From all, which I have urged on this head, with studied copiousness because of its importance, it is manifest that a righteous man is one, who renouncing his own, betaketh himself to the righteousness of Christ; who, through the infinite merit of the Saviour’s blood, and the perfection of his obedience to the law, is delivered from curse and condemnation, and is possessed of a legal title to heaven; who receiving this method of justification by faith, believeth to the saving of the soul; in whose heart the fruits of righteousness are implanted; and in whose life there is a complete portraiture of a consistent professor of the gospel. Such a man is now blessed in the possession of present good; but he has secured to him still greater happiness in reversion. Standing in Christ, he has nothing to fear from sin, Satan, the law, or justice. And having his loins girded and his lamp burning, he is ready at all times to arise and meet the bridegroom. To him to live is Christ, to die is gain.—But this brings me
II. To consider the nature and extent of his happiness implied in the terms entering into peace.
As peace necessarily pre-supposes trouble or warfare, it consequently leads back our ideas to the state of the righteous in this howling wilderness, previous to their arrival at the heavenly Canaan. Here, as pilgrims and sojourners, in a strange land, they undergo a great variety of fatigue and hardship before they accomplish the important journey they are taking; and one can never contemplate the rest they enter upon in a glorious hereafter, without tracing in idea the wearisome steps that lead to it.
Afflictions and trials are the lot of the righteous in this world; and they are not more remarkable for their number, than for the peculiarity of their nature, and the end of their appointment. Though they are sharers in those common and general afflictions, to which human nature, since the fall, is subjected, and to which man is born as the sparks fly upward; yet they have a superadded portion of trials distinct from those, which are inseparably connected with their character, as Christians, and with their life, as believers; and for bearing of which they require a proportionable degree of grace and consolation from on high. Indeed, those trials, peculiar to God’s people, are not only the inevitable consequence of their gospel profession, but also the result of divine appointment. So the Apostle Paul expressly declares in his epistle to the suffering professors of the church of Christ at Thessalonica; when, after exhorting them “not to be moved by their afflictions,” he immediately adds, “For yourselves know that ye are appointed thereunto.” 1 Thes. iii. 3. As the great Head of the church is glorified by the patience and fortitude of his suffering witnesses on earth; his infinite wisdom appoints the nature, and fixes the weight, number, and measure of their trials, in order that he may have an opportunity of illustrating the power of his grace in their support. And there is a no less manifestation of mercy and love, than of wisdom, in the various trials which God hath appointed as the lot of his church militant. Hereby, he possesses innumerable occasions of demonstrating, that he loves his people under their afflictions, and that the severest chastisements of his rod are suggested by the most tender parental affection. By making the darkest dispensations work together for their good, he shews them the determinations of his love, and the wonderworking operations of his over-ruling power: he points out to them what he can do, and what he will do for them. So that their sufferings illustrate his goodness, and furnish the most ample display of that wisdom, mercy, faithfulness, and power, which so illustriously shine forth in all the gracious and providential dispensations of Jehovah towards his church and people.
Besides; affliction constitutes a distinguishing mark in the character of the righteous. “Many are the troubles of the righteous,” says David. “In the world you shall have tribulation,” said David’s Lord to his disciples. And, as a proof that neither persecution, nor any other species of affliction, was confined to the days of the apostles, St. Paul assures Timothy, that “ALL who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” 2 Tim, iii. 12. The world and the “god of the world” will ever unite in opposition to those, who have deserted the maxims of the one, and have solemnly renounced the service of the other; and because the righteous are engaged in a cause diametrically opposite to the interests of both, therefore the world and Satan hate them with a perfect hatred, and pursue them with intentions of the most infernal nature. And is this to be wondered at, when it is considered, that the most spotless character that ever appeared upon earth, was loaded with the heaviest reproaches? If, therefore, affliction be the path, which the blessed Jesus himself trod; and if they called the Master of the house Beelzebub; can they of the household hope for an exemption from similar calumnies?
As long as the righteous are in a state of nature, so long the world loves them. But, the moment a saved sinner enters into the peace of the gospel, in that very moment the world and the devil enter the lists against him. As long as the strong man armed is permitted to keep his palace undisturbed, all is peace; but when a stronger than he comes to dispossess him, then Satan begins to rage. While a sinner fights under his banner he gives him no disturbance; but as soon as he is delivered from the captivity under this infernal tyrant, instantly Apollyon draws the sword, and never puts it up during the Christian soldier’s abode in the wilderness. Then he prepares all his snares; sets all his engines to work, and has recourse to every stratagem; in order, if possible, to recover him, whom he looks upon as a deserter from his camp. He brings forth his loaded quiver; puts his most envenomed arrows upon the string; and shoots many a fiery dart, at least to distress, where he cannot destroy. But the believer having put on the whole armour of God, receives coolly all the accusations, terrors, blasphemous suggestions, and discouraging fears, of the enemy of his salvation, and snaps them to pieces on his adamantine shield of faith. And yet renewed assaults and renewed disappointments of the enemy never discourage him from repeating the attack; in a renewal of which, the world heartily joins him. While he lived according to the course of this world, blind, careless, and at enmity with God, so long no encomium was too high for him; and not only the most fulsome panegyrics were poured upon his virtues, but blind partiality threw a veil over his very vices, and would not allow that “so mighty good a man could be wrong;” although at the same time, perhaps, his principles and practice were equally corrupt. But let this same person, late the darling of the world, and the object of its warmest commendations, only be awakened to a feeling sense of his lost state, take but a few steps out of Babylon; and immediately the note of the men of the world is changed: their blessings are converted into curses; their praises, into reproach and calumny; and the most ridiculous, depreciating, illiberal, and even abominable epithets, are not bad enough for him, who has avowed non-conformity to the world, and is determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. So that, if to these trials from Satan and the world, be added a consideration of the still keener ones from the remainder of corruption; with how great propriety do the scriptures represent the life of a Christian, as a warfare, a race, a difficult journey, an agony?
