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tainties is certain, namely, that we are in strong and loving Hands; not the less strong because our own are feeble, not the less loving because, for the moment, He does not allow us to see our path. "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." We may with confidence leave to Him the shaping of a future which is already before His Eyes; that which supremely concerns each one of us is that we should, according to the light which He has given us, obey His guidance, in things great and small, "until the day break, and the shadows flee away.'

a

" a

Song of Sol. ii. 17.

SERMON XIII.

THE REASON OF SACRIFICE.

(SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS: FEAST OF THE HOLY

INNOCENTS.)

I CHRON. XXIX, 14.

All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.

a

THIS was King David's confession in the hymn of praise which he uttered not long before his death, when the "chief of the fathers and princes of the tribes of Israel" had, at his instance, offered of their wealth towards the Temple which Solomon was to build. David himself set the example; he gave with princely munificence, or, as he himself says, "with all his might;" for he remembered that "the work was great, and the palace was not for man, but for the Lord God." When he had thus done what he could, he could, he knew, appeal with a clear conscience and an unfaltering voice to his subjects. And they, in their turn and according to their measure, were equal to the occasion; they gave gold, silver, brass, and iron in abundance, while "all who had precious stones gave them to the treasure of the house of the Lord." There was, in fact, an enthusiasm abroad for making personal sacrifices; a contagious rapture which

C

a 1 Chron. xxix. 6.

b Ib. I.

c 1b. 8.

had spread from the monarch among his people, and had taken possession of all hearts and wills. Men were tasting the exquisite moral delight which is inseparable from real self-sacrifice, when it is made for an object of which the judgment unreservedly approves. "Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly unto the Lord and David the king also rejoiced with great joy." And in his joy, David, as was his wont in all strong movements of thought or feeling, betook himself to God, and poured out the great hymn, of which the leading thought is expressed in the words, "All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee."

a

These words plainly express a truth which rises high above the occasion to which they immediately refer. All the blessings of this life are God's gifts. It may move us to making generous sacrifices, if we reflect that whatever we may give to God is already His own.

I.

"All things come of Thee!" Here, first of all, is the religious estimate of the world and of life, wherever religion, properly speaking, exists at all. From the religious point of view, no other conception of the relation between the world and God is possible. There is no room for religion, if the Universe is conceived of as existing somehow without the agency of God, or if God is in some way identified with, and so practically buried in, His own Universe. It is only with God, as the Maker of all things, visible and invisible; with God as distinct, in His Uncreated and Eternal Essence, from the work of His

a 1 Chron. xxix. 9.

Hands, that the human soul can enter into that bond of dependence and service which we call religion. Day by day, in his inmost heart, a religious man turns his thoughts away from himself, and from the creatures around him, upwards to the One Self-existent Being; Whose Power and Wisdom and Goodness know no bounds, Who ever has been and ever will be what He is now. "All things come of Thee!" Of God it comes that anything besides God exists at all. God was free to create or still to live, as He had lived from an Eternity, unsurrounded by creatures. Of God it is that whatever exists, exists as it exists, and not in some other mode or manner of existence, God was not obliged by any constraining necessity to create the particular universe in which we live, and the actual creatures which inhabit it, in the forms, numbers, kinds, varieties, which we see around us. No independent agency forced His Hand and made Him obey its behests; no pre-existing or co-existing force or matter imposed upon His activity conditions of working which He could not but obey. It is God's doing that, in this marvellous Universe, that which is most like Himself as a Spiritual Essence takes precedence of that which is less like; so that matter is subordinated to spirit, and the physical world exists for the sake of the moral; and man is invested with dominion over the works of God's Hands; and all things are put in subjection under his feet. All things come of God; their being, and the modes and purpose of their being. And whether He fashions His handiwork at a single stroke, or slowly brings it to perfection through the measured movements of almost incalculable periods of time, it is always He Who furnishes the material, Who gives the impact, Who presides with an absolute control at each stage of the

a Ps. viii. 6.

prolonged development, and Who supplies the last touch of beauty to the highest and the fairest on earth or in Heaven. But this, the only religious estimate of the relation between the Universe and God, is not morally fruitful, does not suggest anything practical, until we apply it in detail. If this detail is commonplace, it cannot be helped; it shares this reproach with truths which yet belong to the sublimest regions of thought or faith.

"All things come of Thee!" This, then, is true, first of all, of that which was in David's mind; of material possessions; of property. Property is both originally, and as long as we hold it, the gift of God. We speak, indeed, of a man's making his fortune. And, no doubt, industrious habits, attention to the wants and tastes of the time and to the conditions under which they can be satisfied, prudence, caution, are qualities which do largely contribute towards success of this kind. They contribute to it. They cannot secure it. In every prosperous life there is an element which defies calculation; an element of unlooked-for occurrences, of favouring circumstances, of happy opportunity, which, by presenting itself, makes all the difference in the world. From the lack of it, careers which at the outset seemed full of promise, end in failure and poverty; while men from whom little might have been expected, are almost carried forward into success by some tide in affairs which has presented itself to them at a critical moment.

This element of opportunity is strictly beyond our own control. And whence comes it? We veil the reality from our own eyes and from the eyes of others when we speak of accident and chance and luck. No serious believer in God can allow that these phantoms of the brain have any real existence whatever. They are merely blinds of

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