one part of it namely the Cup which is put for the whole and are made all to drink of the same Cup we are all of one and the self same Body as many as are in Christ are endued with the same Spirit not one endued with one Spirit and another endued with another Spirit but by one Spirit we are Baptized into one Body our Baptisme is one and our Food one it is altogether one though our condition in the world be never so different bond or free though our Countrey and Nation and Parish be never so various one to another one of one and another of another Jews and Gentiles we are all baptized into one Body and this is done by one and the self-same Spirit Now to speak of the putting of a man into the Body of Christ We will shew you these Five things First What this Body of Christ is Secondly What this putting of a man into it is Thirdly That this is done by the Spirit of God Fourthly How the Spirit of God doth it How a man is made part of the Body of Christ Fifthly The Application of the Point For the First What is this Body of Christ which the Spirit of God doth ingraft his people into In a word It is the invisible Church of God which is a peculiar company of men and women out of all Nations under heaven predestinated to eternal life gathered together by the Word and made all one in Christ This is the Body of Jesus Christ so that here are Five Things that are to be opened First It is the Church of God as the Apostle saith Col. 1. 18. He is the Head of the Body the Church So that the Church is the Body of Christ that same peculiar company of men and women as Saint Peter calls them You are a chosen generation a peculiar people a royal priesthood 1 Pet. 2. 9. The Author to the Hebrews calls them The Assembly of the first born Heb. 12. 23. And Christ himself calls them A little flock in regard of the multitude of other people that is in the world and are not of this brotherhood Now I call this invisible for though their persons and courses and manner of life be seen and known and they may be known who they are yet all of them were never known nor ever will be there may be more then we can tell and fewer then we think of The foundation of God is sure having this seal The Lord knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2. 19. The Lord had seven thousand in Israel that had not bent their knees to Baal when Eliah could see never a one So that this is the First Thing it is the invisible Church of God Secondly It 's such a company as is gathered out of all Nations under heaven As Saint John speaks Rev. 7. 9. After this behold and loe I saw a great multitude of all Nations Countryes and Tongues c. Though it be a little Flock in respect of the Reprobate yet it is a great multitude considered in it self and they stood before the throne before the Lambe with long white Robes and with Palms in their hands This white Robe is the Righteousnesse of Christ Jesus imputed which begets another Righteousnesse which is inherent in some measure and the Palms in their hands is the sign of Victory over Sin Death and Hell and this is a great multitude and it was out of all Cities Nations and Kindreds of the world and therefore our Saviour Christ speaking of his own taking of this company home unto himself at the last day see what he speaks Matth. 24. 31. He shall send his Angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather his Elect from the four Winds from the one end of the Earth to the other The Lord gathers here one and there another as a man would gather a Posie in a Garden here a flower and there a flower This is Another Thing in the Body of Christ it is a Company gathered out of all Nations and People and Places at one time or other Thirdly This same godly Company are a Company of Predestinated men unto Eternal life For there are none but the chosen of God that are the true Body of Christ this is a company only of Elect men and women and babes therefore they are called Elect Rom. 8. 33. They are such a company as are written in the Lamb's Book of life Rev. 21. 27. Therefore all those that seem to be of God and go a great way with the people of God and yet turn back as Orphah from Naomi Ruth 1. They were never of this number 1 Joh. 2. 19. They were not of us they went out from us if they had been of us they would have continued with us So that it is only the Elect of God that are of this Company that are the Members of this Body Fourthly It is such a godly Company as is gathered by the Word of God The Word of God gathers them together they as well as other people by nature are of another Body of another Corporation as vile and as wretched and as miserable in themselves if left to themselves but God found them when he passed by them and said to them Live they were defiled as well as others in their bloud but the Lord turned their hearts by the Word doth beget them again thereby This is that immortal seed whereby God doth beget them again unto eternal life Fifthly They are such a company as are made one knit and combined together in Christ though themselves are never so many and never so remote and distant from one another may be they never saw one another nor ever heard of one another one lives in one Country another in another one in one parish another in another and have little bodily communion and are not known one to another may be some of this company are in heaven already and some upon earth yet they are all one in Christ they all meet together in one heart and soul in Christ Jesus they are all of one minde in him as being all one body as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 12. 12. and they are all one seed Gal. 3. 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the Promises made He saith not To seeds as if they were many but To thy seed as of one that is Christ that is which is Christ and all that are Christs they are one seed the seed of the woman indeed all men come forth of the womans loins the wicked as well as the godly only here is the difference The one is the seed of God the other of the Serpent Now Christ and all that are Christs are one and the self-same seed though they are different in Place different in Countrey different in estate and condition some Jews some Gentiles some Bond some Free some Noble some Mean yet they are all one in Christ Jesus as the Apostle
