I. THE SOURCES OF HAPPINESS PROVIDED FOR TRUE BELIEVERS. These in general are two —

1. The King in His beauty. All that is to be seen of God with joy and satisfaction, is visible only in the Mediator.

2. The land that is very far off. In the present life our chief happiness arises from hope; hereafter it will consist in vision, and in full fruition. The heavenly glory is here compared to the land of promise, which abounded in population, and yet was so fruitful as to be well able to support all its inhabitants.

(1)It is a land that is very far off from the earth, and farther still from hell.

(2)The views which good people have of the Land of Promise are at present very distant and imperfect.

II. THE MANNER IN WHICH THE SAINTS SHALL ENJOY THE BLISS THAT IS PREPARED FOR THEM. "They shall see and behold it."

1. This may either refer to the partial view which Christians have of future glory upon earth, or to the beatific vision of heaven. We see something of God in the works of creation and providence, and especially in the great work of human redemption. We have also seen the power and glory of God in the sanctuary, in the Word and ordinances, and have sometimes been filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory. But these views, however refreshing, are not only transient, but very narrow and contracted, in comparison of what they will be hereafter. Then the powers of perception will be raised to the highest pitch, our contracted minds will be enlarged and rendered more retentive, and we shall be able to "gaze in thought on what all thought transcends."

2. The sight which believers have of spiritual objects is essentially different from that of the unregenerate, either in this world or that which is to come.

3. There is an intuitive certainty in the knowledge which Christians have of invisible realities, and which is peculiar to themselves only.

4. A sight of the King in His beauty will be attended with a clearness and a comprehension far surpassing all that we have experienced in the present life.

5. The celestial vision will be ardent and intense.

6. Views of heaven will take place immediately after death, and more fully after the resurrection.

7. There will also be a possessive intuition, or such a sight as includes converse and enjoyment.

8. The vision will be perpetual and without end. There is an entrance into heaven, but no exit out of it.

(B. Beddome, M. A.)

I. That which is SIMPLICITY in art is purity in a perfect character. The beauty of Christ's purity was in this —

1. That those who saw it saw in it the glory of moral victory.

2. From this purity, so tried and so victorious, arose two other elements of moral beauty — perfect justice and perfect mercy.

II. The word "SENSUOUSNESS," in Milton's sense of it, was entirely noble in meaning. As the poet produces beautiful work out of the multitudinous world of images and things which he has received, so the exquisiteness of the parables and of the words of Christ, both in form and expression, was the direct result of the knowledge He had gained from the quality of sensibility.

III. The third element of great poetry is PASSION. We may transfer it directly to a character as an element of beauty. It is best defined as the power of intense feeling capable of perfect expression. It was intense feeling of the weakness and sin of man, and intense joy in His Father's power to redeem, which produced the story of the "Prodigal Son," where every word is on fire with tender passion. See how it comes home, even now, to men; see how its profound humanity has made it universal! "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." How that goes home to the deepest want of the race; how deep the passion which generalised that want into a single sentence; how intense, yet how pathetic, the expression of it; how noble the temperance which stayed at the single sentence and felt that it was enough!

(Stopford A. Brooke, D. D.)

(R. Macculloch.)

(H. Crosby, D. D.)

(F. W. Farrar, D. D.)

(Prof. A. B. Davidson, LL. D.)

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

1. His right to royalty lies in His exalted nature as the Son of God.

2. Jesus has a right to reign because He is the Creator.

3. The Preserver of all men.

4. He governs by virtue of His Headship of the mediatorial kingdom.

5. He has the rights of Divine designation, for God has made Him King.

6. Certain princes have delighted to call themselves kings by the popular will, and certainly our Lord Jesus Christ is such in His Church. Now it behoves us, since we thus verbally acknowledge Him to be King, distinctly to understand what this involves.(1) We look upon the Lord Jesus as being to us the fountain of all spiritual legislation. He is a King in His own right — no limited monarch — but an autocrat in the midst of His Church, and in the Church all laws proceed from Christ and Christ only.(2) He alone gives authority to that legislation.(3) He is the Captain in all our warfare.

