TWO SERMONS Preached at THURLOW IN SUFFOLK On those words Rom. 6. 13. Yield your selves to God By J. H. Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside 1688. To the much honoured Bartholomew Soame of Thurlow Esq and Susanna his pious Consort My Worthy Friends I Have at length yielded to your Importunity and do here offer these Sermons to publick view and your own which were one day the last Summer preached under your roof attributing more to your pious design herein than to my own reasons against it I no farther insist upon the incongruity having divers years ago published a small Treatise of Self-dedication now again to send abroad another on the same Subject For the way of Tractation is here very different this may fall into the hands of divers who have never seen the other and however they who have read the other have it in their choice whether they will trouble themselves with this or no. And tho' your purpose which you urged me with of lodging one of these little Books in each family of the hearers might have been answered by so disposing of many a better Book already extant yet you having told me how greatly you observed them to be moved by these plain Discourses considering the peculiar advantage of reading what had been with some acceptance and relish heard before through that greater vigour that accompanies the Ordinance of Preaching to an Assembly than doth usually the solitary first reading of the same thing I was not willing to run the hazard of incurring a guilt by refusing a thing so much desired and which through God's blessing might contribute something tho' in never so low a degree to the saving of mens Souls I could not indeed as I told you undertake to recollect every thing that was spoken according to that latitude and freedom of expression wherewith it was fit to inculcate momentous things to a plain Countrey-Auditory But I have omitted nothing I could call to mind Being little concern'd that the more curious may take notice with dislike how much in a work of this kind I prefer plainness tho' they may call it rudeness of speech before that which goes for wisdom of words or the most laboured Periods May you find an abundant blessing on your Houshold for the sake of the Ark which you have so piously and kindly received And whereas by your means the parts about you have an help for the spreading the Knowledge of God among them added to what they otherwise more statedly enjoy may the blessing of Heaven succeed all sincere endeavours of both sorts to the more general introducing of the new man which is renew'd in knowledge where there is neither Jew nor Greek Circumcision nor Uncircumcision but Christ is all and in all To whose Grace you are with sincere affection and great sense of your kindness earnestly recommended by Your much oblig'd faithful Servant in Christ John Howe These Books Written by the same Author are sold by Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside 1. THE Blessedness of the Righteous The Vanity of this Mortal Life On Psalm 17. ver 15. and Psalm 89. 47. 2. Of Thoughtfulness for the Morrow with an Appendix concerning the Immoderate Desire of Fore-knowing things to come 3. The Redeemer's Tears wept over lost Souls in a Treatise on Luke 19. 41 42. With an Appendix wherein somewhat is occasionally discoursed concerning the Sin against the Holy Ghost and how God is said to Will the Salvation of them that perish 4. Of Charity in Reference to other Mens Sins 5. A Sermon directing what we are to do after a strict inquiry whether or no we truly love God. A Discourse of the Saving Grace of God by David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel The Conversion of the Soul to which is added A Warning to Sinners to prepare for Judgment by Nath. Vincent Minister of the Gospel A Discourse of Old Age tending to the Instruction Caution and Comfort of Aged Persons Baptismal Bonds Renewed being Meditations upon Psalm 50. ver 5. By O. Heywood Minister of the Gospel Rom. 6 part of the 13th verse Yield your selves to God. THese are but a few words but I can speak to you of no greater or more important thing than I am to press upon you from them this day We are above taught how absurd it is to continue in sin whereto we are avowedly dead v. 1 2. as is signified by our Baptism together with our entrance into a new state of life and that in both we are to be conformed unto the Death and Resurrection of Christ v. 3 4 5. so that sin ought now no more to have a new dominion over us than Death can again have over him v. 6 7 8 9 10. We are therefore exhorted so to account of our selves and of our present state That we are dead to sin but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord and thereupon never more to let sin govern us or reign over us or yield to it verse 11 12 13. former part But what then How are we otherwise to dispose of our selves If we may not yield our selves to the service of sin what are we then to do with our selves The Text tells us and the very reason of the thing shews it But yield your selves to God c. The Subject to be discours'd of is an express Precept charging it upon us all as our unquestionable duty to yield our selves to God