This portion too is secured to them — [Israel in Canaan were surrounded with enemies on every side : but God, who had allotted to every tribe its portion, engaged to " maintain their lot." Even when all the males assembled thrice a year at Jerusalem, God undertook to be a Protector of their families and their possessions : and to this hour would they have enjoyed their inheritance, if they had not by their transgressions provoked God to forsake them. But us, who have him for our inheritance, he will not forsake: as he has said, " The Lord will not forsake his people; because it hath pleased him to make you his people^:" and again, " I will never leave thee ; I will never, never forsake thee™." Not but that he will punish us for our transgressions ; and so punish, as to make us feel what " an evil and bitter thing it is to depart from him : but his loving-kindness will he not utterly take from us, nor suffer his truth to fail"." It is not with us as with Israel in Canaan: they were left to forfeit and to lose their lot: but God, in his mercy, engages to preserve our inheritance for us, and us for it°: and not only "never to depart from us, but so to put his fear in our hearts that we may not depart from him p."
Such then is thy portion, O behever; and such is thy security that it shall be continued to thee.]
And is such the inheritance of all God's people ? We shall not wonder then at,
g Jer. xxxi. 31—33. i' John i. 12. i Gen. xv. 1.
1^ ver. 2. 1 1 Sam. xii. 22. ^ Heb, xiii. 5, G.
n Ps. Ixxxix. 30—35. « 1 Pet. i. 5. p Jer. xxxii. 38 — 40.