d it
shall be as it was in the sweet parable of the miracle of old, the
fragments that remain will be more than when the meal began. 'The riches
of the glory of His inheritance.'

II. Now notice, secondly, the heirs.

The words of my text receive, perhaps, their best commentary and
explanation in those words which the writer of them heard, on the
Damascus road, when the voice from heaven spoke to him about men
'obtaining an inheritance among them that are sanctified.' It almost
sounds like an echo of that long past, but never-to-be-forgotten voice,
when our Apostle writes as he does in our text.

Now what does he mean by 'saints'? Who are these amongst whom the broad
acres of that infinite prairie are to be parted out? The word has
attracted to itself contemptuous meanings and ascetical meanings, and
meanings which really deny the true democracy of Christianity and the
equality of all believers in the sight of God. But its scriptural use
has none of these narrowing and confusing associations adhering to it,
nor does it even directly and at first mean, as we generally take it to
mean, pure men, holy in the sense of clean and righteous. But something
goes before that phase of meaning, and it is this--a saint is a man
separated and set apart for God, as His property. That is the true
meaning of the word. It is its meaning as it is applied to the vessels
of the Temple, the priests, the services, and the altar. It is its
meaning, only with the necessary substitution of spirit for body, as it
is applied in the New Testament as a designation co-extensive with that
of believers.

How does a man belong to God?

We asked a minute or two ago how God belonged to men. The answer to the
converse question is almost identical. A man belongs to God by the
affection of his heart, by the submission of his will, by the reference
of his actions to Him; and he who thus belongs to God, in the same act
in which he gives himself to God, receives God as his possession. The
thing must be reciprocal. 'All mine is Thine'; and God answers, 'And all
Mine is thine.' He ever meets our 'O Lord, I yield myself to Thee,' with
His 'And My child, I give Myself to thee.' It is so in regard of our
earthly loves. It is so in regard of our relations to Him. And that
being the case, purity, which is generally taken by careless readers as
being the main idea of sanctity, will follow this self-surrender, which
is the basis of all goodness, everywhere and alw