camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household,' Job i. 3; but at last God gives him twice as much as he had at first, * for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses,' Job xlii. 1 2. Cattle are only instanced in, because the wealth of that country consisted especially in cattle ; but yet, doubtless, Job had a great many other good things, as goods, lands, possessions, and stately habitations ; but what is all this to a saint's portion ? Certainly, had not Job had God for his portion, he had been but a rich fool, a golden beast, notwithstanding all the great things that God had heaped upon him. And so Ahasuerus had a very large portion, ' he reigned from India unto Ethiopia, over a hundred and seven and twenty pro- vinces,' Esther i. 1, 2 ; but what were all his provinces but as so many handfuls of dust, in comparison of the saints' portion ? The whole Turkish empire, saith Luther, is but a crust that God throws to a dog. Had a man all the world for his portion, it would be but a poor pittance. Nebuchadnezzar had a very great portion : Daniel v. 18, 19, ' O thou king, the most high God gave thy father Nebuchadnezzar a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour. And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him : whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down.' And so in that Jer. xxvii. 5-8, ' I have made the earth, the man, and the beast that are upon the ground, by ray great power, and by my outstretched arm ; and I have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant ; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come ; and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand." The portion that here God gives to Nebuchadnezzar is a wonderful large portion ; and yet all these nations that God gave to him were but as so many molehills, or as so many birds' nests, compared with a saint's portion. All nations are but as a drop of a bucket, that may in a moment be wiped off with a finger, in comparison of God, nay, they are all nothing ; but that word is too high, for they are less than nothing. Had a man as many worlds at his command as there be men on earth, or angels in heaven, yet they would be but as so many drops, or as so many atoms to a saint's portion.
When Alcibiades was proudly boasting of his lands that lay together, Socrates wittily rebukes his pride by bringing him a map of the world, and wishing him to shew him where his lands did lie ; his lands would hardly amount to more than the prick of a pin.^ England, Scotland, and Ireland are but three little spots to the vast continents that be in
' See also Jeremiah xxviii. 14.
* Cf. Plato Conviv. Isocrates, De Bigis 12. — G.
Lam. III. 24.] an ark for all god's noahs, 15
other parts of the world ; and what then is thy palace, thy lordships, thy manors, thy farm, thy house, thy cottage, but a little minum, but a prick of a pin to God, who is so great, so vast a portion ! Oh, sirs ! had you the understanding of all the angels in heaven, and the tongues of all the men on earth, yet you would not be able to conceive, express, or set forth the greatness and largeness of a saint's portion. Can you tell the stars of heaven, or number the sands of the sea, or stop the sun in his course, or raise the dead, or make a new world ? Then, and not till then, will you be able to declare what a great, what an immense portion God is. If * eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the great things that God hath laid up in the gospel' (for so that 1 Cor. ii. 9 is to be understood), oh how much less, then, are they able to declare the great things that God hath laid up for his people in another world ! But,