not through fire and water yea through death it self yea were it through many deaths to go after him 2. Consider as its due so it is made easie by that his suffering for us our burden that pressed us to hell taken off is not all as nothing that is left to suffer or do our Chains that bounds us over to eternal Death being knock'd off shall we not walk shall we not run in his ways Oh! think what that Burden and Yoke was he hath eased us of how heavy how unsufferable it was and then we shall think what he so truly says that all he lays on is sweet his yoke easie and his burden light Oh! the happy change rescued from the vilest slavery and called to conformity and Fellowship with the Son of God 2. The Nature of this Conformity to shew the nearness of it is exprest in the very same terms as in the pattern it is not a remote resemblance but the same thing even suffering in the flesh But that we may take it right what suffering is here meant it is plainly this ceasing from sin so suffering in the flesh here is not the enduring of afflictions which is a part of a Christians Conformity with his head Christ Rom. 8. But this is a more inward and spiritual suffering it is the suffering and the dying of our Corruption the taking away the life of sin by the death of Christ and that death of his sinless flesh works in the Believer the death of sinful flesh that is the Corruption of his Nature which is so usually in Scripture called flesh Sin makes Man base drowns him in flesh and the lusts of it makes the very Soul become gross and earthly turns it as it were to flesh so the Apostle calls the very Mind that is unrenewed a carnal mind Rom. 8. And what doth the mind of a Natural Man hunt after and run out into from one day and year to another is it not on things of this base World and the concernment of his flesh What would he have but be accommodated to eat and drink and dress and live at ease he minds earthly things savours and relishes them and cares for them examin the most of your pains and time and your strongest desires and most serious thoughts if they go not this way to raise your selves and yours in your Worldly condition yea the highest projects of the greatest natural Spirits are but earth still in respect of things truly spiritual all their State Designs go not beyond this poor life that perishes in the flesh and is daily perishing even while we are busiest upholding it and providing for it present things and this lodge of clay this flesh and its interest take up most of our time and pains the most yea all till that change be wrought the Apostle speaks of till Christ be put on Rom. 13. put ye on the Lord Iesus Christ and then the other will easily follow that follows in the Words make no provision for the flesh to fullfil it in the lusts thereof Once in Christ and then your necessary general care for this natural life will be regulated and moderated by the Spirit And for all unlawful and enormous desires of the flesh you shall be rid of providing for these instead of all provision for the life of the flesh in that sense there is another guest and another life for you now to wait on and furnish for in them that are in Christ that flesh is dead they are frâ—ed from its drudgery he that hath suffered in the flesh hath rested from sin Ceased from sin â—e is at rest from it a Godly Death as thâ—y that die in the Lord rest from their labours he that hath suffered in the flesh and is dead to it dies indeed in the Lord rests from the base turmoil of sin it is no longer his Master As our sin was the cause of Christs death his death is the death of sin in us and that not simply as he bear a moral pattern of it but the real working cause of it hath an effectual influence on the Soul kills it to sin I am crucified with Christ says S. Paul Faith so looks on the death of Christ that it takes the impression of it sets it on the heart kills it unto sin Christ and the Believer do not only become one in law so as his death stands for theirs but are in nature so as his death for sin causes theirs to it Rom. 6. 3. This suffering in the flesh being unto death and such a death Crucifying hath indeed pain in it but what then it must be so like his and the believer like him in willingly enduring it all the pain of his suffering in the flesh his love to us digested and went through it so all the pain to our nature in severing and pulling us from our beloved sins and our dying to them if his love be planted in our hearts that will sweeten it and make us delight in it love desires nothing more than likeness and shares willingly in all with the party loved and above all love this Divine Love is purest and highest and works strongliest that way takes pleasure in that pain and is a voluntary death as Plato calls love it is strong as death makes the strongest body fâ—ll to the ground so doth the love of Christ make the activest and liveliest sinner dead to his sin And as death fevers a Man from his dearest and most familiar friends thus doth the love of Christ and his death flowing from it fever the heart from its most beloved sins I beseech you seek to have your hearts set against