you not used the faculties of your fouls, and the mem bers of your bodies, your time, your estates, and your all, as if he had no right in them, but they were entirely your own? Has not self been the ruling principle in you, as if you had no Mafter in heaven; or as if no blood had been shed upon Mount Calvary to purchase a fuperior right in you? You have thought your own thoughts, fpoke your own words, confulted your own pleasure, and followed your own will; as if you ufurped the difpofal of yourselves, and did not acknowledge a fuperior. When were your thoughts, your words, your time, your powers of action, devoted to the Lord that bought you? The patience of God has lent fome of you many days and years, but which of them have you used for his glory? And is it not high time for you now to return to your rightful Mafter, and to render to God the things that are God's? Again, Confider, that while you have thus lived to yourselves, you have most unjustly ufurped a right to what was not your own. Did you make yourfelves? Did you redeem yourselves? Have you preferved yourselves? Is it you that gave the leaft virtue to the food to nourish you? Can you enable the earth to fupport you, or the air to heave your lungs with the breath of life? Can you recover yourselves when fick, or revive yourselves when dying? Can you make yourselves happy in the world of fpirits, and provide for yourselves through an immortal duration? If you can do these things, you may fet up for independency with a better grace, and call yourselves your own; and you may boldly lift up your faces to heaven, and tell the Sovereign of the universe you will not be obliged to him, but he may take away from you all that is his, and leave you to shift for yourfelves. But are you not ftruck with horror at fuch claims as these? You must then acknowledge you are not your own. And what aggravated facrilege have you been guilty of, in robbing God of his right? If he that robs you of of a little money is punished with death for the crime, what do you deferve who have robbed God of your fouls and bodies, and that all your life long? O! will you not this day restore him his own? He will accept it again, when freely reftored, though abused, difhonoured, and rendered unfit for fervice by you. Farther, If you will not give up yourselves to God, pray what will you do with yourselves? You are not capable of felf-fubfiftence, or independency. A newborn, naked, helpless infant may as well refuse the breast, reject the mother's care, and fet up for itself, as you pretend to shift for yourselves independently of the God that made you, and the Saviour that redeemed you. Alas! if you feparate yourfelves from him, you are like a stream separated from its fountain, that must run dry; a fpark separated from the fire, that muft expire; a member cut off from the body, that muft die and putrify. If you will not give up yourselves to God, whom will you choose for your patron? Will you yield yourselves to fin and Satan? Alas! that is but to fubmit to a merciless tyrant, who will employ you in fordid, cruel drudgery, and then reward you with death and deftruction. Will you give up yourselves to the world, to riches, honours, and pleasures? Alas! what fervice can the world do you when it is laid in ashes by the universal flames of the laft conflagration? What fervice can the world do you when your unwilling fouls are torn away from it, and muft leave all its enjoyments for ever and ever? Will not the God of grace prove a better Master to you? Has he ever forfaken any of his fervants in their laft extremity? No; he has promised, I will never leave thee, nor forfake thee. Heb. xiii. 5. And the long train of his fervants, through thousands of years, bear an united testimony, that they have always found him faithful to his promife. And why then will you not choose him for your Mafter? Alas! if you refuse, you become what I may call the lumber and rubbish of the univerfe; ufelefs to yourselves, and loft to God and and your fellow-creatures, a property not worth own ing. Will you call yourselves your own you degrade yourselves, and lofe all your dignity and importance; you cut yourselves off from all happiness, and can expect no other heaven than what fuch guilty, helpless creatures as you can create for yourfelves. If you will not voluntarily furrender yourfelves to God, he will not own you as his, but leave you to yourselves, to fhift for yourselves as you can. He will hide his face from you, according to his threatning, that he may fee what will be your end. Deut. xxxii. 