satisfied in our Cautioner and considers us as righteous in that account before God And this likewise I speak for your use that ye may loath and abhor your selves as much in your selves who are made clean by the blood of Jesus Christ as if ye were not washen Nay so much the more ye ought to remember your own sins which he doth not remember as debt any more and to be ashamed and confounded because they are pardoned It is ordinary for souls to look on themselves with an eye of more complacency in themselves when they apprehend that God lookes favourably on them I do not think that any soul can duely consider the gracious aspect of God in Jesus Christ to them but they will the more loath themselves but I find it ordinary that slight and inconsiderate thoughts of pardon begets jolly conceits in mens hearts of themselves and this is even the sin of Gods children something is abated of our self abhorring when we have peace and favour spoken in to us but I beseech every one that believes there is no condemnation for them to consider there is all things worthy of it in them yea nothing but what deserves it and therefore let that aspect of God beget self-loathing and self-detestation in you the more you apprehend he is pleased with you be ye the more displeased with your selves because it is not your selves he is pleased with but his own well-beloved Son The day of redemption is coming when there shall be no condemnation and nothing condemnable either In Heaven you shall be so but while ye are here this is the most important duty ye are called to to loath your selves because of all your abominations and because he is pacified towards you Ezek. 16. at the close and Chap. 36.31 and 20 43 44. There is a new and strange mortification now pleadde â—or by many whose highest advancement consisteth in not feeling or knowing or confessing sin but in being dead to the sense and convictâ—â—n of the same Alace whither are these reforming timeâ— gone Is not this the spirit of Antichrist I confess it is a mortification of Godliness a crucifying of Repentance and Holiness a crucifying of the new man but it is a quickning of the old man in the lusts thereof a living to sin this is a part of that new but â—aâ—sly so called Gospel that is preached by some which if an Angel would bâ—ing from Heaven we ought not to believe it Other foundation can no man lay then which is laid already upon which the Prophets and Apostles are builded even Christ Jesus Lord give the spirit to understand these mysteries already revealed but save us from these new discoveries and lights That which we have received is able to make us perefâ—ct to salvation Every one pretends a claim and right to this priviledge of Christians to be pardoned and absolved from condemnation who doth not put it out of question though in the mean time their iniquities testifie against them and their transgressions say in the heart of a godly man that there is no fear of God before their eyes Therefore the Apostle describes the man that is in Jesus Christ to be such an one That walks not after the flesh but after the Spirit Not only to guard against the presumptuous fancy of those that live in their sins that pretend to hope for Heaven but to stir up every justified soul to a new manner of conversation since they are in Jesus Christ. We would speak a word of two things from this First that the Scripture gives marks and characters of justified and reconciled persons that they may be known by both to themselves and others Next that the Christian escaped condemnation hath a new manner of walking and is a new creature in Christ. It might seem a strange thing that this fiâ—st were questioned in this generation if any the most clear and important truth could pass without scanning the very tenor of the whole Scripture holds out so much of it I wonder that any man that reads this Chapter or the Epistles of Iames and Iohn should have any more doubt of it Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commands Is not this a conclusion of our state and condition from the conformity of our walking to the will of God What divine truth can we be sure of if this be uncertain When the beloved Disciple who knew how to preach Christ asserts it in express terms 1 Ioh. 5.13 These things have I written to you that believe that ye may know ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the Name of the Son of God this very thing was the great scope and purpose of that Evangelick and Divine Epistle I find that Antinomians confound this question that they may have the more advantage in their darkness The question is not concerning the grounds of a mans believing in Christ but concerning our assurance or knowledge of our believing There is a great mistake in Christians practice in confounding these two it makes Christians very unreasonable in their doubtings and exercises therefore let us have this before our eyes Faith in its first and pure acting is rather an adherence and cleaving of a lost soul to Christ than an evidence of its interest in him or of his everlasting love You know all that it is one thing to know a thing or love a thing and another thing to reflect upon it and know that I know and love Iohn did write to believers that they might know they did believe and believe yet more These things then are both separable and the one is posterior to the other After ye believed ye were sealed The perswasion of Gods love and our interest in Christ is the Spirits seal set upon the soul there is a mutual sealing here the soul by believing and trusting in Jesus Christ sets to its seal that God is true as Iohn speaks 3.33 When God speaks in his Law the soul receives that testimony of his Justice and Holiness subscribes to the equity and righteousness of the sentence by condemning it self And when Christ speaks in the Gospel the soul seals that doctrine of free Salvation by approving and consenting with all its heart to the offer subscribes to the way of Salvation in Christ and truth of his promises and thus is the truth of God and Christ sealed by the souls believing Then the Spirit of Jesus Christ afterward when he pleaseth irradiats and shines upon the soul and discovers these things that are freely given and witnesseth to the conscience of the believer that he is a son of God thus the Spirit seals the believer and gives his testimony to his truth Now if we speak of the ground of the first viz. Of believing in Christ to salvation I know none but that which is common to sinners and holden out in the Gospel generally to all Our sin and misery and absolute necessity and Christs invitation of all to
How shall any venture to look in to these secrets of the Lambs book of life and read their name there undoubtedly they belong not to us they are a light inaccessible that will but conâ—ound anâ— darken us more Therefore whoever would know their election according to the Scriptures must read the transcript and copy of the Book of Life which is written in the hearts and souls of the elect the thoughts of God are written in his works upon the spirits of men his election hath a seal upon it The Lord knoweth who are his and who can break up this seal Who hath understood the mind of the Lord None can untill the Lord write over his thoughts in some characters of his Spirit and of the new creature in some lineaments and draughts of his own Image that it may be known they are the Epistle of Christ not written with ink and paper but with the Spirit of the living God not in tables of stone but in the fleshly tables of the heart 2 Cor. 3.3 Christ writes his everlasting thoughts oâ— love and good-will to us in this Epistle and that we may not think this doth extol the creature and abase Christ it is added vers 5. Not that we are sufficient of our selves but our suffiâ—iency is of Goâ— The seeing of grace in our selves doth not prejudge the gâ—ace oâ— God unless we see it independent of the fountain and behold not the true rise of it that we may have no matter to glory of It is not a safe way of beholding the Sun to look straight on it it is too dazling to our weak eyes you shall not well take it up so but the best way is to look on it in water then we shall more stedfastly behold it Gods everlasting love and the redemption of Jesus Christ is too glorious an object to behold with the eyes of flesh such objects certainly must astonish and strike the spirits of men with their transcendent brightness therefore we must look on the beams of this Sun as they are reflected in our hearts and so behold the conformity of our souls wrought by his Spirit unto his will and then we shall know the thoughts of his soul to us If men shall at the first â—â—ight climb so high as to be perswaded of Gods eternal love and Christs purchase for them in particular they can do no more but scorch their wings and melt the wax off them till they fall down from that heaven of their ungrounded perswasion into a pit of desperation The Scripture-way is to go downward once that ye may go up first go down in your selves and make your calling sure and then you may rise up to God and make your election sure You must come by this circle there is no passing by a direct line and straight thorow unless by the immediat revelation of the Spirit which is not ordinary and constant and so not to pretended unto I confess that sometimes the Spirit may intimate to the Soul Gods thoughts towards it and its own state and condition by an immediat overpowering testimony that puts to silence all doubts and obejctions that needs no other work or mark to evidence the sincerity and reality of it that light of the Spirit shall be seen in its own light and needs not that any witness of it The Spirit of God sometimes may speak to a Soul Son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee This may break into the Soul as a beam darted from heaven without reference to any work of the Spirit upon the heart or word of Scripture as a mids and mean to apply it But this is more extraordinary the ordinary testimony of the Spirit is certainly conjoined with the testimony of our own consciences Rom. 8.16 and our consciences beares witness of the work of the Sâ—irit in us which the Spirit discovers to be according to the Woâ—d The spirit makes known to us things that are freely given but by comparing things Spiritual with Spiritual 1 Cor. 2.10.13 The fruit and special work of the Holy Ghost in us is the medium and the Spirits light irradiats and shines upon it and makes the heart see the same clearly For though we be the children of light yet our light hath so much darkness as there must be a supervenient and accessory light of the Spirit to discover that light unto us Now what is all this to us I fear that there be many ungrounded perswasions amongst us that many build on a sandy foundation even a strong opinion that it is well with them without any examination of their Souls and conversations according to the Word and this certainly when the tempest blows cannot stand Some teach that no man should question whether he believe or not but presently believe I think none can believe too suddenly it s alwise in season nunquam sera est fides nec paenitentia its never late in respect of the promise and its never too early in respect of a mans case But I cannot think any man can â—elieve till the Spirit have convinced him of his unbelief And tâ—erefore I would think the most part of men nearer faith in Jesus Christ if they knew they wanted faith Nay it s a part of faith and believing God in his word and setting to our Seal that God is true for a man to â—ake with his unbelief and his natural inability yea aveâ—sness to it I would think that these who could not believe in Christ because they â—ought honouâ— one of another and went about to kill him they had done well to have taken with that challenge of Christs and if men ought to take with their sin they ought to search and try their sin that they may find it out to take with it I wonder since Antinomians make unbebelief the only sin in the world that they cannot endure the discovery and confession of it it seems they do not think it so heinous a sin I confesse no man should of purpose abstain from believing in Christ till he find out whether he hath believed or not but what ever have been he is bound presently to act saith in Jesus Christ to flee unto him as a lost sinner to a saving Mediator But that every man is bound to perswade himself at the first that God hath loved him and Christ redeemed him is the hope of the Hypocrite like a spiders web which when leaned to it shall not stand that mans expectation shall perish he hath kindled sparks of his own a wilde fire and walketh not in the true light of the Word and so must ly down in sorrow Many of you deceive your selves and none can perswade you that ye do deceive your selves such is the strength of that delusion and dream It s the great part of the hearts deceitfulness to flatter it self in its own eyes to make a man conceive well of himself and his heart I beseech you do not venture your souls salvation to such
There is no toleration of sin within this City and Kingdom sinners are indeed pardoned yea received and accepted drunkards unclean persons c. are not excluded from entering here but they must renounce these lusts if they would stay here Christ will not keep both he must either cast out the sin or the sinner with it if he will not part with it I beseech you know what ye walk after the flesh is your leader and whither will it lead you O! its sad to think on it to perdition vers 8. If ye live after the flesh ye shall die Ye think flesh your great friend ye do all ye can to satifie and please it and O how pleasant is the satisfaction of your flesh to you Ye think it liberty to follow it and counts it bonds and cords to be restrained But Oh! know and consider that flesh will lead you by the Kingdom that guide of your way to which ye committed your self will lead you by Heaven Gal. 5.21 It s a blind guide corruption and humour and will have no eyes no discerning of that pit of eternal misery they choose the way that is best pathed and troden that is easiest and most walk into and this certainly will lead you straight into this pit of darkness Be called off this way from following your blind lusts and rather suffer them to be crucified be avenged on them for your two eyes that they have put out and their treacherous dealing to you in leading you to destruction the high way Come in to Christ Jesus and ye shall get a new guide of the way the Spirit that shall lead you in all truth unto the blessed and eternal life Christ is the way ye must walk in and the life that we must go in to at the end of our way and the truth according to which we must walk now he hath given his Spirit the Comforter to be our leader in this way according to this rule and pattern unto that life In a word the Spirit shall lead you the straight way unto Christ you shall begin in him and end in him he shall lead you from grace to glory the Spirit that came down from Heaven shall lead you back to Heaven All your walk is within the compass of Christ out of him is no way to Heaven But we must not take this so grosly as if no other thing were a walking after the flesh but the gross abominations among men though even these will scrape a great number from being in Christ Jesus but it must be further enlarged to the motions affections of the unrenewed spirit and the common principles according to which men walk And therefore the Apostle Col. 3 and Gal. 5. nameth many things among the works of the flesh and members of the old man which I doubt many will account so of Some natural passions that we account nothing of because common as anger wrath covetousness what man is there amongst us in whom some of these mentioned stirs not Many of your hearts and eyes are given to covetousness your souls bow downward as your bodies do and many times before your bodies Is not the heart of men upon this world and cannot rise above to a treasure in Heaven and therefore your Callings otherwayes lawful and all your pains and endeavours in them hath this seal of the flesh stamped on them and passeth no otherwayes with God We see how rank the corruptions of men are anger domineering in them and leading them often captive and this is counted a light matter but it is not so in Scripture How often is it branded with folly by the wise man and this folly is even the natural fleshly corruption that men are born with and in how many doth it rise up to the elevation of malice and hatred of others and then it carries the image of the devil rather then of humane infirmity And if we suppose a man not much given to any of these yet what a spirt of pride and self-love is in every man even these that carry the lowest sail and the meanest port among men these that are affable and courteous and these that seem most condescending to inferiours and equals yet alas this evil is more deeply engraven on the spirt If a man could but watch over his heart and observe all the secret reflections of it all the comparisons it makes all the desires of applause and favour among men all the surmises and stirrings of spirit upon any affront O how would they discover diabolick pride This sin is the more natural inbred for that it is our mother-sin that brought us down from our excellency this weed grows upon a glass-window and upon a dunghill it lodges in Palaces and Cottages nay it will spring and grow out of a pretended humility and low carriage In a word the ambitious designs of men the large appetite of earthly things the over-weaning conceit of our selves love to our selves the flirring of our affections without observing a rule upon unlawful objects or in an unlawful manner all these are common to men and men walk after them Every man hath some predominant or idol that takes him most up some are finer and subtiler than others some their pleasures and gains without others their own gifts and parts within but both are alike odious before God and both gross flesh and corruption before him There are two errours among men concerning this spiritual walking the one is the Doctrine of some in these dayes the other is the practical error of many of us Many pretending to some near and high discoveries as to Christ and the Spirit have fallen upon the most refined and spiritualized flesh instead of the Spirit indeed they separate the Spirit from the Word and reckons the Word and Law of God which was a Lamp to Davids feet among the fleshly rudiments of the world But if they speak not according to the Law and Testimony saith Isaiah it is because there is no light in them Thus their new light is but an old darkness that could not endure even the darker light of the Prophets If they speak not according to the Word it is because there is no spirit in them It is not the Spirit the Comforter which Christ promised to send to the Apostles and all that should believe in his Name through their word for that Spirit was a Spirit of truth that should lead into all truth and lest men should father their own fancies and imaginations on the Spirit of God Christ adds he shall bring all things to your remembrance These things that Christ hath spoken and we have here written The holy Apostle to the Col. 3. when he reproves the works of the flesh and declares they had put them off he commends unto them in opposition to these Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly in all wisdom teaching one another in Psalms and spiritual songs with grace in your hearts to the Lord
ver 16. Here the Spirit not casting out the Word but bringing it in plentifully and sweetly agreeing with it The Spirit that Christ sent did not put men above Ordinances but above corruptions and the body of death in them It s a poor and easie victory to subdue Grace and Ordinances every slave of the Devil doth that I fear as men and Angels fell from their own dignity by aspiring higher so these that will not be content with the estate of Christ and his Apostles but soar up in a higher strain of spirit and trample on that ministration as fleshly and carnal I fear they fall from Jesus Christ and come into greater condemnation It s true indeed 2 Cor. 3.6 The Letter killeth that is the Covenant of Works preacheth now nothing but condemnation to men but the Spirit of the Gospel giveth life nay even the Gospel separated from the Spirit of life in Jesus is but a savour of death to souls Shall we therefore separate the Spirit from the Gospel and Word because the Word alone cannot quicken us David knew how to reconcile this Quicken me O Lord according to thy Word Psal. 119.25 Thy Spirit is good lead me into the land of uprightness and quicken me Psal. 143.10 11. The Word was his rule and the Spirit applyed his soul to the rule the Word holds out the present patteâ—n we should be conformed unto now if there be no more a man may look all his dayes on it and yet not be changed but the Spirit within transforms and changes a mans soul to more and more conformity to that pattern by beholding it If a man shall shut his eyes on the pattern he cannot know what he is and ought to be if he look only on the Spirits work within and make that his rule he takes an imperfect rule and an incompleat copy and yet this is the highest attainment of these aspirers to new light they have forsaken the Word as their rule and instead of it have another Law within them as much as is already written on their hearts which is in substance this as they suppose I am bound to do no more then I have already power to do I am not to endeavour more holiness then I have already These men are indeed perfect here in their own apprehension and do not know in part and believe in part and obey in part because they are advanced the length of their own Law and rule their rule being of no perfection Paul was not so but forgetting what he had attained he followed on to what was before him and was still reaching forward Let not us my brethren believe every spirit and every doctrine that comes out under that name Christ hath forwarned us Let us pray for more of that Spirit which may quicken the Word to us and quicken us to obey the Word there must be a mutual enlivening the Word must be made the ministration of life by the Spirit of Jesus which can use it as a sword to divide the soul and spirit and we must be quickned to the obedience of the truth in the Word The Word is the seed incorruptible but it cannot beget us or be a principle of a new life within us except a living spirit come alongs to our hearts Know that the Word is your pattern and rule the Spirit your leader and helper whose vertue and power must conform you that rule 1 Pet. 1.22 Peter joyns these two the purification and cleansing of the soul which Christ attributes to the Word ye are clean through the word I have spoken Joh. 15.3 Peter attributes it to the Spirit working according to the pattern of truth It s true the Spirit of God needs no pattern to look to nay but we must have it and eye it else we know not the Spirit of truth from a lie and delusion we cannot try the spirits but by this rule and it is by making us stedfastly look on this glorious pattern in the Word and the example of Christ Jesus his life that we are conformed unto Christ as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.13 Certainly that must be fleshly walking which is rather conformed unto the imaginations of a mans own heart then the blessed will of God revealed in his Word Can such walking please God when a man will not so much as hearken to what is Gods will and pleasure As other heresies so especially this is a work of the flesh Now there is another principle amongst many of us we account it spiritual walking to be separated from the gross pollutions of the world to have a carriage blameless before men this is the notion that the multitude fancy of it Be not deceived you may pass the censure of all men and be unreproveable among them and yet be but walkers after the flesh It is not what ye are before the world can prove you spiritual men though it may prove many of your carnal Your out-side may demonstrate of many of you that ye walk after the flesh and if ye will not believe it I ask you if ye think drunkenness a walking in the Spirit Do ye think ye are following the Spirit of God in uncleanness Is it not that Holy Spirit that purgeth from all filthiness Look but what your walk is ye that are not so much as conformed to the Letter of the Word in any thing who cares not to read the Scriptures and meditate on them Is this walking after the Spirit of truth If drunkenness railing contention wrath envy covetousness and such like be the Spirits way then I confess many of you walks after the Spirit but if these be the manifest works of the flesh and manifestly your way and work then why dream ye that ye are Christians But I suppose that you could be charged with none of these outward things that you had a form of Religion and Godliness yet I say all that is visible before men cannot prove you to be spiritual walkers Remember it is a spirit ye must walk after now what shall be the chief agent here sure not the body what fellowship can your body have with him that is a Spirit the body indeed may worship that eternal Spirit being acted by the Spirit but I say that alone can never prove you to be Christians we must then layaside a number of Professors who have no other ground of confidence but such things as may be seen of men if they would enter their hearts how many vain thoughts lodge there how litle of God is there God is not almost in all our thoughts we give a morning and evening salutation but there is no more of God all the day throughout and is this walking after the Spirit which imports a constancy And what part can be spared most but the spirit of a man The body is distracted with other necessary things but we might alwayes spare our souls to God Now thus should a man obey that command Pray alwayes
conversation all these are now but flesh Nay not only such natural gifts and illuminations but even the light of the Gospel and Law of God that someway enters his soul changeth the nature and name it s all but darkness and flesh in him because the flesh hath a dominion over all that the clouds and vapours that ariseth from the flesh bemists and obscures all these the corruptions of the soul is most strengthned in this fort and most vented here Sins become connatural to the flesh and so a man by the flesh is ensnared and subjected to sin Christ comprehends all our prerogatives and indowments under this Iohn 1.13 born not of flesh and blood And Matth. 16.17 flesh and blood hath not revealed these things to thee Even all the outwards of Religion and all the common priviledges of Christians may be called so What hath Abraham sound according to the flesh Rom. 4.1 Phil. 3.3 Which imports so much that all those outward priviledges many illuminations and reformations may so far consist with the corruption of mans nature may unite so with that as to have one name with it it s not all able to conquer our flesh but our flesh rather subdues all that and makes it serve it self till a stronger than it come even the Spirit to subdue it and cast it out of the house Thus the Image of God in man is defaced Nay the very image and nature of man as man spoyled the first creation sin hath marr'd and disordere'd it Now when this second creation or regeneration comes the creature is made new and formed again by the powerful Spirit of Jesus Christ this change is made flesh is put out of the Throne as an usurper the spirit and soul of a man is put in a Throne above it but is placed according to its due order under a holy and spiritual Law of God And thus Jesus Christ is the repairer of the breaches and restorer of the ancient paths and old waâ—â—s to dwell in Now the soul hath a new rule established to act according to and new principles to act from He whose course of walking was after the corrupt dictates and commands of his fleshly affections and was of no higher strain then his own sparks of nature and acquired light would lead him to now he hath a new rule established the Spirit speaking in the Word to him and pointing out the way to him and there is a new principle that Spirit leading him in all truth and quickning him to walk in it Now this is the souls perfect liberty to be from under the dominion of sin and lusts and thus the Son makes free indeed by the free Spirit the Son was made a servant that we might be made free no more servants of sin in the lusts thereof and the Spirit of the Lord where he comes there is liberty there the Spirit and reasonable soul of a man is elevated into its first native dignity there the base flesh is dethroned and made to serve the spirit and soul in a man Christ is indeed the greatest friend of men as they are men sin made us beasts Christ makes us men Unbelievers are unreasonable men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brutish yea in a manner beasts this is an ordinary compellation in Scripture faith makes a man reasonable it gives the saving and sanctified use of reason it s a shame for any man to be a slave to his lusts and passions it s the character of a beast upon him he that is led by senses and affections is degenerated from humane nature and yet such are all out of Christ sin reigns in them and flesh reigns and the principles of light and reason within are captivated incarcerated within a corner of their minds We see the generally received truths among men that God is that he is holy and just and good that Heaven and hell is these are altogether ineffectual and have no influence on mens conversations no more then if they were not known even because the truth is detained in unrighteousness the corruptions of mens flesh are so rank that they overgrow all this seed of truth and choaks it as the thorns did the seed Matth. 15.7 Now for you who are called of Jesus Christ O know what ye are called unto It s a liberty indeed a priviledge indeed ye are no more debtors to the flesh Christ hath loosed that obligation of servitude to it O let it be a shame unto you who are Christians to walk so any more to be entangled any more in that yoke of bondage He that ruleth his spirit is greater then the mighty then he that taketh a city Thus we are called to be more then conquerours others when they conquer the world they are slaves to their own lusts but let it be far from you to be so ye ought to conquer your self which is more then to conquer the World it s not only unbeseeming a Christian to beled with passions and lusts but it s below a man if men were not now through sin below beasts I beseech you aspire unto and hold fast the liberty Christ hath obtained to you be not fashioned any more according to former lusts know ye are men that ye have reasonable and immortal spirits in you why will ye then walk as beasts Understand O brutish and ye fools when will ye be wise But I say more know ye are Christians and this is more then to be a man it s to be a divine man one partaker of the divine Nature and who is to walk accordingly Christians are called to a new manner of walking and this walking is a fruit that comes out of the root of faith whereby they are implanted in Christ You see these agree well together these who are in Christ walk not after the flesh c. Walking after the flesh is the common walk of the World who are without God and without Christ But Christ gives no latitude to such a walk this is a new nature to be in Christ and therefore it must have new operations to walk after the Spirit While we look upon the conversations of the most part of men they may be a commentary to expound this part of the words what it is to walk after the flesh The works of the flesh saith the Apostle to Gal 5.19 are manifest and indeed they are manifest because written in great letters on the out-side of many in the visible Church that who runs may read them do but read that Catalogue in Paul and then come and see them in Congregations It is not so doubtful and subtile a matter to know that many are yet without the verge of Christ Jesus without the City of refuge you may see their mark on their brow Is not drunkenness which is so frequent a palpable evidence of this your envyings revilings wrath strife seditions fornications and such like Oh do not deceive your selves there is no room in Jesus Christ for such impurities and impieties
