Obedience Surely Understanding is meant there the holy obedient Wisdom which alone preserveth from death as we may see out of the Prophet Baruch They that had their pastime with the fowls of Heaven high and lofty Contemplations they that played with the soaring Eagle and delighted themselves in her strong acute sight These are come to nought and gone down to Hell and other men are come up in their stead When they were young they saw the light but they understood not the way of knowledge neither perceived the paths thereof neither have their children received it but they were far off from the way It hath not been heard of in the land Canaan neither hath it been seen in Theman Nor the Agarens that sought after wisdom upon earth and the merchants of Nerran and of Theman nor the expounders of fables nor the searchers out of wisdom have known the way of wisdom neither do they think of the paths thereof See what a great deal of Understanding is purchased by Disobedience Though our outward and inward ears be enlarged and plentifully drink down many rivers of outward instructions or inward imaginations and high and learned Theories yet if we be void of that true Wisdom that hath its root in hearty obedience to the Holy Word we are without understanding and become as the beasts that perish Wherefore let us not hug our selves in a false conceit of unhappy Knowledge since not the hearers of the word but the doers are justified before God Let us not say within our selves we have Christ for the Head of our Religion we have read his Words we have heard his Embassadors speak to us we have fetch'd out many a notable notion in the Christian Theology we are well instructed in all points of the Holy Faith we have heard much within we have received more from without we are the Holy Church and true Disciples of Christ. Let us not prize our selves too high for these empty respects and think that if we be excluded God will want Guests to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of Christ. No. God is able even out of stones and dust to raise up Disciples unto Christ. But if we be the Disciples of Christ let us give more heed to the voice of our Master Matth. 7. Whosoever heareth my words and doth the same I will liken him to a wise man which hath built his house upon a rock And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not for it was founded on a rock The doing of the Word is the sure Foundation a Foundation no less strong than a Rock But he that hears and doth not is like him that founds his house upon the sand or builds Castles in the Air He shall not abide the Judgment of God that comes like a Whirlwind nor the fierce tempest of his destroying Wrath but he shall be confounded in his thoughts and all his imaginations shall vanish into smoke BUT to handle this present Proposition more distinctly That we should be Doers of the Word there are many Reasons 1. One Argument is taken from the End of the Word heard which is Practice and Purification It is Aristo's saying in Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A bath that purgeth not and speech that reformeth not be both alike unprofitable But how can any admonition purge or reform unless the Hearer doth his endeavour to practise The Word of God is no Magical Charm that the meer hearing of it should be sufficient for this or that disease of the Soul It may indeed beget a desire or propension to that which is good for which cause the Old Serpent stops his ears as close as he may from the receiving of this spell but if we go no further that motion is lost and we recoyl further back into evil So that we see what small profit we reap if we rest in a bare Hearing of the Word And it is as little for our credits if we will believe the Stoick If any man brag that he hath the faculty of expounding Chrysippus saith Epictetus say thou to thy self Unless Chrysippus wrote obscurely this man hath no such great cause to boast Well I come to Chrysippus I understand not his Writings I seek an Interpreter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hitherto saith he there 's no great matter done But when I have got an Expositor to instruct it remains that I put in practice those Precepts and this is the only magnificent thing the other are nothing Methinks the old lame man speaks perfect good sense to him that is not more sensless and blind than he was lame Three necessary points there be in Philosophy saith the same Stoick The first consists in the use of Precepts as That we should be modest in our Behaviour true in our Speech The other is the argument or demonstration that we ought to be so The third and last is a clear dilucid Logical proof that this argumentation proceeded right The last is necessary for the second the second for the first But the most necessary and where we ought to rest is the first But we quite contrary bestow all our time in the latter and utterly neglect the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Therefore saith he we lye nevertheless but how to demonstrate that we ought not to lye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have it at our fingers ends The case is plain there wants no Application If so be we were as faithful and industrious to perform the Christian Life as we are sedulous to be instructed in the Christian Truth surely the reputed Church of God would send a more acceptable savour into the Nostrils both of god and Man