Corresponding with our obligations to God is our duty to- wards him. If we have received every tiring from him, it is our bounden duty to devote every thing to him, and improve every thing for the honour of his name. And, as at the former of these feasts they offered only one sheaf, and one lamb, but at the latter they presented two loaves, and seven lambs111, so, in proportion as God has multiplied his mercies towards us, we also should enlarge our exercises of gratitude, liberality, and devotion.
Shall these sentiments be thought an undue refinement on the subject before us? They are the very sentiments which God himself suggests in reference to these very institutions. We are expressly told in this view to honour him with all that we have, and all that we are. Have we property? "We must " honour the Lord with our substance, and with the first-fruits of all our increase : " and, lest that should be thought Hkely to impoverish us, and it should be deemed advisable rather to gather in our harvest first, and then give him out of our abundance, he particularly guards us against any such covetous and distrustful thoughts, and tells us that a believing and thankful dedication of our first-fruits is the most likely way to ensure to ourselves an abundant harvest". Alas ! how melancholy it is that, when we are receiving so many harvests at God's hands, not a few of us are found to grudge him even a sheaf!
But it is not our property only that we should devote to God ; we should give him our whole selves. We are told that " God hath set apart him that is godly for himself0," exactly as he did the first-fruits of old, of which it woidd have been sacrilege to rob him : and every one that professes a hope in Christ is called upon to consider himself in that very view, namely, "as a kind of first-fruits of his creatures p." Yes, Beloved, " we are not our own ; we are redeemed, and bought with a price ; and therefore are bound to glorify God with our bodies and our spu-its, which are his tl."
Only let these instructions be impressed upon our minds, and exemplified in our lives, and then we shall make the best pos- sible improvement of these typical institutions. Yea, whether we contemplate the types or the things typified, the improve- ment of them must be the same. From the resurrection of Christ we must learn to rise again to newness of life ; and from the outpouring of the Spirit we must learn to cherish and obey his sanctifying operations. Thus will both Law and Gospel be transcribed into our lives, and God be glorified in all his dis- pensations.]
m ver. 12, 18. n Prov. iii. 9, 10. ° Ps. iv. 3.
P Jam. i. 18. «i 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20.