or sword Nay in all these things we are more then conquerors through Christ that loved us Indeed tribulation and hunger and famine they are sad things but these are the least troubles of a Christian these outward miseries Over these we are more then Conquerors saith Paul I can tie my right hand at my back and with my left hand beat all these back I can beat them with a finger Nay I say more Neither death nor life that is more nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. See there how he dares all the Enemies to come upon the Stage and tramples them under feet As in Malachi it is said that in the time of the Gospel they shall tread their enemies as ashes under their feet So there is a place also in 1 Cor. 15. Death is swallowed up in victory As if he had said You that have received Jesus Christ I will tell you news Death is swallowed up in victory O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory He jeers the grave and death and triumphs over them O death where is thy sting thou thoughtest to overcome me but where is thy sting The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law but thanks be unto God who hath given us victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. He doth not say which will give us victory when we are dead and then we shall be perfect in Heaven it is true then we shall be more perfect but he saith which hath given us victory for the present I have already over come Hell and Death and the Devil for all hangs on the law the law is Gods Writ and the Devil is Gods Sergeant that executes that Writ and Hell is the Prison Therefore if the law be satisfied if the righteousness of the law be fulfilled Death and Hell and the Devil have nothing to do with me So in Rom. 4. 25. Who was delivered for our offences and was raised for our justification And then it follows Chap. 5. 1. Being justified by faith we have peace with God See where the Apostle layes justification And we glory in tribulation knowing that it worketh patience c. We rejoice in tribulation and affliction Why because we are justified by Christs death and resurrection O what kinde of spirits should we have How full of joy and comfort should we be in the greatest tribulation How should we tread all this world under our feet the evils of this world and the comforts of the world How should we insult and triumph over the Devil and over Death and Hell for all their power as I said is from the law and if the righteousness of the law be fulfilled then all our enemies are subdued and all is clear Heaven is open and God is mine and the favour of God is to me For know this that there is no natural inbred hatred in God to his creature there is nothing that keeps the creature from the full enjoyment of God but the law not being satisfied God made a law and we made the breach of it and there falls out the distance between the Creatures and God whether Men or Devils Now then if I can say though I be a sinful man yet Jesus Christ hath fulfilled the law the law hath a full righteousness to a farthing then I know I am one with God he is wholly for me and I for him and all the enemies of my Salvation are conquered Now if the Lord would open your eyes to understand the hope of your calling the glorious condition you are brought into you would not walk so weakly and poorly and sadly and dejectedly that every thing should cast you down but you would go on and trample all the world under your feet we should be above men and Devils and the world and every thing if we did but understand to what a glorious estate God hath called us in this world through Jesus Christ Therefore a man reflecting upon his justification as he may look upon himself and account himself something so he may account Death and Hell and all subdued and he may account that the law cannot demand a farthing of him That whereas the breach of the law kept us from communion with God that being taken away we are as righteous as if we had never fallen O glorious condition There Paul Eph. 1. he prayes that they might know the riches and hope of their calling that is that they might understand what this glorious calling is that God hath called us to That is a second Lesson we should learn hence First seeing the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us we should learn how to build our Justification aright how to lay the foundation of it And secondly we should endeavour to get our spirits raised like people that are freed from the law Vse 3. Thirdly and there I shall end for this time being freely and fully justified by the grace of Jesus Christ this should follow to any one that understands it that therefore we should study and learn to conform our selves in our hearts and lives out of love to the will of God There comes in holiness and there it comes in amain and never before all before is nothing but bungling but then it comes rightly We should I say conform our selves to the Example and to the Rule of Jesus Christ in his Gospel And that you may understand that you must know that every man in this world hath a rule to walk by And there are but three great Rules and all men do and must conform to one of these three for there is no man that doth an action but it is in reference to a Rule 1. Now you have one Rule in 1 Pet. 1. 