which therefore it can only be our business in speaking to this Text to explain and apply 1. We are to explain it Whosoever shall charge upon others such a duty not obvious perhaps at the first view in the full extent of it to every ones understanding may well expect to be askt But what do you mean by this Precept or what doth this yielding our selves to God signifie And here are two things to be opened to you 1. How or under what notions we are to consider God and our selves in this matter 2. What our yielding our selves to him so consider'd must include 1. How we are to consider or look upon God in this affair You are to consider him both as he is in himself and according to the relations he bears to you whether before your yielding your selves to him or in and upon your so doing 1. As he is in himself You that have heard or now read what I have said and do write here make a stand and bethink your selves a while What! Are you about yielding your selves to God Sure you ought to be thinking of it as soon as you hear his claim laid to you But do you now know with whom you have to do Too many have the Name of God that great and awful Name in their mouth or ear and have no correspondent thought in their mind it passes with them as a transient sound as soon over as another common word of no
My soul for yours and such like signifie nothing with a cautious considering man except that such as them care as little for his Soul as their own The Papal Infallibility some would have us trust to at a venture would make us think it rudeness to doubt it when no body stands upon good manners in endeavouring to escape a ruine when a great part of their own Communion trust not to it And some of them have written strongly against it The accurate stating and discussing of the Controversie how far or in what sense any such thing as Infallible Light may belong to the Christian Church are not fit for this place nor for a Discourse of this nature 'T is enough now to say that this claim hereof to the Pope or Bishop of Rome as such 1. Cannot be prov'd 2. May be plainly disprov'd 1. It cannot be prov'd For since no Principles of common Reason are pretended sufficient to prove it of any man or of him more than another it must be prov'd by supernatural Revelation if at all But in the written Word of God there is no such thing Pretences from thence are too vain to be refuted or mention'd And if any other Revelation should be pretended 't will be a new and as impossible a task to prove the Divinity of that Revelation so as to infer upon the World an obligation to believe it Nor is it necessary to insist upon this because 2. It may be plainly disprov'd for the same thing cannot be both true and false And it sufficiently disproves such a man's Infallibility or the impossibility of his erring that it can be evidently prov'd he hath err'd As when he hath determined against the express Word of Christ forbidding them to take one or two Instances among many to drink of the Eucharistical Cup whom he hath commanded to drink of it Or to mention a more important one when Believers in Christ or Lovers of him are pronounced damned who he hath said shall not perish but have everlasting life and the Crown of Righteousness Or when on the other hand pardon of sin and eternal life are pretended to be given to such whom the Evangelical Law condemns to death When one to whom this priviledge hath been asserted to belong hath determined against another to whom upon the same grounds it must equally belong As 't is well known in the Christian Church that Pope might be alledged against Pope and one Papal Constitution against another Not to insist on what might be shewn out of their own History that the same Pope hath being so chang'd his judgment in a point of Doctrine and left us to divine when he was the fallible and when the infallible Pope And again When there have been determinations against the common uncorrupted senses of mankind as that what their sight and touch and tast assures them is Bread is said to be the flesh of an humane body For if you cannot be sure of what both your own and the sound senses of any other man would tell you you can be sure of nothing at all You cannot be sure you see one another or hear me speaking to you nor be sure when you heard the transforming words This is my Body or much less that they were ever spoken if you heard them not or that that was Bread and not a Stone or a piece of Clay that is pretended to be transubstantiated by them The foundation of all certainty were upon these terms taken away from among men on Earth and upon the same common grounds upon which it is pretended you ought to believe that which is shewn or offered you to be the flesh of a man and not bread any longer you must believe or judge the quite contrary that it is bread still and not flesh and consequently that he is far from being infallible but doth actually err upon whose authority you are directed to believe otherwise And indeed the claimed Infallibility is by this sufficiently disprov'd that there is no imaginable way of proving it For if there were any such thing it must be by God's own immediate gift and vouchsafement How otherwise should a man