XLVII.

THE HEAVENLY ASSEMBLY.*

MATTHEW, Viii., 11: Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

[Preached before the Bedford Union, May, 1817.]

THE Occasion which drew these words from the lips of our Saviour was the conduct of that centurion who came and requested Him to heal his paralytic servant. There is not in the gospel narrative, nor can there be in any other, a finer, a more affecting instance of genuine humility and vigorous faith, those two most essential graces of the Christian character, than the instance presented in this centurion. “Lord,” said he, "I am not worthy"-they had said he was worthy to obtain his request-"I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." This is an exquisite instance of spiritual beauty in character and conduct. This man, so deep in his humility, so strong in his faith-like the Syrophoenician woman, distinguished by her kindred excellence was a Gentile; he was a pagan soldier! Accordingly, "when Jesus heard, He marvelled:" his human nature, susceptible of astonishment and admiration, exercised it on this, as on a fit occasion. He, who marvelled not at worldly wonders, marvelled here. His tender and comprehensive spirit, acquainted with the deep apostacy of our nature from God, started in a pleased surprise, as at the discovery of a rose in a desert, at this supernatural union of abasement and elevation-unaffected consciousness of his own guilt, and unhesitating confidence in the Saviour's omnipotence-this truly Abrahamic piety, exhibited in a Roman centurion, a man placed in circumstances the least favourable to religion. Wonder, with us, is the effect of ignorance; with Jesus it was the effect of profound acquaintance with our nature. He, who knew when to wonder, wondered here, and exclaimed to those around, "Verily, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel!" and then, in his own incomparable manner of raising an important lesson on some passing occurrence, He adverted to that "great multitude," collected out of all nations, that shall meet at last before the throne and before the Lamb. "Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." This declaration, while in its primary and literal design it anticipates the vocation of the Gentiles as fellow-heirs, with Israel, of spiritual and celestial blessings, refers us, in its full and final accomplishment, to the grand eternal assembly of the redeemed: it points the eye of

From the notes of the Rev. T. Grinfield.

faith and hope to a prospect, before which all others fade into little ness and darkness.*

An angel, in the Apocalypse, carried away John, in the Spirit, to a great mountain, another and a higher Pisgah, "and showed him that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God:" even so let us, my brethren, abstracted in an humbler vision of the Spirit, "turn aside, and see this great sight;" let us catch, if we can, a dim and distant glimpse of the glory, so well expressed as "the glory that shall be revealed." Amid the evanescent cares and trifles of this preparatory state, let us gaze for a moment on that heavenly scene, so powerfully adapted to stimulate our dulness, console our sadness, and exalt our affections above earthly things. Viewed in this comprehensive light, the text appears to include or suggest the following ideas:

I. First, that of an assembly, composed of a vast multitude and va rious descriptions of persons. "Many shall come from the east and the west." What a multitude must that be, which embraces all the pious of all ages, past, present, or yet future, from the beginning to the end of time! "a multitude," indeed," which none can number;" innumerable as the leaves of autumn, which annually moulder into earth; types of the buried bodies of the saints; innumerable as the leaves of spring, which annually reappear in vernal beauty; types of those bodies, as destined to reappear in the beauty of the resurrection And not more innumerable than diversified in the circumstances of their mortal history. Persons who passed the time of their pilgrim age under different economies: every dispensation-Patriarchal, Mosaic, Christian, will meet and mingle there. And there is reason to hope that not those only who walked with God in the shadowy moonlight of Judaism, and those who followed Christ in the bright sunshine of the gospel; but those also who "felt after their Maker, if happily they might find Him," in the glimmering gloom of natural reason, may swell that immense host of the redeemed: men of Nineveh; a Queen of Sheba; Gentiles who, not knowing the law, showed its work written in their hearts.

Natives of every land shall there be found; man from every part of man's terrestrial abode; countrymen of every name and tribe; from the East, where man and revelation first appeared, to the West, which was discovered and evangelized so late in the day of time; from the burning Africa to the freezing Greenland; from the centre of Asia to the remotest isles of ocean. Not one of all the myriads dispersed, like particles of salt, over so many spots of earth-not one, in whose bosom glowed a spark of genuine love to God and man-not one shall be missing there.