14. As obedient children not fashioning your selves according to the lusts of your former ignorance which shews that once they did conform themselves they did fashion themselves unto their lusts but saith he now God hath justified you you must not conform your selves to your lusts Most of mankinde make their lusts their rule which the Prophet calls in Scripture to do that which is right in their own eyes to do what is their minde what they like in their own minde and as that worthy Dr. Preston saith they think when they are in their beds what place they shall go to and where they shall spend their time and when they are up they do that which is right in their own eyes what they have a lust to when they have a lust to be drunk they will be drunk when they have a lust to be filthy they will be filthy when they have a lust to be idle or a lust to be malicious against their neighbours they will be so So that the stirrings of their lusts are their rule and their whole life
waiting for the Adoption to wit the redemption of our body The meaning is there is no man knows what that glory is that is to be revealed nor no man what it is to look for it and expect it The word in the Original is as one saith as a woman looks for deliverance when her pains are on her Oh! she would fain be delivered or as a man in Prison that looks for his Friend out of a window he puts out his head and looks but he cannot get out though he fain would Such an earnest hope and expectation and desire there is in the Saints that walk according to the Spirit to see Jesus Christ come and to enjoy that glory that is to be revealed There are many more expressions there that are the fruits of it as the spirit of supplication ver 26. and there is also a triumphing over all our spiritual enemies ver 31. What shall we say 〈…〉 God be with us who can be against us c And then there is an absolute dependance upon God for all things He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him give us all things And then there is also a patient suffering of all afflictions saith the Apostle ver 18. I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed And then there is lastly an absolute eternal union with Jesus Christ in respect of his love I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor any thing shall ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. These are the expressions of the fruits of the Spirit of God in the Soul when men walk according to the Spirit when they walk according to grace Take a man that walks according to the flesh or according to the law you shall finde none of these kinde of things in his soul So much concerning that Use Vse 3. In the next place as this Doctrine is a Touchstone whereby you may try and judge of mens persons so hereby also you may try your services and actions I say this is a rule whereby you may come to know what your services are what worth is in them For as they onely are Saints who walk according to the Spirit let the world judge how they will and those that walk carnally according to the flesh according to the law are not Saints so I say those actions or services of ours that proceed from the spirit of God they are only pleasing to God and those that proceed from the flesh from Old Adam they are not pleasing to him Now I say by this we may try our services and actions as well as our persons for there is the same reason for both in all my actions all that I expect from them is that they be pleasing to God that is the end of all that we do for they cannot justifie us that is done already or if it be not they cannot do it but all is to be pleasing to God Now then the main Rule by which I am to judge of my actions it is this not to judge of them according as they are plausible to men or according as they have affection or enlargement in them as we call it but we are to judge of our actions chiefly if not principally by the principle that they flow from if it be the weakest and meanest action if it be the least sigh or prayer if it proceed from the New Adam the Lord Jesus it is sweet and pleasing to God it is an acceptable sacrifice But if it be the most glorious thing in the world if it proceed from Old Adam not only from sinful Adam but from naturall Adam as he is called the naturall man 1 Cor. 15. I say that that riseth from natural wisdome and invention and understanding and memory c it is but flesh and whatsoever is born of flesh is flesh and as we say Pepper is Pepper that is it is dear so flesh is flesh that is it is a filthy abominable thing to God as it is in this Chapter They that walk according to the flesh cannot please God So that that is born of the flesh that service that ariseth from the flesh that is done from the flesh cannot please God Quest But you will say Cannot the actions that proceed from the principles of natural Adam be pleasing to God Every man knows that of corrupt Adam cannot but cannot that of natural Adam As a man may pray meerly by a naturall wit and bravely to please man and to please himself and he may Preach by a natural wit and do other Exercises and do them finely cannot they be pleasing to God Answ No this is a certain rule that there is nothing that comes from flesh from a principle of Old Adam whether it be naturally good or evil there is nothing whether from pure Adam or from corrupt Adam that is pleasing to God The reason is this Because as it is Gen. 3. 