“Come, all ye saints of these latter ages, ‘upon whom the end of the world is come,’ raise your heads with me, and look far backwards, even to the beginning of time, and the days of Adam; for the believers of all ages, as well as of all nations, shall appear together in that day, and acknowledge Jesus the Saviour: according to the brighter or darker discoveries of the age in which they lived, He has been the common object of their faith. Ever since He was called ‘the Seed of the woman,’ till the time of His appearance in the flesh, all the chosen of God have lived upon His grace, though multitudes of them never knew His name. It is true, the greater part of that illustrious company on the right hand of Christ lived since the time of His incarnation, for the ‘great multitude which no man could number’ is derived from the Gentile nations. Yet the ancient patriarchs, with the Jewish prophets and saints, shall make a splendid appearance there: ‘one hundred and forty-four thousand are sealed among the tribes of Israel;’ these of old embraced the Gospel in types and shadows; but now their eyes behold Jesus Christ, the substance and the truth. In the days of their flesh they read His name in dark lines, and looked through the long glasses of prophecy to distant ages, and a Saviour to come; and now, behold, they find complete and certain salvation and glory in Him. ‘These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them.’ They died in the hope of this salvation, and they shall rise in the blessed possession of it. “Behold Abraham appearing there, the father of the faithful, ‘who saw the day of Christ, and rejoiced to see it;’ who trusted in his Son Jesus, two thousand years before He was born; his elder family, the pious Jews, surround him there, and we, his younger children, among the Gentiles, shall stand with him as the followers of his faith, who trust in the same Jesus almost two thousand years after He is dead. How shall we both rejoice to see this brightest day of the Son of Man, and congratulate each other’s faith, while our eyes meet and centre in Him, and our souls triumph in the sight, love, and enjoyment of Him in whom we have believed! How admirable and divinely glorious shall our Lord Himself appear, on whom every life is fixed with unutterable delight, in whom the faith of distant countries and ages is centered and reconciled, and in whom ‘all the nations of the earth appear to be blessed,’ according to the ancient word of promise.