1. Look at the mode of inheritance. This is the more important, inasmuch as all who now live in the sunshine of the promise, were once" aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise." Those who have the promises of God as their inheritance, have God himself as their portion, are "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ," and have been put in possession of that good part which can never be taken from them. But how came they to be the possessors of such a rich and inestimable treasure? By nature they were children of wrath, because children of disobedience. Their inheritance did not come to them by law, then; for this they had broken, and incurred its heaviest penalties. No, dear readers, we inherit nothing by nature, but the curse which is due to sin. What, then, is the tenure by which any child of Adam can lay hold of the fair inheritance of the promise? "It is of faith, that it might be by grace, that the promise might be sure to all the spiritual seed." The awakened sinner, whom God has quickened by his Spirit, lays hold by faith of "the promise of life,-eternal life,—in Christ Jesus," and receiving Christ into his heart by faith, who is the hope of glory, he receives a title to become a child of God; in which exalted and endearing relation, he finds all "the promises to be yea, and in him, amen, to the glory of God the Father."

The title, then, to the inheritance and possession of the promises is faith in Christ; that faith by which we believe in him, rest on him, become

united to him, and thus partake of a justifying righteousness, escape from our natural state of condemnation, and become heirs of eternal life. Of none, then, but such as have fled to Jesus, can it be said with truth, that they have the promises. To others they may be proclaimed, may be urged upon their belief, may be pressed on their acceptance, may be freely offered, without money and without price: but those only who have received Christ Jesus the Lord, as their Teacher, their Saviour, and their King, have any interest in their gracious provisions, and can look upon them as an inheritance freely conferred upon them by the grace of God. To have the promises, then, is to be in a state of acceptance and favour with the Most High; it is to be the subjects of a new and heavenly birth; it is to be in union to him who is the first born among many brethren; it is to be renewed, and justified, and adopted into the family of God; it is, in one word, to be "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

You see, then, readers, the title to the inheritance of God's promises. It belongs not to nature, but to grace; it is the privilege of the "chosen generation, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the peculiar people," whom God by his grace, has called into the fellowship of his Son Christ Jesus our Lord. But,

2. Behold the extent and glory of this possession. Consider, readers, what it is to have God's blessed promises as our actual inheritance. Truly, we may say with the apostle, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

""Tis a broad land of wealth unknown,
Where springs of life arise,
Seeds of immortal bliss are sown,

And hidden glory lies."

The very thought that the promises of God's faithful word are ours, with all the rich and unfading blessings they contain, is too sublime and enrapturing

almost, to find admission into our poor narrow and grovelling minds. But God would have his people know the real wealth and happiness of which they have become the possessors. He has made them his temples--the temples of the Holy Ghost, and he has promised to "walk in them," and to "dwell in them." Formerly, they were the dark and polluted habitations of sin and Satan, where every detestable idol usurped dominion, and where every vile and worldly affection held control; but, now, the rightful owner of the temple has claimed his dwellingplace, and he has pledged his faithful word of promise, that he will perpetuate his sacred residence, and so dwell in the living temple of the renewed and redeemed heart, as to make it radiant with his glory, and blessed with his presence. How sacred, then, should every child of God consider his soul and body to be! Oh, if God dwells in him and walks in him, how constantly should he remember and honour the divine inhabitant of the temple, and how tenderly should he be moved by that injunction of the beloved disciple, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

But how transcendently sublime is the promise that follows: " And I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Oh, how little do we struggle to comprehend the meaning of this lofty announcement of divine condescension and love! Think what it is to have God as our God, and to be constituted his people, by the sovereignty and grace of a divine arrangement. "I will be their God," the object of their rapt and adoring worship,-the source of their matchless bliss,-the centre and spring of their brightest hopes, the pavilion of their defence, —their eternal, unchangeable, and allsufficient portion: all his purposes, all his perfections, all his dispensations of grace and providence enlisted on their side. "I will say of the Lord," said David, “he is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in him will I trust." What a boundless privilege to have the great Parent of all wisdom, and

might, and goodness, and holiness, and truth, and justice, and love, as our God! Happy is that people," and only they, "whose God is the Lord." In this one vast inheritance, they may truly be said to possess all things, and to have attracted to themselves the riches of the universe. Oh, what is man in this his pilgrimage, and with eternal destinies impending over him, without a God to whom he can look for refuge, and to whom he can confide all the interests of a spirit that can never die! But, alas! how many thousands travel on to eternity without God and without hope. They have no portion but earth; their "God is their belly, their glory is in their shame, they mind earthly things." But of his people God says, "I will be their God." “And they shall be my people." The same grace which prompts the Most High to become a God to his people, inclines him to place them in the relation to him of a chosen and consecrated people. They are his people, as drawn to him by his grace, as separated from a world lying in the wicked one, as set apart to his glory, as devoted to his service, as sharing in his blessing, as assured of his protection, as destined to a glorious and everlasting inheritance.

