The holy living, or holiness of heart and life, which is "the way" of the christian, is necessarily therefore in Christ, and cannot be anywhere else. Hence the Apostle says, "We walk by faith, not by sight."* To be in Christ, where the Church is, and where the Church, by the Spirit given, invites the world to come, involves two things which stand in necessary sequence to each other,-holiness and happiness. These principles, which are properties of the christian faith, in whichever way they may be logically placed, will be found to sustain to each other the relation of cause and effect. The holy man is the happy man, and the happy man is the holy man. These are sequences of greater infallibility than that ascribed to the chair of St. Peter. The philosophy of this principle is contained in the fact that christians are, by faith, in Jesus Christ, who is the fountain of holiness; and from him, as "the branch in the vine," they draw the aliment of their moral and religious being. Consequently, if the relationship be perfect, they must be like him and show as reflectors of His divinity. Less than this would be less than the measure made by Christ himself. He says of the relationship, "I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." This the Apostle declares to be "fruit unto holiness," the end or result of which is "everlasting life." Holiness of life, then, is the great gospel mirror that shapes. to the world the divinity of the cause-the divinity of the Church. 2. Happy Dying. This is the natural result of holy living,-for he who commences to be happy in Christ, by a holy profession of the christian faith, and continues therein until the end comes, makes assurance doubly sure to this effect. He takes a bond, by faith, for its accomplishment,—not of fate, but of grace, written by the Divine hand, and sealed in the blood of the Cross, whose pledge "is a crown of life," and whose security is the oath of God. "For wherein," says the Apostle, "God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel confirmed it by an OATH, that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before us " That to die in peace is the greatest desideratum and hope of life, is too evident a proposition to need an argument. The sinner, as well as the saint, will admit this. There is no difference between the Church and the world, with regard to the desirable end; both wish to be safe-both wish to be happy. The difference lies in the manner and labor of attaining unto that end. In this they are wide apart; with what wisdom God, and the final destiny of all things, will ultimately set forth. But that "happy dying" is the immutable consequence of holy living," Christ formed the hope of glory," is as well the witness as the cause. A triumphant death, or separation from the world, to the superficial observer, might be looked upon, perhaps, as enthusiastic, if not miraculous. But upon examination, it will show to be neither the one nor the other. It is perfectly within the range of philosophical exposition, and is as susceptible of demonstration as a problem in mathematics. Nay, more than this, it is just as impossible, if the Word of God be a verity, for a holy christian to die otherwise than happy, as it is for figures, truthfully calculated, to exhibit an erroneous result. "For so an entrance SHALL BE ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ." If a certain change, then, from poverty to riches, from gloom to gladness, and from death to lifea life of never-ending joy, and wrought out, through the faithfulness of the christian, by the direct agency of the Holy Ghost,-God himself being pledged to this end,-be sufficient to inspire a rapture at the parting from sin and misery and pain in the world, then the result is irresistible, and not only irresistible, but natural and philosophic. For God says "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." In view of this, St. Paul exclaimed with holy joy, as he stood upon the confines of time, and gazed into eternity-his departure being at hand-"I am now ready to be offered." "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." death, where is thy sting? O, grave, where is thy victory?" "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." This happiness in death hath its producing cause in the "new birth," which plants Christ in us; and which, as the accomplishment of one of Zion's purposes in the world, as set forth in the text, is another witness of the Divinity of the Church. Under "O, * 2 Pet. i, 2. † Rev. ii, 10. 2 Tim. iv, 8. 1 Cor. xv, 55. its influence the latter day reformers have manifested the same spirit. Fletcher shouted for joy in the hour of dissolution; Wesley said, "The best of all is, God is with us;" McKendree exclaimed, "All is well;" while myriads of others, sustained by the same Power and filled with the same Spirit, have gone up to glory and to God, where, with the holy martyrs as a cloud of witnesses, they wait beneath the altar to attest the mighty truth. They will receive their reward in the great day of the Lord. Then, we say with the Poet, "Let sickness blast, let death devour, If heaven must recompense our pains; If firm the word of God remains." "For this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life." III. The Divinity of the Church, as manifested in the necessity that the manner of its acts, as well as their substance or consequences, should be immortal. The apostle to the Romans says, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," which grace he sets forth to the Church at Ephesus as the great principle of salvation in Christ. "For by grace (says he) are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." This