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to be used and employed in his service for his glory... Rom. vi. 13. All our endowments....all our attainments...all those things we call accomplishments, must be accounted as talents, which we must trade with for his honor. All being of him and from him, all must be to him and for him. Our tongues must not be our own, but his in nothing to offend him, but to speak his praise, and plead his cause, as there is occasion: our time not our own, but as a servant's time, to be spent according to our master's directions, and some way or other to our master's glory-every day being, in this sense, our Lord's day: our estates not our own, to be spent or spared by the direction of our lusts, but to be used as God directs: God must be honored with our substance, (Prov. iii. 9.)-and our mierchandize and our hire must be holiness unto the Lord, (Isai. xxiii. 18.): our interest not our own, with it to seek our own glory, but to be improved in seeking and serving God's glory; that is, God's glory must be fixed and aimed at as our highest and ultimate end, in all the care we take about our employments, and all the comfort we take in our enjoyments. As good stewards of the manifold grace of God, we must have this still in our eye, that God in all things may glorified, through Jesus Christ'... Pet. iv. 10, 11.By this pious intention, common actions must be sanctified, and done after a godly sort'...111 John, ver. 6. Our giving up ourselves to be to God a people, is thus explained, Jer. xiii. 11....it is, to be to him for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory.'

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(2.) To resign ourselves to God, is to subject and submit ourselves to his power-to the sanctifying power of his Spirit....the commanding power of his law, and the disposing power of his providence. Such as this, is the subjection we must consent to; and it hath in it so much of privilege and advantage, as well as duty and service, that we have no reason to stumble at it.

(1.) We must submit ourselves to the sanctifying power of God's Spirit. We must lay our souls as soft wax under this seal, to receive the impressions of it as white paper under the pen, that it may write the law there whereas, we have resisted the Holy Ghost....quenched his motions, and striven against him when he hath been striving with us: we must now yield ourselves to be led and influenced by him, with full purpose of heart in every thing to follow his conduct, and comply with him. When Christ in his gospel breathes on us, saying, Receive ye the Holy Ghost (John xx. 22.), my heart must answer, Lord, I receive him-I bid him welcome into my heart: though he comes as a spirit of judgment, and a spirit of burn. ing, as a refiner's fire, and fuller's soap, yet blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Let him come and mortify my lusts and corruptions: I do not desire that any of them should be spared: let them die, let them die by the sword of the spirit-Agag himself not excepted, though he comes delicately. Let every thought within me, even the inward thought (Psal. xlix. 11.) be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ'...11 Cor. x. 5. Let the blessed Spir it do his whole work in me, and fulfil it with an almighty power.

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(2.) We must submit ourselves to the commanding power of God's law. The law, as it is in the hand of the Mediator, is God's instrument of gov ernment if I yield myself to him as a subject, I must in every thing be observant of and obedient to that law; and now I covenant to be so, in all my ways to walk according to that rule all my thoughts and affec tions....all my words and actions shall be under the direction of the divine law, and subject to its check and restraint. God's judgments will I lay before me, and have respect to all his commandments; by them I will be always ruled...over-ruled. Let the word of the Lord come, (as a good man once said), and if I had six hundred necks, I would bow them all to the authority

of it. Whatever appears to me to be my duty, by the grace of God I will do it, how much soever it may interfere with my secular interest; whatever appears to me to be a sin, by the grace of God I will avoid it and refrain from it, how strong soever my corrupt in clination may be to it. All that the Lord shall say to me I will do, and will be obedient.'

(3.) We must submit ourselves to the disposing pow er of God's providence. This must be the rule of our patience and passive obedience, as the former of our practice and active obedience. All my affairs relating to this life, I cheerfully submit to the divine disposal; let them be directed and determined as infinite wisdom sees fit, and I will acquiesce. Let the Lord save my soul, and then, as to every thing else, let him do with me and mine as seemeth good unto him ;' I will never find fault with any thing that God doth. Not as I will, but as thou wilt. I know I have no wisdom of my own; I am a fool if I lean to my own understanding; and, therefore, I'll have no will of my own: Father, thy will be done. The health of my body.... the success of my calling...the prosperity of my estate ....the agreeableness of my family....the continuance of my comforts, and the issue of any particular concern my heart is upon, I leave in the hands of my' heavenly Father, who knows what is good for me bet ter than I do for myself: if in any of these I be crossed, by the grace of God I will submit without murmuring or disputing: all is well that God doth, and therefore welcome the will of God in every event; while he is mine, and I am his, nothing shall come amiss to me.

