New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 318
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, June 3rd, 1860, Exeter Hall, Strand.
“And all things are of God.”—2 Corinthians. 5.18.
I WOULD HAVE YOU look on this text as being a summary of all the things which we have preached to you these years. It has been my endeavour, constantly and continually, to maintain that salvation is of God’s good will, and not of man’s free will; that man is nothing, and that Jesus Christ is both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. And I think I may truly say, “Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum”—“all things are of God.” And oh my brethren, what a large summary it is! it contains words which grasp the compass of everything that your mind can think upon—“all things;” and it proclaims him to whom all things owe their being—“God.” Grasp this total if you are able, “All things!” What is here omitted? Surely whatsoever the Christian can desire is to be found in those words “all things.” But lest even that should not be comprehensive enough, our summary contains a still greater word, one which is supreme over all, inasmuch as all things spring from his loins, and yet he remaineth still the same, as full as ever. “All things are of God.” If we be thirsty, here are streams that never can be exhausted. If we be hungry, surely here is bread enough and to spare. If we be poor, here are treasures and riches that are utterly inexhaustible, for here we have all things, and all things in God.
I shall hope this morning to do two things; first, to lay down clearly and distinctly, the doctrine of this sentence, and then secondly, to shew the excellent practical tendency of such doctrine.
I. To begin with THE DOCTRINE ITSELF:—“All things are of God.” In enlarging upon that doctrine, I shall have need to sub-divide it, taking it first as to what, and then as to how, and then as to why.
“All things are of God!” What is meant here by the term, “all things?” The reply is to be found in the context—all things of the new creation are of God. It is not necessary for us to remind you that all the things of the old creation are of God. None but the infidel will ever for a moment affirm, that there is anything which exist, apart from the Creator. We believe that he hath laid the beams of his chambers in the waters, he hath spread out the heavens like a tent to dwell in, the isles have been created by his hand, and the winds still are, as they ever were, under his guidance and control; nothing is, and nothing shall be, but that which he ordains, determines, and supports. Concerning the matter of the new creation, it is wonderful that there ever should have been any controversy. Do we call that man an infidel who should teach that some things of the old creation were of man? What name shall I give to the being who will dare to say that anything in the new creation of grace is of man? Surely if the first be an heresy, the second must be an heresy equally damnable, and perhaps more so. For the one doth but touch the external works of God, while the other thrusts its sacrilegious hand into the internal works of his grace, plucks the brightest jewel from his crown, and treads it in the dust. We hold, and ever must maintain, that all things, without exception, in the new creation, are of God, and of God alone.
“What things?” do you say again. We answer, all things that refer to the new nature—all things that refer to our new privileges and to our new actions—whatsoever things refer to the new nature are of God. The personal desire after Christ which is found in the sinner’s contrite heart is of God. The first new hope which gilds the darkness of the poor benighted mind is of God. The first glimpse of new faith, when that man turns his eye to the Saviour, is of God. The first beginnings of divine love in the soul are of God. Leave men to themselves, and the corruption of their nature may fester, and rot, and breed the fungus of a vile imagination. But the life of God never yet sprung naturally from a dead heart. Whatsoever thing is good in its beginning, as well as in its perfecting, “cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Some seem to teach, that man is to take the first step in salvation, and God will take the rest. No, sirs, if man can take the first, he can take the last, and take the whole. If man, dead in trespasses and sins, can quicken himself, he certainly can maintain the life of which he is himself the author. If man, corrupt, debased, and cast away from God, can say, unawakened by grace, “I will repent, I will change my ways and turn to God.” and if he can carry out that resolution to himself, and by his own unaided mind, then there is no room for God in salvation at all. Let man have the whole of it, and let him have all the glory. But know thou my hearer, if thou hast but one good thought in thy heart it is of God; if there be a something which says to thee, “Arise and go to thy Father,” that voice is God’s voice. If thy bowels begin to yearn towards the Father, whom thou hast angered and aggrieved, and if thy feet desire to leave the mountains of sin and vanity, and to tread the right road, it is a Father’s hand that draws thee, it is a Saviour’s voice that sweetly impels thee to seek his face, for ” All things are of God.”