sweet Bird mourns when it hath such a stone hung at its leg which keeps it from being upon the wing to which it hath such a natural propensity But the hireling thinks much at the work it self which he hath no inward delight or complacency in and that when not otherwise hindred but by his own wilful averseness and hence it is and from want of an heaven-born inward principle which might naturally mount him thitherward whilst for fear or shame or natural conscience or the like extrinsecal motive he is forced to it all is up the hill and then as weak and unsound bodies climbing up the mountain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they so he pants and blows fast but gets up very slowly and untowardly till at last he tumbles down headlong into deepest gulfs of sin which naturally he delights to swim in and so with Judas goes into his own place Acts 1. 25. 4. From this freedom and delight in natural agents proceeds frequency in their operations That which I delight to do I do often and what is natural is frequent How reiteratedly doth the heart and pulse beat the fountain bubble and one wave in the Sea come on in the neck of another Nature is no slug but like the good housewife is up every morning and afresh resumes her task and perpetuis vicibus turns about her wheel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. James calls it So the sun doth not like Jam. 3. 6. the Persian King or great Mogul to keep state appear abroad but seldom on some high dayes or great Festivals but every morning as the bridegroome cometh out of his chamber and every day Psa 19. 5. repeats his race and for the wind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Solomon Eccles 1. 6. most elegantly expresseth it it whirleth about continually and returneth again according to his circuits or as Broughton rendreth it the wind whirleth whirleth walketh and into his circuits returneth the wind Nor are the breathings of the Divine spirit less restless and uncessant where he breaths freely God in his own nature is a pure act and therefore continually acting My Father worketh hitherto and I work saith our Saviour John 5. 17. and so doth his spirit too The Divine Nature is continually acting in the government of the world nor is it less operative in the believers heart being in the place before cited a well of water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present tense expressing a continued act of springing and bubbling up and so working out sin as the troubled fountain doth defilement The Divine Nature is continually offering up a judge sacrificium a daily sacrifice to God David morning and evening and at noon Psal 55. 17. even seven times a day Psal 119. 164. Paul had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no rest or relaxation or intermission either in his flesh or spirit 2 Cor. 2. 13. but would spend and be spent in the service of God and his people 2 Cor. 12. As of Baruch Nehem. 3. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 15. There was much of God and of an heavenly Divine Nature in those worthies who as the heavens were in a perpetual motion And although this height and degree many that are truly godly according to their lower attainments and less participation do not it may be shall not here rise up to till they arrive there where they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy c. yet whereever this Divine life is the man is breathing Rev. 4. 8. and the pulse beating though in some sick fits sometimes too slowly and very weakly even when asleep the heart is waking and Cant. 5. 2. silently working But if on the contrary instead of this frequency such intermitting pulses and Syncope's be frequent the case is very dangerous but if always stone-still or but very seldom and only in some few good moods at a Sacrament or a searching Judgment on our selves or others we faintly move God ward here is dead nature no quickning spirit an ominous Comet that sometimes in an Age appeareth to be gazed on and forebodes some evil no Sun of Righteousness here which ariseth every morning to run his daily course like a mighty man that faints not Which leads to 5. The fifth Particular For Nature as it is frequent and instant in its work so it is also constant nay groweth stronger and quicker towards the end of its motion The stone in its natural motion downward if not hindred stayeth not till it come to its centre and the nearer it cometh to it it moveth the faster This Divine Nature is heavenly and therefore moves amain heaven-ward up the hill and yet finally stops not is a spring of water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 springing or leaping up and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even to everlasting life in the place now so often mentioned and which hath helped us in most of these Particulars I deny not but this well by earthly cares and other occasions may for a time be stopped that it floweth not so fully out as the Philistims stopped Abrahams wells with earth but that it did not so dry them up but when Isaac digged them again they gave out their water as formerly Gen. 26. 