potence, when invoked by the very poorest of the children of calamity, should be actuating, at the same moment, all the machinery of the universe, and inspiring all its animation; guiding the rollings of every planet, and the leap of every cataract, and dealing out existence to everything that breatheth. We say again that it is this property of God, the property of acting everywhere at once, so that all things come of Him, which removes Him furthest from companionship with the finite, and makes Him inaccessible to all the soarings of the creature. It is the property to which we have nothing analogous amongst ourselves, even on the most reduced and miniature scale. A creature must be local. He must cease to act in one place before he can begin to act in another. But the Creator knows nothing whether of distance or time. Inhabiting sublimely both infinity and eternity, there cannot be the spot in space, nor the instant in duration, when and where he is not equally present. And seeing that he thus occupies the universe, not as being diffused over it, but as existing, in all his integrity, in its every division and subdivision; and seeing, moreover, that He waits not the passage of centuries, but is at "the end from the beginning;"1 it can be literally true, without exaggeration, and without figure, that "all things come of Him;" whatsoever there is of good being wrought by Him, whatsoever of evil, permitted; the present being of His performance and the future of His appointment.

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And it is worth observing, that, if it must be the confession of every order of being that "all things," whatsoever they possess, come of God," such confession must be binding, with a double force, upon man. It must be true of us, on the principles which prove it true generally of

1 Isa. xlvi. 10.

creatures, that we have nothing which we have not received, and for which, therefore, we stand not indebted to Deity. But then, by our rebellion and apostasy, there was a forfeiture, we say not of rights-for we deny that the creature can have right to anything from the Creator -but of those privileges which God, in His mercy, conferred on the work of His hands. As a benevolent Being, we may be sure that God would not call creatures into existence, and then dismiss them from His care and His guardianship. And though we presume not to say that creatureship gave a positive claim on the Creator, it rendered it a thing on which we might venture to calculate, that, so long as the creature obeyed, the Creator would minister to his every necessity. But, as soon as there was a failure in obedience, it was no longer to be expected that creatureship would insure blessings. The instant that a race of beings declined from loyalty to God, there was nothing to be looked for but the suspension of all the outgoings of the Creator's beneficence; seeing that the law, entailed by creatureship, having been violated, the privileges to which it admitted were of necessity forfeited.

And this was the position in which the human race stood, when, by the first transgression, God's service was renounced. Whatever the fairness with which Adam might have calculated, that, if he continued obedient, his every want would be supplied, he could not reckon, when he had broken the command, on a breath of air, or a ray of sunshine, or a particle of food. It was no longer, if we may use the expression, natural, that he should be upheld in being and sufficiency. On the contrary, the probability must have been that he would be immediately annihilated, or left to consume away piecemeal. And since, in spite of this forfeiture, we are still in the enjoyment of all the

means and mercies of existence, we must be bound, even far more than angels who never transgressed, to acknowledge that "all things come of God." Angels receive all things by the charter of creation. But man tore up that charter; and we should therefore receive nothing, had there not been given us a new charter, even the charter of redemption. So that God hath made a fresh and special arrangement on behalf of the fallen. And now, whatsoever we possess, whether it have to do with our intellectual part, or our animal, with the present life or the future, is delivered into our hands stamped, so to speak, with the sign of the Cross; and we learn that "all things come of God," because all things, even the most common and insignificant, flow through the channel of a superhuman mediation, and are sprinkled with the blood to which Divinity gave precious

ness.

But we may consider that we have sufficiently examined the fact asserted in our text, and may pass on, secondly, to the inference which it furnishes.

This inference is-and you can require no argument to prove to you its justice-that we can give God nothing. which is not already His. "All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee." You must perceive at once, that, if it be true of the creatures of every rank of intelligence, that they possess nothing which they have not received from God, they can offer nothing which is purely and strictly their own. But it is necessary that we examine, with something of attention, into the nature of God's gifts, in order to remove an objection which might be brought against our statements. If one creature give a thing to another, he ceases to have property in the gift, and cannot again claim it as his own. If a man make me a present, he virtually cedes all title to the thing given; and if I were

E

But

afterwards to restore him the whole, or a part, it would be of mine own, and not of his own, that I gave him. if for even amongst ourselves we may find a case somewhat analogous to that of the Creator in His dealings with creatures—if I were reduced to utter poverty, with no means whatsoever of earning a livelihood; and if a generous individual came forward, and gave me capital, and set me up in trade; and if, in mine after prosperity, I should bring my benefactor some offering expressive of my gratitude; it is clear that I might, with the strictest truth, say "Of thine own do I give thee." I should be indebted to my benefactor for what I was able to give; and, of course, that for which I stood indebted to him might be declared to be his. But even this case comes far short of that of the Creator and the creature. The creature belongs to God: and God, therefore, cannot give to the creature in that sense in which one creature may give to another. All that the creature is, and all that the creature has, appertains to God; so that, in giving, God alienates not His property in that which He bestows. If He own, so to speak, the angel, or the man, then whatever the angel or the man possesses, belongs still to his proprietor; and though that proprietor may give things to be used, they must continue His own, in themselves, and in their produce. If indeed it were possible that a creature could become the property of any other than the Creator, it might be also possible that a creature could possess what was not the Creator's. But as long as it is certain that no creature can have right to call himself his own-the fact of creation making him God's by an invulnerable title-it ought to be received as a self-evident truth, that no creature can possess a good thing which is his own. All which he receives from the bounty of God still belongs to God. So

that if whatsoever is brilliant and holy in the universe combined to fashion an offering; if the depths of the mines were fathomed for the richest of metals, and the starry pavilions swept of their jewellery, and the ranks of the loftiest intelligence laid under contribution; there could be poured no gift into the coffers of heaven; but the splendid oblation, thus brought to the Almighty, would be His before, as much as after presentation.

And this truth it is by which we look to demonstrate the impossibility of creature-merit. We will begin with the highest order of created intelligence, and we will ask you whether the angel or the archangel can merit of God? If one being merit of another, it must perform some action which it was not obliged to perform, and by which that other is advantaged. Nothing else, as you must perceive if you will be at the pains of thinking, can constitute merit. I do another a favour, and, therefore, deserve at his hands, if I do something by which he is profited, and which I was not obliged, by mere duty, to do. If either of these conditions fail, merit must vanish. If the other party gain nothing, he can owe me nothing; and if I have only done what duty prescribed, he had a right to the action, and cannot, therefore, have been laid under obligation.

Now if this be a just description of merit, can the angel or the archangel deserve anything of God? We waive the consideration, that, if there be merit, God must be advantaged-though there lies in it the material of an overpowering proof that the notion of creature-merit is little short of blasphemous. Who can think of being profitable unto God, when he remembers the independence of Deity, and calls to mind that there was a time when the Creator had not surrounded Himself with worlds and tribes, and when, occupied by glorious and ineffable communings, the Father,