A Goodly Heritage

It is an indissoluble union. — It is infinitely strong and durable. The saint shall be separated from his nearest relations, from his most intimate friends, from his dearest earthly enjoyments, and his soul ere long shall be separated from his body; but it shall never for a moment be parted from the Lord Jesus. Supposing the believer's body were burned, and every particle of its ashes removed as far from each other as the east is from the west, they would still be united, indissolubly united, to Jesus Christ, Rom. viii. 35—39. As death did not dissolve the hypo statical union in the person of Christ, so neither will it ever dissolve the mystical union between him and his saints. Their bodies when dissolved in the grave are as intimately united to the Lord Jesus as their'souls dwelling in the mansions of glory. They sleep in Jesus: he keeper all their bones. This union can never be dissolved: no creature can dissolve it, and the Lord Jesus himself will not. The creature cannot d...

Words in Season . BIBLE THOUGHTS . BY THE EDITOR . 1 SAM . XVI . 14-23 . Or Saul we may say , ' Thou didst run well , who hath hindered you ? He began well , but ended ill . His first days and works were better than his last . So with Demas ; so with the church of Ephe- sus ; so with the Jews , whose following Jehovah at first was belied by their last apostasy . So is it still with souls , churches , nations , ages . I. Saul's sin . For the root of all was sin . This sin was simply disobedience to a command of God . He was bidden slay Agag and his people . A cruel command , some would say , to which the disobedi- ence was better than the obedience . But it was a divine command , whether the wisdom , or the justice , or the mercy were visible . God had his reasons for it , and that was enough . Saul's sin was not misrule , nor oppression , nor wickedness , but simply disobedience to a command which some might call arbitrary , if not harsh and stern . Such stress does God lay...

Words in Season . BIBLE THOUGHTS . BY THE EDITOR . ' Er , the first - born of Judah , was evil in the sight of the Lord , and He slew him .'- 1 CHRON . II . 3 . HERE we have , in one brief sentence , a statement of the way in which God deals with sin and the sinner . It is the repetition of a verse in Genesis , in a very unlikely place in the midst of names and genealogies ; God thus giving us to know the stress He lays on it . It is not for nothing that He thus repeats it . Such clauses as this , flung in apparently by chance , or what is called the tran- scriber's taste , are full of meaning . This certainly contains a very distinct and awful utterance . Looking at it generally , we may say that it brings out , in a very outstanding and unambiguous form , such things as these : I. God's estimate of sin . It differs widely from man's . It is the Judge's estimate ; not the Physi- cian's merely , or the Father's . It is one of con- demnation . It is not s...

Words in Season . BIBLE THOUGHTS . BY THE EDITOR . PSALM LXVIII . 18 . THIS Psalm is of and for Messiah . It is He whose name is Jah , the Lord God of Israel ; He is addressed throughout this Psalm as God . It is this Psalm which the apostle quotes in Ephesians ( iv . 8 ) , and interprets of Christ and his ascension . It is Christ that David here addresses : ' Thou hast ascended on high . ' I. The ascension . - This is the last point of Mes- siah's earthly history , and sums up the whole . But according to the interpretation of Paul , it includes all that went before : What is it but that He also descended ? The ascent reminds us of a descent . He descended to Bethlehem , and then He descended to Joseph's tomb . After that all was ascension ; and the expression of our text includes , or rather expresses , resurrection . He went down into the lower parts of the earth ; He came up again ; and then He went on high . This ascending was the completion of his work , the carry...

"Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain--and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it." Zechariah 4:7 If the literal temple had been built up without any trouble whatever; if all had gone on smooth and easy, there would not have been any shouting of "Grace, grace," when it was finished. But when it was seen how the Lord had brought a few feeble exiles from Babylon; how he had supported them amid and carried them through all their troubles; and how he that laid the foundation had brought forth the head-stone, all that stood by could say, "Grace, grace unto it." It was these very perplexities and trials that made them join so cheerily in the shout, and made the heart and soul to leap with the lips, when they burst forth with "Grace, grace unto it." And who will shout the loudest hereafter? He that has known and felt the most of the aboundings of sin to sink his soul d...

Is the comfort, with which the saints are favoured, spiritual and holy comfort? Let no man then conclude,- that he is a true Christian, merely because he has felt on some occasions, natural and sensible consolation. Natural, outward, and sensible consolation is one thing; spiritual, inward, and holy comfort is another, and a very different thing. The former, is natural, and is common both to saints and sinners; the latter, is spiritual, and is peculiar only to the saints: that, is outward and sensitive, proceeding, under common providential Prov. xiv. 10. influence, from a man's natural constitution of body; this, is inward and holy, and is effected by the Holy Spirit the Comforter, dwelling in the soul. Spiritual consolation is sometimes sensible, as well as that which is natural; or rather, the former might (as it sometimes is) be styled, sensible consolation, and the latter, sensitive delight. Spiritual comfort, delights chiefly the rational and inward faculties of the soul; nat...