18. Hindrances and stops from within and without the man of God may have in the way of God but no total intercisions no final Apostasies but when at liberty he mounts up with wings Isa 40. â—1 as an Eagle runneth and is not weary walks and doth not faint And therefore for trial as the clock which for a while goeth right but when weights are taken off stands still and moves not sheweth that it 's not natural but an artificial piece of workmanship so seem we to move never so fast in the ways of God if when outward compulsion and motives cease we stand still or go backward it plainly sheweth that all was but an artifice and nothing of this Divine Nature which as in God is eternal and unchangeable so as it is in his Children as the seed it is begotten of 1 Pet. 1. 23. is incorruptible and immortal But yet in us it may have its stops for a while and partial intermissions as when there is life yet in sickness and fainting fits the puâ—se may be very weak and sometimes intermitted But even in that Case 6. In Nature there is a principle of recovery as Eutychus though Principium as constitutionm so restitutivum taken up dead yet because life was in him came again to himself Act. 20. 9 10 11. The Seed though corrupted under-ground yet at last sprouts out again and the live-spring though for the present defiled with filth cast into it yet by little and little is still working out that pollution and rests not till it hath wrought it self into its former clearness Such falls and defilements may a live Christian a Saint sometimes fall into as David Peter and others but as you read of their falls so
〈◊〉 may ever have the upper hand Prefer Jerusalem above our chief joy Psal 137. 6. Love all men as men as the Prophet saith Hide not thy self from thine own flesh Isa 58. 7. but yet so as to love them most with whom we have one and the same spirit 1 Cor. 12. 13. Honour all men but especially Love the brotherhood 1 Pet. 2. 17. Let at least humanity prevail with us to esteem and love all that with us partake of humane nature for so far we love our selves but so as to put more abundant honour on them who are made partakers of the divine nature for so we shall love God in them SERMON XVIII ON 2 PET. 1. 4. BUT that We may have this honour and love it will be Preacht at St. Maries June 21. 1657. Vse 3. required that we examine our selves whether we have attained to this true ground of it this truly honourable state of being made partakers of the divine nature Wherein that consists hath already in the general been declared in the former doctrinal explication the main of it was that divine grace was this divine nature Pelagius heretically called humane nature grace we may piously and truly call saving grace divine nature to be Godly is to be God like God is holy just wise good spiritual heavenly and it is his very nature to be so And he that is of such an heavenly spirit and carriage although nil humani à se alienum putat yet totus divinitatem spirat though otherwise he be a poor weak man subject to humane infirmities yet by this his conformity to God he is raised to divine perfection As the eye of faith under all that bloud and spittle saw on our Saviours face his glory as the glory of the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth John 1. 14. so the same eye under the mean outside of him who hath filled out of Christs fulness his measure of grace and holiness even grace for grace beholdeth with awful reverence and complacential love bright rayes and reflexions of divinity In his heavenly discourse it saith Non vox hominem sonat there is more than a man God speaks in him as Junius thought In ejus vitâ of that poor godly man who was one means of turning him from his Atheism And when it beholds his holy and heavenly conversation though it do not say with the Lycaonians Acts 14. 11. that Gods are come down to us in the likeness of men yet though but an Idiot he will report that God is in him of a truth 1 Cor. 14. 25. But enough of this in general Let us rather for our better direction consider some particular properties of this Divine Nature by which it may be discovered and manifested some from that it 's called Nature and some from that it 's stiled a Divine Nature 1. Nature is an inward inbred principle In natural bodies it 's ordinarily defined to be principium motûs quietis and so this Principium motûs intrinsecum Aquin. 1. 2 ae q. 10. a. 1. corp divine nature in a gracious spirit is an inward principle of power and act the spring that in this divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sets all the wheeles a going like the spirit of the living creatures in the wheels Ezek. 1. 20. In this sense our Saviour saith that the water which he giveth to the thirsty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it shall be in him but what a well of water springing up to everlasting life John 4. 14. not a Cistern which hath all its water from without put into it It is so indeed as it hath all from God but in regard of outward supplies such a well it is that hath such a spring in it as from it self is continually bubbling and springing up to everlasting life It 's no artificial engine to spout out that water which it had not of its own but a true natural fountain that poureth out of what springeth up in it self Jer. 6. 7. as in the creation the herb brought forth seed and the tree fruit after its kind Gen. 1. 12. from its innate seminal vertue its inward natural temperament and constitution and the stone moveth down to the center and the sparks fly upward from their Job 5. 7. natural propension nature being that ingenita rei vis potentia quâ ipsa à seipsá movetur so in this new creation where there is a Divine Nature there is something within not only a blaze in the lamp but also oyl in the vessel Matth. 