A Goodly Heritage

OF LOVE TO GOD I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God.  "All things work together for good, to them that love God." Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children’s bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion. I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God. 1. The nature of love to God.  Love is an expansion of soul. or the inflaming of the affections, by which a Christian breathes after God as the supreme and sovereign good. Love is to the soul as the weights to the clock, it sets the soul a-going towards God, as the wings by which we fly to heaven. By love we cleave to God, as the needle to the loadstone. 2. The ground of love to God;  that is, knowledge. We cannot love that which we do not know. That our lov

"He became obedient unto death. " –Phil. 2:8 A higher obedience of Christ is this, than that we have just considered, since it is obedience to a Divine law and to a Heavenly Parent. Those who honour and obey God will not be found willfully and persistently dishonoring and disobeying an earthly one. The higher law, recognized and honored, will mold and regulate all subordinate relations. Oh that the fear of God in our hearts might so shape and sanctify the ties, duties, and trials of this present probationary scene, as to make them subservient to His glory!  "Surely I know that it shall be well with those who fear God." But consider the obedience of Jesus. It was  SUBSTITUTIONARY   obedience . Although consenting to come under a law which He had never broken, no obedience, therefore, to that law was required for Himself. Made under the law as man, He was bound to obey it, but it was the obligation of a Surety. He honored to the utmost every precept, but it w

Notice that all the power by which the last transformation will be wrought is ascribed to our Lord Jesus Christ now  as the Savior.  "We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus." When Christ raises the dead it will be as a Saviour, and it is precisely in that capacity that we need the exercise of his power at this moment. Fix this, my brethren, in your hearts; we are seeking the salvation of men, and we are not seeking a hopeless thing, for Jesus Christ is able as a Savior, to subdue all things, to himself; so the text expressly tells us. It doth not merely say that as a raiser of the dead he is able to subdue all things, but as the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. His titles are expressly given, he is set forth to us as the Lord, the Savior, the Anointed, and in that capacity is said to be able to subdue all things to himself. Happy tidings for us! My brethren, how large may our prayers be for the conversion of the sons of men, how great our expectations, how confident our effort

  The doctrine of the resurrection is a spring of consolation and joy unto you. Think on it, O believers, when you are in the house of mourning, for the loss of your godly relations or friends, "that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope;" for you will meet again, 1 Thess. 4:13, 14. They are but laid down to  rest  in their beds for a little while, Isa. 57:2; but in the morning of the resurrection they will awake again, and come forth out of their graves. The vessel of honor was but coarse, it had much alloy of base metal in it; it was too weak, too dim and inglorious, for the upper house, whatever luster it had in the lower one. It was cracked, it was polluted; and therefore it must be melted down, to be refined and fashioned more gloriously. Do but wait a while, and you shall see it come forth out of the furnace of earth, vying with the stars in brightness; no, as the sun when he goes forth in his might. Have you laid your infant children in the grave? You wil

The first proof I will offer of this, is, that it has been the  constant and unvarying faith of the saints from the earliest periods of time . Abraham believed the resurrection of the dead, for it is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11 verse 19, that he "accounted that God was able to raise up Isaac even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure." I have no doubt that Joseph believed in the resurrection, for he gave commandment concerning his bones; and surely he would not have been so careful of his body if he had not believed that it should be raised from the dead. The Patriarch Job was a firm believer in it, for he said in that oft repeated text, Job. xix. 25, 26: "For I know that my Redeemer liveth; and that he shall stand at the latter-day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." David believed it beyond the shadow of a doubt, for he sang of Christ, "Thou wilt not leav

"He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." Romans 8:11 Identical with, and consequent upon, the resurrection of the Savior, is the resurrection not less divine, and scarcely less glorious- of the saints. Seeing that our Lord entered the grave as a public person, sustaining a representative character, when, therefore, he broke from its thraldom, he rose, the "first-fruits of those who slept." The Head of the Church alive, the resurrection-life of the Church became a fact, at once certain and glorious. Now, if the gospel be a myth- how charming the fiction! If untrue- how blissful the lie! With what sunlight joyousness does it gladden all the present, and with what effulgent hope does it gild all the future! Robbing us of this, what does Infidelity offer as its substitute? It proposes to soften our ills, and to soothe our sorrows, by annihilating our faith, and extinguishing our hope! But we

In  2 Corinthians v. 2 , the Apostle says: “We know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” There are three ways in which these words, in connection with those which follow, are interpreted. (1.) According to one view, the house not made with hands into which the believer is received at death, is heaven. (2.) According to another view the meaning of the Apostle is, that when our present body is dissolved the soul will not be found naked, but will be immediately clothed with another and more spiritual body suited to the altered state of its existence. (3.) That the new house or body intended is the resurrection body. The second of these interpretations is founded on a gratuitous assumption. It assumes  729 that the soul is furnished with a body of which the Scriptures make no mention, and of the existence of which we have no evidence. The Bible knows nothing of any human body save th

