Romans 12:1

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Ver. 1. I beseech] Volumus et iubemus we wish and we order, became the pope's style, A. D. 606.

By the mercies of God] His manifold mercies, δια των οικτιρμων. Per miserationes amplificationis causa. (Beza.) We that have received so many mercies, must not only servire Deo, sed et adulate, serve God but even worship him, saith Tertullian. Mercy calls for duty; deliverance commands obedience, and there is so milch disingenuity in the contrary, that holy Ezra thinks heaven and earth would be ashamed of it,Ezra 9:13,14. The cords of kindness are called "the cords of a man,"Hosea 11:4; rational motives befitting the nature of a man. So that to sin against mercy is to sin against humanity; it is bestial, and fits a man for destruction, Romans 9:22; like as when medicine which should remove the disease, doth co-operate with it, then death comes with the more pain and speed. No excess more dangerous than that of bread: no judgment more terrible than that of mercy despised and abused. Abused mercy turns into fury. Patientia laesa fit furor.

That ye present] As they of old did their sacrifices at the altar. With the burnt offering, which signified the sacrificing of the flesh, was joined the sin offering, that is, Christ. Faith applies Christ to the believer, and the believer to Christ.

Your bodies] That is, your whole person. Cainistce sunt, saith Luther, offerentes non persoham, sed opus personae. They are Cainists that offer to God the work done, but do not offer themselves to God.

A living sacrifice] In the old law they had many kinds of sacrifices killed and offered. Now, saith Origen, instead of a ram we kill our ireful passions; instead of a goat our unclean affections; instead of flying fowls our idle thoughts, &c.