Life in them We may see it Acts 13. 50. there it is said that the Jews stirred up certain devout and honourable women and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them out of their Coasts Though they hated Paul and Barnabas yet they are said to be devout and honourable women They imagined they were very Devout they conceived they were Religious How many men and women are there that think they are righteous and they will do many duties and take many good courses in so much that it would pity a man to think they should goe to hell they will be very Zealous they will be very Earnest against Drunkennesse and cry out against the abominations of the times they are marvellous devout and godly and yet a man that is Devout and godly in truth and in deed they cannot abide him but hate him Now if the Law should come home unto them and discover how indeed it is with them it would humble their souls and pull down their spirits and make them dead so that this presumptuous hope that men are in good terms with God and that God will be merciful to them and forgive them their sins this makes them to be alive 2. We come now to the Second thing and that is the Effect of this livelynesse what Effects it works in the heart and the Effects of this Livelynesse are Four 1. First It makes them sound and heart-whole like a boyl unlaunched it is yet sound The true sight of sin and wrath of God in the soul is able to break the heart of any man it is able to dead his spirit and kill all the livelynesse that is in him and make him have little life to go on as he doth But so long as the Law of God is not come home to a man though he have no title to heaven though hell be the portion of his cup yet he is as sound as can be as heart-whole as may be let carnal comfort come he can take it let pleasures come he is able to delight himself therewith and go on in his course as if he ailed nothing Prov. 18. 14. the Wise man saith the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmities but a wounded spirit who can bear When the Lord comes to wound a mans heart with the sight of his sins and the fearful condition he is in what a cursed creature he is having no mercy and being out of Christ having no pardon no grace no holinesse but lyeth under the curse of God If the Law thus come home and wounds his Conscience he is not able to bear it this man let carnal comforts come he is not able to take them it kills the heart Look as it is with the Stomack if it can take meat and digest it it must needs be alive for if the Stomack be dead it can digest nothing So for the tast if a mans palat and all the instruments of the tast be dead he takes no delight in any meats so there is a kind of soundnesse in the Soul that is the reason why a man can delight in carnal pleasures in Drinking and Sporting and in Profit and Gain There is a kind of soundnesse and livelinesse in the heart the heart is not yet broken If the Law come and take the hearts life away this wil pull down the heart it will make a mans heart even break it will pull down his spirit But a man whom the Law hath not yet humbled and shewed him his damned estate his heart is yet whole and sound When the Law of God had but a little killed Ahabs heart you might see it in his very gate he went softly he could not tread so confidently upon the ground as he was wont to do it tamed his very steps it is wonderful how his heart was broken it appeared in his very going up and down When the Law comes home to a man it is able to kill his heart and makes him Soul-sick and makes him cry out O the wretchednesse of my heart it makes a man sick at the heart it lyes like a heavy Plague upon the heart and conscience it will make a man sick of his sins it will make him even at deaths door with his sins it will make him say with Paul when the Commandment came sin revived and I dyed But another man though he hath evident demonstration that he is a dead man yet the Law of God hath not pulled down his heart sicknesse will pull down a mans Stomack so when the Law of God comes home to a mans Conscience and makes him sick it makes him yield and pulls down his Stomack Many men are crazy and sickly and yet they lye not by it but walk up and down and go abroad but if they were heart sick it would pull them down and make them lye by it So many a carnal man may have some qualms of sin but yet their hearts can go abroad after profits and pleasures after vanities and delights they can goe abroad for all this But when the Law comes home it will pull down a mans spirit and make him heart-sick This is the meaning of that place The whole need not a Physician but the sick Mat. 9. 12. Every carnal man so long as he is not humbled and broken under the sight of his sins his heart is yet whole his spirit is yet sound he is not yet wounded as the Prophet Isaiah speaks Isa 1. 6. from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is nothing but wounds and swellings and sores full of corruption there is no soundnesse in him He is indeed full of wounds but the skin is yet sound it is not broken he feels it not the Law hath not yet discovered his estate unto him This is the first effect of this livelynesse it makes men to be sound and heart-whole 2. The Second effect of this livelynesse when a man is alive in the non-appearance of his dead and damned estate alive in performance alive in presumption and self-justifying and self-hopes The effect of it is that he is fearless the more lively the more fearless First the Object must dead the heart before it can make the heart fear so long as the heart is stout the livelynesse that is in the heart is able to keep out fear So the livelinesse of a sinner makes the heart fearlesse and secure A man would wonder how any creature durst provoke God it is almost beyond the reach of true reason how any creature should dare to provoke God to consider what infinite danger he is in to have the wrath of the God of heaven and earth to hang over his head to be under the hand of revenging Justice to pull down all the Woes and Plagues and Comminations of God upon the Soul that a man should do this and yet be secure it would make a man wonder at it But a man that hath this livelynesse he can provoke God and yet be