A Psalm of David. 1 O thou my soul, bless God the Lord; and all that in me is Be stirred up his holy name to magnify and bless. 2 Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God, and not forgetful be Of all his gracious benefits he hath bestowed on thee. Psalm 103

CHAPTER XXXII Of the State of Men after Death and the Resurrection of the Dead The bodies of men, after death, return to dust and see corruption; but their souls (which neither die nor sleep) having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them: the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Beside these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none. Westminster Confession of Faith

 The first thing which arrests our thoughts, and requires their attention and exercise, is the nature of the soul, or what kind of being it is. Those that are most curiously inquisitive into all other beings, and put nature upon the rack to make her confess her secrets, are in the mean time found shamefully slight and negligent in the study of themselves. Few there are that can prevail with themselves to sit down and think close to such questions as these. What manner of being is this soul of mine? whence came it? why was it infused into this body? and where must it abide, when death has dislodged it out of this frail tabernacle? There is a natural aversation in man to such exercises of thought as these, although in the whole universe of beings in this lower world, a more noble creature is not to be found. The soul is the most wonderful and astonishing piece of divine workmanship; it is no hyperbole to call it the breath of God, the beauty of men, the wonder of angels, and the en

And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Three things (says Athanasius) are unknown to men according to their essence, viz. God, angels, and the souls of men." Of the nature of the divine and high-born soul, we may say, as the learned Whitaker doth of the way of its infection by original sin, "it is easier sought than understood, and better understood than explicated." And for is original, the most sagacious and renowned for wisdom amongst the ancient philosophers understood nothing of it. It is said of Democritus, that "there is nothing in the whole workmanship of nature of which he did not write;" and in a more lofty and swelling hyperbole, they stile their eagle-eyed Aristotle, "the rule, yea, and miracle of nature; learning itself, the very son of knowledge:" yet both these are not only said, but proved by Lactantius to be learned idiots. How hav

It scarce needs that I do more than rehearse in bare outline the reasons why we should tenderly compassionate the perishing sons of men. For first, observe,  the dreadful nature of the calamity which will overwhelm them.  Calamities occurring to our fellow men naturally awaken in us a feeling of commiseration; but what calamity under heaven can be equal to the ruin of a soul? What misery can be equal to that of a man cast away from God, and subject to his wrath world without end! To-day your hearts are moved as you hear the harrowing details of war. They have been dreadful indeed; houses burnt, happy families driven as vagabonds upon the face of the earth, domestic circles and quiet households broken up, men wounded, mangled, massacred by thousands, and starved, I was about to say, by millions; but the miseries of war, if they were confined to this world alone, were nothing compared with the enormous catastrophe of tens of thousands of spirits accursed by sin, and driven by justice in

I propose  to offer a few advices, in order to your attaining this lowly frame and temper of soul which the high God doth so much regard. 1. Go to the law as a schoolmaster; read the ten commandments, and Christ's spiritual commentary upon them, Matth. 5. View the law of God in its utmost extent and spirituality; for  it is exceeding broad.  This would make the proudest heart to lie in the dust: Rom. 7:9: "I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." The feathers of his pride and legal righteousness soon fell, when the law in its spirituality was set before his eyes. 2. Get Christ to dwell in your heart by faith; for the reigning power of this evil is never broken, till Christ come by the power of his Spirit, bringing down the towering imaginations of the heart, and erect his throne there. The more of Christ, the more humility; and the less of Christ, the more pride. When the Spirit of Christ enters into the. heart, he s

A PRAYER. Infinite and eternal Majesty! Author and Fountain of being and blessedness! how little do we poor sinful creatures know of thee, or the way to serve and please thee! We talk of religion, and pretend unto it; but, alas! how few are there that know and consider what it means! How easily do we mistake the affections of our nature, and issues of self-love, for those divine graces which alone can render us acceptable in thy sight! It may justly grieve me to consider, that I should have wandered so long, and contented myself so often with vain shadows and false images of piety and religion; yet I cannot but acknowledge and adore thy goodness, who hast been pleased, in some measure, to open mine eyes, and let me see what it is at which I ought to aim. I rejoice to consider what mighty improvements my nature is capable of, and what a divine temper of spirit doth shine in those whom thou art pleased to choose, and causest to approach unto thee. Blessed be thine infinite mercy, who

All that science can say to combat the idea of immortality of the soul is that it cannot find any traces of soul life apart from the body . This leaves the scientist , like all other mortals , under necessity to look for evidence in another sphere and by other means of research , and until he has done this he cannot claim to speak with the voice of authority. R A Finlayson

James 1:5  - If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. Proverbs 1:7  - The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge: [but] fools despise wisdom and instruction. Psalms 111:10  - The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do [his commandments]: his praise endureth for ever. 1 Corinthians 3:19-20  - For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. 

