heaven, shall so come again in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

No testimony can well be more full and satisfactory than that of the Scriptures to the return of the ever blessed Jesus, the eternal Son of God, to judge this present world, to punish the wicked and to be glorified in his saints; and if we believe any thing of the Scripture, we must believe this. But with what delight will this truth be received by those who have felt the power of his grace, who know the riches of his love and mercy, who are aware that they owe to him a deliverance from an eternal hell, and a growing conformity to the holy image of God! For them to look forward to the coming again of the blessed Jesus, is to anticipate a period when the dearest and the best of all spectacles shall gładden their eyes, the actual view of Him in whom they have believ ed as their atonement on the cross, their surety in eternity, and their everlasting friend and intercessor before the throne of the Eternal.

Secondly, We shall see him as he is; that is, in the first place we shall see him really in opposition to the vision of faith. It is only by faith that we have yet seen Jesus Christ. His character embodied in the scriptural declaration of it, and made to come with influential power upon a believing mind, so as to convince of its reality; and the actual spiritual communication with him,

these are the things which have realized the Saviour to us; and we can say, We have "endured as seeing Him who is invisible;" and again, “In Him, though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." But then, when he shall appear, when he shall come forth again to all the solemnities of a public judgment, we shall discern Him as really as any other object that has ever presented itself to the natural eye. The longing eye of the believer shall be gratified; and he shall actually see the crucified, that mysterious, glorious, adorable incarnation, through whom alone he attains to peace and immortality. But secondly, to see him as he is, is to see him in all the glories of his exaltation, in opposition to the humiliation of his former residence on earth. Then "He was despised and rejected of men;" they "saw no beauty in him," they "esteemed him stricken and smitten of God." The men who stood by at his crucifixion, accounted him some fearful malefactor, striken in the midst of his career, and smitten with the full bolt of vengeance. VOL. II.-13

Yet now, through all that unrivalled suffering and sorrow, the believer sees by faith his Saviour's unspeakable loveliness; the glory of the only begotten of the Father. The purity, the patience, the benevolence, the lowliness, and the sublimity of that meek and unoffending Jesus, win the hearts of those whom he has saved and sanctified. But whatever has been the delight which the saints have experienced in the faithful contemplation of his character as exhibited on earth, it shall all be lost in the splendors of the beatific vision, when they shall see "the King in his beauty," and see him" face to face."

The book of the Revelation contains some description of the brightness of his coming; but they all fail of producing fullness and satisfaction to the mind. We may combine all the extraordinary imagery that the Scripture has mercifully given; but the imagination fails before it. Nothing will do but the reality. The eye of faithful anticipation will never rest, till the cloud breaks before us, and from the mystery of his concealment, the blessed Jesus comes surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand ministering spirits, and receiving all the unqualified honors of the Deity, and dispensing to a prostrate world his sovereign will; till seated on that dazzling throne of glory, we see Him who hath loved us, the only begotten Son of God, who hath shed his blood for us, who has entered into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for us, and who comes at last to claim us as his own. Then we shall be satisfied. Then we shall sec, glowing in that glorious countenance all the love wherewith he loved the guilty, wretched objects of his everlasting compassion. Then shall his eye rest upon us in all the tenderness of everlasting love; and what we have believed we shall then realize in undoubted vision, that the God who judgeth us, is He who died and rose again for us, and who hath ever lived to make intercession for us; and that neither sin, nor death, nor the grave, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is impossible yet to conceive the joy of such a meeting, when they who have been redeemed to God by his blood, shall thus see the Redeemer in his glory. But surely, nothing that we can conceive of embodied and visible glory, coming forth to the sight, can ever be so lovely to our eyes, as the crucified Emmanuel,-the

loveliness of Divine perfection, embodied in a glorified human form, robed in all the interest of an atoning death endured for us, bright in all the splendor of omnipotent royalty, and shining forth on us individually, with all the fullest manifestations of unqualified love. Well may we sing in the language of one of our hymns: Come thou, the soul of all our joys, Thou, the desire of nations, come; Put thy bright robes of triumph on, And bless our eye, and bless our ear; Thou absent love, thou dear unknown, Thou fairest of ten thousand fair!

