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GOD THE BESTOWER OF ALL GOOD GIFTS.

REV. H. STOWELL, A. M.

ST. MARY'S CHURCH, ISLINGTON*, MAY 10, 1835.

"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee."--1 CHRON. xxix. 14.

THE scene which these words introduce to our notice, is one of the most affecting and interesting that can well occupy our attention. They lead our thoughts to that venerable monarch of Israel, the son of Jesse, the sweet singer of Sion, now grown grey in the service of God; yet in his breast the fire of zeal for his divine Master burns brighter and clearer amidst the visitations of judgment. Though himself disallowed by God, because his hands were stained with blood, from building the temple for the Lord of Hosts; yet his heart longed at least to have some share in raising the blessed structure; and, seeing he could not himself be allowed to erect it, he would provide, ere he left this world, materials for its erection. He himself offered with all his might willingly to the Lord, to an extent and an amount which is perfectly astonishing; and then asked, "Who then is willing" (addressing the rulers and the hundreds of Israel)" Who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord?" In answer to the monarch's prayer, God was pleased to pour down so abundantly the spirit of love and liberality on the assembled multitude, that they gathered together a mighty store of gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, and precious stones. It would appear that at the time the words I have read to you were uttered, the monarch stood surrounded with his people, and before him the mighty accumulation of their free-will offerings: and then it was that his aged heart leaped within him for joy, and he took up the beautiful words that are before us, breaking forth in simple ascription of all the praise, and all the glory, to Him to whom alone they belong: and he said, “ Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven, and in the earth, is thine: thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee."

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These interesting words, my Christian hearers, so appropriate to the object that bespeaks our special regard this morning, will lead me, in the first place, to observe that the disposition and the ability to give to God are alike from himself in the next place, that the disposition to give calls for profounder gratitude than even the ability to give: and, in the last place, that the ability and the disposition to give to God are never more nobly exerted than when exerted in erecting temples to the glory of his name. May his heavenly Spirit give efficacy to his own living Word!

THE ABILITY AND THE DISPOSITION TO GIVE TO GOD COME ALIKE

FROM HIMSELF.

That our ability to give to God comes from himself, might seem a position too obvious to need illustration: but however we may admit it in theory, we are continually tempted to deny it in fact; and if we examine our own breasts, we shall find that we are continually prone to this act of ungodliness, this atheistical act of assuming to ourselves, appropriating to ourselves, and ascribing to ourselves, what simply and solely belongs to Almighty God. If we admit the position that we came from him; that he made us, and not we ourselves; that we are his creatures; that he formed us by his power, and fashioned us by his wisdom; that our body is curiously and wonderfully wrought by his workmanship; and that our minds and all its mysterious faculties are his inspiration; then that simple position necessarily involves our complete dependence on the bounty of the Creator. For what have we in the powers of our body, or in the faculties of our mind, that have not come from God? And if they came from God, then to God they belong: no tie can be more indefeasible, no tie can be more perpetual, than the tie that attaches the creature to the Creator; which will last as long as the Creator lasts, and which never will cease to exist: therefore, my brethren, we are the Lord's, whether we believe it or deny it.

But the ability to give comes still more from him, when we remember that he has not given (if indeed he could give) to us, or any other creature, independent existence. There can be but one independent being, as there can be but one uncaused being: and that one being must be the cause of all other beings and that independent being must be the sustentation of all the beings he creates. So that, as truly as that we derived our existence from God, so truly we continue our existence in God. In him we live, and move, and have our being. We cannot lift an arm, or draw a breath, or tell a pulse, or think a thought, but as we are enabled, actuated, maintained in the use of our powers, and in our existence, by the same omnipotence that called us out of nothing.

