more noble to do good, and to act well, and be content to perish. Strange perversion! Is the desire of food, for the sake of food, selfish? Is the desire of knowledge, for the sake of knowledge, selfish? No! they are appetites each with its appointed end: one a necessary appetite of the body, the other a noble appetite of the mind. Then, is the desire of immortal life, for the sake of "more life and fuller," selfish? No! rather it is the noblest, purest, truest appetite of the soul. It is not happiness nor reward we seek; but we seek for the perfection of the imperfect for the deep, abounding life of those who shall see God as He is, and shall feel the strong pulsations of that existence which is Love, Purity, Truth, Goodness: to whom shall be revealed all the invisible things of the Spirit in perfection!

LECTURE XLII.

1852.

2 CORINTHIANS, v. 4-11.. "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight :) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences."

In the preceding verses St. Paul has spoken of two great consolations in ministerial trial— the thought of things invisible, and the expectation of a blessed resurrection. In considering them, I tried to explain what things invisible are; and I said they were not things unseen because separated by distance, or by reason of the imperfection of our faculties, or of any interposed veil ; but they were unseen, because in their nature they were incapable of being seen such as Honor, Truth, and Love. I tried to show how the expectation of immortality is not a selfish hope, because it is not the desire of enjoyments such as we have here, but the desire of a higher inward life 66 an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

But here evidently a mistake might arise. Speaking thus of a spiritual heaven, it is quite possible that men might conceive of it as a disembodied state, and suppose the Apostle to represent life in a visible form as degradation. There were such persons in the old time, who

thought they could not cultivate their spirit-nature without lowering that of their body. They fasted and wore sackcloth, they lay in ashes, and eschewed cleanliness as too great a luxury. Nay, they even refused to hear of a resurrection, which would restore the body to the spirit: redemption being, according to them, release from the prison of the flesh.

In opposition to such views the Apostle here says, correctively: "Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." That is, it is not that we are to get rid of something, but to gain something. Not the lowering of the body, but the strengthening of the spirit that is spirituality. For there are two extremes into which men are apt to run they either serve the body as a master, or crush it as an enemy. Whereas St. Paul taught that the true way of mortifying the flesh is to strengthen the spirit. The mortal will disappear in the elevation of the immortal.

Here, then, we have-first: A test of spirituality. Let us observe the description given : "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened." If we stop here, myriads deserve the name of spiritual men for who has not groaned, being burdened, in this tabernacle? Disappointment may sicken a man of living, or the power of enjoyment may fail, or satiety may arrive to the jaded senses and feelings: or, in pain and poverty a man may long for the grave; or old age may come, when "the grasshopper is a burden." For example, Job uttered maledictions on the day when he was born: "Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? If, then, the mere desire to be unclothed were spirituality, that passionate imprecation of Job's was spiritual. But St. Paul's

feeling was: "Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." With him a desire to depart and to be with

Christ implied a yearning for a higher spiritual life, and a deeper longing for more resemblance to the mind of Christ.

ance:

Secondly: The principle of Christian assurance. First of all, there is such a thing as Christian assur"Therefore we are always confident: and again," I know whom I have believed:" and again, "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Such was St. Paul's assurance. We may not feel it; but, my brethren, we must not lower the standard of Christian attainment to suit our narrow lives. To many of us Heaven is an awful peradventure. It is so to most men who are living in comfort, and are not suffering for Christ. But to St. Paul, ever on the brink of that world to come, his own immortality of blessedness was no peradventure. It was not a matter of doubt with him whether he was Christ's or not. Let us, then, see the grounds of this assurance.

1st. God's purpose: "He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God."

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2d. God's Spirit in the soul an earnest."

ance.

1. God's purpose. - St. Paul would not believe that God was merely weighing His frail creatures in the balNo: they were purposed by Him for heaven; God meant their blessedness: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation." He had redeemed them by the blood of an everlasting covenant: "If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Our salvation does not hang on our own desires: it is in the hands of One who loves us better than we love ourselves.

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an earnest."

2. God's Spirit in the soul Here, in another form, is the repetition of St. Paul's view, that the literal resurrection is naturally, in the order of grace, but a development of the spiritual resurrection. To repeat the simile I have previously used:

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As the vital force appears in things so different as leaf, flower, and fruit, so the Divine life manifests itself first in the spiritual, and then in the literal resurrection. And just as when the flower appears, you infer the future fruit, excluding the possibility of a blight, so when spiritual goodness appears, you infer future glory. This is Christian assurance. Therefore, if God's Spirit be in you, be confident, yet humble rejoice with trembling, but still with unshaken trust in coming blessedness. Hence Christian life becomes now a life of faith: "We walk by faith, not by sight." There is a life called in Scripture "a life hid with Christ in God." Now it is very easy to speak glibly and fluently of that life as a common thing. I cannot bring my lips to use such language. It is a rare and wondrous life; and so, in speaking of it, I prefer to contemplate the life of St. Paul, instead of assuming the existence of ordinary men to be such as is here described. A life like hiswas it not indeed hidden with his Master in the heavens? He was ever on the brink of the grave. To him the world was crucified. He had unlearned the love of this life by an intense desire of another. The Cross of Christ was all that to him seemed beautiful; so that this present existence became a kind of banishment (v. 6)-a place of sojourn, and not a home. He moved on, free from incumbrances, ever "ready to depart and to be with Christ."

The thought of such a life has in it something very awful and sublime. It is almost fearful to think of a human being really living as St. Paul did, breathing the atmosphere of heaven while yet on earth. But I remark it now for this purpose: to remind you that the words of St. Paul cannot be, except with shocking unreality, adopted by persons who are living less spiritually than he did. There is a common, but I think most dangerous habit of using Scripture language familiarly, calling one-self "the chief of sinners,' talking of "spiritual joys and experiences," and of "communion with God:" of "living by faith," and of this "pilgrim life." On many lips these are weak