its impossible that he should do nothing else but pray in an express formal way but the souls walking with God between times of Prayer should compense that and thus Prayer is continued though not in it self yet in meditation on God which hath in it the seed of all worship and is virtually Prayer and Thanksgiving and all duties Let us then consider If our bodies be not more exercised in Religion then our souls yea if they be not the chief agents how many impertinencies and roveries and wandrings are throughout the day the most part of our conversation if it be not profane yet it is vain that is unprofitable in the World it neither advantageth us spiritually nor glorifies God it is almost to no purpose and this is enough to make it all flesh And for our thoughts how do they go unlimited and unrestrained like a wilde Ass traversing her wayes and gadding about fixed on nothing at least not on God nay fixed on any thing but God If it be spiritual service should it not carry the seal of our spirit and affection on it We are as so many shadows walking as pictures and statues of Christians without the soul and life which consists in the temper and disposition of the spirit and soul towards God SERMON V. Vers. 1. That walk not after the flesh but after the spirit IT is no wonder that we cannot speak any thing to purpose of this Subject and that ye do not hear with fruit because it is indeed a mystery to our judgements and a great stranger to our practice There is so litle of the Spirit both in Teachers and those that come to be taught that we can but speak of it as an unknown thing and cannot make you to conceive it in the living notion of it as it is Only we may say in general It is certainly a divine thing and another thing then our common or religious walk is It is little experience so we can know the less of it but this much we should know it is another thing then we have attained it s above us and yet such a thing as we are called to aspire unto How should it stir up in our spirits a holy fire of ambition to be at such a thing when we hear it is a thing attainable nay when Christ calls us unto himself that we may thus walk with him I would have Christians men of great and big projects and resolutions of high and illimited desires not satisfied with their attainments but still aspiring unto more of God more conformity to his will more walking after the Spirit more separation from the course of the World and this is indeed to be of a divine spirit The divine Nature is here as it were in a state of violence out of its own element Now it s known by this iâ— it be still moving upwards taking no rest in this place and these measures and degrees but upon a continual motion towards the proper center of it God his holiness and Spirit We desire to speak a word of these three 1. The nature of this spiritual walking Next Its connexion and union with that blessed state of non-condemnation And then of the order of this how it flows from a mans being implanted in Christ Jesus Which three are considerable in the words This spiritual walking is according to a spiritual rule from spiritual principles for spiritual ends These three being established aright the walk is even the motion of a Christian within the compass of these it is according to the word as the holy rule it s from the faith love of Jesus Christ as the predominant principleâ— Nay from the Spirit of Jesus living in the heart by faith and dwelling in it by love as the first wheel of this motion the Primum Mobile and as it begins in the Spirit so it ends there in the glory of Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father Consider this then it is not a lawless walking and irregular walk it is according to the rule and the rule is perfect and it is a motion to perfection not a rest in what is now attained to The course of this world is the way and rule of the children of disobedience Eph. 2.2 There is a spirit indeed that works in them and a rule it works by the spirit is that evil spirit contrary to the holy Spirit of God you may know what spirit it is that works by the way it leads men unto a broad way path'd and troden in by many travellers it s the Kings high street the common way that most part walkes into according as their neighbours do as the most do But â—hat King is the Prince of this World satan who blinds the eyes of many that they may not see that pit of misery before them which their way leads them to A Christian must have a kind of singularity not in opinion but in practice rather to be more holy and walk more abstracted from the dregs of the worlds pollution this were a divine singularity Indeed men may suspect themselves that separats from the godly in opinion they have reason to be more jealous of themselves when they offend against the generation of the just but if this were the contention and design of men to be very unlike the multitude of men nay to be very unlike the multitude of Professors in the affection and practice of holiness humility and spiritual walking I think this were an allowed way though a singular way Men may aspire to as great a difference as may be from the conversations and practice of others if there be a tending to more conformity to the Word the rule of all practice The Law is spiritual and holy saith Paul but I am carnal this therefore were spiritual walking to set that excellent spiritual rule before our eyes that we who are carnal may be transformed and changed into more likeness to that holy and spiritual Law If a man had not an imperfect rule of his own fancy and imagination before his eyes he could not be satisfied with his attainments but with Paul would forget them in a manner not know them but reach forward still to what is before because so much length would be before us as would swallow up all our progress this would keep the motion on foot and make it constant A man should never say Master let us make tabernacles its good to be here no indeed the dwelling place and resting would be seen to be above As long as a man had so much of his journey to accomplish he would not sit down on in his advancement he would not compare with others and exalt himself above others Why because there is still a far greater distance between him and his rule then between the slowest walker and him This made Paul more sensible of a body of death Rom. 7 then readily lower Christians are Reflections on our attainments and comparisons with others which are so often the
work of our Spirits are a retrograde motion it makes no way but spends the time is a returning as we go whereas we ought to go straight forward I beseech you Christians consider what ye are doing if ye would prove your selves so indeed I know not how you can evidence it better then by honouring and esteeming his Word and Commandments exceeding large and precious no end of their perfection the word is much undervalued in the opinions of many but it is as little cared for in the practice of most there is certainly little of God there where this is not magnified and honoured There must be darkness in that way where this candle which was a lamp to Davids feet shines not Some promise to us liberty but they themselves are the servants of corruption it is no liberty to be above all law and rule It was innocent Adams liberty to be conformed to a holy and just command nay this was his beauty The Spirit indeed gives liberty where he is but this liberty is from our sins and corruptions not to them it looses the chains of a mans own corrupt lusts off him to walk at freedom in the way of his commandments the Spirit inlargeth the prisoners heart and then he runs but not at random but the way of his commands Psal. 119.32 It was our bondage to be as wilde Asses traversing our wayes to be gadding abroad to change our way Now here is the Spirits liberty to bring us into the way and that way is one Let us then learn this one principle the Word must be the rule of your walking both common and religious Alas it s not spiritual walking to confine Religion to some solemn duties Remember it s a walk a continued thing without interruption therefore your whole conversation ought to be as so many steps progressive to Heaven Your motion should not be to begin only when ye come to pray or read or hear as many men do they are in a quite different way and element when they step out of their civil callings into religious ordinances but Christians your motion should be continued in your eating and drinking and sleeping and acting in your callings that when ye come to pray or read ye may be but stepping forward in the way out of one darker obscurer path into a more beaten way Remember this word can make us perfect to Salvation It is a principle in the hearts of folks which is vented now by many that the Word doth not reach their particular carriages and conversations in civil matters these are apprehended to be without the sphear and compass of the Word while it is commonly cast up to Ministers meddle with the word and spiritual things and not with our matters Truly I think if we separate these from the Word we may quickly separat all Religion from such actions and if such actings and businesses be without the Court of the Word they are also without the Court of Conscience Conscience Religion and the Word being commensurable Therefore I beseech every one of you take the Word for the ruling of your callings and conversations among men extend it to all your actions that in all those ye may act as Christians as well as men It is certainly the licentiousness of the spirits of men that cannot endure the application of the Word unto their particular actions and conversations Now this spiritual walk proceeds from spiritual principles It is certain the Spirit of Jesus Christ is he in whom we live and move and have our being spiritually without him we can do nothing and therefore Christians ought to walk with such a subordination to and dependence on him as if they were meer instruments and patients under his hand though I think in regard of endeavoured activity they should bestir themselves and give all diligence as if they acted independently of the Spirit yet in regard of denial of himself and dependence on the Spirit each one ought to act as if he did not act at all but the Spirit only acted in him This is the Divinity of Paul I laboured more abundantly then they all yet not I but grace in me I live yet not I but Christ in me O how difficult a thing is it to reconcile these two in the practice of Christians which yet cannot really be except they be together It is certainly one of the great mysteries of Christianity to draw our strength and activity from another to look upon our selves and our actings as these that can do nothing as empty vines and that notwithstanding of all inâ—used and acquired principles Whatever we ought to do in judging and discerning of our condition yet sure I am Christians in the exercise and practice of godliness should look upon themselves void of any principle in themselves either to do or think not that we are sufficient of of our selves The proficient and growing Christian should look no moâ—e on his own inclinations and habits thâ—n if he had none he should consider himself an ungodly man that no fruit can grow upon one that cannot pray as he is in himself Buâ— alace we come to duties in the confidence of qualifications â—or duties acts more confidently in them because accustomed to them and so makes Grace and Religion a kind of Art and Discipline that use and experience makes expert into Learn now this one thing which would be in stead of many rules and doctrines to us to shut out of your eyes the consideration of what ye are by Gifts or Grace or experience Do not consider that but rather fix your eyes on the grace of Jesus Christ and upon the power and vertue of the Holy Spirit which is given by promise that when the way is all the easiest to you both by delight and custom yet ye may find it to your natural principles as insuperable as at the beginning and may still cry Draw me and I will run after thee lead me and I will walk with thee Do not measure thy call into duties by the strength thou finds in thy self but look unto him who strengtheneth us with all might Now the Spirit worketh in us by subordinat spiritual principles as believing in Christ and loving of him as our Lord and Saviour and these two acts drives on a soul sweetly in the way of obedience Fear where not mixt in its actings with faith and love is a spirit of bondage but the Christian ought to walk according to the Spirit of Adoption which cryes Abba Father Yet how many Christians are rather in a servile and slavish manner driven on by terrours and chastisements to their duty then by love There is a piece of liberty in Christian-walking when there is not a restraint upon the spirit by this slavish fear this I say is not beseeming these that are in Christ Jesus ye ought to have the Spirit of your Father for your leader and guide O! how sweet and how certain and necessary also would this walking be
man lying under a sentence of death Cursed is he that abides not in all things c. How then can hâ— escape condemnation Again you speak of walking after the Spirit as proper to the Christian but whose walk is not carnal Who is it that doth not often step aside out of the way and follow the conduct and counsel of flesh and blood Is not sin dwelling here in our mortal bodies Who can say my heart or way is clean Therefore both that priviledge and this property of a Christian seems to be but big words no real thing And indeed I confess the multitude of men hath no other opinion of them but as fancied imaginary thingâ— few believes the report of the Gospel concerning the salvation of elect ones and few understands what this spiritual walking is many conceive it is not a thing that belongs to men who are led about with passions and affections but rather to Angels or Spirits perfected However we have in these words an answer to satisfie both objections He grants something implicitely and it is this it is true indeed Christians are under a twoâ—old Law captives and bondmen to these A law of sin in their members bringing them in subjection to the lusts of the flesh Sin hath a powerful dominion and tyranny over every man by nature it hath a sort of right and power over him and likewise every one was under a law of death the Law of God cuâ—sing him and sentencing him to condemnation because of sin these two were joynt conquerours of all mankind But saith he there is a delivery from this bondage freedom is obtained to believers by Jesus Christ and so there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ and so they walk not after the leading and direction of that law of sin within them but after the guiding of our blessed Tutor the Spirit of God If you ask how this comes to pass by what authority or law or power is this releasement and freedom obtained Here it is by the Law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ. Christ is not an invader or unjust conquerour he hath fair Law for what he doth even against these Laws which detains unbelievers in bondage There is a higher and later Law on his side and he hath power and strength to accomplish his design He opposes Law unto Law and life unto death and spirit unto flesh a Law of Spirit unto a Law of sin and flesh a Law of life unto a Law of death In a word the Gospel or Covenant of Grace unto the Law or Covenant of Woâ—ks the powerful and living Spirit of grace that wrought mightily in him is set â—â—re-against the power of sin and Satan in us and against us the one gives him right and title to conquer the other accomplisheth him for the work and by these two are believers in Jesus Christ made free-men who were bond-men That then which we would speak from these words is the common lot of all men by nature viz. to be under the power of sin and sentence of death the special exemption of believers in Christ and immunity from this or delivery from it and then the true ground and cause of this delivery from that bondage which three are contained in the words It is a purpose indeed of a high nature and of high conceâ—nment to us all our life and death is wrapt up in this you may hear maâ—y things more gladly but if ye knew it none so profitable Therefore let us gather our spirits to the consideration of these particulars As the first all men are under the bondage of a twofold Law the law of sin within them and the law of death without them Man was created righteous but saith the wise man he found out many inventions a sad invention indeed he found but misery and slavery to himself who was made free and happy His freedom and happiness was to be in subjection to his Maker under the just and holy commands of his Lord who had given him breath and being it was no captivity or restraint to be compassed about with the hedges of the Lords holy Law no more then it is a restraint on a mans liberty to have his way hedged in where he may safely walk that he may keep himself within it from pits and snares on every hand But alace if we may say alace when we have such a redemption in Jesus Christ. Adam was not content with that happiness but seeking after more liberty he sold himself into the hands of strange lords first sin and then death Other lords besides thee O Lord have dominion over us Isa. 26.13 This is too true in this sense Adam seeking to be as the Lord himself lost his own lordship and dominion over all the works of Gods hands and became a servant to the basest and most abominable of all even that which is most hateful to the Lord to sin and death And this is the condition we are now born into Consider it I pray you we are born captives and slaves the most noble the most ingenuous and the most free of us all Paul speaks of it as a priviledge to be born free to be free in mans Common-wealth It is counted a dignity to be a free Citizen or Burgess of a Town Liberty is the great claim of people now a dayes and indeed it is the great advantage of a people to enjoy that mother and womb-priviledge and right But alace what is all this to be free-born in a civil society it is but the state of a man among men it reaches no further then the outward man his life or estate But here is a matter of greater moment know ye what state your souls are in your souls are incomparably more worth than your bodies as much as eternity surpasseth this inch of time or immortality exceeds mortality your souls are your selves indeed your bodies are but your house or tabernacle ye lodge into for a season Now then I beseech you ask whether ye be born free or not if your souls be slaves ye are slaves indeed for so the Evangelist changeth these Matthew saith in ch 16. â—6 What hath a man gained if he lose his soul And Luke 9.25 saith What hath he gained if he lose himself Therefore you are not free indeed except your souls be fâ—ee What is it I pray you to enjoy freedom among men I aâ—k you what are ye before God whether bond or free this is the business inâ—eed The Phariâ—ees pleaded a claim to the liberty and priviledge of being Abrahams sons and children and thought they might hence conclude they were Gods children But our Lord Jeâ—us discovers this misâ—ake when he tells them of a freedom and libeâ—ty that he came to proclaim to men to purchase to them and bestow on them they stumbled at this Doctrine What say they talkest thou to us of making us free we were never in bondage for we be Abrahams chilâ—ren This is
raised up Christ the very first fruits of all the rest so that Christs resurrection is a sure pledge and token of yours and both together are the main basis and ground work of all our hope and salvation the neglect and inconsideration whereof makes the most part of pretended Christians to walk according to that Epicurean principle let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die as if there were no life to come they withold nothing from their carnal minds that can satisfie or please their lusts But for you who desire a part in this resurrection and daâ—e scarcely believe so great a thing or entertain such a high hope because of the â—ight of your unworthinesse as ye would be awaked by this hope to righteousnesse and to sin no more vers 34. of that Chap. So you may encourage your selves to that hope by the resurrection of Christ for it is that which hath the mighty influence to beget you to a lively hope 1 Pet. 1.3 Look upon this as the grand intent and special design of Christs both dying and rising again that he might be the first fruits to sanctifie all the lump Nevertheless it is not he defect of your bodies for they are often a great impediment and retardment to the spirit and lodgeth the enemy within their walls when he is chased out of the mind by the Law of the Spirit of life but it is the great design of God through the whole work of redemption and the desert of Christ your head and therefore you may entertain that hope but take heed to walk worthy of it and that is if we have this hope let us purifie our selves let us who believe that we are risen with Christ set our affections on things above else we dishonour Him that is risen in our name and we dishonour that Temple of the Holy Ghost which he will one day make so glorious SERMON XXXI Rom. 8.11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead c. AS there is a twofold death the death of the soul and the death of the body so there is a double resurrection the resurrection of the soul from the power of sin and the resurrection of the body from the grave as the first death is that which is spiritual then that which is bodily so the first resurrection is of the Spirit then the second of the body and these two have a connexion together therefore saith the Apostle Iohn Blessed are they who have part in the first resurrection for on such the second death hath no power but they shall be Priests to God c. Rom. 20.6 Although death must 〈…〉 their bodies yet the sting wherein the strength of it lyes is taken away by Christ that it hath no power to hurt him whose spirit is raised out of the grave of sin and truly it is hard to tell which is the greatest change or the most dificult to raise a Body out of corruption to life or to to raise a Soul out of sin to grace But both are the greatest changes that can be and shadowed out under the similitude of the greatest in nature for our conversion to God is a new birth a new creation and a resurrection in Scripture style and so both require one and the same power the almighty power of his Spirit you who were dead in sin hath He quickned c. O what a notable change it maketh them no longer the same men but new creatures and therefore it is the death of sin and the resurrection of the soul for as long as it is under the chains of darknesse and power of sin it is free among the dead it is buried in the vilest sepulchre old graves and these full of rottennesse and dead mens bones are nothing to â—xpresse the lamentable case of such a soul and yet such are all by nature whatsoever excellency or endowment men have from their birth or education yet certainly they are but apparitions rather then any real substance and which is worse their bodies is the sepulchre of their souls and if the corruption of a soul were sensible we would think all the putrifactions of bodily things but shadows of it And therefore no sooner is there any inward life begotten in a soul but this is the very fiâ—st exercise of it the abhorrency of the soul upon the sight and smell of its own loathsomnesse Now there is no hope of any reviving though all the wisdom and art of men and Angels were imployed in this businesse there is nothing able to quicken one such soul untill it please the Lord to speak such a word as he did to Lazarus Arise come forth and send his Spirit to accomplish his word and this will do it when the Spirit cometh into the soul he quickeneth it and this is the first â—esurrection O blessed are they who have part in this whose souls are drawen out of the dungeon of darknesse and ignorance and brought â—orth to behold this glorious light that shineth in the Gospel and raised out of the grave of the lusts of ignorance to live â—nto God henceforth for such they have their part in the second resurrection to life for you see these are conjoyned If the Spirit dwell in you He shall raise you c. You see here two grounds and reasons of the resurrection of the body Christs rising and the Spirits indwelling now I find these in Scripture made the two fountains of all Christianity both of the fiâ—st and second resurrection The â—esurrection of Christ is an evidence of our Justification the the cause of our quickening or vivification and the ground and pledge of our last resurrection and all these are grounds of strong consolation The first you have Rom. 4.25 Christ died for our sins and rose for our Iustification and the vers 34. of this Chap. Christ is dead yea rather that is risen again who then shall condemn Here is a clear evidence that He hath payed the debt wholly and satisfied Justice fully since He was under the power of death imprisoned by Justice certainly he would not have won free if he had not payed the uttermost farthing therefore his glorious resurrection is a sure manifestation of his present satisfaction it is a publick acquittance and absolution of him from all our debt and so by consequence of all he died for for their debt was laid upon him and now He is discharged and therefore the believing soul may tremblingly boast who shall condemn me for it is God that justifieth Why because all my sins were laid on Christ and God hath in a most solemn manner acquited and discharged him from all when he raised him from the dead and therefore he cannot and none other can sue me or prosecute a plea against me since my Cautioner is fully exonered of this undertaking even by the great Creditor God himself But then his resurrection is a pawn or pledge of the spiritual raising of the soul
is the gâ—eatest fool in the world that would on that account venture on satisfaction to his lusts for though it be true that he be not in danger of eternal wrath yet he may find so much present wâ—ath in his conscience as may make him think it was a â—oolish bargain he may lose so much of the sweetnesse of the peace and joy of God as all the pleasures oâ— sin cannot compense Theâ—efore to the end that yâ—u whose souls aâ—e once pacified by the blood of Christ and composed by his word of promise may enjoy that constant rest and tranquility as not to be enthralled agâ—â—n to your old fears and terrours I would advise and recommend to you these two things one is that ye would be much in the studie of that allowance which the promises of Christ affords be much in the serious apprehension of the Gospel and certainly your doubts and feares would evainish at one puff of such a rooted and established meditation Think what you are called to not to fear again but to love rather and honour him as a Father and then take heed to walk suitably and preserve your seal of adoption unbâ—otted unrusted you would study so to walk as you may not cast dirt upon it or open any gap in the conscience for the re-entry of these hellish-like fears and dreadâ—ul apprehensions of God Câ—rtainly â—ts impossible to preserve the Spirit in freedom if a man be not watchfull against sin and corruption David prayes re-establish me with thy free Spirit as if his spirit had been abased embondaged and enthraled by the power of that corruption If you would have your spirits kept free from the â—ear of wrath study to keep them free from the power of sin for that is but a fâ—uit of this and it s most suitable that the soul that cares not to be in bondage to sinful lusts should by the righteousnesse of God tempered with love and wisdom be brought under the bondage he would not that is oâ—â—ear and terrour â—or by this means the Lord makes him know how evil the first is by the bitternesse of the second It is usual on such a Scripture as this to propound many questions and debate many practical cases as whether a soul after believing can be under legal bondage and wherein these dâ—ffer the bondage oâ— a soul after believing and in it fiâ—st conversion And how far that bondage oâ— fear is preparatory to faith and many such like but I choose rather to hold forth the simple and naked truth for your edification then put you upon or intertain you in such needlesse janglings and contentions All I desire to say to a soul in bondage is to exhort him to come to the Redeemer and to consider that his case calls and cryes for a delivery Come I say and he shall find rest and liberty to his soul. All I would say to souls delivered from this bondage is to request and beseech them to live in a holy fear of sin and jealousie over themselves that so they may not be readily brought under the bondage of the fear of wrath again Perfect love casts out the fear of hell but perfect love bâ—ings in the fear of sin Ye that love the Lord hate ill and if ye hate it ye will fear it in this state of infirmity and weaknesse wherein we are And if at any time ye through negligence and carelessness of walking lose the comfortable evidence oâ— the Fathers love and be reduced again to your old prison oâ— legal terrour do not despair for that do not think that such a thing could not beâ—all a child of God and from that ground do not raze former foundations for the Scriptures saith not that whosoever believes once in Christ and receives the Spirit of Adoption cannot fear again â—or we see it otherwise in David in Heman in Iob c. all holy Saints but the Scripture saith ye have not received the spirit of bondage for that end to fear again it is not the allowance of your Father your allowance is better and larger if you knew it and did not sit below it Now the great giâ—t and large allowance of our Father is expressed in the next words but ye have received the Spirit of Adoption c. Which Spirit of Adoption is a Spirit of Intercession to make us cry to God as our Father These are two gifts Adoption or the priviledge of Sons and the Spirit of Adoption revealing the love and mercy of God to the heart and framing it to a soul-like disposition compare the two states together and its a marvelous change a Rebel condemned and then pardoned and then adopted to be a Son of God a sinner under bondage a bound slave to sin and Satâ—n not only freed from that intollerable bondage but advanced to this liberty to be made a Son of God this will be the continued wonder of eternity and that whereabout the song oâ— Angels and Saints will be accursed rebels expecting nothing but present death sinners arraigned and sentenced beâ—ore his Tribunal and already tasting Hell in their Consciences and in fear of eternal perishing not only to be delivered from all that but to be dignified with this priviledge to be the Sons of God to be taken from the Gibbit to be Crowned that is the great myâ—tery of wisdom and grace revealed in the Gospel the proclaiming whereof will be the joynt labour of all the innumerable companies above for all eternity Now if you ask how this estâ—te is attainable Himself tells us Iohn 1.12 As many as believed or received him to them he gave the priviledge to be the Sons of God The way is made plain and easie Christ the Son of God the natural and eternal Son of God became the son of man to facilitate this he hath taken on the burden of mans sin the chastisement of our peace and so of the glorious Son of God he became like the wretched and accursed sons of men and thereâ—ore God hath proclaimed in the Gospel not only an immunity and freedom from wrath to all that in the sense of their own misery cordially receive him as he is offered but the unspeakable priviledge of Sonship and Adoption for his sake who became our elder brother Gal. 4.4 5. Men that want children use to supply their want by adopting some beloved friend in the place of a son and this is a kind of supply oâ— nature for the comfort of them that want But it is strange that God having a Son so glorious the very character of his Person and brightnesse of his glory in whom he delighted â—rom eternity strange I say that he should in a manner losse and give away his only begotten Son that he might by his means adopt others poor despicable creatures yea rebellious to be his sons and daughters Certainly this is an act infinitly transcending nature such an act that hath an unsearchable mystery in it into which Angels desire to look
of his children from necessities strength perfected in weaknesse grace sufficient in infirmities hath some greater glory then strength and grace alone Thereâ—ore he hath chosen this way as most fit for the advancing his glory and moâ—t suitable for our comfort and edification to give us but little in hand and environ us with a crowd of continued necessities and wants within and without that we may learn to cry to him as our Father and seek our supplies â—rom him and withall he hath not been sparing but liberal in promises of hearing our cryes and supplying our wants â—o that this way of narrow and hard dispensation that at first seems contrary to the love and bounty and riches of our Father in the perfect view of it appears to be the only way to perpetuat our communion with Him and often to renew the sense of His love and grace that would grow slack in our hearts if our needs did not every day stir-up fresh longings and his returns by this means are so much the more refreshing There is a time of childrens minority when they stand in need of continual supplies from their Parents or Tutors because they are not entered in possession of their inheritance and while they are in this state there is nothing more beseeming them then in all their wants to addresse to their Father and represent them to Him and it is fit they should be from hand to mouth as you say that they may know and acknowledge their dependance on their Father Tâ—uly this is our minority our presence in the body which because of sin that dwells in it and its own natural weaknesse and incapacity keeps us at much distance with the Lord that we cannot be intimatly present with him Now in this condition the most natural the most comely and becoming exercise of children is to cry to our Father to present all our grievances and thus to intertain some holy correspondence with our absent Father by the messenger of prayer and supplication which cannot return empty if it be not sent away too full of self-conceit This is the most natural breathing of a child of God in this world it is the most proper acting of his new life and the most suitable exspiration of that Spirit of Adoption that is inspired into him since there is so much life as to know what we want and our wants are infinite therefore that life cannot but beat this way in holy desires after God whose fulnesse can supplie all wants this is the Pulse of a Christian that goeth continually and there is much advantage to the continuity and interruptednesse of the motion from the infinitenesse and inexhaustednesse of our needs in this life and the continual assaults that are made by necessity and temptation on the heart But ye have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry c. He puts in his own Name in the latter parr though theirs was in the former part When he speaks of a donation or priviledge he applies to the meanest to shew that the lowest and most despised creature is not in any incapacity to receive the greatest gifts of God and then when he mentions the working of that Spirit in way of intercession because it imports necessity and want he cares not to commit some incongruity in the Language by changing the Person that he may teach us that weaknesse infirmities and wants are common to thebest and chiefest among Christians That the most eminent have continual need to cry and the lowest and obscurest believers have as good ground to believe the hearing and acceptance of their cryes that the highest are not above the weakest and lowest ordinanceâ— and that the lowest are not below the comfort of help and acceptation in him Nay the growth and increase of grace is so far from exempting men from or setting them above this duty of constant supplication that by the contrary this is the just measure of their growth and altitude in grace as the degrees of the hight of the Water of Nilus in its overflowing are a sure sign of the fertility or barrennesse of that year so the overflowings of the spirit of Prayer in one gives a present account how the heart is whether barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ or fruitful and lively and vigorous in it It is certain that contraries do discover one another and the more the one be increased that is not only the more incompatible and inconsistent with the other but gives the most perfect discerning of it When grace is but as twi-light in the soul and as the dawning of the day only grosse darknesse and uncleanesse is seen but the more it grow to the perfect day the more sin is sin and the more its hated wants are discovered that did not appear and therefore it exerciseth its self the more in opposition to sin and supplication to God To speak the truth our growth here is but an advancement in the knowledge and sense of our own indigencey It s but a further entry into the idolatrous Temple of the heart which makes a man see daily new abominations worse then the former and therefore you may easily know that such repeated sights and discoveries will but presse out more earnest and frequent cryes from the heart and such a growth in humility and faith in Gods fulnesse will be but as oyl to feed the flame of supplication For what is Prayer indeed but the ardency of the affection after God flaming up to him in cryes and requests To speak of this exercise of an holy heart it would require more of the spirit of it then we have but truly this is to be lamented that though there be nothing more common among Christians in the outward practice of it yet that there is nothing more extraordinary and rare even among many that use it then to be acquainted with the inward nature of it Truly the most ordinary things in Religion are the greatest mysteries as to the true life of them we are strangers to the soul and life of these things which consists in the holy behavior and deportment of our Spirits before the Father of Spirits These words give some ground to speak of some special qualifications of prayer and the chief principle of it The chief principle and original of prayer is the Spirit of adoption received into the heart It is a businesse of a higher nature then can be taught by precepts or learned by custome and educationâ— there is a general mistake among men that the gift of prayer is attained by learning and that it consists in the freedom and plenty of expression But O! how many Doctors and disputers of the world that can defend all the articles of faith against the opposers of them Yet how unaquainted are they with this exercise that the poor and unlearned and nothings in the world who cannot dispute for Religion yet they send up a more â—avory and acceptable sacrifice and sweet