the Watchmen watch in vain I answer 'T is true indeed unlesse the Lord keeps a mans soul all a mans watching is nothing But I tell thee If thou watchest thou hast two watchers thou hast God to watch over thee and thy self to watch over thee thou hast God to watch over thee and keep thee in all thy wayes and then thou watchest over thy self and art sustained by God so that thou hast two watchers God above and thy own soul within thee employed about this work A Fourth reason is Because this is the very means prescribed by God to do us good It is the very remedy that the Lord of heaven hath appointed unto us to save us from danger and keep us from falling the Lord hath sanctified this means to this very end and purpose therefore when our Saviour Christ would disswade his people from carking and caring for the things of this life Luke 21. 36. see what means he prescribeth and layeth down to do it Be watchful saith he and pray the world is ready to get in therefore watch saith he and pray alwayes that you may be accounted worthy to escape these things So that we see this the means prescribed by God himself to escape the falling into sin Fifthly Again We should be so much the more careful in this watch because no other can watch for us in outward things one man may watch while another sleepeth as in sailing when all the rest are asleep there is one watcheth so in war when all the Souldiers lye in their tents asleep it may be some few are watching that the rest may take their rest but it is not so in regard of our souls one man cannot watch while another man sleeps but every man must watch over his own heart If we do not watch our own souls we shall perish and if we do not perish everlastingly we shall have miserable temptations and evils and many inconveniences we shall be exposed unto But some may say Are not Ministers to watch over us How then is every man to watch over himself Ministers are watchmen Son of man I have made thee a watchman over the house of Israel saith the Lord to the Prophet Ezekiel and Heb. 13. 17. The Apostle speaking of Ministers saith They watch for your souls I Answer The word in the Original is not for your souls but over your souls to watch for a man is to watch for another that he may not watch as when a man watcheth for his neighbor that his neighbour may not watch but the Ministers are not so to watch for the people that the people may not watch but the Ministers are to watch over the people that they may watch as when a man watcheth Deer or Hawkes he watcheth them that they may watch and not sleep that so he may tame them as a man that watcheth with a man which is sick of the Lethargy which is such a Disease that if a man be let sleep he goeth away in his sleep therefore their friends stand about them to watch over them that they may not sleep knowing that if they do sleep their lives are hazarded and if they see them but to slumber they awaken them lest in their sleep they die and go away So it is with the Ministers of the Gospel we ought to watch over your souls that you may not sleep for you are all sick of the Lethargy of sin and if ye sleep you go away if you be not careful for heaven and heavenly things if you follow vanity and security of heart and do not take heed to avoid sin your souls will die therefore the Ministers are to watch over you and keep you from sleeping and shew you the danger of it and labour to awaken you and keep your eyes waking The First Use is To condemne the infinite security that is grown upon people that though it be so excellent a duty for a man to watch yet where is the man almost that is careful of it They put this duty over to God as if it did not belong to them they will watch over outward things for plowing and sowing and reaping and the like but for the good of their souls they never acquaint themselves with this watching their hearts are like the wildernesse as the wildernesse is open for all wild-beasts so their hearts are open for all temptations that is the reason they have such dead hearts and cold affections that is the reason they look so little after salvation and eternal life because people never look after this duty of watchfulness nay they are so far from watching how to be saved that they watch how the divel may take them when a man sins he wisheth the Divel would help him to more sin a covetous man is so far from watching over his sin that he would have more opportunities and more occasions of getting the Devil cannot come fast enough to fill his heart with these things So if a man be given to pleasure he thinks he cannot have enough but would have more still Thus people would have the Divel put more corn into the hopper they are so far from watching for good that they watch for evil they devise evil upon their beds as the Prophet Micah speaks they are possessed with the spirit of slumber they have eyes and see not they have eares and hear not hearts and understand not they do not know what watchfulnesse is if they do they are the lesse excusable because they practice it not they do not watch and wake unto Prayer that they may not enter into temptation but are carried away with the world and sin The Second Use is To them that are Godly in some measure that we cannot say they altogether do not watch yet how negligent are they in this duty Many Christians are there among us that have some goodnesse in them yet how doth this duty lye unpractised whence come all the vanities in our minds and untowardnesse in the Ordinances of God whence comes all unfruitfulness in our meetings and unsettlednesse in our Consciences it is because we do not watch Whence comes it that we are no more ready to good duties When we are called forth on the sudden to pray or do any thing for the good of Gods Church and People that we are so unfit to do it and so backward it is for want of watchfulness Nay what is the reason that we perform not the Worship of God in our Families better but because we do not watch the very regenerate themselves what a world of mischief do they do to their own souls for want of this duty of watchfulness How do they swell in sin and are slack in goodnesse and slubber over Gods service How do they favour themselves too too much and suffer the dishonour of God by the wicked and suffer their own hearts to dishonour him too too much Thirdly The next Vse shall be to shew
