and consolation, and you will never shrink again at the scowling blackness of any storm of trouble yet to come; you will find the promise of oft fulfilment:-"As thy day so shall thy strength be." "It is said of Hagar, that when her bottle of water was spent, she sat down and fell a weeping, as if she had been utterly undone. Her provision and her patience, her bottle and her hope, were both out together. Oh! what must she do? What? Why there was at the very place, and that near at hand, comfort enough, a well of water to refresh her." And so it is too commonly with ourselves, we eye the empty bottle, we dwell upon the present loss, we look with rent hearts upon some Ishmael-hope which is withered and faint beside us. But it may be, even then, that Mercy's ministering angel is near at hand, to point us to some sparkling well of revealed comfort; some "well whose waters fail not." Oh! let us only weigh the Present with the To-come-the cross with the crown-the heritage of suffering with the inheritance of glory; and we shall estimate with the Apostle:"The sufferings of this present time not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." ILLUSTRATION VIII. THE GLORY TO BE REVEALED. RECKON THAT THE SUFFERINGS OF THIS PRESENT TIME THE Gospel of Jesus Christ, or, in other words, the Revelation of God, is to the enquiring Believer what the top of Nebo was to the dying Moses. From the hoary summit of that mountain the time-honoured Patriarch beheld all the loveliness and glory of the Promised Land. And so the Believer, from the lofty eminence to which the Gospel raises him, beholds the blissful and promised scenes of which Canaan, with all its richness, was but an imperfect type; and scans the illumined and glory-tinted realms, far off though they may yet be, where the Redeemed shall dwell with their Redeemer, and the glorified Saints be "for ever with the Lord." Fellow-heirs of Christ and his glory, ascend with me this exalting height! Behold with me these transporting scenes! Gaze with me on those unspeakable honours which God "hath prepared for them that love Him." Lo! lo! the earth fades before us! A cloud of brightness shuts it from our sight! The voice of God seems to call us:-"Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter." Oh! may we contemplate them till, lost in astonished delight, we, like the Apostle, forget "the sufferings of this present time in that glory yet to be revealed." How shall I approach this enrapturing theme? With what solemn emotions-with what devout uttering shall I speak of it? The love of burning Seraphs, and the tongue of tuneful Angels are too cold and tame to tell, in fitting phrase, of such heavenly and holy things! Pray with me and for me, that "utterance may be given unto me, that I may make known this mystery of the Gospel." THE GLORY WHICH SHALL BE REVEALED IN US. This shall be, I.—In the great change which shall pass upon us. The grave's destruction is overthrown for the Believer. "He that believeth in me shall never die." The tomb to him is the gate of life. It is the bed hallowed by his Redeemer's body, where the departed Saint lies down in corruption to be raised in glory. It is the silent and solemn unrobing room, where he strips off the time-worn vestments of mortality, that he may be "clothed upon with immortality and life." All that is destructible he will there leave behind him, like his fretted grave-clothes in the sepulchre; and when he awakes up it will be after "God's likeness." He will see Christ as he is; and beholding Him will be transformed into His image. Infirmity shall cease; that which was sown in weakness shall be raised in power; "Mortality shall be swallowed up of Life;" and Christ's sainted ones shall pass through the resurrection-gate by which the Breaker-up has gone before them. Henceforth they shall be "equal unto the Angels; neither can they die any more; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." Their bodies which were sown in the grave natural bodies, shall be raised spiritual bodies; in a moment shall they be changed, in the twinkling of an eye, that they may be fashioned according unto Christ's glorious body; and in these spiritual bodies He shall be glorified in them. The semblance of those bodies shall be bright and glistering. "They shall shine as the brightness of the firmament." The glory which the Father has given unto Christ, will He give unto them. They shall be with Him where He is; and behold His glory, |