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of death. "The day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." He did eat; and therefore this sentence in all its meaning, and the execution of it, is man's right; and this is all that he has any right to by the tenor of a covenant of works.

But God has appointed us another head, a second Adam, and proclaimed him to us as our everlasting Father; and he has redeemed us, and restored us again to the divine favour. And many wonderful things has God given to us in him, and whatsoever God hath given to us is our right; for nothing can be freer than gifts; and what is given me I have a right to inherit. And,

1. He has promised the kingdom of God to all them that are poor in spirit: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of God." A man truly poor in soul is a debtor that needs a surety; a starving soul, like the prodigal, that wants bread, and begs it; a naked soul, that hungers after righteousness. He is weary, and wants a resting place; and he is chased out of all confidence in the flesh, and exposed to the wrath of God; and therefore he wants a refuge, a shelter, and a dwelling-place. He has neither good word nor good work to plead; and therefore becomes a pauper on a throne of grace, and relies wholly on the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. This is the poor and needy man. To this man God promises the kingdom; and this man has many adversaries. But God takes his part: "I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor. Surely the righteous shall give

thanks to thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence." The right of the poor in spirit is the kingdom of God; to the poor it is promised, and the poor are the heirs of it; and to the poor the promise of God secures it. man is his sonship. He that

The cause of a just believeth is a child

of God, manifestly so, by faith. Against this high character and title the devil and sinners labour hard, as may be seen in the devil's ifs and buts which he brought to Christ when he tempted him in the wilderness: "If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread." Upon this head the Jews charge him with blasphemy, to which Christ replies, "Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" This they throw at him most blasphemously when on the cross: "He saved others, himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God." And against the sonship of the saints Satan labours with all his might; and in making this matter clear and sure to us every divine person in the ever-blessed Trinity is concerned. God makes it plain by shedding abroad his love in our hearts, and declaring that, "He that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." Christ makes it manifest to us upon our receiving him and believing on him; for to them

that receive him and believe on his name, to them he gives power to become the sons of God; and again, "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." The Holy Ghost also cries Abba, Father, and bears his witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. Our heirship and inheritance depend upon our adoption; so that if we stagger at our sonship we lose the comfort and support of the promises; for, being sons, we are heirs of promise. But in the hour of temptation, or when under spiritual de. sertion, and when in the furnace of affliction, the old vail gathers over the mind, and a hasty spirit comes upon us, at which times the soul is alarmed, affrighted, and hurried, which confounds and baffles the soul, so that all is confusion, and we cannot make a proper judgment of any thing, and at such a time faith is not in exercise, nor is the Spirit's witness within perceived, nor can hope or love be discerned; under such circumstances Zion concluded her God had forsaken her; Hezekiał drew the same conclusion, that he should see his God no more; and Job also, that God had sealed up his iniquity in a bag, and that he would not hold him innocent. But our adoption is the work of God; he predestinated us to the adoption of sons. God makes this known to us, and sends his own Spirit into the heart to claim it. Nor will God suffer the evidences of our adoption to be finally obscured; nor will he lose the love and filial fear of his children, nor suffer their faith, by

which he is glorified, always to lie dormant. He purges the branch in order to remove the superfluities, that the union with the noble vine may be more close, and the branch be made more fruitful; and it is by this that God gets the more glory; for, being adopted and brought into the presence of God, he will maintain our standing there. And this the psalmist knew when he said, "I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor. Surely the just shall give thanks to thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence." By maintaining the cause and the right of his saints he secures to himself the thanks of the just, and the company of the upright; for these are to dwell in his presence. Besides, it is by the blood of Christ that we are made nigh to God, and by his mediation are we introduced into God's presence; and therefore he will never cast us away from his presence, nor take his holy Spirit from us, for both are secured by covenant; and, to speak more plainly, the Spirit of God in his presence, as saith the psalmist, "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy presence."

Moreover, "We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle." This banquet is intended and promised to perishing souls; it is a feast of fat things, of marrow and fatness, and of wines on the lees well refined. And the great trumpet is to be blown to invite the guests to this feast; and they shall come, says

God, that were ready to perish. Hence the invitation to those that were not worthy was wholly slighted; but the poor, the halt, the lame, and the blind, were compelled, and brought in. This feast is promised to the poor and needy; and to these it is secured by the purpose and promise of God. And consistent with this does our great Shepherd proceed in all his offices: "And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock. Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another." Thus have we a right to this altar; it is a grant from God to the poor and needy, to which the outward-court worshipper has no right. And this feeding the poor of the flock is nothing else but giving us now and then a glimpse of the Lord's sweet face, and a reviving and refreshing sense of his powerful presence: "Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my Spirit," Job x. 12. All the preaching in the world will not feed nor satisfy the child of God if the Lord be not there. The promise of his presence being with his people to the world's end is their ground of hope; hence it is that the children of the bride-chamber never fast when the bridegroom is

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