n and been glorified thereby.

But passing from that thought, which, however interesting it may be as a
matter of speculation, is of very small practical importance, notice,
still further, the essential part of the hope which the Apostle here
sets forth--viz., that that order of things towards which we may look is
one permeable only for feet that have been washed and made clean.
'Therein dwelleth righteousness.' _Righteousness_ there, of course, is
the abstract for the concrete; the quality is put for the persons that
exhibit it. And just as the condition of being at home in this present
material world is the possession of flesh and blood, which puts
creatures into relationships therewith, and just as it is impossible for
a finite, bodyless spirit to move amongst, and influence, and be
influenced by, the gross materialities of the heavens and the earth that
now are, so is it impossible for anything but purity to be at rest in,
or even to enter into that future world. 'The gates' of the New
Jerusalem 'shall not be closed day nor night'; but through the ever-open
gates none can pass except they who have washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb. There stand at the gates of that
Paradise unseen, the repulsions of the angel with the flaming sword,
and none can enter except the righteous. Light kills the creatures of
the darkness.

'How pure that soul must be
Which, placed within Thy piercing sight,
Shall shrink not, but with calm delight
Can live, and look on Thee!'

Thus, then, brethren, an order of things free from all corruption, and
into which none can pass but the pure, should be the vision that ever
flames before us. Peter takes it for granted that the anticipation of
that future is an inseparable part of the Christian character. The word
which he employs, by its very form, expresses that that expectance is
habitual and continuous. I am afraid that a great many so-called
Christians very seldom send their thoughts, and still less frequently
their desires, onwards to that end. In all your dreams of the future,
how much space has been filled by this future which is no dream? Have
you, in these past days, and do you, as a matter of habitual and
familiar occupation of your mind, let your eyes travel on beyond and
above the low levels of earth and peradventures, to fix them on that
certainty?

Opticians make glasses with three ranges, and write upon a little bar
which shift