(3) Whatever is necessary for our eternal life and glory is also freely given. Christ has obtained eternal redemption for us. Everything for the life that now is, everything for the life that is to come, is richly ours in our crucified and ascended Lord. The greatest possible act of God's love is the giving up of His Son ; in that whatever else can be wished for lies enclosed.
^ This is a democratic age — the people everywhere claim a full share in everything. After ages of slavery and feudalism, of monopoly and exclusion, the multitude are awaking to a sense of larger right and privilege. They claim their full share in the authority of the sceptre, in the distribution of wealth, in the spoils of knowledge, in the flowers of pleasure. Our day may in some wise remind us of the apostolic age, when narrow privilege gave way to cosmopolitan rights and gifts. But is the claim for right and privilege to go no farther than material things and politi- cal influence ? Alas, if it stops there ! The best things of all, the heavenly things, belong equally to all, and they must not be forgotten. In the faith of Christ we find peace of mind, purity of heart, strength to live nobly, victory over all things mean and base, patience, charity, humility, kindness, peace, and abounding hope ; these are the gifts most earnestly to be coveted, the gifts without which other blessings are vain. Wiiat a glorious day will dawn when the democracy awake to their rights and privi- leges in the Kingdom of God — when they clamour for the sceptre of self-government, when they solicit the wisdom that is more
116 THE INCLUSIVE GIFT
precious than rubies, when they array themselves in white raiment, when they agitate for the inner riches of love and light, of pureness and strength, which are the true riches ! The rarest prizes are still largely unclaimed. The city of God awaits the democracy ; ite liberties and riches, its glories and joys, are theirs.'
2. Freely.— He will give all things freely. He gave us His dear Son freely. He did not even wait to be asked to deliver Him up for us all. The gift of Christ was no answer to prayer. It was the purely spontaneous bounty of G-od. Nowhere in Scripture can we discern the slightest reluctance or hesitation on God's part as to the bestowment of that gift, great as was the suffering which it cost the Giver as well as the Gift. It was not to a world all penitent and in tears, prostrate at His throne in anguish and despair, that God gave His well-beloved Son ; but to a world still at enmity against Him, still disobedient, impenitent, hard-hearted. And yet He gave Him freely. And therefore we surely may not, must not, think of any unwillingness on God's part to give these other gifts. Freely ? Yes, of course. Whatever God gives. He gives freely. He loveth a cheerful giver, for He is Himself a cheerful giver. And there is not a gift of grace, there is not a gift that concerns us, whether for time or for eternity, that He will not freely give with Christ to all who ask Him.
There are some hearts like wells, green-mossed and deep
As ever summer saw, And cool their water is, yea, cool and sweet ;
But you must come to draw. They hoard not, yet they rest in calm content,
And not unsought will give; They can be quiet with their wealth unspent.
So self-contained they live.
And there are some like springs, that bubbling burst
To follow dusty ways, And run with offered cup to quench his thirst
Where the tired traveller strays ; That never ask the meadows if they want
What is their joy to give; Unasked, their lives to other life they grant,
So self-bestowed they live.
'■ W. L. Watkanson.
ROMANS VIII. 32 117
And One is like the ocean, deep and wide,
Wherein all waters fall ; That girdles the broad earth, and draws the tide,
Feeding and bearing all. That breeds the mists, that sends the clouds abroad,
That takes again to give; — Even the great and loving heart of God,
Whereby all love doth live.
The vital things of nature, the manifold riches of sea and shore, of earth and sky, are free gifts. We often reason as if we had paid handsomely for all things, and then grumble as if we had got short measure ; but it is the greatest possible blunder. If we reject free gifts, we must send back every beam of the sun, every drop of rain and flake of snow, every green leaf, every spray of blossom, every purple cluster, every golden sheaf. Neither does God sell His glorious gifts of intellect. There was no king's ransom ready in the house where Shakespeare was born. All may see that Heaven does not dispense its most splendid talents where wealth is, or greatness; the immortal painter, singer, or inventor is born in attic, cellar, or cottage into which no other royalty ever looked. And God does not sell anything that belongs to the realm of the soul. The principle of barter has no place in the highest world. If we thought to purchase the noblest things with silver or gold, with gifts or sacrifices, we are sternly reproved : " Thy money," thy goods, thy goodness, " perish with thee." And as it is not God's way to seU His glorious things to pride and greatness, we certainly have no ability to buy them. All is, must be, free.