sin to hate it to wound it and be dying daily to it Be not satisfy'd unless ye feel an abatement of it and a life within you disdain that base service and being bought at so high a rate think your selves too good to be slaves to any base lust you are called to a more excellent and more honourable service And of this suffering in the flesh we may safely say what the Apostle speaks of the sufferings with and for Christ that the partakers of these sufferings are co-heirs of glory with Christ if we suffer thus with him we shall also be glorified with him if we die with him we shall live with him for ever 3. The actual improvement of this Conformity Arm your selves with the same Mind or thoughts of this Mortification Death taken Naturally in its proper sense being an intire privation of life admits not of degrees but this figurative death this Mortification of the flesh in a Christian is gradual in so far as he is renewed and is animated and acted by the Spirit of Christ he is throughly mortified for this death and that new life joyned with it and here added ver 2. go together and grow together but because he is not totally renewed and there is in him of that corruption still that is here called flesh therefore is
he still asks what you mean by this those things answer not me do ye think I can find Comâ—â—â—â— in them so long as my sin is unpardon'd and there is a 〈◊〉 of Eternal Death standing above my head I feel even an impress of somewhat of that hot Indignation some flashes of it flying and lighting upon the face of my Soul and how can I take pleasure in these things you speak of And though I should be sensless and feel nothing of this all my life yet how soon shall I have done with it and the delights that reach no further and then to have Everlasting burnings Eternity of wrath to enter to how can I be satisfyed with that estate All you offer a Man in this posture is as if ye should set dainty fair and bring musick with it to a Man lying almost pressed to death under great weights and ye bid him eat and be merry but lift not off his pressure you do but mock the Man and add to his misery On the other side he that hath got but a view of his Christ and reads his own pardon in Christs sufferings he can rejoyce in this in the midst of all other sufferings and look on death without apprehension yea with gladness the sting is out Christ hath made all pleasant to him by this one thing that he suffered once for sins Christ hath perfum'd the Cross and the Grave and made all sweet The pardoned Man finds himself light skips and leaps and through Christ strengthning him he can encounter with any trouble If you think to shut in his Spirit within outward sufferings it is now as Sampson in his strength able to carry away the Gates on his back that you would shut one withal yea can submit patiently to the Lords hands in any correction Thou hast forgiven my sin therefore deal with me as thou wilt all is well 1. Learn to consider more deeply and esteem more highly of Christ and his suffering to silence our grumbling at our petty light crosses for so they are in comparison of his will not the great odds of his perfect Innoâ—ency and oâ— his nature and measure of his sufferings will not the sense of that Redemption of our Souls from death by his death will none of these nor all of them argue us into more thankfulness and love to him and patience in our tryals Why will we then be called Christians it is impossible to be fretful and malecontent with the Lord 's dealing with us in any kind till first we have forgot how he dealt with his dearest Son for our sakes But these things are not weigh'd by the most we hear and speak of them but our hearts receive not the impressions of them therefore we repine against our Lord and Father and drown a hundred great blessings in any little touch of trouble that befalls us 2. Seek surer interest in Christ and his suffering than the most either have attained or are aspiring to otherwise all that is here suffered will not ease or comfort thee any thing in any kind of suffering no though thou suffer for a good cause even for his cause still this will be an extraneous foraign thing to thee to tell thee of his sufferings will work no otherwise with thee than some other common story And as in the day of peace thou regardest it no more so in the day of thy trouble thou shalt receive no more comfort from it Other things you esteemed shall have no comfort to speak to you though you persue them with words as Solomon says of the poor Man's friends yet they shall be wanting to you And then you would sure find how happy it were to have this to turn you to that the Lord Jesus suffered for sins and for yours and therefore hath made it a light and comfortable business to you to undergo momentary passing sufferings Days of tryal will come do you not see they are on us already Be perswaded to turn your eyes and desires more towards Christ. This is the thing we would still press the support and happiness of your Souls lyes on it But you will not believe it Oh! that ye knew the comforts and sweetness of Christ. Oh that one would speak that knew more of them were you once but entered into this knowledge of him and the virtue of his sufferings you would account all your days but lost wherein you have not known him and in all times your hearts would find no refreshment like to the remembrance of his love Having somewhat considered these sufferings as the Apostles Argument for his present purpose Now to take nearer notice of the particulars by which he illustrates them as the main point of our Faith and Comfort Of them here two things 1. Their Cause 2. Their Kind Their Cause both their meriting cause and their final cause 1. What in us procured these sufferings unto Christ. 