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The saints are led into an acquaintance with the word of God by the same Spirit too: They receive the promises and directions of the gospel, through the influences of this Spirit. They derive light, holiness and comfort from every part of the book of God; that is, from the law and the prophets, the histories and the epistles, and from all the ordinances of the sanctuary: He teaches them to borrow some food and delight from Moses and David, as well as from Peter and John. He leads them through the sweet fields of gospel grace, and directs them to gather many a flower there for their refreshment, and to feed on the fruit of the tree of life for their support. He shews them how to profit by the ministry of a Paul, and to learn the deep mysteries of Christ: He impresses on their souls the warm and pa thetic words of an Apollos, and fires their hearts thereby with zeal and love: He teaches his younger disciples over again the first lessons of grace, which a Cephas had just taught them. Thus Paul and Apollos, and Cephas are theirs.

He instructs them how to converse with things invisible and future by faith, and to make use of the unseen and distant glories of eternity, for their present comfort and joy. "It is the God of hope, who by his Spirit fills them with all peace and joy in believing :" Rom. xv. 13. And I might add also, that the Holy Spirit is given them, and dwells in them as an earnest of their inheritance of all things, 2 Cor. v. 6. till the redemption of this purchased possession, that is, till it shall be redeemed, and freed from all the present incumbrances of sin and Satan; Eph. i. 13, 14. Then in a happy hour shall this purchased possession be disclosed in the fairest light, and proclaimed to be the property of the saints.

To sum up all in a few words, a christian's interest in all things is well founded, and well confirmed. They are his by the original purpose of God the Father, when he created all things; it was his design that his chosen people should receive benefit from them. They are his by the appointment of divine providence, that all things shall work together for his good. They are his; for Christ the Son of God has purchased a dominion over all things, that he may manage them for the service of his redeemed ones. They are his, because the Spirit teaches him to derive some advantage from all things by faith and holy meditation. God has given himself to the saints as their portion for ever: He has given his own Son for them as a ransom from death; he has given his Spirit to them, as the principle of their life: And in this view, we may rise in the language of faith, and say in the words of the blessed apostle, "How shall he not herewith freely give us all things;" Rom. viii. 32.

Thus having made it appear in what sense all things are

yours, and upon what foundations this glorious privilege is built, I proceed in the

Last place, to consider what use may be made of this discourse.

First Use.-It affords a word of mourning and terror to obstinate and impenitent sinners. Are all things made beneficial to the saints? Think with yourselves then what you lose, because you are not of that number. If you live and die in this sinful state, you have a comfortable interest in nothing: Nothing works for your real benefit. Your abuse of all things that you have any thing to do with, takes away the true pleasure and enjoyment of what you possess, and turns them into a curse to you instead of a blessing. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or this world, or life or death, or things present, or things to come, nothing is yours: for ye are not Christ's. And ye shall reap no final and lasting advantage from any thing, if you persist in a sinful and impenitent state; for ye are without God in the world, with Christ, and without hope.

you

Do you sit under the ministry of Paul, who spreads the glorious light of the gospel around you? But the God of this world hath blinded your minds, that this divine light should not reach them: Even the preaching of Paul is a savour of death unto you, if you live and die without the faith and love of Christ. Do hear the zealous and pathetic language of Apollos? But your heart perhaps grows the harder under it: You resist the affectionate entreaties of the gospel, from the lips of that eloquent preacher. And even Apollos, whose soul is wont to melt with compassion for perishing sinners, shall rise up in judgment against you. And as for the plain and condescending ministry of Cephas, you despise the man and his sermons together; therefore you can get no benefit by them. Neither Paul, nor Apol. los, nor Cephas is yours.

Well, if spiritual things are not yours, you hope, however, that you have a property in things temporal: If the blessings of the church do not belong to you, yet you claim a good share in this world, and the blessings of it: You feed deliciously, you are dressed in gay colours and gold, and you have wealth laid up in store for many years to come. Poor vain creatures! What is all your treasure? What is your property in it? A sorry property in lands, and a large estate, when not a clod of the earth, nor a penny of the money shall turn to your real and lasting benefit! I grant that you possess some of the good things of this world indeed. But your riches and plenty are not real and proper blessings, while you are afar from Christ, and strangers to him: Your own unbelief and impenitence, and rebellion against God, turn all the comforts of the world into curses: It is only the grace of Christ can take off the curse, and sanctify this world into a blessing.

Life is not yours; it is not for your final advantage, while you waste it in vanity and sinful amusements: A long life spent in this manner, shall but add to your guilt, and aggravate your condemnation. Death is not a benefit, but a dreadful hour to you, for it delivers you over to the full power of Satan that cruel tormentor, and opens the scene of your everlasting

sorrows.

Things present are not blessings to you, while you resolve to continue in this sinful state. You abuse the day-light, and waste it in trifles or in crimes; or at best you spend it in an eager pursuit of the things of the world, with the neglect of God. The night is given to recruit nature for new services, but you seize the shadows of the evening to make a screen for your secret iniquities, and hide your sins behind the curtains of midnight.

You feed on the fruits of the earth, and other rich provisions of divine bounty; but perhaps you make them instruments of shameful intemperance: Or at best you lay out the strength of them in empty follies, or in low earthly designs, without a thought of God or heaven. The morning and the evening wait upon you in long successions, but you are heaping up iniquities from morning to evening. You walk daily in the paths of death, and the suns-beams do but light you onward to everlasting darkYou are nourished by your food for the day of slaughter. Daily and hourly you abuse the goodness of God, and even these abused blessings of his goodness shall call for greater degrees of vengeance at his awful judgment seat. Thus neither the light of the sun, nor the fruits of the earth, neither day nor night, are yours; for you abuse them to sinful purposes, and they yield you no real profit.

ness.

