ditions of faith and new obedience; but it is likewise a seal on our part, obliging us to fulfil unto God the promises we have made, of believing in him and obeying him. In this ordinance, you have sealed and delivered yourselves up unto him; for it is the initiating ordinance: it enters you into the Church, registers you among the number of the faithful, lists you under the spiritual banner: it is, as it were, heaven's press-money, which as soon as you receive, you are enrolled under Jesus Christ, the great Captain of your Salvation: that sacrament is your military oath, properly so called; and you are bound, by the most serious engagements that can be laid upon a creature, to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant to your lives' end. Now, unless thou thinkest these vows to be written only on the water that sprinkled thee, and wiped away together with that; unless thou accountest thy baptism nothing else but a long-received custom of the place where thou livest, a solemn piece of pa geantry, and only a ceremony used on a festival day; thou must needs look upon thyself engaged by the stricted bonds, that truth, religion, vows, and oaths can lay upon thee, to be that God's, unto whom thou didst then professedly give up thyself; and whose badge and cognizance thou then tookest upon thee, that thou mightest be known whose thou art, and to whom thou appertainest. And,

5. We are God's by Profession, and our own voluntary and free Acknowledgment.

We have taken, and still do own, him to be our Lord. And, although, in works, too many deny even the Lord that bought them; living in a direct contrariety to their vows, covenants, and engagements: yet, in words and in profession, all acknowledge him to be their Lord and Master. And, though Christ might very justly upbraid too many among us, who are either professors at large or hypocritical dissemblers, as he did the Jews, Luke vi. 46. Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? yet this very profession of his name is but the strengthening of his title to us; and all those appellations of our Lord, and our Master, our God, and our Saviour, by which we call him, are but so many acknowledgments of his right unto us. And, if we contradict this profession by an unholy and profane life and conversation, all that we shall get by such fawnings will be, that he, whom we have so often acknowledged for our Lord and Master, may the more justly and the more severely punish us for our disobedience. And consider

again, how often hast thou renewed thy baptismal vows! of how many vows and promises have thy fears, and thy dangers, and thy diseases, and thy convictions, been both the causes and the witnesses! hast thou not, again and again, given up thyself unto God, and bound thyself by vow never to repeal nor recall it? when death and danger have stared thee in the face, and all other hopes and helps have failed thee, hast thou not promised and sworn, that, if he would save and deliver thee that once, thou wouldst be the Lord's, and serve and fear him only? God hath heard thy prayers, and accepted thy vows, and rescued thee from thy fears and dangers: and, though he had a sovereign right and title to thee before, upon other accounts; yet, to shew how grateful and pleasing the free-will offerings of a devout soul are to him, though we can offer him nothing but what is his own, yet now he especially expects that we should give up ourselves to him by obedience, as we have frequently done by promise, and should at length fulfil'what we have so often engaged.

Yea, again,

6. Some are God's in a more Especial and Peculiar Manner. His chosen and beloved ones; who have, from the heart, given up and devoted themselves to the service of God; and not only bear his mark upon them, in the enjoyment of external privileges and church-ordinances, but bear likewise the stamp of his image upon them in the inward sanctification and renovation of their souls.

These, God hath set apart for himself: Ps. iv. 3. They are his peculiar people: Titus ii. 14. and, 1 Pet. ii. 9. they are called by many special and discriminating titles: a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people: they are called his portion, and the lot of his inheritance: Deut. xxxii. 9. The Lord's portion is his people: Jacob is the lot of his inheritance : they are his jewels: Mal. iii. 17. And, certainly, whatever a man will most earnestly plead his right in, it will be his jewels, his portion, his inheritance, his peculiar treasure; those things, which are of the greatest value and dearest esteem.、 So God stands much upon his right to his own people and children, whilst all the wicked of the world, although they are his, yet they are in his account vile refuse creatures; more despicable in God's eyes, than true saints are in theirs; the dung and dross, the filth and offscouring of all things. These, indeed, are God's, by the obligation of common nature; but his holy

ones are his, by the privilege of special grace. There is a strict and close bond of union between Christ and them on his part, by his Spirit; on theirs, by their faith. And, being united unto Christ as their Head, they are likewise united unto God, as his for the head of Christ is God; as the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. xi. 3.

7. We are God's by the right of Redemption.

This I have reserved to the last place, because it is the Second General Part of my Text, as being the Reason of the Proposition. Ye are not your own, but God's: for ye are bought with a price.

This, indeed, is a strong title, that God hath to us; a superaddition to the rest. God did, at first, create us in a state of perfect holiness and felicity; but we sold ourselves to Satan, and are become his vassals and bond-slaves. We have thrown God's yoke from off our neck, and his burden from off our shoulders; and have broken his bonds asunder, and cast away his cords from us; and have taken upon us the yoke of the Devil, the burden of sin and guilt, a load that would sink us into the very bottom of hell. We stand forfeited to the divine justice; liable to the eternal wrath of the Great God; ready to be dragged away every moment unto torments. But, in this our forlorn and desperate condition, that so noble and excellent a piece of the creation might not for ever perish, Infinite and Sovereign Mercy interposeth; prepares a ransom for us, which is paid down to the very uttermost farthing of all that the justice of God could demand; and so rescues us from that perdition and misery, into which we had plunged ourselves.

