and his declared will, is to be safe in Christ; it is to be under his gracious care, it is to be one of his children, it is to be an heir of glory.

But this is not all. The passage obviously means, Present yourselves a living sacrifice to God. While it requires us to resign ourselves absolutely to the whole will of God, it calls upon us to give him all our faculties, and to devote our affections to him. He has planted in us the powers of fear, of hope, of desire, of delight, of love it is his will that all these affections, especially the master affection, love, should be occupied chiefly with him; we are to love him supremely, and all the rest will follow. "Give yourselves up to God," is the language of his command; "give your heart up entirely to your Maker; let him be the object of supreme adoration ; love him, be grateful to him; and more than any other object engrosses your affections let him engross them." He who yields himself to God, yields all his property, his influence, his time, whatever he possesses; for it is God's. Men may endeavour to shrink from the obligation, but the obligation remains unchanged. If we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, we are his property, we and all we have. Never has the Christian the least right—and he must know he has none-to employ a minute, to employ the least fraction of his property, to employ any of his influence, his reason, his powers of body, or any thing that he possesses, except just as his Maker wills: and if the Lord has given a full direction of his will respecting the appropriation of all, then must the Christian appropriate them just as the Lord wills. This it is to yield ourselves to God: it is an easy yoke, a light burden, the road to happiness, the path of peace; for it is Wisdom's way, and all her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

Brethren, when we reflect on the past year, comparing our conduct with this brief but energetic description of what it ought to be, "Yield yourselves unto God"-do we not find abundant cause for the deepest regret? How much is there still of reluctance to live for God! How much is there yet remaining of that independence of heart which is the source of human sorrow! But if in this past year we find abundant cause for regret, is it to last through the year on which we are now entering? Just in proportion as we view with sorrow our many defects, ought we with resolution and earnestness show that we desire during the year on which we are now entering, that we may obtain a prompt and decisive improvement. Do you, Christian brethren, feel your weakness? Do you feel how

difficult it is, infirm as you are in yourselves, and placed in an evil world, to yield yourselves according to the divine command? Yes, my brethren, without One to help us this command would be unattended to by us: but the very voice that calls us to yield ourselves to God was the voice that summoned the dead man from his shroud and from his grave, and he came forth; it is that voice that said to the palsied arm, "Be stretched out," and its strength immediately revived; it is the same voice which bade his people of old to march through the bosom of the sea, and it cleft asunder to receive their hosts. And in that strength what cannot you also do! Receive his command in faith; remember that he gave his people the grace to do all this. If he gives the command to faith, he triumphs in that faith. It may be difficult, but there is a blessing in the achievement. O, how sweet, if we are able, in any measure, with fulness of purpose, to yield ourselves unto God. From this time consider solemnly the extent of the command; fix your minds upon this duty in all its real extent as applicable to yourselves. Let there be no wavering or hesitation: let each of us say to himself, "This is what I must be; I have no choice left; this is the way to my final peace; this is the only way in which to have a good conscience, and in which a peaceful mind may be maintained. It is the will of my God, my benefactor, my Redeemer, my chosen portion, my all: how can I have any will different from his? He has said that I must yield myself to him: by his help I will." Then often reflect on the numerous reasons why you should fulfil this command; and if it seem difficult, remember he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust; and that, as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. Watch every effort after improvement, marking every secret resolve to do his will; and though, perhaps, the experience of another year shall not answer fully your hopes, yet still there is One above, who, having given us his Son, will with that gift bestow the pledge of all we need, and that he will listen to each resolution and to any prayer that is addressed to him, to fulfil his will.

The command in our text appears by the context distinctly to be addressed to the servants of God. But let me in conclusion remind those who may never hitherto have yielded themselves unto God, that it is not addressed to the servants of God alone. As it stands in the context, it may be a command specially addressed to his people; and there are those who would abstain from addressing the command to any others, saying, How is the command to do a spi

ritual act, to be obeyed by those who have no disposition to fulfil it? If that were a just reason why a sinner should not be thus addressed, it is a just reason with regard to all of us; for it is a command wholly beyond our inclination to obey. But let it be ever remembered, that it is not to be obeyed in our own strength; our obligation is not measured by our moral obedience, otherwise duty might vanish from earth, and rebellion from God would become universal. Therefore it must be addressed to sinners, because it is the obligation of our perfect nature, and the obligation of a perfect being, however that nature and that being may have become depraved. What Adam was bound to do in serving and loving God, that you and I are bound to do. We are bound, because the law is perfect; we are bound, because the claims of God are just. We may lose all that there was of good in our nature, and become wholly depraved in heart; that loss is our crime, and will bring our punishment.

