the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." In Col. i. 28, we read: "Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." These words represent the minister of the gospel as presenting the members of his flock at the judgment-day, as trophies of the grace of God, and evidences of the faithfulness and efficiency of his instrumentality in building up the temple of the Lord; and this view is confirmed by the words of Paul in 1 Thess. ii. 19: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?"-language which certainly implies that the minister will recognise the flock, and the flock the minister. In 1 Thess. iv. 13, we read these beautiful and consolatory words: "But I would not have you ignorant, breren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope: for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, That we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep; for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words."

The subject on which comfort is here required, is the death or removal of beloved friends and relatives. The consolation specially announced is not the resurrection, but the reunion of departed friends, and the restoration of suspended or interrupted intercourse. The apostle proceeds upon the supposition that the resurrection is an admitted fact; and shows that there will be superadded to that resurrection this special consolation, viz. the recognition of our risen relatives and friends. Were some beloved relative, or child, or parent, about to depart to a distant land, would it be sufficient comfort to tell you that you also would be carried there in due time, but to a different part of that beautiful and; so that while you would be aware that your beloved ones

were on its face, yet you could neither see nor hold communion with them? This would be dispersion, not gathering together. There would be no comfort in this. The real comfort would be the prospect of reunion; and the summons not to sorrow, and the promise that you would be taken there, would all imply the restoration of the fellowship, and the recognition of the persons of those you loved below.

Bishop Mant says, "When we reflect on the pleasure imparted to our minds of being admitted, after long separation, to the society of those we have known and loved from early years, and from the special delight we experience in renewing, in communion with them, old but dormant affection, retracing in converse events and scenes gone by—a delight which the formation of no new acquaintance is capable of conferring-it is probable that among future associations, as constituents of the happiness of the blest, those they have formerly loved and cherished will be comprehended." The universality of this hope in every age. of the world is presumptive evidence in its favour.

It is no objection, that, every seven years, every constituent part of the human body is dislodged and changed. Great transformations pass on mind and body together in the lapse of years; but there are certain fixed points in the one, and permanent features in the organization of the other, which are ineffaceable by change, by climate, or by age. You meet a person you have not seen for twenty years; you fail, at first, to recognise him: you gaze a little longer; the vail of the stranger passes off like a cloud, and you recognise the companion of your earlier days. Peter, John, and Luke will be as marked in glory as they were in grace: the distinctive idiosyncracy of each was not destroyed by inspiration, and it will not be extinguished in glorification.

Nor can we listen to the objection, that our certainty of missing before the throne some whom we expected to find there, will, if earthly recollections be retained, mar the perfect felicity of the blest. Such an objection is purely speculative; natural enough, but not suitable for our minds to entertain. This only we know that our wills and convictions shall be brought so entirely into unison with God's glory, and purposes, and will, that no fact, recollected or seen, will diminish our joy, or create a

momentary pang. We see Christians in this world acquiesce in the will of God when that will is singularly painful. This is an earnest and approximation here to what will be hereafter: our conclusion in the New Jerusalem will be, "He hath done all things well."

What delight will it be to meet Adam and Eve, Noah and Abraham, the good and the great, the pure of heart, and the holy of purpose, and converse with them on scenes and transactions in which they played, all so momentous, and many so brilliant a part; when the chasms of history shall be filled up, and its perplexities unravelled, and its difficulties explained, and night rolled away from the long and then luminous chain that extends from the first man to his last descendant upon earth, and from our first conviction to our final joy!

Such a prospect should influence us in the formation of our friendships upon earth. We ought to seek the circle of our friends in the circle of Christians. We should found our friendship, not mainly on identity of taste or pursuit, but mainly on Christian character. Baxter says, "The expectation of loving my friends hereafter, principally kindles my love to them on carth. If I thought I should never know them, and consequently never love them, after this life is ended, I should number them with temporal things, and love them as such; but I now converse with pious friends, in a firm persuasion that I shall converse with them for ever. I take comfort in the loss of the dead or absent, believing I shall shortly meet them in heaven."

This expectation should also influence yet nearer and dearer relationships. "Be not ye unequally yoked with unbelievers," is an exhortation that extends its echoes far beyond the grave. To such your adieu at death is an eternal one; no present rank is an equivalent for such a calamity-no advancement of worldly interest can prove a compensation for the blasting of bright hopes, and the poisoning of mental peace, still less for the agony of endless separation.

This prospect should make Christians labour for the conversion of their immediate relatives, "warning every man, and teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Next to the salvation of our own souls is the duty of

saving the souls of our relatives; and if we are the saints of God, we shall feel this duty to be pleasure and privilege together.

How fitted is this prospect to help us to live in concord, unity, and peace with all that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth! The expectation of meeting in the future those we disputed with on earth, should lead us to feel less bitterness and alienation of spirit, and to speak in less acrimonious and unbrotherly words; to attach less weight to minor differences, and to give weightier expression to our common love, and life, and truth. It is "the night" that blinds our eyes to the excellences of a brother, distorts his faults, and dims our perception of our own; and when that night shall be rolled away, we shall see with amazement, if not with regret, how hollow and insignificant were the questions about which we spoke so often unadvisedly with our lips, and how weighty were the truths and bonds which we valued highly in our hearts, but sinfully failed to express and glory in, in our intercourse with each other!

It becomes us, in such prospects, to wean our affections more and more from things now seen. We love the town, the village, the city, in which dear friends dwell, for the sake of the inhabitants. These are day after day being separated the one from the other, and all from us: they precede us to take possession of the "rest," and to preoccupy the New Jerusalem. Hence each spot loses daily its charm, each early home every year its attractions: the present becomes more blank, the future grows in our estimate, as it is peopled with the objects of our love. Let our heart and our treasure be in heaven. "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; and every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as He is pure."

"A few short years of evil past,

We reach the happy shore,

Where death-divided friends at last

Shall meet to part no more."

238

LECTURE XVIII.

FAITHFUL AND TRUE SAYINGS.

"And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done."-Revelation xxii. 6.

THIS book closes, as it began, with solemn attestations to the truth and grandeur of the theme with which it is replete. The first ten verses embody the attestation and evidence of its inspiration; from the tenth to the sixteenth verse, we are presented with encouragement to study and to understand it; and in the remainder of the chapter, the Apocalypse, and, perhaps, the whole New Testament, is guarded from substraction, addition, or mutilation. In this verse, it is plainly the same angel that speaks, who made the revelations that precede. If it should be asked why angels are employed in so great and responsible an office, we answer, God works by means and ministers in this dispensation. The laws of creation-winds, and rains, and sunbeams as well as the angels whom he commissions from his throne, are the agents of his purposes, as well as ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation. An angel was employed to smite the hosts of Sennacherib; and another was commissioned to breathe in the face of the first-born of Pharaoh; and on this occasion, another angel is commissioned to talk with John and show him the things which must shortly come to pass. In any case, God can work with, or without, or above, or against means. But he is not less glorious in power when he is pleased to work by means. The testimony which is here enunciated-viz. “These sayings are faithful and true"-is given, no doubt, lest the very magnificence and splendour of the vision of the New Jerusalem, and the glory in which it lies, should appear too dazzling to the ordinary eye, and provoke skeptical rejection where cordial ac