2. What those his suffering procured unto us Our guiltiness brought suffering upon him and his suffering brings us unto God 1. The evil of sin hath the evil of punishment inseparably ty'd to it We have a natural obligation of obedience unto God and he justly urges it so that where the command of his Law is broke the Curse of it presently followeth And though it was simply in the Power of the supream Lawgiver to have dispensed the infliction yet having in his Wisdom purposed to be known a just God in that way following forth the tenor of his Law of necessity there must be a suffering for sin Thus the Angels that kept not their Station falling from it fell into a Dungeon where they are under chains of darkness reserved to the Iudgement of the Great day and Man fell under the sentence of Death But in this is the difference betwixt Man and them they were not of one as parent or common root of the rest but each one fell or stood for himself alone so a part of them only perisht but Man fell altogether so that not one of all the Race could escape condemnation unless some other way of satisfaction be found out And here it is Christ suffered for sins the just for the unjust Father says he I have glorified thee on Earth In this Plot indeed do all the Divine Attributes shine in their full infinite Mercy and immense Justice and Power and Wisdom Looking on Christ as ordained for that purpose I have found a Ransom says the Father one fit to redeem Man a Kinsman one of that very same Stock the Son of Man one able to redeem Man by satisfying me and fullfilling all I lay upon him my Son my only begotten Son in whom my Soul delights And he is willing undertakes all says loe I come c. We are agreed upon the way of this Redemption yea upon the Persons to be redeemed it is not a roving blind Bargain a price paid for we know not to whom Hear his own words Thou hast given the Son
main subject and scope in the foregoing Discourse that death was before called a suffering in the flesh which is in effect the same and therefore though the words may be drawn another way yet its strange that Interpreters have been so far wide of this their genuine and agreeable sense and almost all of them taken in some other intendment To be judged in the flesh In the present sense is to die to sin or that sin die in us and it s thus exprest 1. Suitably tably to the nature of it it is to the flesh a violent death and it is according to a Sentence judicially put against it that guilty and miserable life of sin is in the Gospel adjudged to death there that arrest and sentence is clear and full Rom. 6. 6 c. 8. 13. That sin must die that the Soul may live it must be crucified in us and we to it that we may partake of the Life of Christ and Happiness in him And this is called to be judged in the flesh to have this sentence executed 2. The thing is the rather spoke here under the term of being judged in counter-ballance of that Judgment mentioned immediately before v. 5. The last Judgment of quick and dead wherein they that would not be thus judged but mockt and despised those that were shall fall under a far more terrible Judgment and the sentence of a heavy death indeed everlasting death though they think they shall escape and enjoy liberty in living in sin And that to be judged according to men is I conceive added to signifie the connaturalness of the life of sin to man 's now corrupt nature That men do judge it a death indeed to be severed and pulled from their sins and that a cruel death and the Sentence of it in the Gospel a heavy Sentence a hard Saying to a carnal Heart that he must give up with all his sinful delights must die indeed in self-denial must be separated from himself which is to die if he will be joyned with Christ and live in him Thus men judge that they are judged to a painful death by the Sentence of the Gospel although it is that they may truely and happily live yet they understand it not so They see the death the parting with sin and all its pleasures but the life they see not nor can any know it till partaking of it it is known to him in whom it is it is hid with Christ in God And therefore the opposition here is very fiâ—ly thus represented that the death is according to men in the flesh but the life is according to God in the Spirit As the Christian is adjudged to this death in the flesh by the Gospel so he is lookt on and accounted by carnal men as dead for that he enjoyes not with them what they esteem their life and think they could not live