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In Genesis 1. and 2. we learn that according to God's creative ideal, man was designed to subject all things to his own will, to have the power of enjoying all things. But the realisation of that was subject to the condition that man should retain the form and spirit of that Divine life of which he was created. Therefore the truth of the text is that when man is restored to his true character, he recovers his original dominion. Now Christ is the image of God; therefore to be Christ's is to recover the original character which God created in man. When it can be said of us, "Ye are Christ's," it can also be said, "Ye are God's," and "all things are yours." Now the two main characteristics in the Divine life in Christ are light in the understanding, love in the will and the heart. And we shall find that progress in enlightenment, and sympathy makes man more and more capable of reducing all things to His service, and of drawing tribute from all things.

I. THE GIFTS OF MEN.

1. "Paul, Apollos, and Cephas." Each had his own special power of setting forth some aspects of the Divine truth. To the narrow-minded and narrow-hearted these teachers were of no service; but to the enlightened and unselfish man the powers of thought, of feeling, and of spirit that existed in these men added to his inward wealth.

2. This is for ever the case. Our ability to make use, for our own good, of the splendid gifts of other men depends upon our own state of heart and mind. For instance, the soul of a great poet is a mine of mental and of moral wealth to those who can make him their own; but the coarse, the unintellectual man cannot grasp its treasures. When Paul's body was bound by Nero at Rome, the apostle was not possessed by the brutal emperor who could not enter into his ideas; but the humblest Christian slave in Nero's household was able to make the genius of the great apostle contribute to the inward wealth of his own soul.

II. THE WORLD.

1. The material form of the world becomes ours not by virtue of our external position but of our inward state of heart and mind. The man of cultured mind and heart, who knows the inward life and the hidden history of the world, who looks at and loves the glorious landscape, who sees everywhere the signs of God's wisdom and power, who sees the beauty of His works; and above all he who knows how to appreciate the greatest of all — the moral nature of man — is more truly the owner of wide provinces of the world than a king dark in mind and debased in heart.

2. So the wealth of the world does not belong to a man really until he has become renewed in mind and in heart. The narrow-minded, narrow-hearted churl may have countless hoards, but he is not the master of his money, but his money is the master of the man.

3. The callings, the social intercourse of the world, do not really belong to us in the sense of doing us any good until we are renewed in heart and mind. A selfish, Christless man may have a large practice, a lucrative business, a high social position, but he cannot derive from them any rich inward happiness; but the man who is animated by the spirit of Christ, finds in doing his every-day duty a resource that gives strength and satisfaction to the whole being, and he can say, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work."

III. LIFE. The desire for life is innate in man. How shall I see life? is the cry of the young human heart. The only answer is, "I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly." Mere animal existence is not the all of life. The enlightening of the mind by the rays, and the enlargement of the heart by the ardour of that fire of love that came down on Pentecost give the fulness of life. Sensual and worldly life as old age creeps upon us, becomes a burden, not a treasure. But if we are animated by the spirit of Christ we have an undecaying life that we realise day by day more and more our own possession. There are other masters who wish to supersede Christ, that tell us of life sensual and of life intellectual, but they admit that the life of which they speak is not to be our own, and that it is to become the spoil of the grave. Christ alone rescues our life from corruption and makes it ours, ours for ever. "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life."

IV. DEATH. If we are living worldly, sensual, thoughtless lives, then death is not our possession but our enemy; but if we are deadening the lower life and giving ourselves to the life of the spirit in Christ day by day, then death is ours. As the exile welcomes the white-winged ship that is to bear him away from the strange land of his sojourn where he cannot find lasting rest, and to take him across the storm-tossed waves of the ocean to the calm shores where stands the home of his inheritance, so is the approach of death to those who are in Christ. As is the opening of the door to the guest that has long been wearily waiting in the ante-room of the outward existence to be ushered into the presence-chamber where he shall "see the king in his beauty," and find the bounty of his favour, so is the approach of death to those who have been all through their life straining the gaze of the soul to catch the vision of the higher life.

(Dean Edwards.)

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KJV: Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;

WEB: Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,