be made infallible And if so it must be for an end worthy of a wise and a merciful God whereupon for the same reason for which he should have made such a man infallible he should have made it infallibly certain to other men that he hath made him so Whereas there is no one point wherein his infallible determination can be pretended to be necessary against which there is more to be said than against the pretence it self of his Infallibility Nor for which less is to be said than can with any colour or without highest and most just contempt be said for it The most weighty thing that I have known alledg'd is the great expediency of an Infallible Judge But if we will think that a good way of arguing that things are in fact so or so because we can fancy it would be better if they were we may as well prove that all mankind are sincere Christians or there is no sin in the World nor ever was and a thousand things besides in the natural World that never were or will be because it appears to us 't would be for the better So much is the follishness of man wiser than God. Besides that Sanctity must be judg'd as necessary to the final salvation and felicity of the souls of men as Orthodoxy or exemption from doctrinal Errour by all with whom either Christian Religion or common Reason signifies any thing For the same reason therefore for which it can be thought necessary God should have put it into the power of any man to make others not err he should have put it equally into his power to make them holy to renew and change their hearts and lives But what man hath this power And one would reasonably expect if either were that both powers should be lodg'd in the same man which if they should pretend who assert the other unto one man their own Histories might make them blush unless they can think it more probable that he can and will effectually sanctifie another and make him holy who is himself most infamously impure and unholy than that he can secure another from erring in matters of Doctrine who cannot secure himself But then it may be said If such sure light and guidance is not to be found or had from one man it must be from some community or body of men in the Christian Church For can it be thought God should have taken care to settle a Religion in the World on purpose for the saving of mens souls that yet affords no man any certainty of being saved by it I answer yes there is a certain undeceiving Light afforded by it to the whole body of sincere Christians sufficient and intended not to gratifie a vain humour but to save their souls and which you can only and may confidently
have you ever had a business of greater importance to transact in all your days If you were to dispose of an Estate or a Child would you not have all things be as express and clear as may be and would not they insist to have it so with whom you deal in any such affair And is there not a solemnity belonging to all such transactions especially if you were to dispose of your self as in the Conjugal Covenant tho' that is to be but for this short uncertain time of life so as that the relation you enter into to day may be by death dissolv'd and broken off again to morrow How much more explicit clear and solemn should this your covenanting with God in Christ be wherein you are to make over your Soul to him and for eternity You are to become his under the bond of an everlasting Covenant You are entring a relation never to be broken off This God is to be your God for ever and ever and upon the same terms you are to be his Is your Immortal Soul of less account with you than the temporal concernments of a mortal Child that you are placing out but for a term of years that soon expires yea or than a piece of Ground or an Horse or a Sheep about which how punctual and express are your Bargains and Contracts wont to be Or are only the matters of your Soul and wherein you have to do with the great God to be slightly managed or to be huddled up in confusion or to be slid over in silent intimations 'T is true that so express and solemn dealing in yielding and giving up your selves to God is not needful on his part who understands sincerity without any expression of yours but 't is needful on your part that a deep and lasting impression may be made upon your Spirits which if you be sincere you will not only feel your selves to need but your own temper and inclination will prompt you to it accounting you can never be under bonds strong and sure enough to him You will not only apprehend necessity but will relish and tast pleasure in any such transaction with the blessed God in avouching him to be your God and your self to be his The more solemn it is the more grateful it will be to you Do so then Fall before his Throne Prostrate your self at his footstool and having chosen your fit season when nothing may interrupt you and having shut up your self with him pour out your Soul to him tell him you are now come on purpose to offer your selves to him as his own O that you would not let this night pass without doing so Tell him you have too long neglected him and forgotten to whom you belong'd humbly beseech him for his pardon and that he will now accept of you for your