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THE CHRISTIAN TREASURY.

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THE BELIEVER'S PROSPECTS.

BY RALPH WARDLAW, D.D., GLASGOW.

HAVING considered the believer's "afflictions," bullion. His "crown of glory" is of the finest and what is said of them in the passage undergold, and its gems and jewels are not factitious, review (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18), as "light," and "but but real, and of divine costliness. And the for a moment," we are now to offer a few remarks glory is not fading and temporary; it is lasting it is "eternal;" it is coeval with the perpetuity of his existence; its weight never lightening - its lustre never dimming. It is thus glory worthy the aspirations of an immortal mind; glory, such as "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive."

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II. His PROSPECTS. These are here expressed by the words: “A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." And the first thing to be noticed is, what hardly can fail to strike the most superficial reader-the completeness of the contrast between this brief description and the previous one of his afflictions. It is perfect in every point. We have affliction-glory; light afiliction a weight of glory; light affliction, which is but for a momentan eternal weight of glory. And even with this, perfect as it seems, the apostle is not satisfied; his mind, while elevated by the sublimity, and exulting in the delightfulness, is at the same time burdened with the weight, of its own conceptions; or rather, let me say, of those conceptions which were imparted to it by the Holy Spirit of truth. And the terms he employs are stronger than any mere epithets which even the copious language of Greece, according to its ordinary usage, could have furnished him. They are scarcely translatable. Their force and spirit it is difficult, if not impossible, to transfuse into another tongue. An eminent critic represents them as infinitely emphatical" (xæð bæiçßodnu šis vægßohny diwvior ßiges dins) -signifying that "all hyperboles fall short of expressing that weighty eternal glory-so solid and lasting, that you may pass from one hyperbole to another, and yet when you have gained the last, are infinitely below it."

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The glory anticipated by the believer is that of being LIKE CHRIST. This is rather the strongest expression he can give to it than the highest conception he can form of it; for, in truth, the conception he cannot form :—while he uses the language, and knows that it expresses the full amount of all that it is possible for him to desire here or to enjoy hereafter; yet of what it actually is to be like Christ, his conceptions are necessarily very limited, and his impressions proportionally indistinct and faint. One thing, however, is sure; that to be "like Christ" will not consist in any mere external resemblance-visible bodily conformity. Suen outward likeness, no doubt, there is to be. The bodies of believers, when raised from the dead, will be conformed to that of their risen and exalted Lord. He himself will "change their vile body, and fashion it like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.”— Phil. iii. 21. Of this, more immediately. But, although it is true that our bodies, which, in this mortal and suffering life, and in the grave in which it terminates, "have borne the image The prospect of the believer, then, is "GLORY." of the earthly Adam," are destined, when they This one word, rightly understood, comprehends rise, to "bear the image of the heavenly". it all. The glory anticipated by him is not glorious, incorruptible, spiritual frames, freed like the vain, empty, fleeting, ephemeral glory, from all the feculent grossness of our present which the men of this world so eagerly covet, materialism, and adorned with celestial comeand so ardently and devotedly pursue. Theirs liness and radiance; yet this, comparatively, is is glory which, regarded as the object of su- as nothing. That which constitutes the chief preme ambition to a rational and immortal ingredient in the glory of likeness to Christ, being, must, when "weighed in the balances, be compared with which it may truly be said of found wanting." But not so the believer's. His the other, "it hath no glory by reason of the is, emphatically," a weight of glory." It is solid glory that excelleth," is conformity in CHARAC and substantial. It is not tinsel; it is not mere TER MORAL likeness-resemblance to him gilding and lackering. It is pure, unalloyed more perfect than is at all attainable here, as No. 7. *

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April 10, 1846.

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scribing! To be "clothed with the sun" is a sublime image; but what is the image to that which it represents-to the reality of the sym bol-to being clothed with the light of the divine purity?

