not come to God only as a Saviour to deliver us, but also as a Lord to govern us : and we must resolve that henceforth " no other Lord shall have dominion over us." Nor must this deter- mination be kept secret : this also must be avowed : we must let it be seen "whose we are, and whom we serve;" and must evince a firmness in his service which neither the terrors nor allurements of the world can ever shake ]
Precisely corresponding with our engagements are,
II. Our covenant advantages —
God affords us ample encouragement to " lay hold on his covenant ;" for he avows his determination,
1. To own us as his people —
[The very moment that we look to Christ as " all our sal- vation and all our desire," God will set his seal upon us as " his peculiar treasure." Just as a person who has bought any thing of great value, regards it from that moment as his own property, and uses all proper methods for the securing the full possession of it, so does God: " he sets apart him that is godly for himself:" he gives " his angels charge over him," and " avouches" him from that day to be " his purchased posses- sion." He " avouches" it, I say, and makes it manifest both to the man himself and to the world around him. To the man himself he gives " a Spirit of adoption, enabling him to cry, Abba, Father," and to ascertain, by " the witness of that Spirit, that he is a child of Godc." To the world around him also he makes it manifest, by enabling him to " walk as Christ walked," and " to shine as a light in the midst of a dark be- nighted world." Instantly does the change in him become apparent, so that his friends and neighbours cannot but confess that he is a new creature: and, though some will ascribe the change to one thing, and some to another, they are constrained to acknowledge, that his new mode of life is such as they can- not attain to, and such as approves itself to be the very work of God himself.]
2. To bestow on us blessings worthy of that rela- tion—
[The first thing which the child of God desires, is holiness: and behold, as soon as ever he embraces the Christian covenant, God engages to make him holy, and to enable him " to keep all his commandments." This is a peculiar point of difference between the Jewish covenant and ours, as we have already observed ; and it is that which is our greatest encouragement under the consciousness we feel of our own weakness. God
c Rom. viii. 15, 16.