A Goodly Heritage

Dear Sir, On the topics mentioned in my last, which respect the making and administration of the covenant of grace, how delightfully ought the preacher to display the exceeding riches of the grace of God and how the whole of our redemption tends to the praise of the glory of that grace; how fit the blessed Jesus is to rescue us from the broken law, from sin, death, and hell; how altogether lovely, precious, rich, liberal, and gracious He is; and what exceeding great and precious promises are given to us as the New Testament in His blood. More particularly, 1. He ought plainly to set forth God’s redoubled gift of His own Son—as a ransom, to obey and suffer for us ungodly sinners, and as a husband, effectual Savior, and portion to espouse, deliver, and satisfy us sinful and miserable sons of men—as the foundation of every call and invitation to accept of Him. Without this, His calls and invitations to receive Christ and His salvation are little else but an instructing of men how to rob G...

John 20:24-29 D. Young I. THOMAS AND HIS FELLOW-APOSTLES. When they told Thomas they had seen Jesus, and he refused to believe, they must have been rather staggered at first. They would insist on how they had seen Jesus with their own eyes, and heard him with their own ears; not one of them, but all. They would point out how the sepulcher was empty, and how Jesus had said that it behooved him to be raised from the dead. They might ask whether Thomas imagined that they were all in a conspiracy to play an unseemly practical joke upon him. Yet there was really nothing to complain about in the incredulity of Thomas. Who of them had believed Jesus as he deserved to be believed? Their thoughts had never been really directed towards resurrection. They had been dreaming of individual glory and sell: advancement, and all that tended in a different direction had been unnoticed. We must do them the justice to say that no tone of complaint against Thomas appears. They would be too conscious that ...

The greatest marvel of all creation is that the Son of God should come to redeem; and next to that is this, that having come, He should be neglected and rejected by those who had so long looked for Him. Here is the greatest wonder in all history: a nation neglecting the realisation of its own dream. Search your histories and see if you can find a parallel case. The old Jewish theocracy aspired to pretensions that Rome, Greece, Persia, and Egypt never dared to dream, to bestow to the world one universal king. And what is that land of Palestine, and what are these Jews who aspire to such pretensions as this?...It has no deep thought like India; no genius of stability like China; no sense of beauty like Greece, no high culture like Egypt, no powerful arms like Rome, and yet there is the fact; they speak concerning the kingdom their king should establish. "The Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy rising." Yet, marvellous to relate, when she had giv...

Queen Mary. ‘Yea, but ye are not the Kirk that I will nourish. I will defend the Kirk of Rome, for it is, I think, the true Kirk of God.’ John Knox. ‘Your will, Madam, is no reason; neither doth your thought make that Roman harlot to be the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ. Wonder not, Madam, that I call Rome an harlot; for that Church is altogether polluted with all kind of spiritual fornication, as well in doctrine as in manners. Yea, Madam, I offer myself to prove, that the Church of the Jews which crucified Christ Jesus, was not so far degenerate from the ordinances which God gave by Moses and Aaron unto His people, when they manifestly denied the Son of God, as the Church of Rome is declined, and more than five hundred years hath declined, from the purity of that religion which the Apostles taught and planted.’ Queen Mary. ‘My conscience is not so.’ John Knox. ‘Conscience, Madam, requireth knowledge; and I fear that right knowledge ye have none.’ Queen Mary. ‘But I have ...

I. THE KING'S HIGHWAY LEADS DOWN THROUGH THE VALLEY OF BOCHIM, THE PLACE OF TEARS. Repentance is prerequisite to an entrance into life. To repent is to make a frank acknowledgment of sin and to forsake it. Is there aught unreasonable in this? If I have wronged a fellow-man do I not count it a point of honour to make amends to him? Shall we not observe as high a rule of honour and manliness in our attitude to God as we do in our human relationships? II. THE KING'S HIGHWAY RUNS OVER THE HILL OF ATONEMENT. It is the royal way of the Cross. The law speaks on Calvary. It says to the sinner, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Nor is it possible to exaggerate the dreadfulness of that death. The Lord spoke of it under the figure of fire and the undying worm To Christ also the law speaks, Thou mayest expiate the sinner's guilt. The sword awakes against the Shepherd. The only-begotten Son of God, assuming our place before the law, is wounded for our transgressions and b...

We are miserable mistakers of the great grace of God in Christ, and of the nature and value of his gift to us, when we suppose that it could ever become a debt to us by any thing we can do to deserve it, or contributing in the least towards it.—As you would be believers, rejoicing in the hope and comfort of the Gospel, never give way to this proud presumptuous thought. The Scripture requires no such thing at your hands, for you could as soon make a world; but tells you, as plainly as words can do, that it is Christ, “who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”—Consider what your condition was, and what was to be done for your recovery from it, and you will be convinced at once, that it must be as the prophet says, “his own arm brought salvation to him,” not for himself; he did not need it; but to him for us. And it is a marvellous opening of his gracious heart towards us, that he would speak of what he did for our sakes, as if it had been wrought ...