or reputation, or liberty, are to be welcomed by us, and gloried in, as means of honouring and glorifying our incarnate Godp. In a word, " we should neither live unto ourselves, nor die unto ourselves ; but live and die unto God only ; so that, both living and dying, we may be the Lord's h."]
But let us mark more particularly the beauty and emphasis of,
II. The exhortation itself —
St. Paul presses upon us the performance of this duty,
1. From the obligations we owe to God —
[In all the preceding part of this epistle, St. Paul has been unfolding the great mystery of redemption as wrought out for us by the Lord Jesus Christ, and as applied to us by the Spirit, according to the eternal counsels of the Father. By the consideration of these " mercies " he urges us to give up ourselves to God. It was for this very end that these mercies were vouchsafed to us. Wherefore did our blessed Saviour "give himself for us?" Was it not " to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works ? " And to what did the Father pre- destinate us, but to be conformed to the image of his Son?" Let these ends then be answered in us : and let us remember, that, " having been bought with a price, we are not our own ; but are bound to glorify God with our bodies and our spirits, which are his1."]
2. From the nature of the service itself—
[It is good in itself. — " God calls us not unto uncleanness, but to holiness." He says, " Be ye holy ; for I am holy." The sacrifices under the law were to be without spot or blemish : and such also are we to be : " We should present ourselves a living sacrifice, holy." True it is, that till we are renewed by the Holy Spirit we cannot be holy : but it is equally true, that, when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ aright, he will give us his Holy Spirit, by whom we shall be " created after God in righteousness and true holiness," and " be changed into Christ's image, from glory to glory."
It is also " acceptable to God.'''' — Nothing in the universe is so pleasing to him as a broken and contrite heart. As for all the legal sacrifices, he had no delight in them, any farther than they typified the Lord Jesus, and were offered with a reference to him. They were even odious to him,
s 1 Pet. iv. 12—14. h Rom. xiv. 7, 8. '1 Cor. vi. 20.