Deut. x. 14—16. Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them ; and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked.
202.1 god's electing love excites to holiness. 327
THE true tendency of religion is marked in the words preceding our text. Under the Christian, no less than under the Jewish dispensation, it is alto- gether practical ; so that in every age of the Church we may adopt that appeal of Moses, " And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, to keep the com- mandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good ?" But we must not in our zeal for morals overlook those principles which alone have efficacy to produce them. The principles which call forth our hopes and our fears, have necessarily a powerful effect on our conduct : but a more refined operation is derived from those principles which excite our love and gratitude. The electing love of God, for instance, when brought home with a personal application to the soul, has a constraining influence, which nothing can resist. Hence Moses so often reminds the Israelites of their peculiar obligations to God, such as no other people from the beginning of the world could ever boast of : and takes occasion from those distinguishing favours to urge them the more powerfully to devote them- selves to his service. What he considered as their duty we have already noticed : his mode of urging them to perform it comes now to be more particu- larly considered : " The Lord had a delight in thy fathers, &c. : circumcise therefore, &c."
From these words we shall shew, I. That God's people are brought into that relation to him, not by any merits of their own, but solely in consequence of his electing love —
The whole universe, both " the heavens and the earth," is the Lord's : it owes its existence to his all-creating power ; and it is altogether at his dis- posal. He has the same power over it as the potter has over the clay : and, if it had pleased him to mar, or to annihilate, any part of the creation, as soon as he had formed it, he had a right to do so.