ly education, our bodily members and mental powers,
our station in society and the circle of our homes, our money and our
health, and, in addition, the graces of the Spirit, in whatever measure
they may have been conferred,--all that we are and have belongs to God.
He is the owner, and we are tenants at will.

While a general law has been laid down to determine, in the main, the
direction of our course, the details are left to our own discretion. One
man may invest his master's capital in land, and another in merchandise,
and both may be equally faithful, equally successful: so in various
lines of effort, different disciples may, in diverse manners, but with
equal faithfulness, serve the Lord. There is freedom in the choice of
departments, provided always there be loyalty to the King.

In the relation between Christ and Christians, opposites meet without
hostile collision. His ownership is absolute, and yet there is freedom
in full. His lordship does not limit their liberty; their liberty does
not infringe his rights. What a glorious liberty this earth-ball enjoys!
How it careers along through space, threading its way through thronging
worlds, and giving each a safe wide berth in the ocean of the infinite!
Yet the sun holds the earth all the while in absolute and entire
control. Like that glory in the visible heavens is the glory of the
Everlasting Covenant. The largest liberty conceded to the sons of God
consists with sovereignty complete and constant exercised over them by
the Redeemer, who bought them with his blood. He is their owner, and yet
they are free. The union of opposites is possible with God: "He is
wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."

The sons serve; and yet they are sons. Ransomed men are instruments of a
higher order, than other agencies through which the reign of Providence
is administered. Although the Lord requires of his regenerated people as
complete submission to his law, as he demands and obtains from the
elements of nature and the brutes that perish, he does not require from
them an equally uniform and mechanical routine. The streams that course
over continents, and the tides that swell upon their shores, must render
the same service every day; but these sons of God are not held to labour
by a bridle so short and rigid. They are endowed with reason and will;
they are set at liberty, and permitted to expatiate over a wider field.
Their master goes out of sight, and trusts to a renewe