they acknowledged Christ risen as the first-fruits of his followers; they wished, as believers, to rise in spirit after Him. He speaks, therefore, in the judgment of charity to them, as persons of this character, and urges them, in consistency with it, to "seek the things which are above."

1. "The things which are above" form the proper object of our regard the natural element of a Christian's contemplations and affections. Every person should attend to the things which most nearly relate to his own home: but the home of a Christian is above; there is his domestic state, "his Father's house;" there Christ, his elder Brother, is gone before to prepare a place for the family of God. What is the gospel but a revelation of immortality, the promise of a heavenly and eternal life? Christians are, therefore, called "partakers of the heavenly calling." "Our conversation," our citizenship and state, "is in heaven." There Christ sits at the right hand of God. Christ has nothing to do with this world, except with that portion of it which He calls and sanctifies for himself, or as He governs the world by his providence. All his pursuits, desires, and joys, are above this world; they are all placed in heaven: and his people should, therefore, "seek the things which are above."

2. These things are the object for which man is by his nature made, and especially for which he is prepared in his sanctified character.

*From the notes of the Rev. T. Grinfield.

(1.) By the natural constitution of his mind, man requires an object of a spiritual and eternal kind. Nothing of a worldly nature, however multiplied, is congenial with the tendencies and desires of the immortal spirit. Other creatures may be satisfied with things of the earth, but man is a breath of the Almighty; "there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of God giveth him understanding;" he feels that he requires something beyond this world to make him happy.

(2.) Much more, the Christian, as renewed in his spirit by the power of God and the hope of the gospel, must "seek the things above," as alone suited to his soul. Spirituality is the essence of the Christian; he breathes and tends heavenward: he is dead, dead to the world before he dies out of it, and his life is hidden with Christ in God.

3. The transcendent excellence of "the things above" is a third reason why we should seek them. There all is perfection; all is holiness and happiness. The saints even here have ever found their holiest, their happiest hours; they have tasted unspeakable pleasures in communion with God; they have given their testimony in dying hours to the fulness of joy which is experienced in converse with heaven; but these anticipations are as nothing in comparison with that exceeding glory which awaits them where they stand before God, and drink of the pure river of pleasures that flows from the throne of God and the Lamb: they are there with Christ, and behold his glory according to his own desire: "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; and the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them." They never cease from the praises of their God!

With regard to the circumstances of "the things above," there are inconceivable glories in the heavenly world. God displays his power and glory through all his works; but there is a place where He more especially dwells and manifests himself, and this is the third heaven. Whatever can render it a scene worthy of the majesty of God, worthy of the infinite merit and purchase of the Son of God, worthy of the most enlarged desires and hopes of the redeemed-all is collected and perfect there. When Christ had finished his work by his death, that was the place of glory to which He was exalted as the reward for his suffering: this gives us an idea what must be the glory of that world above! 4. The perpetuity of "the things which are above" presents a fourth consideration why we should seek them. The smallest good, of a lasting duration, is deemed preferable to a much greater benefit that is only transient. But the things which are not seen are eternal; and though God alone is eternal in all respects, as alone inhabiting the eternity that is past, alone "from everlasting," yet He has been pleased to communicate a duration like his own to the felicity in reserve for his people: theirs, in

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