suffering,
to share His glory. And when we have remembered this, and fixed it in
our minds, we may go on safely to think of His glory, and see that (as I
said at first) His resurrection and ascension satisfy our consciences,--
satisfy that highest reason and moral sense within us, which is none
other than the voice of the Holy Spirit of God.

For see. Our Lord proved Himself to be the perfectly righteous Being, by
His very passion. He proved it by being righteous utterly against His
own interest; by enduring shame, torment, death, for righteousness' sake.
But we feel that our Lord's history could not, must not, end there. Our
conscience, which is our highest reason, shrinks from that thought. If
our Lord had died and never risen, then would His history be full of
nothing but despair to all who long to copy Him and do right at all
costs. Our consciences demand that God should be just. We say with
Abraham, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Shall not He,
who suffered without hope of reward, have His reward nevertheless? Shall
not He who cried, "My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" be
justified by having it proved to all the world that God had not forsaken
Him? But we surely cannot be more just than God. If we expect God to do
right, we shall surely "find that He has done right, and more right than
we could expect or dream. Therefore we may believe--I say that we must
believe, if we be truly reasonable beings--what the Bible tells us; that
Christ, who suffered more than all, was rewarded more than all; that
Christ, who humbled Himself more than all, was exalted more than all; and
that His resurrection and ascension, as St Paul tells us again and again,
was meant to show men this,--to show them that God the Father has been
infinitely just to the infinite merits of God the Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord,--to justify our Lord to all mankind by His triumph over death and
hell, and in justifying Him to justify His Father and our Father, his God
and our God.

And what is true of Christ must be true of us, the members of Christ. He
is entered into His rest, and you desire to enter into it likewise. You
have a right to desire it, for it is written, "There remaineth a rest for
the people of God." Remember, then, that true rest can only be attained
as He attained it, through labour. You desire to be glorified with
Christ. Remember that true glory can only be attained