But whiles Religion is to whet our angry tusks in Controversie of Points to scandal one another contemn one another and hate one another contending more for the setting up of Opinion than for the purchasing of the precious Life of Christ it 's no wonder that the Holy Church which should be as the fragrant Paradise of God be turned into the sink of Satan and a stinking sty of Swine-like Epicures The Gnosticks a most wicked Sect of Christians in Plotinus time When they could get one to be of their Heresie and had instructed him well in their Principles which was all they aimed at then they out of self-favour crown him with the magnificent Title of the Child of God though their Life as abominable as the Devil could wish or Man imagine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Thou art now become the Son of God but others whom thou admiredst before they are no Children of God they are no body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou art greater than Heaven without labour or pain A goodly Religion indeed that consists in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they themselves are but in the jaws of Hell and in the arms of the Destroyer What saith Plotinus can a man see God
of the Truth and sincere purpose of doing what is absolutely best and of cleaving to what is absolutely best in all things without any self-relish or self-respect whatsoever A thing so lovely and desirable that even the better sort of Heathen seem vehemently to have breathed after it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O my dear Soul when wilt thou become One and naked and simple It is the Exhortation of that excellent Emperour Marcus Antoninus to his own Soul as that brief monition also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Simplifie thy self reduce thy self to perfect Sincerity and Single-mindedness These strains I confess are so near the Spirit and Genius of Christianity it self that I half suspect the Philosopher of playing the Plagiary and that he adorned himself at a distance with the Practical Philosophy of that Religion the truth of whose Mysteries either the shortness of his Reason made him dissent from or the Reason of State hinder'd him from making profession of But it may be a just reproach to the generality of Christians who though they publickly profess the Faith of Christ yet let the Life fall to the ground But I proceed 3. Thirdly But if thine Eye be evil thy whole Body will be full of Darkness that is If thou be carnally-minded and have not that Spiritual Eye above described thy Soul will be wholly left in the dark or closely surrounded with a Cimmerian mist or Egyptian fog thou wilt have no prospect nor be able to see thy way at all thou wilt be so closely besieged by the powers of darkness The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that spiritual relish above-mentioned But he that is spiritual discerneth all things yet he himself is discerned of no man He has a full prospect of light a large Horizon lies open to his view so that where-ever he turns himself his way is plain before him But he that has not that holy divine and unself-interested Spirit of Love that Single Eye of the Soul he walks in the dark and knows not whither he goes because the darkness hath blinded his Eyes 1 Ioh. 2. 11. But in that the Apostle S. Paul saith Yet he himself is discerned of no man that is to be understood that no carnally-minded man can discern him according to what S. Iohn writes in his Gospel And the light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not For that Maxime of the Ancientest Philosophers is most assuredly true here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There must be a corresponding Principle within to be able to discern what occurs to us from without As face answers to face so the heart of man to man And hence it is I mean from this darkness that the wicked give such rude justles against the truly-good namely because they cannot discern them For if they could duely discern them it were impossible that they should hate them as being Friends to every mans person and out of mere care and compassion to them being only Enemies to their Vices Needless broils and quarrels mistake upon mistake mischief after mischief this is the necessary condition of him that by reason of the Evil Eye of the Soul cannot see his way distinctly but is ever and anon caught in unexpected Angiports and tedious Labyrinths out of which he can find no exitus but is forc'd to go backwards and forwards and to make Indentures in his gate like a sot and drunkard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways By reason of his want of that Single Eye he has not yet discovered that one simple and indispensable object that his heart is eternally to cleave to And therefore his Eye being tainted and infected with the impurities of the Animal life as the inward Complexion of his Body changes or the Circumstances of external affairs alter he adhering to nothing upon sincere grounds may be now a Reveller anon a superstitious Bigot now a Sceptick anon an inept and unskilful Dogmatist make profession of one Religion to day of another to morrow and next day of neither and at last if it prove plausible or fashionable of none at all Such wild contrary sallies is he subject to that is under the guidance of the Double Eye But that which is Single and One can never run contrary to it self