Paul counted not himself to have attained to this, or become perfect, but only to be reaching forth, and pressing on, forgetting the things that were behind.1 Nevertheless, he said, Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.2 So, the leagues of ocean we have passed over we forget, and still every day have to cast all upon Christ as at the outset, and every day we need forgiveness, and every day the Divine Spirit must fill our sails, and waft us onwards; and if any time we stop to consider our progress, and say, This is ours, as if we of ourselves had done some great thing in getting thus far; then is the Lord ready to smite us, and the wind is all taken out of our sails, because we give not God the glory; then, there is that villain Pride, who is always the forerunner of Satan; for he smelleth for him, and leadeth him, as a pilot-fish doth the shark, ready to cut our shrouds for us, and give us a grievous fall. The life of self is our death; the death of self in Christ is our life; 'tis the last enemy that shall be destroyed. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. And thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.3 John.-Yea, brother, self hath as many lives as a cat, and pride hath the appetite of a shark, and will swallow every thing. Grace itself disappears in the maw of that monster. Yet grace shall conquer him, shall swallow him, if we only hold on to Christ. 'Tis a sweet word of the watch, None but Christ! None but Christ! Have you not lain awake sometimes, thinking, Where is God, my Maker, that giveth songs in the night? And then that word has come, as if booming across the deep, or borne on the wings of the wind from a distant vessel, None but Christ! Phil. iii, 20, 21. 31 Cor. xv, 54, 57. * Job, xxxv, 10, 1 Phil. iii, 13. None but Christ! Oh, 'tis a sweet sound! Then I say to myself, I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.2 O, those are precious words, Who loved me, and gave himself for me! Sometimes I say to myself, when Satan would take them away out of my mouth, Why may I myself not have them as well as Paul? I am as big a sinner. Then Satan draws back, and the fear of death itself is conquered, and God seems to have given me the victory. Peter.-Well, indeed, there is none other victory. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.3 This is the King's victory, in us, over the god of this world, and by this he will bring us off conquerors. Nothing but this can sustain us in life, nothing but this can comfort us in death. We must throw all upon Christ. A man that had been a faithful servant of God, as the King's Ambassador, once lay a dying, when he was visited by a dear and loving fellow-minister. This man, seeing him so near death, put the question to him, And what are you doing now, my brother? Whereupon he answered, "I'll tell you what I am doing, dear brother, I am gathering together all my prayers, all my sermons, all my good deeds, all my ill deeds; and I am going to throw them all overboard, and swim to glory on the plank of Free-grace." John.-Well, we've nothing else to swim upon, and even then, 'tis not our swimming, but his grace, that holds us up. We should as often dive down to the bottom, as swim upon the top, if it were not for that. And who is it that makes our weather for us? Who knows what is the best weather? Why, verily, we know not even what to pray for as we ought, unless out of the same Free Grace his Divine Spirit teacheth us. Now the time wore away in such talk with surprising rapidity, and if the days were as days of heaven, the nights 1 Phil. iv, 13. 2 Gal. ii, 20. 31 John, v, 4. 4 Rom. viii, 26. that followed were still more lovely. For indeed no language can tell the glory of the starry sky above the ocean, as they now flew upon their voyage, nor the beauty of the sea beneath the waxing and waning moon; for they could follow its increase from the first silver thread of light, to the brilliance of the full orb, and then again as it slowly, gently faded from the sky. And when it was riding in the heavens in silent majesty, it seemed to look down upon them, in the loneliness of the wide ocean, with a melancholy tenderness, as if appointed of God to watch over them. And those long, long lines of light, streaming from the furrows. and liquid undulations of the waves, between them and the horizon, when the moon was an hour or two before setting; and at the horizon the whole ocean shining as if it were nothing but a sea of tremulous, billowy light, rolling into infinitude, so that if they could only be there, where the eye followed the glory, they could have sailed, without death or change, right into the expanse of heaven! So it sometimes seemed to them, and they were almost in an ecstacy of transport with such views. Sometimes the silence of midnight, under such a lovely sky, was broken by the notes of a hymn rising and floating in indescribable sweetness and melody. Beyond, beyond that boundless sea, Yet dear the awful thought to me Art nigh, and yet my labouring mind Feels after thee in vain, Thee in these works of power to find, Or to thy seat attain. Thy messenger the stormy wind, These speak of thee with loud acclaim, Nor in day's glorious blaze. We hear thy voice, when thunders roll Oh not in circling depth or height, Oh come, thou Presence Infinite, And make thy creature blest! CHAPTER XVIII. THE LAST ENEMY. Now all through the day they had seen lovely strange birds flying, and sometimes alighting at the mast-head, and this, with the sight of some flowers of exquisite beauty among the sea-weed that came floating by, made them think that they could not be very far from land. And in the evening, when the sun set, it no longer went down straight into the ocean, but seemed to sink behind a towering cloud-ridge, which they knew might veil a continent, but whether of the Celestial Country, or of this, they could not tell. They kept watch all night, and compared their course and observations very earnestly and carefully with the chart, where they found it written, at the point near which it was evident they had now come, Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off. They also found, by references in their tables, such results of their calculations as these: For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death.2 Also, Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory. Also, I will behold thy face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.* In the morning when the sun arose, they thought they could plainly descry, behind the white cloud that still rested 1 Isa. xxxiii, 17. 3 Psalm lxxiii, 24. 2 Psalm xlviii, 14. 4 Psalm xvii, 15. |