For it is resurrection-change he looks for, and re- joices in as his hope. When that day arrives the trumpet shall sound, the voice of God shall speak, —
Thou shalt call, And I will answer !
But how is he so assured of being thus remembered
of God? He knows how precious in his eyes is the
dust of his saints, —
Thou wilt have a desire To the work of thine hands.
rill PREFACE.
Thus, though Job begins with what is merely ne- gative, that is, the ending of his grief and shame, he cannot rest there, but presses on, in rapid hope, to the beginning of his joy and glory. It is the morning, with all its new life and reviving sun- shine, that rises before his view, and from afar pours into him its healing light.
"The fashion of this world passeth away." This cheers us, for it assures us that no grief shall live long. But the fashion of " the world to come " en- dures. This is unspeakably gladdening; for all that that better " age " brings with it shall abide for ever. The inheritance is vast, the city is "joyous," the mansions are many, the title is sure, and the possession is everlasting.
Jerusalem ! Jerusalem !
Would God I were in thee ! Oh that my sorrows had an end,
Thy joys that I might see.
Thus sweetly sung one of Scotland's holiest sons in the olden time. Broken with many griefs, he thus poured out his soul, — weary and home-sick, as a stranger here. And will not " night " fail in one of its objects, if it does not make us long for the " day " ? Will not tribulation be frustrated if it do not stir within us this " earnest expectation," this " groaning within ourselves," this "fervent long- ing,"— this home-sickness which the saints in other days felt so tenderly and truly ? And all the more, because " now is our salvation nearer than when we believed ;" for we have arrived at the last stage of our journey, and a few more days will suffice to bring us home.
Kelso, December 19, 1849.
MORNING OF JOT.
CHAPTER I.
THE ANTICIPATIONS.
The Church of God on earth is not what she seems ; nay, is what she seems not. She is not a beggar, yet she seems one ; she is a King's bride, yet she seems not. It was so with her Lord while here. He was not what men thought him ; he was what they thought him not.
It is in this way that the world is put to shame, its thoughts confounded, its great- ness abased before God. And it is in this way that Divine wisdom gets large space over which to spread itself, step by step, and to open out its infinite resources slowly
B
2 THE ANTICIPATIONS.
and with care, (like one exhibiting his treasures,) that no part, no turn in all its windings may be left unobserved. It is not the result only that God desires that we should see and wonder at, but the pro- cess by which it is reached, so unlikely to effect it, yet so steadily moving forward to its end, and so strangely successful in bring- ing about that end. The planting of the " trees of God " in Eden, in full strength and fruitfulness at once, was not such an exhibition of wisdom as that which we ourselves see in yearly process before us, when God out of a small, shapeless seed brings a stately pine or palm.
In truth, this is the law of our world. It might not be so at first in Eden, when only the result was given to view ; but it has been so since, and is so now, for God is showing us most minutely how " fear- fully and wonderfully " all things are made, and we among the rest, in soul and in body, in our first birth and in our
THE ANTICIPATIONS. 3
second, in our natural and in our spiritual growth.
The tree, in winter, is not what it ap- pears— dead; nay, it is what it appears not — alive ; full in every part, root, stem, and branch, of vigorous though hid- den vitality, a vitality which frosts and storms are but maturing, not quenching. All summer-life is there ; all autumn fruitfulness is there ; though neither visi- ble. It wraps up within itself the germs of future verdure, and awaits the coming spring. So is it with the church, in this age of wintry night; for it is both night and winter with her. Her present condi- tion ill accords with her prospects. No one, in looking at her, could guess what she either is or is to be ; could conceive what God has in store for her. For eye has nothing to do with the seeing of it, nor ear with the hearing of it. No one, in observ- ing her garb or her deportment, or the treatment she meets with at the hands of b 2
THE ANTICIPATIONS.
men, or the sharp, heavy discipline through which she is passing, could take the mea- sure of her hopes. Faith finds difficulty in realizing her prospects, and she can hardly at times credit the greatness of her heritage, when thinking of what she is and remembering what she has been.