The glory in reserve for the believer is variously described by the inspired writers, according to what I may call its different departments, or the periods in which it is possessed and enjoyed. The descriptions cannot, of course, be the same, when, on the one hand, the period referred to is that between death and the resurrection, and when, on the other, the reference is to the eternity succeeding the re

"holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." This, this is the "glory"-the "weight of glory" the "eternal weight of glory"-the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Whatever apostate and degenerate men may think, holiness, the excellency of moral character, is the true glory of every intelligent nature. It is the glory of the first and highest of all intelligences—of the great God himself;-amongst all his other glories bearing the pre-eminence. "GOD IS LIGHT GOD IS LOVE." . These are the glory of the Godhead; and to be like him in the light and the love, the purity and the benevolence, of his nature, is the true glory of every rational crea-surrection, and the re-union of soul and body. ture. This is the glory of angels. This was the glory of man in the original paradise; and it is to be the glory of redeemed man in the second paradise the paradise above. And to be like Christ is thus to be like God; for he is "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person;" and even when on earth, could say "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."

Thus, in the verses which immediately follow those on which we are commenting, both are introduced, and the latest and most permanent first: "For 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. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that To a creature such as man, what would any being clothed we shall not be found naked. thing outward and visible be, without this? To For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, besuch a creature there can be nothing worthy ing burdened: not for that we would be unof being called "glory," unless there be the clothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might glory of an invigorated and expanded intellect, be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath stored with the highest and best of knowledge wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who -the knowledge especially of the infinite God, also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spias the attributes of his character are manifest- rit. Therefore we are always confident, knowed in his wonderful works and ways-in crea- ing that, whilst we are at home in the body, tion, in providence, and, above all, in redemp- we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk tion; and unless, along with this, there be the by faith, not by sight:) we are confident, I still higher glory of an enlarged, purified, say, and willing rather to be absent from the elevated heart, filled and overflowing with all body, and to be present with the Lord."--2 Cor. holy affections, and with the pure and exube- v. 1-8. I am fully convinced, that, in these rant delight which their exercise produces, a verses, "the house not made with hands, eterheart loving God supremely, and by its perfect nal in the heavens," as set in contrast with "the freedom from every taint of sin, fitted for re-earthly house of this tabernacle," which is to ceiving and enjoying the fulness of his love,-a | be" dissolved," means, not heaven itself, but heart thus drawing its sublime and exquisite the resurrection-body of God's redeemed, with felicity from this intimate reciprocation of holy which, when they shall be raised from the dust of love between itself and God-between itself death, their purified spirits shall be invested, or and Immanuel. This, this is glory-intellec-" clothed upon;" and in which, as their divinely tual glory-moral glory-the glory of mind-prepared abode-" not made with hands"the glory of character-the glory of the highest they shall reside for ever, when "death shall and best society-the glory of intimacy with be swallowed up in victory," or, as it is here, the angels of light, with Christ, with God! O "mortality shall be swallowed up of life." And what would it be for a man to be invested with in the verses which follow, namely, from the the very brightness of the Shechinah-to be 6th to the 8th, there is brought before us the clothed in the very light which, on "the holy immediate glory of the departed soul. For I do remount," adorned the person of "the Lord of joice in the firm conviction, resting on what I glory" were the man so invested, dazzling conceive to be the most explicit Bible authoevery eye with outward splendour, destitute of rity, of the truth of the good old doctrine inthe mental and moral glory we have been de- stilled into our minds in infancy, that the

THE BELIEVER'S PROSPECTS.