There is no room to doubt but that if we accept of Christ, God will give eternal life. For he has given it already into the hands of our Savior for us. He has entrusted him with the whole affair. He has given all things into his hands, that he might give eternal life to as many as should come to him. The Father has appointed him who died for believers, to be their judge, to have the whole determination of the matter, and the disposal of the reward, in his own hand. And you cannot doubt but that Christ will be willing to bestow eternal life on them for whom he purchased it. For if he is not willing to bestow it, surely he never would have died to purchase it. Who can think that Christ would be so desirous of sinners being saved, as to undergo so much for it, and not be willing to let them have it, when he had obtained it for them. — Consider, II. The wisdom of God has contrived that there should be in the  person  of the Savior all manner of attractives to draw us to him. He has in

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. 1:7). Happy the soul that has been awed by a view of God's majesty, that has had a vision of God's awful greatness, His ineffable holiness, His perfect righteousness, His irresistible power, His sovereign grace. Does someone say, "But it is only the unsaved, those outside of Christ, who need to fear God"? Then the sufficient answer is that the saved, those who are in Christ, are admonished to work out their own salvation with "fear and trembling." Time was when it was the general custom to speak of a believer as a "God-fearing man." That such an appellation has become nearly extinct only serves to show whither we have drifted. Nevertheless, it still stands written, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him" (Psalm 103:13). When we speak of godly fear, of course we do not mean a servile fear, such as prevails among the heathen in con

 The meditation of God's wisdom in the creatures is, in part, a beginning of heaven upon earth. No doubt but there will be a perfect opening of the model of Divine wisdom. Heaven is for making apparent what is now obscure, and a full revealing of what seems at present intricate (Ps. 36:9.): "In his light shall we see light:" all the light in creation, government, and redemption. The wisdom of God in the new heavens, and the new earth, would be to little purpose if that also were not to be regarded by the inhabitants of them. As the saints are to be restored to the state of Adam, and; so they are to be restored to the employment of Adam, and higher: but his employment was, to behold God in the creatures. The world was so soon depraved, that God hid but little joy in, and man but little knowledge of his works. And since the wisdom of God in creation is so little seen by our ignorance here, would not God lose much of the glory of it, if the glorified souls should lose the u

12   But where shall wisdom be found? and where  is  the place of understanding? 13   Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. 14   The depth saith, It  is  not in me: and the sea saith,  It is  not with me. 15   It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed  for  the price thereof. 16   It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. 17   The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it  shall not be for  jewels of fine gold. 18   No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom  is  above rubies. 19   The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold. 20   Whence then cometh wisdom? and where  is  the place of understanding? 21   Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air. 22   Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears. 23

 In the New Testament the "cross" stands for definite realities. First, it expresses the world's hatred. The Son of God came here not to judge, but to save; not to punish but to redeem. He came here "full of grace and truth." He was ever at the disposal of others: ministering to the needy, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, delivering the demon-possessed, raising the dead. He was full of compassion: gentle as a lamb; entirely sinless. He brought with Him glad tidings of great joy. He sought the outcast, preached to the poor, yet scorned not the rich; He pardoned sinners. And how was He received? What welcome did men accord Him? They "despised and rejected" Him (Isa 53:3). He declared, "They hated Me without a cause" (John 15:25). They thirsted for His blood. No ordinary death would appease them. They demanded that He should be crucified. The Cross, then, was the manifestation of the world's inveterate hatred of the Christ of God. Th

True holiness Believers are often ignorant of true holiness. They do not fully understand its true nature, its origin or the fruits it produces. It may seem strange that though all believers are made holy they should not understand what is wrought in them and what abides in them. But do we understand our own creation (Psa. 139:13-16) This work of holiness in us is wonderful. It is a supernatural work and is known only by supernatural revelation. We must not be deceived by a false holiness. Holiness is not just a reformed life. Holiness is not only for this life, but goes on with us into eternity and glory. Death has no power to destroy holiness. The activities of holiness are indeed momentary and transient, but their fruits last forever in their reward (Rev. 14:13; Heb. 6:10). Holiness lasts forever and enters into glory with us (1 Cor. 13:8). Holiness reveals something of the spiritual and heavenly glory even in this world (2 Cor. 3:18). The true believer is 'all glorious within