on other principles he can expect to do. And I say this the more confidently, because the directions which I shall give are not the results of fallible rea- sonings or of uncertain conjectures, but the plain unequivocal declarations of Heaven : " Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thine increase : so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine."
In these words we see, I. Our duty — "
We must " honour the Lord with our substance" —
[All that we have is the Lord's. " Our very bodies and souls are his ; " and much more the property which he has committed to our care. With the whole of that he is to be honoured ; and in the disposal of it, respect must be had to his will, his interests, his glory. We are to consider every thing that we possess, not as given to us, but merely as covjided to us, to be improved for him ; and we must so employ the whole, as to meet his approbation in the day that we shall give up our account, and to be acknowledged by him as good and faithful stewards.]
We must honour him, also, " with the first-fruits of all our increase" —
[The first-fruits under the Law were claimed by God as his, and they were to be presented to him as his peculiar pro- perty : " Thou shalt take of the first of a// the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring, of the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there ^." Besides these, was the tithe of all their increase to be offered to him every third year : "At the end of three years thou shalt bring all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates. And the Levite, because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied ; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand, which thou doest^." Under the Gospel, the letter of this law is abolished; but the spirit of it yet remains in force : for the express com- mand of God to us is, " On the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God has prospered him''." We are not to wait for the gathering in of our harvest; and then give a portion to the Lord after our own interests are
a Dcut, xxvi. 2. ^ Deut. xiv. 28, 29. <= 1 Cor. xvi. 2.