25. 4. an inward principle which sets the soul in motion to God and heaven these divine sparks naturally fly upward as it 's said of Timothy Philip. 2. 20. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did genuinely and naturally care for the things of God and his Church and Job said of himself that the root of the matter was in him Job 19. 28. contrary to what is said of the stony-ground hearer that he had not root in himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 13. 21. which is the broad difference between a true born child of God and a formal hypocrite the one flutters and makes a great stir in the things of God but God knows and he himself knows and feels there is no inward vital principle that sets him on work nothing from within unless vain-glory or other finister â—imes and intentions which are only corrupt nature but usually all is from without either the applause or frowns of men and the one as the wind drives about the millsails which else would stand still and the other as those Trochlerâ— or water-works force the water upwards which else would lie below or fall downward But O friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he laid of Plutarch the dead statue which he could not make stand by it self there must be something within that goes to a divine nature an inward principle of Divine life and love which without these pullies and plummets sets the wheels of the soul on going God-ward Doth not even nature it self teach you saith the Apostle in that case 1 Cor. 11. 14. and doth not the Divine nature it self where-ever it is in truth from an inward principle and pondus animae prompt and incite and carry you out towards God in communion with him and obedience to him as Act. 18. 5. it 's said of Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was pressed in spirit occasioned by the Jews obstinacy but there was a spirit within him that pressed him to it But here take a double caution when I speak of this inward principle it is not with our Enthusiasts so to cry up a Christ within them as to cry down a Christ without them indeed without them because never truly in them Christ indeed dwells in our hearts but it is by faith Ephes 3. 17. and that is both brâ—d and fed by his word and ordinances Rom. 10.
the Text In your Patience possess ye your Souls Superaddenda Should our Spirits sometimes grow hasty and not willing patiently to wait God's leasure Consider 1. That God's Retribution will be full 2. The day of it certain Hab. 2. 3. Heb. 10. 36 37. 3. Though it stay yet let this stay our Stomachs That necdùm vindicatus est ipse qui vindicat Christ himself who hath been more wronged than we and who will at last fully vindicate both himself and us is not yet righted but to this day he waits till his Enemies become his Footstool Heb. 10. 13. And therefore be not so bold to desire that the Servant should be served before his Lord Nec defendi ante Dominum servi irreligiosa inverecundâ festinatione properemus Cyprian S. 15. Dr. Hammond on Matth. 10. Annot. f. makes not this a Precept but an Assertion or Prediction that there was no such way to keep or preserve their lives from that common destruction coming on the People of the Jews as persevering faithful adhering to Christ Patient Men are the only Free-holders Their Comforts forfeited to God their Lord Who can best keep them for them Surrendred by them Purchased by Christ And as the Philosopher's Scholar who having given himself to his Master to teach him when taught was by his Master given back again to be his own Man SERMON XXXIV GEN. 49. 18. I. Sermon Preached at St. Maries in Stur-bridg fair time Sept. 8. 1650. I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. THe dying Swan's Song though now found to be a Fable Brown's vulg Errours yet if moralized of a dying Christian may oftentimes prove a real Truth for whereas the dying Man's Breath useth to savour of the Earth whither he is going the believing Soul then especially breaths Heaven to which it is then ascending Some Books which contain Apophthegmata morientium tell us how when their Tongues Mylius faulter in their Mouthes they are wont to speak Apophthegmes but in God's Book we find them uttering Oracles What a sweet Breath and Divine Air was that in old Simeon's Nunc Dimittis Paul's farewell-Sermon Acts 20. had such a ravishing Luke 2. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in it that they could not then hear it without weeping nor can some yet read it heedfully with dry Eyes Above all in that ultimum vale of our Saviour's to his Disciples before his Passion John 14. 15 16 17. The Sun of Righteousness a little before its setting shone out most Gloriously This in the New Testament And for the Old what heavenly strain 's do you meet with in Hezekiah's ultimus singultus Isa 38. in David's verba novissima 2 Sam. 23. in Moses his Songs a little before his death Deut. 32 and 33. and in Jacob's before his as in this whole Chapter so especially in this Text in which the Divine Soul as the Bird before fainting in the snare breaks through it in an abrupt expression and having got it self a little upon the wing as it were on the sudden bolts up Heaven-ward in this Divine Ejaculation I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. Here in Jacob's blessing of Dan we find it but how it should come there what coherence it hath with the foregoing words that 's the question and some think a difficult one So Pererius Quae occasio hujus abrupti sermonis c. Calvin Perobscura est haec sententia multiplex interpretandi ejus ratio Some satisfy themselves with this that the Spirit of God will not be tied to our Artificial Methods as too low and pedantick for him to be confined to who both acts and speaks like himself like a God i. e. with greatest freedome And therefore as his Illapses are sudden and his impulses strong Act. 2. 