immortal Christ we have a sufficient answer to the patriarch's question—"If a man die, shall he live again?" In his mysteriously constituted personality taking our nature into union with the Godhead, by his vicarious passion ransoming that nature, and then rising with it from the dead and returning with it to heaven, he assures all who believe in him of an actual alliance with the living God and all the blissful immunities of life eternal. And thus the apostle's statement becomes the best expression of our filial hope in Christ: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

The ground of our glorious hope as disciples of Christ is found in our gracious state as sons of God. But is not this the relation of all men? Originally it was, but is not now. By creation indeed "we all are his offspring," but not by adoption and regeneration. Sin has cut off from that original relation the whole progeny of Adam, and disinherited us of all its rights and privileges. The paternal likeness is effaced from the human soul. Alienated from the life of God, men have become children of the wicked One. Only by restoring grace—"a new creation in Christ Jesus"—can they regain what they have lost. To effect this, came forth the Only Begotten from the bosom of the Father, and gave himself upon the cross a ransom for the sinful race. Whosoever believeth in him is saved, restored, forgiven, renewed after the image of his Creator in righteousness and true holiness. Jesus himself preached to Nicodemus the necessity of this new birth, and "born of God" is the apostolic description of the mighty transformation. More than any outward ordinance is here expressed—more than mere morality, or reformation of life—a clean heart created, a right spirit renewed, the inception of a higher life whereby the soul becomes partaker of the Divine Nature. All this, through faith in Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Now there is reconciliation and amity with God—"an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." More; there is sympathy, and sweet communion, and joyful co-operation, and spiritual assimilation, and oneness of will and desire, and free access to the throne of grace in every time of need. "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying—Abba, Father." "And if children, then heirs—heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ." And oh! what an inheritance awaits us in the glorious manifestation of our Lord, when all his saints shall be glorified together with him! For, "it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

Our sonship, you see, is the ground of our hope. Our hope, you will now see, is worthy of our sonship.

At present, indeed, our glorious destiny is not apparent. By faith we see it, dim and distant, as through the shepherds' glass; in hope we wait for it with calm patience, or press toward it with strong desire; but what it is—"the glory that shall be revealed in us"—we know not, and cannot know, till mortality shall be swallowed up of life. It is spiritual; we are carnal. It is heavenly; we are earthly. It is infinite; we are finite. It is altogether divine: we are but human. Some of God's artists, as St. Paul and St. John, have given us gorgeous pictures of it, which we gaze at with shaded eyes; but while we study them, we cannot help feeling that they fall far short of the copied original. In our present state, what idea can we form of the condition of the soul, and the mode of its subsistence, when dislodged from the body? Nay, what idea can we form of the natural body developing into the spiritual, and all its rudimental powers unfolding in their perfection? Or, to speak more accurately and more scripturally, what idea can we form of the resurrection body, awaking from its long sleep in the dust, re-organized and re-invested—with new beauties, perhaps new organs, new senses, new faculties, all glorious in immortality? And the enfranchised intellect, who can guess the grandeur of its destiny—what new provinces of thought, new discoveries of truth, new revelations of science, new disclosures of the mysteries of nature and of God? And the spirit—the ransomed and purified spirit—who can imagine what perfection of love, what affluence of joy, what transports of worship and of song, what society and fellowship with the saints in light, it shall enjoy when it has entered its eternal rest? We know not how the statue looks till we see it unveiled; and the whole creation, as St. Paul writes to the Romans, is waiting for the unveiling of the sons of God. Now they are his hidden ones—hidden in the shadow of his wings, in the secret place of his tabernacle—their life hidden with Christ in God—their character and true glory hidden from the world—their ineffable destiny and reward hidden from themselves, till their dear Lord shall appear, and they also shall appear with him in glory. And well is it that our knowledge of the better world to come is so obscure and imperfect—necessarily obscure and imperfect, because God hath graciously revealed only what was essential to our salvation; for if he had revealed all that he might have revealed—if we could foresee and comprehend all that awaits us in the blessed everlasting future—we might have been so dazed and delighted with the splendors of the vision, as to be incapable of business, unfit for society, and better out of the world than in it. Wisely, therefore, God hath veiled the future, even from his saints. The oak is in the acorn, but we cannot divine its form, and must await its manifestation in the tree. Yet this we know, saith the apostle—and surely this ought to satisfy our highest ambition of knowledge—"that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

Appear he certainly will. Let us not lose sight of this blessed hope. It is his own promise to the disciples on the eve of his departure: "I will come again, and receive you unto myself; and where I am, there ye shall be also." And the angels of the ascension reiterate the assurance to them, as they stand gazing after him from the Mount of Olives: "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven"—that is, visibly, personally, gloriously, in the clouds, with the holy angels. And what saith the apostle? "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to them that look for him, he shall appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation"—the second advent as real as the first, and as manifest to human sight. To such statements no mystical or figurative meaning can be given, without violence done to the language. Not in the destruction of Jerusalem was the prediction fulfilled; nor has it since been fulfilled, nor ever can be, in any revival or enlargement of the Church; neither does Jesus come to his disciples at death, but through death they pass to him. Come at length he will, however, and every eye shall see him sitting upon the throne of his glory. The redemption of our humanity by price pledges a further redemption by power, which cannot be accomplished without his personal return to the ransomed planet. "And we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

That likeness to our Lord must be both corporeal and spiritual. St. Paul speaks of the whole Church as "waiting for the adoption—to wit, the redemption of the body;" and elsewhere states that the Saviour for whom we look "shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body"—spiritualizing the natural, sublimating the material, endowing the physical organism with powers like his own, and adorning the long-dishonored dust with the radiant beauty of immortality. Yet more wonderful must be the change wrought upon the intellectual and spiritual nature. To be like