Secondly. How it suiteth with the apostle's scope ? I answer : The apostle intendeth three things, — 1. To set forth the excellency of our hopes. 2. To raise up expectation. 3. To persuade the necessity of patience in the meantime. The present argument is serviceable to all these uses.
1. It showeth that there is an excellent state of happiness, far beyond what we do now enjoy, provided for the people of God. This is seen, partly because all things tend to it, as to their great end and state of perfection ; there is a tendency in the inanimate creatures. And partly, because the glory is so great that there nuist be a dissolution of the present world, and a pure estate of things, before we can have our happiness. We admire the splendour of the present world ; are taken with earthly things ; too apt to place our lia]ipiness in them ; but this world must be purged and refined by fire before it can be capable to suit with that blessed estate of things which God hath appointed for hi.° people. God denieth not the splendour of the world, as too good for his people, but as too bad and base to be their portion ; the delights of wicked men shall be burnt up before their eyes, when he bestoweth
150 SERMONS UPON ROMANS VIII. [SeR. XXVII.
their true happiness upon tliera. There would not be else a harmony in all the parts of the world to come, it' there were not new heavens and a new earth. This polluted state is not consistent with that hap- piness ; therefore when the saints are perfected, the world is restored.
2. To quicken earne.st expectation. All thinn^s are carried to their end ; the little seed will work through the dry clods, that it may come into stalk and flower. The whole universe is directed and inclined to a more happy estate ; so should we look after our most perfect state ; the creatures by inclination wait for it, and shall not we who are to have the chief part therein ?
3. To persuade the necessity of patience, during our sufterings in the meantime. We live in a groaning world, and such as shall be first destroyed, and then restored. As the frame of the sublunary world being now in disorder, and at length to be dissolved, groaneth after a restoration ; so, though we be harassed with afHictions, and must at length die, and this animated body be turned into a rotten carcase, yet at length shall be raised up in glory.
The points are three. (1.) That the glorious privileges of God's children are manifested at the last day. (2.) That the .state of the creatures is renewed, when God's children come to be manifested in their glory. (3.) That this estate of things , ought earnestly to be desired and expected by us.
For the first point, — That the glorious privileges of God's children are manifested at the last day. It supposeth —
First, That their estate and hajipiness is hidden for the present but—
Secondly. Then manifested.
First. Here we must enquire. 1. How they are hidden? 2. From whom ? 3. Why they are hidden ? Secondly. How they are manifested then ; and so we shall the better understand how the word is used in opposition to the present estate.
[1.] They are hidden as to their persons. [2.] Their life is hidden. [3.] As to their privileges and glorious estate.
[1.] Hidden as to their persons. Now, it is little known who are God's children ; Christ himself was not known in the world: 1 John iii. 1, 'The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not ;' much less are his people known ; for he did more to distinguish himself than they possibly can do. But it shall be in time manifested who are God's children : Mai. iii. 18, ' Then shall ye return, and di.scern between the righteous and the wicked ; between him that serveth God, and him ' that serveth him not.' Some pretend to be his children and servants ; others really are so. It is not exactly known in the winter, — when the roots lie in the earth we caiuiot tell — what will appear in the spring ; but when the sun shineth in its strength and warmth, the bo.som of the earth, — things hidden, then discover themselves. As Moses told the rebels in Num. xvi. 6, ' To-morrow the Lord will show who are his;' so in the morning of the resurrection, the natural and only begotten Son is known; Christ will appear in all his royalty and glory as the great God and Saviour of the world, Titus ii. 13. So all the children of God are known ; they now lie hid among multitudes and swarms of sinful men ; but then Christ shall ' gather all nations
VeR. 19.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VIII. 151
and he shall separate the one from the other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats,' Mat. xxv. 32. There shall be an eminent and sensible distinction of the one from the other, beyond all power of mistaking.