EXHORTATION TO BELIEVE. 259 and in bondage. If you could do as well without them as with them ; if conscience would be quiet, and hope of eternity hold out, you would omit them for ever. This makes all your obedience burdensome, and you cry out in your thoughts, "Behold, what a weariness is it !" The service of God is the only drudgery àf your Iives which you dare not omit, and delight not to perform. From this wretched frame nothing can deliver you but this closing with forgiveness. This will give you such motives, such encouragements as will greatly influence you. It will give you freedom and cheerfulness in all duties of Gospel obedience. You will find a constrain- ing power in the love of Christ ; a freedom from bon- dage, when the Son truly hath made you free. Faith and love will work genuinely and naturally in your spi- rits ; and that which was your greatest burden will be- come your chief joy. 2 Cor. 6 : 1. Thoughts of the love of God, of the blood of Christ, of the covenant of grace, and sense of pardon in them, will enlarge your hearts and sweeten all your duties. You will find a new life, a new pleasure, a new satisfaction, in all that you do. Have you yet ever understood the saying of the wise man, Prov. 3 : 17, " The ways of wisdom are pleasant- ness, and her paths are peace ?" Have the ways of holiness, of obedience, of duty, been so to you? What- ever you pretend, they are not, they cannot be so whilst you are strangers to that which alone can render them so to you. I speak to them that are under the law. Would you be free from that bondage, that galling yoke in duties of obedience ? Would you have all that you do towards God a delight and pleasantness to you i This, and this alone, will effect it.
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