ended by
which we may safely pass over the foaming torrent that else would
swallow us up. The revelation in the past cries out for the revelation
in the future. The Cross demands the Throne. That He has come once, a
sacrifice for sin, stands incomplete, like some building left unfinished
with rugged stones protruding which prophesy an addition at a future
day; unless you can add 'unto them that look for Him will He appear the
second time without sin unto salvation.' In that revelation of Jesus
Christ His children shall find the glory-grace which is the object of
their hope.

So say all the New Testament writers. 'When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory' says Paul.
'The grace that is to be brought unto you in the revelation of Jesus
Christ,' chimes in Peter. And John completes the trio with his 'We know
that when He shall appear we shall be like Him.' These three things,
brethren--with Christ, glory with Him, likeness to Him--are all that we
know, and blessed be God! all that we need to know, of that dim future.
And the more we confine ourselves to these triple great certainties, and
sweep aside all subordinate matters, which are concealed partly because
they could not be revealed, and partly because they would not help us if
we knew them, the better for the simplicity and the power and the
certainty of our hope. The object of Christian hope is Christ, in His
revelation, in His presence, in His communication to us for glory, in
His assimilating of us to Himself.

'It is enough that Christ knows all,
And we shall be with Him.'

'The grace that is being brought unto you in the revelation of Jesus
Christ.'

II. And now notice the duty of the Christian hope.

Hope a duty? That strikes one as somewhat strange. I very much doubt
whether the ordinary run of good people do recognise it as being as
imperative a duty for them to cultivate hope as to cultivate any other
Christian excellence or virtue. For one man that sets himself
deliberately and consciously to brighten up, and to make more operative
in his daily life, the hope of future blessedness, you will find a
hundred that set themselves to other kinds of perfecting of their
Christian character. And yet, surely, there do not need any words to
enforce the fact that this hope full of immortality is no mere luxury
which a Christian man may add to the plain fare of daily duty or leave
untasted according as he likes,