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temptation in any other instance. We lose gradually both the power and inclination to resist evil. God withdraws the good aids of his Spirit, we decline from evil to worse, and our last state becomes worse than our first. Such only, therefore, as yield themselves wholly to God, and acknowledge, after all, that they are but unprofitable servants, entitled to acceptance only through the merits of a gracious Redeemer, have cause to hope well. All others build on the sand, but they on a rock. Their superstructure may be raised to the greatest height, and stands both firm and graceful. God will pardon their unavoidable infirmities, and assist their endeavours. They will of course make continual progress, and for every step of that progress enjoy an increase of peace and joy here, and of unfading glory hereafter.

5thly. All this must be done with an explicit regard to the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom alone we have access to the Father: "For there is none other name given under heaven whereby we can be saved, but the name of Jesus." Without this Mediator, God could have no friendly intercourse with man. The weapons of our rebellion must be surrendered into his hands; for it is in him alone that God reconciles the world unto himself. It is by the blood of Jesus that we have boldness to enter into the holiest. We are accepted only in the beloved. The Father receives no offering but at the hand of this great High Priest.

HAVING thus explained the duty of yielding ourselves unto God, and shewn in what way it ought to be performed, what remains but that I enforce the exhortation by some motives and arguments.

Need I to represent to you the necessity of this duty? Can you withdraw yourselves from being the property of God as his creatures? Can you evade the dispensations

of his providence, or snatch from him those issues of life and death, which are incontrolably in his hands? If so, then you may consult whether you should yield yourselves to him or not? But if your present and your eternal happiness depends on his favour; if you cannot secure an interest in his favour otherwise than by complying with this exhortation; if you must otherwise be left to struggle as you best can, with all the evils of life, and at last be banished his presence for ever, to spend a miserable eternity with reprobate spirits, what choice is left? Can you hesitate a moment to comply with what you cannot alter, and to surrender yourselves to Him, who will either glorify himself in you as vessels of mercy, or as vessels prepared for destruction?

Consider, in the 2d place, the reasonableness of this duty. This is the argument of the Apostle to the Romans: "1 beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." And what can be so reasonable as to consecrate to God that being, those faculties, those possessions and enjoyments, which we derive from his bounty. If there is reasonableness in acknowledging our debts, and in being thankful for our benefits; if there is reasonableness in submitting to be guided by unerring wisdom, and to be disposed of by infinite goodness; in a word, if there be any thing superior in reasonableness to any other that reason requires, it is this, that we should yield ourselves to that God who made us, who preserves and hath redeemed us, and hath pledged his faithfulness to conduct all those to happiness who put their confidence in him. And this leads me to the last argument which I shall use for enforcing this exhortation, which is the advantage with which it will be attended. At the same

time that we yield ourselves to God, he gives himself to us in all the fulness of his grace; for this is the tenor of his well ordered covenant, "I will be your God, and ye shall be my people." And what an infinite portion is this? If all the treasures of grace were open to our choice, would it be possible for to pitch on any blessing so rich and compendious as this, that God would accept of us as his property, and provide for us as he provides for his own? Surely then we cannot want any good thing. His wisdom can guide us through all the perplexing paths of life; his power can support us in every danger and difficulty; and his goodness is more than sufficient to bestow on us all things richly to enjoy.

I have only to add, that the exhortation in the text belongs in an especial manner to you who are as yet in early and vigorous years. Now your understandings are capable of the firmest impressions. Now your wills are most pliable. Now your affections are most patient of discipline. Now your bodies are most useful to your minds. Now your minds are most unfettered, and your whole man most susceptible of good impressions, and most capable of exerting them in action. Lose not, therefore, your irrecoverable advantage. Answer now when God calls you with most affection. Offer yourselves while you are most worth the offering. Govern your appetites before the evil day come. Now you may gird them, and carry them whither you will; but if you neglect this precious season, they will hereafter gird you, and carry you whither you would not. An early virtue is the most worthy and valuable offering, honoured and blessed with the kindest acceptance of God. But when a man shall look into himself, and find his faculties depraved and weakened, stained with the pollution, wearied with the service, sick with the disappointments, and

darkened with the impostures of sin, how comfortless a task must he have in preparing an offering to God from among such a lame and diseased herd. "Remember therefore now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, ere the evil days come, and the years draw nigh in which thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Amen.

SERMON LVI.

Preached on a Day of Humiliation before Celebrating the Lord's

Supper.

LUKE Xviii. 19.

–He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

As man fell by pride, it is reasonable to conclude that he can only rise again by humility: and here we are taught that this is the express ordination and appointment of God; for thus saith the faithful and true Witness, "Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." I cannot therefore employ your time to better purpose, especially upon such an occasion as this, than in opening the nature of true humiliation, and endeavouring to illustrate the necessity and use of it, to prepare our hearts for those enriching communications both of mercy and grace, which our Saviour, in this passage, encourageth us to expect.

I BEGIN with opening the nature of true humiliation. This takes its rise from spiritual discoveries of the evil of

sin, as the transgression of a law which is holy, just, and good; as an act of outrageous and unprovoked rebellion against the mildest, as well as the most righteous administration; as the basest ingratitude to our kindest Benefactor, the Author of our being, and of all that we possess; and especially as it renders us unlike to him who is not only the standard but the source of perfection, and consequently incapable of any friendly correspondence with the Father of our spirits, the Fountain of light, of life, and of joy.

These spiritual discoveries of the evil of sin, produce a fixed and solid apprehension of our own ill deserving because of it. We see the justice of the sentence which condemns us, and cannot help acknowledging that we are unworthy of the least of all God's mercies, and liable to that tremendous wrath which is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men. Hence arise grief and shame, and all that inward distress which necessarily attend the consciousness of guilt, the present sense of forfeited happiness, and the fearful prospect of that unknown misery which awaits transgressors in the world to come.

To all which must be added, such a deep conviction of our utter inability to do any thing that can be effectual for our own recovery, as issues in a despair of relief from every other quarter but the free mercy of God, extended to sinners through Jesus Christ, and the effectual operation of his renewing grace. We are not truly humbled till we feel ourselves wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, equally destitute of righteousness and strength, incapable of making any satisfaction for past offences, and having no power of our own to rectify that fatal disorder in our frame, which is the bitter fruit of our apostacy from God.

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