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and truths that are now seen in fragments shall then be seer. as whole. Thus, on all sides of the great central object in the millennial state, shall be hung this beautiful bow, as if to intimate that the mercy of a covenant God brought us there, and that the power of a covenant God keeps us there; while its predominating tinge shall seem to be, not the azure of the sapphire, nor the blaze of the diamond, but the soft and sober tints of the emerald. Those around the throne are variously represented. In one place they are described as seated: this denotes repose, reception to special favour, and participation of festive joy as it is written, "Many shall come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God." In another place they are represented as standing, to denote their readiness for service, and their delight to execute the will and carry the embassy of the Eternal. In other parts they are represented as falling down before the throne, to denote worship, abasement, reverence. They cast their crowns before the throne of Him from whom they received them.

In that blessed state we shall see Christ as he is: the hope of Job: "In my flesh shall I see God;" and the hope of David: "I shall be satisfied;" the hope of Isaiah: "We shall see the King in his beauty;" and of John: "We shall be like him," will then and there be perfectly realized. Our state shall also be that of great dignity. We shall shine forth in the kingdom of our Father; our raiment like the snow, and our crowns of gold; and all reproach shall be rolled away from them who have been constituted kings and priests to our God and his Christ. We shall also be in a state of perfect security. The light shall never be shaded; that fountain shall never be dry; ever with the Lord" shall be always realized. Our inheritance will be "incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." These words, "This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," shall be pronounced with a new emphasis. That state shall be characterized by perfect unity. All false centres of union shall be scattered; all shibboleths of sect and system shall be utterly extinguished; and the throne of God and of the Lamb, the centre of the created

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universe, shall be the centre of God's redeemed people; and around it never-ending concentric zones of worshippers shall gaze, and wonder, and worship perpetually. There will be "many mansions," but one house-many streams, but one river-many branches, but one tree-many worshippers, but one God and the Lamb.

...

Then, too, shall Psalm lxvii. cease to be prayer, and become fulfilment: "Ged's way will be known upon the earth, and his saving health among all nations. The people will praise him, yea, all the people will praise him. The nations will be glad and sing for joy; for God will judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. The earth shall yield her increase, and God, even our own God, will bless us." Psalm lxxii. shall cease to be promise, and become performance. "The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. . . . They shall fear him as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth. He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him." "His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun be blessed in him all nations shall call him "the whole earth shall be filled with his glory." The vision of Daniel shall then be fulfilled: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him." This is that city for which Abraham looked: that kingdom which cannot

and men shall blessed;" and

be moved; which was lost in Adam, and is re-established in Christ; which Alexander and Napoleon tried in vain to rear from the ruins of the fall; which cometh down from heaven, prepared as a bride for the bridegroom. "We then receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with godly fear." Let us sit loose to earthly things; let us set our affections upon things that are above. Even now let us begin to lay aside the sackcloth of the fall, and to put on our coronation robes.

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LECTURE XVII.

RECOGNITION IN THE AGE TO COME.

"There shall be no night."-Revelation xxii. 5.

THIS text occurs in the previous chapter; and in discussing it in a previous lecture, I viewed it as a prediction of the perfection of that state to which the church is progressively approaching. On this occasion, I am anxious to look at the prediction in another of its aspects, and to answer, in this light, the question, Shall the saved, in their resurrection bodies, and amid millennial light, recognise each other just as clearly and distinctly as they do now?

The reunion of all the people of God, before the throne of God and of the Lamb, is an admitted fact. The Millennium is, in short, the rendezvous of all the people of God,-the "rest that remaineth" for them, the hour of "the manifestation of the sons of God." "I go," says the Saviour, "to prepare a place for you; and I will come again, and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." And again, he prays-"Father, I will that those thou hast given me be with me, that they may behold my glory." We are to be gathered together unto him, and to be presented "a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing."

The resurrection, whether it respects the lost, or the people of God, is not a re-creation of humanity, or the restoration of mankind in the mass, but the resurrection, or rising again, in purity, in beauty, and in glory, of all that was deposited in the grave. The same body that fell, shall rise: this mortal shall put on immortality-this corruptible, incorruptibility: all that constitutes me, be it moral, mental, or physical, shall rise again at the last day. And just as the body which Jesus laid in the tomb was the same body with which he rose from the dead, so shall it be with ours.

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Now, if all our faculties be raised, memory will be restored and resuscitated with the rest. Its essential function is recollection, its aspect is retrospective. It deals only with the past: it is a storehouse of facts. If in the future there be no recollection of the past, we shall have no memory, and shall thus be raised with mutilated powers; or some wave of Lethe, of which we have no intimation in the oracles of truth, shall have washed away and expunged all our reminiscences of departed scenes. But there is abundant evidence that there will be remembrance, and therefore memory, in the age to come. Gratitude, which will then be so deeply felt and vividly expressed, implies recollection of benefits received. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus indicates that memory will have its part and its power in the punishment of the lost it is surely not unreasonable to suppose that it will have a share in contributing to the joys and felicities of the blessed. The words of our Lord, addressed to his own, "I was hungry, and ye gave me meat-thirsty, and ye gave me drink," is an appeal to the memories of his own. Shall we recollect the truths that first kindled in our hearts the joys of heaven, and have no recollection of the instrument, however humble, that conveyed them to our hearts, and interested us in them? Can we have walked together to the house of God, and taken sweet counsel together, and yet have no recollection of voices that were familiar to us as household words, and features with which we were intimately acquainted as with our own? If, then, we recollect in the future dispensation those we knew and loved in the present, shall we be prevented from seeing them? Will any change in them, or in us, prevent us from recognising them? Shall the future be merely successive tiers of separate cells-piles of solitary prisons-a scene of isolation and solitude? Will memory preserve the shadows of the dead, but our eyes fail to recognise them when living? Are we not told that death shall be destroyed? But if those bonds which were broken at death are not restored again in the realms of life, death is not annihilated; one of its deepest wounds survives; its heaviest blow is felt throughout the successive cycles of a futurity to come. But this cannot be. I look on the future as the restoration of scattered families, of suspended friendships, of broken circles; the reanima

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