19, 20. And, O! what wretched outcafts, what poor helpless orphans will you then be! Let me farther try whether you have the leaft fpark of gratitude ftill remaining in you. Has the love of Jefus no fweetly-conftraining force upon you? Can you look upon him dying for you on the cross, and yet keep him out of his right? Can you view him paying your ransom with his blood and life, and yet refufe to give him up what he has redeemed at fo high a price? Shall poor captives, redeemed from fin and hell with the blood of Jefus, rather continue ftill in bondage than fubmit to fo good a Mafter? Are you capable of fuch bafe ingratitude? Can you treat your kind Redeemer fo unkindly? Let me conclude this exhortation with the more forcible, though plain and artlefs language of another. * Confider when judgment comes, inquiry will be made, whether you have lived as your own, or as his that bought you. Then he will require his own with improvement. Luke xix. 23. The great business of that day will not be fo much to fearch after particular fins or duties, which were contrary to the fcope of heart and life, but whether you lived to God, or to your flesh? and whether your time, and care, and wealth were expended for Christ in his members and intereft, or for your carnal felves? You that Chrift hath given authority to fhall then be accountable, VOL. II. that L1 Mr. Baxter's Practical Works, Vol, iv. p. 714, 715. whether you improved it to his advantage. You that he hath given honour to, muft then give account whether you improved it to his honour. In the fear of God, firs, caft up your accounts in time, and bethink you what answer will then ftand good. It will be a doleful hearing to a guilty foul, when Chrift fhall fay, I gave thee thirty or forty years time; thy flesh had fo much in eating, and drinking, and fleeping, and labouring; in idlenefs and vain talking, and recreations, and other vanities; but where was my part? How much was laid out for promoting my glory? I lent you much of the wealth of the world: fo much was spent in provifions for your backs and bellies; fo much on coftly toys, or superfluities; fo much in revengeful fuits and contentions: and fo much was left behind for your pofterity; but where was my part? How much was laid out for the furtherance of the gofpel, or to relieve the fouls or the bodies of your brethren? I gave thee a family, and committed them to thy care to govern them for me; but how didft thou perform it? O! brethren, bethink you in time what answer to make to fuch queftions. Your Judge hath told you that your doom muft then pass according as you have improved your talents for him; and that he that hideth his talent, though he give God his own, fhall be caft into utter darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matt. xxv. 30. How eafily will Chrift then evince his right in you, and convince you that it was your duty to have lived to him! Do you think, firs, that you fhall then have the face to fay, I thought, Lord, I had been made and redeemed for myfelf? I thought I had nothing to do on earth but live in as much plenty as I could, and pleasure to myself, and serve thee on the by, that thou mighteft continue my profperity, and fave me when I could keep the world no longer: I knew not that I was thine, and fhould have lived to thy glory?—If any of you plead thus, what ftore of arguments hath Chrift to filence you! He will then convince you that his title to you was not queftionable. He will prove that thou waft his by thy very being, and fetch unanfwerable arguments from every part and faculty: he will prove it from his incarnation, his life of humiliation, his bloody fweat, his crown of thorns, his crofs, his grave: he that had wounds to fhew after his refurrection for the fatisfaction of a doubting difciple, will have fuch fcars to fhew then as fhall fuffice to convince a felfexcufing rebel: all these shall witness that he was thy rightful Lord.' And now, my brethren, may I not presume that I have carried my point, if I had only to do with your reafon? Does not your reafon plead in favour of refigning yourselves to God this day? Take notice, I again proclaim God's right in you. Can any of you deny this claim? Certainly you dare not. Well then, let heaven and earth bear witnefs, that you were all claimed this day as God's property upon the footing of redemption; and not one of you dared to deny it. Therefore, render to God the things that are God's. May I hope you now feel your hearts beginning to yield? I make the propofal to you all; to you mafters and freemen, as well as to you flaves: fhall we all this day, with one confent, devote ourselves to God as his fervants? Will you allow me, as it were, to draw up your indenture, and speak for you? I hope I am willing to lead the way, and will you follow me? Methinks I hear you fay, 'Yes, we are willing after many ftruggles and reluctances, we are at length willing, and can hold out no longer.' But hold! I am afraid fome of you know not what you are going about. And if you rafhly and inconsiderately engage in the fervice, you will foon defert it. As foon as the force of perfuafion has ceased, and the flow of paffion is over, you will retract all. Therefore I must put you back, till I inform you of fome things with relation to this contract, that you may make fure work an everlafting covenant, never to be forgotten. Take |