it our spirit also become "twice dead." In the faithful it is kept under and held in check by "the powers of the world to come;" but in the faithless it is a haunt of impurity, and a minister of sin and hell. Let us watch against the carnal mind; for though it be thrust down from its dominion, yet the infection of our nature abides still in the regenerate. The immortality which is in us may yet become "earthly, sensual, devilish.” We may yet be doomed to an unhallowed resurrection, and to an endless life "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." But it is also a blessed thought, that there is a change awaiting us. After all our toiling and self-chastisement, there still remains with us a fast-cleaving and mysterious evil; and a deep consciousness is ever telling us that, do what we may, we must bear the grave-clothes of the fall till the morning of the resurrection; that we must suffer under the load of an imperfect nature, until God shall resolve our sullied manhood into its original dust, and gather it up once more in a restored purity. The hope of the resurrection is the stay of our souls when they are wearied and baffled in striving against the disobedience of our passive nature. At that day we shall be delivered from the self which we abhor, and be all pure as the angels of God. O healing and kindly death, which shall re

fine our mortal flesh to a spiritual body, and make our lower nature chime with the Eternal will in faultless harmony! Let us, then, as they that in pledge and promise are risen with Christ, so live in sympathy with the world to come, that death, and the resurrection of the dead, may be not so much a change in our earthly life as the crown of its perfection. Let us so live that our earthly course may run on into eternity, and be itself eternal. Let us never doubt because we see no visible tokens to bespeak the virtue which is passing on us. The Church itself is but a fellowship of men that shall die; but yet she is "all glorious within.” Wait till the morning of the new creation, and then shall all be revealed; and the body, which now shrouds the spirits, shall be as clear as the noon-day light; and then shall be seen openly what now is shrined within; and "the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."1

1 St. Matt. xiii. 43.

SERMON XXVI.

THE GLORY OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

ST. MATTHEW Xiii. 43.

"Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

It is plain that these words are spoken of the end of the world, and of the condition of the righteous in God's eternal kingdom. The purpose for which Christ came into the world was, "to bring in everlasting righteousness." All other gifts and distributions of grace, mercy, and forgiveness, are but parts of this one great and perfect gift. It was for righteousness that the whole creation groaned and travailed together: wrong, and falsehood, and violence, and impurity, and darkness, and the torment of an evil heart, in one word, unrighteousness, was both the sin and the misery of mankind.

So also, in one word, the redemption of man through the blood-shedding of Christ is the restoration of righteousness to the world. Noah was

the "heir of the righteousness which is by faith." The prophecy of the Gospel was, that "righteousness" should "look down from heaven;" and again we read, "Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together:" "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you." And therefore, when the "Sun of righteousness" arose upon the earth, "the ministration of righteousness" was brought into the world, "that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." And to this end we have received the "gift of righteousness, which, though perfect in itself, is not yet made perfect in us, but is ordered by the laws and measures of growth, and slow advancement; and therefore the whole mystical body of Christ, which is so made one with Him that He is made "righteousness" unto us, is still waiting "for the hope of righteousness by faith." All the regenerate are brought, by the working of His grace, into a rela

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tion to the perfect righteousness of His person and His kingdom; and they that are of faith shall partake in fulness what they now have only in pledge. "The path of the just," or "righteous," "is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day;" and "at His coming and His kingdom" they shall be “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white," which is "the righteousness of saints." Such is the meaning of our Lord's words: "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun." From which we may learn:

In the first place, that righteousness is a gift which lies hid in us here in this earthly life; and that, partly because it is a thing in its very nature spiritual and inward, dwelling in the soul of man ; and partly because it is concealed by the imperfections of our being, by the decay of our bodily frame, and the like. In this life it is so disguised, so shrouded in our mortality, and so mixed up with the changes and conditions of this world, that the gift of righteousness is rather an object of faith than of sight. We do, indeed, at all times see the tokens of its presence; but what we behold, and all that is indicated by the tokens we see, is but a very small measure of that abounding grace of righteousness which, like leaven in the mass, is hid in the world, for the restoration of mankind to 1 Rev. xix. 8.