(2) This one great gift draws all other gifts after it, because the purpose of the greater gift cannot be attained without the bestowment of the lesser. He does not begin to build and then find Himself unable to finish ; He does not miscalculate His resources, or stultify Himself by commencing upon a large scale and then have to stop short before the purpose with which He began is accomplished. Men build great palaces and are bankrupt before the roof is put on. God lays His plans with the knowledge of His powers, and having first of all bestowed this large gift, is not going to have it bestowed in vain for want of some smaller ones to follow it up.
^ Men are fond of distinguishing between general and particu- lar providences. They are willing to acknowledge the finger of God in some striking event, or in the swift flashing out of God's sword of justice. They do not hesitate to admit that life as a whole is under God's direction ; but they hesitate to say that He is concerned with its ordinary commonplaces, valueless as the sparrow's fall, slight as the hair of the head. Miles if you like ; but not steps. But love refuses to believe this teaching. It looks on it as practical atheism. It feels that God cannot afford to let the thread of its life pass from His hands for a single moment.^
(3) This great blessing draws after it, by necessary con- sequence, all other lesser and secondary gifts, inasmuch as, in a very real sense, everything is included and possessed in Christ when we receive Him. "With him," says St. Paul, as if that gift laid in a man's heart actually enclosed within it, and had for its indispensable accompaniment, the possession of every
1 Oreville Memoirs, ii. 61.
" A. Maclaren. » F. B. Meyer.
ROMANS — 8
114 THE INCLUSIVE GIFT
smaller thing that a man can need. Jesus Christ is, as it were a great Cornucopia, a horn of abundance, out of which will pour, with magic affluence, all manner of supplies according as we require.
0 world, great world, now thou art all my own,
In the deep silence of my soul I stay
The current of thy life, though the wild day
Surges around me, I am all alone ; —
Millions of voices rise, yet my weak tone
Is heard by Him who is the Light, the Way,
All Life, all Truth, the centre of Love's ray ;
Clamour, 0 Earth, the Great God hears my moan !
Prayer is the talisman that gives us all,
We conquer God by force of His own love,
He gives us all; when prostrate we implore —
The Saints must listen ; prayers pierce Heaven's wall ;
The humblest soul on earth, when mindful of
Christ's promise, is the greatest conqueror.^
1. All things. — All things are ours in Christ. All things necessary to our salvation from sin, to the purification of our nature, to the safety of our spirit amid infinite besetments, to the fulness of our joy, to our present and everlasting triumph, all are guaranteed in our Divine Kedeemer. All other gifts are assured in the accomplished gift of Calvary. He who spared not His own Son will not withhold anything that is necessary for the com- pletion of the gracious design. He who has laid the foundation at such amazing cost will not spare to complete the edifice.
(1) Whatever is necessary for our justification will be given. How vain are all our misgivings in the presence of the infinite sacrifice ! Our sins are crimson in colour, colossal in magnitude, countless in number ; yet let us once appreciate the merit and mercy of Calvary, and we know the peace of God which passeth understanding. Our city rivers are foul enough ; but the Atlantic Ocean receives them into her emerald depths, purifies them from pollution, and imparts to them a strange splendour and song. Our city smoke belches forth by day and night, threatening to darken and defile the very heavens ; but the ampler air refines the base vapours, they leave no shadow or spot, and lose them- selves in the lights and colours and mysteries of the firmament.
^ Maurice Francis Egan.
ROMANS VIII. 32 ^5
So are our sins Bwallowed up in the redeeming love, to be remembered against us no more. " It is God that justifieth ; who is he that shall condemn ? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us."
(2) Whatever is necessary for our sanctification is sure. Great as is the task of perfecting a nature that has gone so utterly to the bad as ours, it is nevertheless gloriously possible in the infinite affluence of our ascended Lord. He now exerts the fulness of the Spirit, and saves to the uttermost all who come to Him. The doctrine of the perfectibility of human nature, apart from evangelical grace, is a dream of dreams, the most hopeless of ideals, the wildest of fictions, a mocking and cruel apocalypse of the bible of philosophy. But the perfectibility of man in the power of Him who has received the Spirit without measure is a doctrine we may welcome without doubt or fear.