Christ. Here is a blessed message to condemned lost sinners who have that sentence within their breasts vers 1. This was the end of Christs coming and dying that he might deliver us from sin as well as death and the righteousnesse of the Law might be fulfilled in us and therefore he hath given the holy Spirit and dwels in us by the Spirit to quicken us who are dead in sins and trespasses O! what consolation will this be to souls that look upon the body oâ— death within them as the greatest misery and do groan with Paul O miserable man that I am c. Rom. 7.24 This is held forth to vers 17. But because there are many grounds of heavinesse and sadnesse in this world therefore the Gospel opposes unto all these both our expectation which we have of that blessed hope to come whereof we are so sure that nothing can frustâ—at us of it And also the help we get in the mean time of the Spirit to bear our infirmities and to bring all things about for good to us vers 28. And from all this the believer in Jesus Christ hath ground of triumph and boasting before the perfect victory Even as Paul doth in the name of believers from vers 31. to the end Upon these considerations he that cryed out not long ago O miserable man who shall deliver me doth now cry out Who shall condemn me The distressed wrestler becomes a victorious triumpher the beaten Souldiour becomes more than a Conquerour Oh that your hearts could be perswaded to hearken to this joyful sound to embrace Jesus Christ for grace and salvation how quickly would a song of triumph in him swallow up all your present complaints and lamentations All the complaints amongst men may be reduced to one of these three I hear the most part bemoaning theâ—selves thus Alace for the miseries of this life this evil world Alace for poverty for contempt for sickness Oh miserable man that I am who will take this disease away who will shew me any good thing Psal. 4. any temporal good But if ye knew and considered your latter end ye would cry out more ye would refuse to be comforted though these miseries were removed But I hear some bemoaning themselves more sadly they have heard the Law and the sentence of condemnation is within them the Law hath entred and killed them Oh! what shall I do to be saved Who will deliver me from the wrath to come What is alâ— present afflictions and miseries in respect of eternity Yet there is one moan and lamentation beyond all these when the soul finds the sentence of absolution in Jesus Christ and gets its eyes opened to see that body of death and sin within that perfect man of sin diffused throughout all the members then it bemoans it self with Paul Oh miserable man who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7.24 I am delivered from the condemnation of the Law but what comâ—ort is it as long as sin is so powerful in me Nay this makes me often suspect my delivery from wrath and the curse seing sin it self is not taken away Now if ye could be perswaded to hearken to Jesus Christ and embrace this Gospel O! what abundant consolation should ye have what a perfect answer to all your complaints they would be swallowed up in such a triumph as Pauls are here This would discover unto you a perfect remedy of sin and misery that ye should complain no more or at least no more as these without hope You shall never have a remedy of your temporal miseries unlesse ye begin at eternal to prevent them Seek first the kingdom of God and all other things shall be added unto you seek fiâ—st to flee from the wrath to come and ye shall escape it and beside the evil of time-afflictions shall be removed first remove the greatest complaints of sin and condemnation and how easie is it to answer all the lamentations of this life and make you rejoice in the midst of them You have in this verse three things of great importance to consider The great and precious priviledge the true nature and the special property of a Christian. The priviledge is one of the greatest in the world because it s of eternal consequence and soul concernment the nature is most divine he is one that is in Jesus Christ and implanted in him by faith his distinguishing property is noble sureable to his nature and priviledges he walkes not as the world according to his base flesh but according to the spirit All these three are of one latitude none of them reaches further than another that rich priviledge and sweet property concenters and meets together in one man even in the man who is in Jesus Christ whoever enters into Jesus Christ and abideth in him he meets with these two Justification and Sanctification these are no where else and they are there together If ye knew the nature and properties of a Christian ye would fall in love with these for themselves but if theâ—e for your own sakes will not allure you consider this incomparable priviledge that he hath beyond all others that ye may â—all in love with the nature of a Christian. Let this love of your selves and your own wel-being puâ—sue you in to Jesus Christ that ye may walk even as he walked and I assure you if ye were once in Christ Jesus ye would love the very nature and walking of a Christian no more for the absolution and salvation that accompanies it but â—or its oâ—n sweetnesse and excellency beyond all other Ye would as the people of Samaria no moâ—e believe for the report of your own neceâ—â—â—ty and misery but ye would believe in Jesus Christ and walk according to the Spirit for their own testimony they have in your consciences Ye would no more be allured only with the priviledges oâ— it to embrace Châ—istianity but ye would think Christianity the greatest priviledge a reward â—nto it self Pietas ipsa sibi merces eâ—t Godlinesse is great gain in it self though it had not such sweet consequents or companions That you may know this priviledge conâ—â—der the estate all men are into by nature Paul expresses it in shoâ—t Rom. 5. By the offence of oÌ„ne judgemnt came upon all unto condemnation and the reason of this is by one man sin came upon all and so death by sin for death passed upon all because all have sinned vers 18.12 Lo then all men are under a sentence of condemnation once This sentence is the curse of the Law Cursed is every one that abideth not in all things commanded to do them If ye knew what this curse were ye would indeed think it a priviledge to be delivered from it Sin is of an infinite deserving because against an infinite God it s an offence of an infinite Majesty and therefore the curse upon the sinner involves eternal punishment O! what weight is in that word 2 Thes. 1.9 Ye
come and receive his full and perfect salvation I think a man should seek nothing in himself whereupon to build his coming to Christ though it be true no man can come to a Saviour till he be convinced of sin and misery yet no man should seek convictions as a warrand to come to Christ for salvation he that is in earnest about this question how shall I be saved I think he should not spend the time in reflecting on and examination of himself till he find something promising in himself but from discovered sin and misery pass straight way over to the grace and mercy of Christ without any interveening search of something in himself to warrand him to come there should be nothing before the eye of the soul but sin and misery and absolute necessity compared with superabounding grace and righteousness in Christ And thus it singly devolves it self over upon Christ and receives him as offered freely without money and without price I know it is not possible that a soul can receive Christ till there be some preparatory convincing work of the Law to discover sin and misery But I hold that to look to any such preparation and fetch an incouragement or motive therefrom to believe in Christ is really to give him a price for his free waters and wine it is to mix in together Christ and the Law in the point of our acceptation and for souls to go about to seek preparations for a time resolving not at all to consider the promise of the Gospel till they have found them and satisfaction in them is nothing else but to go about to establish their own righteousness being ignorant of the righteousness of Christ. And therefore many do corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel by rigid exactions of preparations and measures of them and by making them conditions or restrictions of Gospel-commands and promises As in this Come ye that are wearied And from thence they seem to exclude persons not so qualified from having a warrand to believe Alas it is a great mistake of these and such words certainly these are not set down of purpose to exclude any who will come for whoever will let them come and take freely but rather to encourage such wearied and broken souls as conceives themselves to be the only peâ—sons excluded and to declare unto us in some measure the nature of true faith that a soul must be beaten out of it self ere it can come to Christ. Therefore I conclude that not only it is â— ridiculous and foolish conceit of many Christians that uses to object against believing Iâ— I were as such or such a person if I did love God if I had these fruits of the Spirit if I walked according to the Spirit then I might believe Alace how directly opposite is this to the tearms of the Gospeâ— I say If thou place satisfaction in these and from that ground come to Jesus Christ then thou dost not come really thou dost indeed establish thine own righteousness Doth any Saint though never so holy consider himself under such notions of grace when he comes to be justified No indeed but as an ungodly man rather he must deny all that though he had it And besides it is most unreasonable and incongruous to seek the fruits before the tree be planted and to refuse to plant the tree till you can behold the fruits of it But also it is contrary to the â—ree and comfortable Doctrine of the Gospel for a soul to seek the discovery of any thing in it self but sin before it apply to Jesus Christ. I say there must be some sense oâ— sin otherwise it hath not rightly discovered sin but a soul should not be at the pains to discover that sense of sin and find it out so as to make it a motive of believing in Christ He ought to go straight foreward and not return as he goes he must indeed examine himself not to find himself a sensible humbled sinner that so he may have ground of believing but that he may find himself a lost perishing sinner void of all grace and goodness that he may find the more necessity of Jesus Christ. And thus I think the many contentions about preparations or conditions preparatory to believing may be reconciled Now if the question be as it is indeed about the grounds of our assurance and knowledge of our own faith certainly it is clear as the noon-day that as the good tree is known by the fruits thereof and the fire by the heat thereof so the in-dwelling of faith in the heart is known by its purifying of the heart and working by love it makes a man a new creature so that he and others may see the difference Neither is this any derogation to the free grace of Christ or any establishing of our own righteousness except men be so afraid to establish their own righteousness that they will have no holiness at all but abandon it quite for fear of trusting in it which is a remedy worse than the disease because I make it not a ground of my acceptation before God but only a naked evidence of my believing in Christ and being accepted of God it being known that these have a necessary connexion together in the Scriptures and it being also known that the one is more obvious and easie to be discerned then the other Sure I am the Lambs Book of Life is a great mystery and unless this be granted I see not but every mans regeneration and change shall be as dark and hidden as the hidden and secret decrees of Gods Election for the Spirit may immediatly reveal both the one and the other Is it any derogation to the grace of Christ to know what is freely given us Doth it not rather commend his grace When a soul looks upon it self beautified with hiâ— comeliness and adorned with his graces and loaths it self in it self and ascribes all the honour and praise to him Is it not more injury to the fountain and fulness of grace in Christ not to see the streams of it at all nor to consider them then to behold the streams of grace that flowes out of this fountain as coming out of it I think Christians may be ready to idolize their graces and make them Mediators when they are known but is this a good remedy of that evil to abandone all sight and knowledge of the things freely given us of God Shall we not speak of the freeness of grace because mens corruptions turn grace into carnal liberty and wantonness If these graces be in us sure I am 't is no vertue to be ignorant of them but rather a weakness and darkness It must then be the light and grace of God to know them and from thence to conclude that assurance of faith which is not a forced ungrounded perswasion and strong fancy without any discovered reason of it Sure I am the Apostles counsel is to make our election sure by making our calling sure
groundless opinions never to question the matter is to leave it alwise uncertain If ye would judge your selves according to the Scriptures many of you have the marks and characters of these who are kept without the City and are to have their part in the lake of fire Is there no condemnation for you who have never condemned your selves Certainly the more you are averse to condemn your selves this sticks the closser to you You are not all in Christ all are not Israel who are of Israel many nay the most part are but said Christians have no real union with Christ or principle of life from him your love you carry to your selves makes you easily believe well of your selves know that self-love can blind the eyes and make you apprehend that God loves you also Nay every one readily fancies that to be which he desires to be I beseech you consider if you have any ground for your hopes and confidences but such as these that will not bear out alwayes It would be no disadvantage to you to have your hope shaken that in stead of a vain presumption you may have the Anchor of hope which shall be fixed within the vail I think one thing keeps men far from the Kingdom of God because they know not that they believe not in him we had gained much ground on you by the Word if we could perswade you that ye believe not and have not believed from the Womb. We might then say to you as Christ to his Disciples ye believe in God believe also in me Ye have given credit to God the Judge and Law-giver pronouncing a curse on â—ou and a sentence that ye have hearts desperatly wicked now believe also in me the Redeemer Ye have believed God in the Law in as far as ye have judged your selves under sin and wrath now believe Me in the Gospel that brings a ransome from wrath and a remedy for sin It s this very unbelief that is the original of the woâ—lds perishing unbelief of the Law ye do not consider ye are under the condemnation of it ye do not believe that ye have not yet â—ed to Jesus Christ to escape and these two keeps souls in a deep sleep till judgement awake them But unto every one of you I would give this Direction Let not examination of what you are hinder you from that which is your chief duty and his chief commandment to believe in him I know many Christians are puzled in the matter of their interest and alwise wavering because they are more taken up with that which is but a matter of comfort and joy then that which is His greatest honour and glory I say to consider the precious promises to believe the excellâ—â—cy and vertue of Jesus Christ and love him in your souls and delight in him is the weightiest matter of the Gospel to go out of your selves daily into his fulness to endeavour new discoveries of your own naughtiness and his grace this is the new and great commandment of the Gospel the obedience of it is the most essential part of a Christian-walk Now again to know that ye do believe and to discern your interest in Christ this is but a matter of comfort and of second concernment Therefore I say when ever ye cannot be clear in this ye should be alwise exercised in the first For its that we are first called to and if Souls were more exercised that way in the consideration and belief of the very general truths and promises of the Gospel I doubt not but the light of these would clear up their particular interest in due time these things ye ought to have done and not to leave the other undone It is still safest to wave such a question of interest when its plunging because it puts you off your special duty and its Satans intent in it It were better if ye do question presently to believe and abide in him till it were put out of question SERMON IV. Vers. 1. That walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit CHrist is made to us of God both righteousness and sanctification And therefore these who are in Christ do not only escape condemnation but they walk according to the spirit and not according to the flesh These two are the sum of the Gospel there is not a greater argument to holy walking then this there is no condemnation for you â—â—â—ther is there a greater evidence of a Soul escaped condemnation then walking â—ccording to the Spirit We have spoken something in general of the evidence that may be had of a mans state from his walking and the Spirits work in him we would now speak of the conjunction of these two and the influence that that priviledge hath on this duty and something of the nature of this description who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit In the creation of man man was composed of soul and body there was a right order and subordination of these suitable to their nature in his soul he reached Angels above in his body he was like the beasts below and this part his flesh was a servant to the Soul that was acted and affected according to the desires and motives of the Soul Now sin entring as it hath defaced all the beauty of the creation as it hath misplaced man and driven him out from that due line of subordination to God his Maker for he would have been equal to God so it hath perverted this beautiful order in men and turned it just contrary hath made the servant to ride on horses and the prince to walk on foot This is the just punishment of our first sin Adams soul was placed by creation under the sole command of its Creator above all the creatures and his own senses but in one sin he proudly exalted himself above God and lamentably subjected himself below his senses by hearkening to their perswasion he saw it was good and tasted it and it was sweet and so he ate of it What a strange way was this to be like God he made himself unlike himself liker the miserable beasts Now I say this is the deserved punishment of man his soul that was a free Prince is made a bond slave to the lusts of his flesh flesh hath gotten the Throne and keeps it and lords over the whole man Now therefore it is that the whole man unregenerat is called flesh as if he had no immortal spirit Iohn 3.6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh and this Chap. vers 8. here a description of natural men they that are in the flesh Because flesh is the predominant part that hath captivat a mans reason and will Nay not only the grosser corruptions in a man that have their use and seat in his flesh and body are under that name but take the whole nature of man that which is most excellent in him his Soul and Spirit his Light and Understanding the most refined principles of his
Covenant of Grace I will put my Spirit in you and cause you walk in my wayes there is first quickening and then walking You who were dead in sins hath he quickned together with Christ Eph. 2.1 5. and then it follows in due order I will cause you to walk in my wayes Ezek. 36 27. Christ comes into the heart to dwell and then he walks in it 2 Cor. 6.16 And what is that Christ to walk in believers it is nothing else but Christ by his Spirit making them to walk in his way there is so little in us to principle a spiritual action even when renewed and quickned that we should look on our selves not so much as workers with him but as being acted by him we should look on soul and body as pieces of organized clay that cannot move but as it is moved by him as the soul and life of it so that according to the Scriptures diâ—lect a Christian is nothing else but Christ living and waâ—king in such a person This is it which Christ when he is to go out of the world instructs his Disciples into Iob. 15.1 He is the vine and we the branches the branch must first be united to the tree and implanted into the tree ere it bring forth fruit without the tree it withers So must a soul be fust ingrast in Jesus Christ implanted in him by â—aith in his death and sufferings before it can grow up into the similitude of his resurrection or walk in newness of life as Paul speaks Rom. 6.4 5. Without me ye can do nothing ye must first be one with him by believing in him and receiving him as a compleat Saviour and then the sap and vertue of the tree flows into the dead branch and it shoots forth and blossoms and bears Now if this Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles were duly pondered and believed O what a change would it make on the lives and spirits of Christians since this is the order established in the Gospel and an order suitable both to his grace and our necessity as all that is in it speaketh forth an excellent contriver when we go about to establish our souls in another method how is it possible that we should not weary and vex our souls in vain how can we choose but torment our selves and intricat our selves still more Our method and way is just contrary we perplex our souls how to find the fruits of the Spirit of Christ how to walk after the Spirit without fiâ—st closing intirely with Christ himself We trouble our selves to find the operations of a spiritual life before we lay hold on Christ who is the life of our souls It is made an argument by many to keep them from believing in Christ because they do not find that spiritual life stirring in them How cross is this to the declared mind of Christ in the Gospel It cannot choose but both darken the spirit more and dry up the influences of the Spirit of God because it keeps thee from the fountain of all consolation You may disquiet your souls by this means but you shall never make advantage this way without him ye can do nothing and yet ye will not come to him because you have done nothing It s strange how little reason is in it if your eyes were opened you refuse or delay to abide in the vine till you bring forth fruit and fruit you cannot bring forth till you be in the vine you would walk and you will not have the life from which you must walk Paul lived indeed but what a life the life that I live is by the faith of the Son of God faith in Christ transported him out of himself to Christ or received Christ into the soul and Christ in the soul was the life of his soul Gal. 2.20 your walking is as if a dead man essay to go Will one expect figs of thorns or grapes of thistles I beseech you know what wrong ye do to your selves and to Christ ye wrong your selves because ye stand in the way of your own mercy ye stand a back from your life him that is the way the truth and the life You would walk in the way but no man can walk in this way but by this way Christ must quicken you to walk in himself ye must get life in him and not bring it You are in a vain expectation of fruits from your selves they will never see the Sun and when you have wearied your self in such a vain pursuit you must at length come and begin here Ye wrong Christ his grace and mercy this order is suited of purpose for our desperat condition and yet ye presume to reject it and seek another You prescribe to your skilful tender Physician that which would undo you I beseech you know the original of your miseries doubts barrenness and darknesse Here it is you are still puzling your selves about grace and duties how to fill your eyes with these and ye neglect Christ as your righteousnesse as one dead and risen again and now sitting at Gods right hand for us you must first close with him as ungodly men though you were godly you must shut your eyes on any such thing and lay living Jesus upon your dead and benumb'd hearts answer all your challenges with his absolution and stand before God in his cloathing put his garment immediately on your nakednesse and vilenesse and we may perswade you it shall yield you abundant consolation and life because he lives ye shall live and walk If you were more frequent and serious in the consideration of his excellent Majesty of his beautiful and lovely qualifications as the Mediator for sinners and of the precious promises which are all Yea and Amen confirmed in him and lesse in the vain and unprofitable debates of self-interest and such like I am perswaded ye would be more fruitful Christians This is not as the business of a holy-day to be done at your first coming to Christ and no more no it must run alongst all your life the aged experienced Christian must come alongs as an ungodly sinner to a blessed and living Saviour and have no other ground of glory or confidence before God but Christ Jesus crucified SERMON VII Vers. 2. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Iesus Christ hath made me free c. YOU know there are two principal things in the preceeding verse the priviledge of a Christian and the property or character of a Christian he is one that never enters into condemnation he that believeth shall not perish Joh. 3.15 And then he is one that walks not after the flesh though he be in the flesh but in a more elevat way above men after the guiding and leading of the Holy Spirit of God Now it may be objected in many consciences how can these things be Have not all sinned and come â—â—ort of the glory of God and so the whole world is become guilty before God Is not every
and self-love of the heart together with the ignorance of a better righteousness Adam hid himself among the trees and covered his nakedness with leaves and truly the shift of the most part is no better How vain and empty things do men trust into and from them conclude an expectation of eternal life the most part think to be safe in the midst or thick of the trees of the Church if they be in the throng of a visible Church and adorned with Church-priviledges as Baptisme hearing the Word and such like they do perswade themselves all will be well Some have civility and a blameless conversation before men and with such acts of righteousness or rather wants of some grosse out-breakings do many cover their nakedness If there be yet a larger and finer garment of profession of Religion and some outward performances of service to God and duties to men O then men do inâ—orce upon their own hearts the perswasion of Heaven and think their nakedness cannot be seen through it these are the coverings these are the grounds of claim and title that men have to eternal life and in the mean time they are ignorant of that large glorious robe of righteousness which Christ by his obedience and sufferings did weave for naked sinners But as the impossibility of the Laws saving us by reason of the weaknesse of the flesh was the ground and occasion of Christs coming into the flesh for to supply that defect and take away that impossibility so the sense and sight of this impossibility in us to satisfie and fulfill the Law and of the Law to give life is the very ground and reason of a souls coming to Jesus Christ for the supplying of this want As the Son should not have come in the likeness of sinful flesh unless it had been otherwise impossible by mans doing or suffering that life should be obtained so will not a soul come to Christ the Son of God through the vail of his flesh untill it discern and feel that it is otherwise impossible to satisfie the Law or attain life That was the impulsive cause if we may say that there was any cause beside his love why Christ came even mans misery and remediless misery and this is the strong motive and impulsive that drives a poor sinner unto Jesus Christ the sense and impression of its desperat and lost estate without him As there was first sin and then a Saviour dying for sin because nothing else could suffice so there must be in the soul first the apprehension of sin and that remediless sin incurable sin by any created power or act and then the sight of a Saviour coming to destroy sin and the works of the devil and destroying it by dying for it There is no imployment for this Physician upon every slight apprehension of a wound or sickness till it be found incurable and help sought elsewhere be seen to be in vain indeed upon the least apprehension of sin and misery men ought to come to Christ we shall not set or prescribe any measure of conviction to exclude you if you can but come to him indeed upon the least measure of it you will not be cast out according to his own word but as certain it is that men will not come to this Physician till they find no other can save them These two things I wish were deeply and seriously thought upon that you cannot satisfie Gods justice for the least point of guilt and then that you cannot do any thing in obedience to please God There is a strange inconsideration yea I may say ignorance among us when you are challenged and convinced of sin as there is no conscience so benum'd but in some measure it accuseth every man of many wrongs what is the course you fall on to pacifie it or please God Indeed if you can get any shadow of repentance if it were but a bare acknowledgment of the fault you excuse your selves in your own consciences and answers the accusation by it either some other good works formerly done occurre to you or some resolution for amendment in time coming and this you think shall pacifie God and satisfie justice But alace you are far from the righteousness of God and you do erre even in the very foundation of Religion these are but sparks of your own kindling and for all these you shall lye down in darkness and sorrow these are but the vain expiations and excuses of natural Consciences which are led to some sense of a Deity by the Law written in their heart But consider this once you must fiâ—st satisfie the curse of the Law which you are under before you can be in any capacity to please him by new obedience Now if you should undertâ—ke to pay for your former breaches of the Law that will eternally ruine you and therefore you see the punishment is lengthned throughout eternity to them who have this to undergo alone Go then and first suffer the eternal wrath of an infinit God and then come and offer obedience if thou can But now thou art in a double error both of which are damnable One is thou thinks thou art able by consideration and resolution to perform some acceptable obedience to God another that performance of obedience and amending in time coming will expiat former transgressions if either of these were true Christ needed not to have come in the likeness of sinful flesh because it had been possible for the Law to save thee But now the truth is such is the utter disability and impotency â—f man through sin that he can neither will nor do the least good truly good and pleasant to God his nature and person being defiled all he doth is unclean And then suppose that were possible that man could do any thing in obedience to his Commands yet it being unquestionable that all have sinned satisfaction must fiâ—st be made to Gods threatning Thou shalt die before obedience be acceptable and that is impossible too This then I leave upon your consciences beseeching you to lay to heart the impossibility you are encompassed with on both hands Justice requiring a ransome and you have none and justice requiring new obedience again and you can give none old debts urging you and new duty pressing you and ye alike disabled for both that so finding your selves thus invironed with indigency and impossibility within you may be constrained to flee out of your selves unto him that is both able and willing This is not a superficial business as you make it it is not a matter of fancy or memory or expression as most make it believe me it is a serious business a soul-work such an exercise of spirit as useth to be when the soul is between despair and hope Impossibility within driving a soul out of it self and possibility yea certainty of help without even in Christ drawing a soul in to him thus is the closure made which is the foundation of our happinesse