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souls of believers are at death made perfect in accumulated, and constant, through a long life holiness, and do immediately pass into glory." I-ending only with its close; yet were they, have no faith in either an intermediate sleep of when it did close, to be succeeded by a fulthe soul in a state of unconsciousness, or its ness of the most elevated and unmingled joys, occupancy of some intermediate state of safe-keep- to last for eternity; how infinitely more desiring, short of heaven, whether subterranean or able his lot than that of the man who, after a anywhere else. This is not the place for argucourse of unceasing and ever-augmenting proing the point. But the words just cited contain sperity in this world, and after revelling in all one among several very plain proofs of the im- the variety and enjoyments it ever yielded to mediate transition from earth to heaven. Can its most unscrupulous votaries, sinks, when he terms be plainer ?-"knowing that whilst we are has done with it, into "the blackness of darkat home in the body we are absent from the ness for ever!" Lazarus, with his poverty, his Lord"-" willing rather to be absent from the sores, and his crumbs, carried at the close by body, and to be present with the Lord"-to "mi- angels into Abraham's bosom, there to enjoy, grate from the body, and to be at home with the in the fulness of its divine provisions, the everLord?" And where is the Lord? The divine lasting feast of heaven, was surely more to be word answers: "He is gone into hearen, and is envied than the rich man, with his “purple and on the right hand of God, angels and authorities fine linen," his " sumptuous fare," and his gorand powers being made subject unto him."- geous establishment, “dying, being buried,” Compare Phil. i. 21-23; Acts vii. 55, 56, with and in hell "lifting up his eyes in torment." 59; also Luke xxiii. 43, with 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. It is not the temporal lot of Lazarus, compared with the temporal lot of the rich man, that we are taught by our Lord to prefer and to covet; it is the entire lot of the one, compared with the entire lot of the other-taking time and eternity together-embracing the entire existence of each; if we may, with propriety, apply the word entire to an existence that is never to end. I would entreat every reader to compare the lot of God's people with the lot of the men of this world :-on the one side, "afflictions," with the subsequent “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" and on the other, worldly prosperity in its largest amount, and longest continuance, with its subsequent eternity of woe :-to weigh the one against the other with all deliberation, on the principles of ordinary prudential computation; and to "choose the good part, which shall never be taken from him." I have, in this statement, I perceive, given the worldly side of the alternative undue advantage. I have supposed the worldling's lot to be all prosperous. But he has his "afflictions," various in kind and measure, as well as the believer. And which of the two, let me ask, has the best of it under these?-the child of God, with his divine Father's love, and smile,¦ and blessing, and "precious promises," together with the good and soul-cheering hope of a“ land of cloudless sky," beyond all the lowering and bursting storms of this lower world; or the child of earth, the man of time and sense, with God's displeasure and hidden curse mingling with both his enjoyments and his troubles, and no well-founded hope beyond, when the enjoyments are exhausted, and the troubles cease; but the prospect, whether he thinks of

Then, with regard to the final glory of the redeemed, let the reader carefully peruse the following passages 1 John iii. 2, compared with Ps. xvi. 11; 1 Cor. xv. 42-49; John xvii. 22-24: and the emblematic vision of the heavenly state, "the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God," in Rev. xxi. 10-27, xxii. 1-5. Surely, when believers read and meditate upon such portions of God's word, they cannot fail to be of one mind with the apostle, when he says: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the suffer ins of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”— Rom. viii. 16-18.

My space is filled. I must, however, be allowod one reficction, before proceeding to the third of my particulars. It is this: Apart altogether from the connection between the believer's afflictions and his prospects, to be hereafter illustrated; and simply on the supposition of the endurance of the one being followed by the realization of the other; how unspeakably preferable is his lot to that of the most successful and prosperous worldling that ever set his heart upon earthly acquisitions, and devoted his inventive and active powers-his mind and his time-to their pursuit! Surely he has little reason indeed, to be "envious at the foolish, when he sees the prosperity of the wicked." Even if, in the present world, there were nothing else but "afflictions" in his lot; if they were ever so varied,

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BY THE REV. PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, SALTON. THE facts which form the chief matter of Gospel history belong, in the strictest sense, to the extraordinary and the supernatural. Had they not done so, they could not have served the purpose for which they were intended-they could not have formed the suitable occasions and materials through which the Son of God was to make himself known to the world, and lay the foundation of his divine kingdom. Even those events and circumstances which, from their more striking singularity, are apt, at first sight, to awaken a feeling of suspicion or distrust-those, for example, connected with demoniacal possessions, or the Pool of Bethesda-are found, when closely examined, in strict accordance with the great purpose of God then unfolding itself, and in a manner necessary to its accomplishment. But, along with so much that was extraordinary and supernatural, there are other things to be met with in the Gospels, of the most ordinary description, relating to civil and earthly affairs, and which are comonly noticed in a passing manner, as matters of fact familiarly known, or customs in current use, or ! transactions somehow affecting the interests of the Church. Matters of this kind were certainly of little moment, when compared with the great facts on the existence and belief of which the salvation of the world depends. But they still have a most important purpose to serve in connection with these greater things of the Gospel; for as we would judge of the truthfulness of a traveller's account of the wonderful scenes and events he had witnessed in other lands by his description of scenes and events in our own land, the accuracy of which we had the Ineans of testing; so the way and manner in which the evangelists notice what is common and familiar nay fitly be regarded as an index to the character of the accounts they give of what is extraordinary and £upernatural. And if we find them to have been faithful and exact in the one, we have in that a clear proof of their having also been faithful and exact in the other.

