It often seems strange to us, and it must seem much more so to unfallen beings, that saints should be found at all in such a world, — a world without God, a world of atheists, — a world that from the days of Cain has been the rejecter of his Son, both as the sacrifice for sin and as the heir of all things. It is not on such a spot that we should naturally expect to find sons of God. Next to hell, it is the unlikeliest place for a soul that loves God to dwell in, even for a day : and if a stranger, travers- ing the universe in search of God's little flock, his chosen ones, were to put to us the question, "Where are they to be found," certainly he would be astonished when told
THE ANTICIPATIONS. 5
that they were in that very world where Satan reigned, and from which God had been cast out ! Would he not say, " Either this is a mistake and a chance, or else it is the very depth of unfathomable wisdom." For we do not go to the crater's slope for verdure ; nor for flowers to the desert ; nor for the plants of heaven to the shores of the lake of fire. Yet it is so with the church. It is strange perhaps to find a Joseph in Egypt, or a Rahab in Jericho, or an Oba- diah in the house of Ahab ; but it is more amazing to find saints in the world at all. Yet they are here. In spite of every thing ungenial in soil and air, they are here. They never seem to become acclimatized, yet they do not die out, but are ever re- newed. The enemy labours to uproot them, but they are ineradicable. Nay, they thrive and bear fruit. It is a miracle ; but yet so it is. Here the great Husband- man is rearing his plants from generation to generation. Here the great Potter
B 3
S THE ANTICIPATIONS,
Fashions his vessels. Here the great Master-builder hews and polishes the stones for his eternal temple.
Thus, then, one characteristic of the church is, the unlikeness of her present to her future condition. It is this that marks her out, that isolates her, as a gem in the heart of a rock, as a vein of gold in a mine. Originally she belonged to the mass, but she was drawn apart from it, or it fell from off her and left her alone, like a pillar among ruins. Outwardly she retains much of her former self; but inwardly she has undergone a change that has assimilated her to " the world to come." Thus her affinities and her sympathies are all with that better world. Her dwelling is still here, and in external appearance she is much as she used to be ; but the internal transformation has made her feel that this is not her home, and filled her with an ticipations of the city and the kingdom to come, of which she has been made the
THE ANTICIPATIONS. 7
heir. Her kindred according to the flesB. are here, but she is now allied to Jehovah by the. ties of blood, and this draws her soul upwards.
Cut off from a home and a heritage here, yet assured of both hereafter, she of necessity lives a life of anticipation. Giv- ing credit to the message of grace, and resting on the blood of Him through whose cross that grace came down to her, she an- ticipates her acquittal at the judgment. Realizing her oneness with the risen and ascended Christ, she feels as if already seat- ed with him in heavenly places. Looking forward to the arrival of the King, she an- ticipates the kingdom. In darkness she anticipates the light; in sorrow she an- ticipates the joy ; in the night she antici- pates the morning ; in shame she antici- pates the glory. ' e All are mine," she says, " whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things pre- sent, or things to come ; all are mine ; fo/
8 THE ANTICIPATIONS.
I am Christ's, and Christ is God's." In these anticipations she lives. They make up a large portion of her daily being. They cheer her onward in spite of the rough wastes she has to pass through. They comfort her ; or when they do not quite succeed in this, they at least calm and soothe her. They do not turn mid« night into noon, but they make it less op- pressive, and take off "the night side of nature."
"I am not what I seem," she says to herself; "and this is joy. I am not the beggared outcast that the world takes me for. I am richer far than they. They have their riches now, but mine are com- ing when theirs are gone. They have their joys now ; but mine are coming when theirs have ended in eternal weeping. I live in the future ; my treasure is in heaven, and my heart has gone up to be where my treasure is. I shall soon be seen to be what I now seem not. My kingdom
THE ANTICIPATIONS. 9
is at hand ; my sun is about to rise ; I shall soon see the King in his beauty ; I shall soon be keeping festival, and the joy of my promised morning will make me forget that I ever wept."
Thus she lives in the morning, ere the morning has come. She takes a wide sweep of vision, round and round, without a limit ; for faith has no horizon ; it looks beyond life, and earth, and the ages, into eternity.