very image of a beast upon his nature to look on that slavery and bondage of his far better part to the worst and bruitish part in him his flesh If a man did wisely consider the constitution of his nature from its first divine original and what a thing the soul is which is truly and more properly himself then his body what excellency is in the soul beyond the body and so what preheminency it advanceth a man unto beyond a beast He could not but account Religion the very ornament and perfection of his nature Reason will say that the spirit should rule and command the body that flesh is but the minister and servant of the spirit that there is nothing the proper and peculiar good of man but that which adorns and rectifies the spirit that all these external things which mens senses are carried after with so much violence do not better a man as man but are common to beasts that in these things mans happiness as man doth not at all consist but in some higher and more transcending good which beasts are not capable of and which may satisfie the immortal spirit and not perish in the using but live with it All these things the very natural frame and constitution of man doth convincingly perswade Now then may a soul think within it self O how far am I departed from my original how far degenerated from that noble and royal dignity that God by the stamp of his image once put upon me How is it that I am become a slave and drudge to that baser and brutish part the flesh I would have you retire into your own hearts and ask such things at them Man being in honour and understanding not is even like the beasts that perish Truly we are become like beasts because we consider not that we are men and so advanced by creation far above beasts The not reflecting on the immortal spiritual nature of our souls hath transformed us in a manner into the nature of beasts perishing beasts Christianity is the very transforming of a beast into a man as sin was the deforming of a man into a beast This is the proper effect of Christianity to restore humanity to elevat it and purifie it from all those defilements and corruptions that were ingrossed and incorporated into it by the state of subjection to the flesh and therefore the Apostle delineats the nature of it unto us and draws the difference wide between the natural man and a Christian The natures of things are dark and hidden in themselves but they come to be known to us by there operations and acting their inclinations and instincts are known this way Grace is truly a very spiritual thing and the nature of it lyes high yet as Christ could not be hid in the house neither can grace be hid in the heart it will be known by its working Christ can better be hid in a house then in the heart because when he is in a heart he is ingadged to restore that heart and soul to its native dignity and preheminency over the flesh and this cannot but cause much disturbance in the man for a season to change governments to cast out usurpers and to restore the lawful and righteous owner to the possession of his right cannot be done secretly and easily it will shake the very foundations of a Kingdom to accomplish it so it is here the restitution of the soul to the possession of its right and dominion over the flesh the casting out of that tyrannous and base usurper the flesh cannot be done except all the man know it feel it and in a manner be pained with it Now the nature of Christianity doth lay it self open to us in these two especially in what it minds and savours and how it causeth to walk life is known especially by affection and motion A feeling thinking â—avouring power is a living power so a moving walking power is a living power and these are here the Christian is shortly described by his nature he is one after the Spirit not after the flesh and by the proper characteristical operations of that nature first minding or savouring the things of the Spirit which comprehends his inward thoughts affections intentions and cogitations all his inward senses are exercised about such objects and then he is one walking after the Spirit his motions are in a course of obedience proceeding from that inward relish or taste that he hath of the things of God It is not without very good reason that the name of a Christian is thus expâ—essed one after the Spirit that is his character that expressed his nature unto us whether ye look to the original of Christianity or the prime subject of it or the chief end of it it deserves to be called by this name The original of it is very high as high as that eternal Spirit as high as the God of the spirits of all flesh Things are like their original and some way participat of the nature of their causes that which is born of the spirit is spirit Joh. 3.6 that which is born of God who is a Spirit must be spirit 1 Joh. 5.1 How royal a descent is that how doth it nobilitat a mans nature Truly all other degrees of birth among men are vain imaginary things that hath no worth at all but in the fancies of men they put no real excellency in men But this is only true nobility this alone doth extract a man deface vulgi out of the dregs of the multitude There is no intrinsick difference between bloods or natures but what this make this divine birth this second birth all other differences are but in opinion this is reality it puts the image of that blessed Spirit upon a man Truly such a creature is not begotten in the womb of any natural cause of any humane perswasion or intising words of mans wisdom of any external mercy or judgment no instruction no peâ—swasion no allurement nor afrightment can make you Christians in the Spirit till the Spirit blow when he pleaseth and creat you again It must come from above that power that can set your hearts aright and make them to look straight above Christ Jesus came down from Heaven into the earth and took on our flesh that so the Almighty Spirit might come down to transform our spirits and lift them up from the earth to the Heaven We cast the seed into the ground of mens hearts and alace it gets entry but in few souls it is scattered rather on the high-way side and cannot reach into the arrable ground of the heart but it can do nothing without the influence of Heaven except the Spirit beget you again by that immortal seed of the Word Therefore we would cease our wondering that all the means of Gods Word and Works do not beget moe true Christians I do rather wonder that any of Adams wretched posterity should be begotten again and advanced to so high a dignity to
be born of the Spirit O that Christians would mind their original and wonder at it and study to be like it If you believe and consider that your descent is from that uncreated Spirit how powerful might that be to conform you more and more to him and to transform more and more of your flesh into spirit There is nothing will raise up the spirits of the children of Princes more then to know their royal birth and dignity how should the consideration of this make your spirits suitable to your state or fortunes as we use to say You would labour to raise them up to that hight of your original and to walk worthy of that high calling O that we could learn that instruction from it which Paul gives 1 Cor. 1.30 31 But of him are ye in Christ therefore let him that glorieth glory in the Lord Truly a soul possessed with the meditation of this royal descent from God could not possibly glory in these inglorious baser things in which men glory and could not contain or restrain gloâ—iation and boasting in him The glory of many is their shame because it s their sin of which they should be ashamed but suppose that in which men glory be not shame in it self as the lawful things of this present world yet certainly it is a great shame for a Christian to glory in them or esteem the better of himself for them If this were minded alwayes that we are of God born of God what power do ye think temptations or solistations to sin would have over us he that is born of God sinneth not he keepeth himself and the wicked one toucheth him not 1 Ioh. 5.18 19. Truly this consideration imprinted in the heart would elevate us above all these baser perswasions of the flesh this would make sin loathsome and despicable as the greatest indignity we could do to our own natures The strength and advantage of sin is to make us forget what we are whom we have relation unto to drink us drunk with the puddle of the world or then with our own jealousies and suspitions that we may forget our birth and state and so be enticed to anything If you would have wherewith to beat back all the fiery darts of the devil take the shield of this faith and perswasion how would it silence temptations Shall I who am a Ruler flee saith Nehemiah Shall I who am born of the Spirit shall I who am of God in Christ abase my self to such unworthy and base things Shall I dishonour my father and disgrace my self Then Christianity its chief residence its royal sent is in the spirit of a man and so he he is one after the Spirit Be ye renewed in the spirit of your minds Eph. 4.23 As it is of a high descent so it must have the highest and most honourable lodging in all the Creation that is the spirit of a man without this there is no room else fit for it and suitable to it in this lower world My son give me thine heart saith wisdom Pro. 23.26 It cares for nothing besides if it get not the heart the inmost Cabinet of the imperial City of this Isle of Man for out of it are the issues of life that flow into all the members Do not think that grace will lodge one night in your outward man that you can put on Christianity upon your countenance or conversation without except you admit it into your souls it can have no suitable intertaiâ—ment there alone it s of a spiritual nature and it must have a spirit to abide in Every thing is best preserved and entertained by things suitable to its nature such do incorporat together and inbosome one with another whereas things keep a greater distance with things different in nature a â—â—ame will die out among cold stones without oylie matter This heavenly fire that is descended into the world can have nothing earthly to feed upon it must die out except it get into the immortal spirit and then furnish to speak so perpetual nourishment to it till at length all the spirit be set on flame and changed as it were into that heavenly substance to mount up above from whence it came Do not think my beloved to superinduce true Religion upon your out-side and within to be as rotten sepulâ—â—â—es You must either open your hearts to Christ or else he will â—ot abide with you such a noble guest will not stay in the suburbs of the City if you take him not into the Palace and truly the palace of our hearts is too unworthy for such a worthy guest it hath been so defiled by sin how vile is it but if you would let him â—â—ter he would wash it and cleanse it for himself Will you know then the character of a Christian he is one much within he hath retired into his own spirit to know how it goes with it and he finds all so disordered and confused all so unsetled that he gets so much buâ—iness to do at home as he gets no leasure to come much abroad again It is the misery of men that they are wholly without carried into external things only and this is the very character of a beast that it cannot reflect inwardly upon it self but is wholly spent on things that are presented to the outward senses There is nothing in which mâ—n are more assimilated to beasts then this that we do not speak in our selves or return in to our own bosoms but are wholly occupyed about the things that are without us and thus it fares with us as with the man that is busie in all other mens matters and never thinks of his own his estate must needs ruin all his affairs must be out of course Truly while we are immersed and drowned in external things our souls are perishing our inward estate is washing away all our own affairs that can only and properly be called ours are disordered and jumbled Therefore Christianity doth first of all recall the wandering and vain spririt of man in to it self as that exhortation is Psal. 4.9 to commune with his own heart to make a diligent search of his own affairs and O! how doth he find all out of course as a garden neglected all overgrowen as a house not inhabited all dropping through in a word wholly ruinous through intolerable negligence It was the first turn of the Prodigal to return to himself he came to himself Luke 15.17 Truly sin is not only an aversion from God but it is an estrangement from our selves from our souls from our own happiness it s â— madness that takes away the use of reason and consideration of our own selves But grace is a conversion not only to God but to our selves it bringeth a man home to his heart maketh him sober again who was beside himself Hence that phrase 1 King 8.47 When they shall turn to their own hearts and return It is the most laborious vanity or the vainest labour to compass
dungeon of the flesh and cast off these heavier chains that bind the most part oâ— men yet wholly escape they cannot There be higher and lower rooms of this prison there are some more gross some more subâ—â—le câ—â—ds and bands of the flesh and whatsoever it be that holds a man bound or in whatsoever house he be imprisoned it s not mucâ— matter since really he is bound and his liberty restrained If a Câ—ain of Gold bind as fast as a Chain of Iron there is no â—eal difference except that mockeâ—y is added unto it when a man is detained in a Golden Prison with Golden Chains Though some men I say escape the grosser pollutions of the flesh yet they are â—ettered within some narrow scant and but imaginary good things they cannot go without the compass of those every man is confined by nature within the circle of his own narrow bosome or if he expatiat into the field of the world yet how narrow how limited are all created objects for the infinit desires of the soul whether it tend to the enjoyment of other creatures or to the possession of some imaginary excellency in a mans self how straitned are they how imprisoned in all that compass There is no true liberty can be found there Though some may be disingaged from baser lusts and the common vain imployments of men yet far they cannot go they do but ingage more with themselves the love and estimation of themselves without that compass they cannot possibly go whether from another principle or to another end and O! how little boundâ— is within any created breast for the immortal spirit that is so vast and expatiating in its desires to dwell in But here is the perfect redemption that is in Jesus Christ when he comes into the soul he unâ—etters and releases it not only of the grosser lusts of the flesh but even of thâ—se subtile invisible bands of self-love self-seeking of all scant narrow and particular objects and sets it at liberty to expatiat in that universal good the infinite fulness of God and grace which is in Christ Jesus And hence a Christian is called one after the Spirit that is whose spirit is rid and delivered from that natural bondage and slavery to the creatures and is espoused at least in affection and endeavour to the all-sufficient and self-sufficient God We told you that this new nature of a Christian shews it self in affection and motion in minding and walking both are signs of life and the proper actions of it As the natural man is easily known by what he minds and savours and what way he walks so is the spiritual man Minding or savouring comprehendâ— no doubt all the inward acts of the soul all the imaginations cogitations thoughts affections desires and purposes of the soul to expresse it shortly there is a concurrence of these two cogitation and affection the understanding and the will in this business The natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit so he cannot taste or relish them since he doth not know them 1 Cor. 2.14 How can they believe on him whom they have not heard but far moâ—e how can men love and desire that which they do not know Though it be hard to convince some that they know not God nor the things of the Spirit because they have some form of knowledge and seem to understand and can discourse in Religion yet I wonder that the most part of men whose ignorance is written in their forehead with such palpable characters should have so much difficulty to take with this challenge I am sure many that perswade themselves of Heaven are yet shut up in that dungeon of natural blindness and daâ—kness of mind and that so gross and thick darkness that it is not possible to make them conceive any notion of spiritual things the common twilight of nature is almost exinguished and little or nothing increased by their education in the visible Church How can you prize and â—steem Jesus Christ of whom you know nothing but the bare name How can you favour Heaven when you have never admitted one serious thought of the life to come O that ye could be perswaded that the grace of God is inconsistent with such gross ignorance as is the generality of you truly grace is a light shining in the soul that opens the eyes to see that light that surrounds us in the Gospel But will you consider beloved how ready you are to receive other things of no moment how your memories can retain them and your understandings receive other purposes very perplexed and laborious but for the knowledge of your sin and misery or of that blessed remedy shewed in the Gospel we cannot make you capable of a few questions about them and if you learn the words by heart as ye use to speak yet alâ—ce the matter and thing it selâ— is not in the heart or mind you have nothing but words as appears if we ask about that same maâ—ter in other words and terms it is as dark and new to you as if you had never heard it I beseech you consider if you do not then mind the things of the flesh most when you are not only most capable to know these things that concern this life but most ready to entertain such thoughts You have no difficulty to mind the world whole weeks and years but you can never find leasure or time to mind the liâ—e to come and yet vainly you say you mind it alwayes I beseech you how do you mind God and the things oâ— God when if ye will but recollect your thoughts and gather the sum of them you will not find one serious advised thought of him or his matters in a whole week I profess I wonder how so many can inforce upon themselves a perswasion that God is alwayes in their heart I think it is the hight of delusion I am sure he is not in one of ten thousand thoughts that travel walk lodge and dwell in the souls of men and yet they will needs bear upon themselves that they alwayes mind him I am sure most of you cannot say that ever you shut the doors of your hearts upon other vain objects that you might retire to secret meditation on God or conference with him and I am as sure that many men have God oâ—tner in their mouths by oaths and blasphemies and irreverent speaking and taking his holy Name in vain then in their minds prayers or praises or any holy meditations of him Are you not as unwilling to fix your minds upon any sad solemn thoughts of Gods Justice of hell of heaven of sin or misery of death as boys whose heads are â—ull of play are loath to go to their books Doth not your practice in this speak with these wicked men Iob. 21.14 Depart from us we desire not the knowledge of the Almighty How constrained are all your thoughtâ— of Religion they are intertained as these whom you would
not desire to come again But how inconstrained how free are all other thoughts our minds can roave who le days about vanity about fancies dreams nothings but you nâ—ither like to admit nor retain the knowledge of God in your mind Rom. 1.28 Do you not intertain any sâ—rious weighty thoughts of Religion that by occasion may enter as fire-brandâ— as hot coals in your bosome how glad are you to get any diversion to other things how willing to shun them or cast them out but if it be any temporal thing any thing relating to this flesh your thoughts come freely off are steady and fixed as long as you please your minds can travel through all the ends of the earth to bring in some fancy of gain or advantage or to steal by precious time and that without wearying Now all these thingâ— considered my beloved are you not carnal I speak to the most of you are you not these who are born of the flesh since you mind nothing seriously resolutely constantly and willingly but the things of the flesh and the things of this life O! it is no light matter to be born of the flesh if you continue so you are ordained for corruption for death to be carnally minded is death vers 6. of this Chap. But I am perswaded better things of some of you that the true light of God hath shined into your hearts and revealed more excellent things unto you then these perishing fleshly things Heavenly substantiall and eternal things in the Gospel which you account only worthy of the fixed and continued meditation of your spirits I am sure you perceive another beauty and excellency in these things then the world doth because the Spirit hath revealed them unto you It is true that your minds are yet much darkned in the apprehension of spiritual things they are not so willing to receive them nor so ready to retain them as you desire they are very unsetled and unstudy in the meditations of spiritual things and there are innumerable thoughts of other things that pass through your hearts like common Innâ— uncontrolled at their pleasure all this is true but I am sure it is the grief of your souls that your hearts are not so fixed and stablished as the excellency of these spiritual things require I know it will be the aim and real indeavour of any spiritual heart to be shutting up all the entries and doors of the mind that vain thoughts enter not yet enter they will there are so many porches to enter in at and our narrow spirits cannot watch at all every sense will let in objects and imagination it self will be active in â—raming them and presenting them but yet the indeavour of a Christian will be not to let them lodge long within Ier. 4.14 If they come in unawars he will labour to make a diversion to a â—etter purpose and so still it holds good that the current and course of a Christians thoughts and cogitations arâ— upon the things of the Spirit how to get his own hâ—art washed and cleansed how to be more holy and conformed to Christ how to be at peace with God and keep that peace unbroken how to walk in obedience to God and in duty towaâ—ds men how to forsake himself and withall to deny himself in all theâ—e I â—ay his most serious and solemn thoughts are about these things his resolved and advised thoughts run most on tâ—is stâ—ain though it be true that whether he will or not other vain and impertinent or not concerning thoughts will passe more lightly and too frequently through his heart The other thing in which this spiritual life doth appear is the current of the affections or that relish and taste of the sweetness of the things of the Spirit flowing from the apprehension of them in the mind When the light iâ— discovered indeed and O! it is a pleasant thing for the eye to behold it as Solomon speaks then the spirit hath found an object suitable to its nature and so it relisheth and delighteth in it Therefore the word is not simple minding or thinking but savouring thinking with affection upon them tasting and seeding upon the knowledge oâ— them it is a minding of them with caâ—e and delight with eaâ—nestness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O taste and see how good the Lord is Psal. 34.8 Some things cannot be indeed known but by some sense you cannot make a blind man apprehend what light is till he see it a deaâ— man cannot form a notion of sounds in his mind except he once heard them neither can a man understand the sweetnesse of honey but by tasting it Truly spiritual things are of that nature there is some hidden vertue and excellency in them which is not obvious to every man that hath bare knowledge of the letter there is a spirit and life in them that cannot be transmitted into your ears with the sound of words or infused into ink and paper it s only the inspiration of the Almighty can inspire this sensible preception and â—eall taste of spiâ—itual things some powders do not smell till they be beaten truly till these truths be well powdered and beaten small by meditation they cannot smell so fragrantly to the spirit As meats do not nourish till they be chewed and digested so spiritual things do not relish to a soul nor can they truly feed the soul till they be chewed and digested into the heart by serious and earnest consideration this is that which makes these same truths to be someway not the same these very principles of Religion received and confessed by all to be lively in one and dead in another it is the living consideâ—ation of living truth the application of truth to the heart that makes it lively in one whereas others keep it only besidâ— them in a corner of their minds or in a book in the corner of one houâ—e the same meat is laid to you all the most part look on it others contemplat it and exercise only their understandings aboâ—t it but there are some who taste it and find sweetneâ—â— in it who digest it by meditation and solemn a vocation of their hearts from the things of the world and therefore some are fed some are starved Need we to enlarge much upon this subject Is it not too too palpable that many who fill up our Churches are in the flesh because they do mind and savour only the things of the flesh and not of the spirit Will you seriously search your hearts ask what relishes most with them Can you say that it is the Kingdom of God or the righteousness thereof Or is not rather these other things of food and raiment and suchlike that have no extent beyond this narrow span of time I am perswaded the hearts of many taste no sweetness in Religion else they would fix more upon it and pursue it more earnestly Are not the things of another world the great things of the Gospel counted all strange
things Hos. 8.12 As thingâ— that you have not much to do with Do you not let the Officers of Jesus Christ all the sweet invitations of the Gospel passe by as strangers and as if ye were unconcerned in them What taste have they more then the white of an egg How unsavoury a discourse or thought to a carnall heart is it to speak of subduing the lusts of the flesh of dying to the world of the world to come Who findeth their hearts inwardly stirred upon the proposal of Jesus Christ But if any matter of petty gain were proffeâ—ed O! how would men listen with both their ears How beautiful in the eyes of the covetous mind is any gain and advantage the sound of money is sweeter to him then this blessed sound of peace and salvation How sweet is pleasure to the voluptuous What suitablenesse and conveniency is apprehended in these perishing things but how little moment or weight is conceived and believed to be in things eternal O how substantial do things visible seem to men and how triffling do other things invisible appear But for you whose eyes are opened to you Christ is precious to you the things of the Spirit are beautiful and all your grief is that you cannot affect them according to their worth or love them according to their beauty I say some there are who do see a substance and subsistance only in things not seen Heb. 11.1 And for things that are seen and visible in this world they do account them shadows only in comparison of things invisible The world apprehend no realities but in what they see but a Christian apprehends no solide reality in that he sees but only in that he sees not and therefore as in his judgment he looks upon the one as a shadow the other as a substance so he labours to proportion and conform his affection to a suitable intertainment of them to give a shadow or show of affection to the things of this life but the marrow and substance of his heart to the things invisible of another life Thus the Apostle 1 Cor. 7.29 c. Rejoycing as if we rejoyced not enjoying as if we possessed not using as if we used not half acts for half objects if we give our whole spirits the strength of our souls and minds to them we are as foolish as he that strikes with all his strength at the air or a feather there is no solidity or reality in these things able to bottom much estimation or affection only mind them and use them as in the by as in passing through towards your Countrey SERMON XVIII Rom. 8.5 6. For they that are after the flesh do mind c. For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minminded is life and peace THere are many differences among men in this world that as to outward appeaâ—ance are great and wide and indeed they are so eagerly pursued and seriously minded by men as if they were great and momentous You see what a strife and contention there â—s among men how to be extracted out of the dregs of the multitude and set a little higher in dignity and degree then they how do men affect to be honourable above the base how do they seek to be rich and hate poverty These differences of poor and rich high and low noble and ignoble learned and unlearned the thoughts of men are wholly taken up with But there is one great difference that is most in Gods eye and is both substantial and eternal and so infinitely surpasseth all these dâ—ffeâ—ences that the minds of men most run out upon and it is heâ—e the great difference between flesh and spirit and them that are after the flesh and them that are after the spâ—rit This is of all other most considerable because widest and durablest I say it is the widest of all for all otherâ— put no great difference between men as men they do reach the peculiaâ— excellency of a man that is the true and proper good of his spiritual and immortal part they are such as befalls alike to good and bad and so cannot have either much good or much evil in them I have seen folly set in great dignity and Princes walking on foot Eccleâ— 10.6 7. Then certainly such titles of honour and dignity such places of eminency erected above the multitude have little or nothing worth the spirit of a man in them seeing a fool a wicked man is as capable of them as a wise man or a man of a princely spirit and â—o of all others they do not elevat a man as a man above others A poor unlearned mean man may have more real excellency in him then a rich learned and great person But thiâ— draws a substantial and vast difference indeed such as is between flesh and spirit such as is between men and beasts You know what pâ—eheminency a man hath over a beast there is no such wide distance among the sâ—ns of men as between the lowest and meanest man and the chiefest beast There is a spirit in man saith Elihu Job 32.8 An immortal eternal substance of a far higher nature and comprehension You know what excellency is in the spirit beyond the flesh such as is in heaven beyond the earth for the one is breathed from Heaven and the other is taken out of the dust of the earth the one is corruptible yea corruption it self the other incorruptible How swiâ—t and nimble are the motions of the Spirit from the one end of Heaven to the other How can it compasse the earth in a moment Do but look and see what a hudge difference is between a beautiful living body and the same when it s a dead carcass rotten and corrupted It is the spirit dwelling within that makes the odds that makes it active beautiful and comely but in the removal of the spirit it becometh a piece of the most defiled and loathsome dust in the world Now I say such a vast and wide difference there is between a true Christian and a natural man even taking him in with all his common indowments and excellencies the one is a man the other a beast the one is after the flesh the other after the spirit It is the ordinary compellation of the Holy Ghost man being in honour and understanding not is like the beasts that perish Psal. 49.20 and Psal. 94.8 Vnderstand ye bruitish among the people c. and Psal. 92.6 The bruitish man understands not this And Eccles. 3.18 That they themselves may know that they are but beasts Therefore you find the Lord often turning to beasts to insensible creatures thereby to reprove the folly and madness of men Isa. 1.2 and Ier. 8.7 Man hath two parts in him by which he hath affinity to the two mâ—st distant natures he stands in the midle between Angels and beasts in his spirit he riseth up to an Angelick dignity and in his body he fallâ— down to a bruitish condition Now which
