Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices
Call to the saints and to the deaf are dumb;
Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices
Glad in His coming who hath sworn, I come.
This hath He done, and shall we not adore Him?
This shall He do, and can we still despair ? Come, let us quickly fling ourselves before Him,
Cast at His feet the burthen of our care.
Flash from our eyes the glow of our thanksgiving, Glad and regretful, confident and calm.
Then thro' all life and what is after living Thrill to the tireless music of a psalm.
1 K. L. Stevenson, El Dorado. ^ Dora Greenwell, The Reccmciler.
^ F. G. Peabody, Mornings in the College Chapel, 2nd Ser., 159.
476 COMPLETE IN CHRIST
Yea, thro' life, death, thro' sorrow and thro' sinning He shall suffice me, for He hath sufficed:
Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning, Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.^ ^ F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.
Risen with Christ.
477
Literature.
Bradby (E. H.), Sermons Preached at Haileyhury, 95.
Brown (C), Cfod and Man, 106.
Butler (H. M.), Public-School Sermons, 83.
Carter (T. T.), The Spirit of Watchfulness, 118.
Dick (G. H.), The Yoke and the Anointing, 112.
Findlay (G. G.), The Tilings Aleve, 11.
Hare (A. W.), The Alton Sermons, 145.
Holden (J. S.), Redeeming Vision, 48.
Illingworth (J. R.), University and Cathedral Sermons, 208.
Jackson (G.), Memoranda Paulina, 90.
Liddon (H. P.), Easter in St. PauVs, 243.
Lilley (A. L.), Nature and Supernature, 233.
Little (W. J. K.), Characteristics of the Christian Life, 26.
Mclntyre (D. M.), Life in His Name, 183.
Maclaren (A.), After the Resurrection, 130.
Manning (H. E.), Serraons on Eucharistic Subjects, i. 361.
Moore (E. W.), Life Transfigured, 205.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvi. (1880), No. 1530.
Taylor (W. M.), The Boy Jesus, 29.
Tipple (S. A.), The Admiring Guest, 30.
Watkinson (W. L.), The Bane and the Antidote, 95.
Webster (F. S.), The Beauties of the Saviour, 179.
Christian Age, liii. (1893) 211 (Cuyler).
Christian World Pulpit, xxv. 342. (Johnson) ; xlv. 222 (Pierce).
Churchman's Pulpit : Easter Day and Season, vii. 265 (Alsop).
Keswick Week, 1899, p. 156 (Smith).
478
Risen with Christ.
If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above» where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. — Col. iii. i.
1 There are three aspects in which the New Testament treats the resurrection, and these three seem to have come successively into the consciousness of the Church. First, as is natural, it was con- sidered mainly in its bearing on the person and work of our Lord. We may take for illustration the way in which the resurrection V is treated in the earliest of the apostolic discourses, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Then it came, with further reflection and experience, to be discerned that it had a bearing on the hope of the immortality of man. And last of all, as the Christian life deepened, it came to be seen that the resurrection was the pattern of the life of the Christian disciples. It was regarded first as a witness, next as a prophecy, then as a symbol Three fragments of Scripture express these three phrases : for the first, " Declared''^ to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead " ; for the second, " Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept " ; for the third, " God raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places."
2. The resurrection of our Lord secured His ascension to the right hand of God and His eternal session on the equal throne of Deity. As " the power of his resurrection " is applied to the believer, the process of the Saviour's triumph is re-enacted in one who is still encased in the disabilities of this earthly life, and is constantly and painfully aware of the pertinacity of the law of sin in his members. His life occupies at one time two spheres, that of the flesh and that of the spirit (" The life which I now live in the Jiesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of
479
48o RISEN WITH CHRIST
God "). Through the spirit there is conveyed to him without in- termission the life of the ascended and glorified Lord ; the flesh still solicits to sin. The two spheres must be brought into one : the life in the flesh — trials, sorrows, anxieties, perplexities, in- firmities, temptations — must be taken up and placed in the region of spirit. Every desire springing from the flesh that is not itself sinful, every thought which is straitened by the limits that our encompassing mortality imposes, must be lifted into the presence of God, that it may there be disciplined and controlled by the Spirit of Christ who dwells within us.
^ A great principle animates all the members of the animal kingdom, from the lowest to the highest organism, a principle that prompts them to rise towards the great source of light and heat in order to perfect their structure and improve their functions in the glorious light of the sun. The infusoria of the deep seas ascend from a lower existence in the sunless abyss, they rise into the upper, illuminated waters; give time enough, and they leap on shore, and succeeding species are slowly perfected until the obscure life that originated in the ocean slime mounts the air, exulting in the lark singing at heaven's gate and in the eagle soaring in the sun. Everywhere an instinct stirs in the animal creation, prompting to aspirations in perfecting organisms and their functions. There is also an inherent principle in plants urging them to rise from underground darkness into the regions of light, from the gloomy cave into the bright realms of day, from the shady forest high up into the radiant sky.^