without it one that cannot carrouse and swear with prophane Men is a silly dead Creature good for nothing and he that can bear wrongs and love him that injured him is a poor spiritless fool hath no mettal nor life in him in the World's account thus is he judged according to men in the flesh he is as a dead man but lives according to God in the Spirit dead to men and alive to God as ver 2. Now if this life be in thee it will act all life is in motion and is called an act but most of all active is this most excellent and as I may call it most lively life it will be moving towards God often seeking to him making still towards him as its principle and fountain holy and affectionate thoughts of him sometimes on one of his sweet attributes sometimes on another as the Bee amongst the Flowers And as it will thus act within so outwardly laying hold on all occasions yea seeking out ways and opportunities to be serviceable to thy Lord employing all for him commending and extolling his goodness doing and suffering chearfully for him laying out the strength of desires and parts and means in thy station to gain him Glory If thou be alone then not alone but with him seeking to know more of him and be made more like him if in company then casting about how to bring his name in esteem and to draw others to a love of Religion and Holiness by Speeches as it may be â—it and most by the true behaviour of thy carriage Tender over the Souls of others to do them good to thy utmost thinking each day an hour lost when thou art not busie for the honour and advantage of him to whom thou now livest thinking in the Morning now what may I do this day for my God How may I most please and glorifie him and use my strength and wit and my whole self as not mine but his and then in the evening reflecting O Lord have I seconded these thoughts in reality what glory hath he had by me this day whither went my thoughts and endeavours what busied them most have I been much with God have I adorned the Gospel in my converse with others And if finding any thing done this way to bless and acknowledge him the spring and worker of it If any step aside were it but to an appearance of evil or if any fit season of good hath escapt thee unprofitably to check thy self and to be grieved for thy sloth and coldness and see if more love would not beget more diligence Try it by sympathy and antipathy which follows the nature of things as we see in some Plants and Creatures that cannot grow cannot agree together and others that do favour and benefit mutually If thy Soul hath an aversion and reluctancy against holiness this is an evidence of this new Nature and Life Thy heart rises against wicked ways and speeches oaths and cursings and rotten communication yea thou canst not endure unworthy discourses wherein most spend their time findest no relish in the unsavory societies of such as know not God canst not sit with vain persons but findest a delight in those that have the image of God upon them such as partake of that Divine Life and carry the evidences of it in their carriage David did not disdain the fellowship of the Saints and that was no disparagement to him he implies in the name he gives them Psal. 16. The excellent ones the Magnifick or Noble and that word is taken from one that signifies a robe or noble Garment so he thought them Nobles and Kings as well as he and had robes royal and therefore Companions of Kings A spiritual eye looks on spiritual dignity and esteems and loves them that are born of God how low soever be their natural birth and breeding The Sons of God have of his Spirit in them and are born to the same inheritance where all shall have enough and they are tending homewards by the conduct of the same Spirit that is in them so that there must be amongst them a
the strength of his God Psal. 18. Men's resolutions fall to nothing and as a Prisoner that offers to escape and does not is bound faster thus usually it is with Men in their self purposes of forsaking sin they leave out Christ in the work and so remain in their Captivity yea it grows upon them and while we press them to free themselves and shew not Christ to them we put them upon an impossiblity but a look to him makes it feisable and easie Faith in him and that love to him which faith begets breaks through and surmounts all it s the powerful love of Christ that kills the love of sin and kindles the love of holiness in the Soul makes it a willing sharer in his death and so a happy partaker of his life for that always follows and must of necessity as here is added He that hath suffered in the flâ—sh hath ceased from sin is crucified and dead to it but he looses nothing yea it is his great gain the loss of that deadly life of the flesh for a new spiritual life a life indeed living unto God that is the end why he so dies that he may thus live That he no longer should live c. and yet live far better live to the will of God He that is one with Christ by believing he is one throughout in Death and Life as Christ rose so he that is dead to sin with him through the power of his Death rises to that new life with him through the power of his Resurrection And those two are our Sanctification which whosoever do partake of Christ and are found in him do certainly draw from him Thus are they joyned Rom. 6. 