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
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
and in great part we are to appeal in our Teaching you So the more early Christian Teachers did Not handling say they the Word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the Truth commending our selves to every man's Conscience in the sight of God. In the most deeply fundamental things that concern your practice every day we may appeal to your selves and your own Consciences If we say to you Ought you not to live according to his Will that gave you breath Should you not above all things fear and love and trust and obey him that made you and all things Should you not do as you would be done unto Should you not take more care for your immortal Souls than for your mortal flesh You must every one say I believe in mine own Conscience this is so If I appeal to you in the very thing I am speaking of should you not yield your selves to God whose Creatures you are I doubt not you will any of you say I think in my very Conscience I should We have you witnesses against your selves if you will not hear us in such things And again it being a matter very capable of plain proof that those writings which we call the Holy Scriptures were from God our Teaching ought so far to be regarded by you as 2. We can manifest to you that it agrees with the Scriptures And we are sure he will never teach you inwardly against what he hath there taught Will the God of Truth say and unsay the same thing That were to overthrow the design of all his Instructions and to subvert the Authority which he requires men to reverence No man could expect to be regarded on such terms And by this Rule freely examine all that we teach you as our Saviour directed the Jews to do John 5. 39. And for the doing whereof the Apostle commended the Berean Christians Acts 17. 11. And we have here the same advantage at length tho' not so immediately upon your Consciences which cannot but judge that whatsoever is found in that Word which you confess to be Divine must be most certainly true And if within such limits you take the help of men for your Instruction having yielded your selves to God as your supream and highest Teacher you are upon safe terms Only be sincere in listening to his dictates whether internal or external Let not a prepossest heart or vicious inclination be their Interpreter If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God c. John 7. 17. 3. You must consider God in your yielding your selves as your Sovereign Ruler For to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey as by v. 16. Tho' Teaching and Ruling may be diversly conceiv'd of they cannot be separate in this case The nobler and final part of God's Teaching you is teaching you your duty what you are to practise and do And so when he teaches you he commands you too and leaves it not arbitrary to you whether you will be directed by him or no. What is his by former right and by after-consent and self-resignation shall it not be govern'd by him if it be a subject capable of Laws and Government as such consent shews it to be Your yielding your selves to God is not an homage but a mockery if you do it not with a resolution to receive the Law from his mouth and that wherein soever he commands you will to your uttermost obey But in this and the other things that follow my limits constrain me unto more brevity Only let not this apprehension of God be frightful yea let it be amiable to you as in it self it is and cannot but be to you if you consider the loveliness of his Government the kind design of it and how suitable it is to the kindest design that it is a Government first and principally over minds purposely intended to reduce them to an holy and peaceful order wherein it cannot but continue them when that Kingdom comes to be setled there which stands in righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and all the Laws whereof are summ'd up in Love being such also as in the keeping whereof there is great reward 4. You are to consider him and accordingly to yield your self as your greatest Benefactor or rather as your best and supream good Indeed you cannot sever his being your Ruler from his being your Benefactor more than his being your Teacher from his being your Ruler when the tendency and design of his Government is understood For it is a very principal part of our felicity to be under his Government and he doth you the greatest good by ruling you when otherwise nothing is more evident than that you would run your selves into the greatest of evil and soon be most miserable creatures You are now so far happy as you are subject to his Government and that which it aims at is to make you finally and compleatly happy For it is the design of his Government not only to regulate your actions but your inclinations and principally towards himself You have been alienated from the life of God were become strangers to him yea and enemies in your very minds for the carnal mind is enmity against God. The very business of his Government is in the first place to alter the temper of your minds for continuing carnal they neither are subject to the Law of God nor can be as the same place tells you Therefore if his Government take place in you and you become subject you become spiritual the Law of the Spirit of Life having now the possession and the power of you Nor was it possible he should ever be an effectual Benefactor to you without being thus an over-powering Ruler so do these things run into one another To let you have your own will and follow your carnal inclination and cherish and favour you in this course were to gratifie you to your ruine and concur with you to your being for ever miserable Which you may see plainly if you will understand wherein your true felicity and blessedness must consist or consider what was intimated concerning it in the proposal of this head that he is to be your Benefactor in being to you himself your supream and only satisfying Good. He never doth you good effectually and to purpose till he overcome your carnal inclination For while that remains will you ever mind him Can you love him desire after him or delight in him The first and most fundamental Law which he laies upon you is that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and might What will become of you if you cannot obey this Law This World will shortly be at an end and you must 't is like leave it sooner you are undone if your hearts be not before-hand so framed as that you can savour and take complacency in a
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