but will ever act uniformly and correspondently to one End the Express whereof is the known will of God and what is simply and absolutely the best It is that only Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Iesus according to which we must act if we would walk as Children of the Light If we mingle any thing of the self-relish or Carnal Interest this will supplant our goings and we shall most certainly stumble in the dark and if the concerns in our Interest grow high we shall reel and stagger like a drunken man and be at our wits end Be things at other times never so plain yet all must be now obscure and uncertain we abhorring from all evidence that is evidently against our own worldly advantage to acknowledge and profess it Faithfulness and Uprightness towards God towards our Prince our Countrey our Friend it cannot be deny'd will some say but they are things very commendable and that this Justice is to be performed to them so far as it will consist with our private Interest and Security And Profession of Truth such especially as is of great concern to the Church of Christ and so Exemplarity of Life are things in themselves worthy and laudable and caeteris paribus to be embraced before their corrivals But if Truth and Vertue once become ridiculous and the object of reproach and obloquy or the indispensable Duties to God our Prince our Countrey or Friend hazardous to our fortunes liberty or life then the Evil or Carnal Eye does very gravely suggest that the great point of Wisdom and Prudence is to shift for one and save a mans own silly inconsiderable self whatever suffers through so base a perfidiousness No better possibly can come of this mixt and mongrel principle of Double-mindedness This is that ugly and hateful mode of plowing with an Oxe and an Ass or of wearing a Linsy-woolsy coat not more expresly forbidden by the letter of Moses than severely prohibited by that Law of the Spirit of life which is through Christ who has plainly declared in his Gospel that he that loves Father or Mother Son or Daughter more than him is not worthy of him And that he that loveth his life shall lose it but he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal Which Law of Christ notwithstanding let the Carnal mind judge of it as it will is not so rigorous but that some of the Heathen Philosophers have utter'd what is not much removed from it Aristotle himself
manners of the Sufferings of Holy Martyrs which they underwent under the tyranny of bloody salvage Heathen Heading and Hanging and Crucifying were nothing for the satisfaction of their fury They were broyl'd on Grid-irons they were fryed in Frying-pans they were boyl'd in Cauldrons they were put in the Brazen Bull they were fired at the Stake cast into Ovens fired in Ships and so thrust from the shore into the deep fired in their own Houses cast upon burning Coals made to walk upon burning Coals burnt under the Arm-pits with hot Irons They had their Hearts riven out of their warm Body had their Skin flean off from their live Flesh had their Feet tyed to boughs of two near Trees which boughs being at first forcibly brought together suddenly let go rent their Body in twain They were trodden down by Horses cast bound and naked into Vaults to be eaten of Rats and Mice They had their Flesh pulled off with Pinsers torn off with Iron-rakes were squeezed to death in Wine-presses were tyed upon Wheels which turning rub'd their naked Body against sharp pegs of Iron They were hung by their Hands and Feet with their Face downward over choaking Smoak They were set out on high in the Sun having their naked Skin besmeared with Honey to be stung with Bees and Waspes The Devil spent all the skill and malice he had in finding wayes and engines of Torture for them God make us truly thankful unto him for his Mercy so long continued to us that we have without terrour or torment so many years enjoy'd the Christian Religion in such Purity And give us Grace to repent us of our unworthy walking and unbeseemingly of so great a Light But as concerning these Sufferings of the Body Beloved such is the love of God to Mankind and so reasonable is his Service that he hath made it no necessary condition of Eternal Life actually to suffer them But we ought to be so minded that rather than to relinquish the true Christian Faith or do any thing which we know offends God we would rather dye a thousand deaths And this was S. Pauls resolution Acts 21. I am ready not only to be bound but also to dye for the name of the Lord Iesus But yet there is a Suffering in the Body that we must needs suffer if we will approve our selves the Children of God and Heirs of that Glorious Kingdom And this Suffering we must inflict upon our own selves 1 Cor. 9. 27. But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection These Sufferings are most acceptable to God and requisite fore-runners of Eternal Life If you live after the flesh you shall dye but if you through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live Verse 13. of this 8th Chapter to the Romans 1 Pet. 2. 11. Dearly beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul. And Galat. 4. 