II. WE DELIGHT TO KNOW THAT OUR KING POSSESSES SUPERLATIVE BEAUTY.

III. THERE ARE SEASONS WHEN WE SEE THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY.

1. We saw Him in that day when He pardoned all our sins.

2. Jesus Christ was in His beauty seen by us more fully, when, after being pardoned, we found how much He had done for us.

3. There are times when, in our contemplations, we see His beauty.

4. It is very probable that we shall have such a sight of our glorious King as we never had before, when we come to die.

IV. THE EXCEEDING GLORY OF THIS SIGHT.

V. THIS SIGHT OF CHRIST EMINENTLY AFFORDS LIBERTY TO THE SOUL.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. It would seem to be THE BEAUTY OF HIS HEAVENLY COURT. About Him and before Him are the companies of heaven, the hosts and hierarchies of the blessed, and the saintly multitude of God's new creation. Armies of martyrs, companies of prophets, the majesty of patriarchs, the glory of apostles, each one in the full transfigured beauty of his own perfect spirit, and all revealing the warfare of faith, the triumph of the Church, the power of the Cross, the election of God, — these are the degrees and ascents leading upward to the throne of bliss.

II. But if such be the beauty of the King's court, what is THE BEAUTY OF THE KING HIMSELF? We shall not be dangerously out of the way if we believe that He who is the brightness of His Father's glory and the express image of His person, did take unto Himself our manhood as His revealed presence for ever, in its most perfect image and likeness; that in Him two natures were united, and both were perfect, both were beautiful. There is a beauty we know Him to possess in fulness — the beauty of perfect love. In His face will be revealed all the love of His holy incarnation, of His life of sorrow, of His agony and passion, of His cross and death. The wounds of His hands and feet and of His pierced side are eternal seals and countersigns of the love which has redeemed us for Himself.

1. The King whose beauty is the bliss of heaven is ever drawing and preparing us for His presence by all the mysteries of His Church.

2. By a special and particular discipline, varied and measured for the necessities of every faithful soul, He is making us ready for the vision of His presence.

(H. E. Manning, D. D.)

II. THE ULTIMATE POSSESSION. "The land that is very far off."

(F. Ferguson, D. D.)

I. THE OBJECTIVE ASPECT, or the vision as it is set before us; the moral and spiritual ideal yet to be realised.

1. The text is a prediction as to a glorious Person and a far-off land, both of them entirely beyond the calculations of men. "The King in His beauty" is Jesus Christ, The words are striking. It is not exactly the King in His majesty, or grandeur, or glory, or power, but "the King in His beauty." We speak of the good and the beautiful and the true. And there is a singular accordance between those three super-excellent realities. We think of them in connection with the Persons in the Godhead. While it is true that all glory and power of the one aspect of the Divine Being belongs to the other, still we are permitted to make a distinction in our thoughts, and we think of the Father as that One in whom we see pre-eminently the good; and the Son as that One in whom we see specifically the beautiful; and the Spirit as that One in whom we see pre-eminently the true.

2. When we turn our thoughts to the beautiful alone, we are met by this conception — that the beautiful is but another word for the becoming. A beautiful action is an action which it becomes one to do. A beautiful character is one, all the elements of which are in sweet accordance; when part is adapted to part, as the colours of the rainbow blend together; when one line of the form gracefully runs into another; when one sound is the harmonious concomitant and perfect sequel of another — there you have beauty, the beauty as a spirit breathing through the whole and informing all its parts — such a whole that one part may become the other, and pass and repass into the other. The beauty is translucent, elastic, perfect. Now apply this conception to Jesus Christ, and you will see with what amazing propriety the beautiful in Him is the same as the becoming. Consider the harmony of the Divine Being as the eternal source of all the beauty we can ever know. Consider the essential beauty of our human nature as made in the image and after the likeness of God; consider, further, the absolutely harmonious combination and indissoluble union of those two natures in Christ with the amazing self-sacrifice of the Son of God for our redemption, and the adaptation of His work to all the wants of our case, and you have such a conception of the becoming — of all that it becomes both God and man to do — as explains to us the emphasis and the propriety with which Christ is spoken of as "the King in His beauty." No one can be beautiful apart from Him.

