(3.) The one is more sensible and known to us than the other. A believer cannot always say God is mine, but he will always say. I am his : Ps. cxix. 94, ' I am thine, save me.' I am thine, and will be thine, only thine, wholly thine, and always thine. Appropriation hath more of a privilege in it, resignation is only a duty. We have leave and allowance to say God is my God, but we cannot always say it without doLibt and hesitancy, because our interest is not always alike evident and clear. When you cannot say. My God, yet be sure to say. My Lord. We know God to be ours by giving up ourselves to be his. His choice and election of us is a secret till it be evidenced by our choice of him for our God and portion — our act is more sensible to the conscience. Be more full and serious in the resignation of your- selves to him, and in time that will show you your interest in God.
(4.) God's propriety in us by contract and resignation speaketli com- fort, as well as our propriety and interest in God. You are his own, and therefore he will provide for you and care for you : 1 Tim. v. 8, ' If any provide not for his own, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.' Interest doth strangely endear things to us. ' The world will love its own,' John v. 19 ; and will not God love his own, and Christ love his own ? John xiii. 1, You may trust him, and depend upon him, and serve him cheerfully, for you are his own. So that if we had no interest in God established by the covenant, if God had not said to us, I am yours, yet our becoming his would make it com-
492 JESUS CHRIST TRUE GOD AND [SeR. YIL
fortable. For every one taketh himself to be bound to love his own, provide for his own, and to defend his own, and do good to his own. Indeed, God is ours, as well as we are his ; but our being his draweth along with it much comfort and blessing. But to speak of these apart: —
(1st.) The appropriation or claim of interest is a sweet thing. If God be your God, why should you be troubled ? Ps. xvi. 5, 6, ' The Lord is the portion of my inheritance, and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage.' You have a right to God himself, and may lay claim to all that he hath for your comfort and use. His attributes yours, his providences yours, his promises yours, what may not you promise yourselves from him ? Support under all troubles, relief in all necessities. You may take hold of his covenant, Isa. Ivi. 4, and lay claim to all the privileges of it. It is all yours.
(2nd.) This dedication, this resignation of ourselves to God's use, to be at his disposing without reservation or power of revocation, is often spoken of in scripture : Isa. xliv. 5, ' One shall say, I am the Lord's, another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand to the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.' The meaning is, to give up their names to God, to be entered into his muster-roll, and to be listed in his service : Rom. vi. 13, 'Yield up yourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead.' It is the immediate fruit of grace and new life infused in us. A natural man liveth to himself, to please himself, and give satis- faction to his own lusts. Grace is a new being and life, that inclines us to live and act for God. As soon as this life is begotten in us by the power of his Spirit, our hearts are inclined towards God, and you devote yourselves to serve and please him. As your work and busi- ness was before to serve the devil, the world, and the flesh, so now to please, serve, and glorify God.
Secondly, The reasons why it becometh Christians to be able to say, ' My Lord, my God.'
1. Because our interest in him is the ground of our comfort and confidence. It is not comfortable to us that there is a God, and that there is a Lord, that may be terrible to us. The devils believe, and the damned spirits feel there is a God and there is a Lord ; but their thoughts of God is a part of their misery and torment, James ii. 19. The more they think of God, the more their horror is increased ; to own a God, and not to see him as ours, the remembrance of it will be troublesome to us : 1 Sam. xxx. 6, ' David comforted himself in the Lord his God.' There was the comfort, that he had a God to go to when all was lost, and that God was his God. So Hab. iii. 18, ' I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.' If God be our God, we have more in him than trouble can take from us. So Luke i. 47, ' My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.' When you make particular application to yourselves, it breeds strong comfort.