24. They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts You see plainly then That we are not Christs nor Gods nor Heirs of God with Christ unless we suffer with Christ in mortifying all Bodily Lusts in curbing our inordinate Desire of eating or drinking unless we study to keep under the Body and live chastly and continently If we will be Heirs of that Heavenly Inheritance we must bring under all evil and carnal concupiscence If we will partake of that Eternal Glory in Heaven we must be content to suffer reproach and evil speeches amongst men If any man ask what Necessity what Reason is there I will briefly shew him how it comes about First For suffering in Name for I will step so much back There is no man loves to be disquieted in mind or vext But it would disquiet us and gall us exceedingly to be found fools so that we have not the heart to find our selves so it would so discontent our natural proud Spirit Hence we blame other men rather than our selves and say they be in the false way So did the Pharisees to our Saviour and to his Apostles And thus were the Prophets used before them because their wayes were of another sort their speeches and actions of another fashion from the World You will better understand it in some Examples A Carnal or Natural man that hath no Sense of the Spirit of God and is unacquainted with its Operations derides such performances as Prayers Exhortations or what so else may proceed from thence as truly and extraordinarily proceeding from the Spirit of God and counts those men that acknowledge Gods power in them in the performance of such things weak men crack'd-brain'd Enthusiasts Fanatical Fools silly Lunaticks But all this proceeds out of Pride Envy and Self-love he himself being not able to perform such Duties or at least not in that manner So some that have got the trick of Praying ex tempore by Custom the Mother of Confidence and Dexterity Ignorance and want of a true Sense of the Majesty of Heaven upholding them in their rash performance these men will vilifie Justice and Uprightness Humility and Patience and the mortification of our Sensual Lusts because they find in themselves no such Vertues nor intend to trouble themselves so much as to practise them Then for the upholding of their own credit they must give them poor contemptible terms that they are but Heathenish Vertues such as Socrates or Plato had and make but a Moral man and that there is no such need for a Christian to have them But Beloved be not so deceived but observe this Truth Though Moral Vertue carries us no higher than an Heathen yet without the exercise of Moral Vertue and inward life and liking of it we are no true Christians The Summe is this That the good ways of God are spoken against and miscall'd that wicked men may keep their credit and yet walk indeed in the wayes of the Devil To the Second I answer That it is necessary that we suffer in the Flesh because that if we do not keep down the Flesh and its suggestions the Spirit will be choaked and stifled by that filth and corruption The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be Ver. 7. The carnal mind that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bent will intent liking or desire of the Flesh is enmity with God desires against the Will of God and will not be obedient to the Law of God nor indeed can be Wherefore we are to kill it to mortifie it to crucifie it that we may be dead to sin or the desire of the Flesh and alive to God by his enquickening Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here is the Patience of the Saints Here their great Suffering 4. But I go on to their last Affliction which is in Spirit And that is twofold 1. The wrestling or conflict with spiritual wickedness in Heavenly places 2. The suffering with
speak of that worship which the Apostle has found out a very fit name for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Will-worship serving God according to our own will and liking according to the dictates of our own vain hearts A fault that a Natural man is not only subject to fall into but it is even impossible for him to avoid it For who knows the Will of God saving to whom the Word and Spirit of God is revealed from within For if the outward could do it without the inward why is the whole Christian World intangled in so much errour and confusion Why unless for that they have served God either according to their own Will or have been led captive under the Will of other men For that they have forsaken the Lord the fountain of living waters and have hewed them out cisterns broken cisterns that will hold no water Is Israel a servant Is he a home-born slave Why is he become a spoil Verily because he is become a servant and a slave because he has ceased now to be Israel a Prince and prevailer with God and hath put his trust in mortal men What is Paul Apollos or Cephas What is Bellarmine Calvin or Arminius Was Arminius Crucified for you or was you Baptized into the name of Calvin Wo to the rebellious children saith the Lord that take counsel but not of me and that cover with a covering but not of my spirit that they may add sin to sin That walk to go down to AEgypt and have not asked at my mouth to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt Isa. 30. Shall all the preparation of Egypt be your safety Shall your chosen Learned Scribes and Disputers with all their knowledge of Tongues and Humane Arts assuredly talk you into the truth Where is that infallible Judge There are enough that say Lo here is Christ and Lo there he is But it is a shrewd Argument that he is not here nor there Or else why did Christ say Believe thou not He himself alone it is that is the