Fifthly, We must resolve to abide by it as long as we live, and to live up to it. In our covenanting with God, there must be, not only a present consent-Lord, I do take thee for mine....I do give up myself to thee to be thine; but this must be ripened into a resolution, for the future, with purpose of heart, to cleave unto the Lord'....Acts. xi. 22. We must lay hold on wisdom, so as to retain her, (Prov. iii. 18.) and choose

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the way of truth, so as to stick to it, (Psal. cxix. 30, 31.) The nail in the holy place,' (Ezra viii. 9.) must be well cleansed, that it may be a nail in a sure place'.... Isa. xxii. 23. Many a pang of good affections, and many a hopeful turn of good inclinations, comes to nothing for want of resolution. It is said of Reho boam, (11. Chron. xii, 14.) that he did evil, because he prepared not, or he fixed not, his heart (so the word is in the margin) to seek the Lord: the heart that is unfixed is unprepared. Joshua took pains with the people to bring them up to that noble resolution, (Josh. xxiv. 21.) Nay, but we will serve the Lord: and we should not be content till we are also in like manner resolved, and firmly fixed for God and duty....for Christ and heaven. This is the preparation of the gospel of peace, wherewith our feet must be shod..,.Eph. vi. 15.

Let us enquire what that resolution is, which, in an entire dependance upon the grace of Christ, we should come up to in our covenanting with God.

(1.) We must come up to such a settled resolution as doth not reserve a power of revocation for our selves: the covenant is in itself a perpetual covenant, and as such we must consent to it-not as servants hire themselves for a year, or to be free at a quarter's warning-not as apprentices bind themselves for seven years, to be discharged at the expiring of that term; but it must be a covenant for life...a covenant for eter nity...a covenant never to be forgotten, and, in this, be yond even the marriage-covenant; for that is made with this proviso-till death us do part; but death it self must not part us and Christ. Our covenant must be made like that servant's who loved his master, and would not go out free; our ears must be nailed to 'God's door-post, and we must resolve to serve him forever....Exod. xxi. 5, 9. Α power of revocation reserved is a defeasance of the covenant; it is no bar gain, if it be not for a perpetuity, and if we consent not to put it past recal.

Let not those who are young and under tutors and governors, think to discharge themselves of these obli

gations when they come to be of age, and to put them off with their childish things: no, you must resolve to adhere to it, as Moses did, when you come to years .....Heb. xi. 24. As children are not too little, so grown people are not too big to be religious. You must resolve to live under the bonds of this covenant when you come to live of yourselves, to be at your own disposal, and to launch out never so far into this world: your greatest engagements in care and business cannot disengage you from these: whatever state of life you are called to, you must resolve to take your religion with you into it.

Let not those who are in the midst of their days think it possible or desirable to outlive the binding force of this covenant. If now we set out in the way we should go, it must be with a resolution, if we live to be old, how wise and honorable soever old age be, yet then we will not depart from it, (Prov. xxii. 6.)as knowing that the hoary hairs are then only a crown of glory when they are found (as having been long before fixed) in the way of righteousness...Prov. xvi. 31.

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(2.) We must come up to such a strong resolution as will not yield to the power of temptation from the enemy. When we engage ourselves for God, we engage ourselves against satan, and must expect his utmost efforts to oppose us in our way, and to draw us out of it. Against these designs we must therefore arm ourselves, resolving to stand in the evil day, and having done all, in God's name to stand our ground, (Eph. vi. 13), saying to all that which will either divert or deter us from prosecuting the choice we have made, as Ruth did to Naomi when she was stedfastly resol ved (Ruth i. 16), Entreat me not to leave Christ, or to turn from following after him; for, whither he goes I will follow him, though it be into banishment; where he lodges I will lodge with him, though it be in a prison; for death itself shall never part us.

We must resolve, by God's grace, never to be so elevated or enamoured with the smiles of the world,

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