It is not enough that
you lead a moral life, or that you continue in your present position.
You are required to advance. You have been pledged to God; and to
fulfill this pledge you must be His in heart. You _must choose_ His
service. You must take Christ's yoke upon you and dedicate yourselves to
Him. Nothing short of this will fulfill your covenant vows or insure
your enjoyment of its blessings. As to receding, that is utterly
inadmissible. You have been put in this relation by those who loved you
and had the right, nay, were commanded of God, to dispose of you in this
manner. You cannot then evade it. You may say you never gave it your
consent, and that it is hard to be thus bound to act contrary to your
natural inclinations; but it is right, and you cannot help it. You are
in this position, and you cannot break away but at the peril of your
salvation; nay, without the certainty of perdition. But it is not hard,
or cruel, to require you to love and obey God. You were created for
this, and your nature will never attain to its perfection until you
fulfill this its noblest destiny. A hard thing to do right! A grievous
thing to be saved from the pollution of sin and the very gulf of
perdition! A hard thing to be taken under divine protection; to be
enriched with God's blessing; to be numbered among his people on earth
and ultimately admitted to his kingdom in heaven! Impossible! You did
not think it; you did not mean to urge this as an objection to your most
obvious duty.
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