There, again, shall be found subjects of every government which man has devised-from society in its primitive patriarchal simplicity, to society in its most artificial and splendid combination-from a state

"The future state must exclusively be meant."-Scott. "It cannot be said, with any propri ety, either that the holy patriarchs share with Christians in the present privileges of the gospel state; or that the Jews, at present, weep and wail on account of their being excluded from those privileges."-Doddridge, quoted by Scott, on Matt., viii., 11.—GRINFIELD.

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of oppressive despotism to one of enlightened and rejoicing freedom. Those who here below lived under the most differing forms of social order may sit down together, at last," in the kingdom of heaven;" for piety has existed in every age and land. independent of the diversity of political systems: “ My kingdom," said Christ, "is not of this world" Christianity carries with itself the power of coalescing with every species of civil constitution; its genius is not national: The kingdoms of this world shall become the one kingdom of our Lord.

Individuals, yet farther, of the most differing ranks and classes in society, shall be there collected in the most perfect harmony and union; princes and beggars, lords and servants; those who basked in the sunshine of fortune, and those who grovelled in the gloom of poverty individuals of every occupation and profession, which the circumstances of the present life have rendered necessary; persons of every religious denomination, which, whatever its minor peculiarities, held Christ as its head, built on Christ as its foundation, and acknowledged its need of the renewing Spirit: persons of the most varied intellect and education; the simplest and the most profound; those whose minds were either illumined with science and taste, or were left so dark and uncultured as to be merely susceptible of the first principles of religion: persons, once more, of every individual disposition and address, natural or acquired, gentle or severe, open or reserved, elegant or rude; an immense collection of stones and jewels, obtained from the quarry of nature by the Maker and Lord of all, and so finely shaped and polished by his grace and skill, so wondrously cleared from the dark incrustations of sin, and wrought into the "beauties of holiness," that each, fixed in its place as a stone of the spiritual edifice, or as a jewel of the Redeemer's diadem, shall contribute its effect to the just variety and glory of the whole. For, as all stations of life, so all orders of mind, are alike embraced by religion; the centre of attraction and repose to all, how dissimilar soever in minor respects. The spirit of piety, the pervading principle of love, absorbs and annihilates all distinctions, how little in comparison it binds innumerable hearts" as the heart of one man ;" it assimilates all as children of one Father, brethren of Jesus Christ: the poor is exalted, the rich abased; the wise made simple, the simple wise. A faint and diminutive image of that immense, united assembly, is seen in these our Christian congregations, when "the rich and the poor meet together before the Lord, the Maker of them all.”

II. This brings before us a second general idea, conveyed in the text, of the assembly described; that of a perfect harmony and congeniality in character among all the members, for spending eternity in happy fellowship. A company, collected for the purpose of mutual pleasure, ought to be composed, as we are all aware, of individuals sufficiently congenial in their tempers, opinions, and habits of life, especially if they are to continue long together: ill-sorted and discordant society is less to be desired than solitude. Now man, even before his fall, was formed for society: the first remark made on him by his Maker was, that "it is not good for man to be alone:" of all

his desires, none is so strong, of all his delights, none so deep, as the desire and delight of harmonious intercourse. In the present state, many imperfections, both circumstantial and personal, impede or impair this high enjoyment. In heaven, all these imperfections will exist no more. The first idea of heaven, as suggested in the text, is that of an immense, the second, that of a congenial society. Though 66 many will come from the east and the west"-though the assembly will be as varied as it will be vast-though persons of every dispensation, region, rank, business, intellect, disposition, civil condition, or religious denomination, will be there intermingled; yet will an exquisite unity of spirit coexist with the utmost diversity in all non-essential respects. This is implied in the representation of all the many, as conformed in spirit with the three illustrious patriarchs. And what was their distinguishing spirit? St. Paul, in the eleventh chapter to the Hebrews, informs us that it was faith; trust in God, and in his promise of the heavenly inheritance-the productive principle of holiness in life-of hope in death, which rendered its possessors superior alike to the frowns or the smiles of an evil world, and inspirited them to pass through every varied scene of affliction or allurement, "as strangers and sojourners," intent on their heavenly home.