5. that when Adam sinned against God you know his punishment was that he should die he was not to eat or touch the forbidden fruit lest he should die Now when Adam eat of that fruit you know the Curse came upon him and in reference to this you shall finde those phrases in this Epistle Whosoever walks according to the flesh shall die whosoever walks as Old Adam is in the state of the old Curse He shall die and O miserable man who shall deliver me from this body of death He calls it a body of death alluding to the main Curse of Old Adam which was that he should die Now when the Lord said that Adam should die for sin conceive not that the meaning is onely that he should die personally that his person now should be subject to the wrath of God to damnation of soul and body for ever in Hell that is not the onely meaning of it it is true he fell under that but the meaning is this also that whole Adam Adam as thou art a publick person thou shalt die that whereas I made and appointed thee to be the Spring and Foundation of all Mankinde and every man in the world is to have thy Image on him and I have filled thee with righteousness and wisdome and good things that may tend much to thy happiness and thy posterity that thou mayest derive a principle to them to be like thee in good and to be pleasing to me But when Adam sinned now saith God thou shalt die I made thee a happy Creature and put abundance of excellencies in thee for thy self and thy posterity as a publick person but now thou hast sinned and extinguished all that good Now I will blast them all thy wisdome and thy righteousness thy soul and thy body thy very being Adam shall die Thy person as thou art a private man and as
that the Father hath given the Son that honour and respect in heaven as to come and sit at his right hand we may see it was not a breaking of prison but a real paying of the debt and a fulfilling the law before he could come there This may give a little light how the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us through Jesus Christ Now the use of it I named in the morning I was not able to express it neither can I now fully utter it I beseech you consider the more of it Vse 1. The first Use we may make of it is this that you should learn from what I have said where your justification doth lye your justification doth not lye or is not built upon any thing that is in you or that is done by you or that you may hope to do hereafter you are not justified by your own personal good or unjustified by your own personal evils you are not one jot the more just when you have done all the good you can in the world and you are not one jot the less just when you have committed all the weaknesses and fallen into all the frailties that a Saint can fall into because your justification is built onely upon Christ and upon what he did and suffered My justification is built upon the death of Christ and his resurrection he hath fulfilled the law he hath paid the debt and he is out of prison the Father is satisfied here is my justification and I believing this I am happy Now you shall finde that you lay a great part of your justification upon something in your selves therefore when you are enlarged in good then you think you are more justified and when you fall into sin you think you are more unjust then you were before and you look strangely upon God Now the Lord hath put it out of our hands Adam should have been justified by that that was in him and that should have been done by him but blessed be God he would not trust us with that good any more but hath put all in the hands of Jesus Christ and there is the whole foundation of our justification Therefore it is not for a Christian to come and say Sir I fear I am no childe of God I fear I shall prove an hypocrite why so because I finde so much sin and so many lusts in me It is very well that you finde and feel sin and that you mourn for and strive against sin but that therefore you should think there is a flaw in your justification that you should make any good that is in you a prop to support your justification or any evil in you a thing that might crack your justification this is Popery My justification depends not on this that I am justified the more when I am strong or less justified when I am weak but whether I be weak or strong whether I do much or little for God whether I give thanks or be humbled seeing Christ is dead and risen again I am justified that is still intire because it is not built upon me but wholly upon the death and resurrection of Christ In Rom. 4. Abraham is laid down as a pattern of believing Abraham had the word of faith So shall thy seed be and without hope or reason or any thing he believed that is he cast himself on that word so it is said he was justified without works What a strange thing is that for it is impossible there should be true faith but that all good works should in some measure follow after but if we speak properly and look to the thing as it is in it self how a man is justified he is justified wholly without works Abraham did many good things he offered his son Isaac and he relieved his Kinsman when he was in misery and did teach his Family and relieved the King of Sodom he did many good works though these good works did justifie his faith to the world that they knew he was a believer by it and he himself did know it by it yet never a