even to the last drop'^. But of our sacrifice, we both eat the flesh and drink the blood : and it is only by so doing that we can obtain eternal life. Indeed on that body and blood we are to feed continually : it is the daily feast of our souls : as our Lord has said, " My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed^" Having been offered by our Lord Jesus Christ himself on the altar of his Deity, (for he is at once the Altar, the Sacrifice, and the Priest,) it is accepted for us : and it is both our duty and our privilege to eat of it. But whilst we thus partake of this altar, we must ourselves offer sacrifices upon it, even " our whole selves, as living sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ^." To present these is,
I. Our duty —
Two kinds of sacrifices we are to offer : those,
1. Of praise to God —
[Praise is most justly due to Him from all his creatures; but more especially from those who have been favoured w^ith a revelation of his will, and with the ordinances of his grace. The Jews, dark as their dispensation was, were infinitely in- debted to God for its. But infinitely greater are our obliga- tions to him for the fuller manifestations of his mercy to us in Christ Jesus, and for that better covenant of which Jesus is the
Surety and the Mediator " We therefore should offer
to our God the sacrifices of praise continually." We should do it, not only at the appointed seasons of morning and even- ing, which in a lax sense may be called " continually '\" but throughout the whole day : not indeed in the way of a formal service, but in the frame and habit of our minds'. This by the prophet is called " the calves of our lips''," and, in our text, " the fruit of our lips ;" because, as calves and first-fruits of the earth were offered in sacrifice under the law, so are praises under the Gospel dispensation. Under both dispensations, the duty of acknowledging our obligations to God, and our depend- ence on him, is the same : and therefore, as the Jews confessed both the one and the other by their offerings, so are we to do in ours, "giving thanks to his name'."
But it is by Christ only that our offerings can come up with
d Deut. xii. 2.3—25 « John vi. 53—55. f Rom. xii. 1.
g Rom. iii. 2. ^ Exod. xxix. 42.
> 1 Thess. V. 16 — 18. "^ Hos. xiv. 2. ' uf.io\uyovv7wy.