Redeemer's sake as being through his grace resolv'd never to live so great a stranger to him or be such a wanderer from him more And when you have done so remember the time let it be with you a noted memorable day as you would be sure to keep the day in memory when you became such a ones Servant or Tenant or your Marriage-day Renew this your agreement with God often but forget it never Perhaps some may say But what needs all this were we not once devoted and given up to God in Baptism and is not that sufficient To what purpose should we do again a thing that hath once been so solemnly done But here I desire you to consider Are you never to become the Lords by your own choice Are you always to be Christians only by another's Christianity not by your own And again Have you not broken your Baptismal Vow have you not forgot it for the most part ever since I am afraid too many never think of any such matter at all that ever they were devoted to God by others but only upon such an occasion as this to make it an excuse that they may never do such a thing themselves And consider were these Christian Romans on whom the Apostle presses this duty never Baptiz'd think you Read over the foregoing part of the Chapter wherein you find him putting them in mind that they had been baptiz'd into Christs death and buried with him in baptism and that therefore this was to be an argument to them why they should yield themselves to God not why they should not Wherefore our way is now plain and open to what we have further to do viz. 2. To apply this practical Doctrine and press the Precept further upon you which hath been open'd to you and prest by parts in some measure already in our insisting on the several heads which you have seen do belong to it and are one way or other comprehended in it Which will therefore make this latter part of our work the shorter and capable of being dispatch't in the fewer words and with blessed effect if the Spirit of the living God shall vouchsafe to co-operate and deal with your hearts and mine Shall we then all agree upon this thing Shall we unite in one resolution We will be the Lords Shall every one say in his own heart For my part I will and so will I and so will I Come now one and all This is no unlawful confederacy 't is a blessed combination Come then let us join our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant not to be forgotten With whatsoever after-solemnity you may renew this Obligation and Bond of God upon your Souls as I hope you will do it every one apart in your Closets or in any corner and you cannot do it too fully or too often yet let us now all resolve the thing and this assembly make a joint-surrender and oblation of it self to the great God our Soveraign rightful Lord through our blessed Redeemer and Mediator by the Eternal Spirit which I hope is breathing and at work among us as one liuing sacrifice as all of us alive from the dead to be for ever sacred to him O blessed Assembly O happy act and deed With how grateful and well-pleasing an odour will the kindness and dutifulness of this Offering ascend and be received above God will accept Heaven will rejoice Angels will concur and gladly fall in with us We hereby adjoin our selves in relation and in heart and spirit to the general Assembly to the Church of the First-born Ones written in Heaven to the innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of just men made perfect and within a little while shall be actually among them Is it possible there should be now among us any dissenting Vote Consider 1. 'T is a plain and unquestionable thing you are prest unto A thing that admits of no dispute and against which you have nothing to say and about which you cannot but be already convinc't And 't is a matter full of danger and upon which tremendous consequences depend to go on in any practice or in
greater length and leaves no impression Perhaps there is less in their minds to answer it than most other words which men use in common discourse For they have usually distinct thoughts of the things they speak of otherwise they should neither understand one another nor themselves but might speak of an Horse and mean a Sheep Or be thought to mean so And it would no more move a man or impress his mind to hear or mention a Jest than a matter of life and death But the holy and reverend Name of God is often so slightly mentioned as in common Oaths or in idle talk is so meerly taken in vain that if they were on the sudden stopt and askt what they thought on or had in their mind when they mentioned that word and were to make a true answer they cannot say they thought of any thing As if the Name of God the All were the name of Nothing Otherwise had they thought what that great Name signifies either they had not mentioned it or the mention of it had struck their hearts and even overwhelm'd their very souls I could tell you what awe and observance hath been wont to be exprest in reference to that sacred Name among a people that were called by it and surely the very sound of that Name ought ever to shake all the powers of our souls and presently form them to reverence and adoration Shall we think it fit to play or trifle with it