one of these were an ingredient into the justification of his person that was by the righteousness of God without works We must get good works after This is the rule of the word Charge them that believe to maintain good works that is after they believe charge them to avoid the evil and do the good and to abound But for the point of justification which is the main thing for your Soul and mine to feed on that is built on another foundation upon the grave of Christ and upon the death of Christ Therefore you shall finde those speeches of the Apostle Paul when he speaks of this glorious condition he speaks alway of his union with Christ I am crucified with Christ and I am buried 〈◊〉 Christ and I am dead but Christ lives in me Learn this lesson that you may come to this for if you had learned it spiritually when you had done the most for God if you could do ten times more then Abraham or Paul and yet Paul preached from Jerusalem to Illyricum yet then thou wouldest say I am an unprofitable servant there is not one grain that I have done that is an ingredient into the death and resurrection of Christ to help to make me a just man or to procure the favour and love of God And when you had done evil and it may be failed in carelesness and committed sin O what a glorious thing were it to go home and fall upon thy knees and say Lord I have sinned grievously but yet I am not one jot the less just before thee because my justice and my righteousness is not depending upon my sinning or my unsinning upon my holiness or my unholiness but upon Jesus Christ Then you would finde by experience your hearts melt in pieces you would be able to look upon sin in the vastness and unkindness of it against a dear Father then you would see your selves the vilest objects you would not so think or speak of any man in the world as of your selves even for the least frailty For then the love of God as oyl working with iron would press your hearts then you shall know and not before what it is to be truly humbled and then you shall have power to reform then you would be able to say My soul is truly humbled I can mourn for sin till I am weary of weeping then you will be able though you make not those covenants and resolutions there will be such an impression upon the soul that you cannot chuse but mourn and loath your selves and avoid the occasions of sin seeing your selves just men in Jesus Christ for when a man sees himself unjust he can never mourn kindly for sin if he see God on Sinai as a Judge there will be but untoward mourning for sin But when a man sees the coast clear then he can say I have been the greatest sinner in
great pit that were full of stones and snakes and serpents and fire and all that we can imagine to be terrible and miserable and there comes a man and casts a Rope into this great deep pit you need not perswade the man to lay hold of it he would presently catch at it as soon as it comes Why so Because he knows he is in a miserable case and there is no other way to help him but that We are fallen into such a pit where there are snakes and scorpions and serpents and fire the sting of sin the curse of the law the wrath of God we are in the paws of the Devil we are in a manner in Hell already and God hath sent his Sâ—n Christ and hath put righteousness in him and he hath let down this Rope that poor sinking miserable Creatures might lay hold on it Therefore what shall I say to you but this I beseech you stand not trifling and dallying and whining and go to this Preacher and say what shall I do Sir and to that Christian what course shall I take as though there were many wayes and you had choice of things What shouldest thou do but study Jesus Christ throughly and roundly make a work of it or else thou wilt be damned There is no other way left there is no other means to be had God will not abate one farthing token the law must be satisfied as the people of Israel in Egypt when they made brick they must bring in such a number so the law must be perfectly satisfied and thou art not able to do it by doing here or by suffering in Hell therefore what shall I do Receive Jesus Christ study Jesus Christ and resign thy self wholly up to Jesus Christ and stand not trifling and dallying till thou go to the Devil in Hell as many do If there were twenty wayes to Heaven God might say I wonder not that yonder people stand musing and consulting a twelve-month together but when there is but one way and yet people stand moping it is that that angers God Therefore remember that in Zeph. 2. 1. Gather your selves together before the decree bring forth before the day pass as the chaff c. Seek ye the Lord c. Gather your selves together He doth not mean in Companies as you use to meet in the Guild-Hall but the meaning is when he saith Gather your selves together that man is a worried creature a shattered thing as Solomon saith The eyes of a wise man are in his head but the eyes of a fool are over the world There are abundance of men that have their understandings go in the world this way and that way but gather your selves together How To get into Christ you hear that there is no Righteousness but his will serve the turn gather your selves to study Christ to obey Christ to receive Christ to love Christ and to resign your selves to Jesus Christ in whom there is a perfect righteousness That is one Lesson