222 FIFTH SERMON. give unto him of that which cost us nothing, but go to Lebanon for all our sacrifices, covet earnestly the best gifts, press forward and labour to perfect holiness in the fear of God. Give unto him our lilies, the beau- ties of our minority ; and our cedars, the strength of our youth and our olives, and grapes, and corn, and wine ; whatever gifts he hath bestowed on us, use them unto his service and honour again ; not content ourselves with the form of godliness, with the morality of virtue, with the outside of duties, with the seeds and beginnings of holiness, (he has none who thinks he hath enough,) but strive who shall outrun one another unto Christ, as Peter and John did towards his sepuh chre. It was a high pitch which Moses aimed at, when he said, " I beseech thee show me thy glory," Exod. xxxiii. Is. Nothing would satisfy him but fulness and satiety itself. Be sure that all your graces come from Sion, and from Lebanon, that they grow in Immanuel's land ; till Christ own them, God will not accept them. Moral virtues and outward duties, grapes of Sodom, may commend us unto men ; no- thing but inward, spiritual, and rooted graces, the grapes of Lebanon, will commend us unto God. To do only the outward works of duty, without the in- ward principle, is at best but to make ourselves like those mixed beasts, elephants and camels, in the civil law, which, though they do the work of tame beasts, yet have the nature of wild ones. Moral virtue, with- out spiritual piety, doth not commend any man unto God ; for we are not accepted unto him, but in Christ, and we are not in Christ but by the Holy Spirit.
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