Would you have this truth more simply illustrated? I might take you in fancy to that melancholy asylum for ruined minds within no great distance from this house of prayer: I might take you through its desolate and gloomy cells; I might point you to minds in ruins, that were once more vigorous, perhaps, more clear, and more in all their activity, than yours at the present moment. Why are those minds demolished, while yours continue in their vigour and healthfulness? Who hath made you to differ? I could take you to the graves around the walls of this house of prayer: I might point out to you many who might have been now as strong and as active as you; but their spirits

have returned to God who gave them: the head to think, and the hand to act, and the heart to prompt, are cold in the dust. Who hath made you to differ? I could take you into huts and into cellars: I could shew you individuals who were once as wealthy as the wealthiest of you, clothed in splendour, and faring sumptuously every day; who now are clothed with rags, and are reduced to such abject distress, that they have not bread or water with which to satisfy the cravings of nature. Who hath made you to differ? I could point you out many who have been as diligent in business, as skilful in their speculations—who have formed their purposes as ardently, and carried them out into execution with as much energy, as ever you have; and yet their energies have been employed in vain; their plans have been frustrated, and disappointment has met them at the end of every path. Who hath made you to differ? I could lead you to others who, from some sudden revolution which no eye could foresee, have been reduced to the greatest despondency and the greatest disappointment. Who hath made you to differ?

Beloved brethren, we are all of us stewards; and it is required in a steward that a man be found faithful: and whether we have two talents, or whether we have ten; whether we are rich men, and have much to give—or whether we are poor men, and can only give the widow's mite to the treasury of the sanctuary; we are equally dependent upon Him. We have received all from Him: "for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." What beautiful condescension in the Mighty God is it that he should first put the gift in the hands of his creatures, and then invite them to give the gift back to him, receiving it as if it were their own!

If, then, beloved brethren, the ability to give is from the Lord, of whom are all things, I would further shew you that the disposition to give to God of what he has given to us, is more, if possible, from him. Man, when he came from the hand of his Maker, was made in his image, and was therefore full of love for "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." But man, as a fallen creature, has lost that image, and therefore, instead of being full of God, is full of selfishness. Self has taken the place of God in his breast: all his object and all his aim is to aggrandize, to exalt, to gratify, to pamper self. Could we dissect the actions that appear good and noble in the eyes of men-could we dissect the motives and see the principles from which they spring; we should be ready to lament where they admire, and to weep where they rejoice. Beloved brethren, man is naturally so selfish, that however, from the promptings of natural pity, he may sometimes give, and however he may at other times, by a mere regard to character, or the applause or the censure of his fellow worms, give bountifully and largely; yet of this you may be assured, that no man can give to God, give out of love to God, with a single eye to His honour, with a simple wish of His acceptance of the gift, but God has given him that disposition, renewed him in the spirit of that mind, in which hitherto selfishness has ruled alone, and kindled the fire of heaven where there burnt the fire of hell. Never can man give to God, till God has given him a heart that is filled with the only principle that can make any of his gifts or offerings acceptable to his Father in heaven. He will never forego his requirement" My son, give me thy heart:" and give him what we willour talents, our time, our efforts, our comforts, our lives themselves—yet, if

the heart be kept, all is a vain boasting: God looks on the whole with abhorrence, indignation, and contempt; and still he says, "My son, give me thine heart." But if the heart be given, whatever follows, that gift through Jesus Christ shall be accepted with the Father: and the cup of cold water, given from the bidding of a heart that has already been given to God, shall in no wise lose its reward; it has a value stamped on it all its own, because it is given from a disposition that is bestowed by the Spirit of God.

Beloved brethren, let a man only try by his own unaided efforts, will, and affections, to do one disinterested act; and he will find that he might sooner quicken the dead, that he might sooner arrest the waves of the sea, than by any power or resolution of his own do one disinterested act out of love to God. How can he do it?" Make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt." Out of a renewed heart renewed actions will spring; out of an unrenewed heart nothing but a polluted spring of iniquity can flow. Beloved brethren, it is therefore a position alike that commends itself to Scripture and to reason, that the ability and the disposition to give to God must alike come from himself.

I am led, in the next place, from the words of the Psalmist, to shew you, that

WE OUGHT TO BE MORE PROFOUNDLY THANKFUL FOR THE POSSESSION OF THE DISPOSITION, THAN OF THE ABILITY, TO GIVE.