as is the common wont My Friends shall we now do so when we are call'd upon to yield our selves to God Labour to hear and think and act intelligently and as those that have the understandings of men And now especially in this solemn transaction endeavour to render God great to your selves Enlarge your minds that as far as is possible and needful they may take in the entire notion of him As to what he is in himself you must conceive of him as a Spirit as his own Word which can best tell us what he is instructs us and so as a Being of far higher excellency than any thing you can see with your eyes or touch with your hands or than can come under the notice of any of your senses You may easily apprehend Spiritual Being to be the source and spring of life and self-moving power This World were all a dead unmoving lump if there were no such thing as Spirit as your bodies when the soul is fled You must conceive him to be an Eternal Self-subsisting Spirit not sprung up into Being from another as our souls are But who from the excellency of his own Being was necessarily of and from himself comprehending originally and eternally in himself the fulness of all Life and Being I would fain lead you here as by the hand a few plain and easie steps You are sure that somewhat now is of this you can be in no doubt and next you may be as sure that somewhat hath of it self ever been For if nothing at all now were you can easily apprehend it impossible that any thing should ever be or of it self now begin to be and spring up out of nothing Do but make this supposition in your own minds and the matter will be as plain to you as any thing can be that if nothing at all were now in being nothing could ever come into being wherefore you may be sure that because there is somewhat now in being there must have been somewhat or other always in being that was eternally of it self And then to go a little farther since you know there are many things in being that were not of themselves you may be sure that what was always of it self had in it a sufficiency of active power to produce other things otherwise nothing that is not of it self could ever be As you know that we were not of our selves and the case is the same as to whatsoever else our eyes behold You must conceive of God therefore as comprehending originally in his own Being which is most peculiar to himself a power to produce all whatsoever Being Excellency and Perfection is to be found in all the whole Creation For there can be nothing which either is not or arises not from what was of it self And therefore that he is an absolutely universally and infinitely perfect Being and therefore that Life Knowledge Wisdom Power Goodness Holiness Justice Truth and whatsoever other conceivable Excellencies do all in highest perfection belong as necessary Attributes unchangeably and without possibility of diminution unto him And all which his own Word agreeably to the plain reason of things doth in multitudes of places ascribe to him as you that are acquainted with the Bible cannot but know You must therefore conceive of him as the All in All. So great so excellent so glorious a One he is to whom you are to surrender and yield your selves You are to conceive of him as most essentially One for there can be but one All. And so his Word teaches you to conceive Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord Deut. 6. 4. We know there is no other God but one c. 1 Cor. 8. 4 5 6. Your thoughts therefore need not be divided within you nor your minds hang in doubt to whom you are to betake and yield your selves there is no place or pretence for halting between two Opinions He most righteously lays the sole claim to you a just God and a Saviour and there is none besides him Isa. 45. 21. And so we are told often in that and the foregoing Chapters He whose far-discerning eye projects its beams every way and ranges thorough all infinity says he knows not any ch 44. 8. Yet again you are to conceive of him as Three in One and that in your yielding your selves to him as the prescrib'd form when this surrender is to be made in Baptism directs which runs thus In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Matth. 28. 19. You are not to be curious in your enquiries beyond what is written in this matter how far the Subsistents in the Godhead are three an in what sense one they cannot be both in the same sense But there is latitude enough to conceive how they may be distinct from each other and yet agree in one Nature which in none of them depending upon will and pleasure sets each of them infinitely above all created Being which for the Divine pleasure only was and is created Rev. 4. 11. And that we so far conceive of them as three as to apprehend some things spoken of one that are not to be affirm'd of another of them is so plain of so great consequence and the whole frame of practical Religion so much depends thereon and even this transaction of yielding up our selves which must be introductive and fundamental to all the rest that it is by no means to be neglected in our daily course and least of all in this solemn business as will more appear
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