Now the love and mercy of God, in redeeming us, is far more eminent than in creating us. And therefore his right and title to us, upon this account, is far greater, than upon the other.

For,

(1) Creation only gives us a being, brings us only out of the dark shade and state of nothing: and, in this our fallen and sinful condition, it only capacitates us for woe and misery. But redemption finds out an expedient, and opens a way for us unto bliss and happiness.

And although, perhaps, metaphysically considered, it is better to be wretched than not to be at all; yet, certainly, in a natural and moral sense, it is not so. For so saith our Saviour: Matt. xxvi. 24. Woe unto that man, by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!

it had been good for that man, if he had not been born: that is, it had been better for him never to have had a being, but to have lain eternally forgotten in the purpose and decree of God, than that he should have a being, an immortal soul bestowed upon him, to be for ever most exquisitely tormented for this horrid sin of betraying the life and blood of his Lord and Master. Creation frees us not from so great an Evil, neither confers upon us so great and inestimable Benefits, as redemption doth. Alas! what torture or vexation is it to mere nothing, that it must eternally remain so? will not this be the hearty wish and desire of all the damned wretches in hell? would they not account it a kind of salvation, to be annihilated; that their souls and bodies might fall asunder and flit away into nothing, so that they might escape the everlasting residue of their torments? and, if sores and botches, and temporal losses and afflictions, could so far transport even holy Job, who yet is represented unto us as the mirror of patience, as to cause him to curse the day of his birth, and to wish that he had never seen the light; how much more shall we think will those infernal wretches, on whom God exerciseth the whole skill and power of his wrath, wish that they had been toads or serpents, rather than men! yea, that they had never been at all, but bad lain undisturbed in a dark and gloomy nothing; since they shall have more sufferings and anguish to torture them, and no patience, no comfort, no mercy for ever to support them! Neither doth creation confer upon them so great and inestimable Benefits, as redemption. It is true, we have an excellent being and nature bestowed upon us, as creatures of a higher form than others, the chiefest of all visible and corporeal things: we are endowed with rational and intellectual faculties; and are capable of pleasures, not only such as brute beasts are, but of speculative and mental delights, which are far more noble and more refined: but yet, alas! what are we, but lords perhaps of the world, and all the while slaves to the Devil? miserable drudges to our own vile and base lusts, for gratifying of which these excellent natures, which we boast and glory so much of, must for ever lie under most inconceivable horror and torments? But redemption brings us into a capacity of far greater happiness, than that, from which we fell: it gives us hopes, that, though we lost paradise, we may gain heaven; yea, and assures us, that we shall certainly do so, if we do not wilfully neglect that great salvation,

that is purchased for us; and frowardly choose death and our own destruction, before eternal life and joy. So that you see creation is a mercy and blessing to us, chiefly upon the account of redemption; and we are obliged to bless God, that he hath by creation made us subjects capable of that glory and happiness, which he hath prepared for us by redemption. And,

(2) God's mercy in redeeming us is far more eminent and conspicuous, than in creating us; because it hath been far more expensive to him.

In creation, there needed no more but an almighty fiat: Let it be; and it was so: here was nothing of preparation, nor difficulty, nor cost; nor was there any more labour or trouble, than only to will, and speak it. But, in redemption, God must not only act, but suffer; not only speak, but bleed. In creation, there was nothing that might abase or traduce God, nothing but glorious demonstrations of his wisdom and godhead: he humbled not himself, nor descended from his throne, when he formed us; but he only spake a quickening word, and all creatures presently sprung up, and paid their homage and obeisance to their great Creator. But, in redemption, God himself doth, as it were, lay aside his glory, and humble himself, first to become a creature, and then accursed: he must be wounded, that we might be healed: he must die, that we might live: he must be debased, that we might be exalted. And therefore, certainly, if love and good-will are to be measured, either by the greatness of the benefits conferred upon us, or by the difficulty and damage that accrue to the benefactor, God's mercy in redeeming us, when miserable and lost and undone, is infinitely more considerable, than his mercy in creating us and giving us a being. And, yet, if creation alone gives God so great a right to us, that those beings, which we received from him, should therefore be entirely his; shall not redemption make us much more his? shall we not be his, who hath redeemed us from being wretched and miserable; since we are his, who hath given us to be? And, therefore, well might the Apostle argue, Ye are not your own, but God's: for ye are bought with a price.

And thus you see how manifold titles God hath to us; as he is our Creator, our Preserver, our Governor, and Benefactor; as we are his Covenant-Servants, united unto him, not only by his benefits, but by his grace; and, lastly, as we are redeemed by him from the service of sin, and the wages due unto it.