4. It informs us that it is dangerous to molest, oppress, and persecute the godly, those that are puritied, because they are God's peculiar ones ; you meddle with the apple of his eye, and to destroy them is sacrilege. Israel is a holy thing : ^^r. ii. 3, ' Israel is holiness unto the Lord, and the first-fruits of his increase : all that devour him shall offend ; evil shall come upon them saith the Lord.' Sacrilege hath been always deadly ; robbing of temples among the heathen hath been always observed to be fatal to those that attempted it ; the Lord by his wise providence was pleased to suffer the devil to follow them with tempests and punishments, to keep up the notion of a divine power, which is the fundamental principle and ground of all religion. So when you oppress and destroy the people of God, and malign them, you devour that which is holy, which will prove fatal and deadly. Look, as he told the governor, Acts xxii. 26, ' Take heed what thou doest, for this man is a Koman ; ' so God is very tender of these kind of men ; they are his jewels, his treasure ; take heed how you use them.
Use 2. Exhortation, and that both to carnal men and to God's people, who are his peculiar ones.
First, It exhorts carnal men to put in for a share in this great privi- lege, to be one of God's peculiar ones, those that he counts his treasures and his jewels. Let me first exhort, then direct.
1. I shall exhort you by these considerations, how God will own his peculiar people above all the world besides, and how he doth value them above all the world.
[1.] How he owns them ; privately in their own consciences ; he owns them in his ordinances ; he owns them publicly in his provi- dence ; and most publicly he will own them in the day of judgment.
(L) He owns them privately in their own con.science.s. God's holy ones are said to be sealed by the Spirit : Eph. iv. 30, ' Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.' God sets his own seal upon them, to signify his right and property in. them. As a man marks his sheep, or a merchant seals his wares to de- clare his right and property, so all that are God's they are sealed by his Spirit and they bear his mark. As the worshippers of the beast have the mark of the beast, so the people of God have the Lord's seal ; he owns them. There is the Spirit's witness to tell them God is theirs, and there is the Spirit's work to cause to become God's. The Spirit witnesseth to them by impressions, and tells them, God is your salva- tion, and seals them by expressions, and makes them choose God. There is a mutual appropriation : Cant. vi. 3, ' I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine.' He chooseth them for his peculiar people, and they choose him for the peculiar treasure of their souls. Whom liave they in heaven but God ? and wlio doth God regard in the world but they ? They have his privy-seal in their own consciences.
270 SERMONS UPON TITUS II. 11-14. [SeR. XXI.
(2.) He owns them in bis ordinances, so as to maintain communion with them, as lie dotli not with others. When others pray, God takes no notice that such a prayer is made ; they hear, but cannot say God owns them. But now be owns liis people in their approaches : Isa. Iviii. 9, * Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou sbalt cry, and be shall say, Here I am.' God doth as it were say, It is the voice of my people ; what would you have ? here I am, ready to help you, and to give you grace. No king will do so much for his favourites as God will do for bis people : Zeph. iii. 10, he calls them ' his sup- pliants.' This is not a peculiar privilege for some peculiar saints that they are thus honoured of God and answered by him in prayer, but all are a peculiar people, and God hath affections and blessings enougb for them all. When the wicked come and pray, God takes no notice of them, as if no such men were in the congregation : Isa. i. 15, * When you spread forth your bands, I will hide mine eyes from you ; yea, when you make many prayers, I Avill not hear.' They have no visits from the Spirit, nor sensible returns of prayer. It is sad to come to ordin- ances, and God to take no notice of us ; when the Spirit of God comes into the congregation to bless the worshippers by head and poll, and you are left out of the account, and passed over. You know what is said in tlie law, Exod. xxix. 42, 43, ' At the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, before the Lord ; where I will meet you, to speak there unto you ; and there I will meet with the children of Israel.' God did not only promise to meet with Moses, but with all the congregation ; and certainly the services of the church now are not less fruitful than the services of the tabernacle. When God's people come together, God meets with them, and talks with them, and sends them away with gifts of grace and spiritual increase, for they are his suppliants, and his peculiar people.