The hope of this glory cheers us. From under a canopy of night we look out upon these promised scenes of blessedness, and we are comforted. Our dark thoughts are softened down, even when they are not wholly brightened. For day is near, and joy is near, and the warfare is ending, and the tear shall be dried up, and the shame be lost in the glory, and "we shall be pre- sented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy."
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Then the fruit of patience and of faith shall appear, and the hope we have so long been clinging to shall not put us to shame. Then shall we triumph and praise. Then shall we be avenged on death, and pain, and sickness. Then shall every wound be more than healed. Egypt enslaves us no more. Babylon leads us captive no more. The Red Sea is crossed, the wilderness is passed, Jordan lies behind us, and we are in Jeru- salem ! There is no more curse — there is no more night. The tabernacle of God is with us ; in that tabernacle he dwells, and we dwell with him.
It is " the God of all grace " who u has called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus." It is " when the chief Shepherd shall appear, that we shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away." (1 Pet. v. 4, 10.) And this " after we have suffered a while," and by suffering have been " made perfect, stablished, strength- ened, settled." So that suffering is not lost
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upon us. It prepares us for the glory. And the hope of that glory, as well as the know- ledge of the discipline through which we are passing, and of the process of preparation going on in us. sustains us, nay, teaches us to " glory in tribulation." This is comfort, nay, it is happiness. Strange in the world's eye, but not strange in ours ! All that the world has is but a poor imitation of hap* pir.ess a:;d consolation : ours is real, even now ; how much more hereafter ! Nor will a brief delay and a sore conflict lessen the weight of coming glory. Nay, they will add to it ; and it is worth waiting for, it is worth suffering for, it is worth fighting for. It is so sure of coming, and so blessed when it comes.
" The mass of glory,55 says Howe, " is yet in reserve; we are not yet so»high as the highest heavens." All this is hanging over us, — inviting us on, stirring us up, loosening us from things present, so that the pain of loss, or sickness, or bereavement, falls more
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gently on us, and tends but to make us less vain and light, — more thoroughly in earnest.
" That they may behold my glory/' the Lord pleaded for his own. This is the sum of all. Other glories there will be, as we have seen ; but this is the sum of all. It is the very utmost that even " the Lord of glory " could ask for them. Having sought this he could seek no more ; he could go no further. And our response to this is, u Let me see thy glory ; " yes, and the glad confidence in which we rest is this, " As for me, I will behold thy face in righteous- ness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." This is our ambition. Divine and blessed ambition, in which there is no pride, no presumption, and no excess ! Nothing less can satisfy than the directest, fullest vision of incarnate glory. Self-emptied before the Infinite Majesty, and conscious of being wholly unworthy even of a servant's place, we yet feel as if
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drawn irresistibly into the innermost circle and centre, satisfied with nothing less than the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
" The glory which thou gavest me I have given them." (John xvii. 22.) No less than this, both in kind and amount, is the glory in reserve, according to the promise of the Lord. The glory given to him he makes over to them ! They s€ are made partakers of Christ," and all that he has is theirs. Nay, and he says, " I have given ;" as if it were already theirs by his gift, just as truly as it was his by the Father's gift. He receives it from the Father only for the purpose of immediately handing it over to them! So that even here they can say, " This glory is already mine, and I must live as one to whom such infinite glory be- longs." " Beholding, as in a glass, this glory of the Lord, they are changed into the same image from glory to glory." (2 Cor. iii. 18.) To fret or despond is sad inconsistency in one who can say, even under sorest pressures,
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" I reckon that the sufferings of this pre- sent time are not worthy to he compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." Look at them by themselves, and they do seem at times most overwhelming ; place them side by side with the eternal glory, and they disappear.