A Goodly Heritage

J. H. Cooke. Whatever may have been the period when this psalm was written, it is a remarkable fact that it has been suitable for every age, from the days of the Judges until now, and been found expressive of the prayer and outlook of the people of the Lord. Failure has ever attended the ecclesiastical systems of earth. The theocracy which Joshua left was soon in ruins. The magnificent and well-ordered temple ritual organized by David and established by Solomon did not continue in its glory for one generation. Again and again it was restored by reforms, but grew worse and worse till the Lord Christ came. Then followed the Christian Church; but as that slowly rose into power it became a degenerate vine, and Catholicism grew to be such a curse that one-third of the Christian world rose in open protest, and the revolt of another third was stifled with blood. Then came the Reformed Churches. For a while they flourish, but full soon when the Master looks for fruit they bring forth wild grap...

 We must pray with attention. God listens to the voice of the heart, not to that of the lips. Our whole heart must be engaged in prayer. It must be concentrated upon what it prays for; and every human object must disappear from our minds. To whom should we speak with attention, if not to God? Can He demand less of us than that we should think of what we say to Him? Dare we hope that He will listen to us and think of us, when we forget ourselves in the midst of our prayers? This attention to prayer, which it is so just to exact from Christians, may be practised with less difficulty than we imagine. It is true that the most faithful souls suffer from occasional involuntary distractions. They cannot always control their imaginations, and, in the silence of their spirits, enter into the presence of God. But these unbidden wanderings of the mind ought not to trouble us; and they may conduce to our perfection even more than the most sublime and affecting prayers, if we earnestly strive t...

  1.   What friend can we find so disinterested as Christ? Without disinterestedness, friendship is a mockery. The man who loves me for some selfish end is not my friend — he is his own. A friend is one who loves my soul, loves me for myself, and would love me forever! He does not love me for what I have, but for what I am. So Jesus loves us. He came to demonstrate His friendship towards us when we were enemies. 2.  When shall we find a friend so able as Christ? The love of an earthly friend, however sincere, is often impotent; but there is a Friend sticking closer than a brother," who knows no perplexity of ours which He cannot resolve — no conflict which He cannot comprehend and sustain under — no tempestuous surges to which He cannot speak the word — "Peace be still" — no extremity of poverty, or desolation, or bereavement, to which He cannot say, "Weep not," and the tear shall be staunched. With Christ. as my Friend, if I have the universe for my foes, I sm...

God is the author of righteousness, and Jesus is the Son of God, because He gives the method and secret by which alone righteousness is possible, And that He does give this, we can verify from experience. It is so I try, and you will find it to be so! Try all the ways to righteousness you can think of, and you will find no way brings you to it except the way of Jesus, but that this way does bring you to it. This is a thing that can prove itself, if it is so; and it will prove itself, because it is so. ( Matthew Arnold. )

I.  THERE IS NO MERIT FOR OUR ACCEPTANCE WITH GOD. "There is none righteous, no, not one." "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight." But in Christ there is all-sufficient merit. Believing in Him, we are justified and accepted. Not through His merit together with what we ourselves can do. Dr. Chalmers', when awakened to his condition as a sinner, for a time "repaired to the atonement to eke out his deficiencies, and as the ground of assurance that God would look upon him with a propitious eye." But the conviction was at length "wrought in him that he had been attempting an impossibility...that it must be either on his own merits wholly, or on Christ's merits wholly, that he must lean; and that, by introducing his own righteousness into the ground of his meritorious acceptance with God, 'he had been inserting a flaw, he had been importing a falsehood into the very principle of his justification.'" II....

 Use and improve this representation of God in Christ. It is our greatest privilege to have it; and our greatest care and diligence should be used in the improvement of it; and our greatest profit comes to us by that improvement. This I would insist upon in these particulars :— 1. Improve this representation of God in Christ for fixing and determining your spirits, in all your thoughts of God. There must be thoughts of God. His people are called thinkers on his name, Mai. iii. 16. On the contrary, of the wicked it is said, Psalm x. 4. God is not in all his thoughts. There are two thoughts about God in Christ, that I am afraid some deceive themselves by. 1. Some think that they do know God in Christ, when they know that Christ is God. This is indeed absolutely needful to salvation. But it is not all. A notional assent unto this truth, that shine so brightly in every page of the New Testament, may be in an ungodly man. The devil knows, and believes it, Mark v. 7.; and he only puts a ...

 When our first parents had sinned, and were ashamed of themselves, and afraid of God, and ignorantly thought to hide themselves from him, he calls them to his bar, arraigns them for their sin; and when they had no reason to expect any thing but present judgment and execution, instead of that, the Lord, in a threatening against the serpent, brings forth the first promise of salvation by Jesus Christ, called there the seed of the woman; who, though he should suffer by the serpent, should yet bruise his head, Gen. iii. IS. In the faith of this, and it may be of other explanations of it not recorded, the believing fathers before the flood lived and died. And Abel and Enoch are noted, Heb. xi. 4, 5. the one a martyr, the other translated to heaven. And Noah, before, in, and after the flood, vet. 7. is called an heir of the righteousness which is by faith: which none but a believer is. Robert Traill