You will perceive, by a reference to the passage, that the emphasis of the Psalmist's gratitude is laid upon the willingness, rather than the ability; for it is said, "the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with great joy:" and his language was-" Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort?" You will perceive, brethren, that the whole stress of his gratitude is laid upon the willingness that the Lord had given them to give to him that had given to them all. O brethren, it was not the mighty accumulation of treasure; it was not so much the amount of the gold, the silver, and the precious stones, that filled the heart of the monarch with such ecstacy: it was the readiness and the cheerfulness with which the people gave. They felt it to be a privilege; they considered it their highest honour to give thus to the Lord God of Israel.

Beloved brethren, by a very few and simple arguments, it may be made apparent to you, that the gift of the disposition from God, far transcends the ability without the disposition. For the ability to give is granted to multitudes that are enemies to God, and rebels in their minds, and who will perish everlastingly. We know, alas! that God often "filleth the belly of the ungodly with his hidden treasure;" that they leave their substance to their children; that they build their houses, and call them by their names, so that they should endure for ever; and yet they go down to the grave, to the narrow tomb, and the shroud and the coffin are all their wealth can procure them, and beyond this world the wealth of the world would not procure one drop of water to cool their tongue, parched in that flame. O brethren, think little of wealth in itself -honour in itself-human applause in itself-distinction in this world in itself; all are but phantoms and shadows, except as they are consecrated to God. Then, indeed, they may subserve his glory, our own happiness, and our own reward

hereafter. But if we make them objects of themselves; if we use them as though they were our own; if we are unfaithful stewards; if we are using in ourselves what God gave us in order that we might set forth his glory, and set forward the salvation of our fellow men; then our gold is cankered, and our garments are moth-eaten; the rust of our treasures will eat up our whole heart as with fire; and we shall wish, amid the torments of the lost, that we had been born with Lazarus on the dunghill, rather than found with the rich man in the mansion. Waste of wealth, of knowledge, and of talent, does but enhance our guilt, and, therefore, deepen our ruin. Well would it have been for many of the rich and the great that they had had to beg their bread from door to door, rather than had the rich gifts of God's bounty to render their future account the more dark and the more tremendous.

Brethren, it is not so with the disposition to give which comes from God. God gives this only to his people. Many of them are poor; like Lazarus, fed with the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table; but they are rich-rich in the love of God-rich in the hope of heaven-rich in the heart that is filled so largely with benevolence that it can grasp the world in its embrace; rich, therefore, for having nothing, they possess all things. The disposition to give is God's precious talent put into the souls of his own children. They are like him, because they are born of him. He puts not off his heritage with the poor perishing wealth of this world: he would make them think little of these things compared with the unsearchable riches of Christ. And, brethren, one grain of genuine love to man, springing from love to God, its only source, is worth all the wealth of Peru and if we had the whole world without that, we are poor in our riches, and desolate in the midst of our glory: for "what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" And the soul that hath not love to God, springing forth in love to man, is dead while he lives; and going into eternity thus dead, his death must be eternal.

Further, brethren, the disposition to give to God calls for livelier gratitude, inasmuch as the ability without the disposition can never make a man happy; but the disposition without the ability fills the man's breast with what riches can never purchase. Many of the sons of wealth and grandeur have, amidst their splendour, a wicked heart, a resisting conscience, and a mind which, like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, casts up mire and dirt. O what false estimates do we sometimes make of happiness! The mind is the seat and centre of a man's misery or of a man's enjoyment: such as the heart is, so is the man's belief. The man who has all the wealth of the world, but has not a heart to use it for God, must be feeding on ashes: a lying and deceiving heart hath turned him aside; he is sowing to the wind, and shall reap the whirlwind; he is following a shadow, and grasping a phantom; he is sowing to the flesh, and of the flesh shall reap corruption. But a heart that is rich in love to God, and rich in love to man, however poor the circumstances of the individual, has in it a well of water springing up into everlasting life; is filled with a joy with which the stranger intermeddleth not-with a peace which passeth all understanding-a hope that maketh not ashamed. It has in that blessed disposition a source of joy which thousands of rich men, if they but knew its preciousness, would buy with all their substance; and gladly would kings give up their crowns and their sceptres, could they but taste for one hour the joy

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