"Thou hast kept the good wine until now."
True religion and all its benefits are progressive. Instead of looking back to a golden age, the people of God have ever been encouraged to turn the gaze of their hearts towards the future. The counsels of God have been gradually unfolded, and the visions of inspired seers have in measure been realized. There is no sign of exhaustion in the resources of Divine grace, in the provisions of Divine beneficence. Every age of Church history, every period of Christian experience, has heard the amazed and grateful acknowledgment offered to heaven: "Thou hast kept the good wine until now."
I. GOD'S GRACE IS PROGRESSIVELY REVEALED IN THE INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE OF CHRISTIANS. The longer Jesus is known, the more are his benefits realized, and the more is he valued. Advancing years, seasons of affliction and adversity, the approach of the end of the pilgrimage, afford growing opportunities of testing the faithfulness of the Father and the friendship of the Christ. The wine of grace mellows and refines with the lapse of time and the enlargement of experience.
II. GOD'S GRACE IS PROGRESSIVELY REVEALED IN THE SUCCESSIVE EPOCHS OF THE WORLD'S AND THE CHURCH'S HISTORY.
1. Time has unfolded to the understanding and the heart of humanity the character of Christ. There certainly never was a time when that character was so studied and so appreciated as now.
2. Time has proved the extent and the variety of Christ's power to bless. Days of persecution, days of missionary zeal, days of defence and confirmation of the truth, have succeeded one another; and every epoch seems to reveal to humanity the goodness of the wine in a heightened and more precious degree.
3. Time has shown what Christianity can do to develop and improve society. As new forms of social life have come into being, as new social needs emerge, as new difficulties arise in human relationships, these successive events make it evident that what the world wants is supplied in the Son of man. That new conditions of human society are approaching is certain; but it is equally certain that our Divine religion will prove its adaptation in the future as in the past. Under the guidance of Providence, there is in store for our humanity larger, richer, better life; and the Lord Christ shall fill the multiplied and ampler vessels with the choicest vintage of his love.
III. GOD'S GRACE WILL BE PROGRESSIVELY REVEALED IN ETERNITY. The wine is good. here and now; Christ saves from sin, strengthens for duty, renews and purifies and blesses. But surely those who are brought to the kingdom above, where the question is not of conflict but of service, not of patience but of praise, shall, upon tasting the spiritual delights of eternity, be constrained to exclaim, "Thou hast kept the good wine until now."—T.