9,

the kingdom of heaven. Not only fins done immediately against God, and the omiffion of duties to him, but also fins against our fellow-creatures, and the omiffion of the duties we owe to them, will exclude men from the kingdom of God. Of this we have abundant evidence in fcripture. I need only refer you to two comprehenfive paffages, 1 Cor. vi. 10. Gal. v. 19, 20, 21. in which you see that all unrighteousness, hatred, variance, ftrife, envy, extortion, and the like, which are offences against men, will as certainly fhut the gates of heaven against you as idolatry or herefies, which are fins against God. The moft plaufible experiences, the greateft diligence and zeal in devotion, and the moft promifing profeffion of religion, will never bring you to heaven, tho' abfolutely neceffary in their place, unless you alfo abound in good works towards men. And fhall this argument have no weight with you? Is your eternal falvation an infignificant thing with you? Are you proof against the terrors of everlasting deftruction? If you would enjoy the one, and escape the other, 'Do to others what you would have them do to you.'

I fhall conclude with one or two reflections.

(1.) If this be the rule of our conduct, alas! how little true morality is there in the world! Men seem to act as if they were entirely detached from one another, and had no connection, or were not at all concerned to promote each other's intereft. Self-intereft is their pursuit, and self-love their ruling paffion; if that be but promoted, and this gratified, they have little or no concern befides. Let their neighbours look to themselves, they have no business with them.' If I fhall only mention one particular cafe under this general rule, namely, commerce and bargaining, what a fcene of iniquity would it open! Men feem to make this their rule, to get as much for what they fell, and give as little for what they buy, as they can they hardly ever think what the real value of the thing is, and whether the other party has a toler

able

able bargain of it: Let him look, fay they, to that; it is none of their care.' Alas! my brethren, where are the laws of justice and charity, when men behave in this manner; and yet, alas! how common is such a conduct in the commercial world!

(2.) We ought to examine our own conduct in this refpect, and it will go a great way to determine whether our religion be true and fincere, or not. If we make confcience of focial duty, it is a promifing fign that God has written his law in our hearts. But if we can willingly indulge ourselves in any finful and mean conduct towards men, we may be sure our religion is vain, whatever our pretenfion be. Let us feel then the pulfe of our fouls, whether it beats warm and full, both with the love of God and the love of our neighbour. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honeft, or venerable, whatsoever things are just, whatfoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatfoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praife, let us think on these things. Phil. iv. 8.

SERMON

XXXI.

DEDICATION TO GOD ARGUED FROM REDEEMING * MERCY.

ye are not

1 COR. vi. 19, 20. What! know ye not that your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your Spirit, which are

God's.

MY

Y first and last bufinefs with you to-day is to affert a claim which perhaps you have but little thought of, or acknowledged. In the name of VOL. II.

Ii

God

* The difcourfe is faid by the author to be Sermons preparatory to the Lord's Supper.

God I enter a claim to you, to the whole of you, foul and body, and whatever you poffefs; to every one of you, high and low, old and young, freemen as well as flaves; I enter a claim to you all as God's right, and not your own and I would endeavour to bring you voluntarily to acknowledge his right, and by your own free act to furrender and devote yourselves to him, whofe you are, and whom therefore you are bound to ferve.

It is high time for me to affert, and for you to acknowledge God's right to you; for have not many of you behaved as if you thought you were your own, and had no mafter or proprietor? Have you not practically faid, with thofe infolent finners the pfalmift mentions, Our lips are our own, who is Lord over us? Pfalm xii. 4. for have you not refused to employ your tongues for the honour of God, and fpoke what you pleased, without any controul from his law! Have you not faid by your practice, what Pharaoh was bold and plain enough to speak out in words, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? Exod. v. 2. Have you not aimed at pleafing yourfelves, as if you were not bound to please the fupreme Lord of heaven and earth, whofe authority confines the ftubborn powers of hell in chains of everlafting darkness, and fets all the armies of heaven in motion to execute his fovereign orders? Have you not followed your own inclinations, as if you were at liberty to do what you pleased? Or if you have in fome inftances reftrained yourselves, have not the reftraints proceeded, not from a regard to his authority, but from a regard to your own pleasure or intereft? Have you not ufed your bodies, your fouls, your eftates, and all your poffeffions, as if they were your own abfolutely and independently, and there were no God on high, who has an original and fuperior claim to you, and all that you are and have? Do not your own confciences convict you of these things? Is it not then high time for you to be made

fenfible

fenfible whofe right you are? that you are not your own, but God's.

This reafon would render this fubject very feafonable at any time. But there is another reafon which peculiarly determines me to make choice of it to-day, and that is, the greatest business of this day is to furrender and devote ourselves to God as his fervants for ever. In fo folemn a pofture as at the Lord's table, in fo affecting an act as the commemoration of that death to which we owe all our hopes of life and happiness, and with fuch folemn emblems as thofe of bread and wine in our hands, which represent the broken body and flowing blood of Jefus, we are to yield ourselves to God, and feal our indenture to be his. This is the folemn bufinefs we are now entering upon. And that we may perform it the more hearti ly, it is fit we fhould be fenfible that we are doing no more than what we are obliged to do, no more than what God has a right to require us to do, feeing we are not our own, but his.

The apostle speaks of it with an air of furprise and horror, that any under the profeffion of chriftianity fhould be fo ftupid as not to know and acknowledge that they are not their own, but God's. What! fays he, know ye not-that ye are not your own? As if he had faid, Can you be ignorant in fo plain a point as this? Or can you be fo hardy, as knowing the truth, to practise contrary to knowing it? Knowing you are not your own, dare you act as if you were your own? Acknowledging that you are God's, dare you withhold from him his property? Will a man rob God? Shall not his profeffed fervants ferve him? Since your bodies and your fouls are his, dare you ufe them as if they were abfolutely your own, and refuse to glorify him with them?

The fame claim, my brethren, is valid with regard to you, which the apostle here afferts with regard to the Corinthians. You are no more your own than they were; you are as much God's property as they

were.

And

And his property in you depends upon fuch firm foundations as cannot be fhaken without the lofs of your being, and your relapse into nothing. If you made yourselves, you may call yourselves your own. But you know the curious frames of your bodies were not formed by your hands, nor was it your feeble breath that inspired them with those immortal fparks of reason, your fouls. A greater abfurdity cannot be mentioned, than that a creature fhould be its own creator; for then it must act before it had a being. You owe your being to a divine Original, the Fountain of all exiftence. It was Jehovah, the uncreated, all-creating Jehovah, who fo wonderfully and fearfully formed your bodies, and who is likewife the Father of your fpirits. And what right can be more valid than that founded upon creation? It is a right founded upon your very being, and which nothing but the entire lofs of being can deftroy. He that makes fervants out of nothing, has he not a right to their fervice? Did he form your fouls and bodies, and may he not require you to glorify him with them? Can you call them your own, or dare to dispose of them as you please, without any regard to God, when you would have had neither foul nor body, nor been any thing at all, if it had not been for him? You think you have fuch a right to a thousand things as entitles you to the use of them; but fhew me one thing if you can, to which you have fuch a right as God has to you, to your whole fouls and bodies, to you, who have no mafter upon earth, and who are your own property in exclufion to all the claims of your fellow-creatures. Did you produce out of nothing any of those things you call yours? No, you only bought them with money, or you formed them into what they are, out of materials already created to your hand. But it is Jehovah's right alone that is founded upon creation. And will you not acknowledge this right? Will not your hearts declare even now, My Maker, God, this foul and this body are