Let it be supposed, for example, that the scenes and events of Gospel history were described, not by eye-witnesses, but by persons who lived some centuries later, and only wrote as if they had been present while the things themselves were taking place, then we may affirm with the utmost confidence that this would have appeared-no cure or art could have

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prevented it from appearing-in the manner of the narratives, both as to the miraculous and the common facts recorded to have taken place. In regard constantly meet with in Popish legends, a mixing up to the miraculous, we would have seen, what we of the future with the present-not a simple and unvarnished tale, as we have in the Gospels, of the most wonderful events, recorded just as they occurred, and as if, in the circumstances, they were but natural and ordinary occurrences, but such an account as bespoke the writer to be acquainted with the mighty consequences that were to grow out of them, and to be looking back, as it were, with the If it impressions and feelings of after ages. could have been impossible, however, to avoid betraying the fraud here, it would have been still more so in regard to the more common and ordinary cir cumstances mixed up with the narrative-the manifold allusions to the manners and customs then prevailing, or to the public characters and civil affairs of the period. Even when the reference to these was correct, there would have been a manifest study and design about it which showed the writer not to have been an eye-witness describing things as they then actually appeared; and if the references were frequent and various, as in the Gospels, there would, to a certainty, have been many slips and errors, which future researches would not have failed! to bring to light. For it is one of the most difficult things imaginable to write as an eye-witness of transactions happening, or of circumstances existing, in another and earlier period of the world's history, without stumbling on some point or another. It has been often tried, but never successfully; the writer has never been able so completely to forget the changes that have meanwhile taken place, to divest himself of the thoughts and habits peculiar to his own time, and identify himself with those of the time of which he writes, but that, in some respects, his speech is found to betray him. Thus, to give only a single instance out of many that might be produced, there is an ancient collection of letters, purporting to be the Epistles of Phalaris, a king in Sicily, who lived nearly six hundred years before the birth of Christ. Being not narratives of facts, but episties, there were very few points, comparatively speaking, respecting which the writer had to touch on the circumstances and events of his own time; and the whole work was so artfully arranged, that many even learned men took it for the real production of Phalaris; but by-and-by it was ascertained and proved that the style of language was not precisely of the kind which should have been employed had the real Phalaris written them; that a certain kind of cups were spoken of as then in use, which had no existence till a considerable time after his death; that certain words, also, were used in senses which they had not come to possess till a later period, and various other things of the same sort; leaving no room to doubt that the epistles in question must have been a forgery, written by some person who lived long after the real Phalaris died. Now, though in the Gospels alone, to say nothing of the Epistles of the New Testament, there are immensely more numerous references to the circumstances of the time-circum

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THE TRUTHFULNESS OF THE GOSPELS, &c.

stances, too, which were widely different from those of any future time, for everything soon underwent an entire change, yet there is not one instance of error or confusion to be met with: the style of language used is precisely that of the period, and while most marvellous facts are recorded, such as are to be found in no other histories, yet whenever the inspired writers touch, even in the most incidental way, upon common topics or events, they are never found at variance with the creditable accounts which may be derived from other sources, but are often very strikingly confirmed by them. It may not be unprofitable to give a few examples of these.