should buy it at the dearest rate of pains and expenses from all those vain impertinent and trifling diversions that take it up that we may imploy it as it becomes suitable to eternity that is posting on And then as the shortness of it makes it the more precious and considerable in regard of the end of it eternity as the scantnesse of a thing increases the rate of it so that same consideration should make all worldly things that are confined either in their being or use within it to be incosiderable as Paul 1 Cor. 7.29 30 31. shews seing the time is short it remaineth that we should rejoice as not rejoicing weep as not weeping buy as if we possessed not use the world as not abusing it Seing all its worth is to be esteemed from the end of it eternity never ending then certainly whatsover in time doth not reach that end and hath no connexion with it we should give it but such intertainment as a passing bird that is pleasant to the eye gets of a beholder while it is in its flight the shortness of the day should make us double our diligence and put on the harder in our walk or race that so we may come in time to our place of rest and that same should make the passenger give an overly and passing look to all things that are by the way and which he must of necessity leave behind him Seing these things then are so important let us draw our hearts together to consider what the Lord speaks to us in this word for in it you have two wayes and two ends opposite and contrary wayes and walks and as contrary ends the wayes are walking after the flesh and walking after the Spirit the ends to which they lead are death and life We spoke something of the wayes and the wide difference that is between them what excellency is in the one beyond the other but truly it is hard to perswade you to take off your accustomed wayes and walks because your inward sense and the inclination of your hearts is wholly perverted and corrupted by nature You know the moving faculty is subordinat in its operations unto the knowing feeling and apprehending-faculties The locomotive power is given for a subsidiary and help to the apprehensive and appetitive powers because things are convenient and disconvenient good or evil to the nature of the living creature are without it and it could not by meer knowledge or desire or hatred of things either come in possession of them or eschew them therefore God hath given them a faculty of moving themselves to the prosecution and attainment of any apprehended good or to the eschewing and aversion from any conceived evil Thus when beasts savour or smell that food which is fit for them their appetite stirs them up to motion 〈◊〉 it to obtain it Now I say if this inward sense be â—orrupâ—â—d thâ—n things that are destructive will be conceived good because they are suitable to that corrupt humor or quality that possessed the senses and thus all the motion and walk will be disordered The truth is my beloved our spirits and minds are infected with a poysonable humour fleshly passions and lusts are predominant naturally and as in them that are in a feaver their organ being distempered with a bitten unsavoury humour the pleasantest things seems unsavoury because not suitable to that predominant humour even so it is wiâ—h you by nature That which puts all upon motion is out of course since the fiâ—st distemper of mâ—n your spirits and minds are fleshly and carnal they have a strong and deep impression of all the lusts that are in the body and are accordingly affected and therefore you cannot fitly judge what is good or evil for you but as these Isai. 5.20 You mâ—st call evil good and good evil bitter sweet and sweet bitter because you are already prepossessed thus And therefore the wayes of the flesh those paths that lead to destruction you cannot but look on them as pleaâ—ant because they suit and please your corrupted sense or spirit and so this disordered savour or smell of some fragrant perfume in the ways of the flesh puts you upon walking in these wayes and being thus possessed and ingaged you cannot but stop your ears to all contrary perswasions you think it against-your sense and reason to tell you that these are loathsome and unsavoury and that the other wayes of widom and spirit are pleasantness and peace I say you cannot believe this till your hearts and spirits be purged and your taste be pure and uncorrupted It is certainly upon this ground that our Saviour puts such characters upon the way to Heaven and Hell to life and death the one is strait and narrow and few walk in it the other broad and easie and many walk in it Matth. 7.13 Certainly it is not the way in it self simply that admitâ— of such a motion to speak properly as the thing is the way to life by the guiding of the Spirit is easiest plainest shortest and broadest it hath all the properties of a good way none so pleasant and plain how sweet and pleasant sights all the way its an Alley of delight the way of his Commandments it wants not accommodation in it to refresh the Traveller the most delightful company is here the Father and the Son who sought no other company from all eternity but were abundantly satisfied and rejoiced one another this fellowship the Christian hath to solace himself with and he is admitted to be partaker of that joy There is nothing that doth disbuâ—den the soul so of care and anxiety nothing doth rid a man of so many perplexities and troubles as this way But the way of sin in it self is most laborious most difficult it hath infinite by-wayes that it leads a man into and he must turn and return and run in a circle all the day all his time to satisfie the infinit lusts and insatiable desires of sin O! how painful and laborious is it to fulfill the lusts of the flesh how much service doth it impose how serious attention what perplexing câ—res and tormenting thoughts how many sorrows and griefs are in every step of this way Do you not perceive what drudges and slaves sin makes you how much labour you have to satisfie your lusts and you are alwayes to begin as near that which you seek in the end of your years as in the beginning How thorny how myry is the way of covetousness Are you not alwayes out of one thorn into another and cut asunder or pierced through with many sorrows 1 Tim. 6.10 Mat. 13.22 Is that a pleasant and easie way I pray you that makes all your sorrow and your travel grief and suffers not your heart to take rest in the night Eccles. 2.22 23. What pains of body What plotting oâ— mind What labour and vexation of both must a sinner have as his constant attendants in this way The way is intricat deep
in lesser things and shall we be mad self-willed and refractory in the greatest thing that concerns us eternally O! unbelief is that which will condemn the world the unbelief of this one thing that the walking aâ—â—er and minding of the flesh is mortal and deadly Though all men confesse with their tongues this to be a truth yet it is not really believed the deep inconsideration and slight apprehension of this truth makes men boldly to walk and violently to run on to perdition Did you indeed believe that eternal misery is before you at the end of this way and would you be so cruel to your selves as to walk in it for any allurement that is in it Did you really believe That there is a precipice into utter darkness and everlasting death at the end of this alley would the pleasure and sweetness of it be able to inâ—atuat you and besott you so far as to lead you on into it like an Ox to the slaughter and a fool to the correction of the stocks It is strange indeed thou you neither will believe that death is the end of these things nor yet can you be perswaded that you do not believe it there is a twofold delusion that possesses the hearts of men one is a dream and â—ancy of escaping death though they live in sin another is a dream and fancy that they do believe that death is the wages of sin We might wonder how they consist together if we did not find it by so many experiences Your way proves that you do not believe it that death is the end of it and then your words evidence that you do not believe That you are unbelievers of that O! how desperat is the wickedness and how great is the deceitfulness of the heart The false Prophet that is in every mans bosome deceives him that it may destroy him As Satan is a liar and murderer and murders by lying so the heart of man is a self-murderer and self-destroyer and that is done by lying and dâ—ceiving There is some lie in every â—in but there is this grosse black fundamental lie at the bottom of all sin A conceit of immunity and freedom from death and hell a strong imagination of escaping danger even though such a way be chosen and walked into as of its own nature inevitably leads to destruction And there is something of this bloody murdering flattery even in the hearts of Christians therefore this Apostle gives us an antidot against it and labours often to purge it out by stirring up that knowledge they have received Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 Be not deceived God is not mocked for what a man soweth that he shall reap he that soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption c. Gal. 6.7 8. O! that you might listen to this word to this watch word given you and stop your course at least for a season to think what shall be the latter end know ye not that such shall not inherit the Kingdom know you not that the way to heaven lyes upward know you not that your way lyes downward towards the flesh and the earth are you so far demented as to think to come to Heaven by walking just downward in the lusts of the flesh Truly this is the strongest and strangest inchantment that can be that you think to sow one thing and reap another thing to sow darkness and reap light to sow corruption and reap incorruption Is that possible in nature to sow nettle-seed and think to â—eap barley or wheat Be not deceived O that you would undeceive your poor deluded souls and know that is as natural for Death and Hell to grow out of sin and walking after the flesh as it is for every seed to yeeld its own fruit and herb Do you then think to disolve the course and order of nature Truly the flesh is mortal in it self it s ordained for corruption you see what it turns to after the life is out that is an embleme of the state of the fleshly soul after death As you did abase your spirits to the service of the flesh here and all your plowing and labouring and sowing was about it the seed which you did cast in the ground was Fleshly lusts earthly things for the satisfaction of your flesh so you shall reap of the flesh Corruption death and destruction that shall make your immortal spirits mortal and corruptible and subject them to death and corruption with the body as far as they are capable it shall deprive them of all that which is their proper life and refreshment and separat them eternally from the fountain of blessedness and banish them out of Heaven unto the fellowship of devils and Oh! that corruption of the incoruptible spiâ—it is worse then the corruption of the mortall flesh corruptio optimi pessima Now who ever of you is thus far undeceived as to believe your danger and misery and to discern that imbred delusion of your hearts be not discouraged utterly there may be hope of recovery when you see your disease I say if you see that hell is at the end of your way then know that He who sent that voice to call you off that way of death He leaves you not to your own wits to guide you into the right way but He follows with a voice behind you â—aying Here is the way walk in it turn not out of it to the right hand or left and this voice sounds plainly in the Word and it is nothing elâ—e but the sound of the Gospel that blessed sound that invites and allures you to come in to Jesus Christ the way truth and life the true way to the true life All other wayes all other lifes have no truth in them it s but a cloud a fancy that men apprehend and lay hold on But come to this way and it will truly lead thee to the true life eternal life if you flee unto him out of the apprehension of your danger you have a clear way to come to God and as plain a way to attain life and peace Being in Christ you have assurance of not falling into condemnation He is such a way as will hold you in and not suffer you to go out of it again to the way of Death And therefore he will give you a Tutor a guider and directer in this way to life and peace and that is the Holy Spirit to lead in all truth and to guide your feet in the way of his Commandments so that in this new and living way of Christ you shall have both light of the Word to know where to walk and life of the Spirit to make you walk toward that eternal life and thus grace and truth is come by Christ. Indeed you must suffer the mortification of your flesh you must endure the pain of the death of your lusts the cutting off your right hand and plucking out your right
favour to us especially since the goodness of God is so exundant as to overflow even to the wicked world and vent it self as out of superabundance in a river of goodness throughout the whole earth how much more will it run abundantly towards them whom he is well pleased with and therefore the Psalmist cryes out as being already full in the very hope and expectation of it That he would burst if he had not the vent of admiration and praise O how great is His goodness and how excellent His loving-kindness laid up for them that fear him Psal. 31.19 and 36.7 But on the other hand how incomparable is the misery of them who cannot please God even though they did both please themselves and all others for the present to be at odds with him in whom alone they can subsist and without whose savour is nothing but wretchedness and misery O! that must be the worst and most cursed estate imaginable to be in such a state as do what they can they cannot please him whom alone to please is of only concernment what can be invented to that Now if you ask who they are that are such the words speak it plainly in way of inference from the former doctrine Therefore they that are in the flesh cannot please God Not they in whom there is flesh for there is remnants of that in the most spiritual man in this life we cannot attain here to Angelick purity though it should be the aim and endeavour of every Christian. But they that are in the flesh or after the flesh importing the predominion of that and an universal thraldom of nature unto it which indeed is the state of all men that are but once born till a second birth come by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The ground of this may be taken from the foregoing discourse and it is chiefly twofold one is because they are not in Iesus Christ in whom his soul is well pleased another is because they cannot suit and frame their carriage to his pleasure since all mankind hath fallen under the displeasure of the most high God by sinning against him in preferring the pleasure of the flesh and the pleasure of Satan to the pleasure of God there can be no atonement found to pacifie him no sacrifice to appease him no ransome to satisfie his Justice but that one perfect offering for sin Iesus Christ the propitiation for the sins of the elect world This the Father accepts in the name of sinners and in testimony of his acceptance he did two several times by a voice from Heaven declare first to a multitude Matth. 3.17 and then to the beloved Disciples Matth. 17.5 and both times with great Majesty and solemnity as did become him that this is his well-beloved Son in whom his soul is well pleased It pleased God to make the stream of his love to take another channel after mans sin and not to run immediatly towards wretched man but he turned the current of his love another way to his own Son whom he choosed for that end to reconcile man and bring him into favour and his love going about by that compass comes in the â—ssue towards poor sinners with the greater force He hath appointed Christ the meeting-place with sinners the dayes-man to lay his hands on both and therefore he is God to lay his hand on God and Man to lay his hand on man and bring both into a peaceable and amicable conjunction Now then whoever are not in Iesus Christ as is spoken vers 1. certainly they cannot please God do what they can because God hath made Christ the Center in which he would have the good pleasure of sinners meeting with his good pleasure and therefore without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 not so much for the excellency of the act it self as for the well-pleasing object to it Christ. The love of the Father is terminat in Him His Justice is satiâ—fied in Him His love is well pleased with the excellency of His person He finds in him an object of delight which is no where else and His Justice is well pleased with the sufficiency and worthiness of His ransome and without this compass there is neither satisfaction to the one nor to the other so then whatsoever you are how high soever your degree in the world how sweet soever your disposition let your natures be never so good your carriage never so smooth yet certainly there is nothing in all that can please God either by an object of love or a price for justice You are under that eternal displeasure which will fall on and crush you to pieces mountains will not be so heavy as it will appear in that great day of his wrath Rev. 6. I say you cannot come from under that imminent weight of eternal wrath unless you be found in Iesus Christ that blessed place of immunity and refuge if you have not forsaken your selves and your own natures and denied your own righteousnnss as dung to be found in him cloathed with his righteousness and satisfaction If the delight and pleasure of your soul do not co-incide and fall in at one place with the delight and good pleasure of the Father that is upon his well-beloved Son Certainly the pleasure and good will of God hath not as yet fallen upon you and met with you therefore if you would please God be pleased with Christ and you cannot do him a greater pleasure then believe in him Joh. 5.23 that is absolutely resign your selves unto him for salvation and sanctification The other ground is Such as are in the flesh cannot frame their spirits affections and wayes to Gods good pleasure for their very wisdome the very excellency that is in them is enmity to God and cannot subject to His Law and therefore they cannot please him I am sure you may easily reflect upon your selves and find not with much search but upon all these as the Prophet Ier. 2.34 speaks that it is not the study and businesse you have undertaken To please God but the bent and main of your aims and endeavours is to please your selves or to please men This makes many mens pains even in Religion displeasing to God because they do not indeed mind his pleasure but their own or others satisfaction what they do is but to conâ—orm to the custome of the time or commandments of men or their own humour and all this must needs be abominable to God Truly that which is in great account among men is abomination to God as our Saviour speaks of the very righteousness and professed piety of the Pharisees Luk. 16.25 the more you please your selves and the world the further you are from pleasing God The very beginning of pleasing God is when a soul falls in displeasure at it self and abhorrency of his own loathsomness therefore it is said The humble and contrite spirit I will look unto and dwell with him and such sacrifices do please
God Isai. 66.2 Pâ—al 51.17 For the truth is God never begins to be pleasant and lovely to a soul till it begin to fall out of love with it self and grow loathsome in its own eyes Therefore you may conclude this of your selves That with many of you God is not well pleaseâ— although you be all baptized unto Christ and do all eat of that same spiritual meat and drink of that same spiritual drink though you have all Church-priviledges yet with many of you God is not well pleased as 1 Cor. 10.2 3 4 5. not only because these works of the flesh that are directly opposite to his known will such as fornication murmuring grudging at Gods dispensation cursing and swearing lying drunkenness anger malice striâ—e variance and such like abound as much among you as that old people But even these of you that may be free from gross opposition to his holy will your nature hath the seed of all that enmity and you act enmity in a more covered way you are so well pleased with your selves your chief study is to please men you have not given your selves to this study To conform your selves to the pleasure of God therefore know your dreadful condition you cannot please God without whose favour and pleasure you cannot but be eternally displeased and tormented in your selves Certainly though now you please your selves yet the day shâ—ll come that you shall be contrary to your selves and all to you as it is spoken as a punishment of the Iews 1 Thess 2 15. and theâ—e are some earnest of it in this life many wicked persons aâ—e set contrary to themselveâ— and all to them they are like Esau their hand against all and all mens hand against them yea their own consciences continually vexing them this is a fruit of that â—â—ndamental discord and enmity between men and God and if you find it not now you shall find it hereafter But as for you that are in Jesus Christ who being displeased with your selves have flâ—d in to the well-beloved in whom the Father is well pleased to escape Gods displeasure I say unto such your persons God is well pleased with in Christ and this shall make way and place for acceptance to your weak and imperfect performances this is the ground of your peace and acceptance and you would take it so and it shall yeeld you much peace when you cannot be pleased with your selves But I would charge that upon you that as you by believing are well pleased with Christ so you would henceforth study to walk worthy of your Lord into all well-pleasing being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God Col. 1 10. This is that to which you are called to such a work as may please him to conform your selves even to His pleasure and will If you love him you cannot but fashion your selves so as he may be pleased O how exact and observant is love of that which may ingratiat it fell in the beloveds favour It is the most studious thing to please and most afraid of displeasing Eneâ—h had a large and honourable testimony as ever was given to man that he pleased God Heb. 11.5 I beseech you be ambitious of this after a holy manner labour to know his will and that for this end that you may approve it and prove it that you may do that good and acceptable will of God let his pleasure be your rule your law to which all within you may conform it self Though you cannot attain an exact correspondence with his pleasure but in many things you will offend yet certainly this will be the resolved study of your hearts how to please him and in aâ— far as you cannot please him you will be displeased with your selves But then I would advise you in as far as you are displeased with your selves for not pleasing God be as much well pleased with Christ the pleasing-sacrifice and atonement and this shall please God as much as your obedience could do or your disobedience can displease him To Him be praise and glory SERMON XXIII Rom. 8.9 But ye are not in the flesh but in the spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man c. APplication is the very life of the Word at least it is a necessary condition for the living operation of it the application of the Word to the hearts of hearers by Preaching and the application of your hearts again to the Word by meditation these two meeting together and striking one upon another will yeeld fire Paul speaks of a right dividing of the word of truth 2 Tim. 2.13 not that ordinary way of cutting it all in parcells and dismembering it by manifold divisions which I judge makes it loss much of its vertue which consists in union though some have pleasure in it and think it profitable yet I do not see that this was the Apostolick way that either they preached it themselves or recommended it to others but rather he means the real distribution of the food of souls unto their various conditions as it is the duty of a Steward to be both faithful and wise in that to give every one their own portion And as it is the Pastors duty thus to distribute the Word of God unto you so it is your part to apply it home to your selves without which application the former division of the Word aright will not seed your souls If every man act not the Pastor to his own heart it cannot profit Now indeed the right application of the Word to souls is the difficultest part of Preaching and it is the hardest point of hearing in which there needs both much affection and much direction the one to be serious and earnest in it the other to be wise and prudent in it without suitable affection it will not passe into the substance of the soul to feed it no more then the stomack can digest meat that wants convenient heat and without discretion and wisdom to choose our own portion it will not yeeld convenient food but increase humours and superfluities or distemper our spirits That which I look at in these words is the discretion and prudence of this wise Steward in Gods House after he hath represented the wretched and woful estate of them that are in the flesh how their natures cannot but act enmity against God how their end is death and destruction he subjoyns in due season a suitable encouragement to believers you are not in the flesh c. Because there is no man so sensible of that corruption that dwells within as he that is in part renewed as pain to a healthful body is most sensible and as the abundance of light makes a larger discovery of what is disordered and defiled in the house therefore such upon the hearing of the accursed estate of men in nature of their natural rebellion against God and Gods displeasure against them they are most ready I say
God shall dwell in sinful men by his Spirit but in order of nature it hath some influence upon the other without which God could not have dwelt in us There is so much distance and disproportion between his Majesty and us that we could not be well united but by this interveening God coming down fâ—â—st a step into the holy nature of the Man Christ that from thence he might go into the sinâ—ul nature of other men Our sinâ—ul and rebellious nature behoved to be first sanctified this way by the persâ—nal in-dwelling of God in our flesh and this had made an easie passage into sinful Us for His Spirit to dwell into us powerfully and graciously therefore the Spirit of Christ is said to dwell in us Christs Spirit not only because proceeding from Him as from the Father but particularly because the inhabitation or operation of the Spirit in us is the proper result and fruit of that glorious union of our nature with him He took our flesh that he might send us His Spirit And O what a blessed exchange was this He came and dâ—elt in our nature that so He might dwell in us He took up a Shop as it were in our flesh that He might work in us and make us again conformed to God We shall not cut this asunder into many parts you see the words contain plainly The very essential definition of a spiritual man and of a Christian. You find a spiritiual man and a Christian equivalent in this ver that is to say they are taken for one and the self same thing and so they are reciprocal of equal extent and restraint every Christian is one aâ—ter the Spirit and whosoever is after the Spirit is a Christian one of Christs and one aâ—ter the Spirit is one thing Now the definition of the Christian is taken from that which really and essentially constitutes him such He is one in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells that makes him one after the Spirit that makes him one of Christs because it is the Spirit of Christ. As if you define what a man is you could not do it better then thus he is one endowed with a reasonable soul So the Apostle gives you the very soul and form of a Christian which differenceth from all others As the soul is to the body to make up a man so the Spirit of Christ is to the soul and spirit of a man to make up a Christian as the absence or presence of the soul makes or unmakes a man so the absence or presence of this Spirit makes or unmakes a Christian for you see he makes it reciprocal If you be Christianâ— the Spirit dwells in you but if the Spirit dwell not in you you are not Christians A word then to the first of these that a Christian and a spiritual man are commensurable one to another It is true there are Iews who are not Iews inwardly but only according to the letter Rom. 2.28 29. And so there are Christians so called who are but so outwardly and in the letter who have no more of it but the name and viâ—ible standing in the Church but we are speaking of that which is truly that which it is called whose praise is not of men but of God The name of â— man may be extended to a Picture or Image for some outward resemblance it hath of him but it is not a proper speech no more is it proper to extend the Name of Christians unto the Pictures or Images of Christians such as are destitute of this inward life You may be properly according to Scripture-phrase members of the visible body but you cannot have that real and blessed relation to Jesus Christ the Head which shall be the source of happinesse to all the living members I wish you would take it so and flatter your selves no more with Church-titles as iâ— these were sufficient evidences for your salvation You would all be called Christians but it fears me you know not many of you the true meaning and signification of that word the most comfortable sense of it is hid from you The meaning of it is That a man is renewed by Christ in the spirit of his mind As Christ and the Spirit are inseparable so a Christian and a spiritual â—ature are not to be â—ound severed Certainly the very sound of the name whereby you are called imports another nature and conversation then is to be â—ound in many You cannot say that you have a shadow of spirituality either in your affections or actions or that you have any real design and study that way but only to please your flesh and satisfie the customs of the world why do you then usurpe the name of Christianity this is a common sacriledge to give that which is holy unto dogs Others give it to you and you take it to your selves But know that though you please your selves and others in this yet without such a renovation of your natures and such a sincere study to be inwardly and outwardly conformed to the profession and name of Christianity you have not your praise of God and him whom God praises and allows not he cannot blesse for ever I am perswaded there are some who are not only in the letter but in the Spirit whose greatest desire and design is To be indeed what they professe and such their praise is of God and if God praise them now they shall be made to praise him for ever hereafâ—er such are allowed to take the name and honourable style of Christianity unto them You are Christs nearly interessed in him and if you be Christs own he cannot be happy without you for such was his love that he would not be happy alone in Heaven but come down to be miserable with us and now that he is again happy in Heaven certainly he cannot enjoy it long alone but he must draw up his members unto the fellowship of that glory Now the other thing that which gives even beeing to a Christian is The Spirit of Christ dwelling in him Of this inhabitation we shall not say so much as the comparison being strained will yeeld neither expatiat into many notions about it I wish rather we went home with some desires kindled in us after such a noble guest as the Holy Spirit is and that we were begun once to weary of â—he base and unclean guests that we lodge within us to our own destruction That which I said that the Spirit is to a Christian what the soul is to a man if well considered might present the absolute necessity and the excellency of this unto your eyes Consider what a thing the body is without the soul how defiled and deformed a piece of dust it is void of all sense and life loathsome to look upon Truly the soul of man by nature is in no better case till this Spirit enter it hath no light in it no life in it it is a dark dungeon such as is described Ephes. 4.18
