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A44698 Two sermons preached at Thurlow in Suffolk on those words, Rom. 6.13 \"Yield your selves to God\" / by J.H. ... Howe, John, 1630-1705. 1688 (1688) Wing H3044; ESTC R14684 27,043 72

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12. 1. Beg earnestly for his own Spirit of life and power that may enable you to offer up a living Soul to the living God. 6. There must be Faith in your yielding your selves For it is a committing or entrusting your selves to God with the expectation of being sav'd and made happy by him So Scripture speaks of it 2 Tim. 2. 12. I know whom I have believed or trusted and that he is able to keep what I have committed to him against that day 'T is suitable to the gracious nature of God to his excellent greatness to his design to the Mediatorship of his Son to his Promise and Gospel-Covenant and to your own necessities and the exigency of your own lost undone state that you so yield your selves to him as a poor creature ready to perish expecting not for your sake but his own to be accepted and to find mercy with him You do him the honour which he seeks and which is most worthy of a God the most excellent and a self-sufficient Being when you do thus You answer the intendment of the whole Gospel-constitution which bears this Inscription To the praise of the glory of his grace c. 'T is honourable to him when you take his Word that they that believe in his Son shall not perish but have everlasting life You herein set to your Seal that he is true and the more fully and with the more significancy when upon the credit of it you yield your selves with an assurance that he will not destroy or reject a poor creature that yields to him and casts its self upon his mercy 7. Another Ingredient into this yielding of your selves must be Love. As Faith in your yielding your selves to God aims at your own welfare and salvation so Love in doing it intends his service and all the duty to him you are capable of doing him You must be able to give this as the true reason of your act and to resolve it into this Principle I yield my self to God because I love him and from the unfeigned love I bear to him to tell the World if there were occasion he hath captivated my heart with his Excellencies and his Love and hereupon having nothing else I tender my self to him to tell himself Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee and because I do I present my self to thee 't is all I can do I wish my self ten thousand times better for thy blessed sake and if I had in me all the Excellencies of many thousand Angels I were too mean a thing and such as nothing but thy own goodness could count worthy thine acceptance because I love thee I covet to be near thee I covet to be thine I covet to lead my life with thee to dwell in thy presence far be it from me to be as without thee in the World as heretofore I love thee O Lord my strength because thine own perfections highly deserve it and because thou hast heard my voice and hast delivered my Soul from death mine Eyes from tears and my Feet from falling and I yield my self to thee because I love thee I make an offer of my self to be thy servant thy servant O Lord thou hast loosed my bonds and now I desire to bind my self in new ones to thee that are never to be loosed And you can make no doubt but that it ought to be done therefore with dispositions and a temper suitable to the state you are now willing to come into that of a devoted Servant viz. 8. With great reverence and humility For consider to whom you are tendering your self to the high and lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity To him that hath Heaven for his Throne and Earth for his Footstool and in comparison of whom all the inhabitants of the World are but as Grashoppers and the Nations of the Earth as the drop of a bucket and the dust of the Balance c. Yea to him against whom you have sinn'd and before whose pure eyes you cannot in your self but appear most offensively impure so that you have reason to be ashamed and blush to lift up your eyes before him 9. And yet it surely ought to be with great joy and gladness of heart that he hath exprest himself willing to accept such as you and that he hath made you willing to yield your selves The very thought should make your heart leap and spring within you that he should ever have bespoken such as we are to yield our selves to him when he might have neglected us and let us wander endlesly without ever looking after us more How should it glad your hearts this day to have such a message brought you from the great God and which you find is written in his own Word to yield your selves to him Should not your hearts answer with wonder And blessed Lord Art thou willing again to have to do with us who left thee having no cause and who returning can be of no use to thee O blessed be God that we may yield our selves back unto him that we are invited and encourag'd to it And you have cause to bless God and rejoyce if this day you feel your heart willing to yield your selves to him and become his Do you indeed find your selves willing You are willing in the day of his power This is the day of his power upon your hearts Many are call'd and refuse he often stretches out his hands and no man regards Perhaps you have been call'd upon often before this day to do this same thing and neglected it had no heart to it and he might have said to you Now I will never treat with you more if you should call I will not hear if you stretch out your hands I will not regard it but laugh at your destruction and mock when your fear cometh But if now he is pleased to call once more your hearts do answer Lord here we are we are now ready to surrender our selves you may conclude he hath poured out his Spirit upon you The Spirit of the Lord is now moving upon this Assembly this is indeed a joyful day the day which he hath himself made and you ought to rejoyce and be glad in it When the people in David's days offered of their substance to God for the service of his house 't is said The people rejoyced for that they offered willingly And David we are told blessed God before all the Congregation saying Thine O Lord is the greatness and the power But who am I and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort for all things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee If you are this day willing to offer your selves how much is this a greater thing and it comes of him and 't is of his own you are now giving him for he had a most unquestionable right in you before 10. You should do it with solemnity For
