October 9—Morning Devotion
“And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”—John 17:10
Precious testimony of a precious truth. See to it, my soul, that thou suffer not these blessed words of Jesus to drop from thy remembrance; but make them the everlasting meditation, not only of this morning, but every morning, and every day, and all the day; and mark thine interest in them. All Jesus’s treasures in his people and his grace, are still the Father’s; for, as Jesus and the Father are one in essence and in will, so also in property. And the Father’s giving the church to Jesus, with all blessings in him, doth not alienate the Father’s right: so in like manner, all that Jesus hath are the Father’s, and Christ is glorified in them. It is a blessed order in the work and purpose of redemption, to trace the Father as the original Giver, Fountain, and Source of all; and then to trace them as Jesus’s by virtue of his being the glorious Mediator. And hence the Holy Ghost is said to take them as Jesus’s and shew unto the people. The Holy Ghost doth not take them immediately from the Father, but mediately from Christ; because, without the person and work of Jesus, they never could have been communicated to us. So that Christ is glorified by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of his people, when that blessed Spirit takes them, and gives them, and skews them, not immediately as the Father’s, but as the fruit and consequence of Christ’s merits and death, and thus shewing the common interest both of Father and Son, in all the blessed things of salvation. My soul, dost thou understand these precious things? Oh then, live in the enjoyment of them, and see that Jesus is glorified, and the Father glorified in his dear and ever blessed Son.
Robert Hawker (1753-1827) was an Anglican (High-Calvinist) preacher who served as Vicar of Charles Church, Plymouth. John Hazelton wrote of him:
“The prominent features…in Robert Hawker's testimony…was the Person of Christ….Dr. Hawker delighted to speak of his Lord as "My most glorious Christ.” What anxious heart but finds at times in the perusal of the doctor's writings a measure of relief, a softening, and a mellowing? an almost imperceptible yet secret and constraining power in leading out of self and off from the misery and bondage of the flesh into a contemplation of the Person and preciousness of Christ as "the chiefest among ten thousand and the altogether lovely." Christ and Him crucified was emphatically the burden of his song and the keynote of his ministry. He preached his last sermon in Charles Church on March 18th, 1827, and on April 6th he died, after being six years curate and forty-three years vicar of the parish. On the last day of his life he repeated a part of Ephesians 1, from the 6th to the 12th verses, and as he proceeded he enlarged on the verses, but dwelt more fully on these words: "To the praise of His glory Who first trusted in Christ." He paused and asked, "Who first trusted in Christ?" And then made this answer: "It was God the Father Who first trusted in Christ."
Robert Hawker on the Biblical Covenants (Complete)
Robert Hawker's Poor Man's Morning Portions