Oh, the unspeakable honour, the inestimable privilege of belonging to the people of God! They are the only happy people. Of them God says, "This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise." How wonderful is that grace by which sinful and guilty creatures become the people of God. They are "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that they should show forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light; who, in time past, were not a people, but are now the people of God; who had not obtained mercy, but now have ob tained mercy."

But what shall we say in explanation of that rich portion of the context, in which God says: "I will receive you, and will be a father unto you,

and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." To feel the power of this matchless promise, we must look at that high call to decision for God with which it stands connected. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." To be truly on the Lord's side, as here demanded on the part of all who look for the fulfilment of the promise, involves often the sacrifice of all that men ordinarily hold most dear in life; it may be necessary to burst asunder the tenderest ties, to incur the heaviest risks, to encounter the bitterest reproach, to offend the dearest friends, to forsake all in following Christ. But what does our heavenly Father place in the opposite scale? "I will receive you;" you may be driven from your home, or exiled from your country; you may be cast off by those who are bound to love and protect you; you may cease to have any home in the affections of those who were wont to cherish you, but "1," says the eternal God, "will receive." If, then, I am received by God, what is it to me, if the dearest on earth should forsake me; if he enfolds me in the arms of his power and love, then am I sheltered for ever from those who would seek after me to destroy. If the eternal God be my refuge, and underneath me placed the everlasting arms, can I have any thing to fear in standing out boldly for God, and separating myself from an evil and untoward generation?

are

But, listen to those surpassing words of condescension and love! "I will be a Father unto you." Yes, Christian, God is not ashamed to own the relation in which he stands to you through faith in his Son. Earthly parents may forsake you ; but you may say with David, "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." You were once an alien and an enemy; but by virtue of a free and gracious adoption, through faith in the Son of God, you are now a child

and an heir. Once you looked on God as an avenger and "a consuming fire," but now you behold him smiling upon you in all the endearment of divine love, and proclaiming with a voice of parental tenderness, "I will be a Father unto you." But what conception can our infantile minds form of the privilege of having the great God himself as our Father? Conceive of the most venerable of earthly parents; think of him as ever watchful of your interests, but your Father in heaven never slumbers nor sleeps; think of him as powerful to protect you from the evils to which you are exposed; but your Father in heaven is the Almighty God, and whatsoever he wills he can perform ; think of him as possessed of a heart ever gushing out in tenderness upon his beloved child; but your Father in heaven "is love" itself, and you see all his heart in the gift of his Son, who so loved you as to lay down his life a ransom for your sins.

But, lest the promise, "I will be a Father unto you," should not be enough to bear up the hearts of those who come out from the world, and brave at once its enticement and its frown, Jehovah adds, "And ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." You shall have the name, and the nature, and the privileges of children; I will own you as mine; I will answer to the filial cry of Father; and my Spirit shall bear witness with your spirits, that ye are my children.

"If in my Father's love
I share a filial part,

Send down thy Spirit, like a dove,
To rest upon my heart.

We would no longer lie

Like slaves beneath the throne;
My faith shall Abba, Father' cry,
And thou the kindred own."

I would only add, on this part of our subject, that the promises here specified are to be regarded as samples and Those in pledges of all the rest.

whom God promises to walk and dwell, whom he engages to receive, to whom he says, "I will be a Father unto you," and of whom he declares,

"Ye

shall be my sons and daughters," have an interest in the boundless range of that covenant which is ordered in all things and sure. They may walk at large through the wide and variegated field of the promises, and inhale every sweet perfume, and taste every delicious fruit, and regale every sense of the spiritual man, and catch, in the visions of faith, a glimpse of the paradise of God.

Enfolded in the arms of everlasting love, the whole heart of God is laid open to them. He has given them his Son, and with him all things. If they want direction, he has said, "I will guide thee with mine eye." If they want support, he has said, "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." If they tremble at the formidable power of temptation, he has said, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." If they are filled with anxious brooding lest they should lose their hold of Christ, they hear Christ himself saying to them, "None of my sheep shall perish, neither shall any one be able to pluck them out of my hand." If, at any time, through the weakness of their faith, they are ready to say, "What if my offended Lord should abandon his feeble and faithless servant!" no sooner does the distressing thought spring up in the mind, than Jesus is heard exclaiming, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you; no, never.”

We have thus dwelt at some length on the Christian's possession in the promises of his God; because, as they are here introduced as a source of holy influence, I am satisfied they must be seen and felt in all the rich variety of their application, before they can operate as a check upon our fallen nature, or teach us to aspire after that purity of heart without which we can never see God.