any neglect against a conviction of Judgment and Conscience For your own Heart and Conscience must condemn you if you consider and it betrays you if you consider not How fearful a thing is it for a man to carry his own Doom in his own Bosom to go up and down the World with a Self-condemning Heart if it be awake and which if it be not yet cannot sleep always and must awake with the greater terror at length And in so plain case 't is most certainly Gods Deputy and speaks his Mind If our hearts condemn us God is greater than our hearts c. 2. 'T is that therefore the refusal whereof none of you would avow Who among us can have the confidence to stand forth and say I will be none of the Lords Would any man be content to go with this writ upon his Forehead from day to day And doth not that signifie such a refusal to be a shameful thing That must needs be an ill temper of Mind which one would be asham'd any one should know 3. And 't is a mean thing to dissemble to be willing to be thought and counted what we are not or to do what in truth we do not 4. And considering what inspection we are under 't is a vain thing For do we not know that eyes which are as a flame of fire behold us and pierce into our very Souls Do we not know all things in us are naked and manifest to him with whom we have to do And that he discerns it if there be any heart among us that is not sincere in this thing 5. Consider that this is the very design of the Gospel you live under What doth it signifie or intend but to recal Apostate Creatures back again to God What is the Christian Religion you profess but a State of devotedness to God under the conduct and thorough the mediation of Christ You frustrate the Gospel and make your Religion a nullity and an empty name till you do this 6. And how will you lift up your heads at last in the great day and before this God the judge of all You cannot now plead ignorance If perhaps any among you have not been formerly so expresly call'd and urg'd to this yielding your selves to God now you are and from his own plain Word 't is chargd upon you Will not this be remembred hereafter What will you say when the great God whose Creature you are speaks to you with the voice of Thunder and bids you gird up your Loins and give him an answer Were you not on such a day in such a place demanded and claim'd in my Name Were you not told were you not convinc't you ought to yield your selves to me and yet you did it not Are you prepar'd to contest with your Maker Where is your right where is your power to stand against me in this contest 7. But if you sincerely yield your selves the main Controversie is at end between the Great God and you All your former sins are pardon'd and done away at once Those glad-tydings you have often heard that import nothing but glory to God in the highest peace on earth and good will towards men plainly shew that the Great God whom you had offended hath no design to destroy you but only to make you yield and give him back his own Though you have formerly liv'd a wandering life and been as a Vagabond on the Earth from your true Owner it will be all forgotten How readily was the returining Prodigal receiv'd and so will you How quiet rest will you have this night when upon such terms there is a reconciliation between God and you You have given him his own and he is pleas'd and most of all for this that he hath you now to save you You were his to destroy before now you are his to save He could easily destroy you against your will but 't is only with your will he having made you willing that he must save you And his bidding you yield implies his willingness to do so O how much of Gospel is there in this invitation to you to yield your selves to God! consider it as the voice of Grace Will he that bids a poor wretch yield it self reject or destroy when it doth so 8. And how happily may you now live the rest of your days in this World. You will live under his care for will he not take care of his own those that are of his own House An Infidel would You are now of his Family under his immediate Government and under his continual Blessing And were you now to give an account where you have been to day and what you have been doing If you say you have been engag'd this day in a solemn treaty with the Lord of Heaven and Earth about yielding your selves to him And it be further askt Well and what was the issue Have you agreed Must you any of you be oblig'd by the truth of the case to say No astonishing answer What! Hast thou been treating with the Great God the God of thy life and not agreed What man Did he demand of thee any unreasonable thing Only to yield my self Why that was in all the World the most reasonable thing Wretched Creature whither now wilt thou go What wilt thou do with thy self Where wilt thou lay thy hated head But if you can say Blessed be God I gladly agreed to the Proposal He gave me the Grace not to deny him Then may it be said this was a good days work and you will have cause to bless God for this day as long as you have a day to live FINIS Joh. 4. 24. Rom. 11. 36. Act. 17. 28. * The Gallican Church c. † Du Pin c. Deut. 30. 11 12 c. Rom. 10. 6 7 8. Jam. 1. 21. Psa. 37. 31. 1 Sam. 12. 23. Psal. 68. 18. Eph. 4. 11. Rom. 1. 18. 2. 14. 2 Cor. 4. 2. Eph. 4. 18. Col. 1. 21. Rom. 8. 7. Rom. 8. 7. latter part Verse 2. Psal. 73. 25. John 14. 6. 1 John 2. 23. Rom. 14. 5. Second Sermon Jerem. 31. 18 19. Psa. 110. 3. Prov. 1. 24. Psal. 118. 1 Chron. 29. 9. See the Treatise of Self-dedication from p. 71. to 103. Jer. 50. 5. 1 Joh. 3. 20. Heb. 4. 12.