strength and comfort is thine. Lean not upon thine own wisdom; trust not thine own righteousness; arrogate nothing to thyself but impotency to good: no strength of thyself, but against thyself, and God's grace; no power but to resist and withstand the Spirit. But rest only upon the promises and power of him who is Alpha and Omega, the author and finisher of thy faith;' who is a head to take care of his weakest members. When thou art as weak as a worm in

thine own sense, yet Fear not, O worm Jacob"; be not dismayed, O men of Israel,' saith the Lord; for I am thy God, I will strengthen thee, I will help thee, yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness,' that is, with the strength of my truth and promises. 'How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?' It is spoken to backsliding Ephraim; 'How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah, how shall I set thee as Zeboim?" that is, How shall I make mine own church as the cities of Sodom? 'My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together:'-and mark the reason of all: I am God and not man.' Though you are men, subject to many changes and miscarriages, yet I am not a man, that I should repent of my goodness, and therefore I will not turn to destroy Ephraim.

1

But now as men who look upon the sun, when they look downward again upon darker objects, can scarce see or distinguish any thing; so ought it to be with us: our looking up unto God, should make us see nothing in ourselves, but matter to be humbled by, and driven back unto him again. If once the strong man begin to glory in his strength, or the wise man in his wisdom; if our prosperity and security make us resolve with David, that we shall never be moved; if, because we find our corruptions wounded and mortified, we begin to insult over them more with our pride, than with our faith; how easy and just is it with God to let in Satan upon us, to remove his hand from under us, to overshadow and withdraw his countenance from us, to set on our very wounded corruptions upon us, to burn up our city, and, peradventure, to plunge us in the guilt of some such fearful sins, as, at the very names and first suggestions whereof, we would happily before have been startled and amazed? Alas

h Isai. xli. 10. 14.

what are we to David and Peter, to Solomon and Hezekiah, men of such daily communion and intimate acquaintance with the Almighty! And yet, notwithstanding, what fearful testimonies have they left upon record, for all posterity to take notice what a frail and inconstant creature man is, when once God's Spirit departs from him;-that the strength of the greatest champions in the church of God, is but like the strength of Samson, of whom, in all his great exploits, the Scripture saith, that 'The Spirit of the Lord came upon him;' and when he was overcome, that the Lord was departed from him.' We should therefore labour to rejoice in the Lord with trembling, to work out our salvation with fear1;' to pray that we may be delivered from ourselves, and from the trains of Satan; that we may never know, by our own fearful experience, into what an incredible excess of sinning, our flesh, though otherwise mortified, would break forth,if God should a little subduct his hand, and give us over awhile to the violence of our own passions, to the treachery of our own hearts. We should be very watchful and cautious against ourselves, that we presume not to sin, because grace hath abounded: "How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein ?" saith the apostle ". What a monstrous perverting of the grace and mercy of God is this, to build straw and stubble upon so precious a foundation! Surely we would esteem that man prodigiously foolish and contumelious unto nature, who should spend his time, substance, and industry to find out a perverse philosopher's stone, that should turn all the gold it touched, into lead or dross: how injurious then and reproachful are they to the grace of God, who extract their own presumptions out of his mercy, and turn the redundancy of divine grace into advantage and privilege of sinning! As if God's mercy had no other use than a dog's grass, or a drunkard's vomit, or a Papist's confession to his priest ", to absolve us for some sins that there might be room made for more. Surely grace teacheth men to make other conclusions from God's mercy. "Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may keep thy word," was David's inference from God's favour. And St. Paul assures us P, that none but hard and impenitent hearts

i Judg. xiv. 6. 19. xv. 14. xvi. 20. vi. 1. n Sir Edwin Sandys' relation.

k Psal. ii. 11. 1 Phil. ii. 12. m Rom.

• Psal. cxix. 17. p Rom. ii. 4, 5.

despise the goodness and riches of God's patience and forbearance, not knowing that the goodness of God should lead them to repentance." It is the work of grace to reimprint the image of God in us; to conform us unto Christ; to bend and incline the heart to a spiritual delight in the law; to remove, in some measure, the ignorance of our minds, that we may see the beauty and wonders of God's law, and the difficulty and frowardness of the fleshly will against grace, that God's commands may not be grievous, but sweet

unto us.

These are the branches and properties of that life, which we have from Christ. And we have them from him as the Son, as a middle person between us and his Father. First, Because the Son hath his Father's seal; hath judgment", power, liberty to dispose of and dispense life and salvation to whom he will. "Labour for the meat that endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you; for him hath God the Father sealed." Secondly, Because the Son is in his Father's bosom', hath his heart, his ear, his affections; and therefore he is heard always" in whatsoever he desireth for any of his members: and this interest in his Father's love was that, by which he raised Lazarus unto life again. Lastly, He that hath the Son, hath the greatest gift which the Father ever gave unto the world. He cannot deny life, where he hath given the Son; he cannot withhold silver, where he hath given gold and diamonds: "If he spared not his Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things *?”

