A Goodly Heritage

         In the fifth and last place, the promise of eternal life to the elect, considered in this period, comprehends a promise of temporal benefits to be conferred on them, and every one of them, being united to Christ ;  and  that in such measure, as God sees meet for his own glory and their good. This promise stands embodied with the spiritual promises in the covenant: Ezekiel 36:29, “I will also save you from all your uncleannesses; and I will call for the corn, and will increase it.” Hosea  2:22 , “The earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel.”  Indeed, this is not the principal thing contained in the promissory part of the covenant: but it is a necessary addition thereto; as the present state of the saints, while in this world, doth require, Matthew 6:33. And thus godliness, as the apostle observes,  1 Timothy  4:8, “hath promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” When God took man into the first coven

1 Cor. 1: 30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. He that enquires what is the just value and worth of Christ, asks a question which puts all the men on earth, and angels in heaven, to an everlasting non-plus.    The highest attainment of our knowledge in this life, is to know, that himself and his love do pass knowledge, Eph. 3: 19. But how excellent soever Christ is in himself, what treasures of righteousness soever lie in his blood, and whatever joy, peace, and ravishing comforts, spring up to men out of his incarnation, humiliation, and exaltation, they all give down their distinct benefits and comforts to them, in the way of effectual application. For never was any wound healed by a prepared, but unapplied plaister. Never any body warmed by the most costly garment made, but not put on: Never any heart refreshed and comforted by the richest cordial compounded, but not recei

Most of the so-called evangelism of our day is a grief to genuine Christians, for they feel that it lacks any scriptural warrant, that it is dishonoring unto God, and that it is filling the churches with empty professors. They are shocked that so much frothy superficiality, fleshly excitement and worldly allurement should be associated with the holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They deplore the cheapening of the Gospel, the beguiling of unwary souls, and the carnalizing and commercializing of what is to them ineffably sacred. It requires little spiritual discernment to perceive that the evangelistic activities of Christendom during the last century have steadily deteriorated from bad to worse, yet few appear to realize the root from which this evil has sprung. It will now be our endeavor to expose the same. Its aim was wrong, and therefore its fruit faulty. The grand design of God, from which He never has and never will swerve, is to glorify Himself—to make manifest before His cr