2. Strengthen the bonds, and anew devote yourselves to obedience: ver. 13, ' Neither yield you your members as instruments of unright- eousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.' Bind yourselves for time to come, to make it your work not to indulge the flesh, but save your souls : Heb. x. 39, ' For we are not of them that draw back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.'
3. Take great heed that sin reign not by bodily lusts.
[1.] The necessity of this. These lusts are represented as deceitful : Eph. iv. 22, ' That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.' And as violent and imperious : Kom. vii. 20, ' Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dvvelleth in me ; ' both together : James i. 14, ' Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.' We are by subtlety blinded by the delusions of the flesh, and it is always endeavouring to get the throne, and hurry us to destruction, and seeking to divert us from the love of God ; the more we indulge them the more imperious they are, the more caution and resolution therefore is necessary.
[2.] The danger of not doing it.
(1.) They do not only unfit us for God, but for human society : James iv. 1, 'From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ? ' They make you disquiet all others near you, as dogs snarling at one another for a bone or piece of carrion.
(2.) They destroy the welfare of our bodies ; the part gratified is depressed by them : Prov. xiv. 30, ' A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy is the rottenness of the bones ; ' Prov. v. 11, ' Thou shalt mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed.'
246 SERMONS UPON ROJiANS VI. [Ser. XL
(3.) These lusts war agaiust the soul. The perfection of the soul consists in the image of God, which is defaced b}^ these lusts ; yea, against the graces and motions of the Spirit: Gal. v. 17, * The flesh lusteth against the Spirit ; ' against the comfort of the soul, which dependeth on the holy sanctifying Spirit ; he is grieved when his work is hindered in us.
(4.) These lusts oppose our everlasting felicity and happiness, when to gratify the flesh we run the hazard of losing soul and body for ever.
(1st.) By efficiency : they steal away our hearts from God, take up our time, turn our thoughts from the one thing necessary. The great end of faith is the saving of the soul ; they make it the great end of their living to pamper the body. They put heaven away from them, sell it for a trifle ; in effect, bid God keep his heaven to himself : Heb. xii. 16, ' Profane Esau for one morsel of bread sold his birthright'
(2d.) By desert : Gal. vi. 8, ' He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; ' Eom. vi. 13, ' Neither yield ye your bodies as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.' God is provoked, and so our damnation is sure. They spend their strength, time, estates on the service of fleshly lusts ; surely these can look for nothing but everlasting perdition.
SERMON XL
Neither yield ye yo7ir members as instruments of wirighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, ayid your members as instruments of righteousness unto 6^orf— Rom. VL 13.
Here is the second branch of the exhortation, which concernetli vivification ; for expressly the apostle speaketh to them as those that are alive from the dead. This part of the exhortation is propounded negatively, ' yield not,' &c. ; positively, ' but yield,' &c.
1. The negative is necessary. For further declaring the sense of which, he had said before, ' Let not sin reign in your mortal body.' The body is mentioned as the seat of sin for two reasons —
[1.] Because these lusts gratify the body and bodily life, and so per- vert the soul ; that is spoken to there.
[2.] Because they are executed bv the body ; this is spoken to here If they gain the consent of your minds, yet ' yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin ; ' let them not be acted by your bodies.
2. Positively it is expressed, ' But yield yourselves unto God.' There observe the order set down. First, ' Yield yourselves unto God ; ' then, * your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.' The general dedication is the ground of the particular. First, I am God's, then I bestow my time and strength for God ; first, we give ourselves to him. not in part, but in whole, to serve him with all our heart and all our might and strength ; then sometimes the outward or inward man, as the nature of the business calleth for.