Now our life is conveyed from Christ unto us, first, by imputation of his merit, whereby our persons are made righteous and acceptable unto God. Secondly, by infusion or communion with his Spirit, which sanctifies our nature, and enables us to do spiritual services. For though we exclude works from justification formally considered; yet we require them of every justified man: neither doth any faith justify, but that which worketh by love; though it justify not under that reason as a working faith, but under that relative office of receiving and applying Christ. Thirdly, by his life and intercession, applying his merits unto us, and presenting our

4 John v. 26, 27.

r Matt. xxviii. 18. u John xi. 42.

s John vi. 27. x Rom. viii. 32.

t John i. 18.

services unto his Father, as lively sacrifices, cleansed from those mixtures of deadness and corruption, which, as passing from us, did cleave unto them.

Having thus unfolded our life by Christ, we are, in the last place, to enquire into that propriety which we have unto Christ, which is the ground of the life we receive from him. For one thing cannot be the principle and seed of life unto another, except there be some union and fellowship, which may be the ground of the conveyance: and this is that which the text calls the having of Christ,' which is the same with that of Saint John, "To as many as received him, he gave power to be called the sons of God." So then there must be a mutual act: Christ exhibiteth himself unto us, and we adhere and dwell in him: whereby there is wrought a unity of wills, a confederacy of affections, a participation of natures, a concurrence to the making up of the same body; so that Christ accounteth himself incomplete without his church. This union of the faithful to Christ, being one of those deep things of God,' which are not discernible without the Spirit, is yet set forth unto us in the Scriptures, under sundry vulgar and obvious similitudes, which I will but touch upon.

It is first set forth by the expression of a body, consisting of divers members, Rom. xii. 4, 5. 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13. Eph. i. 22, 23. In which places the purpose of the Apostle is to shew, how that the proportion, that is between Christ and his church, answereth to that relation, which is between the members of a body and the head. For as, in the natural body, all the members are joined by nerves and vital ligatures unto the head, from whence they receive their strength and sensation, and do, by virtue of that union to the head, retain a fellowship and communion amongst themselves; so is it between Christ and his church. Every member of the true and mystical body of Christ is, by a secret knot of his Spirit, so fastened unto him, and so compacted with the other members by that which every joint supplieth, as that the whole world of elect, from Christ the head and first-born of

y John i. 12. z Nostra et ipsius conjunctio, nec miscet personas, nec unit substantias, sed affectus consociat, et confederat voluntates. Cypr. de cœna Domini.

the creatures, unto the lowest and meanest of all his members, do make up but one body, unto which Christ, by being the head, hath these principal relations :-First, he is the principle of all spiritual influences, as the head of natural." All the grace in us is but an overflowing and measure from his fulness. Secondly, he is the principle of all government and direction; all the wisdom and prudence of the church is from him. He is the everlasting council, or the light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world; the power and the wisdom of God unto us. Thirdly, he is conformable to the members (for Christ's church is no monster) and maketh them conformable unto him; he to us in our infirmities, tempted in all things, as we are; and we to him, in his holiness. He that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one. Now as, in a body, we resolve the whole into no parts but those which are integral and proper to it in the nature of a living and organical body, namely, the members; though many things else are in the body, yet nothing belongs integrally unto it, but the members ;so many men are in the body of Christ, only by an external and sacramental admission, or by some false and presumptuous persuasions and professions, as wens or excrements in the natural body; they do no services, they exercise no vital and spiritual functions, but rather cumber and infest the members.

Secondly, This union is compared unto a 'building' or "house" whose stones are knit together by the juncture and bond of love, and are firmly grounded upon the elect, precious, and sure foundation; who as he doth, by his power, 'uphold all things,' so much more those, that are built upon him. Now as, in a structure, the stones cannot subsist in the building by any qualities or inherent virtues of their own, but only by that direct and perpendicular dependance, and subsistence which they have upon the foundation; so, in the church, no graces, no carvings, no inherent excellencies do hold men up, but only that full and sole reliance and subsistence of the soul upon Christ. If a man have any other bottom that holds him up,-if he be not even

a Vid. Aquin. part. 3. q.8. art. a. Bonavent. dist. 3. q. 13. de gratia capitis. Ephes. ii. 20, 21. 1 Tim. iii. 14. 2 Pet. ii. 5. c Heb. i. 3.

b

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