O how infinitly is that compensed one hours fellowship with him alone when all strangers are cast out will compense all will make all to be forgotten the pain of mortification will be swallowed up in the pleasure of his inhabitation When I shall awake I shall be satisfied with thy likeness When He shall take up house fully in you it will satisfie you to the full In the mean time as he takes the rule and command of your house so for the present he provides for it the provision of the soul is incumbent to this Divine Guest and O how sweet and satisfying is it the peace and joy of the Holy Ghost which are the intertainment that he gives a soul where he reigns and hath brought In righteousnesse Rom. 14.17 What a noble train doth the Spirit bring alongs with him to furnish this house Many rich and costly ornaments hang over it and adorn it to make it like the Kings Wise all glorious within such as the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit 1 Pet. 3.4 which is a far more precious and rich hanging than the most curious or precious contexture of corruptible things the cloathing of humility simple in shew but rich in substance 1 Pet. 5.5 which enriches and beautifies the soul that hath it more than all Solomons glory could do his person for better is it to be of a humble spirit with the lowly then divide the spoil with the proud Prov. 16.19 In a word the Spirit makes all new puts a new man a new fashion and Image on the soul which suits the Court of Heaven the highest in the world and is conformed to the noblest and highest pattern the Holinesse and Beauty of the greatest King And being lodged within O what sweet fruits is the Spirit dayly bringing forth to feed and delight the soul withall Gal. 5.22 23. And he is not only a Spirit of Sanctification but of Consolation too and therefore of all the most worthy to be received into our hearts for he is a bosome-comforter Ioh. 14 16. when there is no friend nor lover without but a soul in that posture of Heman Psal. 88.18 and in that desolate estate of the Churches Ierem. Lament 1.2 Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her vers 17. Spreading forth her hands and none to comfort her vers 21. Sighing and none to comfort her In such a case to have a living and over-running spring of comfort within when all externall and lower consolations like winter-brookes that dry up in summer have dryed up and disappointed thy expectation sure this were a happy guest that could do this O that we could open our hearts to receive him SERMON XXV Rom. 8.9 If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man c. THere is a great marriage spoken of Eph. 5. That hath a great mystery in it which the Apostle propoundeth as the samplar and archetype of all marriages or rather as the substance of which all conjunctions and relations among the creatures are buâ— the shaddows It is that marriage between Christ and his Church for which it would appear this world was builded to be a Palace to celebrat it into and especially the upper-house Heaven was made glorious for that great day where it shall be solemnized The first in order of time that was made by God himself in paradise certainly to represent a higher mystery The marriage of the second Adam with his Spouse which is taken out of his bloody side as the Apostle imports Eph. 5. Now there is the greatest inequality and disproportion between the parties Christ and sinners so that it would seem a desperate matter to bring two such distant and unequal natures to such a neer union as may cast a copy to all unions and relations of the creatures But He who at first made a kind of marriage between Heaven and Earth in the composure of man and joyned together an immortal spirit in such a bond of amity with corruptible dust hath found out the way to help this and make it â—easable And truly we may conceive the Lord was but making way for this greater mystery of the union of Christ with us when he joyned the breath of Heaven with the dust of the earth in this he gave some representation of another more mysterious conjunction Now the way that the wisdome and love of God hath found out to bring about this marriage is this Because there was such an infinite distance between the only begotten Son of God who is the expresse character of his Image and the brightness of his Glory and Us sinful mortal creatures whose foundation is in the dust therefore it pleased the Father out of His good-will to the match To send his Son down among men and the Son out of his love to take on our flâ—sh and so fill up that distance with his low condescendence to be partaker of flesh and blood with the children And now what the Lord spoke of man fallen in a holy kind of irony or mock Behold he is become as one of us that men may truly say of the Son of God not fallen down from Heaven but come down willingly Lo he is become as one of us like us in all things except sin which hath made us unlike our selves This bond of union you have in the vers 3. Christ so infinitly above sinners and higher then the Heavens coming down so low to be as like sinners as might be or could be profitable for us in the liâ—eness of sinful flesh c. But yet this bond is not neer enough that conjunction seemeth but general and infirm both because it is in some manner common to all mankind who shall not be all advanced to this priviledge By taking on our nature he cometh nearer to humane nature but not to some beyond others and besides the distance is not filled up this way because there is a great disproportion between that nature in Christ and in us In Him it is holy and undefiled and seperated from sin but in Us it is unclean and immersed into sin so that albeit he be nearer us as a man yet he is far distant and unlike us a holy perfect man Now what fellowship can be between light and darkness as Paul speaketh of the marriage of Christians with Idolaters much greater distance and disagreement is between Christ and us Therefore it seemeth that some of us must be changed and transformed But Him it may not be he cannot become liker us than by partaking of our flesh for if he had become a sinner indeed he would have become so like us that he could not help himself nor us either this would eclipse the glory and happiness of the marriage but in that he came as near as could be without disabling himâ—elf to make us happy and so he was contented to come in the place of sinners and take on their debt and answer to Gods Justice for it yea
the power is put in his hand and resigned to him for where he dwells he must rule as good reason is He is about the greatest work that is now to do in the world the repairing and renewing of the ruines and breaches of mans spirit which was the fiâ—st breach in the Creation and the cause of all the rest He is about the cleansing and washing this Temple and we may be perswaded that he who hath begun this good work will perform it untill the day of Christ till we be presented blameless and without spot to our husband Phil. 1.5 6. and this is the grand conâ—olation of believers that they have this presence assured to them by promise that the Spirit is fixed here by an irreovcable and unchangeable Covenant or donation and will not wholly depart from them though he may withdraw and leave you comfortless â—or a season Isa. 59.21 Therefore I would shut up all in a word of exhortation to you that since we have the promise of so noble and happy a guest you would apply your selves to seek him and then keep him to receive him and then retain him It is true that he must first prevent uâ— for as no man can say that Iesus is the Christ but by thâ— Spirit of God so no man can indeed pâ—ay for the Spirit but by the Spirits own intercession within him Where God hath bestowed any thing of this Spirit it is known by the kindly and fervent desires after more of it Now since we have such a laâ—ge and ample promise Ezek. 36.27 Ioel 2.28 of the pouring out of the Spirit and that in as absolute and free a manner as can be imagined and this renewed by Christ and confirmed by his Prayer to the Father for the performance of it Ioh. 14.16 17. and then we have a sweet and affectionat promise propounded in the most moving and loving manner that can be Luk. 11.13 where he encourageth us to pray for the Spirit and that from this ground that our Heavenly Father who placed that natural affection in other fathers towards their children whereby they cannot refuse them bread when they cry for it He who was the Author of all natural affection must certainly transcend them infinitly in his love to his childâ—en as the Psalmist argues Shall not he that planted the ear hear and he that formed the eye see So may a poor soul reason it self to some confidence Shall not He who is the â—ountain of all natural love in men and beasts have much more Himself and if my â—ather will not give me a stone when I seek bread certainly he will far lesse do it Therefore if we being evil know how to give good things to our chilren how much more shall our Heavenly Father give his Spirit to them that ask him Alas that we should want such a gift for not asking it my beloved let us enlarge our desires for this Spirit and seek more earnestly and no doubt affection and importunity will not be sent away empty Is it any wonder we receive not because we ask not or we ask so coldly that we teach him in a manner to deny us qui tiâ—ide rogat I may say frigide docet negare ask frequently and ask confidently and His heart cannot deny O that we could lay this ingâ—gement on our own hearts to be more in Prayer Let 〈◊〉 presse our selves to this and we need not presse Him albeit the first grace be wholly a surprisal yet certainly he keeps this suitable method in the enlargements of grace that when he gives more He enlargeth the heart more after it He openeth the mouth wider to ask and receive and according to that capacity so is His hand opened to fill the heart O why are our hearts shut when his hand is open Again I would exhort you in Jesus Christ to intertain the Spirit suitably and this shall keep Him To this purpose are these exhortations Grieve not the Spirit Eph. 4.30 and quench not the Spirit 1 Thes. 5.19 There is nothing can grieve Him but sin and if you intertain that you cannot retain Him He is a Spiâ—it of holinesse and He is about the making you holy then do not marr him in his work labour to advance this and you do him a pleasure If you make his holy Temple an unclean cage for hateful birds or a Temple for Idols how can it but grieve him and if you grieve the Spirit certainly the Spirit will grieve you will make you repent it at the heart Please him by heaâ—kning to his motions and following his direction and he shall comfort you His office is to be a spring of consolation to you but if you grieve him by walking in the imagination of your hearts and following the suggestions of the Flesh His enemy no doubt that spring will turn its channel another way and dry up for a season toward you It is not every sin or infirmity that grieves Him thus if so be that it grieve thee but the intertaining of any sin and mâ—king peace with any of his enemies that cannot but displease Him and O what losse you have by it You displease your greatest friend to please your greatest enemy you blot and bludder that seal of the Spirit that you shall not be able to read it till it be cleansed and washed again Now if any man have not this Spirit of Christ he is none of his he is not a Christian take this alongs with you who aim at nothing but the external and outward shew or visible standing in the Church if you have not this Spirit and the seal of this Spirit found on you Christ will not know you for his in that day of his appearing SERMON XXVI Rom. 8.10 And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin c. GODS presence is his working his presence in a soul by his Spirit is his working in such a soul in some special manner not common to all men but peculiar to them whom he hath chosen Now his dwelling is nothing else but a continued familiar and endlesse working in a soul till he have conformed all within to the Image of His Son The soul is the office-house or work-house that the Spirit hath taken up to â—rame in it the most curious piece of the whole Creation even to restore and repair that Master-piece which came last from Gods hand ab ultima manu and so was the chiefest I mean the Image of God in righteousness and holinesse Now this is the bond of union between God and us Christ is the bond of union with God but the Spirit is the bond of union with Christ. Christ is the peace between God and us that makes of two one but the Spirit is the link between Christ and us whereby he hath immediat and actual interest in us and we in Him I find the union between Christ and a soul shadowed out in Scripture by the nearest relations among creatures for
truly these are but shadows and that is the body or substance and because an union that is mutual is nearest it is often so expressed as it imports an interchangeable relation a reciprocal conjunction with Christ. The knot is cast on both sides to make it strong Christ in us and we in him God dwelling in us and we in Him and both by this one Spirit 1 Joh. 4.13 Hereby we know that God dwelleth in us and we in him by his Spirit which he hath given us You find it often in Iohn who being most possessed with the love of Christ and most sensible of his love could best expresse it I in them and they in me He that keepeth his commands dwelleth in Him and he in Him as the names of married persons are spelled through other so doth he spell out this in-dwelling it s not cohabitation but inhabitation neither that alone singlely but mutual inhabitation which amounts to a kind of Penetration the most intimat and immediat presence imaginable Christ â—welleth in our hearts by faith and we dwell in Christ by love Eph. 17. and 1 John 4. Death bringeth him into the heart for it is the very â—pplication of a Saviour to a sinfull soul. It is the very applying of his blood and sufferings to the wound that sin hath made in the conscience the laying of that sacrifice propitiatory to the wounded conscience is that which heals it pacifies it and calms it A Christian by receiving the offer of the Gospel cordially and affectionatly brings in Christ offered into his house and then salvation comes with him Therefore believing is receiving John 1. the very opening of the heart to let in an offered Saviour and then Christ thus possessing the heart by faith He works by love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him Love hath this special vertue in it that it transports the soul in a manner out of it self to the beloved Cant. 1.9 anima est ubi amat non ubi animat the fixing and establishing of the heart on God is a dwelling in Him for the constant and most continued residence of the most serious thoughts and aâ—fections will be their dwelling in the all fulness and riches of grace in Jesus Christ as the spirit dwelleth where he worketh so the soul dwelleth where it delighteth its complacency in God maketh a frequent issue or outgoing to Him in desires and breathings after Him And by means of this same God dwelleth in the heart for love is the opening up of the inmost chamber of the heart to Him it brings in the beloved in to the very secrets of the soul to lye all night betwixt His breasts as a bundle of myrrhe Cant. 1.13 And indeed all the sweet odours of holy duties and all the performing of good works and edifying speeches spring out only and are sent forth from this bundle of myrrhe that lyes betwixt the breasts of a Christian in the inmost of his heart from Christ dwelling in the affections of the soul. Now this being the bond of union betwixt Christ and us it follows necessarily that whoever hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His and this is subjoyned for prevention or removal of the misapprehensions and delusions of men in their self-judgings Because self-love blinds our eyes and maketh our hearts deceive themselves we are given to this self-flattery to pretend and claim to an interest in Jesus Christ even though there be no more evidence for it then the external relation that we have to Christ as members of his visible body or partakers of a common influence of his Spirit There are some external bonds and tyes to Christ which are like a knot that may easily be loosed if any thing get hold of the end of it as by our relations to Christ by baptisme hearing the word your outward covenanting to be his people all these are loose unsure knots It is as easie to untie them as to tie them yea and more easie and yet many have no other relation to Christ then what these make But it is only the Spirit of Christ given to us that intitles and interesseth us in Him and Him in us it s the Spirit working in your souls mightily and continually making your hearts temples for the offering of the sacrifice of prayer and praises casting out all idols out of these temples that He alone may be adored and worshipped by the affectionate service of the heart purging them from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit It is the Spirit I say thus dwelling in men that maketh them living members of the true body of Christ lively joyned to the head Christ this maketh him yours and you his by vertue of this He may command you as His own and you may use and imploy Him as your own Now for want of this in most part of men they also want this living saving-interest in Christ they have no real but an imaginary and notional propriety and right to the Lord Jesus for Christ must first take possession of us by His Spirit before we have any true right to Him or can willingly resign our selves to Him and give Him right over us What shall it profite us my beloved to be called Christians and to esteem our selves so if really we be none of Christs shall it not highten our condemnation so much the more that we desire to passe for such and give out our selves so and yet have no inward aquaintance and interest in Him whose name we love to bear Are not the most part shadows and pictures of true Christians bodies without the soul of Christianity that is the Spirit of Christ whose hearts are treasures of wickednesse and deceit and storâ—-houses of iniquity and ignorance It may be known what treasure fills the heart by that which is the constant and common vent of it as our Saviour speakes Matth 15.19 and 12.34 35. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks the feet walks and the hand works Consider then if the Spirit of God dwelleth in such unclean habitations and dark dungeons certainly no uncleanness or darkness of the house can hinder him to come in but â—t is a sure argument and evidence That he is not as yet come in becausâ— the Prince of darkness is not yet cast out of many souls nor yet the unclean spirits that lodge within these haunt your hearts and are as familiar now as ever Sure I am many souls have never yet changed their guests and it is as sure that the fiâ—st guest that taketh up the soul iâ— darkness and desperat wickedness with imparalelled deceitfulness there is an accurâ—ed trinity in stead of that blessed Tâ—inity the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and when this holy Tâ—inity cometh in to dwell that other of Hell must go out Now my beloved do you think this a light matter To be disowned by Jesus Christ Truly the word of Christ which is the
The more the soul be satisfied with eaâ—thly things it is the deeper buâ—ied in the grave of the flesh and the â—urther separated from God Alas many oâ— you know no other liâ—e then that which you now live in the body you neither apprehend what this new birth is nor what the perfect statuâ—e of it shall be afterwards but truly while it is thus you are but walking shadows breathing â—lâ—y and no more A godly man used to calculat the years of his nativity from his second birth his conversion to God in Christ And truly this is the true period of the â—ight calculation of life of that life which shall not see death True life hath but one period that is the beginning of it for end it hath none I beseech you reckon your years thus and I fear that you â—eckon your selves many of you yet dead in sins and trespasses Is that life I pray you To eat to drink to sleep to play to walk to work Is there any thing in all these worthy of a reasonable soul which must survive the body and so cease from such things for ever Think within your selves do you live any other life then this What is your life but a tedious and wearisome repetition of such bruitish actions which are only teâ—minat on the body O then how miserable are you if you have no other period to reckon from then your birth day If there be not a second birth day before your burial you may make your reckoning To be banished eternally from the life of God As for you Christians whom God hath quickned by the Spirit of His Son be much in the exercise of this life and that will maintain and advance it let your care be about your spirits and to hearten you in this study and to beget in you the hope of eternal life look much and lay fast hold on that Life-giving Saviour who by his righteous life and accursed death hath purchased by his own blood both happinesse to us and holinesse Consider what debters ye are to Him who loved not his own life and spared it not to purchase this life to us Let our thoughts and affections be occupied about this high purchase of our Saviours which is freely bestowed on them that will have it and believe in Him for it if we be not satisfied with such a low and wretched life as is in the body He will give a higher and more enduring life and only worthy of that name SERMON XXX Rom. 8.11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken you c. IT is true the soul is incomparably better then the body and he is only worthy the name of a Man and of a Christian who prefers this more excellent part and imploys his study and time about it and regards his body only for thâ— noble guest that lodges within it and therefore it is one of the prime consolations that Christianity affords that it provides chiefly for the happy estate of this immortal piece in man which truly were alone sufficient to draw our souls wholly after Religion suppose the body should never taste of the fruits of it but die and rise no more and never be awak'd out of its sleep yet it were a sufficient ground of engagement to godlinesse that the life and well-being of the far better part in man is secured for eternity which is infinitly more then all things beside can truly promise us or be able to perform Certainly whatsoever else you give your hearts to and spend your time upon it will either leave you in the midst of your dayes and at your end you shall be a fool or you must leave it in the end of your dayes and find your selves as much disappointed or to speak more properly because when your time is ending your life and being is but at its beginning you must bid an eternal adieu to all these things whereupon your hearts are set when you are but beginning truly to be But this is only the proper and true good of the soul Christ in it most portable and easily carried about with you yea that which makes the soul no burden to it self and helps it to carry all things easily and then most inseparable for Christ in the soul is the spring of a never-ending life of peace joy and contentation in the fountain of an infinit goodnesse and it out-wears time and age as well as the immortal beeing of the soul yea such is the strength of this consolation that then the soul is most closly united and â—ully possessed oâ— that which is its peculiar and satisfying good when it leaves the body in the dust and eâ—capes out of this pâ—iâ—on unto that glorious liberty But yet there is besides this an additional comfort comprehended in the vers read that the sleep of the body is not perpetual that it shall once be awakened and raised up to the fellowship of this glory â—or though a man should be abundantly satisfied if he possesse his own soul yet no man hateth his own flesh the soul hath some kind of natural inclination to a body suitable unto it and in this it differs from an Angel and therefore the Apostle when he expresseth his earnest groan for intimat presence oâ— his soul with Christ he subjoyns this correction not that we desire to be uncloathed but cloathed upon it 2 Cor. 5.1 2 3. If it were possible sayes he we would be glade to have the society of the body in this glory we would not desire to cast off those cloaths of flesh but rather that the garment of glory might be spread over all if it were not needful because they are old and ragged and would not suit well and our earthly Tabernacle is ruinous and would not be fit for such a glorious guest to dwell into and therefore it is needful to be taken down well then here is an overplus and as it were a surcharge of consolation that seing for the present it is expedient to put off the present cloathing of flesh and take down the present earthly house yet that the day is coming that the same cloaths renewed shall be put on and the same house repaired and made suitable to Heaven shall be built up that this mortal body shall be quickned with that same Spirit that now quickens the soul and makes it live out of the body and so the sweet and beloved friends who parted with so much pain and grief shall meet again with so much pleasure and joy and as they were sharers together in the miseries of this life sâ—all participat also in the blessednesse of the next like Saul and Ionathan lovely and pleasant in their lives and though for a time separated in death yet not alwayes divided Now is the highest top of happinesse to which nothing can be added its comprehensive of the whole man and its
refreshment of it and yet this may not be had they shall seek death and it shall flee from them Now my beloved I would desire this discourse might open way for the hearty and cordial intertainment of the Gospel and that you might be perswaded to awake unto righteousness and sin no more 1 Cor. 15.34 Be not deceived my brethren flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God Certainly if you have no other image then what you came in the world withall you cannot have this hope to be conformed one day to the glorious Body of Christ What will become of you in that day who declare now by the continued vent of your hearts that this holy Spirit dwells not in you and alas how many are such Oh pity your selves your souls and bodies both If for love to your bodies ye will follow its present lusts and care only for the things of the body you act the greatest enmity and hostility against your own bodies Consider I beseech you the eternal state of both and your care and study will run in another channel And for you who have any working of the Spirit in you whether convicing you of sin and misery and of righteousness in Christ or sometimes comforting you by the word applyed to your heart or teaching you another way then the world walks into I recommend unto you that of the Apostles 1 Cor. 15.58 Wherefore my brethren be stedfast c. alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord knowing your Labour is not in vain SERMON XXXII Rom. 8.12 Therefore brethren we are debters not to the flesh to live after the flesh c. ALL things in Christianity have a near and strait conjunction it is so intire and absolute a piece that if one link be loosed all the chain falls to the ground and if one be well fastned upon the heart it brings all alongs with it some speak of all truths even in nature that they are knit so together that any truth may be concluded out of every truth at least by a long circuit of deduction and reasoning but whatsoever be of that certainly Religion is a more intire thing and all the parts of it more nearly conjoyned together that they may mutually enforce one another Precepts and promises are thus linked together that if any soul lay hold indeed upon any promise of grace he draws alongs with it the obligation of some precept to walk suitable to such precious promises There is no encouragement you can indeed fasten upon but it will joyn you as nearly to the commandment and no consolation in the Gospel that doth not carry within its bosome an exhortation to holy walking Again on the other hand there is no precept but it should lead you straight way to a promise no exhortation but it is invironed before and behind with a strong consolation to make it pierce the deeper and go down the sweeter Therefore you see how easily the Apostle digresseth from the one to the other how sweetly and pertinently these are interwoven in his discourse The first word of the Chapter is a word of strong consolation there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ and this like a flood carries all down with it all precepts and exhortations and the soul of a believer with them and therefore he subjoyns an exhortation to holy and spiritual walking upon that very ground and because commandments of this nature will not float so to speak unlesse they have much water of that kind and cannot have such a swift course except the tide of such encouragements flow fast therefore he openeth that spring again in the preceeding words and letteth the rivers of consolation flow forth even the hope of immortality and eternal life and this certainâ—y will raise up a soul that was on ground and carry him above in motion of obedience and therefore he may well in the next place stir them up to their duty and mind them of their obligation Therefore brethren we are debters not to the flâ—sh To make this the more effectual he drops it in with affection in a sweet compellâ—â—ion of love and equality Brethren There is nothing so powerful in perswation as love it will sweeten a bitter and unpleasant reproof and make it go down more easily though it maketh lesse noise than threatnings and severity and authority yet it is more forcible for it insinuats it self and in a manner surpriseth the soul and so preventeth all resistance as when the Sun maâ—e the traveller part with his cloak whereas the wind and rain made him hold it faster so affection will prevail where authority and terrour cannot it will melt that which a stronger power cannot break the story of Elijah 1 King 19. may give some representation of this the Lord was not in the strong wind nor in terrible earth-quake nor yet in the fire but in the calm still voice The Lord hath chosen this way of publishing his grace in the Gospel because the sum of it is love to sinners and good-will towards men he holds it forth in the calm voice of love and these who are his ambassadors should be cloathed with such an affection iâ— they intend to prevail with men to engage their affections O that we were possessed with that brotherly love one towards anotâ—er for the salvation one of another especially that the Preachers of the Gospel might be thus kindly affectioned towards others and that ye would take it thus the calling you off the wayes of sin as the act of the greatest love But then consider the equality oâ— this obligation for there is nothing pressed upon you but what lyeth as heavily upon them that presseth it this debt binds all O that the Ministers of the Gospel could carry the impression of this on their hearts that when they perswade others they may withall perswade themselves and when they speak to others they may sit down among the hearers If an Apostle of so eminent dignity levelleth himself in this consideration Therefore brethren we are debters how much more ought Pastors and Teachers come in the same rank and degree of debt and obligation with others Truly this is the great obstruction of the successe of the Gospel that these who bind on burdens on others do not themselves touch them with one of their fingers and while they seem serious in perswading others yet withall declare by their carriage that they do not believe themselves what they bear upon others so that preaching seemeth to be an imposture and affections in perswading â—f otheâ—â— to be borrowed as it were in a scene to be laid down again out of it But then again there is a misconceit among people that this holy and spiritual walking is not of common obligation but peculiar to the preachers of the Gospel Many make their reckoning so as if they were not called to such high aims and great endeavours but truly my beloved this is a thing of common concernment
are debters indeed but you owe nothing to the flesh but stripes and mortification SERMON XXXIV Rom. 8.13 For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit c. THough the Lord out of his absolute Soveraignty might deal with man in such a way as nothing should appear but his supream Will and Almighty Power he might simply command obedience and without any more perswasions either leave men to the frowardnesse of their own natures or else powerfully constrain them to their duty yet he hath chosen that way that is most suitable to his own wisdom and most connatural to mans nature To lay out before him the advantages and disadvantages and to use these as motives and perswasives of his Spirit for since He hath by his first creation implanted in mans soul such a principle as moveth it self upon the presentation of good or evil that this might not be in vain he administers all the dispensation of the Law and Gospel in a way suitable to that by propounding such powerful motives as may incline and perswade the heart of man It is true there is a secret drawing withall necessary the pull of the Fathers arm and power of the Holy Ghost yet that which is visible or sensible to the soul is the framing of all things so as to engage it upon rational terms it is set between two contraries death and life death which it naturally abhoâ—reth and life which it naturally loveth an even ballance is holden up before the light of the conscience in which obedience and sin are weighed and it is found even to the convincing of the spirit of man that there are as many disadvantages in the one as advantages in the other This was the way that God used fiâ—st with man in Paradise you remember the terms â—un to what day thou eats thou shalt die he hedged him in on the one side by a promisâ— of life on the other by a threatning of death and these two are very rational restraintâ— â—uited to â—he â—oul of man and in the inward principles of it which are a kind of instinct to that which is appâ—ehenâ—ed good or gainfull Now this vers â—uns even so in the form of words If ye live after the flesh ye shall die you see thiâ— method is not changed under the Gospel for indeed it is natuâ—al to the spiâ—it of man and he hath now much more need of all such peâ—swasions because there is a great change of mans inclination to the woâ—st side all within is so disordered and perverse that a thousand hedges of perswasive grounds cannot do that which one might have done at fiâ—st then they were added out of superabundance but now out of necessity then they were set about man to preserve him in his natural â—â—ame and inâ—linations but now they are needfull to change and alter them quite which is a kind of creation therefore sayeth David creat in me a new spirit and therefore the Gospel abounds in vaâ—ieâ—y of motives and inducementâ— in greater variety oâ— far moâ—e powerâ—ul inducements then the Law Heâ—e is that grâ—aâ— peâ—swasiâ—n tâ—kâ—n fâ—om the infinit gain or lâ—sse of â—â—e â—â—ul of man which is any thing be able to prevail this must do seing it is seconded wiâ—h some natural inclination in the soul of man to seek its own gain Yet there is a diâ—â—erence between the nature of such like promises and threatningâ— in the fiâ—st covenant and in the second In the fiâ—st covenant though life was freely promised â—et it was immediatly annexed to perâ—ect obedience as a consequent â—eward oâ— it it was fiâ—stly pâ—omised unto compleat â—ighteousnesse of mens persons But in the second covenant firstly and principally liâ—e eteâ—nal grace and glory is promised to Jesus Christ and his â—eed antecedent to any condition or qualification upon their part and then again all the promises that run in way of condition as he that believeth shâ—ll not perish c. If ye walk after the Spirit ye shall live these aâ—e all the consequent fruits of that absolute gracious disposition and resignation of grace and life to them whom Christ hath chosen and so their believing and walking and obeying cometh in principally as parts of the grace promised and as witnesses and evidences and confirmations of that life which is already begun and will not see an end Besides that by vertue of these absolute promises made to the seed of Christ and Christs compleat performance of all conditions in their name the promises of life are made to faith principally which hath this peculiar vertue To cary forth the soul to anothers righteousnesse and sufficiency and to bottom it upon another and in the next place to holy walking though mixed with many infirmities which promise in the first covenant was only annexed to perfect and absolute obedience You heard in the preceeding vers a strong inducement taken from the bond debt and duty we owe to the Spirit to walk after it and the want of all obligation to the flesh Now if honesty and duty will not suffiâ—e to perswade you as you know in other things it would do with any honest man plain equity is a sufficient bond to him yet consider what the Apostle subjoynes from the dammage and from the advantage which may of it self be the Topickes of perswasion and serves to drive in the nail of debt and duty to the head if ye will not take with this debt ye owe to the Spirit but still conceive there is some greater obligation lying on you to care for your bodies and satisfie them then I say behold the end of it what fruit you must one day reap of the flesh and service of sin If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but then consider the fruit you â—hall reap of the Spirit and holy walking ye shall live It is true the flesh may flatter you more for the present but the end of it will be bitter as death amplâ—ctitur ut strangulet the flesh imbraces you that it may strangle you and so if you knew all well you would not think you owed it any thing but enmity and hatred and mortification If your duty will not move you let the love of your selves and your souls perswade you for it is an irrepealable statute The wages of sin is death Every way you choose to fulfill the lusts of your flesh and to make provision for it neglecting the eternal welfare of your souls certainly it shall prove to you the tree of the knowledge of good and evil it shall be as the forbidden fruit which in stead of performing that was promised will bring forth death the eternal separation of the soul from God Adam's sin was an Breviary or Epitome of the multiplied and enâ—arged sins of mankind you may see in this tragedy all your fortuns so to speak you may behold in it the flattering insinuations and deceitful promises of sin and Satan who is a liar
and murderer from the beginning and murdered man at first by lying to him you find the hook covered over with the varnished bâ—it of an imaginary life and happinesse satisfaction promised to the eye to the taste and to the mind and upon these inticements man bewitched and withdrawn from his God after these vain and empty shadows which when he catched hold upon he himself was caught and laid hold upon by the wrath of God by death and all the miseries before it or alter it Now here is the Mapp of the World for all that is in the world is but a larger volume of that same kind the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life Albeit they have been known and found to be the notablest and grossest deceivers and every man after he hath spent his dayes in pursuit and labour for them he is constrained to acknowledge at length though too late that all that is in the world is but an imposture a delusion a dream and worse yet eveâ—y man hearkens after these same flatteries and lies that hath cast down so many wounded and made so many strong ones to fall by them every man trusts the world and his own flesh as if they were of good report and of known integrity and this is mens misery that no man will learn wisdom upon others expences upon the woâ—ul and tragical example of so many others but go on as confidently now after the discoverie of these deceivers as if this were the first time they had made such promises and used such fair words to men Have they not been these six thousand years almost deluding the world And have we not as many testimonies of their falshood as there hath been persons in all ages before us After Adam hath tasted of this tree of pleasure and found another fruit growing on it that is death should the posterity be so mad as to be medling still with the forbidden tree and therefore forbidden because destructive to our selves Know then and consider beloved in the Lord that you shall reap no other thing of all your labours and endeavours after the flesh all your toyling and perplexing cares all your excessive pains in the making provision for your lusts and caring for the body only you shall reap no other harvest of all but death and corruption Death you think that is a common lot and you cannot eschew it however nay but the death here meant is of another sort in respect of which you may call death life it is the everlasting destruction of the soul from the presence of God and the glory of his powerâ— it is the falling of that infinit weight of the wrath of the Lamb upon you in respect of which mountains and hills will be thought light and men would rather wish to be covered with them Rev. 6.16 Suppose now you could swim in a River of delights and pleasures which yet is given to none for truly upon a jâ—st reckoning it will be found that the anxiety and grief and bitteâ—nâ—sse that is inteâ—mingled with all earthly delights â—wallows up the sweetnesse of them yet it will but carry you down ere you be aware into the Seâ— oâ— deâ—th and destruction as the fish that swim and sport for a while in Iordan are carried down into the dead Sea of Sodom where they aâ—e presently suffocated and extinguished or as a Malefactor is carried through a pleasant Palace to the Gallows so men walk thâ—ough the delights of their flesh to their own endlesse torment and destruction Seing then my beloved that your sins and lusts which you are inclined and accustomed to will certainly kill you if you inteâ—tain them then nature it self would teach you the Law of self-defence To kill ere you be killed to kill sin eâ—e it kill you to mortifie the deeds and lusts of the body which aboâ—nd among you or they will certainly mortifie you that is make you die Now if self love could teach you this which the love of God cannot perswade you to yet it is well for being once led unto God and moved to change your course upon the fear and apprehension of the infinit danger that will ensue ceâ—tainly if you weâ—e but a little aâ—quainted with the sweetnesse of this life and goodnesse of your God you would find the power of the former aâ—gumenâ— Ã debito from debt and duty upon your spirit let this once lead you in to God and you will not want that which will constrain you to abide and never to depart from Him If you mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live as sin decayes you increase and grow as sins die your soulâ— live anâ— it shall be a sure pledge to you of that eternal life and though this be painful and laborious yet consider that it is but the cutting off of a rotten member that would corrupt the whole body and the want of it will never mâ—im or mâ—tilat the body for you shall live perâ—ectly when sin is perfectly expired and out of life and according aâ— sin is nearer expiring and nearer the grave your souls are neaâ—â—â— that endlesse life If this do not move us what can be said nâ—xt What shall he do more to his Vineyard SERMON XXXV Rom. 8.13 14. But if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Vers. 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God THE life and being of many things consists in union separat them and they remain not the same or they losse their vertue It is much more thus in Christianity the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hâ—th conjoyned so that if any man pretend to one thing of it and neglect the other he hath really none of them and to hold to the subject in hand there are three things which joyned together in the hearts of Christians have a great deal of force the duty of a Christian and his reward and his dignity his worke and labour seems hard and unpleasant when considered alone but the reward sweetens it when it is joyntly believed his duty seems too high and his labour great yet the consideration of the real dignity he is advanced unto and priviledge he hath received will raise up the spirit to great and high attempts and to sustain great labours Mortification is the work and labour life eternal life is the reward following the Spirit is the Christians duty but to be the son of God that is his dignity Mortification sounds very harsh at first the hearts of men say It is a hard saying who can bear it And indeed I cannot deny but it is so to our corrupt nature and therefore so holden out in Scripture the words chosen to press it express much pain and pains much torment and labour it is not so easie and trivial a business to forsake sin or subdue it as many think
who only think it easie because they have never tryed it It is a Circumcision of the foreskin of the heart and you know how it disabled a whole City Gen. 34. and how it enraged the heart of a tender mother Exod. 4 26. It is the incision or cutting off a member and these the most dear and precious be it the right hand or right foot which is a living death as it were even to kill a man while he is alive It is a new birth and the pains and throws of the birth are known Regeneration certainly hath a travelling pain within it in so much that Paul travelled in pain till it were accomplished in these Galat. 4.19 Though men conceive sin in pleasure yet they cannot be rid of that deadly burden without throws and pain and to half this work or to be remiss and negligent in it is â—s foolish and unwise as for a child to stay long in the place of breaking forth as the Lord complains of Ephraim Hos. 13.13 He is an unwise son for he should not stay long in the place of breaking forth of children It is one of the greatest follies not to labour by all means to be rid of the inâ—umbrances of sin Much violence offered to it and a total resignation of our selves to God may be great pain but it is short pain then the pleasure is greater and continues But now Christians lengthen their pain and draw out their crosse and vexation to a great extent because they deal negligently in the businesse they suffer the Canaanites to live and these are thorns and briers in their sides continually Then this businesse is called Mortification as the word is here and Col. 3.5 which imports a higher degree of pain for the agonies of death are terrible and to hold it out yet more the most painful and lingering kind of death is chosen to expresse it Crucifiction Gal. 5.24 Now indeed that which makes the forsaking of sin so grievous to flesh and blood is the engagements of the soul to it the onenesse that is between it and our natures as they are now fallen for you know pain ariseth upon the dissolution or division of any thing that is continued or united and these things that are so nearly conjoyned it is hard to separat them without much violence And truly as the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence so we must offer violence to our selves to our lusts and inclinations who are almost our selves And if ye would be truly Christians this must be your businesse and imployment to cut off these things that are dearest unto you to cast out the very idols your hearts sacrifice unto and if there be any thing more one with you than another to endeavour to break the bond with that and to be at the furthest distance with it It is easie to perswade men to forsake some sins and courses that they are not much inâ—lined to and find not much pleasure or profit by them You may do that and be but dead in sins but if you aim at true mortification indeed you would consider what are the chief idols and predominant inclinations of your heart and as to set your self impartially against all known sin so particularly against the most beloved sin because it interrupts most the communion of God and separates from youâ— Beloved and the dearer it be the more dangerous certainly it is But to encourage and hearten you to this I would have you look back to that former victory that Christ hath gained in our name and look about you to the assistance you have for the present the Spirit to help you Truly my beloved this will be a dead businesse if you be not animated and quickned by these considerations that Christ died to sin and lived to God and that in this He was a publick person representing you that so you may conclude with Paul I am crucified with Christ Gal. 2.20 We are buried with him by baptism into his death Rom. 6.4 Consider that mystical union with Christ crucified and life shall spring out of his crosse out of his grave to kill sin in you That the great businesse is done already and victory gained in our head this is our victory even faith Believe and then you have overcome before you overcome and this will help you to overcome in your own persons And then conâ—ider and look round about to the strong helper you have the Spirit If ye through the Spirit mortifie c. Stronger is he that is in you then he that is in the world though he doth not vent all his power to you yet you may believe that there is a secret latent vertue in the seed of grace that it cannot be wholly overcome or conquered and there is one engaged in the warfare with us who will never leave us nor forsake us who of set purpose withdraweth his help now and then to discover our weaknesse to us that we may cleave the faster to Him who never letteth sin get any power or gather any strength but out of wisdom to make the final victory the more glorious in a word he leads us through weaknesses infirmities faintingâ— wrestlings that his strength may be perfected in weaknesse that when we are weak then we may be strongest in Him 2 Cor. 12 9. Our duty then is to follow this Spirit wheresoever he leadeth us Christ the Captain of our Salvation when he went to Heaven he sent the Spirit to be our guider to lead us thither where he is and therefore we should resign and give up our selves to His guidance and direction The nâ—ture of a creature is dependence so the very essence of a Christian consists in dependence and subordination to the Spirit of God Nature it self would teach them that want wisdom to commit themselves to these that have it and not to carry the reins of their own life themselves Truly not only the sense of our own imperfection of our folly and ignorance in these things that belong to life should make us willing to yeeld ourselves over to the Spirit of God as blind men to their leader as children to their nurses as orphans to their Tutors but also because the Spirit is made our Tutor and leader Christ our Father hath left us to the Spirit in his latter-will and therefore as we have absolute necessity so he hath both willingnesse and ability because it is his office O Lord I know saith Jeremiah the way of man is not in himself it is not in him that walketh to direct his steps Jer. 10.23 O! it were a great point of wisdom thus to know our ignorance and folly and this is the great qualification of Christs Disciples simple as children as little children as void of conceit of their own wisdom Mark 10.15 And this alone capacitats the soul to receive the impressions of wisdom as an empty table is fittest to write upon so a soul emptied of it self whereas self-conceit draweth a number of
shall we be It is high time indeed to pretend to this to be a son or a daughter of God it s a higher word then if a man could deduce his genealogy from an interrupted line of a thousand Kings and Princes there is more honour true honour in it and more profit too that which enriches the poorest and eâ—nobles the basest inconceivably beyond â—ll the imaginary degrees of men Now my beloved this is the great design of the Gospel to bestow this incomparable priviledge upon you to become the Sons of God But it is sad to think how many souls scarce think upon it and how many delude themselves in it but consider that as many as are the Sons of God are led by the Spirit of God they have gotten a new leader and guider other then their own fancy or humour which once they followed in the ignorance of their hearts It is lamentable to conceive how the most part of us are acted and driven and carried head-long rather then gently led by our own carnal and corrupt inclinations men pretending to Christianity yet hurried away with every self-pleasing object as if they were not Masters of themselves furiously agitated by violent lusts miscarried continually against the very dictates of their own reason and conscience And I fear there iâ— too much of these even in those who have more reason to assume this honourable title of Son ship I know not how we are exceedingly addicted to self-pleasing in everything whatsoever our â—ancy or inclination suggest to us that we must do without more bands if it be not directly sinful whatsoever we apprehend that we must venâ— and speak it out though to little or no edâ—fication like that oâ— Solomon We deny our hearts nothing they desire except the grossâ—esse of it restrain us Now certainly if we knew what we are called to who are the Sons of God we could not but disingage more with our selves even in lawful things and give over the conduct oâ— our hearts and wayes to the Spirit of our Father whom we may be perswaded of that he will lead us in the wayes of pleasantnesse and peace Now the special and peculiar operations of the Spirit are expressed in the following words There are some workings of the Spirit of God that are but introductory and subservient to more excellent works and therefore they are transient not appointed to continue long for they are not his great intendment of this kind are these terrible representations of sin and wrath of the Justice of God which puts the soul in a fear a trembling fear and while such a soul is kept within the apprehension of sin and judgment it s shut up as it were in bondage Now though it be true that in the conversion of a sinner there is alwayes something of this in more or lesse degrees yet because this is not the gâ—eat design of the Gospel to put men in fear but rather to give them confidence nor the great intendment of God in the dispensation of the Law To bring a soul in bondage under terror but rather by the Gospel to free them from that bondage therefore he hath reason to expresse it thus ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear c. But there are other operations of the Spirit which are chiefly intended and principally bestowed as the great gift of our Father to expresse his bounty and goodnesse towards us and from these he is called the Spirit of Adoption and the Spirit of Intercession The Spirit of Adoption not only in regard of that witness-bearing and testification to our consciences of Gods love and â—avour and our interest in it as in the next vers but also in regard of that child-like disposition of reverence and love and respect that he begets in our hearts towards God as our Father and â—rom both these flowes this next working â—rying Abba Father aiding and assisting us in presenâ—ing our necessities to our Father making this the continued vent of the heart in all extremitieâ— to pour out all that burthens us in our Fathers bosom and this giveâ— marvelous ease to the heart and releases it from the bondage of carefulnâ—sse and anxiety which it may be subject to after the soul is delivered from the â—ear and bondage of wrath Let us speak then to these in order the first working of the spiritâ— to put a mâ—n in feâ—r of himself and such a fear as mightily straitenâ— and embondages the soul of man and this though in it self it be neither so pleasant nor excellent as to make it come under the notion of any gift from God it having rather the nature of a torment and punishment and being some sparkle of Hell already kindled in the Conscience yet hath made it beautiful and seasonable in its use and end because he makes it to usher-in the pleasant and refreshing sight of a Saviour and the report of Gods love to the World in Him It is true all men are in bondage to sin and Satan and shut up in the darknesse of ignorance and unbelief and bound in the setters of their own lusts which are as the chains that are put about malefactors before they go to prison He that commits sin is a servant of sin Joh. 8.34 And to be a servant of sin is slavery under the most cruel tyrant all these things are yet how few souls do apprehend it seriously or are weary of their prison how few groan to be delivered nay the most part account it only liberty To hate true delivery as bondage But some there are whose eyes the Spirit of God openâ— and lets them see their bondage and slavery and how they are concluded under the most heavy and weighty sentence that ever was pronounced The curse and wrath of the everliving God that there is no way to flie from it or escape it for any thing they can do or know Now indeed this serious discovery cannot choose but make the heart of a man to tremble as David my heart trembles because of thy Iudgments and I am afraid of thee Pâ—al 119.120 Such a serious representation will make the sâ—outest and proudest heart to fall down and â—aint for â—ear of that infinit intollerable weight of deserved wrath and then the soul is in a sensible bondage that before was in a real but insensible bondage then it s invironed about with bitter accusations with dreadful challenges then the Law of God arrests and confines the soul within the bounds of its own accusing Conscience and thiâ— is some previous â—epresâ—ntation â—f that eternal â—mpâ—isonment and banishment â—â—om the pressence oâ— God albeâ—â—t many of you are free from this â—ear and enjoy a kind oâ— liberty to â—erve your own lusts and are not sensiâ—le oâ— any thraldom oâ— your spirits yet certainly the Lord will sometime arrest you anâ— bâ—ing you to this spiritual bondage when he shall make the inâ—qâ—â—ties oâ— your heels encompasse you about and the curâ—es
of hâ—s Law surâ—ound when your Conscience accuâ—eth and God condâ—mneth it may be too late and out of date Alas then wâ—at will you do who now put your conscâ—ence by and will not hearken to it or be put in fear by any thâ—ng can be represented to you we do not desiâ—e to put you in feâ—r where nâ—â—ear is but where there is infinit cause of â—ear and when it is possible that fear may introduce faith and be the forerunner oâ— these glad tidings that will compose the soul We desiâ—e only you may know what bondage you are really into whether it be observed or not that you may fear lest you be enthralled in the chains oâ— everlasting daâ—knesse and so may be perswaded to flee from it before it be irrecoverable Wâ—at a vain and empty sound is the Gospel of liberty by a Redeemer to the most paâ—t who do not feel their bondage Who believes its report or care much for it because it is necessity that casts a beauty and lustâ—e upon it or takes the scales off our eyes and opens our closed ears Now for you who either are or have been detained in this bondage under the feaâ—ful apprehension oâ— the wrath of God and the sad remembrance oâ— your sins know that this is not the prime intent and grand businesse to torment you as it were before the time there is some other more beautiful and satisfying structure to be raised out of this â—oundation I would have you improve it thus to commend the necessity the absolute necessity of a Redeemer and to make him beautiful in your eyes Do not dwell upon that as if it were the ultimat or last work but know that you are called in this rational way to come out of your selves into this glorious liberty of the sons of God purchased by Christ anâ— revealed in the Gospel Know you have not received the spirit of bondage only to fear but to drive you to faith in a Saviour and then you ought so to walk as not to return to that â—ormer thraldome oâ— the â—ear of wrath but believe his love SERMON XXXVII Rom. 8.14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God Vers. 15. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father THE liâ—e oâ— Christianity take it in it self it is the most pleasant and joyful life that can be exempted from these fears and cares these sorrows and anxieties that all other lives are subjâ—ct unto for this of necessity must be the force and efficacy of true Religion iâ— it be indeed true to its name to disburden and ease the heart and fill it with all manner of consolation Certainly it is the most rich Subject and most compleatly â—urnished with all variety of delights to enteâ—tain a soul that can be imagined Yet I must confess while we consult with the experience and practice of Christians this bold assertion seems to be much weakned and too much ground is given to confirm the contrary misappreheâ—sions of the world who take it to be a sullen melancholick and dâ—â—consolat life attended with many â—ears and sorows It is alas too evident that many Christians are kept in bondage almost all their lâ—fe-time through fear oâ— eteâ—nall death how many dismall representations of sin and wrath in the souls of some Christians which keep them in much thraldom at least who is it that is not once and often brought in bondage aâ—ter conversion and made to apprehend feaâ—fully their own estate who hath such constant uninterrupâ—ed peace and joy in the holy Ghost or lyes under such direct beams of divine favour but it is sometimes eclipsed and their souls fillâ—d with the darknes of horrour and terrour and â—ruly the most part taâ—â—e not so much sweetness in Religion as makeâ— them uncessâ—nt and unwearied in the wayes of Godliness yet not withstanding of all this wâ— must vindicat Christianity it self and not impute these things unto it which are the infirmities and faults of the followers of it who do not improve it unto such an use or use it so far as in it self it is capable Indeed it is true that oâ—ten we are brought to fear again yet withall it is certain that our allowance is larger and that we have received the Spirit not to put us in bondage again to fear but rather to seal to our hearts that love of God which may not only expell fear but bring in joy I wish that this were deeply considered by all of us that there is such a life as this attainâ—ble that the word of God doth not deceive us in promiâ—ing fair things which it cannot perform but that there is a certain realiâ—y in the life of Christianity in that peace and joy tranquility and serenity of minâ— that is holden out and that some have â—eally found it and do find it and that the reason why all of us do not find it in expeâ—ience is not because it is not but because we have so little apprehension of it and diligence after it It is strange that all men who have pursued satisfaction in the things of this life being disappointed and one generation witnessing this to another and one person to another that notwithstanding men are this day as fresh in the pursuit of that as big in the expectations as ever and yet in this business of Religion and the happiness to be found in it though the Oracles of God in all ages have testified from Heaven how certain and possible it is though many have found it in experience and left it on record to others yet there is so slender belief of the reality and certainty of it and so slack pursuit of it as if we did not believe it at all Truly my beloved there is a great mistake in this and it s generally too all men apprehend other things more â—easable and attainable then personal holinesse and happinesse in it but truly I conceive there is nothing in the world so practicable as this nothing made so easie so certain to a soul that really minds it Let us take it so then the fault is not Religions that these who professe it are subject to so much fear and care and disquieted with so much sorrow it is rather because Christianity doth not sink into the hearts and souls oâ— men but only puts a tincture on their out-side or because the â—aith of divine truths is so supeâ—ficial and the consideration oâ— them so slight that they cannot have much efficacy and influence on the heart to quiet and compose it Is it any wonder that some souls be subject again to the bondage of fear and terrour when they do not stand in aw to sin Much liberty to sin will certainly embondage the spirit of a Christian to fear Suppose a believer in Jesus Christ be exempted from the hazâ—rd of condemnation yet he
of Adoption I conceive to be threefold beside that of Intercession expressed in the vers The first work of the Spirit of Adoption that wherein a Fathers affection seems to break first from under ground is â—he revealing to the heart the love and mercy of God to sinners I do not say to such a soul in particular for that application is neither first nor universal But herein the Spirit of Adoption first appears from under the cloud of â—ear and this is the first opening oâ— the prison of bondage wherein a soul was shut when the plain way of reconciliation to God in Christ and delivery from the bondage of sin and wrath is holden out when such a word as this comes into the soul and is received with some gladnesse God so loved the world that he gave his Son c. This is a true and faithful saying c. Come ye that labour and weary and I will give rest to your souls When a soul is made to hear the gâ—ad tidings of liberty preached to captives of lighâ— to the blind of joy to the heavy in spirit of life to the dead though he cannot come that length as to see his own pâ—â—ticular interest yet the very receiving affectionatly and greedily such a general report as good and true gives some ease and relaxation to the heart To see delivery possible is some door of hope to a desperat sinner but to see it and espy more then a possibility even great probability though he cannot reach a certainty â—hat will be as the breaking open of a window of light in a dark dungeon it will be as the taking off oâ— some of the hardest fetters and the worst chains which makes a man almost to think himself at liberty Now this is the great office of the Spirit of the Father to beget in us good thoughts of Him to incline us to charitable and favourable construction of Him and make us ready to think well of Him to beget a good understanding between us and Him and correct our jealous misapprehensions of Him for certainly we are naturally suspitious of God that he deals not in sad earnest with us when ever we see the hight of our provocation and weight of deserved indignation we think him like our selves and can hardly receive without suspition the Gospel that layes open his love in Christ to the world Now this is the Spirits woâ—k to make us entertain that hoâ—ourable thought of God that he is most inclinable to pardon sinners and that his mercy is infinitly above mans sin and that it is no prejudice to His Holiness or Justice and to apprehend seriously a constant reality and solid truth in the promises of the Gospel and so to convince a soul of righteousnesse Joh. 18. that there is a way of justifying a sinner and ungodly person without wrong to Gods righteousnesse and this being well pondered in the heart and received in love the great businesse is done after that particular application is more easie of which I shall not speak now because occasion will be given in the next vers about the Spirits witnessing with our spirits which is another of the Spirits workings only I say this that which makes this so difficult is a defect in the fiâ—st but the common principles of the Gospel are not really and so seriously apprehended because many souls do not put to their seal to witnesse to the promises and truth oâ— it therefore the Lord often denies this seal anâ— witnesse to our comfort It is certainly a preposterous way Sâ—tan puts souls upon first to get such a testimony from the Spirit before they labour to get such a testimony to Christ and eccho or answer in their hearts to his word this way it seems shortest for it would leap into the greater liberty at the first hand but certainly its farthest about because its impossible for souls to leap immediatly out of bondage to assurance without some middle step they cannot passe thus from extreams to extreams without going through the middle stâ—te of receiving Christ and laying his word up in the heart and therefore it proves the way furthest about because when souls have long wearied themselves they must at length turn in hither But there is another working of the Spirit I wish you were acquaint with as the first work is to beget a suitable apprehension of Gods mind and heart towards sinners so the next is to beget a suitable disposition in our hearts towards God as a Father The first apprehends his love the next reflects it back again with the heart of a sinner to Him The Spirit first brings the report of the love and grace of God to us and then he carries the love and respect of the heart up to God You know how God complains in Mâ—lachi If I be a Father where is my fear and honour â—or these are the only fitting qualifications of Children such a reverent respective observance of our Heavenly Father such affectionat and humble carriage towards him as becometh both His Majesty and His Love as these are tempered one with another in Him his Love not abasing his Majesty and his Majesty not diminishing his Love So we ought to carry as reverence and confidence fear and love may be contempered one with another so as we may neither forget his infinit greatnesse nor doubt of his unspeakable love and this inward disposition ingraven on the heart will be the principle of willing and ready obedience it will in some measure be our meat and drink to do our Fathers will for Christ gave us an example how we should carry towards him How humble and obedient was he though his only begotten Son SERMON XXXIX Rom. 8.15 Whereby we cry Abba Father AS there is a light of grace in bestowing such incomparably high dignities and excellent gifts on poor sinneâ—s such as to make them the sons of God who were the children of the Devil and heirs of a kingdom who were heirs of wrath so there is a depth of wisdom in the Lords allowance and manner of dispensing his love and grace in this life for though the love be wonderful that we should be called the sons of God yet as that Apostle speaks It doth not yet so clearly appear what we shall be by what we are 1 Joh. 3.1 Our present condition is so unlike such a state and dignity and our enjoyments so unsuitable to our rights and pâ—iviledges that it would not appear by the mean low and indigent state we are now into that we have so great and glorious a Father How many infiâ—mities are we compassed about with How many wants are we pressed withall our necessitiâ—s aâ—e infinit and our enjoyments no wayes proportioned to our necessities Notwithstanding even in this the love and wisdom oâ— our Heavenly Father shews it self and oftentimes more gloriously in the theatre of mens weaknesse infirmities and wants then they could appear in the absolute and total exemption
