2. Another improvement is to engage and encourage us to make those returns of love, worship, and obedience, service and glory, which are expected and required of us. There is something which reflecteth from us upon God, from all this grace and mercy, which God dispensed by the Mediator. We must be for him, and we must be by him. It is more than if it were said. We must serve him, glorify him. We in our whole capacity ; we must be whatever we are, and do whatever we do, to God, and for God, by the Mediator.
SERMON UPON I CORINTHIANS VIII. 6, 273
[1.] We must enter into covenant with him, and give the hand to the Lord, and consent to be his : Isa, xliv. 5, ' One shall say, I am the Lord's ; another shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord.' They should enter their names to God to be entered into his muster-roll, or listed among the faithful that belong to him, and are listed for his service; a member of that body whereof Christ is head, a subject of that kingdom whereof Christ is king : 2 Cor. viii. 5, it is said, ' But first gave their own selves unto the Lord ; ' Eom. xii. 1, ' Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.' Christ gave himself a sin-offering, and we give up ourselves a thank- offering.
[2.] There must be a strong love to God ever at work in our hearts, levelling and directing all our actions to his glory ; and this love must be an impression of the love showed to us by Christ, a thankful sense of his mercies and benefits : 1 John iv. 19, ' We love him, because he loved us first ; ' 2 Cor. v. 14, ' The love of Christ constraineth us.' Love is an earnest bent and inclination of heart towards our chief good and last end, and its effect and work is to devote ourselves to his service, will, and honour, longing after more of God, and continually seeking for it : Ps. Ixiii. 1, * 0 God, thou art my God ; early will I seek thee : njy soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.' A soul that hath chosen God for its portion cannot want him, nor be long without him, nor satisfied with any partial enjoyment of him, therefore still seeketh for more. The main work of this life is a desirous seeking after God, and getting nearer to their last end by all the means which God hath appointed us to use.
[3.] There must be a constant study and care to please, honour, and glorify this God : Acts xxvii. 23, 'Whose I am, and whom I serve.' If we be dedicated to God, there must be conscience of our dedication, that we may live unto God : and this not now and then, but in our whole course. All our faculties, bodies, souls : 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20, ' What ! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? ye arc bought with a price ; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.' Estates : Kom. xiv. 7-9, ' For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself : for whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord : whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose again, and revived, that he might be Lord both of dead and living;' Phil. i. 21, * To me to live is Christ.' All our actions, not only in solemn acts of worship, but in our ordinary conversations, must be directed to him : Zech. xiv. 20, 21, 'In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness to the Lord ; and the ])ots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness to the Lord of hosts.'
VOL. XVIII.
SERMON UPON 2 CORINTHIANS IV. 18.
WJiile we look not at the things ivhich are seen, hut at the things which are not seen ; for the things lohich are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. — 2 Cor. iv. 18.
In the context the apostle is giving an account why he fainted not under the labours and afflictions of the gospel. There is a threefold reason given —
1. The present benefit of afflictions, ver. 16. As much as these labours and afflictions did diminish and infringe the comforts of the animal life, so much the state of the spiritual life was advanced and increased. Oh ! it is a blessed thing when the inward man growsth more fresh and lively.
2. Because those afflictions did increase the hope of the life of glory, and were a blessed means to make it more sure and nearer ; where there is a perfect opposition between the present and future state. Here ' an affliction for a moment ; ' there ' an eternal weight of glory.' Here afflictions are light ; there it is ^dpo<; S0I779, a state that will bear weight, virep^okr^v eh v7rep/3o\rjv, an excellently excellent : ' A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.'