Such is the case of a saint. From the moment that the hand of the Spirit is laid on him to begin the process of separation, from that moment his history begins. He then receives a conscious, outstanding personality, that fits him for having a his- tory— a history entirely marvellous ; a history whose pages are both written and read in heaven ; a history which in its divine brightness spreads over eternity. His true dignity now commences. He is fit to take a place in story. Each event in his life becomes worthy of a record. " The
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righteous shall be in everlasting remem- brance."
On earth this history is one of suffering and dishonour, even as was that of the Master ; but hereafter, in the kingdom, it is one of glory and honour. "All the time/5 says Howe, " from the soul's first conversion God has been at work upon it, labouring, shaping it, polishing it, spread- ing his own glory on it, inlaying, enamel- ling it with glory ; now at last the whole work is revealed, the curtain is drawn aside, and the blessed soul awakes." Then a new epoch in its history begins.
What that history is to be, we know not now. That it will be wondrous, we know ; how wondrous we cannot conceive. That it will be very unlike our present one, we know ; yet still not severed from it, but linked to it, nay, springing out of it as its root or seed. Our present life is the under-ground state of the plant ; our future life, the shooting, and blossoming, and fruit-
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bearing ; but the plant is the same, and the future depends for all its excellency and beauty upon the present. Night is not the shutting up of day, but day is the opening out of night. Day is but the night in blossom,-^the expanded petals of some dark, unsightly bud, containing with- in it glories of which no glimpses have yet reached us here. It is moody senti- ment, as well as false philosophy, to say as one in our day has done, " Night is nobler than day ; day is but a motley-coloured Veil, spread transiently over the inftiiite bosom of night, hiding from us» its purely transparent, eternal deeps." Night is at best but the beauty of death ; day, of life. And it is life, not death, that is beautiful. And if life on earth, in all its various forms and unfoldings, be so very beautiful, what will it not be hereafter, when it unfolds it- self to the full, transfused throughout all being, with an intensity now unknown, as if almost becoming visible by means of
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the new glory which it then shall spread over all creation.
" The wise shall inherit glory." (Prov. in. 35.) " The saints shall be joyful in glory." (Psa. cxlix. 5.) They are " ves- sels of mercy, afore prepared unto glory." (Rom. ix. 23.) That to which we are called is " eternal glory." (1 Pet. v. 10.) That which we obtain is " salvation in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." (2 Tim. ii. 10.) It is to glory that God is "bring- ing many sons " (Heb. ii. 10) ; so that as he, through whom we are brought to it, is (t crowned with glory and honour," so shall we be. (Heb. ii. 9.) We are " to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." (1 Pet. i. 8.) We are not only " witnesses of the sufferings of Christ, but partakers of the glory that shall be re- vealed." (1 Pet. v. I.) So that the word of exhortation runs thus : " Rejoice, inas- much as ye are partakers of Christ's suf- ferings ; that, when his glory shall be s 2
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revealed, ye may be glad also with exceed- ing joy." (1 Pet. iii. 13.) And the promise is not only, u if we suffer we shall also reign with him ; " but, " if we suffer with him we shall be also glorified together." (Rom. viii. 17.)
This glory, then, is our portion. It is the " better thing " that God has provided for us, and because of which he is not ashamed to be called our God. This is the glory that throws all present suffering into the shade, making it to be eternally forgotten.
Glory is the concentrated essence of all that is holy, excellent, and beautiful.*
* " Glory, in the proper notion of it, is nothing else but resplendent excellency, the lustre of excellency, or real worth made conspicuous. Yet as there is an ex- cellency conceivable in the nature of it, that excellency whereof it is the splendour and brightness ; so we must conceive a peculiar excellency of that very radiation, that splendour itself, wherewith it shines into blessed souls. In its very nature it is the brightness of Divine excellencies; in its present appearance (that is, in heaven) it shines in the highest excellency of that brightness. In its nature it excelleth ail things else;
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