This essence of religion, this vital spirituality of character, belongs alike to the highest and the humblest, the earliest and the latest, of believers; to David on a throne, or Jeremiah in a dungeon; to Noah in the darkness of the world before the flood, or Paul amid the blaze of apostolic revelations. And this is the germe of universal and eternal congeniality. All those myriads of redeemed and glorified spirits are united in this they are all believers; such, in the true comprehensive meaning of that name, not theorists of doctrine, without devotion; of faith, without the obedience of faith (an epidemic error, exposed by St. James); but believers with the heart, students of purity, aspirants after perfection, insatiable until they are satisfied with that holiness which is the very character of Christ, of heaven, and of God: all like-minded with the Psalmist, who said, "As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; and when I awake after thy likeness, I shall be satisfied." This is the spirit which they all partake;these are the features of that family likeness, which lives through every variety of mind and condition, and which, touched and illumined by celestial glory, will brightly distinguish the children of God.

III. A third idea contained in the text is that of repose. The assembly is not one collected for toil or for battle; it is one composed of those whose "warfare is accomplished;" those who "rest from their labour." Whatever be the services of the saints in glory, in that state of which we read that therein "His servants shall serve Him" (Rev., xxii., 3), they are all such as are perfectly consistent with the enjoyment of a Divine repose: the blessed after death, while they rest from their earthly labour, rest in their heavenly employ. "They sit down." The expression alludes, as you are aware, to the Eastern custom of reclining on couches; the most easy and pleasurable posture of waking repose. Heaven is a state of sabbatic rest; a

holy and a blissful cessation from all earthly care, from all sin-born wo. It was prefigured, from the first, in a dim miniature, by this day of sweet and sacred rest, succeeding to the days in which "man goes forth to his labour;" prefigured also by that Canaan, that land of happy repose, into which, after the forty years of their laborious pilgrimage, the Israelites were conducted by Joshua, whose name and whose office marked him as the type of Jesus, our spiritual Captain and Conqueror.

It is now the school-time, the season of the lesson and the rod; then will be the eternal holyday: it is now the season of the plough and harrow; then will be the pleasant harvest home; "they that sow in tears shall reap in joy." In heaven there will be no more need to watch and war, to endure hardness, and press on, like the little brave band of Gideon, "faint, yet pursuing." The harassing Canaanite will be forever expelled from that good land. Religion, now encompassed with those difficulties and discouragements which are adapted to a fallen state of trial—a state in which the most important duties are those of faith, hope, patience, prayer, humility, self-denial-religion will then be, indeed, and entirely, the rest of the soul, its natural element of acquiescence and delight. The sighs and tears of penitence, the unutterable groans of the spirit, will have place no more: there will remain only the never-cloying luxury of love, and joy, and adoring praise. Many of those who shall swell that company passed a large portion of their time on earth in suffering: prisoners of provi dence, while they were also "prisoners of hope," they dragged on their mortal life in drudgery or in disease: but then "there shall be no more pain, nor sorrow, nor crying; for the former things are passed away." "I heard a voice," the voice of the Spirit speaking from heaven, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labour !" Between the troubles of the world without, and those of the heart within, many, who shall be found in that assembly, had little rest on earth: they are there indemnified, they are there immeasurably overpaid. At times, perhaps, they recount the toils of the combat, the trials and dangers of the way; and, by the contrast, enhance their present condition of security and repose.

IV. A fourth idea, intimated in the words of our Lord, is that of a mutual recognition among all those whose relation to each other here is such as to admit of its perpetuation in that blessed state. "They shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob," surely not as guests unknowing and unknown. It is reasonable to suppose that an instant and intimate acquaintance will be there commenced or renewed, such as will meet and satisfy our natural idea and desire of perfect social benevolence and beatitude: such as, even here, we know to be produced by unison of hearts-by that congeniality of spirits, which can transform a stranger into a friend-one whom we had never before seen, into one whom we shall never cease to remember and to love. How this vast extension of personal knowledge may be effected we need not curiously inquire. Every thing connected with that higher state of being is necessarily mysterious: it