being the case, the deduction is clear, that the emancipated soul, in its departure from the world, must carry with it, in active exercise, all those properties and powers which belonged to it in the days of the flesh. And these must be perfect and infallible, without which the judgment-seat would be liable to impeachment, and the doctrine of rewards and punishments become a simple absurdity. The necessity of this will sufficiently appear by reference to one faculty alone—that of memory. To make God just, memory must remain, and in absolute perfection. The least delinquency in this property of the mind or spirit to retrospect the past, and call up from the circles of time the procuring causes of reward or punishment, would invalidate the whole structure of justice, and make of reward simply a gift, and of punishment a mere affliction. The practices of earthly jurisprudence illustrate this necessity. No criminal court would hold itself guiltless in punishing either an idiot or a maniac, because the chief element of punishment being wanting—an Rev. vi, 9, 10, 11. † 1 John ii, 25. + Rom. v, 20. I Eph. u, 8. understanding on the part of the sufferer for what he suffered-the object would be defeated, and the end lost; so also with regard to rewards. The same necessity exists in order that God may be glorified in the son, as "the author and finisher" of the christian faith; that faith, which being baptized in the blood of the Lamb, bringeth salvation to man. Take from memory the scenes of Calvary and Gethsemane, and what would constitute the basis of heavenly praise for either time or eternity? There could be no such thing, because in that event there would be no sufficient cause of inspiration. In addition to this necessity, which the philosophy of the subject so plainly teaches, the Divine Word has also declared, by inference at least, the same thing. "Unto him that loved us, (said an angel voice,) and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father: to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever."* In this communication to John, the heavenly messenger refers to antecedent acts on earth as the inspiring cause of eternal glorification in heaven. If the triumphant war of redemption, then, be remembered, whose short but mighty campaign was from "Gethsemane" to "Gabbatha," and from "Gabbatha” to “Golgotha," so, by construction, of everything else. This answers a very interesting if not important question that is frequently asked, "Shall we know our friends again when we meet them in the other world?" If the testimony of necessity and the declaration of the word of God be considered, the answer is, we shall; and not only shall we know our friends, but everything else also, from the days of Adam to the end of time. Knowledge, to this extent, must be intuitive, else the plan is imperfect. An example of this truth is presented by the record of the "transfiguration," in the intuitive recognition of Moses and Elias by the disciples. The same thing is declared by St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians: "For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." If we shall know other things as God knows us, which seems to be the idea of the apostle, then will knowledge be perfect, and if perfect, intuitive. There needs no elaboration of this thought to show the amazing perfection and goodness of God, as exhibited in the scheme of human redemption; the very idea is laden with glory and crowned with hope. Not to a land of strangers will the christian go when dismissed from earth, but to a long-sought home-a home in the heavenly mansions of bliss, "Where friends shall meet again." There long-severed families shall be brought together, and be reconstituted one in Jesus Christ; there the old warrior of the cross, rejuvenate in the light of the Lamb, shall tell his battles o'er again, while the heavenly arches re-echo with the song of the Apocalypsethat song which no man could learn, "save the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth." Of that perfect number, which represents all the saved of mankind, is the Christian Church a component part. It once bore the Cross, but now it wears the Crown; it was once a traveller in gloom, but now it is an inhabitant of glory. The pilgrim reaches home. Sustained by the divinity of its cause, it hath passed, with its acts, through the purifying crucible of truth and grace, and now enters "through the gates into the city," midst the imperial shoutings of "Alleluia, Alleluia!" "And I heard a great voice, of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia, salvation and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God." It was the redeemed Church of Christ in the glory-land. Then in prelibation let the divine ecstasy of hope in celestial numbers roll. On earth let the saints begin the endless song "Cry aloud, in heavenly lays Glory doth to God belong; God, the glorious Saviour, praise." IV. The relation which the Church sustains to the World, politically-and especially in this country-shows its Divinity. "Put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem."I Much fear has been expressed by politicians in this country, and some alarm has been excited also in weak minds, lest the Church should in some way become interested and associated in the administration of the Government. This has been carried so far in some of the States, as to procure a constitutional proscription of the ecclesiastical office; depriving the incumbent of the enjoyment of the highest rights of freemen eligibility to office, under the franchise of the peo • Rev. xiv, 3. ↑ Rev. xix, 1. ‡ Isa. lii, 1. |