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Lamb in the midst of the throne! He heard the new song, and the voice of harpers harping with their harps! But in the future state of glory there is no admixture of suffering; it is a state of pure fruition, a scene of unimpaired beatitude; it leaves no room for consolation, none for compassion. In reference to that state, He that sits on the throne has declared, "Behold, I make all things new." With the perfect nature of that glory, the very imperfect nature of our present sufferings, as modified by many alleviating circumstances, renders them not worthy to be compared.

4. Besides which, let it be observed, in the fourth place, that, even when we may be reduced to a situation of the greatest possible distress, still we retain a certain principle of our nature, which preserves us from sinking into despair. There is implanted in our mind the mysterious principle of hope, which operates with an antagonist and resisting force against the assaults of adversity. By a benevolent law of our Creator, there is a certain activity in the imagination, which, under the pressure of sorrow, turns the mind of the sufferer to prospects of future ease or happiness. How vigorous is this faculty in youth! what a buoyancy and elasticity does it give to the mind! And, though it may be impaired and weakened by the experience of repeated disappointments, yet it is never entirely lost, not even with regard to worldly objects: it acts with the constant presence and energy of a law of nature, preserves the most afflicted, all who are not utterly abandoned by the Spirit of God, from sinking into utter despair, and enables them to spring upward from the pressure of their burden. And what a source of joy does this principle open to the Christian! It is one of the vital elements of the Christian religion. As the apostle says, in connexion with the text, 66 we are saved by hope;" while elsewhere he defines our faith as "the substance (the realizing) of things hoped for." What a counteraction to the power of present sufferings, what a deduction from their completeness, is thus supplied! But hence the comparison fails between them and the future glory. In the happiness of heaven there exists no disturbing fear to correspond with the hope that allays the sufferings of time; the very thought of a cessation to that glory would diffuse a gloom over its brightness, would prove an ingredient of bitterness in that overflowing cup of joy. There we shall be no more exposed to vicissitude and trial; changes will have been all passed through, trials removed; sufferings will there be lost, not only in presence, but even in apprehension; death will be swallowed up in victory. If once admitted to that bright world, we shall look back on "the sufferings of this present time," as on the faint recollection of a vision of the night: they will only serve to enhance our beatitude, to swell our song of praise!

5. In the fifth place, there is another very important consideration, but one to which it is impossible to do justice, in attempt

ing to show how unworthy are the sufferings of time to be compared with the glories of eternity. It is this: that the present sufferings are proportioned to our present powers of enduring; but the glories of the future world, to another state of faculties, a very different order of capacities. At the resurrection there will take place a great, an inconceivable enlargement of our energies in mind and body, our capacities of action and enjoyment. When Jesus Christ shall have subdued all enemies, and death the last of all, then will He deliver up the kingdom to the Father, perfect and complete. With respect to the body, we know that it will be changed in such a manner that it will be rendered meet to enter heaven. Of this mysterious change, the Apostle Paul has given a sublime description: "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body; there is a natural, and there is a spiritual body; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God: but when the trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."-1 Cor., xv. Our bodies, now so frail, composed of dust, and soon decomposed into dust, shall be transfigured into the likeness of that glorified body of Jesus Christ, which John in his vision beheld, and the brightness of which caused him such fear, that, if he had not been instantly supported by the agent of his emotion, he must have sunk under it in death! "Then shall the righteous," clothed with such a body, "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

With respect to mental powers, there will take place a corresponding expansion. The intellect will be enlarged in proportion to the enlarged sphere in which it is to expatiate, and knowledge will proportionally pour in upon the mind. The apostle illustrates the vast superiority of the future state, as compared with the present, in respect to knowledge and intellect, by the superiority that now exists in the enlarged faculties and views of manhood, as compared with the very limited powers and ideas of children: "When I was a child, I understood as a child." Here we are in our infancy of mind and knowledge: the intelligence even of a Newton, which here seems to border on angelic intuition, would there, it is probable, appear rather as an infantine than a matured intelligence: we know nothing but in part, and that part but as in a dark reflection. Above all, we entertain most imperfect and vague conceptions of "the glory to be revealed:" even the inspired and highly-favoured Apostle John was compelled to say, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." That state can be known only by the light of eternity. We have not powers to comprehend, nor capacities to enjoy it. Were an angel to descend from that state, and give us a glimpse of his brightness, like the apostle, we should fall at his feet as dead.

Under the exceeding weight of that eternal glory, we should swoon and die away; our small measures could not contain that "fulness of joy." There the vessel will be inconceivably dilated; the body will be "raised in power," like that of angels who "excel in strength," endued with immortal vigour-with adamantine energy; the eye will be strengthened to behold those beams of Divine effulgence which, were they to be manifested to us now, would blind us with their blaze-would sink us, dazzled and astounded, to the earth, like Saul on his way to Damascus! The ear will be fitted to receive, the voice to respond, those eternal hallelujahs! Every cloud will be dispelled from the mind; every imperfection of its powers removed: "we shall see face to face, and know as we are known." There will exist a totally different scale of faculties, adapted to the magnitude of the objects to be comprehended-to the inconceivable splendours of the beatific vision! What are the very limited sufferings of this present time, proportioned as they always are to our present very limited powers of sustaining? what, placed in comparison with that ineffable glory of the future world to which powers of a different order are adapted-powers expanded in proportion to the surpassing greatness of their objects?