11. Likewise reekon you your selves dead indeed to sin but alive to God and both through Christ Iesus our Lord. All they that do really come to Jesus Christ as they come to him as their Saviour to be cloathed with him and made righteous by him they come likewise to him as their Sanctifier to be made new and holy by him to die and live with him to follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes through the hardest sufferings and Death it self and this spiritual suffering and dying with him is the universal way of all his followers They are all Martyrs thus in the cruciâ—ying of sinful flesh and so dying for him and with him and they may well go cheerfully through though it bear the unpleasant name of Death yet as the other Death is which makes it so little terrible yea often appears so much desirable to them so is this the way to a far more excellent and happy life so that they may pass through it gladly both for the company and end of it it s with Christ they go into his death as unto life in his life Though a Believer might be free upon these terms he would not no sure could he be content with that easie life of sin instead of the Divine Life of Christ no he will do thus and not accept of deliverance that he may obtain as the Apostle speaks of the Martyrs a better resurrection Think on it again you to whom your sins are dear still and this life sweet you are yet far from Christ and his life The Apostle with intent to press this more home expresses more at large the nature of the oppoâ—te estates and lives that he speaks of so sets before his Christian Brethren 1. The Dignity of that new life 2. By a particular reflex upon the former life presses the change The former life he calls a living to the lusts of Men this new spiritual life to the will of God The lusts of Men. Such as are common to the corrupt Nature of Man such as every Man may find in himself and perceive in others The Apostle in the third verse more particularly for further clearness specifies these kind of Men that were most notorious in these lusts and those kind of lusts that are most notorious in Men. Writing to the dispersed Jews he calls sinful lusts the will of the Gentiles as having least controul of contrary light in them and yet the Jews walked in the same though they had the Law as a light and rule for the avoiding of them and implies that these lusts were unbeseeming even their former condition as Jews but much more unsuitable to them as now Christians Some of the grossest of these Lusts he names meaning all the rest all the ways of sin and representing their vileness the more lively not as some take it when they hear of such hainous sins that lessen the evil of more civil nature by the Comparison as if freedom from these were a blameless condition and a change of it needless No the Holy Ghost means it just contrary That we may judge of all sin and of our sinful nature by our estimate of these sins that are most disâ—â—rnable and abominable all sin though not equal in degree yet is of one nature and originally springing from one root arising from the same unholy nature of Man and contrary to the same holy nature and will of God So then 1. These that walk in these high ways of impiety and yet will have the name of Christians they are the shame of Christians and the profest enemies of Jesus Christ and of all others most hateful to him that seem to have taken on his name for no other end but to shame and disgrace it but he shall vindicate himself and the blot shall rest upon these impudent persons that dare hold up their faces in the Church of God as parts of it and are indeed nothing but the dishonour of it spots and blots that dare own to Worship God as his people and remain unclean riotous and prophane persons How suits thy sitting here before the Lord and thy sitting with vile ungodly Company on the Alâ—-Bench How agrees the Word sounds it well there goes a drunken Christian unclean basely covetous earthly minded Christian and the naming of these is not besides the text but the very words of it for the Apostle warrants us to take it under the name of Idolatry and in that name he reckons it to be mortified by a Christian. Col. 3. 5. Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth fornication uncâ—eâ—nness inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetoâ—sness which is Idolatry 2. But yet men that are some way exempted from the blot of these foul impieties may still remain slaves to sin alive to it and dead to God living to the Lusts of Men and not to the Will of God pleasing others and themselves displeasing him And the smoothest best bred and most moralized Natural is in this base thraldom And the more miserable that he dreams of liberty in the midst of his chains thinks himself gay by looking on those that wallow in gross prophaneness takes measure of himself by the most crooked lives of ungodly men about him and so thinks himself very streight but lays not the streight