3. Their delight in holy exercises —
[The wise, and mighty, and noble will often perform religious duties with a commendable regularity: but they coniply with them rather as the institutions and customs of their country, than as exercises in which they find any plea- sure, or from which they expect to derive any present benefit. It is far otherwise with the poor, weak, despised followers of Christ: they engage in these employments with delight: they look forward to the returning seasons of devotion with unfeigned joy : and, though they cannot always maintain a spiritual frame in them, yet there is no other employment so pleasing to them, or so productive of permanent satisfaction. Now this also appears strange and unaccountable to them that are yet in their unconverted state : they cannot conceive how it should be, that persons should multiply their seasons of worship, and put themselves to much expense and trouble in attending on them, without any apparent necessity. They can ascribe it to nothing but enthusiasm or hypocrisy. They are constrained however to confess, that, if religion so abstracts
■■ John ix. 34. « Rev. xvii. 14. t Gal. vi. 14.
" Heb. xi. 13—16. ^1 Jolin v. 4.
the mind from earthly things, and so inclines us to set our affections on things above, their hopes and prospects are " brought to nought."
Thus as the Gentiles, who tcere scarcely regarded as having any existence, were made use of by God to bring to nought the Jewish polity, in which all that ivas valuable was supposed to he co7itained^'; so the spirituality of real Christians is yet daily made use of by God to bring to nought the pride of wisdom, the power of greatness, and the fond conceits of pharibaic morality.]
But let us examine yet further — III. Its ultimate design —
God, as it becomes him, consults in all things his own glory. In this dispensation more especially,
He has provided, " that no flesh should glory in his presence" —
[It would not become his Majesty to suffer any of his creatures to assume honour to themselves : it is meet and right that all should acknowledge him to be the one source of all their happiness. As he is the Author of their being, they cannot but be indebted to him for all their powers ; and as he is the one Restorer of those powers, both by the blood of his Son and the agency of his Spirit, he must have the glory of all which may be wrought by them ; none must stand in competi- tion with him ; nor must any presume to claim the smallest share of that honour which is due to him alone.]
The dispensation is admirably calculated to insure
his end —
[If the wise and noble were called in preference to others, they would infallibly arrogate to themselves, in part at least, the honour of that distinction : they would either think that they had effected the change in themselves by their own power, or that God had had respect to them on account of super-eminent worth. But by the preference given to the poor, all occasion for such boasting is cut off. The rich can- not boast, because they have nothing to boast of. The poor cannot boast, as if God had respected their superior talents ; for they feel and know assuredly that they had no such supe- riority, but directly the reverse. The few rich and wise that are among them cannot boast, because they find that they
y This is the meaning of those expressions, " things which are not;" and " things which are." Compare 2 Esdras vi. 56, 57. and the Apocryphal Esther, iv. 11. with Rom. iv. 17.
1931.J THE OBJECTS OF GOD's CALL. 15
are few in number, and that the great majority of those who are as wise and great as themselves, have made use of their talents, only to harden themselves in infidelity, and to justify their rejection of the Gospel. Hence they are constrained to confess, that it is " God who has made them to differ^," and that " by the grace of God they are what they are^"]