Truth and let all men be lyars before him Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils for whereof is he to be accounted of If God then be that only infallible Iudge of pure Religion and well pleasing to himself who is to be sought unto but He But that no man deceive himself for truth can deceive no man my drift is not to dehort from idolizing men that every man may make an idol of himself and to cleave to sudden phansies rashly sprung up in his polluted Spirit But that we may truly sanctifie God in our hearts and serve him from a true though inward invisible Principle of Life that we may attain to that Righteousness of Faith which we are not born with nor the mouth of man can confer upon us but is the Breath of the Holy Ghost a Light and Life derived from God the Father the Fountain of Light and Life from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift Of this it is written You have an unction from the holy one and you know all things Io. 2. But as for us that have not yet attained thereunto it will be our wisdom and safety to have this draught of pure Religion set out by the Apostle ever before our eyes and endeavour to frame our service to God accordingly To visit the Fatherless and the Widow in her affliction and to keep our selves unspotted from the World And this is the Third Particular viz. III. That pure and undefiled Religion is this to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction and to keep our selves unsported from the world It is set out to us as once God shewed himself to Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Videbis posteriora mea Exod. 33. Religion is here describ'd à posteriori or ab effectis Which as it is most feasable to the Teacher so it is most profitable to the Learner For the very face and essence of pure Religion is unexpressible No pencil can draw it and exhibit the sight of it to other men Hence is there and ever has been a veil drawn over it but it ought not to be environed with utter darkness Let your light so shine before men that they seeing your good works may glorifie your father which is in heaven The Sacraments are a veil over the Christian Religion but the Christians unfruitful yea impious Conversation a Cimmerian mist a palpable AEgyptian darkness But to return though I have as yet scarce given one step out of the way The description of pure Religion is from a two-fold effect The first respects others To visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction The second respects our selves To keep himself unspotted from the World But before I fall upon these particulars it will not be amiss first to set out some general Considerations which the nature of this description affords us And First That the Apostle chuseth to describe Religion from the Effects of it rather than from the Form Efficient or End Secondly Why rather from these Effects than any other 1. For the First The Form of pure Religion as I intimated before is unexpressible no man can describe it It is that name written in the white stone that no man knows nor can know but he that has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus in a case not unlike to this If thou beest it thou seest it speaking of that eternal form or beauty Then to have described it from the Efficient which should have been God the Apostle knew very well what juggling and uncertainty there were in that For all Religions call God their Author and pretend his Glory for their End So that this general delineation would have been subject to much mistake abuse and deceit Wherefore the safest mark to point out true Religion was the Effects of it 2. But why these Effects rather than any other Would not Prayer would not the Hearing of the Word often Reading of the Scripture as the very Etymon of Religion as some would have it à relegendo doth import would not these a great deal better have set out the nature of Religion No verily For I dare be bold to take the Apostles part and rely upon his judgment For as for the external act of Prayer a Pharisee may perform it both largely and often with many tedious tautologies and wearisome circumlocutions as our Saviour has marked them out in the Gospel And as for hearing Divine Truth to talk of it in a natural exercise of our Memory and Reason it is pleasant even to the unregenerate and impious man That very natural motion that is in words and sounds put in a tunable number and set off with action and affection pleaseth in some sort even all kind of Auditors And if smartness of Reason and weight of Argument be added to it the merest Philosopher that is can be content to lend his attention thereto and no acceptable
