Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

patient, then, to the coming of the Lord. His time is the best time, and He will perfect everything in its season. Never despair of having a spiritual body hereafter, because you groan under a body of sin and death now. For as the first birth precedes the second birth, so the natural body precedes the spiritual body.* Let your only care be to know that you are truly born of God, and then you may safely and quietly trust Him for the rest.

And you who have lost pious friends, and relations and children whom you loved as your own souls, take comfort from this subject. "Do not bewail those who have died in the Lord, but rather those who have ended their lives ill."(St. Chrysostom.) Say, with Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” Consider that," as they have borne the image of the earthy, they shall also bear the image

Lex, deinde Evangelium. Priùs cœlum et terra quæ cernimus, posterius, cœlum et terra, id est, Universum multo pulchrius.—Grotius, quoted in Poole's Synopsis. * Prius est nasci quàm renasci, et vivere quàm resurgere.-Calvin.

of the heavenly;" and that they are now so much nearer this blessed consummation. They have done with the earthly part of their existence, and are calmly waiting for the heavenly. They have done with cares and disquietudes; they have done with temptation and conflict, disease and death. They have joined the spirits in white, and already chant the hymn of the redeemed, and are only waiting for their resurrection-body. It would be cruel to wish them back again; they are so happy where they are. Try to rejoice in their joy, and this will help both to dry your tears, and to draw you towards the same happy company which they have joined. This is the very purpose which God has in view, to draw up your mind to high and heavenly thoughts, and so to link you with the Second Man, even the Lord from heaven. Many an one besides David has found cause to say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." This very trial, if rightly received, is a part of the sanctifying process which is intended by God to qualify

you for the resurrection of the just. Fall in, then, with His gracious design; act faith upon the Divine promises, and "lift up your heads to see your redemption drawing nigh."

SERMON XI.

1 COR. XV. 50-53.

"Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump (for the trumpet shall sound), and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

AND yet Job says, "In my flesh shall I see God." Do St. Paul, then, and Job contradict each other? That cannot be for both were inspired by the same Spirit. Job spake the

truth, when he said, "In my flesh shall I see God." (Job xix. 25-27.) And St. Paul spake the truth, when he said, “Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God." For, you will observe, he does not say absolutely that flesh shall not, but flesh and blood shall not; that is, flesh in its present state shall not. He explains his meaning in the clause that follows:-" Neither doth corruption. inherit incorruption." He does not speak of the substance of the flesh, but of the quality of it. Changed and glorified flesh shall inherit the kingdom, but not mortal and corruptible flesh. Flesh in its present state—frail, perishable, subject to decay, and requiring meat and drink this shall not inherit the kingdom of God. In the very nature of things it cannot. How shall corruption inherit incorruption? The body that now is consists of minute particles, constantly flying off, and replaced by others, so that it never continues in one stay. It is an animal body—a body qualified for earth and earth's employments—a body liable to disease and death. Such a body is utterly unsuited to that glorious kingdom into

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »