Sermon XXXIV.

Sermon XXXIV.Verse 13.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”Though the Lord, out of his absolute sovereignty, might deal with man in such a way, as nothing should appear but his supreme will and almighty power, he might simply command obedience, and without any more persuasions either leave men to the frowardness 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 man's nature, to lay out before him the advantages and disadvantages, and to use these as motives and persuasives of his Spirit. For since he hath by his first creation implanted in man's soul such a principle as moveth itself upon the presentation of good or evil, that this might not be in vain, he administers all the dispensations of the law and gospel in a way suitable to that, by propounding such powerful motives as may incline and persuade the heart of man. It is true,[pg 248]there's a secret drawing withal necessary, the pull of the Father's 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,deathandlife,—death which it naturally abhorreth, and life which it naturally loveth. An even balance 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 first with man in paradise. You remember the terms run so,—“'What day thou eatest thou shalt die.”He hedged him in on the one side by a promise of life, on the other by a threatening of death. And these two are very rational restraints, suited to the soul of man, and in the inward principles of it, which are a kind of instinct to that which is apprehended good or gainful.Now, this verse runs even so in the form of words“If ye live after the flesh ye shall die.”You see this method is not changed under the gospel, for, indeed, it is natural to the spirit of man, and he hath now much more need of all such persuasions, because there is a great change of man's inclination to the worst side. All within is so disordered and perverse that a thousand hedges of persuasive grounds cannot do that which one might have done at first. Then they were added out of superabundance, but now out of necessity,—then they were set about man to preserve him in his natural frame and inclinations, but now they are needful to change and alter them quite, which is a kind of creation, therefore saith David,“create in me a new spirit,”and, therefore, the gospel abounds in variety of motives and inducements, in greater variety, of far more powerful inducements than the law. Here is that great persuasion taken from the infinite gain or loss of the soul of man, which, if any thing be able to prevail, this must do, seeing it is seconded with some natural inclination in the soul of man to seek its own gain. Yet there is a difference between the nature of such like promises and threatenings in the first covenant and in the second. In the first covenant, though life was freely promised, yet it was immediately annexed to perfect obedience as a consequent reward of it. It was firstly promised unto complete righteousness of men's persons. But in the second covenant, firstly and principally life eternal, grace and glory is promised to Jesus Christ and his seed, 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 shall not perish,”&c.,“If ye walk after the Spirit, ye shall live.”These are 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 virtue of these absolute promises made to the seed of Christ, and Christ's complete performance of all conditions in their name, the promises of life are made to faith principally, which hath this peculiar virtue to carry forth the soul to another's righteousness 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 preceding verse, 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 suffice to persuade 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 subjoins from the damage, and from the advantage which may of itself be the topics of persuasion, and serves to drive in the nail of debt and duty to the head. If you will not take with this debt you owe to the Spirit, but still conceive there is some greater obligation lying on you, to care for your bodies and satisfy 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, you shall die.”But then, consider the fruit you shall reap of the Spirit, and holy walking“you shall live.”It is true the flesh may flatter you more for the present, but the end of it will lie bitter as death,amplectitur ut strangulet,“the flesh embraces you that it may strangle you.”And so if you knew all well you would not think[pg 249]you owed it any thing but enmity and hatred and mortification. If your duty will not move you, let the love of yourselves and your souls persuade you, for it is an irrepealable statute:“The wages of sin is death.”Every way you choose to fulfil 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 instead of performing that which was promised will bring forth death,—the eternal separation of the soul from God. Adam's sin was a breviary or epitome of the multiplied and enlarged sins of mankind. You may see in this tragedy all your fortunes (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 bait of an imaginary life and happiness, satisfaction promised to the eye, to the taste, and to the mind. And upon these enticements, 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 after it. Now, here is the map 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 days in pursuit and labour for them, 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 every 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 men's misery, that no man will learn wisdom upon others expenses, upon the woful and tragical example of so many others, but go on as confidently now, after the discovery 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 falsehood, as there have been persons in all ages before us? After Adam hath tasted of this tree of pleasure and found another fruit growing on it and that is death, should the posterity be so mad as to be meddling still with the forbidden tree? And wherefore forbidden? Because destructive to ourselves.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 toiling 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 power. It is the falling of that infinite 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. vi. 16. Suppose, now, you could swim in a river of delights and pleasures, (which yet is given to none, for truly, upon a just reckoning, it will be found that the anxiety, and grief, and bitterness, that is intermingled with all earthly delights, swallows up the sweetness of them,) yet it will but carry you down ere you be aware, into the sea of death and destruction, as the fish that swim and sport for a while in Jordan, are carried down into the Dead sea of Sodom, where they are presently suffocated and extinguished,210or, as a malefactor is carried through a pleasant[pg 250]palace to the gallows, so men walk through the delights of their flesh, to their own endless torment and destruction.Seeing then, my beloved, that your sins and lusts which you are inclined and accustomed to, will certainly kill you, if you entertain them, then nature itself would teach you the law of self-defence,—to kill, ere you be killed, to kill sin, ere it kill you,—to mortify the deeds and lusts of the body, which abound among you, or they will certainly mortify you, that is, make you die. Now, if self love could teach you this, which the love of God cannot persuade 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 infinite danger that will ensue. Certainly if you were but a little acquainted with the sweetness of this life, and goodness of your God, you would find the power of the former argumenta debito, from debt and duty, upon your spirit. Let this once lead you unto God, and you will not want that which will constrain you to abide, and never to depart from him.If you mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. As sin decays, you increase and grow, as sins die, your souls live, and 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 maim or mutilate the body, for you shall live perfectly when sin is perfectly expired, and out of life, and according as sin is nearer expiring, and nearer the grave, your souls are nearer that endless life. If this do not move us, what can be said next? What shall he do more to his vineyard?Sermon XXXV.Verses 13, 14.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 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,—separate them, and they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hath conjoined, 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, joined together in the hearts of Christians, have a great deal of force: the duty of a Christian, and his reward, and his dignity. His work and labour seems hard and unpleasant, when considered alone, but the reward sweetens it, when it is jointly believed. His duty seems too high, and his labour great, yet the consideration of the real dignity he is advanced unto, and privilege he has 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 Christian's 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 hear 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 easy and trivial a business to forsake sin, or subdue it, as many think, who only think it easy because they have never tried it. It is a circumcision of the foreskin of the heart,[pg 251]and you know how it disabled a whole city, (Gen. xxxiv.) and how it enraged the heart of a tender mother, Exod. iv. 26. It is the excision 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 throes of the birth are known. Regeneration certainly hath a travailing pain within it, insomuch that Paul travailed in pain till it were accomplished in these, Gal. iv. 19. Though men conceive sin in pleasure, yet they cannot be rid of that deadly burden without throes and pains, and to half this work, or to be remiss or negligent in it, is as foolish and unwise as for a child to stay long in the place of breaking forth, as the Lord complains of Ephraim, Hos. xiii. 13.“He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.”It is one of the greatest follies, not to labour by all means to be rid of the encumbrances of sin. Much violence offered to it, and a total resignation of ourselves 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 cross and vexation to a great extent, because they deal negligently in the business, they suffer the Canaanites to live, and these are thorns and briers in their sides continually. Then this business is calledmortification, as the word is here, and Col. iii. 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 express it,crucifixion, Gal. v. 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 oneness 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 conjoined, it is hard to separate them without much violence. And truly, as the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, so we must offer violence to ourselves, to our lusts and inclinations, who are almost ourselves, and if you would be truly Christians, this must be your business and employment, 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 from it. It is easy to persuade men to forsake some sins and courses that they are not much inclined 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 yourself impartially against all known, so particularly against the most beloved sin, because it interrupts most the communion of God, and separates from your 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 to the assistance you have for the present, the Spirit to help you. Truly, my beloved, this will be a dead business, if you be not animated and quickened by these considerations,—that Christ died to sin and lived to God, and that in this he was a public person representing you, that so you may conclude with Paul,“I am crucified with Christ,”Gal. ii. 20.“We are buried with him by baptism into his death,”Rom. vi. 4. Consider that mystical union with Christ crucified, and life shall spring out of his cross, out of his grave, to kill sin in you,—that the great business 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, consider and look round about to the strong helper you have, the Spirit.“If ye through the Spirit mortify,”&c. Stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Though he does not vent all his power to you, yet you may believe that there is a secret latent virtue in the seed of grace, that it cannot be whole 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 weakness 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, faintings, wrestlings, that his strength may be[pg 252]perfected in weakness,—that when we are weak, then we may be strongest in him, 2 Cor. xii. 9. Our duty then is, to follow this Spirit wheresoever he leadeth us. Christ, the captain of our salvation, when he went to heaven, sent the Spirit to be our guider, to lead us thither where he is, and therefore we should resign and give up ourselves to his guidance and direction. The nature of a creature is dependence, so the very essence of a Christian consists in dependence and subordination to the Spirit of God. Nature itself would teach them that want wisdom to commit themselves to those 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 yield ourselves over to the Spirit of God, as blind men to their leader, as children to their nurses, as orphans to their tutors;211but 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 willingness and ability, because it is his office.“O Lord, I know,”saith Jeremiah,“that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,”Jer. x. 23. O it were a great point of wisdom thus to know our ignorance and folly, and this is the great qualification of Christ's disciples, simple as children, as little children, as void of conceit of their own wisdom, Mark x. 15. And this alone capacitates the soul to receive the impressions of wisdom; as an empty table is fittest to write upon, so a soul emptied of itself; whereas self conceit draweth a number of foolish senseless draughts in the mind that it cannot receive the true image of wisdom. Thus, then, when a soul finds that it hath misled itself, being misguided by the wild fire of its lusts, and hath hardly escaped perishing and falling headlong in the pit, this disposes the soul to a willing resignation of itself 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 yourselves thus, you would carefully eye your Leader, and attend all his motions, that you may conform yourself 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, lest 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 yourselves, 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 leader plucking at you to follow him; and if you sit when he riseth to walk, if you neglect such warnings, then you may grieve him, and this cannot but in the end be bitterness to you. Certainly, many Christians are guilty in this, and prejudge themselves of the present comfort and benefit of this inward anointing, that teacheth all things, and of this bosom guide that leadeth in all truth; because they are so heavy and lumpish to be led after him; they drive slowly, and take very much pressure and persuasion to any duty; whereas we should accustom ourselves to willing and ready obedience upon the least signification of his mind. Yea, and which is worse, we often resist 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 perverseness and frowardness yet in our natures, that there needs the almighty draught of his arm to make it straight, as there is need of infinite grace to pardon it.Now, my beloved, if you have in your desires and affections resigned yourselves over to the guidance of this Spirit, and 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, cheer your hearts, and lift them up in the belief of this privilege conferred 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,[pg 253]are the sons of God.”Suppose you cannot exactly follow his motions, but are often driven out or turned back, yet hath not the Spirit the hold of your heart? Are you not detained by the cord of your judgment and the law of your mind? And is there not some chain fastened about your heart which maketh it outstrip the practice by desires and affections? You are the sons of God. That is truly the greatest dignity and highest privilege, in respect of which, all relations may blush and hide their faces. What are all the splendid and glistering titles among men but empty shows and evanishing sounds in respect of this? To be called the son of a gentleman, of a nobleman, of a king, how much do the sons of men pride themselves in it? But, truly, that putteth no intrinsic dignity in the persons themselves,—it is a miserable poverty to borrow praise from another, and truly he that boasts of his parentage,aliena laudat non sua, he praiseth that which is another's, not his own. But this dignity is truly a dignity, it puts intrinsic worth in the person, and puts a more excellent spirit in them than that which is in the world, as is said of Caleb, and, besides, it entitles to the greatest happiness imaginable.Sermon XXXVI.Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 outlive 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 Father, 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 breathe and halt212after the imitation of him. Therefore our Lord exhorts us, and taketh a domestic example and familiar pattern to persuade us the more by,“Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,”Matt. v. 48. And there is one perfection he especially recommends for our imitation, mercifulness and compassion towards men, opposed to the violence, fury, and implacableness, to the oppression, and revenge, and hatred that abounds among men, Luke vi. 36. And, generally, in all his ways of holiness and purity, of goodness and mercy, we ought to be followers of him as dear children, who are not only obliged by the common law of sympathy between parents and children, but, moreover, engaged by the tender affection that he carrieth to us, Eph. v. 1. Now, because God is high as heaven, and his ways and thoughts and dispositions are infinitely above us, the pattern seems to be so far out of sight that it is given over as desperate 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 it is our duty to resign ourselves 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 scribbling at it, and the more we exercise ourselves this way, setting the Spirit's direction before our eyes, the more perfect shall we be.It is high time, indeed, to pretend to this, to be a son or a daughter of God. It is a higher word than if a man could deduce his genealogy from an uninterrupted line of a thousand kings and princes. There is more honour, true honour, in it, and[pg 254]profit too. It is that which enriches the poorest, and ennobles the basest, inconceivably beyond all the imaginary degrees of men. Now, my beloved, this is the great design of the gospel, to bestow this incomparable privilege 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 guide, other than 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,213and driven, and carried headlong, rather than 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 is too much of these even in those who have more reason to assume this honourable title of sonship. I know not how we are exceedingly addicted to self-pleasing in every thing. Whatsoever our fancy or inclination suggests to us, that we must do without more bands, if it be not directly sinful. Whatsoever we apprehend, that we must vent and speak it out, though to little or no edification. Like that of Solomon, we deny our hearts nothing they desire, except the grossness of it restrain us. Now, certainly if we knew what we are called to, who are the sons of God, we could not but disengage more with ourselves, even in lawful things, and give over the conduct of our hearts and ways to the Spirit of our Father whom we may be persuaded of, that he will lead us in the ways of pleasantness 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 those terrible representations of sin and wrath, of the justice of God, which put the soul in a fear, a trembling fear, and while such a soul is kept within the apprehension of sin and judgment, it is shut up, as it were, in bondage. Now, though it be true, that in the conversion of a sinner, there is always something of this in more or less degrees, yet because this is not the great 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 express 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 express his bounty and goodness 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 God's love and favour, and our interest in it, as in the next verse, 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 from both these flows this next work,“crying, Abba, Father,”aiding and assisting us in presenting our necessities to our Father, making this the continued vent of the heart in all extremities, to pour out all that burthens us in our Father's bosom. And this gives marvellous ease to the heart, and releases it from the bondage of carefulness and anxiety, which it may be subject to, after the soul is delivered from the fear and bondage of wrath.Let us speak, then, to these in order. The first working of the Spirit is,to put a man in fear of himself, and such a fear as mightily straitens and embondages the soul of man. And this, though in itself 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 sparkle214of 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[pg 255]of God's love to the world in him. It is true, all men are in bondage to sin and Satan, and shut up in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, and bound in the fetters 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,”John vii. 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 opens, 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 flee 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 flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments,”Psal. cxix. 120. Such a serious representation will make the stoutest and proudest heart to fall down, and faint for fear of that infinite intolerable weight of deserved wrath, and then the soul is in a sensible bondage, that before was in a real, but insensible bondage,—then it is environed 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 this is some previous representation of that eternal imprisonment and banishment from the presence of God. Albeit many of you are free from this fear, and enjoy a kind of liberty to serve your own lusts, and are not sensible of any thraldom of your spirits, yet certainly the Lord will sometime arrest you, and bring you to this spiritual bondage, when he shall make the iniquities of your heels encompass you about, and the curses of his law surround you. When your conscience accuseth, and God condemneth, it may be too late, and out of date.Alas! then what will you do, who now put your conscience by,215and will not hearken to it or be put in fear by any thing which can be represented to you? We do not desire to put you in fear, where no fear is, but where there is infinite cause of fear, and when it is possible that fear may introduce faith, and be the forerunner of these glad tidings that will compose the soul. We desire 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 of everlasting darkness, and so may be persuaded to flee from it before it be irrecoverable. What a vain and empty sound is the gospel of liberty by a Redeemer, to the most part who do not feel their bondage? Who believes its report, or cares much for it—because it is necessity that casts a beauty and lustre 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 fearful apprehension of the wrath of God, and the sad remembrance of your sins, know that this is not the prime intent and grand business, to torment you, as it were, before the time. There is some other more beautiful and satisfying structure to be raised out of this foundation. 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 ultimate or last work, but know that you are called in this rational way, to come out of yourselves into this glorious liberty of the sons of God, purchased by Christ, and 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 former thraldom of the fear of wrath, but believe his love.[pg 256]Sermon XXXVII.Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 life of Christianity, take it in itself, is the most pleasant and joyful life that can be, exempted from those fears and cares, those sorrows and anxieties, that all other lives are subject unto, for this of necessity must be the force and efficacy of true religion, if 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 completely furnished with all variety of delights to entertain 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 weakened, and too much ground is given to confirm the contrary misapprehensions of the world, who take it to be a sullen, melancholic, and disconsolate life, attended with many fears and sorrows. It is, alas! too evident, that many Christians are kept in bondage, almost all their lifetime, through fear of eternal death. How many dismal representations of sin and wrath, are 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 after conversion, and made to apprehend fearfully their own estate, who hath such constant uninterrupted peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, or lies under such direct beams of divine favour, but it is sometimes eclipsed, and their souls filled with the darkness of horror and terror? And truly the most part taste not so much sweetness in religion as makes them incessant and unwearied in the ways of godliness. Yet, notwithstanding of all this, we must vindicate Christianity itself, 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 itself it is capable. Indeed, it is true that often we are brought to fear again, yet withal 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 expel fear but bring in joy. I wish that this were deeply considered by all of us, that there is such a life as this attainable,—that the word of God doth not deceive us in promising fair things which it cannot perform, but that there is a certain reality in the life of Christianity, in that peace and joy, tranquillity and serenity of mind that is holden out, and that some have really found it, and do find it, and that the reason why all of us do not find it in experience, 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, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly 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 is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, I conceive there is nothing in the world so practicable as this,—nothing made so easy, so certain to a soul that really minds it.Let us take it so then, the fault is not religion's, that those who profess 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 of men, but only puts a tincture on their outside, or because the faith of divine truths is so superficial, and the consideration of 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 terror when they do not stand in awe to[pg 257]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 hazard of condemnation, yet he is the greatest 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 wrath in his conscience as may make him think it was a foolish bargain. He may lose so much of the sweetness of the peace and joy of God as all the pleasures of sin cannot compense. Therefore to the end that you whose souls are once pacified by the blood of Christ, and composed by his word of promise, may enjoy that constant rest and tranquillity as not to be enthralled again to your old fears and terrors, I would advise and recommend to you these two things:—One is, that you would be much in the study of that allowance which the promises of Christ afford. Be much in the serious apprehension of the gospel, and certainly your doubts and fears would evanish 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 unblotted, 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 dreadful apprehensions of God. Certainly, it is impossible to preserve the spirit in freedom if a man be not watchful against sin and corruption. David prays,“re establish me with thy free Spirit,”as if his spirit had been abased, embondaged, and enthralled by the power of that corruption. If you would have your spirits kept free from the fear of wrath, study to keep them free from the power of sin, for that is but a fruit of this, and it is most suitable that the soul that cares not to be in bondage to sinful lusts, should, by the righteousness of God, tempered with love and wisdom, be brought under the bondage he would not, that is, of fear and terror, for by this means the Lord makes him know how evil the first is, by the bitterness 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 differ, the bondage of a soul after believing, and in its first conversion, and how far that bondage of fear is preparatory to faith, and many such like. But I choose rather to hold forth the simple and naked truth for your edification, than put you upon to entertain you in such needless 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 cries 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 jealousy 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 brings 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 weakness, wherein we are. And if at any time ye, through negligence and carelessness of walking, lose the comfortable evidence of the Father's love, and be reduced again to your old prison of legal terror, do not despair for that, do not think that such a thing could not befall a child of God, and from that ground do not raze former foundations, for the scripture saith not, that whosoever believes once in Christ, and receives the Spirit of adoption, cannot fear again; for we see it otherwise in David, in Heman, in Job, &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 gift, 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 privilege 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 it is a marvellous change,—a rebel condemned, and then pardoned, and then adopted to be a son of God,—a sinner under bondage, a bond slave to sin and Satan, not only freed from that intolerable bondage, but advanced to this liberty, to be made a son of God. This will be the continued wonder of[pg 258]eternity, and that whereabout the song of angels and saints will be. Accursed rebels expecting nothing but present death, sinners arraigned and sentenced before 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 privilege, to be the sons of God, to be taken from the gibbet to be crowned! That is the great mystery of wisdom and grace revealed in the gospel, the proclaiming whereof will be the joint labour of all the innumerable companies above for all eternity. Now, if you ask how this estate is attainable, himself tells us, John i. 12,“As many as believed (or received) him, to them he gave the privilege to be the sons of God.”The way is made plain and easy. 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 man's 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 therefore 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 privilege of sonship and adoption for his sake, who became our elder brother, Gal. iv. 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 of 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 brightness of his glory, in whom he delighted from eternity,—strange, I say, that he should in a manner lose 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 infinitely transcending nature,—such an act that hath an unsearchable mystery in it, into which angels desire to look and never cease looking, because they never see the bottom of it. It was not out of indigency he did it, not for any need he had of us, or comfort expected from us, but absolutely for our necessity and consolation, that he might have upon whom to pour the riches of his grace.

Sermon XXXIV.Verse 13.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”Though the Lord, out of his absolute sovereignty, might deal with man in such a way, as nothing should appear but his supreme will and almighty power, he might simply command obedience, and without any more persuasions either leave men to the frowardness 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 man's nature, to lay out before him the advantages and disadvantages, and to use these as motives and persuasives of his Spirit. For since he hath by his first creation implanted in man's soul such a principle as moveth itself upon the presentation of good or evil, that this might not be in vain, he administers all the dispensations of the law and gospel in a way suitable to that, by propounding such powerful motives as may incline and persuade the heart of man. It is true,[pg 248]there's a secret drawing withal necessary, the pull of the Father's 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,deathandlife,—death which it naturally abhorreth, and life which it naturally loveth. An even balance 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 first with man in paradise. You remember the terms run so,—“'What day thou eatest thou shalt die.”He hedged him in on the one side by a promise of life, on the other by a threatening of death. And these two are very rational restraints, suited to the soul of man, and in the inward principles of it, which are a kind of instinct to that which is apprehended good or gainful.Now, this verse runs even so in the form of words“If ye live after the flesh ye shall die.”You see this method is not changed under the gospel, for, indeed, it is natural to the spirit of man, and he hath now much more need of all such persuasions, because there is a great change of man's inclination to the worst side. All within is so disordered and perverse that a thousand hedges of persuasive grounds cannot do that which one might have done at first. Then they were added out of superabundance, but now out of necessity,—then they were set about man to preserve him in his natural frame and inclinations, but now they are needful to change and alter them quite, which is a kind of creation, therefore saith David,“create in me a new spirit,”and, therefore, the gospel abounds in variety of motives and inducements, in greater variety, of far more powerful inducements than the law. Here is that great persuasion taken from the infinite gain or loss of the soul of man, which, if any thing be able to prevail, this must do, seeing it is seconded with some natural inclination in the soul of man to seek its own gain. Yet there is a difference between the nature of such like promises and threatenings in the first covenant and in the second. In the first covenant, though life was freely promised, yet it was immediately annexed to perfect obedience as a consequent reward of it. It was firstly promised unto complete righteousness of men's persons. But in the second covenant, firstly and principally life eternal, grace and glory is promised to Jesus Christ and his seed, 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 shall not perish,”&c.,“If ye walk after the Spirit, ye shall live.”These are 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 virtue of these absolute promises made to the seed of Christ, and Christ's complete performance of all conditions in their name, the promises of life are made to faith principally, which hath this peculiar virtue to carry forth the soul to another's righteousness 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 preceding verse, 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 suffice to persuade 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 subjoins from the damage, and from the advantage which may of itself be the topics of persuasion, and serves to drive in the nail of debt and duty to the head. If you will not take with this debt you owe to the Spirit, but still conceive there is some greater obligation lying on you, to care for your bodies and satisfy 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, you shall die.”But then, consider the fruit you shall reap of the Spirit, and holy walking“you shall live.”It is true the flesh may flatter you more for the present, but the end of it will lie bitter as death,amplectitur ut strangulet,“the flesh embraces you that it may strangle you.”And so if you knew all well you would not think[pg 249]you owed it any thing but enmity and hatred and mortification. If your duty will not move you, let the love of yourselves and your souls persuade you, for it is an irrepealable statute:“The wages of sin is death.”Every way you choose to fulfil 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 instead of performing that which was promised will bring forth death,—the eternal separation of the soul from God. Adam's sin was a breviary or epitome of the multiplied and enlarged sins of mankind. You may see in this tragedy all your fortunes (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 bait of an imaginary life and happiness, satisfaction promised to the eye, to the taste, and to the mind. And upon these enticements, 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 after it. Now, here is the map 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 days in pursuit and labour for them, 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 every 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 men's misery, that no man will learn wisdom upon others expenses, upon the woful and tragical example of so many others, but go on as confidently now, after the discovery 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 falsehood, as there have been persons in all ages before us? After Adam hath tasted of this tree of pleasure and found another fruit growing on it and that is death, should the posterity be so mad as to be meddling still with the forbidden tree? And wherefore forbidden? Because destructive to ourselves.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 toiling 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 power. It is the falling of that infinite 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. vi. 16. Suppose, now, you could swim in a river of delights and pleasures, (which yet is given to none, for truly, upon a just reckoning, it will be found that the anxiety, and grief, and bitterness, that is intermingled with all earthly delights, swallows up the sweetness of them,) yet it will but carry you down ere you be aware, into the sea of death and destruction, as the fish that swim and sport for a while in Jordan, are carried down into the Dead sea of Sodom, where they are presently suffocated and extinguished,210or, as a malefactor is carried through a pleasant[pg 250]palace to the gallows, so men walk through the delights of their flesh, to their own endless torment and destruction.Seeing then, my beloved, that your sins and lusts which you are inclined and accustomed to, will certainly kill you, if you entertain them, then nature itself would teach you the law of self-defence,—to kill, ere you be killed, to kill sin, ere it kill you,—to mortify the deeds and lusts of the body, which abound among you, or they will certainly mortify you, that is, make you die. Now, if self love could teach you this, which the love of God cannot persuade 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 infinite danger that will ensue. Certainly if you were but a little acquainted with the sweetness of this life, and goodness of your God, you would find the power of the former argumenta debito, from debt and duty, upon your spirit. Let this once lead you unto God, and you will not want that which will constrain you to abide, and never to depart from him.If you mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. As sin decays, you increase and grow, as sins die, your souls live, and 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 maim or mutilate the body, for you shall live perfectly when sin is perfectly expired, and out of life, and according as sin is nearer expiring, and nearer the grave, your souls are nearer that endless life. If this do not move us, what can be said next? What shall he do more to his vineyard?Sermon XXXV.Verses 13, 14.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 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,—separate them, and they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hath conjoined, 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, joined together in the hearts of Christians, have a great deal of force: the duty of a Christian, and his reward, and his dignity. His work and labour seems hard and unpleasant, when considered alone, but the reward sweetens it, when it is jointly believed. His duty seems too high, and his labour great, yet the consideration of the real dignity he is advanced unto, and privilege he has 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 Christian's 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 hear 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 easy and trivial a business to forsake sin, or subdue it, as many think, who only think it easy because they have never tried it. It is a circumcision of the foreskin of the heart,[pg 251]and you know how it disabled a whole city, (Gen. xxxiv.) and how it enraged the heart of a tender mother, Exod. iv. 26. It is the excision 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 throes of the birth are known. Regeneration certainly hath a travailing pain within it, insomuch that Paul travailed in pain till it were accomplished in these, Gal. iv. 19. Though men conceive sin in pleasure, yet they cannot be rid of that deadly burden without throes and pains, and to half this work, or to be remiss or negligent in it, is as foolish and unwise as for a child to stay long in the place of breaking forth, as the Lord complains of Ephraim, Hos. xiii. 13.“He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.”It is one of the greatest follies, not to labour by all means to be rid of the encumbrances of sin. Much violence offered to it, and a total resignation of ourselves 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 cross and vexation to a great extent, because they deal negligently in the business, they suffer the Canaanites to live, and these are thorns and briers in their sides continually. Then this business is calledmortification, as the word is here, and Col. iii. 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 express it,crucifixion, Gal. v. 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 oneness 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 conjoined, it is hard to separate them without much violence. And truly, as the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, so we must offer violence to ourselves, to our lusts and inclinations, who are almost ourselves, and if you would be truly Christians, this must be your business and employment, 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 from it. It is easy to persuade men to forsake some sins and courses that they are not much inclined 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 yourself impartially against all known, so particularly against the most beloved sin, because it interrupts most the communion of God, and separates from your 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 to the assistance you have for the present, the Spirit to help you. Truly, my beloved, this will be a dead business, if you be not animated and quickened by these considerations,—that Christ died to sin and lived to God, and that in this he was a public person representing you, that so you may conclude with Paul,“I am crucified with Christ,”Gal. ii. 20.“We are buried with him by baptism into his death,”Rom. vi. 4. Consider that mystical union with Christ crucified, and life shall spring out of his cross, out of his grave, to kill sin in you,—that the great business 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, consider and look round about to the strong helper you have, the Spirit.“If ye through the Spirit mortify,”&c. Stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Though he does not vent all his power to you, yet you may believe that there is a secret latent virtue in the seed of grace, that it cannot be whole 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 weakness 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, faintings, wrestlings, that his strength may be[pg 252]perfected in weakness,—that when we are weak, then we may be strongest in him, 2 Cor. xii. 9. Our duty then is, to follow this Spirit wheresoever he leadeth us. Christ, the captain of our salvation, when he went to heaven, sent the Spirit to be our guider, to lead us thither where he is, and therefore we should resign and give up ourselves to his guidance and direction. The nature of a creature is dependence, so the very essence of a Christian consists in dependence and subordination to the Spirit of God. Nature itself would teach them that want wisdom to commit themselves to those 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 yield ourselves over to the Spirit of God, as blind men to their leader, as children to their nurses, as orphans to their tutors;211but 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 willingness and ability, because it is his office.“O Lord, I know,”saith Jeremiah,“that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,”Jer. x. 23. O it were a great point of wisdom thus to know our ignorance and folly, and this is the great qualification of Christ's disciples, simple as children, as little children, as void of conceit of their own wisdom, Mark x. 15. And this alone capacitates the soul to receive the impressions of wisdom; as an empty table is fittest to write upon, so a soul emptied of itself; whereas self conceit draweth a number of foolish senseless draughts in the mind that it cannot receive the true image of wisdom. Thus, then, when a soul finds that it hath misled itself, being misguided by the wild fire of its lusts, and hath hardly escaped perishing and falling headlong in the pit, this disposes the soul to a willing resignation of itself 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 yourselves thus, you would carefully eye your Leader, and attend all his motions, that you may conform yourself 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, lest 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 yourselves, 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 leader plucking at you to follow him; and if you sit when he riseth to walk, if you neglect such warnings, then you may grieve him, and this cannot but in the end be bitterness to you. Certainly, many Christians are guilty in this, and prejudge themselves of the present comfort and benefit of this inward anointing, that teacheth all things, and of this bosom guide that leadeth in all truth; because they are so heavy and lumpish to be led after him; they drive slowly, and take very much pressure and persuasion to any duty; whereas we should accustom ourselves to willing and ready obedience upon the least signification of his mind. Yea, and which is worse, we often resist 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 perverseness and frowardness yet in our natures, that there needs the almighty draught of his arm to make it straight, as there is need of infinite grace to pardon it.Now, my beloved, if you have in your desires and affections resigned yourselves over to the guidance of this Spirit, and 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, cheer your hearts, and lift them up in the belief of this privilege conferred 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,[pg 253]are the sons of God.”Suppose you cannot exactly follow his motions, but are often driven out or turned back, yet hath not the Spirit the hold of your heart? Are you not detained by the cord of your judgment and the law of your mind? And is there not some chain fastened about your heart which maketh it outstrip the practice by desires and affections? You are the sons of God. That is truly the greatest dignity and highest privilege, in respect of which, all relations may blush and hide their faces. What are all the splendid and glistering titles among men but empty shows and evanishing sounds in respect of this? To be called the son of a gentleman, of a nobleman, of a king, how much do the sons of men pride themselves in it? But, truly, that putteth no intrinsic dignity in the persons themselves,—it is a miserable poverty to borrow praise from another, and truly he that boasts of his parentage,aliena laudat non sua, he praiseth that which is another's, not his own. But this dignity is truly a dignity, it puts intrinsic worth in the person, and puts a more excellent spirit in them than that which is in the world, as is said of Caleb, and, besides, it entitles to the greatest happiness imaginable.Sermon XXXVI.Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 outlive 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 Father, 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 breathe and halt212after the imitation of him. Therefore our Lord exhorts us, and taketh a domestic example and familiar pattern to persuade us the more by,“Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,”Matt. v. 48. And there is one perfection he especially recommends for our imitation, mercifulness and compassion towards men, opposed to the violence, fury, and implacableness, to the oppression, and revenge, and hatred that abounds among men, Luke vi. 36. And, generally, in all his ways of holiness and purity, of goodness and mercy, we ought to be followers of him as dear children, who are not only obliged by the common law of sympathy between parents and children, but, moreover, engaged by the tender affection that he carrieth to us, Eph. v. 1. Now, because God is high as heaven, and his ways and thoughts and dispositions are infinitely above us, the pattern seems to be so far out of sight that it is given over as desperate 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 it is our duty to resign ourselves 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 scribbling at it, and the more we exercise ourselves this way, setting the Spirit's direction before our eyes, the more perfect shall we be.It is high time, indeed, to pretend to this, to be a son or a daughter of God. It is a higher word than if a man could deduce his genealogy from an uninterrupted line of a thousand kings and princes. There is more honour, true honour, in it, and[pg 254]profit too. It is that which enriches the poorest, and ennobles the basest, inconceivably beyond all the imaginary degrees of men. Now, my beloved, this is the great design of the gospel, to bestow this incomparable privilege 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 guide, other than 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,213and driven, and carried headlong, rather than 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 is too much of these even in those who have more reason to assume this honourable title of sonship. I know not how we are exceedingly addicted to self-pleasing in every thing. Whatsoever our fancy or inclination suggests to us, that we must do without more bands, if it be not directly sinful. Whatsoever we apprehend, that we must vent and speak it out, though to little or no edification. Like that of Solomon, we deny our hearts nothing they desire, except the grossness of it restrain us. Now, certainly if we knew what we are called to, who are the sons of God, we could not but disengage more with ourselves, even in lawful things, and give over the conduct of our hearts and ways to the Spirit of our Father whom we may be persuaded of, that he will lead us in the ways of pleasantness 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 those terrible representations of sin and wrath, of the justice of God, which put the soul in a fear, a trembling fear, and while such a soul is kept within the apprehension of sin and judgment, it is shut up, as it were, in bondage. Now, though it be true, that in the conversion of a sinner, there is always something of this in more or less degrees, yet because this is not the great 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 express 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 express his bounty and goodness 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 God's love and favour, and our interest in it, as in the next verse, 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 from both these flows this next work,“crying, Abba, Father,”aiding and assisting us in presenting our necessities to our Father, making this the continued vent of the heart in all extremities, to pour out all that burthens us in our Father's bosom. And this gives marvellous ease to the heart, and releases it from the bondage of carefulness and anxiety, which it may be subject to, after the soul is delivered from the fear and bondage of wrath.Let us speak, then, to these in order. The first working of the Spirit is,to put a man in fear of himself, and such a fear as mightily straitens and embondages the soul of man. And this, though in itself 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 sparkle214of 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[pg 255]of God's love to the world in him. It is true, all men are in bondage to sin and Satan, and shut up in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, and bound in the fetters 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,”John vii. 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 opens, 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 flee 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 flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments,”Psal. cxix. 120. Such a serious representation will make the stoutest and proudest heart to fall down, and faint for fear of that infinite intolerable weight of deserved wrath, and then the soul is in a sensible bondage, that before was in a real, but insensible bondage,—then it is environed 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 this is some previous representation of that eternal imprisonment and banishment from the presence of God. Albeit many of you are free from this fear, and enjoy a kind of liberty to serve your own lusts, and are not sensible of any thraldom of your spirits, yet certainly the Lord will sometime arrest you, and bring you to this spiritual bondage, when he shall make the iniquities of your heels encompass you about, and the curses of his law surround you. When your conscience accuseth, and God condemneth, it may be too late, and out of date.Alas! then what will you do, who now put your conscience by,215and will not hearken to it or be put in fear by any thing which can be represented to you? We do not desire to put you in fear, where no fear is, but where there is infinite cause of fear, and when it is possible that fear may introduce faith, and be the forerunner of these glad tidings that will compose the soul. We desire 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 of everlasting darkness, and so may be persuaded to flee from it before it be irrecoverable. What a vain and empty sound is the gospel of liberty by a Redeemer, to the most part who do not feel their bondage? Who believes its report, or cares much for it—because it is necessity that casts a beauty and lustre 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 fearful apprehension of the wrath of God, and the sad remembrance of your sins, know that this is not the prime intent and grand business, to torment you, as it were, before the time. There is some other more beautiful and satisfying structure to be raised out of this foundation. 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 ultimate or last work, but know that you are called in this rational way, to come out of yourselves into this glorious liberty of the sons of God, purchased by Christ, and 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 former thraldom of the fear of wrath, but believe his love.[pg 256]Sermon XXXVII.Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 life of Christianity, take it in itself, is the most pleasant and joyful life that can be, exempted from those fears and cares, those sorrows and anxieties, that all other lives are subject unto, for this of necessity must be the force and efficacy of true religion, if 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 completely furnished with all variety of delights to entertain 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 weakened, and too much ground is given to confirm the contrary misapprehensions of the world, who take it to be a sullen, melancholic, and disconsolate life, attended with many fears and sorrows. It is, alas! too evident, that many Christians are kept in bondage, almost all their lifetime, through fear of eternal death. How many dismal representations of sin and wrath, are 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 after conversion, and made to apprehend fearfully their own estate, who hath such constant uninterrupted peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, or lies under such direct beams of divine favour, but it is sometimes eclipsed, and their souls filled with the darkness of horror and terror? And truly the most part taste not so much sweetness in religion as makes them incessant and unwearied in the ways of godliness. Yet, notwithstanding of all this, we must vindicate Christianity itself, 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 itself it is capable. Indeed, it is true that often we are brought to fear again, yet withal 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 expel fear but bring in joy. I wish that this were deeply considered by all of us, that there is such a life as this attainable,—that the word of God doth not deceive us in promising fair things which it cannot perform, but that there is a certain reality in the life of Christianity, in that peace and joy, tranquillity and serenity of mind that is holden out, and that some have really found it, and do find it, and that the reason why all of us do not find it in experience, 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, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly 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 is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, I conceive there is nothing in the world so practicable as this,—nothing made so easy, so certain to a soul that really minds it.Let us take it so then, the fault is not religion's, that those who profess 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 of men, but only puts a tincture on their outside, or because the faith of divine truths is so superficial, and the consideration of 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 terror when they do not stand in awe to[pg 257]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 hazard of condemnation, yet he is the greatest 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 wrath in his conscience as may make him think it was a foolish bargain. He may lose so much of the sweetness of the peace and joy of God as all the pleasures of sin cannot compense. Therefore to the end that you whose souls are once pacified by the blood of Christ, and composed by his word of promise, may enjoy that constant rest and tranquillity as not to be enthralled again to your old fears and terrors, I would advise and recommend to you these two things:—One is, that you would be much in the study of that allowance which the promises of Christ afford. Be much in the serious apprehension of the gospel, and certainly your doubts and fears would evanish 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 unblotted, 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 dreadful apprehensions of God. Certainly, it is impossible to preserve the spirit in freedom if a man be not watchful against sin and corruption. David prays,“re establish me with thy free Spirit,”as if his spirit had been abased, embondaged, and enthralled by the power of that corruption. If you would have your spirits kept free from the fear of wrath, study to keep them free from the power of sin, for that is but a fruit of this, and it is most suitable that the soul that cares not to be in bondage to sinful lusts, should, by the righteousness of God, tempered with love and wisdom, be brought under the bondage he would not, that is, of fear and terror, for by this means the Lord makes him know how evil the first is, by the bitterness 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 differ, the bondage of a soul after believing, and in its first conversion, and how far that bondage of fear is preparatory to faith, and many such like. But I choose rather to hold forth the simple and naked truth for your edification, than put you upon to entertain you in such needless 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 cries 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 jealousy 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 brings 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 weakness, wherein we are. And if at any time ye, through negligence and carelessness of walking, lose the comfortable evidence of the Father's love, and be reduced again to your old prison of legal terror, do not despair for that, do not think that such a thing could not befall a child of God, and from that ground do not raze former foundations, for the scripture saith not, that whosoever believes once in Christ, and receives the Spirit of adoption, cannot fear again; for we see it otherwise in David, in Heman, in Job, &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 gift, 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 privilege 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 it is a marvellous change,—a rebel condemned, and then pardoned, and then adopted to be a son of God,—a sinner under bondage, a bond slave to sin and Satan, not only freed from that intolerable bondage, but advanced to this liberty, to be made a son of God. This will be the continued wonder of[pg 258]eternity, and that whereabout the song of angels and saints will be. Accursed rebels expecting nothing but present death, sinners arraigned and sentenced before 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 privilege, to be the sons of God, to be taken from the gibbet to be crowned! That is the great mystery of wisdom and grace revealed in the gospel, the proclaiming whereof will be the joint labour of all the innumerable companies above for all eternity. Now, if you ask how this estate is attainable, himself tells us, John i. 12,“As many as believed (or received) him, to them he gave the privilege to be the sons of God.”The way is made plain and easy. 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 man's 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 therefore 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 privilege of sonship and adoption for his sake, who became our elder brother, Gal. iv. 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 of 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 brightness of his glory, in whom he delighted from eternity,—strange, I say, that he should in a manner lose 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 infinitely transcending nature,—such an act that hath an unsearchable mystery in it, into which angels desire to look and never cease looking, because they never see the bottom of it. It was not out of indigency he did it, not for any need he had of us, or comfort expected from us, but absolutely for our necessity and consolation, that he might have upon whom to pour the riches of his grace.

Sermon XXXIV.Verse 13.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”Though the Lord, out of his absolute sovereignty, might deal with man in such a way, as nothing should appear but his supreme will and almighty power, he might simply command obedience, and without any more persuasions either leave men to the frowardness 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 man's nature, to lay out before him the advantages and disadvantages, and to use these as motives and persuasives of his Spirit. For since he hath by his first creation implanted in man's soul such a principle as moveth itself upon the presentation of good or evil, that this might not be in vain, he administers all the dispensations of the law and gospel in a way suitable to that, by propounding such powerful motives as may incline and persuade the heart of man. It is true,[pg 248]there's a secret drawing withal necessary, the pull of the Father's 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,deathandlife,—death which it naturally abhorreth, and life which it naturally loveth. An even balance 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 first with man in paradise. You remember the terms run so,—“'What day thou eatest thou shalt die.”He hedged him in on the one side by a promise of life, on the other by a threatening of death. And these two are very rational restraints, suited to the soul of man, and in the inward principles of it, which are a kind of instinct to that which is apprehended good or gainful.Now, this verse runs even so in the form of words“If ye live after the flesh ye shall die.”You see this method is not changed under the gospel, for, indeed, it is natural to the spirit of man, and he hath now much more need of all such persuasions, because there is a great change of man's inclination to the worst side. All within is so disordered and perverse that a thousand hedges of persuasive grounds cannot do that which one might have done at first. Then they were added out of superabundance, but now out of necessity,—then they were set about man to preserve him in his natural frame and inclinations, but now they are needful to change and alter them quite, which is a kind of creation, therefore saith David,“create in me a new spirit,”and, therefore, the gospel abounds in variety of motives and inducements, in greater variety, of far more powerful inducements than the law. Here is that great persuasion taken from the infinite gain or loss of the soul of man, which, if any thing be able to prevail, this must do, seeing it is seconded with some natural inclination in the soul of man to seek its own gain. Yet there is a difference between the nature of such like promises and threatenings in the first covenant and in the second. In the first covenant, though life was freely promised, yet it was immediately annexed to perfect obedience as a consequent reward of it. It was firstly promised unto complete righteousness of men's persons. But in the second covenant, firstly and principally life eternal, grace and glory is promised to Jesus Christ and his seed, 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 shall not perish,”&c.,“If ye walk after the Spirit, ye shall live.”These are 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 virtue of these absolute promises made to the seed of Christ, and Christ's complete performance of all conditions in their name, the promises of life are made to faith principally, which hath this peculiar virtue to carry forth the soul to another's righteousness 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 preceding verse, 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 suffice to persuade 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 subjoins from the damage, and from the advantage which may of itself be the topics of persuasion, and serves to drive in the nail of debt and duty to the head. If you will not take with this debt you owe to the Spirit, but still conceive there is some greater obligation lying on you, to care for your bodies and satisfy 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, you shall die.”But then, consider the fruit you shall reap of the Spirit, and holy walking“you shall live.”It is true the flesh may flatter you more for the present, but the end of it will lie bitter as death,amplectitur ut strangulet,“the flesh embraces you that it may strangle you.”And so if you knew all well you would not think[pg 249]you owed it any thing but enmity and hatred and mortification. If your duty will not move you, let the love of yourselves and your souls persuade you, for it is an irrepealable statute:“The wages of sin is death.”Every way you choose to fulfil 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 instead of performing that which was promised will bring forth death,—the eternal separation of the soul from God. Adam's sin was a breviary or epitome of the multiplied and enlarged sins of mankind. You may see in this tragedy all your fortunes (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 bait of an imaginary life and happiness, satisfaction promised to the eye, to the taste, and to the mind. And upon these enticements, 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 after it. Now, here is the map 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 days in pursuit and labour for them, 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 every 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 men's misery, that no man will learn wisdom upon others expenses, upon the woful and tragical example of so many others, but go on as confidently now, after the discovery 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 falsehood, as there have been persons in all ages before us? After Adam hath tasted of this tree of pleasure and found another fruit growing on it and that is death, should the posterity be so mad as to be meddling still with the forbidden tree? And wherefore forbidden? Because destructive to ourselves.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 toiling 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 power. It is the falling of that infinite 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. vi. 16. Suppose, now, you could swim in a river of delights and pleasures, (which yet is given to none, for truly, upon a just reckoning, it will be found that the anxiety, and grief, and bitterness, that is intermingled with all earthly delights, swallows up the sweetness of them,) yet it will but carry you down ere you be aware, into the sea of death and destruction, as the fish that swim and sport for a while in Jordan, are carried down into the Dead sea of Sodom, where they are presently suffocated and extinguished,210or, as a malefactor is carried through a pleasant[pg 250]palace to the gallows, so men walk through the delights of their flesh, to their own endless torment and destruction.Seeing then, my beloved, that your sins and lusts which you are inclined and accustomed to, will certainly kill you, if you entertain them, then nature itself would teach you the law of self-defence,—to kill, ere you be killed, to kill sin, ere it kill you,—to mortify the deeds and lusts of the body, which abound among you, or they will certainly mortify you, that is, make you die. Now, if self love could teach you this, which the love of God cannot persuade 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 infinite danger that will ensue. Certainly if you were but a little acquainted with the sweetness of this life, and goodness of your God, you would find the power of the former argumenta debito, from debt and duty, upon your spirit. Let this once lead you unto God, and you will not want that which will constrain you to abide, and never to depart from him.If you mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. As sin decays, you increase and grow, as sins die, your souls live, and 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 maim or mutilate the body, for you shall live perfectly when sin is perfectly expired, and out of life, and according as sin is nearer expiring, and nearer the grave, your souls are nearer that endless life. If this do not move us, what can be said next? What shall he do more to his vineyard?Sermon XXXV.Verses 13, 14.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 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,—separate them, and they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hath conjoined, 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, joined together in the hearts of Christians, have a great deal of force: the duty of a Christian, and his reward, and his dignity. His work and labour seems hard and unpleasant, when considered alone, but the reward sweetens it, when it is jointly believed. His duty seems too high, and his labour great, yet the consideration of the real dignity he is advanced unto, and privilege he has 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 Christian's 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 hear 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 easy and trivial a business to forsake sin, or subdue it, as many think, who only think it easy because they have never tried it. It is a circumcision of the foreskin of the heart,[pg 251]and you know how it disabled a whole city, (Gen. xxxiv.) and how it enraged the heart of a tender mother, Exod. iv. 26. It is the excision 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 throes of the birth are known. Regeneration certainly hath a travailing pain within it, insomuch that Paul travailed in pain till it were accomplished in these, Gal. iv. 19. Though men conceive sin in pleasure, yet they cannot be rid of that deadly burden without throes and pains, and to half this work, or to be remiss or negligent in it, is as foolish and unwise as for a child to stay long in the place of breaking forth, as the Lord complains of Ephraim, Hos. xiii. 13.“He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.”It is one of the greatest follies, not to labour by all means to be rid of the encumbrances of sin. Much violence offered to it, and a total resignation of ourselves 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 cross and vexation to a great extent, because they deal negligently in the business, they suffer the Canaanites to live, and these are thorns and briers in their sides continually. Then this business is calledmortification, as the word is here, and Col. iii. 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 express it,crucifixion, Gal. v. 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 oneness 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 conjoined, it is hard to separate them without much violence. And truly, as the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, so we must offer violence to ourselves, to our lusts and inclinations, who are almost ourselves, and if you would be truly Christians, this must be your business and employment, 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 from it. It is easy to persuade men to forsake some sins and courses that they are not much inclined 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 yourself impartially against all known, so particularly against the most beloved sin, because it interrupts most the communion of God, and separates from your 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 to the assistance you have for the present, the Spirit to help you. Truly, my beloved, this will be a dead business, if you be not animated and quickened by these considerations,—that Christ died to sin and lived to God, and that in this he was a public person representing you, that so you may conclude with Paul,“I am crucified with Christ,”Gal. ii. 20.“We are buried with him by baptism into his death,”Rom. vi. 4. Consider that mystical union with Christ crucified, and life shall spring out of his cross, out of his grave, to kill sin in you,—that the great business 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, consider and look round about to the strong helper you have, the Spirit.“If ye through the Spirit mortify,”&c. Stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Though he does not vent all his power to you, yet you may believe that there is a secret latent virtue in the seed of grace, that it cannot be whole 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 weakness 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, faintings, wrestlings, that his strength may be[pg 252]perfected in weakness,—that when we are weak, then we may be strongest in him, 2 Cor. xii. 9. Our duty then is, to follow this Spirit wheresoever he leadeth us. Christ, the captain of our salvation, when he went to heaven, sent the Spirit to be our guider, to lead us thither where he is, and therefore we should resign and give up ourselves to his guidance and direction. The nature of a creature is dependence, so the very essence of a Christian consists in dependence and subordination to the Spirit of God. Nature itself would teach them that want wisdom to commit themselves to those 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 yield ourselves over to the Spirit of God, as blind men to their leader, as children to their nurses, as orphans to their tutors;211but 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 willingness and ability, because it is his office.“O Lord, I know,”saith Jeremiah,“that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,”Jer. x. 23. O it were a great point of wisdom thus to know our ignorance and folly, and this is the great qualification of Christ's disciples, simple as children, as little children, as void of conceit of their own wisdom, Mark x. 15. And this alone capacitates the soul to receive the impressions of wisdom; as an empty table is fittest to write upon, so a soul emptied of itself; whereas self conceit draweth a number of foolish senseless draughts in the mind that it cannot receive the true image of wisdom. Thus, then, when a soul finds that it hath misled itself, being misguided by the wild fire of its lusts, and hath hardly escaped perishing and falling headlong in the pit, this disposes the soul to a willing resignation of itself 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 yourselves thus, you would carefully eye your Leader, and attend all his motions, that you may conform yourself 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, lest 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 yourselves, 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 leader plucking at you to follow him; and if you sit when he riseth to walk, if you neglect such warnings, then you may grieve him, and this cannot but in the end be bitterness to you. Certainly, many Christians are guilty in this, and prejudge themselves of the present comfort and benefit of this inward anointing, that teacheth all things, and of this bosom guide that leadeth in all truth; because they are so heavy and lumpish to be led after him; they drive slowly, and take very much pressure and persuasion to any duty; whereas we should accustom ourselves to willing and ready obedience upon the least signification of his mind. Yea, and which is worse, we often resist 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 perverseness and frowardness yet in our natures, that there needs the almighty draught of his arm to make it straight, as there is need of infinite grace to pardon it.Now, my beloved, if you have in your desires and affections resigned yourselves over to the guidance of this Spirit, and 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, cheer your hearts, and lift them up in the belief of this privilege conferred 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,[pg 253]are the sons of God.”Suppose you cannot exactly follow his motions, but are often driven out or turned back, yet hath not the Spirit the hold of your heart? Are you not detained by the cord of your judgment and the law of your mind? And is there not some chain fastened about your heart which maketh it outstrip the practice by desires and affections? You are the sons of God. That is truly the greatest dignity and highest privilege, in respect of which, all relations may blush and hide their faces. What are all the splendid and glistering titles among men but empty shows and evanishing sounds in respect of this? To be called the son of a gentleman, of a nobleman, of a king, how much do the sons of men pride themselves in it? But, truly, that putteth no intrinsic dignity in the persons themselves,—it is a miserable poverty to borrow praise from another, and truly he that boasts of his parentage,aliena laudat non sua, he praiseth that which is another's, not his own. But this dignity is truly a dignity, it puts intrinsic worth in the person, and puts a more excellent spirit in them than that which is in the world, as is said of Caleb, and, besides, it entitles to the greatest happiness imaginable.Sermon XXXVI.Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 outlive 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 Father, 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 breathe and halt212after the imitation of him. Therefore our Lord exhorts us, and taketh a domestic example and familiar pattern to persuade us the more by,“Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,”Matt. v. 48. And there is one perfection he especially recommends for our imitation, mercifulness and compassion towards men, opposed to the violence, fury, and implacableness, to the oppression, and revenge, and hatred that abounds among men, Luke vi. 36. And, generally, in all his ways of holiness and purity, of goodness and mercy, we ought to be followers of him as dear children, who are not only obliged by the common law of sympathy between parents and children, but, moreover, engaged by the tender affection that he carrieth to us, Eph. v. 1. Now, because God is high as heaven, and his ways and thoughts and dispositions are infinitely above us, the pattern seems to be so far out of sight that it is given over as desperate 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 it is our duty to resign ourselves 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 scribbling at it, and the more we exercise ourselves this way, setting the Spirit's direction before our eyes, the more perfect shall we be.It is high time, indeed, to pretend to this, to be a son or a daughter of God. It is a higher word than if a man could deduce his genealogy from an uninterrupted line of a thousand kings and princes. There is more honour, true honour, in it, and[pg 254]profit too. It is that which enriches the poorest, and ennobles the basest, inconceivably beyond all the imaginary degrees of men. Now, my beloved, this is the great design of the gospel, to bestow this incomparable privilege 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 guide, other than 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,213and driven, and carried headlong, rather than 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 is too much of these even in those who have more reason to assume this honourable title of sonship. I know not how we are exceedingly addicted to self-pleasing in every thing. Whatsoever our fancy or inclination suggests to us, that we must do without more bands, if it be not directly sinful. Whatsoever we apprehend, that we must vent and speak it out, though to little or no edification. Like that of Solomon, we deny our hearts nothing they desire, except the grossness of it restrain us. Now, certainly if we knew what we are called to, who are the sons of God, we could not but disengage more with ourselves, even in lawful things, and give over the conduct of our hearts and ways to the Spirit of our Father whom we may be persuaded of, that he will lead us in the ways of pleasantness 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 those terrible representations of sin and wrath, of the justice of God, which put the soul in a fear, a trembling fear, and while such a soul is kept within the apprehension of sin and judgment, it is shut up, as it were, in bondage. Now, though it be true, that in the conversion of a sinner, there is always something of this in more or less degrees, yet because this is not the great 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 express 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 express his bounty and goodness 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 God's love and favour, and our interest in it, as in the next verse, 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 from both these flows this next work,“crying, Abba, Father,”aiding and assisting us in presenting our necessities to our Father, making this the continued vent of the heart in all extremities, to pour out all that burthens us in our Father's bosom. And this gives marvellous ease to the heart, and releases it from the bondage of carefulness and anxiety, which it may be subject to, after the soul is delivered from the fear and bondage of wrath.Let us speak, then, to these in order. The first working of the Spirit is,to put a man in fear of himself, and such a fear as mightily straitens and embondages the soul of man. And this, though in itself 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 sparkle214of 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[pg 255]of God's love to the world in him. It is true, all men are in bondage to sin and Satan, and shut up in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, and bound in the fetters 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,”John vii. 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 opens, 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 flee 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 flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments,”Psal. cxix. 120. Such a serious representation will make the stoutest and proudest heart to fall down, and faint for fear of that infinite intolerable weight of deserved wrath, and then the soul is in a sensible bondage, that before was in a real, but insensible bondage,—then it is environed 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 this is some previous representation of that eternal imprisonment and banishment from the presence of God. Albeit many of you are free from this fear, and enjoy a kind of liberty to serve your own lusts, and are not sensible of any thraldom of your spirits, yet certainly the Lord will sometime arrest you, and bring you to this spiritual bondage, when he shall make the iniquities of your heels encompass you about, and the curses of his law surround you. When your conscience accuseth, and God condemneth, it may be too late, and out of date.Alas! then what will you do, who now put your conscience by,215and will not hearken to it or be put in fear by any thing which can be represented to you? We do not desire to put you in fear, where no fear is, but where there is infinite cause of fear, and when it is possible that fear may introduce faith, and be the forerunner of these glad tidings that will compose the soul. We desire 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 of everlasting darkness, and so may be persuaded to flee from it before it be irrecoverable. What a vain and empty sound is the gospel of liberty by a Redeemer, to the most part who do not feel their bondage? Who believes its report, or cares much for it—because it is necessity that casts a beauty and lustre 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 fearful apprehension of the wrath of God, and the sad remembrance of your sins, know that this is not the prime intent and grand business, to torment you, as it were, before the time. There is some other more beautiful and satisfying structure to be raised out of this foundation. 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 ultimate or last work, but know that you are called in this rational way, to come out of yourselves into this glorious liberty of the sons of God, purchased by Christ, and 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 former thraldom of the fear of wrath, but believe his love.[pg 256]Sermon XXXVII.Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 life of Christianity, take it in itself, is the most pleasant and joyful life that can be, exempted from those fears and cares, those sorrows and anxieties, that all other lives are subject unto, for this of necessity must be the force and efficacy of true religion, if 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 completely furnished with all variety of delights to entertain 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 weakened, and too much ground is given to confirm the contrary misapprehensions of the world, who take it to be a sullen, melancholic, and disconsolate life, attended with many fears and sorrows. It is, alas! too evident, that many Christians are kept in bondage, almost all their lifetime, through fear of eternal death. How many dismal representations of sin and wrath, are 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 after conversion, and made to apprehend fearfully their own estate, who hath such constant uninterrupted peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, or lies under such direct beams of divine favour, but it is sometimes eclipsed, and their souls filled with the darkness of horror and terror? And truly the most part taste not so much sweetness in religion as makes them incessant and unwearied in the ways of godliness. Yet, notwithstanding of all this, we must vindicate Christianity itself, 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 itself it is capable. Indeed, it is true that often we are brought to fear again, yet withal 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 expel fear but bring in joy. I wish that this were deeply considered by all of us, that there is such a life as this attainable,—that the word of God doth not deceive us in promising fair things which it cannot perform, but that there is a certain reality in the life of Christianity, in that peace and joy, tranquillity and serenity of mind that is holden out, and that some have really found it, and do find it, and that the reason why all of us do not find it in experience, 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, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly 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 is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, I conceive there is nothing in the world so practicable as this,—nothing made so easy, so certain to a soul that really minds it.Let us take it so then, the fault is not religion's, that those who profess 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 of men, but only puts a tincture on their outside, or because the faith of divine truths is so superficial, and the consideration of 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 terror when they do not stand in awe to[pg 257]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 hazard of condemnation, yet he is the greatest 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 wrath in his conscience as may make him think it was a foolish bargain. He may lose so much of the sweetness of the peace and joy of God as all the pleasures of sin cannot compense. Therefore to the end that you whose souls are once pacified by the blood of Christ, and composed by his word of promise, may enjoy that constant rest and tranquillity as not to be enthralled again to your old fears and terrors, I would advise and recommend to you these two things:—One is, that you would be much in the study of that allowance which the promises of Christ afford. Be much in the serious apprehension of the gospel, and certainly your doubts and fears would evanish 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 unblotted, 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 dreadful apprehensions of God. Certainly, it is impossible to preserve the spirit in freedom if a man be not watchful against sin and corruption. David prays,“re establish me with thy free Spirit,”as if his spirit had been abased, embondaged, and enthralled by the power of that corruption. If you would have your spirits kept free from the fear of wrath, study to keep them free from the power of sin, for that is but a fruit of this, and it is most suitable that the soul that cares not to be in bondage to sinful lusts, should, by the righteousness of God, tempered with love and wisdom, be brought under the bondage he would not, that is, of fear and terror, for by this means the Lord makes him know how evil the first is, by the bitterness 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 differ, the bondage of a soul after believing, and in its first conversion, and how far that bondage of fear is preparatory to faith, and many such like. But I choose rather to hold forth the simple and naked truth for your edification, than put you upon to entertain you in such needless 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 cries 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 jealousy 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 brings 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 weakness, wherein we are. And if at any time ye, through negligence and carelessness of walking, lose the comfortable evidence of the Father's love, and be reduced again to your old prison of legal terror, do not despair for that, do not think that such a thing could not befall a child of God, and from that ground do not raze former foundations, for the scripture saith not, that whosoever believes once in Christ, and receives the Spirit of adoption, cannot fear again; for we see it otherwise in David, in Heman, in Job, &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 gift, 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 privilege 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 it is a marvellous change,—a rebel condemned, and then pardoned, and then adopted to be a son of God,—a sinner under bondage, a bond slave to sin and Satan, not only freed from that intolerable bondage, but advanced to this liberty, to be made a son of God. This will be the continued wonder of[pg 258]eternity, and that whereabout the song of angels and saints will be. Accursed rebels expecting nothing but present death, sinners arraigned and sentenced before 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 privilege, to be the sons of God, to be taken from the gibbet to be crowned! That is the great mystery of wisdom and grace revealed in the gospel, the proclaiming whereof will be the joint labour of all the innumerable companies above for all eternity. Now, if you ask how this estate is attainable, himself tells us, John i. 12,“As many as believed (or received) him, to them he gave the privilege to be the sons of God.”The way is made plain and easy. 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 man's 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 therefore 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 privilege of sonship and adoption for his sake, who became our elder brother, Gal. iv. 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 of 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 brightness of his glory, in whom he delighted from eternity,—strange, I say, that he should in a manner lose 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 infinitely transcending nature,—such an act that hath an unsearchable mystery in it, into which angels desire to look and never cease looking, because they never see the bottom of it. It was not out of indigency he did it, not for any need he had of us, or comfort expected from us, but absolutely for our necessity and consolation, that he might have upon whom to pour the riches of his grace.

Sermon XXXIV.Verse 13.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”Though the Lord, out of his absolute sovereignty, might deal with man in such a way, as nothing should appear but his supreme will and almighty power, he might simply command obedience, and without any more persuasions either leave men to the frowardness 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 man's nature, to lay out before him the advantages and disadvantages, and to use these as motives and persuasives of his Spirit. For since he hath by his first creation implanted in man's soul such a principle as moveth itself upon the presentation of good or evil, that this might not be in vain, he administers all the dispensations of the law and gospel in a way suitable to that, by propounding such powerful motives as may incline and persuade the heart of man. It is true,[pg 248]there's a secret drawing withal necessary, the pull of the Father's 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,deathandlife,—death which it naturally abhorreth, and life which it naturally loveth. An even balance 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 first with man in paradise. You remember the terms run so,—“'What day thou eatest thou shalt die.”He hedged him in on the one side by a promise of life, on the other by a threatening of death. And these two are very rational restraints, suited to the soul of man, and in the inward principles of it, which are a kind of instinct to that which is apprehended good or gainful.Now, this verse runs even so in the form of words“If ye live after the flesh ye shall die.”You see this method is not changed under the gospel, for, indeed, it is natural to the spirit of man, and he hath now much more need of all such persuasions, because there is a great change of man's inclination to the worst side. All within is so disordered and perverse that a thousand hedges of persuasive grounds cannot do that which one might have done at first. Then they were added out of superabundance, but now out of necessity,—then they were set about man to preserve him in his natural frame and inclinations, but now they are needful to change and alter them quite, which is a kind of creation, therefore saith David,“create in me a new spirit,”and, therefore, the gospel abounds in variety of motives and inducements, in greater variety, of far more powerful inducements than the law. Here is that great persuasion taken from the infinite gain or loss of the soul of man, which, if any thing be able to prevail, this must do, seeing it is seconded with some natural inclination in the soul of man to seek its own gain. Yet there is a difference between the nature of such like promises and threatenings in the first covenant and in the second. In the first covenant, though life was freely promised, yet it was immediately annexed to perfect obedience as a consequent reward of it. It was firstly promised unto complete righteousness of men's persons. But in the second covenant, firstly and principally life eternal, grace and glory is promised to Jesus Christ and his seed, 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 shall not perish,”&c.,“If ye walk after the Spirit, ye shall live.”These are 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 virtue of these absolute promises made to the seed of Christ, and Christ's complete performance of all conditions in their name, the promises of life are made to faith principally, which hath this peculiar virtue to carry forth the soul to another's righteousness 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 preceding verse, 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 suffice to persuade 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 subjoins from the damage, and from the advantage which may of itself be the topics of persuasion, and serves to drive in the nail of debt and duty to the head. If you will not take with this debt you owe to the Spirit, but still conceive there is some greater obligation lying on you, to care for your bodies and satisfy 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, you shall die.”But then, consider the fruit you shall reap of the Spirit, and holy walking“you shall live.”It is true the flesh may flatter you more for the present, but the end of it will lie bitter as death,amplectitur ut strangulet,“the flesh embraces you that it may strangle you.”And so if you knew all well you would not think[pg 249]you owed it any thing but enmity and hatred and mortification. If your duty will not move you, let the love of yourselves and your souls persuade you, for it is an irrepealable statute:“The wages of sin is death.”Every way you choose to fulfil 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 instead of performing that which was promised will bring forth death,—the eternal separation of the soul from God. Adam's sin was a breviary or epitome of the multiplied and enlarged sins of mankind. You may see in this tragedy all your fortunes (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 bait of an imaginary life and happiness, satisfaction promised to the eye, to the taste, and to the mind. And upon these enticements, 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 after it. Now, here is the map 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 days in pursuit and labour for them, 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 every 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 men's misery, that no man will learn wisdom upon others expenses, upon the woful and tragical example of so many others, but go on as confidently now, after the discovery 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 falsehood, as there have been persons in all ages before us? After Adam hath tasted of this tree of pleasure and found another fruit growing on it and that is death, should the posterity be so mad as to be meddling still with the forbidden tree? And wherefore forbidden? Because destructive to ourselves.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 toiling 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 power. It is the falling of that infinite 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. vi. 16. Suppose, now, you could swim in a river of delights and pleasures, (which yet is given to none, for truly, upon a just reckoning, it will be found that the anxiety, and grief, and bitterness, that is intermingled with all earthly delights, swallows up the sweetness of them,) yet it will but carry you down ere you be aware, into the sea of death and destruction, as the fish that swim and sport for a while in Jordan, are carried down into the Dead sea of Sodom, where they are presently suffocated and extinguished,210or, as a malefactor is carried through a pleasant[pg 250]palace to the gallows, so men walk through the delights of their flesh, to their own endless torment and destruction.Seeing then, my beloved, that your sins and lusts which you are inclined and accustomed to, will certainly kill you, if you entertain them, then nature itself would teach you the law of self-defence,—to kill, ere you be killed, to kill sin, ere it kill you,—to mortify the deeds and lusts of the body, which abound among you, or they will certainly mortify you, that is, make you die. Now, if self love could teach you this, which the love of God cannot persuade 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 infinite danger that will ensue. Certainly if you were but a little acquainted with the sweetness of this life, and goodness of your God, you would find the power of the former argumenta debito, from debt and duty, upon your spirit. Let this once lead you unto God, and you will not want that which will constrain you to abide, and never to depart from him.If you mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. As sin decays, you increase and grow, as sins die, your souls live, and 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 maim or mutilate the body, for you shall live perfectly when sin is perfectly expired, and out of life, and according as sin is nearer expiring, and nearer the grave, your souls are nearer that endless life. If this do not move us, what can be said next? What shall he do more to his vineyard?

Verse 13.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”

Though the Lord, out of his absolute sovereignty, might deal with man in such a way, as nothing should appear but his supreme will and almighty power, he might simply command obedience, and without any more persuasions either leave men to the frowardness 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 man's nature, to lay out before him the advantages and disadvantages, and to use these as motives and persuasives of his Spirit. For since he hath by his first creation implanted in man's soul such a principle as moveth itself upon the presentation of good or evil, that this might not be in vain, he administers all the dispensations of the law and gospel in a way suitable to that, by propounding such powerful motives as may incline and persuade the heart of man. It is true,[pg 248]there's a secret drawing withal necessary, the pull of the Father's 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,deathandlife,—death which it naturally abhorreth, and life which it naturally loveth. An even balance 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 first with man in paradise. You remember the terms run so,—“'What day thou eatest thou shalt die.”He hedged him in on the one side by a promise of life, on the other by a threatening of death. And these two are very rational restraints, suited to the soul of man, and in the inward principles of it, which are a kind of instinct to that which is apprehended good or gainful.

Now, this verse runs even so in the form of words“If ye live after the flesh ye shall die.”You see this method is not changed under the gospel, for, indeed, it is natural to the spirit of man, and he hath now much more need of all such persuasions, because there is a great change of man's inclination to the worst side. All within is so disordered and perverse that a thousand hedges of persuasive grounds cannot do that which one might have done at first. Then they were added out of superabundance, but now out of necessity,—then they were set about man to preserve him in his natural frame and inclinations, but now they are needful to change and alter them quite, which is a kind of creation, therefore saith David,“create in me a new spirit,”and, therefore, the gospel abounds in variety of motives and inducements, in greater variety, of far more powerful inducements than the law. Here is that great persuasion taken from the infinite gain or loss of the soul of man, which, if any thing be able to prevail, this must do, seeing it is seconded with some natural inclination in the soul of man to seek its own gain. Yet there is a difference between the nature of such like promises and threatenings in the first covenant and in the second. In the first covenant, though life was freely promised, yet it was immediately annexed to perfect obedience as a consequent reward of it. It was firstly promised unto complete righteousness of men's persons. But in the second covenant, firstly and principally life eternal, grace and glory is promised to Jesus Christ and his seed, 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 shall not perish,”&c.,“If ye walk after the Spirit, ye shall live.”These are 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 virtue of these absolute promises made to the seed of Christ, and Christ's complete performance of all conditions in their name, the promises of life are made to faith principally, which hath this peculiar virtue to carry forth the soul to another's righteousness 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 preceding verse, 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 suffice to persuade 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 subjoins from the damage, and from the advantage which may of itself be the topics of persuasion, and serves to drive in the nail of debt and duty to the head. If you will not take with this debt you owe to the Spirit, but still conceive there is some greater obligation lying on you, to care for your bodies and satisfy 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, you shall die.”But then, consider the fruit you shall reap of the Spirit, and holy walking“you shall live.”It is true the flesh may flatter you more for the present, but the end of it will lie bitter as death,amplectitur ut strangulet,“the flesh embraces you that it may strangle you.”And so if you knew all well you would not think[pg 249]you owed it any thing but enmity and hatred and mortification. If your duty will not move you, let the love of yourselves and your souls persuade you, for it is an irrepealable statute:“The wages of sin is death.”Every way you choose to fulfil 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 instead of performing that which was promised will bring forth death,—the eternal separation of the soul from God. Adam's sin was a breviary or epitome of the multiplied and enlarged sins of mankind. You may see in this tragedy all your fortunes (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 bait of an imaginary life and happiness, satisfaction promised to the eye, to the taste, and to the mind. And upon these enticements, 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 after it. Now, here is the map 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 days in pursuit and labour for them, 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 every 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 men's misery, that no man will learn wisdom upon others expenses, upon the woful and tragical example of so many others, but go on as confidently now, after the discovery 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 falsehood, as there have been persons in all ages before us? After Adam hath tasted of this tree of pleasure and found another fruit growing on it and that is death, should the posterity be so mad as to be meddling still with the forbidden tree? And wherefore forbidden? Because destructive to ourselves.

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 toiling 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 power. It is the falling of that infinite 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. vi. 16. Suppose, now, you could swim in a river of delights and pleasures, (which yet is given to none, for truly, upon a just reckoning, it will be found that the anxiety, and grief, and bitterness, that is intermingled with all earthly delights, swallows up the sweetness of them,) yet it will but carry you down ere you be aware, into the sea of death and destruction, as the fish that swim and sport for a while in Jordan, are carried down into the Dead sea of Sodom, where they are presently suffocated and extinguished,210or, as a malefactor is carried through a pleasant[pg 250]palace to the gallows, so men walk through the delights of their flesh, to their own endless torment and destruction.

Seeing then, my beloved, that your sins and lusts which you are inclined and accustomed to, will certainly kill you, if you entertain them, then nature itself would teach you the law of self-defence,—to kill, ere you be killed, to kill sin, ere it kill you,—to mortify the deeds and lusts of the body, which abound among you, or they will certainly mortify you, that is, make you die. Now, if self love could teach you this, which the love of God cannot persuade 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 infinite danger that will ensue. Certainly if you were but a little acquainted with the sweetness of this life, and goodness of your God, you would find the power of the former argumenta debito, from debt and duty, upon your spirit. Let this once lead you unto God, and you will not want that which will constrain you to abide, and never to depart from him.

If you mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. As sin decays, you increase and grow, as sins die, your souls live, and 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 maim or mutilate the body, for you shall live perfectly when sin is perfectly expired, and out of life, and according as sin is nearer expiring, and nearer the grave, your souls are nearer that endless life. If this do not move us, what can be said next? What shall he do more to his vineyard?

Sermon XXXV.Verses 13, 14.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 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,—separate them, and they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hath conjoined, 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, joined together in the hearts of Christians, have a great deal of force: the duty of a Christian, and his reward, and his dignity. His work and labour seems hard and unpleasant, when considered alone, but the reward sweetens it, when it is jointly believed. His duty seems too high, and his labour great, yet the consideration of the real dignity he is advanced unto, and privilege he has 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 Christian's 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 hear 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 easy and trivial a business to forsake sin, or subdue it, as many think, who only think it easy because they have never tried it. It is a circumcision of the foreskin of the heart,[pg 251]and you know how it disabled a whole city, (Gen. xxxiv.) and how it enraged the heart of a tender mother, Exod. iv. 26. It is the excision 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 throes of the birth are known. Regeneration certainly hath a travailing pain within it, insomuch that Paul travailed in pain till it were accomplished in these, Gal. iv. 19. Though men conceive sin in pleasure, yet they cannot be rid of that deadly burden without throes and pains, and to half this work, or to be remiss or negligent in it, is as foolish and unwise as for a child to stay long in the place of breaking forth, as the Lord complains of Ephraim, Hos. xiii. 13.“He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.”It is one of the greatest follies, not to labour by all means to be rid of the encumbrances of sin. Much violence offered to it, and a total resignation of ourselves 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 cross and vexation to a great extent, because they deal negligently in the business, they suffer the Canaanites to live, and these are thorns and briers in their sides continually. Then this business is calledmortification, as the word is here, and Col. iii. 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 express it,crucifixion, Gal. v. 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 oneness 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 conjoined, it is hard to separate them without much violence. And truly, as the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, so we must offer violence to ourselves, to our lusts and inclinations, who are almost ourselves, and if you would be truly Christians, this must be your business and employment, 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 from it. It is easy to persuade men to forsake some sins and courses that they are not much inclined 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 yourself impartially against all known, so particularly against the most beloved sin, because it interrupts most the communion of God, and separates from your 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 to the assistance you have for the present, the Spirit to help you. Truly, my beloved, this will be a dead business, if you be not animated and quickened by these considerations,—that Christ died to sin and lived to God, and that in this he was a public person representing you, that so you may conclude with Paul,“I am crucified with Christ,”Gal. ii. 20.“We are buried with him by baptism into his death,”Rom. vi. 4. Consider that mystical union with Christ crucified, and life shall spring out of his cross, out of his grave, to kill sin in you,—that the great business 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, consider and look round about to the strong helper you have, the Spirit.“If ye through the Spirit mortify,”&c. Stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Though he does not vent all his power to you, yet you may believe that there is a secret latent virtue in the seed of grace, that it cannot be whole 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 weakness 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, faintings, wrestlings, that his strength may be[pg 252]perfected in weakness,—that when we are weak, then we may be strongest in him, 2 Cor. xii. 9. Our duty then is, to follow this Spirit wheresoever he leadeth us. Christ, the captain of our salvation, when he went to heaven, sent the Spirit to be our guider, to lead us thither where he is, and therefore we should resign and give up ourselves to his guidance and direction. The nature of a creature is dependence, so the very essence of a Christian consists in dependence and subordination to the Spirit of God. Nature itself would teach them that want wisdom to commit themselves to those 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 yield ourselves over to the Spirit of God, as blind men to their leader, as children to their nurses, as orphans to their tutors;211but 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 willingness and ability, because it is his office.“O Lord, I know,”saith Jeremiah,“that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,”Jer. x. 23. O it were a great point of wisdom thus to know our ignorance and folly, and this is the great qualification of Christ's disciples, simple as children, as little children, as void of conceit of their own wisdom, Mark x. 15. And this alone capacitates the soul to receive the impressions of wisdom; as an empty table is fittest to write upon, so a soul emptied of itself; whereas self conceit draweth a number of foolish senseless draughts in the mind that it cannot receive the true image of wisdom. Thus, then, when a soul finds that it hath misled itself, being misguided by the wild fire of its lusts, and hath hardly escaped perishing and falling headlong in the pit, this disposes the soul to a willing resignation of itself 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 yourselves thus, you would carefully eye your Leader, and attend all his motions, that you may conform yourself 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, lest 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 yourselves, 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 leader plucking at you to follow him; and if you sit when he riseth to walk, if you neglect such warnings, then you may grieve him, and this cannot but in the end be bitterness to you. Certainly, many Christians are guilty in this, and prejudge themselves of the present comfort and benefit of this inward anointing, that teacheth all things, and of this bosom guide that leadeth in all truth; because they are so heavy and lumpish to be led after him; they drive slowly, and take very much pressure and persuasion to any duty; whereas we should accustom ourselves to willing and ready obedience upon the least signification of his mind. Yea, and which is worse, we often resist 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 perverseness and frowardness yet in our natures, that there needs the almighty draught of his arm to make it straight, as there is need of infinite grace to pardon it.Now, my beloved, if you have in your desires and affections resigned yourselves over to the guidance of this Spirit, and 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, cheer your hearts, and lift them up in the belief of this privilege conferred 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,[pg 253]are the sons of God.”Suppose you cannot exactly follow his motions, but are often driven out or turned back, yet hath not the Spirit the hold of your heart? Are you not detained by the cord of your judgment and the law of your mind? And is there not some chain fastened about your heart which maketh it outstrip the practice by desires and affections? You are the sons of God. That is truly the greatest dignity and highest privilege, in respect of which, all relations may blush and hide their faces. What are all the splendid and glistering titles among men but empty shows and evanishing sounds in respect of this? To be called the son of a gentleman, of a nobleman, of a king, how much do the sons of men pride themselves in it? But, truly, that putteth no intrinsic dignity in the persons themselves,—it is a miserable poverty to borrow praise from another, and truly he that boasts of his parentage,aliena laudat non sua, he praiseth that which is another's, not his own. But this dignity is truly a dignity, it puts intrinsic worth in the person, and puts a more excellent spirit in them than that which is in the world, as is said of Caleb, and, besides, it entitles to the greatest happiness imaginable.

Verses 13, 14.—“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 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,—separate them, and they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hath conjoined, 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, joined together in the hearts of Christians, have a great deal of force: the duty of a Christian, and his reward, and his dignity. His work and labour seems hard and unpleasant, when considered alone, but the reward sweetens it, when it is jointly believed. His duty seems too high, and his labour great, yet the consideration of the real dignity he is advanced unto, and privilege he has 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 Christian's 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 hear 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 easy and trivial a business to forsake sin, or subdue it, as many think, who only think it easy because they have never tried it. It is a circumcision of the foreskin of the heart,[pg 251]and you know how it disabled a whole city, (Gen. xxxiv.) and how it enraged the heart of a tender mother, Exod. iv. 26. It is the excision 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 throes of the birth are known. Regeneration certainly hath a travailing pain within it, insomuch that Paul travailed in pain till it were accomplished in these, Gal. iv. 19. Though men conceive sin in pleasure, yet they cannot be rid of that deadly burden without throes and pains, and to half this work, or to be remiss or negligent in it, is as foolish and unwise as for a child to stay long in the place of breaking forth, as the Lord complains of Ephraim, Hos. xiii. 13.“He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.”It is one of the greatest follies, not to labour by all means to be rid of the encumbrances of sin. Much violence offered to it, and a total resignation of ourselves 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 cross and vexation to a great extent, because they deal negligently in the business, they suffer the Canaanites to live, and these are thorns and briers in their sides continually. Then this business is calledmortification, as the word is here, and Col. iii. 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 express it,crucifixion, Gal. v. 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 oneness 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 conjoined, it is hard to separate them without much violence. And truly, as the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, so we must offer violence to ourselves, to our lusts and inclinations, who are almost ourselves, and if you would be truly Christians, this must be your business and employment, 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 from it. It is easy to persuade men to forsake some sins and courses that they are not much inclined 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 yourself impartially against all known, so particularly against the most beloved sin, because it interrupts most the communion of God, and separates from your 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 to the assistance you have for the present, the Spirit to help you. Truly, my beloved, this will be a dead business, if you be not animated and quickened by these considerations,—that Christ died to sin and lived to God, and that in this he was a public person representing you, that so you may conclude with Paul,“I am crucified with Christ,”Gal. ii. 20.“We are buried with him by baptism into his death,”Rom. vi. 4. Consider that mystical union with Christ crucified, and life shall spring out of his cross, out of his grave, to kill sin in you,—that the great business 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, consider and look round about to the strong helper you have, the Spirit.“If ye through the Spirit mortify,”&c. Stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Though he does not vent all his power to you, yet you may believe that there is a secret latent virtue in the seed of grace, that it cannot be whole 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 weakness 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, faintings, wrestlings, that his strength may be[pg 252]perfected in weakness,—that when we are weak, then we may be strongest in him, 2 Cor. xii. 9. Our duty then is, to follow this Spirit wheresoever he leadeth us. Christ, the captain of our salvation, when he went to heaven, sent the Spirit to be our guider, to lead us thither where he is, and therefore we should resign and give up ourselves to his guidance and direction. The nature of a creature is dependence, so the very essence of a Christian consists in dependence and subordination to the Spirit of God. Nature itself would teach them that want wisdom to commit themselves to those 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 yield ourselves over to the Spirit of God, as blind men to their leader, as children to their nurses, as orphans to their tutors;211but 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 willingness and ability, because it is his office.“O Lord, I know,”saith Jeremiah,“that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,”Jer. x. 23. O it were a great point of wisdom thus to know our ignorance and folly, and this is the great qualification of Christ's disciples, simple as children, as little children, as void of conceit of their own wisdom, Mark x. 15. And this alone capacitates the soul to receive the impressions of wisdom; as an empty table is fittest to write upon, so a soul emptied of itself; whereas self conceit draweth a number of foolish senseless draughts in the mind that it cannot receive the true image of wisdom. Thus, then, when a soul finds that it hath misled itself, being misguided by the wild fire of its lusts, and hath hardly escaped perishing and falling headlong in the pit, this disposes the soul to a willing resignation of itself 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 yourselves thus, you would carefully eye your Leader, and attend all his motions, that you may conform yourself 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, lest 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 yourselves, 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 leader plucking at you to follow him; and if you sit when he riseth to walk, if you neglect such warnings, then you may grieve him, and this cannot but in the end be bitterness to you. Certainly, many Christians are guilty in this, and prejudge themselves of the present comfort and benefit of this inward anointing, that teacheth all things, and of this bosom guide that leadeth in all truth; because they are so heavy and lumpish to be led after him; they drive slowly, and take very much pressure and persuasion to any duty; whereas we should accustom ourselves to willing and ready obedience upon the least signification of his mind. Yea, and which is worse, we often resist 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 perverseness and frowardness yet in our natures, that there needs the almighty draught of his arm to make it straight, as there is need of infinite grace to pardon it.

Now, my beloved, if you have in your desires and affections resigned yourselves over to the guidance of this Spirit, and 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, cheer your hearts, and lift them up in the belief of this privilege conferred 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,[pg 253]are the sons of God.”Suppose you cannot exactly follow his motions, but are often driven out or turned back, yet hath not the Spirit the hold of your heart? Are you not detained by the cord of your judgment and the law of your mind? And is there not some chain fastened about your heart which maketh it outstrip the practice by desires and affections? You are the sons of God. That is truly the greatest dignity and highest privilege, in respect of which, all relations may blush and hide their faces. What are all the splendid and glistering titles among men but empty shows and evanishing sounds in respect of this? To be called the son of a gentleman, of a nobleman, of a king, how much do the sons of men pride themselves in it? But, truly, that putteth no intrinsic dignity in the persons themselves,—it is a miserable poverty to borrow praise from another, and truly he that boasts of his parentage,aliena laudat non sua, he praiseth that which is another's, not his own. But this dignity is truly a dignity, it puts intrinsic worth in the person, and puts a more excellent spirit in them than that which is in the world, as is said of Caleb, and, besides, it entitles to the greatest happiness imaginable.

Sermon XXXVI.Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 outlive 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 Father, 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 breathe and halt212after the imitation of him. Therefore our Lord exhorts us, and taketh a domestic example and familiar pattern to persuade us the more by,“Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,”Matt. v. 48. And there is one perfection he especially recommends for our imitation, mercifulness and compassion towards men, opposed to the violence, fury, and implacableness, to the oppression, and revenge, and hatred that abounds among men, Luke vi. 36. And, generally, in all his ways of holiness and purity, of goodness and mercy, we ought to be followers of him as dear children, who are not only obliged by the common law of sympathy between parents and children, but, moreover, engaged by the tender affection that he carrieth to us, Eph. v. 1. Now, because God is high as heaven, and his ways and thoughts and dispositions are infinitely above us, the pattern seems to be so far out of sight that it is given over as desperate 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 it is our duty to resign ourselves 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 scribbling at it, and the more we exercise ourselves this way, setting the Spirit's direction before our eyes, the more perfect shall we be.It is high time, indeed, to pretend to this, to be a son or a daughter of God. It is a higher word than if a man could deduce his genealogy from an uninterrupted line of a thousand kings and princes. There is more honour, true honour, in it, and[pg 254]profit too. It is that which enriches the poorest, and ennobles the basest, inconceivably beyond all the imaginary degrees of men. Now, my beloved, this is the great design of the gospel, to bestow this incomparable privilege 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 guide, other than 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,213and driven, and carried headlong, rather than 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 is too much of these even in those who have more reason to assume this honourable title of sonship. I know not how we are exceedingly addicted to self-pleasing in every thing. Whatsoever our fancy or inclination suggests to us, that we must do without more bands, if it be not directly sinful. Whatsoever we apprehend, that we must vent and speak it out, though to little or no edification. Like that of Solomon, we deny our hearts nothing they desire, except the grossness of it restrain us. Now, certainly if we knew what we are called to, who are the sons of God, we could not but disengage more with ourselves, even in lawful things, and give over the conduct of our hearts and ways to the Spirit of our Father whom we may be persuaded of, that he will lead us in the ways of pleasantness 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 those terrible representations of sin and wrath, of the justice of God, which put the soul in a fear, a trembling fear, and while such a soul is kept within the apprehension of sin and judgment, it is shut up, as it were, in bondage. Now, though it be true, that in the conversion of a sinner, there is always something of this in more or less degrees, yet because this is not the great 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 express 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 express his bounty and goodness 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 God's love and favour, and our interest in it, as in the next verse, 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 from both these flows this next work,“crying, Abba, Father,”aiding and assisting us in presenting our necessities to our Father, making this the continued vent of the heart in all extremities, to pour out all that burthens us in our Father's bosom. And this gives marvellous ease to the heart, and releases it from the bondage of carefulness and anxiety, which it may be subject to, after the soul is delivered from the fear and bondage of wrath.Let us speak, then, to these in order. The first working of the Spirit is,to put a man in fear of himself, and such a fear as mightily straitens and embondages the soul of man. And this, though in itself 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 sparkle214of 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[pg 255]of God's love to the world in him. It is true, all men are in bondage to sin and Satan, and shut up in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, and bound in the fetters 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,”John vii. 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 opens, 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 flee 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 flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments,”Psal. cxix. 120. Such a serious representation will make the stoutest and proudest heart to fall down, and faint for fear of that infinite intolerable weight of deserved wrath, and then the soul is in a sensible bondage, that before was in a real, but insensible bondage,—then it is environed 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 this is some previous representation of that eternal imprisonment and banishment from the presence of God. Albeit many of you are free from this fear, and enjoy a kind of liberty to serve your own lusts, and are not sensible of any thraldom of your spirits, yet certainly the Lord will sometime arrest you, and bring you to this spiritual bondage, when he shall make the iniquities of your heels encompass you about, and the curses of his law surround you. When your conscience accuseth, and God condemneth, it may be too late, and out of date.Alas! then what will you do, who now put your conscience by,215and will not hearken to it or be put in fear by any thing which can be represented to you? We do not desire to put you in fear, where no fear is, but where there is infinite cause of fear, and when it is possible that fear may introduce faith, and be the forerunner of these glad tidings that will compose the soul. We desire 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 of everlasting darkness, and so may be persuaded to flee from it before it be irrecoverable. What a vain and empty sound is the gospel of liberty by a Redeemer, to the most part who do not feel their bondage? Who believes its report, or cares much for it—because it is necessity that casts a beauty and lustre 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 fearful apprehension of the wrath of God, and the sad remembrance of your sins, know that this is not the prime intent and grand business, to torment you, as it were, before the time. There is some other more beautiful and satisfying structure to be raised out of this foundation. 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 ultimate or last work, but know that you are called in this rational way, to come out of yourselves into this glorious liberty of the sons of God, purchased by Christ, and 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 former thraldom of the fear of wrath, but believe his love.

Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 outlive 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 Father, 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 breathe and halt212after the imitation of him. Therefore our Lord exhorts us, and taketh a domestic example and familiar pattern to persuade us the more by,“Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,”Matt. v. 48. And there is one perfection he especially recommends for our imitation, mercifulness and compassion towards men, opposed to the violence, fury, and implacableness, to the oppression, and revenge, and hatred that abounds among men, Luke vi. 36. And, generally, in all his ways of holiness and purity, of goodness and mercy, we ought to be followers of him as dear children, who are not only obliged by the common law of sympathy between parents and children, but, moreover, engaged by the tender affection that he carrieth to us, Eph. v. 1. Now, because God is high as heaven, and his ways and thoughts and dispositions are infinitely above us, the pattern seems to be so far out of sight that it is given over as desperate 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 it is our duty to resign ourselves 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 scribbling at it, and the more we exercise ourselves this way, setting the Spirit's direction before our eyes, the more perfect shall we be.

It is high time, indeed, to pretend to this, to be a son or a daughter of God. It is a higher word than if a man could deduce his genealogy from an uninterrupted line of a thousand kings and princes. There is more honour, true honour, in it, and[pg 254]profit too. It is that which enriches the poorest, and ennobles the basest, inconceivably beyond all the imaginary degrees of men. Now, my beloved, this is the great design of the gospel, to bestow this incomparable privilege 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 guide, other than 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,213and driven, and carried headlong, rather than 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 is too much of these even in those who have more reason to assume this honourable title of sonship. I know not how we are exceedingly addicted to self-pleasing in every thing. Whatsoever our fancy or inclination suggests to us, that we must do without more bands, if it be not directly sinful. Whatsoever we apprehend, that we must vent and speak it out, though to little or no edification. Like that of Solomon, we deny our hearts nothing they desire, except the grossness of it restrain us. Now, certainly if we knew what we are called to, who are the sons of God, we could not but disengage more with ourselves, even in lawful things, and give over the conduct of our hearts and ways to the Spirit of our Father whom we may be persuaded of, that he will lead us in the ways of pleasantness 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 those terrible representations of sin and wrath, of the justice of God, which put the soul in a fear, a trembling fear, and while such a soul is kept within the apprehension of sin and judgment, it is shut up, as it were, in bondage. Now, though it be true, that in the conversion of a sinner, there is always something of this in more or less degrees, yet because this is not the great 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 express 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 express his bounty and goodness 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 God's love and favour, and our interest in it, as in the next verse, 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 from both these flows this next work,“crying, Abba, Father,”aiding and assisting us in presenting our necessities to our Father, making this the continued vent of the heart in all extremities, to pour out all that burthens us in our Father's bosom. And this gives marvellous ease to the heart, and releases it from the bondage of carefulness and anxiety, which it may be subject to, after the soul is delivered from the fear and bondage of wrath.

Let us speak, then, to these in order. The first working of the Spirit is,to put a man in fear of himself, and such a fear as mightily straitens and embondages the soul of man. And this, though in itself 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 sparkle214of 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[pg 255]of God's love to the world in him. It is true, all men are in bondage to sin and Satan, and shut up in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, and bound in the fetters 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,”John vii. 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 opens, 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 flee 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 flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments,”Psal. cxix. 120. Such a serious representation will make the stoutest and proudest heart to fall down, and faint for fear of that infinite intolerable weight of deserved wrath, and then the soul is in a sensible bondage, that before was in a real, but insensible bondage,—then it is environed 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 this is some previous representation of that eternal imprisonment and banishment from the presence of God. Albeit many of you are free from this fear, and enjoy a kind of liberty to serve your own lusts, and are not sensible of any thraldom of your spirits, yet certainly the Lord will sometime arrest you, and bring you to this spiritual bondage, when he shall make the iniquities of your heels encompass you about, and the curses of his law surround you. When your conscience accuseth, and God condemneth, it may be too late, and out of date.

Alas! then what will you do, who now put your conscience by,215and will not hearken to it or be put in fear by any thing which can be represented to you? We do not desire to put you in fear, where no fear is, but where there is infinite cause of fear, and when it is possible that fear may introduce faith, and be the forerunner of these glad tidings that will compose the soul. We desire 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 of everlasting darkness, and so may be persuaded to flee from it before it be irrecoverable. What a vain and empty sound is the gospel of liberty by a Redeemer, to the most part who do not feel their bondage? Who believes its report, or cares much for it—because it is necessity that casts a beauty and lustre 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 fearful apprehension of the wrath of God, and the sad remembrance of your sins, know that this is not the prime intent and grand business, to torment you, as it were, before the time. There is some other more beautiful and satisfying structure to be raised out of this foundation. 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 ultimate or last work, but know that you are called in this rational way, to come out of yourselves into this glorious liberty of the sons of God, purchased by Christ, and 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 former thraldom of the fear of wrath, but believe his love.

Sermon XXXVII.Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 life of Christianity, take it in itself, is the most pleasant and joyful life that can be, exempted from those fears and cares, those sorrows and anxieties, that all other lives are subject unto, for this of necessity must be the force and efficacy of true religion, if 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 completely furnished with all variety of delights to entertain 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 weakened, and too much ground is given to confirm the contrary misapprehensions of the world, who take it to be a sullen, melancholic, and disconsolate life, attended with many fears and sorrows. It is, alas! too evident, that many Christians are kept in bondage, almost all their lifetime, through fear of eternal death. How many dismal representations of sin and wrath, are 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 after conversion, and made to apprehend fearfully their own estate, who hath such constant uninterrupted peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, or lies under such direct beams of divine favour, but it is sometimes eclipsed, and their souls filled with the darkness of horror and terror? And truly the most part taste not so much sweetness in religion as makes them incessant and unwearied in the ways of godliness. Yet, notwithstanding of all this, we must vindicate Christianity itself, 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 itself it is capable. Indeed, it is true that often we are brought to fear again, yet withal 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 expel fear but bring in joy. I wish that this were deeply considered by all of us, that there is such a life as this attainable,—that the word of God doth not deceive us in promising fair things which it cannot perform, but that there is a certain reality in the life of Christianity, in that peace and joy, tranquillity and serenity of mind that is holden out, and that some have really found it, and do find it, and that the reason why all of us do not find it in experience, 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, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly 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 is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, I conceive there is nothing in the world so practicable as this,—nothing made so easy, so certain to a soul that really minds it.Let us take it so then, the fault is not religion's, that those who profess 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 of men, but only puts a tincture on their outside, or because the faith of divine truths is so superficial, and the consideration of 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 terror when they do not stand in awe to[pg 257]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 hazard of condemnation, yet he is the greatest 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 wrath in his conscience as may make him think it was a foolish bargain. He may lose so much of the sweetness of the peace and joy of God as all the pleasures of sin cannot compense. Therefore to the end that you whose souls are once pacified by the blood of Christ, and composed by his word of promise, may enjoy that constant rest and tranquillity as not to be enthralled again to your old fears and terrors, I would advise and recommend to you these two things:—One is, that you would be much in the study of that allowance which the promises of Christ afford. Be much in the serious apprehension of the gospel, and certainly your doubts and fears would evanish 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 unblotted, 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 dreadful apprehensions of God. Certainly, it is impossible to preserve the spirit in freedom if a man be not watchful against sin and corruption. David prays,“re establish me with thy free Spirit,”as if his spirit had been abased, embondaged, and enthralled by the power of that corruption. If you would have your spirits kept free from the fear of wrath, study to keep them free from the power of sin, for that is but a fruit of this, and it is most suitable that the soul that cares not to be in bondage to sinful lusts, should, by the righteousness of God, tempered with love and wisdom, be brought under the bondage he would not, that is, of fear and terror, for by this means the Lord makes him know how evil the first is, by the bitterness 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 differ, the bondage of a soul after believing, and in its first conversion, and how far that bondage of fear is preparatory to faith, and many such like. But I choose rather to hold forth the simple and naked truth for your edification, than put you upon to entertain you in such needless 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 cries 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 jealousy 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 brings 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 weakness, wherein we are. And if at any time ye, through negligence and carelessness of walking, lose the comfortable evidence of the Father's love, and be reduced again to your old prison of legal terror, do not despair for that, do not think that such a thing could not befall a child of God, and from that ground do not raze former foundations, for the scripture saith not, that whosoever believes once in Christ, and receives the Spirit of adoption, cannot fear again; for we see it otherwise in David, in Heman, in Job, &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 gift, 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 privilege 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 it is a marvellous change,—a rebel condemned, and then pardoned, and then adopted to be a son of God,—a sinner under bondage, a bond slave to sin and Satan, not only freed from that intolerable bondage, but advanced to this liberty, to be made a son of God. This will be the continued wonder of[pg 258]eternity, and that whereabout the song of angels and saints will be. Accursed rebels expecting nothing but present death, sinners arraigned and sentenced before 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 privilege, to be the sons of God, to be taken from the gibbet to be crowned! That is the great mystery of wisdom and grace revealed in the gospel, the proclaiming whereof will be the joint labour of all the innumerable companies above for all eternity. Now, if you ask how this estate is attainable, himself tells us, John i. 12,“As many as believed (or received) him, to them he gave the privilege to be the sons of God.”The way is made plain and easy. 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 man's 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 therefore 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 privilege of sonship and adoption for his sake, who became our elder brother, Gal. iv. 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 of 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 brightness of his glory, in whom he delighted from eternity,—strange, I say, that he should in a manner lose 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 infinitely transcending nature,—such an act that hath an unsearchable mystery in it, into which angels desire to look and never cease looking, because they never see the bottom of it. It was not out of indigency he did it, not for any need he had of us, or comfort expected from us, but absolutely for our necessity and consolation, that he might have upon whom to pour the riches of his grace.

Verses 14, 15.—“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 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 life of Christianity, take it in itself, is the most pleasant and joyful life that can be, exempted from those fears and cares, those sorrows and anxieties, that all other lives are subject unto, for this of necessity must be the force and efficacy of true religion, if 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 completely furnished with all variety of delights to entertain 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 weakened, and too much ground is given to confirm the contrary misapprehensions of the world, who take it to be a sullen, melancholic, and disconsolate life, attended with many fears and sorrows. It is, alas! too evident, that many Christians are kept in bondage, almost all their lifetime, through fear of eternal death. How many dismal representations of sin and wrath, are 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 after conversion, and made to apprehend fearfully their own estate, who hath such constant uninterrupted peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, or lies under such direct beams of divine favour, but it is sometimes eclipsed, and their souls filled with the darkness of horror and terror? And truly the most part taste not so much sweetness in religion as makes them incessant and unwearied in the ways of godliness. Yet, notwithstanding of all this, we must vindicate Christianity itself, 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 itself it is capable. Indeed, it is true that often we are brought to fear again, yet withal 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 expel fear but bring in joy. I wish that this were deeply considered by all of us, that there is such a life as this attainable,—that the word of God doth not deceive us in promising fair things which it cannot perform, but that there is a certain reality in the life of Christianity, in that peace and joy, tranquillity and serenity of mind that is holden out, and that some have really found it, and do find it, and that the reason why all of us do not find it in experience, 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, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly 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 is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, I conceive there is nothing in the world so practicable as this,—nothing made so easy, so certain to a soul that really minds it.

Let us take it so then, the fault is not religion's, that those who profess 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 of men, but only puts a tincture on their outside, or because the faith of divine truths is so superficial, and the consideration of 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 terror when they do not stand in awe to[pg 257]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 hazard of condemnation, yet he is the greatest 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 wrath in his conscience as may make him think it was a foolish bargain. He may lose so much of the sweetness of the peace and joy of God as all the pleasures of sin cannot compense. Therefore to the end that you whose souls are once pacified by the blood of Christ, and composed by his word of promise, may enjoy that constant rest and tranquillity as not to be enthralled again to your old fears and terrors, I would advise and recommend to you these two things:—One is, that you would be much in the study of that allowance which the promises of Christ afford. Be much in the serious apprehension of the gospel, and certainly your doubts and fears would evanish 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 unblotted, 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 dreadful apprehensions of God. Certainly, it is impossible to preserve the spirit in freedom if a man be not watchful against sin and corruption. David prays,“re establish me with thy free Spirit,”as if his spirit had been abased, embondaged, and enthralled by the power of that corruption. If you would have your spirits kept free from the fear of wrath, study to keep them free from the power of sin, for that is but a fruit of this, and it is most suitable that the soul that cares not to be in bondage to sinful lusts, should, by the righteousness of God, tempered with love and wisdom, be brought under the bondage he would not, that is, of fear and terror, for by this means the Lord makes him know how evil the first is, by the bitterness 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 differ, the bondage of a soul after believing, and in its first conversion, and how far that bondage of fear is preparatory to faith, and many such like. But I choose rather to hold forth the simple and naked truth for your edification, than put you upon to entertain you in such needless 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 cries 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 jealousy 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 brings 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 weakness, wherein we are. And if at any time ye, through negligence and carelessness of walking, lose the comfortable evidence of the Father's love, and be reduced again to your old prison of legal terror, do not despair for that, do not think that such a thing could not befall a child of God, and from that ground do not raze former foundations, for the scripture saith not, that whosoever believes once in Christ, and receives the Spirit of adoption, cannot fear again; for we see it otherwise in David, in Heman, in Job, &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 gift, 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 privilege 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 it is a marvellous change,—a rebel condemned, and then pardoned, and then adopted to be a son of God,—a sinner under bondage, a bond slave to sin and Satan, not only freed from that intolerable bondage, but advanced to this liberty, to be made a son of God. This will be the continued wonder of[pg 258]eternity, and that whereabout the song of angels and saints will be. Accursed rebels expecting nothing but present death, sinners arraigned and sentenced before 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 privilege, to be the sons of God, to be taken from the gibbet to be crowned! That is the great mystery of wisdom and grace revealed in the gospel, the proclaiming whereof will be the joint labour of all the innumerable companies above for all eternity. Now, if you ask how this estate is attainable, himself tells us, John i. 12,“As many as believed (or received) him, to them he gave the privilege to be the sons of God.”The way is made plain and easy. 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 man's 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 therefore 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 privilege of sonship and adoption for his sake, who became our elder brother, Gal. iv. 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 of 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 brightness of his glory, in whom he delighted from eternity,—strange, I say, that he should in a manner lose 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 infinitely transcending nature,—such an act that hath an unsearchable mystery in it, into which angels desire to look and never cease looking, because they never see the bottom of it. It was not out of indigency he did it, not for any need he had of us, or comfort expected from us, but absolutely for our necessity and consolation, that he might have upon whom to pour the riches of his grace.

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