incense to God dayly when they offer up their souls desires in simplicity and sincerity Certainly this is a spiritual thing derived only from the fountain of Spirts this grace of pouring out our souls into him and keeping communication with him the variety of words and riches of expression it is but the shell of it the external shadow And all the life consists in the frame of the heart before God And this none can put in frame but he that formed the Spirit of man within him some through custom of hearing and using it attain to a habit of expressing themselves readily in it it may be to the satisfaction of others but alas they may be strangers to the fiâ—st letters and elements of the life and spirit of prayer I would have you who want both look up to heaven for it many of you cannot be induced to pray in your family and I fear little or none in secret which is indeed a more serious work because you have not been used or not learned or such like Alas beloved this cometh not through education or learning it cometh from the Spirit of adoption and if ye cannot pray ye say ye have not the Spirit and if ye have not the Spirit ye are not the Sons of God Know what is in the inevitable sequel of your own confessions But I haste to the qualifications of this divine work fervencie reverence and confidence Fervencie in crying reverence and confidence in crying Abba Father for these two suit well towards our Father the first I fear we must seek it elsewhere then in prayer I find it spent on other things of lesse moment Truly all the Spirit and affection of men runes in another channel in the way of contention and strife in the way of passion and miscalled zeal and because these things whereabout we do thus earnestly contend have some interest or coherance with Religion we not only excuse but approve our vehemency But O! much better were that imployed in supplicationâ— to God that were a divine channel Again the marrow of other mens Spirits is exhausted in the pursuit of things in the world the edge of their desires is turned that way and it must needs be blunted and dulled in spiritual things that it cannot pierce into Heaven and prevail effectually I am sure many of us useth this excuse who are so cold in it that we do not warm our selves and how shall we think to prevail with God our spirits make little noise when we cry all the loudest we can scarce hear any whisper in our hearts and how shall he hear us Certainly it is not the extension of the voice pleaseth Him it is the cry of the heart that is sweet harmony in his ears and you may easily perceive that if you but consider that he is an infinit Spirit that pierceth into all the corners of our hearts and hath all the darknesse of it as light before him how can you think that such a spirit can be pleased with lip-cryes how can he endure such deceit and â—alshood who hath so perfect a contrariety with all false appearances that your heart should lye so dead and flatt before him and the affection of it turned quite another way There were no sacrifices without fire in the Old Testament and that fire was kept-in perpetually and so no prayer now without some inward fire conceived in the desires and blazing up and growing into a flame in the presenting of them to God The incense that was to be offered on the Altar of perfume Exod. 30. it behoved to be beaten and prepared and truly prayer would do well to be made out of a beaten and bruised heart and contrite spirit a spirit truly sensible of its own unworthinesse and wants and that beating and pounding of the heart will yeeld a good fragrant smel as some spices do not till beaten The incense was made of divers spices intimating to us that true prayer is not one grace alone but a compound of graces It is the joynt exercise of all a Christian graces seasoned with all every one of them give some peculiar fragrancy to it as Humility Faith Repentance Love c. The acting of the heart in supplication is a kind of compend and result of all these as one perfume made up of many simples But above all as the incense our prayers must be kindled by fire on the Altar there must be some heat and servour some warmnesse conceived by the holy Spirit in our hearts which may make our spices send forth a pleasant smell as many spices do not till they get heat Let us lay this engagement on our hearts to be more serious in our addresses to God the Father of spirits above all to present our inward soul before him before whom it is naked and open though we do not bring it And certainly frequency in prayer will much help us to fervency and to keep it when we have it SERMON XL. Rom. 8.15 VVhereby we cry Abba Father ALL that know any thing of Religion must needs know and confess that there is no exercise either more suitable to him that prosesseth it or more needful for him then to give himself to the exercise of prayer but that which is confessed by all and as to the outward performance gone about by many I fear it is yet a mystery sealed up fâ—om us as to the true and living nature of it There is much of it expressed here in few words whereby we cry Abba Father The divine constitution and qualification of this divine work is here made up of a temper of fervency reverence and confidence The first I spoke of before but I fear our hearts was not well heated then or may be cooled since It is not the loud noise of words that is best heard in Heaven or that is constructed to be crying to God No this is transacted in the heart more silently to men but it striketh up into the ears of God His ear is sharp and that voice of the souls desires is shrill and though it were out of the depths they will meet together It is true the vehemency of affection will sometimes cause the extension of the voice but yet it may cry as loud to Heaven when it is kept within I do not presse such extraordinary degrees of servour as may effect the body but I would rather wish we accustomed our selves to a solid calm seriousnesse and earnestnesse of spirit which might be more constant then such raptures can be that we might alwayes gather our spirits to what we are about and avocat them from impertinent wanderingâ— and fix them upon the present object of our worship this is to worship him in spirit who is a Spirit The other thing that composes the sweet temper of prayeâ— is reverence and what more suitable whether you consider Him or your selves If I be your Father where is my honour and if I be your Master where is my fear
Mal. 1.6 While we call him Father or Lord we proclaim this much that we ought to know our distance from him and his superiority to us and if worship in prayer carry not this character and expresse not this honourable and glorious Lord whom we serve it wantes that congruity and suitableness to him that is the beauty of it Is there any thing more uncomly then for children to behave themselves irreverently and irrespectively towards their Fathers to whom they owe themselves It is a monstruous thing even innature and to natures light O how much more abominable must it be to draw near to the Father of spirits who made us and not we our selves in whose hand our breath is and whose are all our wayes in a word to whom we owe not only this dust but the living spirit that animats it that was breathed from Heaven and finally in whom we live and move and have our being and well-being to worship such an one and yet to behave our selves so unseemly and irreverently in his presence our hearts not stricken with the apprehension of his glory but lying flatt and dead before him having scarcely him in our thoughts whom we speak to and finally our deportments in his sight are such as could not be admitted in the presence of any person a little above our selves to be about to speak to them and yet to turn aside continually to every one that cometh by and entertain communication with every base creature this I say in the presence of a King or Nobleman would be accounted such an absurd incivility as could be committed and yet we behave our selves just so with the Father of spirits O the wandrings of the hearts of men in divine worship while we are in communication with our Father and Loâ—d in prayer whose heart is fixed to a constant attendance and presence by the impression of his glorious holinesse whose spirit doth not continually gadd abroad and take a word of every thing that occurrs and so marrs that soul-coâ—â—espondance O that this word Psal. 89.7 were written with great letters on our hearts God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him that one word God speaketh all Either we must convert Him in an idol which is nothing or if we apprehend Him to be God we must apprehend our infinit distance from Him and his unspeakable inaccessible glory above us He is greatly feaâ—ed and reverenced in the Assemblies that are above in the upper Courts of Angels those glorious Spiâ—its who must cover the feet from us because we cannot see their gloâ—y they must cover their faces from Him because they cannot behold his glory Isa. 6. what a glorious train hath he and yet how reverend are they they wait round about the Throne above and about it as Courtierâ— upon their King for they are all ministâ—ing spirits and they rest not day and night to adore and admire that holy one crying holy holy holy the whole earth is full of his glory Now how much more then should he be greatly feared and had in reverence in the assembly of his Saints of poor mortal men whose foundation is in the dust and dwell in clay and besides drink in iniquity like water there is two points of difference and distance from us He is nearer Angels for Angels are pure spirits but we have flesh which is furthest removed from his nature And then Angels are holy and clean yet that is but spotted to his unspotted holinesse but we are defiled with sin which putteth us farthest off from him and which his holinesse hath greatest antipathy at Let us consider this my beloved that we may carry the impression of the glorious holinesse and Majesty of God on our hearts when ever we appear before him that so we may serve and rejoice with trembling and pray with reverence and godly fear if we apprehend indeed our own quality and condition how low how base it is how we cannot endure the very clear aspect of our own consciences we cannot look on our selves stedfastly without shame and confusion of face at the deâ—ormed spectacle we behold much lesse would we endure to have our souls opened and presented to the view of other men even the basest of men we would be overwhelmed with shame if they could see into our hearts Now then apprehend seriously what He is how glorious in holinesse how infinit in wisdom how the secrets of your souls are plain and open in his sight and I am perswaded you will be composed to a reverend humble and trembling behaviour in his sight But withall I must add this that because he is your Father you may intermingle confidence nay you are commanded so to do and this honours him as much as reverence for confidence in God as our Father is the best acknowledgment of the greatnesse and goodnesse of God it declareth how able he is to save us and how willing and so ratifieth all the promises of God made to us and setteth to a seal to his â—aithâ—ulness there is nothing he accounts himself more honoured by then a souls full resigning it self to him and relying upon his power and good-will in all necessities casting its care upon Him as a loving Father who careth for us And truly there is much beauty and harmony in the juncture of these two reioycing with trembling confidence with reverence to ask nothing doubting and yet sensible of our infinit distance from him and the disproportion of our requests to his Highnesse A child-like disposition is composed thus as also the temper and carriage of a Courtier hath these ingredients in it The love of his Father and the â—avour of his Prince maketh him take liberty and assume boldnesse and withall he is not unmindful of his own distance from his Father or Master Let us draw near with full assurance of faith Heb. 10.22 There is much in the Scripture both exhorted commanded and commended of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that liberty and boldnesse of pouring out our requests to God as one that certainly will hear us and grant that which is good Vnbelief spoileth all it s a wretched and base-spirited thing that can conceive no honourable thoughts of God but only like it self but faith which is the well-pleasing ingredient of prayer the lower thoughts a man have of himself it maketh him conceive the higher and more honourable of God My wayes are not as your wayes nor my thoughts as your thoughts but as far above as the Heaven above the Earth Isa. 55.8 This is the rule of a believing souls conceiving of God and expecting from him and when a soul is thus placed on God by trusting and believing in him it is fixed My heart is fixed trusting in the Lord Psal. 112.7 O how wavering and inconstant is a soul till it fix at this Anchor upon the ground of his immutable promises It is tossed
character of all our evidences and rights for Heaven disowns many as bastards and dead members withered branches and certainly according to this word He will judge you the word that I have spoken shall judge you in the last day O that is a heavy word you have the very rule and method of proceeding laid down before you now which shall be punctually kept at that great day Now why do you not read your ditty and condemnatory sentence here registred If you do not read it now in your consciences he will one day read it before men and Angels and pronounce this I know you not for mine you are none of mine But if you would now take it to your hearts there might be hope that it should go no further and come to no more publick hearing there were hope that it should be repealed before that day because the fiâ—st entry of the Spirit of Christ is to convince men of sin that they are unbelievers and without God in the world and if this were done then it were more easie to convince you of Christs righteousnesse and perswade you to embrace it and this would lead in another link of the chain the conviction of judgement to perswade you to resign your selves to the Spirits rule and renounce the kingdom of Satan this were another trinity a trinity upon earth three bearing witnesse on the earth that you have the Spirit of God Vers. 10. All the preceeding verses seem to be purposly set down by the Apostle for the comfort oâ— Christians against the remnants of sin and corruption within them â—or in the preceeding Chapter he personâ—â—â— the whole body of Christ militant shewing in his own exâ—mple how much sin râ—mains in â—he â—â—lieâ—t in this life and this he rather instances in his own person then another that all may know that matter of continual sorrow and lamentation is furnished to the chiefest of Saints and yet in this chapter he propounds the consolation of Christâ—â—ns more generally that all may know That these priviledges and immunities belong even to the meanest and weakest of Christians that as the best have reason to mourn in themselves so the worst want not reason to rejoice in Jesus Christ. And this would alwayes be minded that the â—mplest grounds of strongest consolation are general to all that come indeed to Jesus Christ and are not restricted unto Saints of such and such a grouth and stature the common principles of the Gospel are more full of this milk of consolation if you would suck it out of them then many particular grounds which you are laying down for your selves God hath so disposed and contrived the work of our sâ—lvation that in this life he that hath gathâ—red much in some respect hath nothing over that is to say hath no more reason to boast then another but will be constrained to sit down and mourn over his own evil heart and the emptiness of it and he that hath gathered lesse hath in some sense no want I mean he is not excluded and shut out from the right to these glorious priviledges which may expresse gloriation and rejoycing from the heart that there might be an equality in the body he maketh the stronger Christian to partake with the weaker in his bitter things and the weaker with the stronger in his sweet things that none of them may conceive themselves either dispised or alone regarded that the Eunuoh may not have reason to say I am a dry tree Isa. 56.3 For behold the Lord will give even to such a place in his house and a name better then of sons and daughters The soul that is in sincerity aming at this walk and whose inward deâ—ires â—â—irrs after more of this holy Spirit he will not refuse to such that name and esteem that they dare not take to themselves because of their seen and selâ— unworthinesse Now in thiâ— vers he proceeds further to the fruits and effects of sin dwelling in us to enlarge the consolation against that too Now if Christ be in you the body c. Seeing the word of God hath made such a connexion between â—in and deâ—th and death is the wages of sin and that which is â—he 〈◊〉 compence of enmity and rebellion â—gainst God the poor tâ—oubled soul might be ready to conceive That is the body be adjudged to death for sin that â—he rest of the wages shall be payed and sin haviâ—g so much dominion as to kill the body that it should exerce its full power to destroy all seing we have a visible character of the curse of God engraven on us in the mortality of our bodies it may look with such a visage on a soul troubled for sin as if it were but earnest of the full curse and weight of wrath and that sin were not fully satisfied for nor Justice fully contented by Christs ransome Now he opposes to this misconception the strongest ground of consolation If Christ be in you though your bodies must die for sin because sin dwelleth in them yet that spirit of life that is in you hath begun eternal life in your soulâ— your spiâ—its are not only immortal in being but that eternal happy being is begun in you the seeds of it are cast into your souls and shall certainly grow up to perfection of holiness and happiness and this through the righteousnesse of Christ which assureth that state unto you The comfort is it is neither total for it is only the death of your bodie nor is it perpetual for your bodies shall be raised again to life eternal vers 11. And not only is it only part and for a season but it is for a blessed end and purpose it is that sin may be wholly cleansed out that this tabernacle is taken down as the â—eprous houses were to be taken down under the Law and as now we use to cast down Pest-lodges the better to cleanse them of the infection It is not to prejudge him of life but to install him in a better life Thus you see that it is neither total nor perpetual but it is medicinal and profitable to the soul it is but the death of the body for a moment and the life of the soul for ever SERMON XXVII Rom. 8.10 And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin c. THis is the high excellency of Christian Religion that it contains the most absolute precepts for an holy life and the greatest comforts in death for from theâ—e two the truth and excellency of Religion is to be measured if it have the highest and perfectest rule of walking and the chiefest comfort withall Now the perfection of Christianity you saw in the rule how spiritual it is how reasonable how divine how free from all corrupt mixture how transcending all the most exquiâ—ite precepts and laws of men deriving a holy converâ—ation from the highest fountain the Spirit of Christ and conforming it to the highest pattern the will of God And
indeed in the first word of this vers there is something of the excellent nature of Christianity holden out If Christ be in you which is the true description of a Christian one in whom Christ is which imports The divine principle and the spiritual subject of Chriâ—tianity The principle is Christ in a man Christ by His Spirit dwelling in him This great Apostâ—e knew thiâ— well in his own experience and therefore he can speak best in this style I live yet not I buâ— Christ in me Gal. 2.20 Importing that Christ and His Spirit is to the soul what the soul is to the body that there is a living influence from Heaven that acts and moves the soul of a Christian as powerfully yet as sweetly and pleasantly as if it were the natural motion of the soul and truly it is the natural motion of the soul it s that primitive life which was most connatural to the soul of man which sin did deprive us of all the powerful constraint and violence that Christ uses in drawing the souls of men to him and after him is as kindly unto them and perfects them as much as that impulse by which the soul moves and turns the body a sweet compuâ—â—ion and blessed violence Now this should make Christians often to reflect upon another principle of their life then themselves that by looking on Him who is the resurrection and the life who is the true Vine and abiding in Him by faith their life may be continued and incâ—eased It is certainly much reflection on Him who is all in all and lesse upon our selvâ—s that maintains this life and therefore the most part of men being wholly strangers to this whether in their purposes or practices or judgings of both unacquainted with any higher look in Religion then they use in their natural and civil actings it doth give ground to assure us that they are strangers alienated from the life of God without God and without Christ in the world But then the spiritual subject of Christianity is here Christ in you not Christ without you in ordinances in profession in some civil â—arriage but Christ within the heart of a man thâ—t as a Christian It is the receiving of Châ—ist into the soul and putting Him on upon the inner man and renewing it that makes a Christian not being externally cloathed with him or compassed about with him in the administration of the Ordinances It fears me most part of us who bear that name of Christianity have no character of it within if we were looked and searched Many are like the sepulchres Christ speaks of without painted and fair within nothing but rottennesse and dead bones What have many of you more oâ— Christ then what a blind man hath of light it is round about him but not within him The light hath shined in darknesse but your darknesse cannot comprehend it You are environed with the outward appearances of Christ in his Word and Ordinances and that is all but neither within you nor upon many of you is there any thing either of his light or life not so much as any outward profession or behaviour suitable to the revelation of Christ about you as if you were ashamed to be Christians you maintain grosse ignorance and practise manifest â—ebellion against his known will in the very light of the Gospel How few have so much tincture of Christ so much as to colour the external man or to cloath it with any blamelessness of walking or form of Religion How few so much as Christians in the Letter for you are not acquainted either with Letter or Spirit either with knowledge or affection or practice But suppose that some have put on Christ on their outward man and colour over themselves with some performances of religious duties and smooth themselves with civility in carriage yet alas How few are they who are renewed in the spirit of â—heir mind and have put Christ on their inward man who have opened the secrets of their hearts and received him to ly all night between their breasts How â—ew are busied about their hearts to have any new impression and dye upon their affections to mould them after a new manner to kill the love of this world and the lusts of it and cast out the rottenness and superfluity of naughtiness which â—bides within But some there are who are peâ—swaded thus to do to give up their spirits to Religion and all their business and care is To have Christ within as well as without Now if the â—est of you will not be perswaded to be of this number consider what you pre-judge your selves of of all the comfort of Religion and then Religion is no Religion and to no purpose if you have no benefit by it And certainly except Christ be in you as a King to rule you and a Prophet to teach you to subdue your lusts and to dispel your darknesse when he appears he cannot appear to your comfort and salvation You are deprived of this great cordial against death death must seise upon all that is within you soul and body since Christ the Spirit of life is not within you Happiness without you will not make you happy salvation round about you will not save you If you would be saved there must be a near and immediat union with happinesse Christ in the heart and salvation cometh with him A Christian is not only Christ without not imputing his sins to him clothing him with His righteousnesse but Christ within too cleansing the heart from the love of sin perfecting holinesse in the fear of God Do not think you have any share in Christ without you except you receive Christ within you because Christ is one within and without and His gifts are undivided Therefore true â—aith receives whole Christ as a compleat Saviour even as He is intirely offered so He is undividedly received as He is without saving us and within sanctifying us Christ without delivering from wrath and Christ within redeeming from all iniquity these cannot be parted more then His coat that had no seam It is a heavy and weighty word of this Apostles 2 Cor. 13.5 examine your selves whether ye be in the faith know ye not your selves that Christ is in you except you be reprobates I wish ye would lay it to heart who have never yet returned to your hearts If Christ be not formed in you as Gal. 4.19 You are as yet among the refuse drâ—sse and that which must be burnt with fire you cannot but be cast away in the day when he makes up his jewels Where Christ is He is the hope of glory he is an immortal seed of glory How can you hope for Christ who have nothing of Him within you Now the other touch-stone of true Religion is the great comfort it furnishes to the soul And of all comforts the greatest is that which is a cordial to the heart against the greatest fears and evils Now certainly the matter of
foolish senslesse draughts in the mind that it cannot recâ—â—â—e the true image of wisdom This then when a soul finds that it hath misled it self being misguided by the wild-fire of its lusts and hath hardly escaped perishing and falling head-long in the Pit this disposes the soul to â— willing resignation of it self to one wiser and powerfuller the Spirit of God and so he giveth the Spirit the string of his affections and judgment to lead him by and he walketh willingly in that way to eternal life since his heart was enlarged with so much knowledge and love and now having given up your selves thus you would carefully eye your leader and attend all his motions that you may conform your self to them whensoever the Spirit pulleth you by the heart draweth at your conscience to drive you to prayer or any such duty do not resist that pull do not quench the Spirit leâ—t He let you alone and do not call you nor speak to you If you fall out thus with your leader then you must guide your selves and truly you will guide it into the pit if left to yourselves therefore make much of all the impulses of your conscience of all the touches and inward motions of light and affection to entertain these and draw them forth in meditation and action for these are nothing else but the Spirit your leâ—â—â—r plucking at you to follow Him and if you sit when he â—eâ—h â—o walk if you neglect such warnings then you may gâ—ieve him and this cannot but in the end be bitteâ—nesse to you Certainly many Christians are guilty in this and prejudge themselves of the present comâ—ort and benefite of this inward anointing that teacheth all thingâ— and of this bosomeguide that leadeâ—h in all truth because they are so heavy and lumpish to be led aâ—ter Him they drive slowly and takes very much pressure and perswasion to any duty whereas we should accustom our selves to willing and ready obedience upon the least signification of his mind yea and which is worse we often â—esist the Holy Ghost he draweth and we hold beloved sins he pulleth and we pull back from the most spiritual duties there is so much perversnesse and frowardnesse yet in our natures that there needs the Almighty draught of his arm to make it straight as theâ—e is need of infinite grace to pardon it Now my beloved if you have in your desires and affections resigned your selves over to the guidance of this Spirit â—nd this be your real and sincere endeavour to follow it and in as far as you are carried back or contrary by temptation and corruption or retarded in your motion it is your lamentation before the Lord I say unto you cheat your hearts and lift them up in the belief of this priviledge confeâ—â—ed upon you you are the sons of God for he giveth this Tutor and Pedagogue to none but to his own children as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God Suppose you cannot exactâ—y follow his motion but are often driven out or turned back yet hath not the Spirit the hold of your heaâ—t are you not detained by the cord of your judgment and the law of your mind and is theâ—e not some chain fastened about your heart which maketh it out-strip the practice by desires and affections you are the Sons of God that is truly the greatest dignity and highest priviledge in respect of which all relation may â—lush and hide their faces what aâ—e all the splendid and glistering titles among men but empty sâ—owes and evanishing soundâ— in respect of this to be called the Son oâ— a Gentle-man of a Noble-â—an of a Kâ—ng how much do the sonâ—â—f â—â—en pride thâ—mselves in it But truly thâ—t putteth no intrinsick dignity in the persons themselves it is a miserable poverty to borrow praise froâ— another and truly he that boasts of his parentage aliena laudat non sua he praiseth that which is anothers not his own But this dignity is truly a dignity it puts intrinsick worth in the person and puts a more excellent spirit in them then that which is in the world as is said of â—aleb and besides it intitles to the greatest happinesse imaginable SERMON XXXVI Rom. 8.14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Vers. 15. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear c. CHildren do commonly resemble their parents not only in the outward proportion and feature of their countenances but also in the disposition and temper of their spirits and generally they are inclined to imitate the customs and carriage of their parents so that they sometimes may be accounted the very living images of such persons and in them men are thought to out-live themselves Now indeed they that are the sons of God are known by this Character that they are led by the Spirit of God and there is the more necessity and the more reason too of this resemblance of God and imitation of him in his children because that very divine birth that they have from Heaven consists in the renovation of their natures and assimilation to the divine nature and therefore they are possessed with an inward principle that carries them powerfully towards a conformity with their heavenly Fatheâ— and it becometh their great study and endeavour to observe all the dispositions and carriage of their Heavenly Father which are so honourable and high and suitable to Himself that they at least may breath and halt after the imitation of Him Therefore our Lord â—xhorts us and taketh a domestick example and familiar patern to perswade us the more by Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Matth. 5.48 And there is one perfection he especially recommends for our imitation mercifulnesse and compassion towards men opposed to the violence fury and implacablenâ—sse to the oppression and revenge and hatred that abounds among men Luk. 6.36 And generally in all his wayes of holinesse and purity of goodnesse and mercy we ought to be followers of Him as dear children who are not only oblidged by the common Law of Sympathy between Parents and Children but moreover engaged by the tender affection that he carrieth to us Eph. 5.1 Now because God is high as Heaven and his way and thoughts and dispositions are infinitly above us the pattern seems to be so far out of sight that it is given over as desperat by many to attempt any conformity to it therefore it hath pleased the Lord to put his own Spirit within his own Children to be a bosom-pattern and example and this is our duty to resign our selves to his leading and direction the Spirit brings the copy near hand us and though we cannot attain yet we should follow after though we cannot make out the lesson yet we should be scribling at it and the more we exercise our selves this way setting the Spirits direction before our eyes the more perfect