2. How do you behave yourselves in the covenant ? Do you love God as the chiefest good ? Do you seek his glory as the utmost end ? Do you obey him as the highest Lord ? Do you depend on him as your only paymaster ? For this is to give God the glory of a God.
[1.] Do you love him as the chiefest good? After marriage there is embracing ; so when we enter into contract with God, we love God. Eveiy one will say, They love God it w'ere pity they shoidd live else ; but what dost thou do for him ? Dost thou do more for him than any
35*2 SEPvMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeU. LI.
else ? What is it you desire in the world ? his favour, or outward things ? What is your care to get and keep most ? What are those things about which you find joy and grief most exercised ? These are the signs of k)ve ; if the enjoyment of God's favour be the greatest joy and content- raent of your souls, and if the offending of God, and grieving of his ♦Spirit, and the loss of the light of his countenance for that, be the greatest grief of your heart, then you love God as the chiefest good.
[2.] Do you seek his glory as the utmost end ? God would have ais in all things we do, to aim at his glory : 1 Cor. x. 31, ' Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of Ood.' We are set apart for this end and purpose ; and therefore, is your living, a living tc God ?
[3.] Do you obey God as the highest lord and law-giver ? Obedience is necessary ; God will be glorified in his sovereignty, and that is a .great evidence of your interest in him.
[4.] Do you depend upon him as your paymaster and benefactor ? When you do all things as looking for your reward from God, it is a great evidence : Kom. ii. 29, ' He is a Jew which is one inwardly, whose praise is not of men, but of God.' Is your heart taken up with ;l:lie praise of God, the approbation of God, and the rewards of God ?
But if all this will not help you to judge your hearts, there are but two things will give you comfort, and that is your own choice, and your <'jwn resignation. Your choice — Do you choose God for your portion ? though you cannot say, God hath chosen you, and that he is yours, -^yet will you choose him ? Are you resolved you will not be satisfied without him ? Will you not be put off" with anything besides God ? And then, do you resign up yourselves to him ? Do you say, Lord f I will be thine, I will not be mine own ? As that nation that came to ■the Komans, and they refused to help them, they came with this plea, If you will not look upon us as your allies, look upon us as your vassals and subjects, as we resolve to be ; so do you by an importunate faith thus fasten yourselves upon God, and say, Lord ! if thou wilt not iionour me, love me, bless me as thine ; I am resolved to be thine, and ef I perish, one must perish that desires to be thine. When you thus force yourselves as it were upon the Lord, that is all that is left for the srelief of your souls, and to evidence your happy state.
SERMON LI.
By faith Ahraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac ; and he that Imd received the 'promises offered up his only-hegotten son, of whom it %ms said, That in Isaac shall thy seed he called : accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from tvhence also he received him in afg^cre — Heb. xi. 17-19.
This chapter is the chronicle of faith, or a record of the heroical acts which that grace had produced in all ages ; or, if you will, the history of tlie most eminent believers, that ever have been in the world. When
Vers. 17-19.] sermons upon Hebrews xi. 35S
lie had spokeu of the patriarchs in common, lie cometh to speak of them in particular, and beginnetli with Abraham, who in this glorious constellation shineth forth as a star of the first magnitude, and there- fore is fitly styled the father of the faithful. And among all the acts of Abraham's faith nothing was more eminent than the offering of his son Isaac, that I have chosen to propound to your imitation ; and the rather because Abraham was tried, not only for a proof of his own sin- cerity, but for a rare example to all future generations. In these verses you have three circumstances.
1. An occasion for the exercise of Abraham's faith — JVJien he was tried.
2. The greatness of the trial — He offered up Isaac, and he that had leceived the promises ofered up his onhj-hegotten son ; of ichom it was said. That in Isaac shall thy seed he called.
3. The work of faith, or his behaviour under this trial — Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead ; from ivhence cdso he received him in a figure.