70 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XT. [SeR. XXIII.
willing and ready obedience : Heb. iii. 13, 'While it is called to-day;' and Eccles. xii. 1, 'Eemember thy Creator in the days of thy youth: ' in thy young and flowery age, when thou mayest more glorify God. And then we do not know how long the day of grace will continue ; the day of grace is not always as long as a man's life : the Lord may pass the sentence of obduration and final hardness upon us. Alas ! corruptions will grow ujion us, and carnal desires grow up with us, and our affections grow more stiff and hardened every day, as letters in the bark of a tree. Consider, a man cannot come soon enough into the arms of mercj'', nor soon enough out of Satan's power ; a man can never too soon begin his journey towards heaven. If you did but mind your salvation in earnest, you would be more in haste. The heirs of promise are described to be 'those that fly for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before them,' Heb. vi. 18 ; there is an avenger of blood at their heels, they see wrath jjursues after them ; therefore they fly for refuge. And consider again, there is little love of God showed in this, that you repent only when you can sin no longer ; when you can be content God should be dis- honoured for a long time, provided that at length you should be saved. Oh, do but consider what an ill requital you make to the Lord for his purposes of grace towards you ! he thought of us before there was hill or mountain. As long as God is God, he is the God of the elect: Ps. ciii. 17, ' From everlasting to everlasting thy loving-kindness is to them that fear thee.' If God hath loved us from one eternity to another, what ingratitude is this to confine him to the odd corner of our lives, to the aclies and phlegm of old age ! Again, it is a great honour to seek the Lord betimes. Mnason is famous for this in scri})ture, because he was ' an old disciple : ' and the apostle speaks of Andronicus and Junia, ' who were in Christ before me,' E.om. xvi. 7 — sooner than me in grace. It is a mighty privilege to be in Christ before others.
Use 2. If there be no hope of living with God without pleasing God, oh, then make it the aim and scope of your lives to please the Lord ! You that have already given up yourselves to the will of God had need to be quickened again and again to make good your resolu- tion. See how earnestly the apostle speaks : 1 Thes. iv. 1, ' We beseech and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us, how you ought to walk, and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.' This is the work and business of your lives, to keep company with God, to enjoy him in a gracious communion. Take a direction or two what you shall do ; take the commandment for your rule; take the promises for your encouragement ; and make the glory of God your great aim. Look to the commands that you do not err ; look to the jn'omises that you may not be disconsolate ; look to the glory of God that you may be sincere, and keep on in an even course of holiness.
1. Look to the commandments as your rule : Micah vi. 8, ' He hath showed thee, 0 man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?' God hath told you what will please him. Because the characters that are engraven upon your hearts are blurred, and a man can hardly read them ; therefore God hath given us his word, and there are his decrees and ordinances of judgment and justice recorded
YeR. 5.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XL 71
liow lie governs the world. A man is pleased when we do his will ; God's will is in his word. God will accept of nothing but what he hath required, otherwise we walk at random. I shall not unravel the decalogue ; a short summary is useful to us. It is good to have all ciiristian obedience summed up into brief heads. Sometimes the will of God is summed up in one word, sometimes in two, sometimes in three ; the apostle sums it up in one word : 1 Thes. iv. 3, ' This is the will of God, even your sanctification,' that you should grow more holy and holy every day ; so Gal. v. 14, ' The law is fulfilled in one word, even in this. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Sometimes the scripture doth sum up all christian obedience into two heads, as all sins by the apostle are referred unto two heads : Eom. i. 18, there are the breaches of God's will, 'unrighteousness and ungodliness;' so the great things required are holiness, or godliness and righteousness, the exercise of religion, and a civil honest conversation : Luke i. 74, 75, ' That we should serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.' Sometimes the Spirit of God abridgeth all duty into three heads. Titus ii. 12, would you please God and walk with God ; there is the sum of all ; to live ' soberly ' with respect to ourselves, 'righteously' in respect of others, and 'godly' with res])ect to the Lord himself : ' soberly ' in opposition to the lusts of the flesh. You should make straight steps to your feet ; there is need of a great deal of severity ; all your affections should be under a prudent. coercion and restraint. There is too great a wantonness in professors. Men justify sensuality, and call it living to the height of the creature ; the apostle taxeth such, Jude 19, ' Sensual, having not the Spirit.' They pretend to a special singularity of having the Spirit, yet walk to the utmost of christian liberty, yea, and many times exceed their bounds, burden their souls with excesses ; therefore you should walk soberly, take all the creatures with thanksgiving, and use them as medicines to repair nature when it is tired with services, not as fuel to brutish lusts. Then the will of God is, that you should walk 'righteously.' Oh, the sadness of the fraud, oppression, and seeking to aspire and domineer by faction that is among professors ! Now you are to walk righteously ; that is, not only not to snatch from others, but to give of your own, to give and forgive. As you are not to take from others by hooking-in their estates by violent oppressions, so you should also lay out yourselves and part with your worldly comforts for the glory of God and necessities of the saints ; you should walk with holy meekness and patience, not returning injury for injury. The next is ' godliness ; ' you should give God his portion, and bewail it that you have so often denied it him. If our bodies be but defrauded of a night's sleep, we are troubled and complain ; if we feel the pain of hunger, we complain. Oh, do not neglect God and your precious souls I I I'emember St Bernard hath a pretty note of Martha's complaining of Mary, that she sat at Jesus' feet, while herself was employed in all the business of the family. Oh, saith St Bernard, ' That is a happy family where IMartha complains of Mary!' Oh, how few families do thus complain ! The world eats up ovu* time, our care, and our thoughts, and God hath but little share, little worship, and little reverence.