We come now,

II. TO CONTEMPLATE THE OBLIGA

TION WHICH THE BELIEVER'S INTEREST IN THE PROMISES ENTAILS UPON HIM.

Having these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit."

It is ever to be observed and remembered, that while the personal sanctity of believers, in one view of it, is represented as the result of efficient and divine power, "working in them both to will and to do of God's good pleasure;" in another view of it, it is described as the result of a wisely and graciously adapted system of motives, powerfully acting upon the judg ment and the heart, and calling into active exercise every faculty and energy of the new man in Christ Jesus. We must neither reject the one view nor the other, because both stand upon an equally divine basis. On the one hand, the Spirit of God, by a personal agency, and by an actual inhabitation, is the author and producer of every devout affection, every pure desire, and every holy action; and on the other, the believer is called upon repeatedly, as in the text, to cleanse himself from all impurity, to "follow holiness," to resist temptation, yea, to "be holy even as his Father in heaven is holy.”

One thing is very important to be stated here, and it is this: that, while all men are under obligation to live in all holy obedience to the commandments of God, none but true believers, the real children of God, who are bor from above, are supposed to be capable of any act of spiritual duty, whether in resisting sin or cultivating holiness. But, wherever the new and heavenly nature has been imparted, where grace has changed the bias of the soul, where the relation of a child of God has been established, where the Holy Spirit has begun savingly to operate, where union to Christ has been effected, there is the subject of this stupendous change called upon to act agreeably to his new state, his high calling, his exalted hopes, his imperishable obligations. Such an dividual is urged to good works, not that he may obtain life; but because he has already been quickened to life

in

by divine grace; not to procure justification, but because he already shares in the divine favour. There is a wide difference between the mode of addressing unrenewed and guilty sinners, and those who have passed from death unto life. In the one case, nothing is suitable, but an immediate call to repentance and faith. The tree must be made good, ere the fruit can be good; the heart must be changed, ere it can love God, or really purpose sincere obedience to any of his commands. In the other, there is a seed of grace in the heart, and it may be appealed to; there is the Spirit of Christ, and it is a vital energy; there is the nature of a child, and all its filial affections may be moved and excited in the service of its Father in heaven.

Upon these great principles, which it is of vast importance to understand, those who have the promises of God, in the sense of believing them, sharing in their privileges, and enjoying their high consolations, are called upon "to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." It is not enough, then, to depend on Christ; it is not enough to depend on the powerful and promised energy of the Holy Ghost; this, indeed, must be done at all times, and in all circumstances; but it must be associated, at the same time, with a determined personal struggle against all animal propensities, and all mental depravity. The new and heavenly nature must contend, with unceasing resolution, against "the old man with his deeds." There must be the conscious and sleepless resistance of evil: no slumbering at our post, no parleying with temptation, no provision made for the flesh, no dreaming of security while we are harbouring the lusts of the flesh and of the mind.

We are to cleanse ourselves; to remember that sin is not yet extinct in us; and that so long as it has a lurking place in our fallen nature, we are to be alive to its existence, and to call in every divine motive, and every omnipotent energy, by which it is destined to be subdued. We are temples of the Holy Ghost; and we must tremble

at those awful words, "If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy." God "walks in us, and dwells in us;" and the remembrance of an indwelling and spotless Deity, must warn us against sin, and prompt us to aspire to an element of purity and love.

Oh,

When we think of the promises to which we have become heirs, we must strive to escape the filthiness and pollution of sin, by which the heavenly nature is degraded, and our spirits are repressed in their upward flight. the horrible pollution and loathsomeness of sin! It is the bondage, the misery, and the unutterable defilement of our nature. We must seek, with unceasing anxiety, to be delivered from "all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit ;" and this mainly by the mighty power and energy of the promises which are ours. The propensities which have their seat mainly in our animal frame, must be watched over, and so far as they conduct to irregular desire, must be vanquished and overcome. Our members must no longer be instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. The body of a believer is sanctified to Christ, united to Christ, destined to incorruption and immortality, and, therefore, it must no longer be desecrated and defiled by sin, degraded and enslaved by base and tyrannous lusts. “As ye have yielded," said Paul to the Romans, "your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness."

But, above all, and in order to all this victory, we must struggle to overcome the filthiness of the mind. There the thought and the desire and the purpose of moral evil are matured; and there is a filthiness also peculiar to the mind, as there is a filthiness which belongs mainly to the body. There is the filthiness of pride, envy, hatred, and all other kindred vices. These enemies of our Lord we must not harbour and cherish in a heart which is emphatically his temple; but we must seek to cleanse ourselves from all such defilements. And we must