3. Society is at present a hideous discord, at least to a very large extent. We cannot say that it is beautiful. But it is not more certain that Jesus Christ is King; it is not more certain that He is the centre of heaven's harmony, than it is certain that the far-off land will yet be brought nigh and made visible upon the earth; and that God's will shall be done upon the earth, even as it is done in heaven.

II. THE SUBJECTIVE ASPECT, or what is implied in seeing the vision, in realising the ideal. The time is coming when every human being shall actually look upon Jesus Christ. But to look is not always to see all that can be seen. To see the King in His beauty implies a deeper seeing than that of merely looking upon Him. It implies a being made like Him. In order to see the kingdom of God, or to enter into it, we must actually be born again. We must ourselves (in other words) be a part of that which we truly see. We shall see Him at last because we shall have been made like Him. It is the pure in heart who see God This seeing of God is our heaven in its highest and most complete form; and it is by faith in Christ that we are brought to this perception. As faith grows and develops, as it passes into the life, it turns the abstract ideal into the concrete reality. On the other hand, the result is certain from the Divine side. It is secured by the fact that the King in His beauty is there. The heavenly Bridegroom is waiting for the perfection of His Bride. And as He waits He works, tie rules over all things for the accomplishment of the Divine purpose. Make, then, the goal of your life quite clear, and lay down all your lines of thought and action directly for that goal. Let us thank God that such is the Christianity of Jesus Christ.

(F. Ferguson, D. D.)

2. Such a view is strange to most men; they do not realise the presence of Christ, nor admit the duty of realising it. Even those who are not without habits of seriousness, have almost or quite forgotten the duty. This is plain at once: for, unless they had, they would not be so very deficient in reverence as they are. There are two classes of men who are deficient in awe and fear, and, lamentable to say, taken together, they go far to make up the religious portion of the community. It is not wonderful that sinners should live without the fear of God; but what shall we say of an age or country in which even the more serious classes maintain, or at least act as if they maintained, that "the spirit of God's holy fear" is no part of religion?(1) Those who think that they never were greatly under God's displeasure.(2) Those who think that, though they once were, they are net at all now, for all sin has been forgiven them; — those on the one hand who consider that sin is no great evil in itself, those on the other who consider that it is no great evil in them, because their persons are accepted in Christ for their faith's sake.

(J. H. Newman, B. D.)

(Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)

I. THIS WILL APPLY TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, WHICH THE REDEEMED SOUL SHALL POSSESS IN HEAVEN. Here we know but little of the great Father of our spirits. But in heaven we shall know God more fully. Know Him not in His essence, but in the glorified human nature of Christ; in His relation to ourselves and the universe.

II. THIS WILL APPLY TO THE VIEWS WHICH HEAVEN WILL GIVE US OF THE REDEEMING WORK OF CHRIST. At present there are many questions which the devout soul proposes in relation to this mighty work, but no response is given. What disclosures will heaven make on these points!

III. THIS WILL APPLY TO THE EXPLANATIONS WHICH HEAVEN WILL AFFORD OF THE SECRETS OF NATURE. Nature, like the fabled traveller, has given the casket to the highwayman, but kept the jewels. She has given us names, but kept the power.

IV. THIS WILL APPLY TO THE SOLUTION WHICH HEAVEN WILL GIVE OF THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE.

V. THIS WILL APPLY TO OUR EXPERIENCE OF DIVINE GOODNESS. Here the vessel is narrowed by its conditions. It cannot receive much, it cannot bear much. Here we sip of the river of God, there we shall drink of its fulness.

1. Learn the limitations of this life. We know in part. It doth not yet appear what we shall be.

2. The boundless wisdom and goodness of God. The best things are yet in store.

3. See here the encouragements to a life of faith

(J. Hoyle.)

I. UNENDING EXISTENCE.

II. UNDECAYING ACTIVITY. Our work here is bounded by many things.

1. There is the finishing of the enterprise.

2. There is the failure of our powers.

3. There is the ceasing of inclination.Sometimes fuel has not been added to fire of flickering motive; sometimes fellow-workers have been cold, unwelcome, or harshly discouraging; sometimes repeated failure and mocking disappointments have driven a man back from seeking his own higher education or the world's welfare, and "desire ceases," and there is an end of work. But in contrast with all this that is of the earth earthy, the true worker for himself and for others, yearns after and will inherit "a land of far distances." There the work will never be completed, for a universe is the sphere of labour, eternity is the period, and the infinite the problem. Labour — the putting forth of power: sacrificial labour — the putting forth of power in the spirit of the Lamb, who is the central life of the heavenly world; this is the far-reaching hope of every Christly soul. And this without the decay of powers, for then will be fulfilled the promise of perpetual morning dew, immortal youth, a world without pain, and never needing a night. Nor will want of inclination bring these occupations to an end, for there is realised the full power of the quenchless inspiration of love to the Lamb who was slain. So, for our highest, noblest labours, there is a limitless hope.

