when spoken by a man who can himself but feebly understand them, who seeth them but in a glass darkly, and who is himself no better than others!

Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell, are but mere words, for which we have no adequate corresponding thoughts; but there are great substantial realities signified by them, of which great realities we must one day be partakers. May God grant of His mercy that it may be for good and not for evil!

Therefore it is, as I tried to show in the beginning of this Discourse, so infinitely important to us that we look to the Mind that was in CHRIST, inasmuch as He alone can see the true value and worth of all things, as we shall at last come to comprehend and acknowledge.

The time is short; for where the tree falleth there it must lie. But, as I said, words are nothing, and knowledge of itself is nothing. "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."

SERMON CCCXXV.

BEING RISEN WITH CHRIST.

ST. LUKE XX. 35, 36.

"They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:

"Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of GOD, being the children of the Resurrection."

THE Resurrection of our LORD from the dead has made Christians, in some great and peculiar sense, the children of God. And this is implied in the twenty-second Psalm, which minutely describes our LORD's sufferings on the Cross; for when it comes to speak of our LORD's Resurrection at the close of it, we read, "I will declare Thy Name unto My brethren," In like manner, our LORD HIMSELF, as soon as He was risen from the grave, says, "Go and tell it unto My brethren;" whereas He never addresses His Apostles as His brethren before. And if by the death and Resurrection of CHRIST we are made His brethren, it is of course because we are also made children of God by the same, in some mysterious and heavenly sense.

And as the Scriptures describe so constantly the state of a Christian as that of being dead with CHRIST, buried with CHRIST, being conformable unto His death, and bearing about His dying, so do they also of his being risen with CHRIST, and of his ascending to Heaven with CHRIST.

Now, of course, in the highest and fullest sense, it is of those which shall be thought worthy to attain that life which is in

Heaven after death, that holy Scripture speaks in the text, when they shall be risen together with CHRIST, with glorified bodies made like unto the SON OF GOD, being therefore anew the children of GOD, "the children of the Resurrection,” and “equal unto the angels."

But whatever is said of the heavenly state hereafter, is also in holy Scripture said of the Christian state now on earth; we are already children of GOD, being children of the Resurrection; and the measure of our duty is that of angels, inasmuch as we pray daily that the will of GOD may be done on earth as it is in Heaven; and at the holy Communion we are said to eat "angels' food." But there is this great difference, that, in the present state, we must not only be risen with CHRIST, but, at the same time, also dead with HIM: risen with HIM in heavenly affections, in living a new life, by prayers and spiritual exercises day by day renewed in HIM; and dead with HIM in being more and more dead to worldly desires, and caring less and less for things earthly, and being like a dead man with respect to them. Not only so, but the more we are dead with HIM to things earthly, the more shall we be alive to things heavenly; the more conformable we are unto His death, the more shall we know "the power of His Resurrection," the more will His life be manifested in us; the more we are dead to ourselves, the more will CHRIST live within us.

And this union of death and life, of burial and Resurrection, of suffering and joyfulness, earthly death and heavenly life, human burial and divine Resurrection, suffering in the flesh and joyfulness in the spirit, is the state of the true Christian on earth; because the death and Resurrection of CHRIST are both fulfilled in him. And these seem to be both of them set forth in our LORD'S own risen Body; for when His Body was arisen from the grave, a new and spiritual Body, coming and going through closed doors, passing from place to place without being seen, appearing and disappearing according to His will, and therefore so altered, and transformed, and glorified in its nature, that it appeared hardly like the same earthly Body; yet did it still bear about it the marks of death and suffering. The hole was still to be seen in the side that was pierced, and the marks of the nails in the hands and the feet; yea, from those wounds and deadly marks it was known by His disciples; and with these marks will it be seen on the

Day of Judgment; so that every eye shall see and recognize the crucified SAVIOUR, and they also which pierced HIM. And as the true disciple knows his LORD from these marks of suffering and death even in His glorious Body, so also is the disciple known by his LORD from these signs,-He knows His true disciple by the marks he bears of being dead and crucified with HIM; for they that suffer with HIM shall also reign together with HIM.

Such is the true disciple of CHRIST in this world, ever risen from the dead with His LORD, and being with HIM in heavenly affections, and yet ever bearing about in the body the marks of the LORD JESUS. Both of these things must be alike fulfilled in him, as belonging to this world, mortifying himself, doing violence to himself in order that he may deaden his members that are upon the earth; and at the same time, as belonging to another and better world, being renewed daily in heavenly hope and charity.

Now, both of these things are a great privilege; it is a privilege and blessing to be like CHRIST upon earth, to be, like HIM, a stranger and sojourner, as dying and buried with HIM; and it is also a great privilege to be conformed unto His heavenly likeness, to be with HIM in Heaven, and like HIM.

This is surely a very great and consoling mystery, that whatever is said of the future state of the redeemed hereafter, is also said of them in some sense now; for the Christian is already in the kingdom of Heaven, he is already a child of GOD, and made heir of an endless life. And by this it is evident that our Heavenly FATHER Would have us already to anticipate in our hopes and thoughts, and, as it were, to realize upon earth that heavenly state, to look forward to it, and compare it with the things with which we are at present surrounded.

For although we cannot have any full and adequate sense of those pleasures which are at the right hand of God, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, yet by comparing them with things temporal, we may obtain a lively sense of them; yea, the very evils which surround us may quicken our thoughts after those joys. And perhaps in no place can we find a more exalted description than in the expressions of our LORD in the text: "They neither marry, nor are given in marriage ;" that is, because there is no death there; the ranks of that heavenly company are not

thinned and broken by the destroyer, and therefore there is no need of marriage. What a store of happy thoughts does this supply to us! There is no growing older, and day by day more near to our graves, in that blissful country; there is no disease, no anxious inquiry respecting the perishable and frail body; no pains sent to remind us of death; no separation from friends and relations; no melancholy changes produced by the absence and loss of those who made places on earth to be what they can never be again. In that blessed abode there is no setting sun, no autumn, no old age, because there is no night, no winter, no death; and therefore there are none of the things which accompany these things, no gloom, no decay, no misery.

Such circumstances are indeed inconceivable to us, for we can form no idea of a state in which there is no death; all that we know is, that such a condition must be perfectly free from all those things that here distress us.

And if from its duration it is unspeakable, so also is it on account of its greatness; for it is to be " equal to the angels." We can form no conception of what an angel can be; and we call that angelic which surpasses all expression; it implies something as far above all earthly greatness as the skies are above earth,— all love, and harmony, and peace. They rest not day nor night from singing the praises of GOD: so are their employments described to us, because music, and harmony, and singing praise, and love, and peace, are the purest and best joys we know on earth, and therefore approach most nearly to heavenly employments. But yet these things in themselves can afford us no adequate idea or conception of those blissful occupations which engage the inhabitants of Heaven. For these things here below are but some little change from those evils that oppress us; there is no substantial rest for the soul even in the best of them. For what do we know of peace? For those who have been agitated and distressed by disputes and contentions, there is nothing so delightful as peace; for those who have been afflicted by an evil conscience, by the struggles of the evil one within them, by bitter thoughts accusing them for past misdeeds, and affrighting them with the thoughts of the last Judgment, there is no joy on earth. equal to that peace passing all understanding, which GoD affords to the penitent soul. But what is this peace? It is nothing else