suffice for a full consideration of them ; nor does my present subject require more than a brief notice of what he inculcated as due,
1. To God—
[It was not " a divided heart " that he called on men to offer to their God and Saviour : he taught them to surrender up themselves as living sacrifices to him; and to be as entirely devoted to him, as a victim is when offered upon the altar. As for our own ease, pleasure, interest, he would not have us consult them for a moment, in comparison of, and still less in opposition to, the will of God : " No man," says he, " 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, and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living f." And this duty he binds upon us by the strongest of all obligations, even that of redeeming love, which it were most criminal to resist : "Ye are not your own : ye are bought with a price : therefore glorify God with your body and your spirit, which are God'sg." He would have the whole spirit, soul, and body, sanctified unto the Lord'1."]
2. To man —
[This duty, also, is co-extensive with the former, only in subordination to God, and with a view to his gloiy. There is nothing which we are not to do for man, nor any thing which we are not willingly to suffer for him, if only we may be in- strumental to the promoting of his spiritual and eternal welfare. And the Apostle inculcates this with the same precision and force as the former : " Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." (We are to forget self, with a view to his benefit, as much as we are with a view to God's glory.) " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus ; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man : and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross1." Did our blessed Lord, who was God equal with the Father, empty himself of all his glory, and suffer the most excruciating tor- ments, for the salvation of men? There is nothing, then, which we also should not be ready either to do or suffer for the welfare of their souls.
f Rom. xiv. 7 — 9.
s 1 Cor. vi. 20.
h 1 Thess. v. 23.