6. And once more, as the sixth and last point of this most unequal comparison, we must never lose sight of the immeasurable disparity that subsists between the duration of temporal afflictions and the duration of celestial glory. Sufferings, as we have before observed, attach to only a small portion of our present small existence. In very few cases can they be supposed to form the larger part of even this transitory life; but if they extended through the whole period, and that period were protracted to antediluvian longevity, still they would be lost in a moment, less than a moment, in comparison with eternal glories. Weighed against that "exceeding weight," these light afflictions would appear as the small dust of the balance-as the almost invisible motes of the sunbeam. Eternity, as we are sensible, is an idea too immense for our conception; it baffles the grasp of the most gigantic human intellect on the margin of that ocean we can only exclaim, with the apostle, "Oh, the depth!" We can realize the idea of eternity only by feeling our utter inability to realize it; we can estimate it only by knowing that it cannot be estimated that it is, like the eternal God, incomprehensible! "This present time," especially as restricted to the life of individuals, when compared with endless duration, resembles an atom compared with the universe! With the eternal God the most distant periods of time coalesce; they meet in the same point: the creation and the last judgment, the beginning and the end of time, succeed to each other as the morning succeeds to the night, while the whole intervening lapse of duration passes as merely a watch in the night!

Whether the happiness of glorified spirits is possessed in its VOL. IV. Z z

full extent at once, on their first admission into heaven, or whether it is continually progressive as towards a goal, we cannot determine. Doubtless, from the very commencement of that state, there is a fulness of joy-a sense of perfect bliss; and yet, in all probability, this is only the introduction to a continued, interminable progression in glory-an everlasting approximation of the soul towards its Divine centre, "the only happy God." Be this as it may, the state itself is fixed and eternal. And for this state we, my brethren, are candidates; for this glory we should be earnest aspirants: of this "inheritance that fadeth not away" we are all, by the redeeming grace of God, called to be the happy expectants. Man is born for eternity: every individual bears within him a never-dying spirit-a spark of immortality that must forever burn, either in the flames of righteous indignation, or in the ardours of Divine love: an incorruptible, unfading inheritance is reserved for the redeemed. "I give unto my sheep," says the good Shepherd, "eternal life:" amid the decay and dissolution of all around, "they shall never perish; they shall receive eter nal life!"

Such are a few thoughts, on a subject of peculiar interest, as it embraces at once the present and the future state of pious individuals, which may serve as hints for serious and consolatory meditation. By way of a brief improvement of what has been presented, first, let Christians derive support and encouragement under the various afflictions to which they may be subjected in their passage through the present world. When we are ready to be cast down overmuch by some pressing burden, let us endeavour to estimate that burden in its real momentary lightness, by balancing it, like the apostle, against an "eternal weight of glory." The smallest objects, when gazed at apart from greater, assume a disproportionate importance; but survey them in comparison with those greater objects, and how strangely they shrink into their proper littleness! To the eye of Christian faith, which looks at what is seen and temporal by the light of what is unseen and eternal, the darkest clouds of present sufferings appear, as it were, irradiated with a reflection of that glory which will ere long break forth from their gloom, to shine and brighten through an endless day. One glimpse of that glory, we feel assured, would put out all these little clouds from our view or remembrance! Let us aim to walk by faith, and not by sight; and in our trials, to realize the well-grounded conviction, "these sufferings of time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed" when time shall be lost in eternity!

Secondly, and lastly: let others, who may not as yet have turned their attention to eternal realities, be prevailed upon no longer to neglect the great salvation. Instead of burying a soul destined for immortality and bliss, in a state tarnished at once with sufferings and decay, awake, my brethren, to the dignity of your high calling! arise, to seek your just inheritance in that glory with

which neither the sorrows nor the pleasures of this present time are worthy of a moment's comparison! Who would hesitate between a few years of doubtful enjoyment, invaded by sufferings "common to man," and inconceivable happiness, prolonged and progressive through infinite duration? Delay not this, your prime concern, till the less convenient season of a deathbed may overtake you unprepared. The languor of the sinking frame, the eclipse of declining reason, are not the condition in which we may first enter on the earnest contemplation of eternal glory! It is sufficient for human nature to grapple with pain, and decay, and the last enemy. How few, at such a moment, have the fortitude to examine their state! how few the opportunity to make their peace with God! Seek now an interest in "the common salvation!" Now is the accepted time; now is the convenient season. While all around is mutable, unstable, and we can fix on nothing that does not escape from our eager grasp, lay hold on Jesus Christ, the Rock of ages! While all beside is carried away by the irresistible tide of vanity and corruption, secure that inestimable deposité which will exist forever in the hands of Him who is able to keep it against the day of his appearance and glory! Come to the Saviour just as you are; if you were to wait to all eternity, you would be no better prepared, by any efforts of your own, for his acceptance. All power is given to Him; He is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him: whosoever will, let him come to Christ; and thus be prepared, by his grace and power, to exchange the light affliction, which is for a moment, for an exceeding and eternal weight of glory!*

XLIX.

STRENGTH IN TRIALS.†

DEUTERONOMY, Xxxiii., 25: Thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days so shall thy strength be.

[Preached at Broadmead, Bristol, Lord's Day morning, January 16, 1831.]

THE Jewish Church was a type of the Christian Church. Hence, says the Apostle Paul, after enumerating several particulars, "Now these things were our examples, and they are written for our admonition."

The word TUTо, rendered examples, signifies models or types.

The sermon closed with a very affecting reference to the pious character and pastoral faithfulness of the deceased minister, and with a tribute of sympathy and consolation to his widow and his flock. In such passages Mr. Hall's generous sensibility qualified him peculiarly to excel; but he was prevented by declining health from complying with a request to prepare for the press the admirable discourse which I have thus attempted to rescue from oblivion. The Rev. W. II. Guy, to whose memory this funeral honour was assigned, expired on April 1, 1830, in his thirty-first year, after a ministry of ten years in Hope Chapel, Clifton-GRINFIELD.

From the notes of the Rev. John Eyres.

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