Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

SERMON VII.

ON THE PRESENT IMPERFECTION OF OUR SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE, ESPECIALLY WITH

FUTURE WORLD.

REGARD ΤΟ A

1 Corinthians xiii. 12.

Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

I. In the passage from which these words are taken, St. Paul had been comparing the present and the future conditions of mankind to two different stages in our earthly existence. For "now," he says, "we know in part, and prophecy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." "When I was a child," he continues, "I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Gradual and full of change as the growth of the mind of man from childhood to its full maturity, is the progress of the soul from the narrow views and the limited conceptions of the present state, to the high perfections of the future. The life of this world, it is the constant object of religion to assure us, is but the childhood of our exist ence, the dawn of our immortal being. Children as we are now in knowledge, we see only with a partial and distorted view, those eternal truths which the more expanded intelligence of a perfected spirit shall discern with a clear and comprehensive glance. And, what is a still more essential part of the comparison, we are children too in our moral, as well as our mental inca pacity; children, in the weakness and fluctuation of our obedience; children, in the scanty mea sure of grace we are enabled to receive; children, in the strictness of that probationary discipline by which we require to be trained up unto the perfect man, that is, "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."*

[ocr errors]

This world then, with all its hopes and its fears, with all its pomps and pageantry, its covetousness and its ambition, sinks into sutter insignificance when contrasted with that greater one on which have been more abundantly lavished Ephesians iv. 13.

[ocr errors]

the wonders of God's creative power; and albour most favourite objects of present pursuit, in comparison with these matured perfections of the future, seem but as a mass of puerilities. As the heavens are higher than the earth," says the prophet," so are God's ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts." And the very contemplation of this fact, of the immeasurable sphere over which the multitude of this visible works extend, and the mighty scale on which they are conceived and framed, →→ while it expands our thoughts from time unto eternity, and raises them from the narrow con fines of earth on which we dwell to the vast infinitude of space above us, must, at the same time, remind us how little we have yet penetrated into the secret counsels of the Most High. Even when we pause from the common avocations of life, to turn our eyes upon the firmament above us, and contemplate the innumerable and living worlds with which it is so richly spangled, we cannot but reflect on what vast fields yet unex> plored by man are lavished the wisdom and goodness of God, what stores of knowledgevare yet undiscovered to our view, how many are the mysteries yet unrevealed. And, in the enthu siasin of such contemplations as these, wit is not

*Isaiah lv. 9.

[ocr errors]

surprising if the mind of man should sometimes seem, as it were, to fret on the narrow confines of the world it inhabits, and ask a new and greater sphere for its conquests. That, in a religious and less presumptuous sense, the “earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God."*-That nature even now looks forth from her narrow prison-house, and anxiously seeks for a nobler and a better inheritance.-That, though death and the grave seem to bound the prospect, still she looks beyond them, and anticipates a better life-a more enduring immortality. And that, in all the objects of her speculation and her knowledge,→ in all that she hears, and feels, and sees, there should seem to be a sentence written, and a voice that repeats-"Behold thou shalt see greater things than these!”

These and other circumstances connected with the progressive condition of man, are frequently alluded to in holy scripture, and seem to be especially recognized in the words of the text. And whoever has taken the pains to follow St. Paul into the inner sanctuary of his private thoughts, and dwelt on those deeply interesting confessions, real treasures indeed of Christian experience, in which he speaks of his own per

[ocr errors]

*Romans viii. 19.

t

sonal hopes and fears, will understand the principles of that unfeigned ardour with which they who truly know the relative value of this life and the next, can long to "depart and be with Christ," and "earnestly desire to be clothed upon with the house which is from heaven," that "mortality might be swallowed up in life."* But the text, while it is instructive in every point of view, will carry us still further than this, and will shew us, not only that there are yet higher perfections to be attained, as well as that there are in man, though greatly diverted from their destined object, the elements of a certain ambitious desire to attain them, but also that we have some anticipations and foretastes of those perfections even in our present state. We do "see," though it be '" through a glass,” and “ and "darkly: "—we do "know," though our knowledge be only "in part." Miserably corrupted indeed is the human heart, and limited the compass of the best capacities of the human mind: yet amidst the wreeks and the ruins of man's nature some traces of his first perfection are legible still, which were engraved there at first by the hand of God, and which give fair promise of what that renovated nature might be bereafter. And we have some notices, even from our moral constitution itself, of *1 Corinthians v. 2, 4.

« AnteriorContinuar »