Thirdly, The vision of Jesus as he is, shall perfect our own resemblance to him. "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

"We shall be like him." Jesus Christ is the express image of the Divine perfection; and it is the will of God respecting his saints redeemed out of this sinful world, that they should be exalted to that moral likeness of himself. They are said to be "predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son." The appointment of God in eternity is, that they should be "holy, and without blame before him." They are to be "transformed by the renewing of their minds." Their souls are to be "purified in obeying the truth, through the Spirit." They are to be made "partakers of the Divine nature." And the work of their salvation is not considered as completed, till they attain to the "measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." They are to be one family, and He the first-born; one body, and He the head. And their entire deliverance from sin, and their conformity to the glorious image of the Son of God, is the great object purposed to be accomplished. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification." "He gave himself for us, that he might cleanse us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." So that at that great and glorious day, for which we are looking, we shall wear the very image of that blessed Redeemer, a sinless soul, and an untainted, incorruptible, and glorious body, like his which is now in the midst of the throne.

And this work of grace shall be crowned with perfection in the act of the glorious vision of the Saviour. We gather this from the nature of the work of grace now carrying on in the soul of the true believer. The Christian's appointed attitude is "looking

unto Jesus;" contemplating his revealed excellency; and it is this looking to him which is the appointed mode of growing like him. So we are told that Christ is the image and glory of God shining on men; and it is said of real Christians, that "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ." So in another place it is said, that the Gospel is the "ministration of righteousness," inasmuch as they who are led by the Spirit to look to Christ, do receive, in looking on him, the gift of righteousness. So that while others, who have the veil on their hearts, see nothing; "all we," says the Apostle," with open face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord,"-seeing this glorious manifestation of the Divine excellence reflected on us, "are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." In another passage, if we learn Christ really, it is said to be the putting "off the old man which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, and the putting on the new man, which after God," that is, after the likeness or image of God, displayed to us in Christ," is created in righteousness and true holiness." From whence it is evident that the reality of religion and of gracious influence, is the habitual and devoted contemplation of the Divine image in Christ, till we are gradually conformed to it; till the light on which we gaze is reflected on us in all its brightness; and we are inherently imbued with its holiness and glory; and filled with all the fullness of God, to the exclusion of all evil.

Now, the nearer we get to God in Christ, and the more we live with him, the more effectually the work of sanctification is going on. And when at the last our happy spirits and our glorified bodies shall come before his throne; and He whom we have followed and loved, and in all his imitable perfections, by the aids of his grace endeavored to imitate; when he shall appear, when he shall come forth from his present mystery, to be manifested to the longing eyes of his saints; then the glorious image which they have desired to wear shall have the last touch of perfection given to it. Then in the full and unqualified sense of the term, "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is;" no longer wearing only the likeness of faith in an imperfect dispensation, where he is in some measure invisible, but the likeness of complete frui tion and glory, in a world of perfection, where we shall know

even as we are known.

We shall wear a perfect conformity to

his own moral image, in which he will delight; and which we ourselves shall be able to recognise and rejoice in, as the likeness of our God.

And such is the prospect before those who are made the sons of God. In some subordinate respects, a cloud hangs over their future state. It does not yet appear what they shall be; but in the most important respect of all, that in which as responsible moral agents they are most deeply interested, their moral state, ample information is given. The pattern of spiritual excellence is set before them in Jesus Christ, as the standard to which they are to be raised. And wonderful as it may appear, yet evidence, ample and satisfactory evidence is given to them, that at the set time, at God's own time, they shall be completely conformed to that exalted standard. So that it may be actually said by them, 66 we know this." In some other subordinate respects, we are yet in doubt; "but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him." They know it generally of the saints by the declaration of Scripture; but they know it of themselves individually, by the same evidence which ascertains to them their sonship. And if they can, on a faithful inspection of their case before God, affirm with humble assurance the conviction, that now they are the sons of God; then it follows also, that they can look forward through all that is to come, through affliction, and sickness, and pain, and death and the grave, and judgment, and say, 'notwithstanding all, we know that the Son of God is coming to judge the world, and we know that when he shall so come again, our salvation shall be completed; we shall be like him, and appear with him in glory.'

And this is not in the real Christian an unfounded and presumptuous confidence. It is a knowledge to which all real Christians are invited; and to which they ought to attain. It is intended that this assurance of faith and hope should be their joy in this the house of their pilgrimage; and that they should be so daily renewed by the Holy Spirit in the inner man, as to know that while they look to eternal things, "their light afflictions are working out for them a far more exceeding, and eternal weight of glory;" and that "whenever the earthly house of this tabernacle shall be dissolved, they shall enter upon a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."