you should desire the Lord to teach you hence The next Lesson is this that The Righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in all true Believers Saith the Apostle That the law might be fulfilled in us In us we are not to understand it personally as though any Saint though it were Abraham himself were able in his own person to fulfill the law but the meaning of it is in respect of the union that we have with Jesus Christ who is our Husband and our Head The law is perfectly fulfilled by him therefore it is perfectly fulfilled by me because I am united to him The law is not perfectly fulfilled by me because I do more good or do less evil then another but onely the law is fulfilled and hath reason to be satisfied because I am married to one that hath done it and that perfectly Now you shall see divers Scriptures that hold it forth blessedly As those phrases in Galat. 2. the latter end where it is said we are dead to the law I through the law am dead to the law I am crucified with Christ I am dead to the law What is the meaning of that That is I am dead to the law as it is a Covenant of works the law hath no more to do with me then the Laws of men have to do with a man that is in debt when he is dead when he is dead he is free from it So the law is paid by Jesus Christ it is fully satisfied I owe not one farthing or farthing worth to the Law I am dead to the law And so in Rom. 7. you know how by the comparison of a man and his wife we are said to be dead to the law of God The meaning is not as though the substance and matter of the law were not eternal and a rule for all Saints doubtless it is in the New Testament as well as in the Old but the law as it is a Contract a Bond a Bargain as it is a Covenant of works between God and us it is perfectly fulfilled by Christ and we are dead to it we are free from it or delivered from it And that is the reason that in Heb. 12. it is said in Mount Sion we are come to the Spirits of just men made perfect that is not of just men personally just in their dealings though that follow in a sort but the meaning is that every Saint that is in Jesus Christ is perfectly a just man or a just woman by reason of their marriage with Jesus Christ who hath obtained a perfect righteousness or justice for them So in Rom. 3. you have there also a blessed place where the Apostle saith we are saved not onely by the mercy of God but by his righteousness Therefore it is three times repeated we are saved by the righteousness of God and again by the righteousness and again in ver 26. the third time to declare I say at this time his righteousness What is the righteousness of God that is saith he that he is just and a justifier of them that believe in Jesus Christ It is just and righteous with God to save his people that believe in Jesus Christ Why so Because Jesus Christ hath fulfilled to a tittle all the law of God for them Vse 1. I shall give you but one word of Use and leave the Reasons and the further enlarging of it till the Afternoon And the word that I desire to make known to you from the Lord is this To instruct and help you a little to understand where your righteousness doth lye or upon what your justification is built For this is the misery the general misery of most Christians that they mislay their justification they do lay it partly upon faith and partly upon their sanctification and holiness and that is the reason that when a poor soul it may be is tempted to some sin and hath some strong lust he loseth his faith and his assurance and his peace of conscience because
the Spirit of God as long as they do so they shall never know the will of God We are not debtors to the flesh but we must be debtors to the Spirit if we will have one true thought of Jesus Christ O praise the Spirit and prize the Spirit If you have any thought of Christ thank the Spirit if you have any glimpse of him in your souls worth any thing praise the Spirit That is the reason that the Saints in the Book of God speak not of the Spirit of God without some special Epithite of Commendation Guide me by thy HOLY Spirit and saith another thy BLESSED Spirit and thy GRACIOVS Spirit and the Spirit of GRACE faith another They never speak of it without some word that shewed their love to it and high esteem of it When the Lord shall come and his Spirit shall be advanced in the hearts of men we shall have glorious times and never before that and those times will come I remember Calvin on those Prophesies in Isaiah and Joel The SVN shall be darkened and the MOON shall be turned into blood in that day Saith he the meaning is all the excellency that a man naturally hath his Learning and Endowments in the dayes of the Gospel when the Spirit shall come with his light when God shall exalt the Spirit The Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into blood Men shall not so much esteem Learning from Books but learned and great men and Scholars shall come to one Classis and one Rank and Form with simple people all waiting on God by his Word through the Spirit A man can take his Boy from School that hath his Latine and Greek and send him to the University and he assures himself that he shall be as good a Minister as his other Son that it may be hath served the Spirit seven years this is our way and a hundred more whereby we basely slight and disdain the Spirit