and through him, and to him are all things, and therefore to him must be the glory for ever;" Rom. xi. 36. God who is the end of your hearts and lives must be the end of every action of them, unless you will step out of the way of order, and safety, and holiness. For every action that is not from God, and by God, and for God, is contrary to the nature of true sanctification. If then you would be Christians indeed be heartily willing that God should have his own. Understand what an excellent honour, and privilege, and happiness it is to you to be his. If his right to you will not move you let your own necessity and benefit at least move you to give up yourselves and all that you have to God. Bring your hearts to the bar, and plead the cause of God with them, and convince them of God's title to them, and how sinfully they have robbed him of his own all this while. Have your days and hours, your wealth and interest, been used purposely for God as his own? O what abundance be there, that in word and confident profession, do give themselves up, and all to God, and yet the use of themselves and all, do plainly shew that it is no such matter; but they dissembled with God, and yet never knew so much by themselves. How little do they use for God, when they have with seeming devotion resigned all to him? If a lord, or knight, or gentleman of £4,000 or £3,000 a year, or £400, or £300, were to shew the accounts of all his expenses, how much of all this should you find expended for God, when they have acknowledged that all is his? One would think by their lives, that they look to be saved by robbing God, and confessing the robbery, by saying that all is God's, while they allow him next to nothing. The devoted, resigned, sanctified soul hath the true principle of all obedience, and that which will do much to repel all temptations, and carry him through the greatest straits and trials. If I am not my own, I need not be over solicitous for myself, but may expect that he that owneth me should care for me: nor do I need to use any sinful shifts for my own preservation. If I have nothing of my own, what need I to sin for the saving of any thing? What need I to venture upon unwarrantable means, to preserve either credit, or goods, or life? It is self, and own, that are the roots of all sin, the heart of the old man, and the seed of hell: nothing else is pleaded against God and our salvation. If the flesh would have you abuse God's creatures, you must remember they are not your own. If the devil would entice you to sin against God, either for the getting or keeping of any creature, it would easily repel the temptation, were you but rightly sensible that nothing is your own: for God hath no need that you should sin to get riches or honours for him. If you are called to let go your houses, or lands, or friends, or lives, or to deliver up your bodies to the flames, did you but rightly take them as none of your own, how easy would it be ! You can be content that another man give his goods, or life itself to God, whenever God requireth it; but your own, you cannot be content to part with, and that because it is your own. But if you had rightly resigned all to God, and took not yourselves or any thing for your own, but looked upon yourselves and all as God's, the greatest works of obedience or suffering, would be much more easy to you; and you would have little difficulty or hindrance in your way. Self-denial is but sanctification itself, denominated from the wrong end and principle, which we forsake. And where self is denied and dead, what is there left to draw us from God, or stand up against him, in any part of our lives? So much interest as self hath in you, so much the world and the devil have in you. And nothing is more proper to a miserable hypocrite, than deep reserves of life, or worldly things to themselves, while they seem to give up all to God. O happy soul, that is wrought to this sincerity by the Spirit of grace, to say unfeignedly, O Lord, I devote and resign myself wholly unto thee; I am not my own, nor desire any further to be, than to be thine: I have nothing that is my own, nor desire to have any thing that shall not be thine.' Happy and truly wise is that man, that keeps as constant and faithful a reckoning, how he lays out himself and all that he hath for God, as a faithful steward doth of his receivings and layings out for his master's use. Every penny that is reserved from God, is the fuel of sin, and a sacrifice to the devil and the flesh; and if it be pardoned to the truly penitent, by the sacrifice of Christ, that is no thanks to us that would else have made it the fuel of hell. God is not so careless of us or his mercies, but that he keeps an exact account of all that we have from him, and will require an account of our improvement of all: not only requiring his it own again, but his own with advantage; Matt. xxv.27. Why else did he give us such leisure and ability to approve it? I can never forget what a sinful thought was once in my mind, which I will venture to confess, because it may possibly be the case of others, that so they may beware. Hearing of some that used to lay by the tenth párt of their yearly comings in, for charitable uses, I purposed to do so too, and thought it a fair proportion: but since I have perceived what a vile and wicked thought that was, to offer to cut out a scantling for God, or give him a limited share of his own, or say that so much he shall have, and no more. Though we cannot say that God must have all in any one kind of service only; either only for the church, or only for the poor, or only for public uses; yet must we resolve, that in one way or other he must have all; and the particular portions to the poor, or church, or other uses, must be assigned by truly sanctified prudence, considering which way may be most serviceable to God. I must relieve my own family, or kindred, if they want, but not because they are my own, but because God hath commanded me, and so hath made it a part of my obedience. But if I see where I may do more service to God by relieving a stranger, and that God doth more require it, I must yet prefer them before all the kindred that I have in the world. When the Christian pattern was set up by the primitive church, Acts ii. iv. they sold all, and laid down the whole price at the apostles' feet, which was not distributed to their natural kindred only, but to all the poor Christians that had no other relation to them, even as every one had need. And as it is the loving of our spiritual brethren in Christ, that is made the sign of our translation from death to life, so is it the relieving of Christ in these his members, that is, the relieving them, because they are his members, that is made the very matter of our cause in the last judgment, and the ground of the sentence of life or death; Matt.xxv. must provide for my own body, and you must provide for your children, but that is (as I said before) not as I am my own, nor as your children are your own; but as I am a servant of Christ, that must be supported in his service, or as yourselves and yours are put under your care and duty by God. So that I may give it to myself or others, when I can truly say, I do but use it principally for God, and think that I the principal service I can do him by it; but I may neither take to myself, nor give to any that are nearest to me, any more than God commandeth, or his service doth require. When you and yours have your daily bread, (which also must be used for him) you must not go to flesh and blood, but to God, to ask which way you shall dispose of the remainder. This is a strange doctrine to the unsanctified world, but that is because they are unsanctified. And it is a doctrine that a worldly hypocrite is loath to believe and understand; but that is because of carnality and hypocrisy, that always deals with God like Ananias and Saphira, lying to the Holy Ghost, and giving God but half (and few so much as half) when they daily confess that all is from him, and should be his, and pretend to be wholly devoted to him. There are few men so bad, but will spare God something rather than go to hell: but indeed this is not to devote it to God, but to use it for themselves, thinking by their sacrifices to stop the mouth of justice, and to please God by a part, when they have displeased him in the rest. I much fear (and not without apparent cause) that abundance among us, that think themselves Christians, do worship and serve God, but as some Indians are said to offer sacrifice to the devil, not for any love they have to him or his service, but for fear he should hurt them. And there are few hypocrites but will pretend it is from very love. O sirs, it is a greater matter to resign and give up yourselves and all you have to God, and heartily to quit all claim to yourselves, and all things, than many a thousand selfdeluded professors do imagine. Many look at this but as some high, extraordinary strain of piety. And the Papists almost appropriate it to a few that live in monastical orders, when indeed the sincerity of the resignation and dedication, is the very sincerity of sanctification itself. And let me tell you, that the unfeigned convert that attains to this hath not only plucked up the root of sin, (though all of us have too many strings of it left,) not only stopped up the spring of temptation, and got the surest evidence of his uprightness, but also is got himself into the safest and most comfortable state. For when he hath absolutely resigned himself and all to God, how confidently may he expect that God should accept him, and use him as his own? and how comfortably may he commit himself and his cause, and all good affairs to God, as knowing that God |