III. UNFETTERED THOUGHT. For the inquirer this human life is not "a land of far distances." Thinkers often weep in their sense of mental poverty. But we are to believe in the lifting of veil after veil as we go on through the ages, till the fair face of Truth shall be seen in Divinest beauty.

IV. UNBOUNDED AFFECTIONS.

(U. R. Thomas, B. A.)

II. THE SPIRITUAL PARALLEL. To see the King, — Jesus, I mean, — is one of the best blessings of His people. There is a further promise, "Thine eyes shall behold the land that is very far off," i.e., "a far-stretching tract of country." We must abide by the metaphor; this stands, I think, for the great multitude of exceeding great and precious privileges which God has given us in Jesus Christ.

III. THE FINAL FULFILMENT OR THIS PROMISE. All the things God's people know on earth are but feeble foretastes of the joys of heaven.

(Thos. Spurgeon.)

(Light in the Dwelling.)

(King's Highway.)

(W. Adamson, D. D.)

(R. J. Campbell, M. A.)

(King's Highway.)

( Bunyans Pilgrim's Progress.)

     4040   beauty

Isaiah 33:15-17

     5149   eyes

The Fortress of the Faithful
'He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks; bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.'--ISAIAH xxxiii. 16. This glowing promise becomes even more striking if we mark its connection with the solemn question in the previous context. 'Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?' is the prophet's question; 'who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?' That question really means, Who is capable 'of communion with God'? The prophet sketches the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Rivers of God
'But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.'--ISAIAH xxxiii. 21. One great peculiarity of Jerusalem, which distinguishes it from almost all other historical cities, is that it has no river. Babylon was on the Euphrates, Nineveh on the Tigris, Thebes on the Nile, Rome on the Tiber; but Jerusalem had nothing but a fountain or two, and a well or two, and a little trickle and an intermittent …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Judge, Lawgiver, King
'For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us.'--ISAIAH xxxiii. 22. There is reference here to the three forms of government in Israel: by Moses, by Judges, by Kings. In all, Israel was a Theocracy. Isaiah looks beyond the human representative to the true divine Reality. I. A truth for us, in both its more specific and its more general forms. (a) Specific. Christ is all these three for us--Authority; His will law; Defender. (b) More general. Everything …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

How to Dwell in the Fire of God
'Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? 15. He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.'--ISAIAH xxxiii. 14, 15. 'He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God'--1 JOHN iv. 16. I have put these two verses together because, striking as is at first sight the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Border of his Sanctuary
G. W. Is. xxxiii. 17 Glorious and solemn hour, Thus at last to stand, All behind us the great desert, All before, the land! Past the shadow of the valley, Past the weary plain; Past the rugged mountain pathway, Ne'er to be again. And before us, ever stretching In its golden sheen, Lies the fair, the blessed country Where our hearts have been-- Where our hearts have been whilst wandering Through the desert bare; For the soul's adored, beloved One, He abideth there. Clad in love and glory stands …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

April 3 Evening
Ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning.--AMOS 4:11. The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?--We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.--The wages of sin is death; but the gift …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

Question of the Contemplative Life
I. Is the Contemplative Life wholly confined to the Intellect, or does the Will enter into it? S. Thomas, On the Beatific Vision, I., xii. 7 ad 3m II. Do the Moral Virtues pertain to the Contemplative Life? S. Augustine, Of the City of God, xix. 19 III. Does the Contemplative Life comprise many Acts? S. Augustine, Of the Perfection of Human Righteousness, viii. 18 " Ep., cxxx. ad probam IV. Does the Contemplative Life consist solely in the Contemplation of God, or in the Consideration …
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