saith Gal. 3 28. There is neither Jew nor Grecian there is neither bond nor free there is neither male nor female for ye are all one in Christ Jesus 'T is true you are different among your selves one is a master another a servant one is a rich man another a poor man so there is a difference but they are all one in Christ Jesus they have all one and the self-same Faith they have all one and the self-same Father there is but one Lord and one Spirit to quicken and unite them all Thus we see what this Body of Christ is Now in the Second place What it is to be put into this Body to be implanted into it to be knit into this Body I Answer in a few words it is this It is a part of a mans Ingrafting into Christ by Faith whereby a man is ingrafted into the Body of Christ having one common life with all the rest of the Members for mutual consent and profit and care and help and sympathy or fellow-feeling First It is a part of a mans ingrafting into Christ For the ingrafting of a man into Christ and into the body of Christ are not Two things but God doth them by one and the self-same act as you may see Rom. 12. 5. We being many are one body in Christ and every one Members one of another that is by being Members of Christ and by being ingrafted into Christ we come to have fellowship and conjunction and joyning one with another it must needs be the same work for the putting a man into Christ in whom are the other Members that very act makes a man to have fellowship with Christ together with all the other Members as the Apostle speaks Rom. 11. 17. Though some of the branches be broken off and thou being a wilde olive tree wast grafted in for them and made partaker of the root When a man is ingrafted into this Olive tree he is ingrafted with the rest of Christs Members and he doth partake together with the other Members of the same root and of the same Gifts and Graces God doth both under one Therefore though I handle this after the other it is because I cannot handle them both at once Saint John saith 1 Joh. 1. 7. If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another So that if a man be in Christ he hath communion with the Body of Christ if he hath fellowship with Christ he hath fellowship with the Body of Christ so that you see the Spirit doth both by one and the self-same act as the Apostle saith Ephes 2. 12. Ye were at that time without Christ and aliants from the common-wealth of Israel It is all one thing to say that a man is out of Christ and an aliant from the common-wealth of Israel without that corporation without that Body he is no Member of that Body therefore it follows on the other side If a man be in Christ and ingrafted into Christ then he is of this society he is of the common-wealth of the Israel of God So that this is the First Thing It is a part of a mans ingrafting into Christ Secondly This likewise is done by Faith When a man is ingrafted into Christ he is ingrafted into him by Faith As the Apostle saith Rom. 11. 23. And they also if they abide not in unbelief shall be grafted in for God is able to graft them As who should say If ever they have Faith they are ingrafted into Christ it is Faith that ingrafts a man into Christ and the same Faith that makes a man to be of the Body of Christ that puts a man into the number of the Members of Christ as Paul saith To Titus my Son in the common Faith Tit. 1. 4. that is it is such a Faith as doth not only ingraft this man into Christ but the very self-same Faith another man having it it doth ingraft him into the Body of Christ too So that it is a common Faith whereby one is ingrafted into the Body of Christ as well as another as Act. 2. 44. They were all of one minde and one heart they all hung together as one body they imparted their gifts and the things they had even to their very Lands and Goods one to another here was a sweet communion but then what was the reason of this What was the Instrument that wrought this It was Faith for the text saith they were believers or else they could not have done it And therefore as we are said to come to Christ so to the Body of Christ as Heb. 12. 22. But ye are come to Mount Zion to the City of the living God the celestial Jerusalem and to the company of innumerable Angels and to the congregation of the first born which are written in heaven You are come he speaks of a spiritual coming by Faith So that this putting into the Body of Christ is by Faith Then in the Third place It makes a man have a common life with all the rest of the Members of Jesus Christ As you may see Col. 3. 4. When Christ which is our life shall appear ye also shall appear with him in glory Christ who is our life We that are the people of God Christ is our life we have one and the self-same life all one and the self-same minde in the wayes of God As it is said Act. 4. 32. The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul all the people of God in the whole world would quickly be acquainted if they were brought together for they are all of one and the self-same disposition and mind As our Saviour speaks to his Father Joh. 17. 21. That they all may be one as thou art in me and I in thee so that all they may be one in us As the Three Persons in the blessed Trinity are three distinct Persons and yet are all one so in some sense the Members of the Body of Christ though they be of several callings and conditions in the world yet they are all one that they may be all one as we are one vers 21. They all live by the same rule and walk by the same rule they are all guided by the same Word and swayed by the same Commandment they all walk in one Way they all Pray by one and the self-same Spirit they have a life that is common look as one lives so lives another look as one repents so another repents look as one believes so another believes and look as one apprehends of God and comes before him with affection and fear and trembling so doth another though they never saw one another yet they all meet in the same life for they have the same root of life the same cause of life In the Fourth place It makes a man to be of one consent with all the people of God every where As you may see Zeph. 3. 9.