their obligation to give glory to God can, in any sort or measure, be discharged. All this may be considered as involved in the doxology, as interpreted by the context and comparison with others. Let no one who refuses to acknowledge and embrace all this as true dare to re-echo the apostle's words; but whosoever does believe and hold these precious doctrines, let him say Amen.

This act, however, is expressive of far more than a mere intellectual assent to the righteousness and reasonableness of ascribing everlasting glory to the only wise God. It implies, moreover, an assent of will, nay it expresses a desire that what reason and a sense of right thus recognize as due to God, should be actually given to him. This has already been described as entering essentially into the structure of a scriptural doxology. It is not the dry statement of an abstract truth. It is the language of emotion, of affection, of desire, of an earnest, an engrossing, a supreme desire, that God, to use the prophet's strong expression, may not be robbed by his ungrateful creatures. It is an actual rendering to God the things that are God's, by actually giving him the praise that is his due, not by constraint or grudgingly, not from a mere intellectual conviction, or through stress of conscience, but with hearty acquiescence, with affectionate delight, with joy, with triumph, with a sympathetic sense of personal interest, of individual participation in the glory thus ascribed and given to another, not because the giver counts himself as any thing in the comparison, but for a reason diametrically opposite, because he counts himself as nothing, out of God,

out of Christ, and as being something only so far as he is united and attached to Him, so that the more God is glorified, the more the humble worshipper is really exalted, as the drop, which by itself would have been lost, may rise to heaven in the heaving of the ocean. This is the secret of the only exaltation which to man is safe or even possible. God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble; they humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt them in due time. Not only then to those who disbelieve the truths involved, is this doxology a riddle or a profanation, but to those who embrace the doctrines merely with the understanding, and with no such enlargement of the heart, and going out of the affections as the great apostle evidently felt in writing it. Let all such hold their peace, and let only such as can thus enter into the full meaning of his language say Amen.

But there is more than this required to a full participation in the spirit of the passage. Not only is the mere admission of the truth that God is worthy to be glorified forever insufficient, without a sincere willingness, or rather an importunate desire, that he may receive the glory which belongs to him. Even this is not enough. Such a belief and such a wish as have been just described, either presuppose or lead to the reception of the great truth that "the Lord has made all things for himself," that his rational creatures, especially, have been created capable of serving and of glorifying him; and for the very purpose of so doing, that they are consequently bound not only to acknowledge

his just claims, and to desire that they may be satisfied, but to spend and be spent, to do and to suffer, to live and to die, to live and move and have their being for this end, not only passively, but actively, remembering it, hoping for it, longing for it, looking towards it, hastening towards it, making every thought, and word, and act, so far as possible, contribute to it. We who have not yet reached the height from which such views are possible, have reason to lament that we are still unprepared to give a full assent to Paul's doxology; but if, through God's grace, any have obtained, not only passing glimpses, but a clear and steady view of the great end of their existence as revealed in Scripture, and have turned their faces thitherward for life, forever, with a fixed and hearty resolution to forget what is behind, and reach forth to that which is before, with all the heart and mind and soul and strength-let all such say Amen.

The word forever I have not supplied. It is included in the terms of the doxology; and as it is a word of vast and deep and awful import, it becomes us to consider it before we undertake to say Amen to the apostle. For by so doing, in addition to all that has been said already, we acknowledge that God's glory is not only the great end to which we now look forward, but an end to which we must look forward through eternity; not only an object which ought now to fill, and animate, and rule the soul, with all its powers and affections, but an object which can never cease to do so. If we are still unwilling thus to take God as the portion of our souls, and to seek our hap

piness forever in his glory, our assent to Paul's doxology is still imperfect, if not insincere; but let him who knows already what it is to have made God his all in all, forever, say Amen and Amen. And as this absolute assent can be produced in us by no strength or wisdom of our own, let our hopes be founded upon nothing in ourselves, but on the encouragement which the apostle's benediction and doxology afford us: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." "And to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever, Amen."

XI.

LUKE 14, 17.-" Come, for all things are now ready."

WE have here, as in many other passages of Scripture, a most precious invitation, and a reason for accepting it. An invitation-"come;" a reason"all things are now ready." The first of these requires no explanation. In the spiritual sense or application of the parable from which the text is taken, "come" means, of course, come to the gospel feast, to the provision of God's bounty, to the fountain, to the cross, to Christ himself. It is equivalent to saying, Be ye saved, and includes the exhortation to repent, believe, submit to the righteousness of God, and accept of the salvation that he offers. It is therefore the same call that is continually ringing in the ears of those who hear the gospel, and which needs not so much to be explained as to be enforced. For this very purpose, it is added, because all things are now ready. To this reason for yielding to the call of mercy I invite your attention. Come, for all things are now ready." In the parable, it obviously means that the precise time of enjoyment was now come, that the provision was complete and the arrangements perfect. A little earlier might have been too early. A

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