1. First, in regard to manners and customs. The Pharisees are represented in the Gospels as having many of these, of a religious sort, which were not taught in the law of Moses; so Josephus tells us: "The Pharisees have delivered to the people many institutions as received from the fathers, which were not written in the law of Moses.”—Antiq., b. xiii., c. 10. It is implied in the account given us in the 9th chapter of Luke, where our Lord is spoken of as going up from Galilee to Jerusalem, and being unkindly rejected by a Samaritan village, that it was customary for the Galileans to pass through Samaria to attend the temple service, and sometimes, at least, to meet there with harsh treatment; and Josephus mentions expressly that such was the usual route, and even gives an instance of a number of persons being killed by the Samaritans when doing so.Antiq., b. xx., c. 5. Of the hatred of the Samaritans generally toward the Jewish temple, and their blind attachment to Mount Gerizim, as the only proper place of worship, frequently noticed in the Gospels, especially in John iv., Josephus speaks so often, that here is no need to refer to any particular passage. In the 7th chapter of Luke we are told of a woman coming behind Christ, when he was at dinner, and washing his feet with her tears; which she could not have done if he was sitting with his feet under the table, after our fashion, but only if he was reclining upon a couch; and, indeed, the word customarily used in the original of the New Testament concerning the usual posture at meals means literally to recline, while in the Old it as regularly means to sit. In confirmation of this change, Philo, a Jewish writer, who lived in the age of the apostles, when speaking of Joseph making his brethren sit down to meat, incidentally mentions that "men were not then accustomed to lie on beds at entertainments," implying that it had become customary in his day. What is still more peculiar, the custom of reclining is represented as having become so prevalent, that even at the Feast of the Passover it was used, as John is said to have, at one paschal feast, reclined on the bosom of his Master, although the injunction in Moses' law was to eat it standing, with a staff in the hand, and the loins girt. Now, we learn from Rabbinical writers that such indeed was the case, and that the Jewish authorities had even taken it upon them to require this posture at the passover, as a sign of the ease and freedom to which they had attained through their establishment in Canaan. Finally, in the closing history of our Lord's life we find allusions made to a whole series of customs

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peculiar to that period; or rather, the narrative brings out, in the most natural and undesigned manner, facts implying the existence of customs which we learn from other sources to have then prevailed. The particular form of Christ's death, by crucifixion -his being scourged before being delivered up to be crucified-his being made to bear his cross when going to meet his doom-his having a superscription written over his head to declare the cause of his death-and his liability, from which he only escaped by a special intervention of Providence, to have his legs broken-all these particulars come out as so many circumstances connected with the kind of treatment he at last received; and while we can produce a confirmation for every one of them from other writers, it is remarkable that we require to gather the confirmations from scattered and incidental notices found in Josephus, a Jewish writer; in Suetonius and Aurelius Victor, two Latin Heathen writers, and Dio Cassius and Plutarch, two Heathen Greek writers. They may be found most readily by those who wish to see them, in Paley's Evidences of Christianity, part ii., ch. 6.

2. Characters and events. Here a long list might be produced, but a few must suffice for the present. Looking to the Gospels, we would gather that the first Herod there mentioned was ambitious, crafty, and cruel; and such, also, is the impression produced from a great many more particulars mentioned by Josephus; and as, in the Gospels, his jealousy is aroused when he hears of Messiah, so in Josephus (b. xv., c. 11) it may be gathered that his secret design in rebuilding and beautifying the temple at such immense cost was to make it surpass Solomon's, and so prevent the Jews from looking for any further fulfilment of Haggai's prophecy about the greater glory of the second temple, and the peace which Messiah was to give in connection with it. Herod's speech on the occasion as much as tells the people that the prophecy was to have its fulfilment in the events of his reign. In the 2d chapter of Matthew it appears that Herod died soon after Christ's birth, and that Archelaus, who succeeded him, reigned only in Judea, but not in Galilee, whence Joseph and Mary went to reside in the latter region. Josephus tells us that Herod left only Judea to Archelaus, the rest of his dominions being assigned to other sons, and that Archelaus was of so cruel a disposition, that the Jews could hardly endure his tyranny. About thirty years after the birth of Christ, which was the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar, Luke (iii. 1) speaks of two other sons of Herod, the one as being tetrarch of Galilee, the other of Iturea and Trachonitis; and we also learn, from different places of Josephus, not only that these were their provinces, but that they continued in them beyond the period in question; the one being affirmed to have died in the twentieth year of Tiberius, and the other to have been removed by Caligula, the successor of Tiberius.-Antiq., b. xviii., c. 5, 8. We also read in the same book of Josephus of Herodias, the wife of the one brother, running off with the other, after she had given birth to a daughter. The only difference is, that Josephus calls both brothers by the name of Herod, while the evangelist calls one of them Philip, which, in all

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