2. so the ventings of them answerable as the Spirit gives utterance v. 4. and it may be never more abruptly than when those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 11. are utterred and so the Soul now full of God and breaking for the longing it hath to him as Psal 119. 20. cannot always keep rank and file but breaks out to him and is glad to get to him though not in a methodical way And so it is in all strong workings of Passion Love Fear Joy and Desire c. Expressions sudden abrupt for so Passions are and their Expressions accordingly So Judg. 5. 10. on those words Then shall the People of the Lord go down to the Gates Mais thus Videtur hoc hiare c. ut pote ex affectu dictum affectus enim non servat ordinem sed plerumque evagatur In such a rapture Jacob's Soul might here be caught snatcht to God without being led to him by coherence or the thred of the foregoing discourse Zuinglius thinks that this Text might be versus intercalaris and only added to make up the verse in this Divine Poem Others rather think that after the manner of weak fainting vide Pareum Oleastrum old Men or sick Men who are wont whilest they are speaking sometimes out of faintness and sometimes out of devotion to pause and to interpose sighs and prayers so old Jacob here spent with speaking relieves his spent Spirits or rather pours out his fainting Soul into God's Bosom in this parenthetical ejaculation I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. But the first verse of this Chapter tells us that the whole is Prophetical of what was to befal them in the latter days And accordingly some apply it to Judas whom they make Ambros de benedict Isidore Gregor Moral 34. that Serpent in the way in the foregoing verse Others to Antichrist whom so many of the Ancients thought should be of the Tribe of Dan and that Jacob foreseeing what havock he should make of the Israel of God as they expound the former verses cries out in this for Christ and his Salvation But this conceit of this Dan-Antichrist with due Reverence to those Ancient Authors by some of even the Papists themselves is held * Tostatus uncertain by others of them †Oleaster Bellarmine acknowledgeth this Text doth not evince it de Pontif. Rom. lib. 3. c. 12. fabulous and therefore seeing they are sick of it we have no cause to be fond of it To omit other particulars I insist on these two that Jacob 1. Foreseeing both the sins and miseries which his other posterity and especially this Tribe of Dan should fall into by Faith looks up to God for Salvation and Deliverance which was especially effected by Sampson a Judg of that Tribe and he very fitly compared to that Serpent in the way and Adder in the path c. 2. And yet foreseeing notwithstanding this that Sampson should dye and Israel should lye under captivity and affliction and so Sampson's but an half-Salvation he did but begin to save Israel Judg. 13. 5 After the manner of the Prophets who See Junii Annot. in loc Christ as Sampson conquered
comfort when you are to give up your Account you be groundedly assured that your Office is of God and your Call to it by God that in both respects whether you be Ministers or other Elders it is God that hath made you Rulers over his Houshold 1. For us that are Preachers that our Office is of God I hope we are not in doubt nor to seek for proof of No. As long as we understand and remember what the Apostle saith Ephes 4. 11 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And he gave some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the Work of the Ministry c. No Socinian or other Sectarian will ever make us call it in Question You that are assisting Elders have had your Place and Employment formerly decried and to this very day questioned as for a long time forgotten in the Church nor so fully and clearly held out in the Word and therefore as the Man in whom the evil Spirit was said Paul I know and Apollos I know but who are ye Acts 19. 15. So some almost out of a like evil Spirit are ready to say Pastors I acknowledg and Teachers I allow but who are ye And therefore you have the more need to be fully grounded in this main Point that your Office is not only Permitted and Allowed but directly Instituted by Jesus Christ For whatever others hold I for my own part must freely profess my Thoughts that if by your Place you have as Officers of the Church a share and Interest in the Government and Censures of the Church in ordaining Ministers admitting Members and in casting out and Excommunicating scandalous Offenders things all of them so material and essential to Church-Communion and so purely Ecclesiastical nothing less than a Jus Divinum and a true and proper Institution of Jesus Christ will groundedly Warrant you to take upon you such an Office and to manage such an Employment Nothing is to be at the Master of the House his Appointment if the great Officer and their chief Employments upon which all the Government and Welfare of the whole Family depend be not Neither the Time nor the Duty in hand will permit at present a clearing of your Title But it doth call upon me to call upon you to get it cleared in your own Consciences The Priests the Children of Hobajah who out of Ambition had married into Barzilla'is stock and would be called by his Name when they sought their Register and it could not befound in Aaron's Genealogy they were as polluted put from the Priesthood Nehem. 