But is there no release at all for the Christian soldier from this severe struggle with sin, Satan, and the world? Yes, the same hand that appoints the scene of battle, will sign a discharge from it also. The day is fixed, when, after his exit from the field, he is to “enter into peace:” not like a coward who flies from battle, but as a magnanimous veteran, worn out in the services of the Captain of his salvation; to whom “to live was Christ, and to die is gain.” Then shall he put off that “harness” in death, which he put on, when he enlisted as a volunteer under the Messiah; and shall lay down the weapons of his warfare and his earthly tabernacle together. His ears shall then no longer be stunned with the din of war, nor his heart be made so frequently the seat of terror and agitation, under apprehensions of losing the day after all; but, relieved from all his fears, and released from all his conflicts, he shall enter into that land of consummate peace, in his march towards which he had been obliged to fight every step of the way, with his sword in hand. There he shall receive, as the gratuitous donation of divine grace, and as the gracious reward of his faithfulness unto death, an immortal crown of glory; which, when his divine Captain places it on his head, he shall, with the hand of self-renunciation, take off, and in deepest humility lay at Immanuel’s feet. There he shall be placed at an infinite distance from the seat of war in this troublesome world; and, beyond the reach of all his enemies, shall enjoy peace that shall never be interrupted, and bliss that shall never have an end.
View the righteous man under the representation of a traveller. A sinful world is the place, from whence he sets out: heaven, the country to which he is bound. Satan and sin are the great enemies that oppose him in his journey; and many a wearisome step he takes, before he gains the point in view. Temptations from his own heart’s corruptions, as well as from the world and Satan, are the storms he meets with in the way; but Christ is his sun and shield, to illuminate and defend. After having, perhaps, borne the burden and heat of the day, death at last arrives, a welcome messenger, to relieve him from his toil, and usher him into his heavenly Father’s kingdom. “The rest of a laboring man,” says Solomon, “is sweet.” How much more delectable must rest in the placid bosom of the tomb be to him, whose labors have been great in proportion to the greatness of the cause in which he embarked! and all the powers of whose body and soul were exerted in the arduous toil! But after the fatigue of the day, how sweet the approach of the season of repose! Even in the prospect of it, the believer anticipates a degree of heaven; and an assurance that his light afflictions will, as it were in a moment, come to a period, alleviates every present cross, and enables him, in the view of future trials, to take no anxious thought for to-morrow. When death actually comes, he finds him prepared for his arrival. Clad with the whole armour of God, and washed from every defilement in the Mediator’s blood, he shouts, “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?” With intrepidity of soul, he touches the sting of death, and feels it not only blunted, but also free from poison. He then examines the whole strength of the quiver of death, and finds there is not one shaft in it that can penetrate his shield of faith and wound his soul; and then he shouts again, “Thanks be to God, who giveth me the victory through my Lord Jesus Christ!” And as soon as death executes his commission; that fatal blow of the King of terrors, which, by a judicial sentence, cuts down the wicked as cumberers of the ground, and is only a prelude to the transplantation of the righteous from this desert to the celestial Eden; his body then drops into its original dust, and is consigned to the silent grave; where “it lieth down and riseth not, till the heavens be no more.” Job, xiv. 12. There the wicked cease from “troubling, and there the weary are at rest.” Chapter iii. 17. Then his mortal part “enters into peace,” being exempt from every thing that could give pain, or cause trouble. There
“The corpse is affected no more
With trouble, or shaken with pain,
The war in the members is o’er,
And never shall vex him again.
The languishing head is at rest;
Its thinking and aching are o’er:
The quiet immovable breast
Is heav’d by affliction no more.
The heart is no longer the seat
Of trouble and torturing pain:
It ceases to flutter and beat;
It never shall flutter again.”
But what tongue can describe, or heart conceive, the nature of that peace, which the disembodied spirit enters upon! The instant the thread of life is cut, and the soul is disengaged from the cumbrous clod of earth in which it was imprisoned, it flies to regions above, and towers away on the wings of cherubim, to that celestial city, whither it had often fled before on the wings of faith, and hope, and strong desire. A convoy of angels attended till the happy spirit was released from its prison; after which the heavenly escort conducts it to the promised rest. The gates of the New Jerusalem are thrown open wide to admit the blessed stranger; whom Immanuel waits to introduce to his kingdom, and clasp to his heart. Then the righteous enters, amidst the congratulatory salutations of kindred spirits:—enters! through the infinite merit of the blood of atonement:—enters! like the weary traveller arriving joyful, though fatigued, at his journey’s end:—enters! like an exile, returning from a long captivity, to his native home:—enters! triumphant, as a victor loaded with spoils, and crowned with conquest, after a severe campaign:—enters! like some richly-laden vessel, with all its sails crowded to the wind; escaping the horrors of the deep, and making for the destined haven, where it would be.—Thus the righteous enters, while, we may suppose every golden harp is new-strung, to shout him welcome to the celestial city; and every voice is exerted in singing, “Open ye the gates, that the righteous which keepeth the truth may enter in.” Isa. xxvi. 2.