unconditionally and with the full consent of the heart, upon the sovereign mercy of God in Christ Jesus. The mercy of God in Christ is your only hope, and on this you must rely with the full consent of the heart for pardon and eternal life, or you must perish. You cannot give your heart to God reluctantly or partially. If you linger, hesitate, or desire to make the least reserve, he will not accept it. He will have the whole of your heart, or none of it; and have it too with its full consent. God is an infinite sovereign, and deserves the whole. He regards a partial surrender as no surrender a partial service, as no service. giving yourself to God, you must not make conditions, but accept cheerfully his own conditions. You must fall with all your heart into his hands, and be willing that he should dispose of

In

ure.

you according to his sovereign pleasUnconditional submission to the will of God, is the turning point in your salvation. Sink or swim, live or die, you must yield yourself, with the full consent of the heart, to his sovereign pleasure.

But, do you ask how a sinner feels when he falls unconditionally upon the mercy of God? I reply, he feels that he deserves to die; that he is utterly undone; that he is in a helpless and perishing condition; and, finding that he cannot save himself, and seeing no other way of escape, he casts himself, as his last resort, with all his guilt and helplessness, entirely upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

This is the point to which you and every sinner must be brought, before Christ will be formed in the soul, the hope of glory. You must cease

from attempting to save yourself. Save yourself you never can; for you are utterly undone. You must renounce your sins, and every earthly dependence, and cast yourself just as you are, a poor, helpless sinner, upon God's pardoning mercy in Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER VII.

THE HEART MUST BE SURRENDERED TO GOD FOR ETERNITY.

GOD requires your heart, because he deserves it; and he deserves it not for a day, nor for a year, nor during the period of your earthly existence merely, but for a whole eternity. God is unchangeable in all his perfections, and unchangeably worthy of your strongest love, your purest homage, your unceasing gratitude and praise. If it be right, that you should glorify God in loving and serving him with all your heart for a single hour, it is right that you should glorify him by loving and serving him a million hours, and throughout

eternity upon the same principle. The consecration of yourself to God must be final and eternal. In giving up your heart to Him, you take a step which you must never retrace; you make a promise to love and obey him, which you must never break; you enter into a covenant, with him, not to be dissolved, to be his only, and his for

ever.

When with a reconciled heart you open your eyes upon the holiness and glory of God, you will love him, because you choose to love him; and as you discover more and more of his infinite excellence, and sink deeper and deeper into his love, your desire will become stronger and stronger to comprehend, with all saints, what is the length and breadth, and depth and height of his goodness, and to know