There is an irresistible tendency in us to glory in something or other. All classes of men glory, the highest and the lowest, the richest and the poorest, the best educated and the most illiterate. Solomon glories, and so does the fool; Goliath glories, and so does David; Pharaoh glories, and so does his slave. Even in the most modest the tendency to boast is present, only its nakedness is daintily concealed. Good men glory, yes, and in hours of weakness they have gloried in objects very unworthy of their boastings. You remember how, when the ambassadors came out of Babylon, Hezekiah showed them all his riches and his stores, and no doubt he gloried while he took them from treasure-house to treasure-house, and opened his caskets and showed all his precious things. But it was an evil thing, and the Lord was angry with him for that glorying, and bade the prophet foretell that all his choice vessels should be carried away as plunder by the very people whose ambassadors he had so delighted with the sight. The very first person who was born into this world was the subject of glorying, and his mother, as she gazed upon him with rapture, said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” Perhaps she even said, as the original has been construed, “I have gotten a man-the Lord,” thinking that surely he might be the promised seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head, and would prove to be both a man and the Lord. Alas, it was Cain, who slew his brother, and was a child of the serpent rather than the bruiser of his head. The thing we glory in, though it be a dear child, may turn out to be a scourge for our backs, a Cain and not a consolation. Jacob glories in Joseph’s princely coat, but he wept indeed when he saw its many colours all turned to a blood-red hue. I say good people have the tendency to glory, and sometimes they glory in unworthy objects, and therefore it is that God has prepared a cure for it-not by repressing the instinct to glory, but by giving a worthy subject for glorying, which finds it a wider range, and full liberty, but only in a licensed field. It may not wander there, nor there, nor there, for it is ill to glory in worldly things, but it may fly away up yonder to God himself, and stretch its wings, and plume itself as much as it will in heaven. The cure for vain glory is true glory. Somewhat upon the homœopathic principle, the cure for boasting is to boast in the Lord all the day long. The prevention of glorying in men, and glorying in riches, and glorying in self, is glorying in the Lord. “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” On that text we shall now speak.

And we shall have these four points. First, let us, dear brethren and sisters, as many of us as know the Lord, glory only in the Lord. Then, secondly, let us glory heartily in the Lord. Thirdly, let us glory growingly in the Lord. And, lastly, let us glory practically in the Lord.

First, then, let us glory only in the Lord. And we should do this because the theme of glorying is too great to admit of another. It was a good argument of a simple-minded man that there could not be two gods, because the first God filled heaven and earth, and all places, and therefore there was not room for another. If God be everywhere, and fills all in all, there can be no other god; and if the glory of God be infinite, then there can be no second glory; and if the theme be boundless, then there is not room for a second. As all other gods but Jehovah must be idols, so all other glory save that which is in the Lord must be foolish and sinful. Those men who really know the Lord feel that such is the greatness of his glory, that it takes up all our faculties, absorbs all our powers, demands indeed our whole energy, and we cannot spare time, or love, or skill, or power, or thought for any other topic. Let the Lord be gloried in, and him alone, because the Lord alone is worthy to be gloried in. He only is great, he is the blessed and only Potentate, from him only cometh our salvation, he is God alone, therefore in one rolling flood let all our glorying cheerfully flow at his feet.

All glory should be given unto God, because any other object of glory highly provokes the Most High. He has said, “My glory will I not give to another, nor my praise to graven images.” It is written concerning Israel, “They moved him to jealousy with their graven images. When God heard this, he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel” (Ps. 78:58, 59). The moment we begin trusting in a created arm, God is highly provoked with us. “Cursed is he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm;” and if we begin glorying in anything else, either the Lord will send the worm at the root to make the gourd wither, or he will stamp our idol in pieces, and make us drink of the bitter water with which it is mixed, or else he will inflict upon us some other severe chastisement, for he cannot bear a rival. Where the ark of the Lord is, Dagon must come down. God will be all, or nothing. He cannot accept divided homage. Let us not provoke him, then, especially when he tells us, “The Lord thy God is a jealous God.” Since he is so tender of his own name, let us be tender of it too. If he would bear it, even then it would be wrong of us to test and try him; but since he will not bear it, but is jealous, and his fury goeth forth like flames of fire, let us take heed what we do. Think of Nebuchadnezzar, and how his proud speeeh led to his loss of his reason and herding with cattle. Remember Belshazzar, and how he was found wanting, because it was said of him, “The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, thou hast not glorified, but thou hast praised the gods of silver and gold, and wood, and stone, and iron, which see not, nor hear, nor know.” Remember how the Lord smote Herod, so that he was eaten of worms, because he received divine honours and gave not God the glory: “Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains.” Glory ye in the Lord alone, for he will not endure to have it otherwise.

There is, indeed, my dear brethren and sisters, no other fit ground for glorying in all the world except the Lord. For what would there be in this world, if God were to withdraw his power? If there were some other object in which we thought we could glory, yet since it came from him it would be idle to glory in the streams, we had better boast in the fountain-head from which the stream descends. All things that are exist only by the will and sovereign good pleasure of the Lord of all, let us not glory, then, in that which depends upon him, but in God himself, the well-head of all. Glory not in the sunbeams but in the sun which scatters them, not in the drops but in the heaven from which they distil, not in the goods but in the Supreme Good who bestows them.

Moreover, all things in this world are fleeting, and wherefore should we glory in that which to-day is, and to-morrow will pass away? “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of grass;” who will dare to rejoice in it? The grass withereth; though to-day it is in its prime, to-morrow it is cast into the oven; it is a poor thing upon which to doat. The drunkards of Ephraim chose for their crown of pride and glorious beauty a fading flower; but we who are sober reject so fleeting a diadem. Only very benighted heathen could worship a god of snow, melting at every glance of the sun. Shall an immortal spirit delight in dying joys? Shall the heirs of eternal bliss glory in a momentary treasure? Glory not, therefore, in the things that so soon depart. Let your glory be in that which will last as long as your own being. Heir of immortality, take care that you have something to glory in which will never wither or decay; set your love upon that which rust cannot canker, nor moth devour.

Besides, there is nothing in this world that has in it qualities worthy of our glorying therein, in comparison with God. He is the sun; the stars must hide their heads when he appears. He is the ocean; all these ponds and pools are of small account; let us bless the eternal ocean of all-sufficient glory and goodness, and not turn aside to magnify our little Abanas and Pharpars. Sin is stamped upon almost everything, and even the unfallen angels, in comparison with God, are little worth; the purity that excelleth eclipses all. “The heavens are not pure in his sight, and he charged his angels with folly.” Foolish is he, therefore, who shall boast in these inferior things while the thrice Holy God presents himself as the true and legitimate subject of our glorying.

“Praise the God of all creation,

Praise the Father’s boundless love;

Praise the Lamb, our expiation,

Priest and King enthroned above.

Praise the Fountain of salvation,

Him by whom our spirits live;