"Made meet for the heavenly inheritance": an early PECUSA Eastertide sermon
Now, my brethren, seeing that life and immortality are brought to light, is there nothing in the hope set before us in the Gospel, to make us anxious to know whether we are doing what God requires us to do, in order to secure it? Is not the prospect of a future and better existence the most exalted distinction of our nature, and shall not all our best wishes be enkindled, and all our best powers be active in its pursuit? Shall man, the lord of creation, the heir of glory, there only forget his dignity where most his dignity appears? Shall he there only neglect to employ his reason where reason might anticipate its noblest triumph? Shall he there only be content to be ignorant when to know is life everlasting? And while we leave nothing at hazard which belongs to this fleeting existence, but by care, and perseverance, and earnest toil, pursue those advantages of wealth and honour, of learning and fame, which, without our own efforts, we know we cannot attain; shall we in respect of the life eternal, of the blessedness which God has revealed, shall we take for granted that success is certain, that heaven is ours, as a thing of course? Shall we leave all at peradventure for eternity, and make no inquiry, give no diligence, to ascertain our character and prospects, until in the future world the dreadful reality shall be forced upon us, that all is lost; and that it is too late again to recover what once it was in our own power, by God's grace, to secure?
The Gospel declares that Jesus Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life, neither is there salvation in any other; and it is only they who are renewed in his own image, and whose tempers and desires are conformed to his will and example, only they who love him and keep his commandments, and who, growing in grace, are made meet for the heavenly inheritance, who can at all expect to experience a joyful resurrection, and to dwell in the presence of God. They who neither love him nor obey him now, cannot hereafter be partakers of that felicity which he has promised. They shall indeed rise from their graves, but it shall be to inherit shame and everlasting contempt. Such, my brethren, must of necessity be the lot of all who seek their pleasure in the things of this miserable and perishing world, disregarding all those higher interests which belong to the world to come. Alas! that there should be any who are so lost to reason, to ambition, to their best wisdom, and their best interest! Yet many such there are, and some it may be even in this assembly, who are preparing for themselves an evil and an irreversible destiny ...
My brethren, what consolation belongs to you, who, working out your salvation with fear and trembling, are giving all diligence to make your calling and election sure. How may your thoughts range forward beyond the narrow boundaries of time! How may you smile at the temporary desolation of the grave, and looking far beyond to the long eternity which shall succeed, behold your happiness made sure for ever! How may you dwell with joyful anticipation upon the peace and the blessedness that shall be there, upon the restoration of all that you have here lost, upon the possession of all that you have here desired. Think of this, ye whom poverty, and affliction, and cares oppress. Your light affliction, which is but for a moment, shall work for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Oppressed and disheartened though you be for the present, the things which afflict you are merely temporal, but the things unseen, which await you, are eternal and full of blessedness; and in the resurrection of Jesus Christ you are assured that the things eternal shall be yours.
(The painting is George Harvey, 'Nightfall, St. Thomas Church, Broadway, New York', c. 1837.)
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