of eternity! The God of eternity has said to him, I am thy God, even thine. In this grant he has all things. He is "heir of God;" coming in, by right of sonship, to all that is his Father's. "He that overcometh," (saith Christ,)" shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." How light should tribulations appear in the apprehension of these glorious truths! how should the prospect of eternal glory quite swallow up all inferior anxieties, and cause the believer to be only concerned for this, that, "whether present or absent, he may be accepted of him."

Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. The day when it shall be said, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us this is the Lord: we have waited for him we will be glad, and rejoice, in his salvation." (Is. xxv. 9.)

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DIVINE RELATIONSHIP.

HEBREWS viii. 10.

I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.

THE former part of this promise we have already considered; wherein God engages himself to be a God to those on whose unrighteousness he has mercy. But he engages for more than this. He was a God by covenant to Israel of old; but "their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant." (Ps. lxxviii. 37.) Indeed they were continually departing from it; till, at length, by their rejection of the promised Messiah, they provoked God utterly to dissolve all relation between himself and them; and to say of them, as he had signified by the prophet, (Hos. i. 9,) "Lo Ammi; ye are not my people, and I will not be your God."

But in this better covenant now established with the Christian church, and hereafter to be confirmed with the seed of Israel, (according to

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the testimony of the same prophet, immediately following, "In the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall it be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God,") in this covenant of grace, God does more than promise, as respects himself alone: he engages for men also, the other party in the covenant. He pledges himself for their continuance in it. It is one that shall never be broken, as the former was, by their wilful violation of it; provoking God finally to cast them away, and disown the relationship. It runs not, I will be to them a God, so long as, or, provided that, they be to me a people. We meet not here, as in the old covenant, with continual warnings and threatenings, lest, by our own perverseness and folly, we forfeit all its benefits; or with such terms as those, (Exod. xix. 5,) "If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me, above all people." But, as God says of himself, "I will-I will be to them a God;" so, also, he says of them, "They shall-they shall be to me a people."

It is a provision of this perfect covenant, wherein all spiritual blessings are made over, no less surely, than freely, to the heirs of promise, that God's power, wisdom, and goodness, shall effectually work together, to overcome all difficulties and opposition, in the way-first, of establishing,

and then of maintaining to the end, this blessed relationship between himself and them. Whether these difficulties arise from the power and subtlety of spiritual enemies from without, or from the strength of natural depravity in the hearts of his children,-let what will stand in the way to pre-145 vent, God declares, "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people."

Let us consider, then, in humble dependence upon God for his teaching and blessing,

I. This relation of redeemed sinners to their God.

II. God's own engagement to establish it.

And may he give to each of us, brethren, some pleasant experience of their truth! bringing us, through his Spirit, into living fellowship with himself in Christ, and keeping us in it, according to this his revealed purpose and covenant promise.

I. This relation of redeemed sinners to their God. They shall be to me a people."

Such was Israel among the nations of the earth. Viewed according to their profession and angagements, and compared with the rest of the nations, they were a people singularly devoted to the service of the true God. The laws which they had were given them by God himself: they lived under his immediate protection: his temple

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was, as it were, his court of audience, where he dwelt in the midst of them, and they had liberty of access to him, according to the ceremonial prescribed by himself.

Now, in all this, they were an eminent type of that spiritual people, the true seed of Abraham, (Rom. ix, 8,) whose relation to God is the subject of the present promise. They are, in the highest sense," a peculiar treasure unto him, above all the people of the earth." They are distinguished from all the world besides, by the favour of God, and their connexion and intimate fellowship with him; having "boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus." They are, spiritually, what Israel was outwardly, "a people saved by the Lord;" "a people near unto him." (Deut. xxxiii. 29; Ps. cxlviii. 14.) They are the subjects of his kingdom-a kingdom set up, not in any

169 earthly territory, but in their hearts and affections:

-a kingdom characterized, not by meats, and drinks, and carnal ordinances, but by "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost;" a kingdom securing to them, not merely temporal privileges, of protection and blessing, but deliverance from all spiritual evils, the rich enjoyment of God as their God, by faith, in time, and the fruition of his glory, in the uninterrupted vision of him as he is, throughout eternity.

Such is the relationship which is intended in