in and drown the Soul and choak all Life of Vertue and Goodness This is that great Deity of the Heaten This is the Idol of the Daughters of Moab whose stay and confidence is in this visible World whose joy and pleasure is in the Life of the Flesh. I will conclude with the Conclusion of the Psalmist Save us O Lord our God and gather us from among the Heathen to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let all the people say Amen Praise ye the Lord. DISCOURSE XV. COL iii. 1. If you then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God THIS Text contains in it that precious mystery of the internal or inward Resurrection of Christ in our Hearts or Souls which is the chief if not only saving Knowledge of that part of our Christian Religion For alas Beloved what will that outward Resurrection of our Saviour according to the flesh profit us though we have the History of it never so accurately nay though we had seen it with our own eyes We may lye in the grave of sin our selves for all that We may sink like a dead stone into the bottomless pit and have our portion with the damned Devils who have an Historical Faith of all the passages of Christs doings or sufferings here on Earth it may be better than our selves And those wicked Souldiers that watched his Sepulchre were perfectly convinced that he had escaped the jawes of Death But what was this to them who were yet dead in their trespasses and sins Surely nothing at all And as little is it to us Beloved if we be dead in sin and have not risen from the strong holding bands of iniquity and vanity Wherefore it is not enough to say Christ dyed for our sins and rose again for our justification and so to imagine his Resurrection to be our raising from wickedness and corruption But we our selves also really and in truth are to rise from the grave of sin by the power of the enlivening Spirit of Jesus Christ. And whether we be thus risen indeed or no this present Text of Scripture will teach us If you be risen with Christ seek those things or you do seek those things which are above For the Greek Text will bear both senses I will first briefly run through the Sense of the words and then raise such Doctrines and Uses as shall most naturally flow from the Text and shall be most profitable for the promotion of that main work of our Salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If then you be risen with Christ That is If you be risen in your Souls as Christ in Body rose from the grave If your Souls have scaped the bands of the Spiritual Death which is the nature and life of Sin for that maketh us truly dead unto Righteousness and unto God as Christs Body broke from the Prison of the Sepulchre Then you seek those things that are above It must needs be understood of the Resurrection of the Soul from Sin because the Apostle did not Preach to dead men departed this Life once and again clothed with this Fleshly Tabernacle but to men who were alwayes alive from their first being born into this visible World In vain then had he taught them a sign of that which he knew would never come to pass till the Colossians were past his Preaching to to wit at the last day the time of the Resurrection of our Bodies And according to this manner doth the Apostle speak also of the Crucifixion of Christ making the outward Passion and Death of Christ a sign or resemblance of something in our Souls viz. our dying to Sin as here he hath made his Resurrection an emblem of our rising to Righteousness Rom. 6. 2 c.. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know you not that all we that have been baptised into Iesus Christ have been baptised into his death We are buried then with him by baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father so we also should walk in newness of life For if we be grafted with him into the similitude of his death even so shall we be into the similitude of his resurrection Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin The Apostle there plainly compares our dying to Sin to the Crucifixion of our Saviour and that as he dyed on the Cross Corporally so we ought to crucifie the body of Sin in us by the power of God in our Spirits Thus have we good warrant from the example of the Apostle to look upon the Mystery of Christianity with Spiritual eyes The Birth the Death the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour Bodily have their similitude Spiritually in our Souls The Birth of Christ a resemblance of Christs being born in us Gal. 4. 19. My little children of whom I travail in the birth again till Christ be formed in you His Death of our dying to Sin as I have already declared Or of Christs being dead in us For we are also said to crucifie Christ by our ungodliness and by extinguishing his Spirit of power and illumination in us Heb. 6. 4. For it is impossible that they which were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word of God and of the powers of the world to come If they fall away that they should be renewed by repentance seeing they have crucified again to themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame Crucified again For verily Beloved from our very youth up we have laid dead the Son of God the suggestions of the Holy Life in our Consciences But yet it pleaseth God to raise his Son in us and recover him to Life by the Preaching of the powerful Messengers of God and the secret working of his Holy Spirit upon the Heart And here is Christ risen as it were from the grave But if we by loose and negligent courses destroy this Life of Christ in us and extinguish the Spirit of God in our Souls then do we crucifie the Son of God afresh and shame the profession of Regeneration and the Spirit of God and the true and living Christianism by our open revolting from the living God and taking part with the wicked of this World and their ungodly and sensual courses But now as Christ is thus in a Spiritual manner killed and crucified so when he is in us restor'd to Life it must needs be fittingly termed his Resurrection from Death And according to this sense may those words of my Text be understood also If you be risen with Christ That is If your Souls have become living