OF GOD-RRDERMRR. 275 terest in their minds ; their fleshly felicity is nearer to their hearts, and this world is never unfeignedly renounced. 4. Sincere self -resignation is resolved upon deliberation, and not a rash, inconsiderate promise, which is afterwards reversed. The illuminated see that perfection in God, that vanity in the creature, that desirable sufficiency in Christ, and emptiness in themselves, that they firmly resolve to cast themselves on him, and be his alone; and though they cannot please him as they would, they will die before they will change their Master; but with self-deceivers it is not thus. 5. Sincere resignation is absolute and unreserved; such do not capitulate and condition with Christ, ' I will be thine so far, and no further, so thou wilt but save my estate, or credit, or life.' But self-deceivers have ever such reserves in their hearts, though they do not express them, nor, perhaps, themselves discern them. They have secret limitations, expressions, and conditions ; they have ever a salve for their worldly safety or felicity, and will rath- er venture upon a threatened misery which they see not, though everlastingly, than upon a certain temporary misery which they see. These deep reserves are the soul of hypocrisy. 6. Sincere self -resignation is fixed and habituate : it is not forced by a moving sermon, or a dangerous sickness, and then forgot- ten and laid aside; but it is become a fixed habit in the soul. It is otherwise with self -deceivers : though they will oblige them- selves to Christ with vows, in a time of fear and danger, yet so loose is the knot, that when the danger seems over, their bonds fall off. It is one thing tobe affrighted, and another to have the heart quite changed and renewed. It is one thing to hire ourselves with a master in our necessities, and yet serve ourselves, or run away, and another thing to nail our ears to his door, and say, ' I love thee, and therefore will not depart.' So much for the first mark of one that lives not as his own, but as,God's, to wit, sincere self-resignation. The second is this. 2. As the heart is thus devoted to God, so also is the life, where men do truly take themselves for his. And that will appear in these three particulars 1. The principal study and care ofsuch men is how to please God, ant promote his interest, and do his work. This is it that they most seriously mind and contrive. Their own felicity they seek in this way ; 1 Cor. vii. 32. 30. Rom. vi. 11. 13. 16. Col.i. 10. and iii. 1 -3. Phil. i. 20, 21. 24. ' It is not so with the unsanctified: they drive on another design. Their own work is principally minded, and their carnal interest preferred to Christ's. They live to the flesh, and make provision for it, to satisfy its de- sires; Rom. xiii. 14.
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