of God and do not honour him and therefore he will not honour us 3. If ever you will be true Gospel-Saints you must suffer your selves to be led by the Spirit of God That phrase you finde oft in Rom. 8. Gal. 5. If you live in the Spirit Walk in the Spirit Be led by the Spirit We are not complementary to commend the Spirit of God c. but give it scope to lead us You must heed more what the Spirit of God saith to you and what he works on you If there come a place of Scripture in your minde hear and consider whether the Spirit of God hath not put it in thy minde and would have thee study it and would have thee compare Scriptures And when thou comest to do any action whatsoever not so much to advise with this man or that man but what saith the Spirit I mean according to the light of the Scriptures hearken to that more then what all the world saith Therefore I have known some men that in their whole lives have often mâ—st the will of God in circumstantial things usually it may be for a year or two or three and they have mist it again in another thing and in another thing and when they have examined how this comes about they can say If they had hearkned to the Spirit they had not done so but they hearkned to men and so went against the dictates of the Spirit in their Conscience they would hear what this man said and what the other man did But now the Spirit will say to them You see I would have shewed you the right way but you would not give me scope but made a cypher of me And for my one particular I do not yet see how I should ever have mist the will of God since I knew him if I had hearkned to the Spirit of God if I had but observed so much light as the Spirit had put into my heart Now we ballance the Spirit with this mans example and with the other mans opinion and so come home by Weeping Cross Therefore give scope to the Spirit I mean not against the Word or above the Word but still I mean the Spirit of God working according to the Scriptures and no otherwise 4. Another thing and a special one is I wish you for the Mysteries of the Gospel to study the Scriptures in the simplicity of them without the glosses of men for a man in extremity must do that that a man that is not in extremity would not do We have brought our selves in such slavery to men that we must take that course that another sober man should not I mean thus when ever we go to look for any truth of God for the will of God we have notions in our mindes beforehand according to the times and places we live in As concerning Baptism what need I go to the Scriptures saith one we have it in such and such mens Writings and so we forestall the will of God that we are blinded and cannot see it Therefore if you will see the will of God I wish you for a while to look on the naked Scriptures And for my part I know but three uses to be made of other Books 1. As first there is this use of Books you have Books that will read the Scriptures in divers languages and shew the Originall and open the tongues now when I see a word in English and doubt of the meaning of it then I will go to the Greek or Hebrew as God hath endowed me with knowledge 2. Then there is another use of Books when I reade one single Scripture it may be I have a Book that will point out halfe a dozen Scriptures to open one Scripture by 3. And it may be I have some Books that take some Scripture and presse it upon my soule as Doctor Prestons and other godly Books But to take Books and say Jerome thinks this and Austin that and fill our heads with notions they blind us that we cannot see the will of God Therefore in reading of the Scriptures there should be this difference from our reading of other Books I mean in respect of age When we are Children and young we use not Spectacles it may be at twenty or thirty or fourty yeares old we can reade without Spectacles but when we come tofifty or sixty then we can see nothing but through Spectacles It should be just contrary with us when we are Christians When we are young we usually never read the word of God but through the Spectacles of mens glosses but when we are older Christians and stronger Saints we should learne to read better without Spectacles we should daily make lesse use of Mens Books and more of Gods Book That whereas before a man turned over twenty Authors upon a point Now he can go humbly to God with his Bible and without Spectacles he can see what the will of God is Therefore lay aside Spectacles sometimes and only take the spirit of God and compare Scripture
Flesh and old Adam In Luke 19. they are called the things of trouble and the things of the Spirit the things that belong to our peace O that thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace In Jer. 2. 8. they are called things that do not profit vain things and the things of the Spirit in Phil. 1. 10. they are called excellent things That ye may be able to know the things that are excellent that is the things of the Spirit of God And to conclude this Phil. 4. 