and manifest his power and grace ! O blessed day !
Look forward to it with joy ; and prepare for it by increasing zeal in the service of your God.]
god's kindness to his people.
Tsai. xliii. 20. I give ivaters in the ivilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
THE mercies of God which are daily, and, as it were, hourly renewed, demand at our hands a con- stantly increasing tribute of praise and thanksgiving. Former benefits are not to be forgotten : yet it is allowable, and even proper, that those which have been recently vouchsafed to us should so occupy the mind, as, for a time, almost to exclude from our minds the immediate recollection of those which have been formerly bestowed. The Prophet Jeremiah says, " Behold, the days come, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but the Lord liveth which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries whither I had driven thema."
a Jer. xx hi. 7, S.
Thus in the verses before our text,, God says, " Re- member ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old : behold, I will do a new thing." The particular thing here predicted, is, the deliver- ance of the Jews from Babylon, together with their preservation in the dry and barren wilderness, through which they must pass in their way to Judea. But that deliverance would never have been represented as so superior to that which they had experienced from Egypt, had it not typified a far more glorious redemption, which they were taught to expect through the intervention of the Messiah. This it is (even the spiritual redemption by Christ, together with the aids and consolations of the Holy Spirit) to which the text principally refers ; and for which, not " the owls and dragons" of the wilderness, but the more stupid and ferocious Gentiles " shall honour God" for ever. In discoursing on these words, we shall consider,
I. The designation given to God's people —
The minds of many almost revolt at the very men- tion of the word " elect," or " chosen." But though we by no means approve of bringing forward the subject of election on every occasion, yet, as it is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, and strongly asserted in the Articles of our Church, we ought not to pass over it, when it comes plainly and unavoidably before us. The word "chosen" is used in the text,
1 . As a term of distinction —
[No one can doubt but that God's people are often spoken of by the term of " God's elect:" the only doubt is, what that term imports. Now all will confess that it imports a choice of nations to the enjoyment of national privileges. In this sense God chose the Jewish nation, and took them out from the midst of a people greater and mightier than they, and gave them his statutes and judgments, when all other nations were left to follow their own ways. And this he did, not on account of any merit in them, but purely on account of his own good pleasure, irrespective of any goodness in them, either seen or foreseen b. It is no less clear, that the term is also applied to individual persons chosen to particular situations of trust and honour.
b Deut. vii. 7, 8. and ix. 4 — 6.
933.] god's kindness to his people. 171
Levi's appointment to the priesthood0, David's to the govern- ment of Israel d, and Saul's to the apostleshipe, are unquestion- able proofs of God's having exercised his own sovereign will in the selection of individuals to posts of temporal dignity ; I may add too, of unspeakable spiritual advantage. These things being admitted, it seems strange that any one can doubt, but that the term " elect" denotes yet further a choice of particular persons to eternal life. The people of God are not merely called " elect," but are expressly said to have been " from the beginning chosen unto salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth f." And for them in particular is heaven reserved ; in- somuch that " Jesus Christ himself cannot grant heaven to any but those, for whom it was before prepared of the Father^."]