The Apostle James especially and expressly addresses the same command to sinners as it is now addressed by St. Paul to believers: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded"—those who have no fixed purpose to serve God. Long before that had the Almighty urged the same duty by the prophet Ezekiel: "But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?". Those who are about to die, those who are perishing in sin, those who are rebelling against the Lord, are called to make them a new heart, and to renew a right spirit within them; these are called to break off from their transgressions, and to turn to God; these are commanded to draw nigh to God, that he may draw nigh to them; and, in language precisely similar to our text, to submit themselves to God.

Therefore, my dear brethren, if there be any amongst you to-day, who are conscious that you have never fulfilled these injunctions, I beseech you to remember that no weakness which you feel, no indisposition which you experience, can in the least diminish your obligation to obey them. You are bound this day to serve God; you are bound from this moment to be his servants, and subject to

his will, and have been all your lives. "Submit yourselves to me," is God's language to you this day by my voice, and I beseech you, in his name, that you do not make light of it: if you do, then remember that every day are you contracting fresh guilt before God; every hour is an hour of crime; every breath you draw is drawn in sin; you are every day refusing almighty mercy, you are every day trifling with almighty goodness, you are every day defying almighty vengeance. It is not safe, my brethren, to delay for another instant; and when so right to bethink you seriously of your condition as at the commencement of another year? One year has rolled away, seeing you living in rebellion against God; will another year pass in the same manner? Do you mean to live through this year without coming to God? The fact that you have lived so many years in this state is a fearful presentiment of what you will do hereafter: this new year will, perhaps, be added to your crimes. And what, my beloved brethren, have you spent and wasted already of God's? Is childhood passed-that happy state in which the mind is so docile, and in which the heart is so easily impressed; is it passed, and are you still unconverted? Is youth passed, too—that time for leisure and reflection, when there are so few engrossing duties, and when there is so much time for personal improvement; is that gone too, that blessed time in which conversion so frequently takes place, and are you still unconverted? Is vigorous manhood gone too-the time. of action, the only time in which you can most usefully serve God, and are you still unconverted, with nothing but the mere dregs of life remaining? My brethren, what have you lost! How many years have been wasted-what opportunities have been slighted! What, during all these years, must be your accumulation of guilt before God, because you would not yield yourselves to his service! And now what is before you? Will this year be added to the past? Is it not reasonable to yield yourselves to God? Is there any one whose feelings are so blunted, or whose conscience is so scared, that he can say this moment, "It is not my duty to yield myself to the will of my Maker?" Every thing would contradict the sentiment if it arose for a moment in the heart; every man feels that his heart is wholly perverted-that he ought to be the Lord's. Do you feel that you will not yield yourselves? Is that the feeling of mind of any person who has lived ten, fifteen, twenty, forty, years without loving and serving God? Are you resolved that you will still do your own pleasure rather than the pleasure of God? What rebellion is that! You will offend against God! What rebellion is that, when

God is loading you with his favours daily, and is willing to make you happy, that you should deliberately say, I will not so much as strive to give my whole heart and my whole life up to God! Is there any one who will go from this house of prayer, and will go to the ordinary employments of life, and say, I will not yield my whole heart and my whole life up to God? If you do so you must know that your sentence will be just, whatever that sentence is.

But perhaps you say, I cannot do it. You do not feel so daring and defying that you will venture to say, "I cannot do it: I wish that a thing so impossible might take place; I wish I could go from this church to give up my heart to God, and to serve him the rest of my days: I wish I could receive the whole Gospel, and that he might approve all my future course: but I cannot." And where is the hinderance? "I cannot:" what is the meaning of that answer? I cannot-I love sin too much; I am too indifferent to my Maker's commands; I am too much bound down by the things of time; I am so wholly absorbed by earth, that I cannot; I have no love to God; I have lost all that was holy in my nature; and therefore I cannot. And does this diminish guilt? Diminish it, perhaps it may; bad as this condition is, it is not so daring, it is not so full of corruption as to determine upon not making the slightest effort. But, brethren, I entreat you not to be deceived; for there is in all this no excuse whatever: you must know the hinderance to be in your heart; and the only thing that hinders being at once saved and blessed in Christ, can be no sufficient allegation at the bar of judgment why you would not. And therefore I do entreat you, if you would be happy in eternity with those who are Christians around you, if you would be brought as one family into the presence of our Father in heaven for ever, I beseech you turn all the difficulties in your way, and the corruption which seems to pervade your whole soul, turn them into a more powerful inducement for seeking the interposition of the Divine Being who came to seek and to save those who were lost, those who were furthest gone from holiness, happiness, and heaven. You are commanded to yield yourselves to God, because it is your duty; but you have lost the disposition to it: seek it from Him; depend only on the work of your Saviour for your acceptance; depend only on the grace of the Spirit for your conversion; depend only on the Almighty God for your everlasting welfare. Plead as a humble suppliant before him till his everlasting arms are placed around him for your safety; and you shall hear h'm say, though agitated by many a doubt, "Fear not; I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward."