emphasises as His. He hath called us to His kingdom and His glory; unto the fellowship of His Son; He has called us to partake of His life, of His salvation. He has a right to call whom He pleases unto His house, for the banquet is all His own. The oxen and the fatlings are His. It is the King who makes a marriage for His Son, and He has a right to send into the highways and hedges, to call in the halt, the lame, and the blind, that His house may be full. And "God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

Now, dear brethren, it is in the hearing of these truths, and such as these, that the Lord sends home conviction and establishment to the hearts of His people. These words are God's words, and by them He calls us. Has God called you unto "the fellowship of His Son"? There is not a soul that hears me whom God is not by His Word now calling unto the fellowship of His Son. There is not a soul here that would be presumptuous in taking God at His word, in obeying the call, and saying, "Here am I, for Thou didst call me."

O friends, alas! alas! that that call should fall so listlessly on so many hearts! Alas! alas! that the beauty of Jesus should be so long unattractive in so many eyes. Alas! that our own understandings are still so clouded when we would enter into the preciousness of the privileges into which He calls us. Thanks be to God, He calls unto the fellowship of His Son. Oh, for an effectual calling here to-day! Oh, for the mighty voice

of the Son of God amongst us!

Oh, that God would count us worthy of this calling,

fulfil in us all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power, that the name of Jesus might be glorified in us, and we in Him, according to the grace of our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.

XIV.

God for Us.

"What shall we then say to these things? who can be against us?"—Rom. viii. 31.

H

If God be ior us,

AVE we not been hearing the Lord speaking to us? Has He not been causing all His goodness to pass before us? "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us ?”

Does anyone can anyone doubt, whether God be for us? I think, dear friends, it is hard for unbelief to live under His truth.

The fact, the simple fact, that the Son of God came down into this world, and dwelt among us, tells us He is for us.

We have heard much of what He did, what He said, but let us not forget that God's Son came full of sympathy and tender love; He felt for us.

Who can believe that He who dwelleth in light that no man can approach unto was born here on our earth, in our own nature, that He might know our sorrows, grapple with our difficulties, rescue us from our foes; and yet doubt that God is for us?

"It

Who can look at Calvary and hear the loud cry, is finished!"-for oh! this was the interpretation of it,

"I am come that they might have life," and yet doubt ?

Who can believe that He rose from the dead; coming up from the grave without sin, and hear Him shout gloriously in resurrection, "I am come out of death that they might have life," and again doubt ?

Who can know that He is gone up to the throne above, and has said, "Because I live, ye shall live also," and yet doubt ?

Dear friends, it is with too many a question, "If God be for us ;" and yet it is just the one fact about which there can be no question. It is very precious to see the apostle is drawing a conclusion. The interrogation implies no doubt; the "if," you know, is a conclusion drawn from all of which he says, "What shall we then say to THESE THINGS?"

Let us glance for a moment at the things to which he refers.

"God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. v. 8.) Go on to the 6th chapter and 3rd verse: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ, were baptised into His death? Therefore we are"

-no doubt about it—"buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." We are in union with Jesus our Surety, alive in Him.

In the 7th chapter and 4th verse: "My brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." We being bad, the law could only condemn us. There is no severing the connection but by death; but we have

"become dead to the law by the body of Christ,

that we should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God."

In the end of the chapter, there is war, conflict: "O wretched man that I am!" Conflict, but victory! "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The apostle's idea was a corpse chained to a living man, till the dead tainted the living man, and they both became a mass of putrefaction, and fell together. But there was victory-"Who shall deliver me?” “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Again, chap. viii. 1. "No condemnation "-not one condemnation, that is the force of the original.

Verse 9. An indwelling Spirit. "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you."

Verse 14. "Led of the Spirit," and "sons of God." What! my brothers, you and I "sons of God!" What! my sisters, you and I children of God, children of Him who fills heaven and earth! In one sense we shall fill heaven and earth by and by, not with our persons but with our songs: "Not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory."

"And if children, then heirs." happiness?

Ah! a great deal more;

Heirs of what-of

God is more.

Of a kingdom?

Heirs of grace? He is more than grace.

He is more. Of glory? Dear friends, all these are nothing compared with Himself.

joint heirs with Christ!"

things?"

"Heirs of God and

"What shall we say to THESE

We talk sometimes of the difficulty of believing; have