7. 63 64. And lest such a Non est inventus be returned you have great need to search the Scriptures the Rolls and Registers in which all such of God's Charters and Commissions are recorded and if in 1 Cor. 12. 28. in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Governments you can distinctly spell your Ruling-Power you have in the beginning of that Verse God's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath set in his Church and that speaks plainly an Institution or if in 1 Tim. 5. 17. you can truly and satisfactorily make out Elders that Rule well to be distinct both Persons and Officers from them that labour in the Word and Doctrine you have that which your Faith and Practice may safely build upon from that place in which God provides for their Honour and Maintenance and that in a Church-way which he would not do if they were our Creatures and not his own Ordinances for how should we dare to think what I am though in way of abhorrency afraid to utter that our heavenly Father should keep our Bastards Thus make sure in the first place that your Calling and Office be of God 2. And as sure that your particular calling to it be from God also that he made the Seat and then set you in it that you did not run before you were sent that neither greedy desire of gain in Jer. 23. 21. Ministers or a busy pragmaticalness or a tickling Itch after applause and domination to be accounted some great doe-littles do prick on them or other Elders but that God after he had in some measure fitted them hath inwardly inclined them and brought them to Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1. 15. Or in case of a Moses Jeremiah's and Ezekiels averseness either some overpowering work of God's upon our Spirit or over ruling providence in our way hath thrust us out to be Labourers in his Harvest Matth. 9. 38. and the wants of our Brethren have with the Man of Macedonia to Paul cried to us Come and help the Acts 16. 9. vote and mission of some and the welcom reception and giving of the right hand of fellowship from others have drawn us ab-inter sarcinulas as once Saul though in another sence than he was to be Rulers of his People In this Exhortation I am the more serious 1. As on the one side because of our very uncomfortable walking in this way if we halt in this particular It 's error in fundamento a fault in the first Concoction Were it no more than an unsetled hesitancy or a scrupulous doubtfulness of our Minds that either the Calling it self is not of God or that we are not called to it by God it will be like Gravel in a strait Shoe will pinch and make us tread very gâ—ntly and tenderly when we walk fair and easily in evenest ways but will make us halt quite down and give out wholly when we are put to it in rough and hard ways will make us fall short of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or free boldness which is requisite for the through carrying on of our work When we seem to have the most assistance from God and least opposition from Man yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Man that hath some inward defect is faint within by the warmest Fire and in the cheariest Sun-shine as the Man though at a marriage-Feast yet when he could not answer that question Friend how camest thou in hither is said to be left Speechless Matth. 22. 12. But suppose at some special times and in some heavy pull and great strait of our employment God should seem to frown and the World and 〈◊〉 should indeed rage as the former we may often deserve and the latter we may be sure of what chear is like to be then if as it was with Elijah now in a Wilderness and as many think out of his way the Angel again and again haunt him and ask but what dost thou here Elijah 1 King 19. 9 13. If in such a strait our own Consciences gagg us and such misgiving thoughts rise up within us I fear my work is not the work of God or that I am not the workman appointed to it by God and so though Men blame me yet God doth not thank me though they unjustly oppose me yet he may most justly desert me with a quis requisivit haec
