REMNANTS OF TIME. 487 Some of these promises, these bills of heavenly treasure, are not made payable till the hour of our death, as, " Blessed are those servants whom when the Lord comes he shall find watching, &c." Luke xii. 37. " He that enduretli to the end, the same shall be saved." Mat. xxiv. 13. " Be thou faithful tó the death and d will give thee a crown of life." Rev. ii. 10. Others are not due till the day of the resurrection; as, " Them who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." 1 Thess. iv. J4. "I will redeem them from death." Hos. xiii. 14. -Col. iii. 4. " When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." Phil. iii. 21. " He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." 1 Pet. v. 4. " And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." Now when the great day shall come in which our Lord Jesus .Christ shall give up his mediatorial kingdom to the Father, and render an account of all his stewardship, how fair will his books appear ! How just a balance will stand at the foot of all his accounts ! 'Then shall be show in what manner he has fulfilled the promises to the saints, and present to the Father all the bills that he has received and discharged ; while all the saints shall with one voice attest it to the honour of the High-Treasurer of heaven, that he has not failed in payment even to the smallest 'farthing. XVII. Time Saints unknown in this World. OUT of the millions of mankind that spread over the earth in every age, the great God has been pleased to take some into his own family, has given them a heavenly and divine nature, and made them his -sons and his daughters. But he has set no outward mark of glory upon them ; there is nothing in their figure or in their countenance to distinguish them from the rabble of mankind. And it is fit that they should be in some measure unknown among their fellow- mortals : Their character and dig- nity is too sacred and sublime to be made public here on earth, where the circumstances that attend them are generally so mean and despicable. Divine wisdom has appointed the other world for the place of their full discovery ; there they shall appear like themselves, in state equipage and array becoming the children of God and the heirs of heaven. Their blessed Lord himself who is God's first-born Son, was a mere stranger and unknown amongstmen ; he laid aside the rays of divinity and the form of a God when he came down to dwell with men, and he took upon him the form of a servant. He wore no .divine majesty on his face, no sparks of godhead beaming from his'eyes, no glaring evidence of his high dignity in all his out - ward'appearance. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew'hlm' not. But he shall be known and adored when ha
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=