595.] vows TO BE PERFORMED. 43.')
The least that we can do is, " to render praises to the Lord :" and this we should do,
1. In a way of devout acknowledgment —
[This was the way in which David performed his vows : " I will go into thy house with bumt-oiferings : I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered and my mouth hath spoken when T was in trouble. I will offer unto thee burnt-sacrifices of fatlings, with the incense of rams ; I will offer bullocks with goats ^" This was fitted to the dispensation under which he lived : but under the Christian dispensation nothing of this kind is required : the sacrifice of a grateful heart is that which alone will prove acceptable to our God. For so it is said; " Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High''." And say, whether there be not abundant ground for praise and thanksgiving? That you were ever dedicated to the Lord in baptism, have you not reason to be thankful for that ? Think of the heathen world, who in their infancy are devoted only to some base idol, which, so far from being able to confer a benefit on them, is not capable of even protecting itself from being broken to pieces and cast into the fire : how much better is it to be consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is " able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him ! " Again, to have taken upon yourselves now all your baptismal vows, in order to the being confirmed and strengthened by Almighty God for the performance of them ; what is this but to have set off already in your Christian course, and to be proceeding, as it were, in the high road to heaven ? As for those who have been fed from time to time with the body and blood of Christ, and have been thereby established, strengthened, settled in the ways of God, methinks " the very stones would cry out against them," if they did not sing and shout aloud for joy. To all of you, then, I recommend the adoption of David's pur- pose, and of David's words : " What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me ? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. 1 will pay my vows now in the presence of all his people. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. / ivill pay my vows now in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the LordM"]
2. In away of total surrender of yourselves to God — [This, beyond a doubt, is the true object of all our vows;
and without this no transient purposes or emotions will be of
i Ps. Ixvi. 13—15. 1' Ps. 1. 13, 14.
1 Ps. c-;vi. 12—14, 17—19. F F ^l