secured : but rather to honour the Lord first, as the real pro- prietor of all ; and then, trusting him for a supply of our own wants, to employ for ourselves what he shall graciously bestow upon us.]
This duty will not appear hard, if we consider what God has spoken for, II. Oar encouragement —
It should seem as if the giving of our substance were the way to diminish it ; and the devoting of our first-fruits to him, the way to endanger our own pro- vision through the year : but God has declared the very reverse, and has pledged himself that he will amply make up to us all that we part with for his sake.
This, under the Law, he did, visibly, according to the letter —
[Under that dispensation, a present and visible retribution marked, for the most part, the approbation or displeasure of God. When the people delayed to build his temple, he chas- tised them with famine, and referred to that visitation as a judgment inflicted on them for their sin: " Ye looked for much, and, lo ! it came to little ; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why ? saith the Lord of Hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man to his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit '^." And when they were stirred up to begin the work, he not only assured them of his blessing on their temporal concerns, but bade them note down the day that the foundation of his temple was laid, and see whether their blessings were not augmented from that very hour : " Consider now, from this day and upward, from the four-and-twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temjile was laid, consider it : from this day will I bless you^." He bids them even to prove him in relation to this matter, and to see whether his bounty would not keep pace with their piety : " Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house : and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it^."]
Under the Gospel, also, he will do it, but invisibly, and according to the spirit —
[ We are not taught to look so much to temporal rewards, as to those which are spiritual and eternal : though still we are
^ Hagg. i. 9, 10. e Hagg. ii. 18, 19. f Mai. iii, 10.