And if things present are not yours, if ye have no solid and lasting benefit by them, much less can you pretend to claim any comfortable share in the things that are to come. There is a hea

ven of happiness provided for the saints, but you are utterly unprepared to fulfil the business of it, or to taste the blessedness. There is no room nor place there for you. There is nothing glorious and delightful among all the promises of God, or all the joyful scenes of the world to come, that you can claim any title to, nor have you any interest in them. When hell shall open its month indeed, to receive millions of the damned, according to the final sentence of the Judge, there you will find a place and room provided for you; but it is an uneasy and dreadful one. Hell is yours, the vengeance of God is yours, endless misery is yours; you have been treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath; and you can claim nothing but this painful portion, this dismal and everlasting inheritance,

And can you be content with such a portion as this is, while the saints are inheritors of all that is holy and happy, both in this world and the next? O may your busy thoughts be awakened betimes, and make you ever restless and uneasy in your present wretched estate! Return to the Lord in humble mourning for all your past iniquities: Return to God speedily, from whom you have wickedly departed: Loath yourselves because of your abominations, and abandon every idol: Say to him, my Father, in the spirit of faith and penitence, and he will put you among the children, and give you a goodly heritage; Jer. iii.19.

Seek acquaintance with Jesus the Son of God, the Saviour, the Lord and Heir of all things; commit your souls to his hands, resign yourselves entirely to his grace, that he may change your unholy natures by his Spirit, that he may cleanse away your guilt by the blood of his atonement, that he may give you an interest in his own riches; then the covenant of his love shall sanctify to you all the enjoyments of earth and time, and make you possessors of all the good things in heaven and eternity.

Second Use. This doctrine discovers to us the glory of the new covenant. A blessed covenant indeed that has given so rich a treasure to creatures so unworthy! We are sinners, and deserve nothing, yet when we believe in the Son of God, the gospel gives us in our measure the inheritance and possession of all things.

Adam was made Lord of this lower world; this earth and the creatures that dwell on it were put into his hands, all things below were given him for his use, his support, and his delight. Thus mankind considered in the first Adam, in his innocent estate, were lords of all. But by one man sin entered into the world; Rom. v. 12. and by that sin, Adam has forfeited his sovereignty and dominion, with all his large possession of the creatures, both for himself and for us. When the sentence came forth from the mouth of God, Cursed be the ground for thy sake; Gen. iii. 17. the curse fell on all this lower world, and did, as it were, make a seizure of the creatures out of the hands of Adam the great sinner. They are no more his in that sanctified manner for his real and final benefit, as they were before: They now become instruments of temptation and sin, pain, and sorrow and misery. But the covenant of grace restores all back again to us in and by the second Adam, who is the Lord of the new world, and under this character, is possessor of all things: And a sanctified use of all things is given to us again, in and by Christ Jesus. O glorious covenant, that can take away the curse from creatures, and make them become a blessing to the saints!

But there is a further glory in it still; for our possession of

all things in the second Adam, is far more secure than it was in the first. This rich and extensive treasure is put into the hands of Christ our Mediator, our Head, and our Surety for us, that we may not abuse our possession by sin to our own ruin; and that we may not forfeit our inheritance the second time, and so lose it for ever.

Third Use. This doctrine yields sweet consolation to a poor afflicted saint, who is taught to make a right improvement of it. The gospel should teach a christian in these circumstances, such divine language as this: "Am I poor and despised by the great and rich in this world? yet I trust I am made a child of God by his renewing grace, and the promise gives me a right to all things. God my Father has engaged that all things shall work together for my good. He has made me a joint-heir with his best-beloved Son Jesus, and has given me a fair and large inheritance. I shall be possessor of every comfort among the creatures that is necessary to my supreme interest, and my final happiness, and God himself is my eternal portion.

"What if I cannot read my name and my title to lands and houses, to green fields and palaces, in large conveyances and writings under the seal of men? but I can read my name as a christian in the covenant of grace, under the seal of God, and the blood of his Son, and there I find that all things are mine. While I survey the gardens of a rich sinner, every herb and flower there gives me more sweetness than he can find in them all For I can converse with God my Maker, and my Father, in every herb, and every flower. While I walk amongst the trees of my neighbour's fields, they yield me their refreshing shade, and compose my thoughts to divine meditation. I can lift up my eyes to the stately building where my neighbour dwells, and raise my thoughts thence to the mansions of glory: Then I rejoice to think how much my inheritance and my mansion there exceeds the most magnificent structure on earth. Thus his fields, and his gardens, and his stately dwelling, afford a divine light to me, which perhaps the earthly possessor of them knows nothing of: And though I have almost nothing that I can call my own on earth, yet, in this sense, I possess all things. My God hath given me so much of the good things of this world, as he saw needful and proper for my real interest: and surely if I might have had all things within my immediate reach, and under my sovereignty, I would not lay hold of more of them (if I were truly wise) than would promote my welfare.

"Do I sit at the footstool of the rich in the house of God; or am I but a door-keeper in the sanctuary, yet I can there hear Paul declare the sublime mysteries of the gospel, and while he reveals the wonders of God's eternal love, my heart within me

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