Necessity of Contemplating the Judgment-Seat of God, in Order to be Seriously Convinced of the Doctrine of Gratuitous Justification.
1. Source of error on the subject of Justification. Sophists speak as if the question were to be discussed before some human tribunal. It relates to the majesty and justice of God. Hence nothing accepted without absolute perfection. Passages confirming this doctrine. If we descend to the righteousness of the Law, the curse immediately appears. 2. Source of hypocritical confidence. Illustrated by a simile. Exhortation. Testimony of Job, David, and Paul. 3. Confession of Augustine and Bernard. 4. Another …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

A vision of the King.
ONE of the most blessed occupations for the believer is the prayerful searching of God's holy Word to discover there new glories and fresh beauties of Him, who is altogether lovely. Shall we ever find out all which the written Word reveals of Himself and His worthiness? This wonderful theme can never be exhausted. The heart which is devoted to Him and longs through the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit to be closer to the Lord, to hear and know more of Himself, will always find something …
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

The Resemblance Between the Old Testament and the New.
1. Introduction, showing the necessity of proving the similarity of both dispensations in opposition to Servetus and the Anabaptists. 2. This similarity in general. Both covenants truly one, though differently administered. Three things in which they entirely agree. 3. First general similarity, or agreement--viz. that the Old Testament, equally with the New, extended its promises beyond the present life, and held out a sure hope of immortality. Reason for this resemblance. Objection answered. 4. …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Seven Sanctified Thoughts and Mournful Sighs of a Sick Man Ready to Die.
Now, forasmuch as God of his infinite mercy doth so temper our pain and sickness, that we are not always oppressed with extremity, but gives us in the midst of our extremities some respite, to ease and refresh ourselves, thou must have an especial care, considering how short a time thou hast either for ever to lose or to obtain heaven, to make use of every breathing time which God affords thee; and during that little time of ease to gather strength against the fits of greater anguish. Therefore, …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Three Things Briefly to be Regarded in Christ --viz. His Offices of Prophet, King, and Priest.
1. Among heretics and false Christians, Christ is found in name only; but by those who are truly and effectually called of God, he is acknowledged as a Prophet, King, and Priest. In regard to the Prophetical Office, the Redeemer of the Church is the same from whom believers under the Law hoped for the full light of understanding. 2. The unction of Christ, though it has respect chiefly to the Kingly Office, refers also to the Prophetical and Priestly Offices. The dignity, necessity, and use of this …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Angel of the Lord in the Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua.
The New Testament distinguishes between the hidden God and the revealed God--the Son or Logos--who is connected with the former by oneness of nature, and who from everlasting, and even at the creation itself, filled up the immeasurable distance between the Creator and the creation;--who has been the Mediator in all God's relations to the world;--who at all times, and even before He became man in Christ, has been the light of [Pg 116] the world,--and to whom, specially, was committed the direction …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Blessed Privilege of Seeing God Explained
They shall see God. Matthew 5:8 These words are linked to the former and they are a great incentive to heart-purity. The pure heart shall see the pure God. There is a double sight which the saints have of God. 1 In this life; that is, spiritually by the eye of faith. Faith sees God's glorious attributes in the glass of his Word. Faith beholds him showing forth himself through the lattice of his ordinances. Thus Moses saw him who was invisible (Hebrews 11:27). Believers see God's glory as it were …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

A Discourse of the House and Forest of Lebanon
OF THE HOUSE OF THE FOREST OF LEBANON. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. That part of Palestine in which the celebrated mountains of Lebanon are situated, is the border country adjoining Syria, having Sidon for its seaport, and Land, nearly adjoining the city of Damascus, on the north. This metropolitan city of Syria, and capital of the kingdom of Damascus, was strongly fortified; and during the border conflicts it served as a cover to the Assyrian army. Bunyan, with great reason, supposes that, to keep …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

"And the Life. " How Christ is the Life.
This, as the former, being spoken indefinitely, may be universally taken, as relating both to such as are yet in the state of nature, and to such as are in the state of grace, and so may be considered in reference to both, and ground three points of truth, both in reference to the one, and in reference to the other; to wit, 1. That our case is such as we stand in need of his help, as being the Life. 2. That no other way but by him, can we get that supply of life, which we stand in need of, for he …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament