III. To help you in this work of self-resignation, often consider: 1. That if you were your own, you were most miserable. You could not support, preserve, or provide for yourselves: who should save you in the hour of temptation and distress? Alas! if you are humbled christians, you know so much of your own insufficiency, and feel yourselves such a daily burden to yourselves, that you have sure enough of yourselves ere now: and beg of God, above all your enemies, to save you from yourselves; and of all judgments, to save you from being forsaken of God, and given up to yourselves. 2. Remember that none in the world hath sufficient power, wisdom, and goodness, to take the full care and charge of you, but God; none else can save you, or sanctify you, or keep you alive one hour: and therefore it is your happiness and honour that you are his. 3. His right is absolute, and none hath right to you but he; none else did create you, redeem you, or regenerate you. 4. He will use you only in safe and honourable services, and to no worse an end, than your endless happiness. 5. What you deny him, or steal from him, you give to the devil, the world, and the flesh; and do they better deserve it? 6. You are his own in title, whether you will or not; and he will fulfil his will upon you. Your consent and resignation is necessary to your good, to ease you of your cares, and secure you from present and eternal misery.
[Sidenote: Of subjection to God as our supreme Governor.]
_Grand Direct._ VI. Remember that God is your sovereign King, to rule and judge you; and that it is your rectitude and happiness to obey and please him. Labour therefore to bring your souls and bodies into the most absolute subjection to him, and to make it your delight and business sincerely and exactly to obey his will.
Having resigned yourselves absolutely to God as your Owner, you are next to subject yourselves absolutely to God as your Governor or King. How much of our religion consisteth in this, you may see in the nature of the thing, in the design of the law and word of God, in the doctrine and example of Jesus Christ, in the description of the last judgment, and in the common consent of all the world. Though love is the highest work of man, yet it is so far from discharging us from our subjection and obedience, that it constraineth us to it most powerfully and most sweetly, and must itself be judged of by these effects.[96] "If ye love me, keep my commandments. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. If any man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings," John xiv. 15, 21, 23, 24. "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you," chap. xv. 10, 14. "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them," chap. xiii. 17. "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous," 1 John v. 3. "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandment, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he is in him, ought himself also to walk, even as he walked. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doth righteousness is born of him," chap. ii. 4-6, 29. "Whosoever abideth in him, sinneth not: whosoever sinneth, hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin, is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin: for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doth not righteousness, is not of God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight," chap. iii. 6-10, 22. "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city," Rev. xxii. 14.
I set together these testimonies of the Scripture, that the stream of divine authority may carry you to a lively sense of the necessity of obedience.
I shall here first tell you what this full subjection is, and then I shall direct you how to attain it.
[Sidenote: Subjection what.]