and now he has come again and
received them to himself, in fulfilment of his promise. Having sent the
Holy Spirit to create them anew and to carry on to completion their
sanctification, he now sees of the travail of his soul, the Father has
given him his heart's desire, and hath not withholden the request of his
lips. Now, all his ransomed ones are with him, in answer to his prayer,
and also their own prayers, that they may behold his glory which the
Father gave him. (Ps. xxi. 2; John xvii. 24; Phil. i. 23.)--The Lord
Christ said to John,--"Write; for these words are true and faithful."
And what has sustained the spirits, animated the hopes, and filled with
exulting joy, the confessors, witnesses and martyrs of Jesus, but
faith's realizing views of the King in his beauty, and the glories of
Immanuel's land? For this peculiarity the disciples of Christ have been
as speckled birds, men wondered at, in all generations.--"It is done,"
so he said at the pouring out of the seventh vial, (ch. xvi. 17;) when
the final stroke was given to the antichristian enemies: but now these
words import the completion of the whole counsel of the will of God, as
carried into effect by the Captain of salvation, in bringing the beloved
and adopted sons and daughters of the Father home to glory. (Heb. ii.
10.) He who is the "Alpha and Omega," is the "author and finisher of
their faith."--Although the Lord Jesus has made of sinners "new
creatures," prepared them as "vessels of mercy unto glory," and
introduced them into heaven, they are _creatures_ still, and necessarily
dependent. They thirst for refreshment suited to their holy nature; and
accordingly he gives of the "_fountain_ of the water of life freely,"
for the _streams_ of which they thirsted, "as the heart panteth for the
water brooks," while they sojourned in a dry and parched land, far from
their Father's house. Man's sin consisted in forsaking this "Fountain of
living waters," and his recovery and felicity must arise from his
returning from his own "broken cisterns" to the original spring.--The
water of life was purchased at infinite cost by Christ; but he offers it
to the thirsty without price, (Is. lxv. 1, 2.)--Those who are refreshed
by the streams of the water of life, have many enemies to encounter in
their militant state, but all who overcome are encouraged in their
warfare by the animating promise, that they shall "inherit all things."
(1 Cor. iii. 21.)--"He shall be my son," an