Oh! these false and treacherous hearts! Is the Lord our God or not? to whom do we owe any thing but to him? is not all his? is not he Lord of all? is there any thing in our hands, concerning which we can say, this is mine own, this is none of his? Do we not eat his bread, and dwell in his houses, and wear his clothes, his wool and his flax: Is not the earth the Lord’s and the fulness thereof? and may he not require of his own what he will?
Did God ever allow me to clothe my pride, or feed my covetousness, or nourish this unruly and greedy appetite; away, away; nothing is allowed you, but a cup of cold water to quench your flames. The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God, my Sovereign and my supreme Proprietor! of him, and through him, and to him are all things: his I am, and to him I owe and devote whatever I am or have; my streams shall fall into no other channels but what will convey them into the ocean: he is my ocean who is my fountain; O my God, my springs do all rise and rest in thee.
O what a strange change would this doctrine and the practice of it make upon us! then we should live like Christians indeed, and be able to say with the Apostle—“To me to live is Christ,” Phil. i. 21.
O what exemplary Christians should we be, had we nothing to do but to bring forth fruit unto God? how rich should we grow, were all our business to lay up treasure in heaven? how excellently would the work of our salvation go on, were all our works made to fall into this: what a tribute of praise and honour would be raised to the name of the Lord, if our united streams, ran all upward? how glorious should the Lord be, if God should thus become all in all?
A Christian counts Christ sufficient: a sufficient reward, and a sufficient safeguard, enough to satisfy him, and to secure him; and thereupon can be content in all his wants, and patient in all he suffers: we seldom depart from God, but it is either from discontent or impatience; either we think it intolerable abiding with him, or at least that we may have a better being elsewhere; our turning aside from God to the world, is in hopes some way or other to mend our condition; either to be better provided for, or better pleased: when God is accepted as a sufficient portion, so that we need not the world to make us happy, when God is accounted our sure refuge, so that we fear not that the world can make us miserable, then it will be all one as to our godliness, whether the world be with us or against us.
He that can say, God is my portion, whether I want or abound; I have never so much but I have need of God, I have never so little but God will suffice; he that can say, God is my refuge whether I be in safety or in danger; I am never in such hazards but in God I am secure, I am never so out of hazard but I need his security; how little is it that the world with all its glory on the one hand, or all its fury on the other, can do upon that soul! thou mayst then go on thy way rejoicing, thou mayst serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of thy life.
He that knows and feels what God is, can want or suffer whatever is in the world; in him he finds a supply of every vacuity, and a salve for every sore. He that knows what pinching want and piercing sufferings are; will understand that nothing but God can hold him up, or bear him through. You are mistaken if you think, that natural hardiness and self confidence will do, without divine supports in pressing cases. He that hath this power, hath gotten it from above: he that hath this power, may be whatever the Lord will have him.
Richard Alleine. The World Conquered.
