VeR. 13.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI. 253
18, 'For ye are redeemed not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain convei'sations, received by tradition from your fathers ; but with the precious blood of the Son of God, as of a lamb without spot and blemish.' Therefore the redeemed are bound to serve him that ransomed them. All our time and strength belongeth to the Kedeemer, who hath ransomed us from the worst slavery, the bondage of sin and Satan, and with the greatest price, his own blood. This was Christ's end : Eom. xiv. 9, * For to this end Christ both died, and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.'
4. Christians have owned this right by their covenant-consent. Our bodies and souls were consecrated to Christ when we gave up our names to him in baptism : ' Thou enteredst into covenant with me, and be- camest mine,' Ezek. xvi. 8 ; then were we enrolled in God's cense-book : Isa. xliv. 5, ' One shall say, I am the Lord's ; and another shall call himself by tlie name of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with the hand to the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.' By voluntary contract and resignation we gave up ourselves and all that is ours to God. Baptism is our sacramentum militare, our military oath ; we were then Hsted in his warfare and service. When Christ was baptized he was consecrated as the captain of our salvation, and then presently after his baptism he entered into the lists with Satan. We are entered as private soldiers ; now it is treachery and breach of covenant if, after we have owned and acknowledged God's right in us, we shall alienate ourselves from him, and use ourselves for ourselves at our own list and pleasure.
5. By regeneration, whereby we are actually taken into Christ's pos- session, and fitted for his use. This right is pleaded in the text, ' As those that are alive from the dead, yield up yourselves to God.' There is a double argument in it.
[1.] As it puts an obligation upon us. It is by the tender mercies of the Lord that you are recovered out of the death of sin to the life of grace : Eph. iv. 4, 5, * God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love where- with he hath loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.' We that were once wretched and miserable, liable to death, utterly disabled for the service of our creator, that he of his grace hath called us and quickened us, and made us alive, who were formerly dead, we have this spiritual life from him and for him ; this should be an everlasting obligation upon us, while we have a day to live, to remember God hath renewed you for himself.
[2.] As it puts an inclination into us. Men that are raised to a new life are fitted to do him service ; they are delivered from the power and death of sin, have received grace to serve him acceptably ; the new creature is fitted for the operations that belong to it : Eph. ii. 10, ' For we are the workmanship of God, created in Christ Jesus to good works, that we might walk therein. The withered branch is planted into the good vine-stock, that it may live again, and bring forth fruit unto God ; 80 that if we have been made partakers of this mercy, we are bound, and we are inclined ; this shows God's propriety in us, that he ex- pecteth to be honoured by us.
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254 SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI. [SeR. XI.
1. It shows how vaiu the piea was of those libertines in Calvin's time (against whom he is justly severe) and their adherents, who thought they might serve sin with their bodies, as long as they did dis- like and disallow it with their souls, they were safe enough. They were wont to say, Non ego sed asinus mens — it was their drudge the body that sinned, not they. No ; the apostle saith, ' Give not up yoiu* members as weapons of unrighteousness,' &c., and elsewhere, ' Glorify God in your bodies and souls, which are God's.' And the apostle pleadeth the dignity of the body, and how it is defiled by fornication and other inordinances, 1 Cor. vi., per totum.
2. That it is not enough to abstain from evil, but we must do good ; for the apostle saith, ' yield not,' and then ' yield.' So the apostle saith, 2 Tim. ii. 21, ' If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel of honour, sanctified and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.' So 2 Cor. v, 15, ' And that he died for all, that they that live should not henceforth live unto them- selves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.' They are sinners that hide their talent in a napkin, though they live not in apparent gross sins ; all that time and strength that is bestowed on sin is used against God ; but what is idly and impertinently lost is not used for him. Both deprive God of his right ; the one alienate their time and strength, the other mis-spend it. Some do not run into gluttony, drunkenness, oppression, adultery (these apparently use their bodies as weapons of unrighteousness), but they do not live to God, and so are defective in the other part.