November 5

"This God is our God for ever and ever." Psalms 48:14.

THIS is the language of a proprietary in God. And it is founded in truth. In the covenant of grace established not with them, but with the surety, he has, so to speak, made over himself to his people, saying, I will be thy God. I am thine, and all that I have: my perfections, my relations, my works, my word, my ordinances, my dispensations. I am thy salvation. To thee I am all in all. Hence there is no propriety like this, not only for the value of it, but the reality itself. Justly speaking, nothing else is our own. Our time is not our own; our wealth is not our own; our children are not our own: our bodies, our souls are not our own. But God is our own; and God, even our own God shall bless us.

It is the language of an assured proprietary. This God is our God. The relation may be known and claimed. And with what a repetition does David express it: "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower." Here are no less, in a few words, than nine appropriations. And how desirable is it to be able to ascertain and express our own interest in all his engagements.

"When I can say my God is mine, When I can feel thy glories shine, I tread the world beneath my feet, And all that earth calls good and great."

Then I am satisfied with his goodness. But can the thing be made out? and how? They mistake who suppose this relation results from our choosing him, and giving ourselves to him. We do this indeed, but it is by his grace. And in us this is the effect, and not the cause. But as it is the effect, it is therefore the evidence. And in this way we are to trace back the stream to the fountain, making our calling, and thereby our election, sure. If we have chosen him, we may be assured he has chosen us; and if we love him, we may be assured he loves us, for one is the consequence of the other. We love him because he first loved us.

It is the language of a permanent proprietary. This God is our God for ever and ever. Without this, the blessedness would make us miserable. The dearer and greater a treasure be, the more alive we are to anxiety and fear; and nothing but the assurance of its safety can enable us cordially to enjoy it. No confidence is so well founded as the Christian's. Every other possession is precarious. Every other relation is breaking up. But he may, he can say, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

It is the language of an exulting proprietary. Boasting is excluded by the law of faith. But what boasting? All glorying in ourselves, but not in God. "My soul," says David, "shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad." "This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. What is yours?" So here. This God is our God for ever and ever. What is yours, O ye sons of men? Their rock is not as our rock, our enemies themselves being judges.