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80 likely, but he can prevent ; no misery so deep but he can deliver us from it ; no enemies so strong but he can vanquish them ; no want that he cannot supply. When we have a want God cannot supply, or a sickness that God cannot cure, or a danger that he cannot prevent, or a misery that he cannot remove, or enemies that are too hard for him, then you may yield to despondency of heart. Choose God for your portion and chief happiness, and you shall want nothing ; whatever faileth, we have an all-sufficient God still to rejoice in and depend upon. See how largely God expresseth himself in the offers of his grace: Ps. Ixxxiv. 11, 'For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory : no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.' We are subject to dangers and perils from enemies bodily and spiritual ; he is our shield. We want all manner of blessings ; now he will give us all things that truly belong to our happiness ; he will be a sun to us : a shield here, a sun hereafter : ' I am thy shield, and exceeding great reward.' If he be a reward, and a great reward, it cannot come short of heaven's glory, and that eternal happi- ness which is an aggregation of all blessings. Then our sun shall be in his meridian, and shall fully and for ever shine upon the saints. It followeth there, ' Grace and glory will he give.' He will restore what we lost in Adam, the image of God, the favour of God, and fellowship with God, and bestow upon us a blessedness which possibly we should not have had if Adam had stood — eternal life and rest in heaven, grace to bear our expenses to heaven, and glory at the end of the way : all manner of light, life, and comfort. See one place more : 2 Peter i. 3, ' According to his divine power hath he given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness.' Whatever pertaineth to life, that is, life spiritual, the substance of every saving grace, though not the full measure ; also a right to what may enable us to honour God in practice^ either to an holy heart or an holy life.
[2.] Here is a complete and powerful mediator. And —
(1.) Hereby we see God in our nature, and so nearer at hand, and ready to help us. God is become our neighbour, yea, as one of us, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. That made Laban kind to Jacob, Gen. xxix. 14. Though he hath removed his dwelling into heaven again, yet it is for our sakes and for our benefit ; our nature remaineth there at the right hand of God : Heb. iv. 14, ' Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens,' &c.
(2.) God in our nature was abased, crucified, made sin, made a curse for us, that he might pacify the justice of God, and reconcile us to him. So that, besides the infinite mercy and power of God, there is the infinite righteousness and everlasting redemption of a mediator. God ofiended with man is fully satisfied with the ransom paid for sinners by Christ : Mat. iii. 17, ' This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'
(3.) God, having laid such a foundation, and bestowed so great a gift upon us, will not stick at anything which is necessarily required to make us fully and eternally happy : Rom. viii, 32, ' He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up, &c., shall he not with him freely give us all things ? ' Here in the text it is said, ' All things are by him ; ' such abundant provision hath he made for man's salvation. Surely here is
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a broad foundation for our comfort and hope. Here is God appeased, the works of the devil dissolved, our wounded natures healed, our enemies vanquished by him as the captain of our salvation, the church defended and maintained by him as supreme head and pastor, all kept quiet by him between God and us as our agent and advocate ; and, finally, he will bring us into the immediate presence of God, that we may remain with him for evermore,
(4.) Besides the dignity of his person, consider the suitableness of his office to our necessity. The dignity of his person must not be over- looked, for he is God-man, and therefore he is accepted by the Father, and may be relied upon by us : Heb. ix. 14, ' How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works, to serve the living God ? ' Besides the institution there is an intrinsic value. Acts XX. 28, it is called 'the blood of God.' But what a suitable as well as valuable a remedy do his offices of king, priest, and prophet make him ! By these three offices he exerciseth the office of mediator. The three offices are alluded unto : John xiv. 6, ' I am the way, the truth, and the life/ The way as a priest, truth as a prophet, life as a king. The way, because he hath removed the legal exclusion ; we were fugitives exiled. And then truth to direct us, and give us the knowledge of God's nature and will. The life, to begin a life of grace in us by his Spirit, which shall be perfected in heaven. So 1 Cor. i. 30, ' But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.' All the offices of Christ are there expressed with a suitableness to our misery. Wisdom as a prophet to cure our ignorance and folly. We had no true sense of the evil we <leserved, nor the good we wanted, nor of the way to remove the one or obtain the other, but he convinceth and instructeth us in all these things. We lie also under the guilt and power of sin ; that is our second necessity ; and so Christ is made righteousness and sanctification as a priest ; for he gave himself to cleanse us from sin, Eph. v. 26. We are also liable to many miseries introduced by sin, yea, under a necessity of dying and perishing for ever ; therefore Christ is made redemption as a king, and as captain of our salvation at length fully redeemed us from all evil : Kom. viii. 23, ' And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our bodies ; Luke xxi. 28, ' And when these things begin to come to pass, then lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh : Eph. iv. 30, * And grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemp- tion.' Thus you see how amply we are provided for in Christ. It may as well be said, ' By him are all things,' as it may be said of the Father, ' From whom are all things.'