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not after Christ Col. 2. 8. And for themselves To say the Truth but in Christ Rom. 9. 1. 2 Tim. 2. 7. To speak as of Sincerity as of God as in the sight of God but in Christ 2 Cor. 2. 17. 12. 19. that their Hearers might have a proof of Christ speaking in them 2 Cor. 13. 3. And that where-ever they came they might triumph but in Christ and be unto God a sweet savour in all but a sweet savour of Christ 2 Cor. 2. 14 15. To teach us that for the Matter of our Preaching we should not read a Lecture of Philosophy or bare Morality which they that never heard of Christ might do as well as we and so as some complained of the Schoolmen make Aristotle's Ethicks our Bible or the Documents of Plato whom we call Divine our Divinity And so none might find Christ in our Sermons more than Austin did his Name in Tullie's Works Nor for the manner of it to make some Nose-gays of our own Wit Fansie and affected Eloquence to smell to our selves which to do to the holy Perfume in the Law was deadly Exod. 30. 38. or to fan to our selves the sweet scent of it by the Breath or Applause of others but that the Matter we Preach be Christ and a Crucified Christ in a Crucified manner and so prove a sweet savour of Christ and that such a savour of Life as may quicken dead Sinners to the Life of Christ which other affected Discourses Cant. 7. 9. fall wholly short of Animam non dant quia non habent Thus let Christ as a Quickening Spirit be the Life of our Preaching and in such like Preaching let our Life be spent and so to us to live will be Christ as we are Ministers in our Preaching 2. And secondly whether as Ministers or other Christians He that said 1 Thes 3. 8. we live if ye stand fast in the Lord would say I live if I live to the Lord Christ this calls for the like care of us in our Lives and Practices that in the Sense aforesaid To us to live may be Christ The Grace and Interest of Christ may be that which the whole business of our Life upon a true account is summ'd up and resolved into I say Christ And not 1. Self Not Self-ends and Self-interests I mean our own Profits Pleasures or Preferments which too usually the very spirit and vigour the whole of most Men's lives is intensly fixed and so spent upon which should they be taken out of their Lives it would be a lifeless Life that would be left when in those otherwise very active Spirits you can scarce discern the least moving or so much as breathing after God in Christ But how empty a Vine is Israel whilst he bringeth forth Fruit only to himself Hos 10. 1. Or if they be called Christians what another kind of Christ do they make of him than He was who said that His Kingdom was not of this World John 18. 36. and then not his Life neither In all this thou hast but found the life of thy hand as the Prophet calls it Isa 57. 10. and that 's but a poor withering dying Life It 's but Wind Job 7. 7. A Vapour James 4. 14. Thin vain empty and if full only of Vanity and Sorrows that we are weary of it Job 10. 1. Isa 38. 12. Despise it Job 9. 21. Hate it Eccles 2. 17. Acts 20. 24. Even our own frail Life consists not in the abundance of those outward things we possess Luke 12. 15. much less the Life of Christ Our bodily Life is more than Meat c. Mat. 6. 25. And therefore the Life of Christ sure is much more Even our natural Life is not that which in it self especially in compare with Christ we should so much look after for if to us to live be only to live yea or to live delicately with the Courtier Luke 7. 25. or with the Whore Rev. 18. 7. Deliciously is not Operae pretium not worth the while for Christ's being our Life in the Text is called the fruit of our Labour in the following Verse Christ and Self are two things very distinct and otentimes directly opposite so that we may be forced to deny the one if we would own the other even be dead to the World and Self if ever we would live either to Christ or with Him who therefore died that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves but unto him who died for them 2 Cor. 5. 15. And accordingly you read of their Resolution and Practice for none of us liveth to himself and no Man dieth to himself but whether Rom. 14. 7 8 9. we live we live unto the Lord or whether we die we did unto the Lord yea and sometimes for Him too with Ittai's professed Resolution to David and the like should ours be to Christ As the Lord liveth and as my Lord the King liveth in what place my Lord the King shall be whether in Death or in Life there also will thy Servant be 2 Sam. 15. 21. Hoc scilicet vere est Christo vivere mori cum nobis posthabitis ferimur quo Christus nos Calrin in Phil. 1. 23. vocat rapimur To us to live must be Christ not Self 2. Much less Sin or sinful Self or Satan for they always stand in a flat contrariety to Christ What concord hath Christ with Heb. 7. 26. Belial 2 Cor. 6. 15. or sin with him who is Holy and Harmless and separate from Sinners And yet should we observe many Men's lives should we not see that the vigour and very life of their lives is exerted and run out in the eager pursuit of Mic. 7. 3. Jer. 22. 17. Jer. 23. 10. dead Works who do evil with both Hands earnestly whose whole course is evil and their force is not right as the Prophet speaketh who in a course of Sensuality live the Beast not the Man much less the Christian do not eat to live but rather live to eat and to whom Bibere est vivere or in a mischievous way live the very Devil who breaths in their Oaths and Blasphemies and playeth the very Devil in their mischievous Impieties cannot live unless they take away some others Lives or do some other Mischief Prov. 4. 16. Et si non aliquà nocuisset mortuus esset But is this Christ or any thing like the Life of God or Christ who you heard was Holy and Harmless and came to save Men's lives and not to destroy them If Peccatum be Deicidium Luke 9. 56. it cannot partake of that Life which it doth destroy it put Christ to Death and therefore cannot consist with his Life To live in Sin and to live to Christ are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore we must Die to the one if ever we would Live to the other If to live to us be Christ it 's not Self