8. speaking of the things of the Spirit saith he Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report these things do These are the things of the Spirit of God Then impure things dishonest things dishonourable things unjust things unlovely things these are things of the flesh Thus much in general according to the description of the things of the Flesh in Scripture But now in particular I will sum up the things of the Flesh or of old Adam one or other of which fleshly men do wholly minde to these three Heads 1. The first is to establish their own righteousness by the law to procure to themselves justification by their works This is the Master-piece of old Adam for I told you that man is more prone to this then to sin though he be prone to that also and old Adam works stronger towards his righteousness such as it is in a forbidden way then to sin Therefore it is said Rom. 10. 3. They being ignorant of Gods righteousness went about to establish their own righteousness He speaks there of the Jews The word in the Original is they went to make it stand just as a tottered house that every blast is ready to throw down and it must be underpropped on this side and on that side to keep it up so every fleshly man in the world this is half his work to make the Babel of his own righteousness to stand he is alway piecing and patching and doing some good work he is wishing and woulding or in some fashion or other to make up a good estate against the latter day Therefore that was the question Acts 2. and Luke 3. and it is the grand question of all mankinde What shall we do to be saved and we see when they came to Christ it was alway with this Master what shall I do to be saved As if he had said I know it must be by doing and I am willing to go about it to frame some kinde of righteousness or other Therefore in Joh. 6. say they What shall we do to work the works of eternall life saith Christ This is the work of God to believe he takes them off Now this is one thing whereby you may know what it is to be a fleshly man and to minde fleshly things when people minde and cast projects and wayes to procure righteousness to themselves or justification to their souls any other way then onely by the Lord Jesus Christ Men may be as it were drunk sometimes and minde neither Heaven nor Hell but there is no fleshly carnal man when he is his own man but he thinks there is some good work or other that he must do either giving or lending or building an Alms-house or giving to the poor or somewhat to get him a righteousness But remember thou art a carnal man and all thy minding and all thy thoughts this way are but according to the flesh and those that are after the flesh must die It was the first and the greatest Curse that ever was in the world when God said to old Adam he must die it is a general rule all old Adam must die either thou must get that piece of old Adam that is in thee to die or thou shalt die with it one of the two 2. Then another thing that is called the things of the Flesh it is Carnal Priviledges either men that are fleshly minde their justification out of Christ or else their Carnal Priviledges I told you before that those are called Flesh saith the Apostle If any might I may glory in the flesh What is that I am an Hebrew of the Hebrews c. and so the Jews in Mat. 3. Joh. 8. and 2 Cor. 11. they were apt as to stablish their own righteousness so to glory in their priviledges We are the children of Abraham we were never slaves or servants We have not their priviledges to glory in yet this is a main piece of old Adam a great part of the things of the flesh outward priviledges let them be Church-priviledges or what you will when people rejoyce and minde and contemplate outward priviledges and do not regard the inward power nor what is in and through and by them this is but flesh I fear you will not bear with me you will account me your enemy for telling you the truth but I am perswaded there are many among us that talk of Churches and Government and Ordinances and Priviledges and yet all is but flesh and you cannot well judge of them by their strictness in it for flesh will go as strictly in its way as the Spirit but it is to be feared that divers build of it and glory in it and it is a great part of their Religion I warn you in love to look to it and if those Priviledges were taken away as Christ took away the priviledge of being the children of Abraham from the Jews such people would be poor carnal people Take heed of it and let him that glories glory in the Lord. 3. Thirdly and lastly the things of the flesh for all old Adam is included in these three things that fleshly men minde is to fulfill their lusts which are many to make provision for the flesh Rom. 13. that is to be casting how to feed one lust or other Now if you would know what those lusts are in particular though in a sort it be general you have it in 1 Joh. 2. 16. saith he All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life These are the lusts of the world all the lusts in the world may be reduced it seems to those three heads so I say these are the fleshly things that all carnall people minde all their thoughts throughout the year every one runs either in stablishing their own righteousness or in glorying and contemplating their outward priviledges or in projecting for the fulfilling of some lust or other thus they spend their whole life these are the things of the flesh that carnall men minde Now the other the things of the Spirit that are contrary to these you may comprehend them all in these words that is 1. They are either the things of Faith 2. Or else their Hope and Happiness in Jesus Christ 3. Or else their Obedience to the will of Christ All the