Seriously use all the means of grace; as, earnest prayer, attentive hearing of the word, &c.

Perfevere in fo doing, till your endeavours are crowned with fuccefs. And particularly, do not grow impatient of those anxieties and fears that will at first attend your purfsuit.

Thefe fhort hints may fuffice by way of direction, if you are fincerely defirous of being directed. And what do you determine to do? Will you not refolve to feek after this important change, upon which your cternal All depends? O! let us part to-day fully determined upon this, that we will implore the power and mercy of God to create in us clean hearts, and renew within us right fpirits.

SERMON XLIX.

THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE SOULS OF MEN CONSIDERED.

GAL. ii. 20. I am crucified with Chrift, nevertheless I live; yet not I but Chrift that liveth in me: and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.

THE P

THE principal defign of St. Paul in this Epiftle, is to affert his divine miffion, in oppofition to the infinuations of the judaizing feducers that had intruded into the Galatian church; and to prove the juf tification of a finner to be only through the merit of Christ's righteousness, and the inftrumentality of faith. To confirm the latter, he argues, Gal. ii. 15, 16, from the cafe of the apoftles and Jewish chriftians in general: We who are Jews by nature, and not finners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works

of

of the law, but by the faith of Jefus Chrift, even we have believed in Jefus Chrift, that we might be justified by the faith of Chrift, and not by the works of the law. And, Gal. ii. 19. he explicitly declares his own cafe in particular, as agreeing with theirs. I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God; that is, by the knowledge of the perfection of the law, as to its extent and fpirituality; I am utterly unhinged and thrown off from all dependance on the works of the law for juftification, and from expecting strength to yield obedience to be conveyed, according to the covenant of works;-and God's defign in bringing me off from this dependance, and mine in relinquifhing it, is not that I may turn libertine, and caft off all obligations to obedience, but that I may, by ftrength derived from Christ, devote myself wholly to him, and make my life a series of obedience to his will.

He goes on relating his own cafe in the text; in which you may obferve these truths:

First, "That believers are endowed with spiritual activity; or, That they are enabled to serve God, and perform good works." This is intimated by two expreffions, I am crucified, and, I live; which, though they seem contradictory, do really meanthe fame thing. I am crucified, fignifies the mortification of indwelling fin, the fubduction and extirpation of corrupt principles and inclinations: and he calls the mortification of thefe the crucifixion of himself (I am crucified) because of their intimate inhefion with his very nature; they were a fort of felf to him. We have a like expreffion ufed, and explained by himself in Rom. vi. 6. Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of fin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not ferve fin. Now the mortification of fin is a part of the fervice of God, at least a neceffary pre-requifite. So the apoftle reafons in Rom. vi. 2, 6, 11. How shall we that are dead to fin, live any longer therein? Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto fin, but alive unto God. The other expreffion, I live, fignifies spiritual activity; a vigorous, VOL. III. perfevering

S

perfevering ferving of God; a living unto God (as it is explained v. 19. and Rom. vi. 11.) Life, as afcribed to a rational being, imports not only a continuance in existence, in which fenfe inanimate things may be faid to live, but especially a power of rational operation frequently exercised; and when attributed to a morally upright being, as fuch, it imports more than fome kind of power of operation, namely, a vital principle of fpiritual and holy operation, and the frequent, perfevering exercise of it. Such a principle or power is very fignificantly called Life, to denote its intimacy in the foul, its vivacity, and permanency.

Secondly, We may obferve, that "the vital principle of holiness in believers, whereby they are enabled to ferve God, is communicated to them through Christ only as a Mediator." This is intimated by that expreffion, I am crucified with Chrift; that is, fin is crucified in me by virtue of the crucifixion of Christ; from the merits of his death my ftrength to fubdue fm refults; and the mortification of it is the certain confequent of his fufferings, because thereby divine grace was purchased and infured for his chofen, to be communicated at the time appointed. To the fame purpose he speaks in Gal. vi. 14. Far be it from me that I fhould glory, fave in the cross of our Lord Jefus Chrift, by whom [or by which *] the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world. This is alfo afferted in the emphatical epanorthofis, I live yet not I, but Chrift liveth in me: that is, fpiritual life is formally in me, but it is not felf-originated; it does not refult from my natural principles (which are fo effential to me, that I may reprefent them under the perfonal pronoun I) but was firft implanted, and is still fupported and cherished by the power and grace of God through Chrift; and it is in every refpect fo dependent upon him, and his influence is so intimately diffused through my foul,

that

* The relative may be referred to saugy, or to 'Inc Xgire; and either way the fenfe is much the fame.

that I may fay, Chrift liveth in me.

A like expreffion

is ufed in Col. iii. 3, 4. Chrift is our life. Thirdly, We may take notice, "that believers receive fupplies from Chrift for the maintenance and nourishment of their spiritual life." The life which I now live (or, as it might be rendered more fignificantly, what I now live) in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.

So that the fubftance of the text is exhausted in thefe three doctrines, "That all true believers are endowed with an ability to ferve God: That this ability was first communicated, and is ftill maintained through Chrift only and, That it is by faith they derive fupplies from him, for the fupport and nourishment thereof."

You may obferve I here reafon from a particular to an univerfal, and infer, that because thefe doctrines are true with refpect to St. Paul, therefore they are true with respect to believers in general; and the scope of the text warrants this method of reasoning in this inftance, which is confeffedly fallacious in other cafes; for St. Paul here introduces his own cafe with a defign to represent and illuftrate the cafe of believers in common; which he could not reasonably have done, had not theirs been fubftantially the fame with his in thefe refpects. Befides, he declares these things of himself, not upon the account of any circumftances peculiar to himself, which might appropriate them to him; and therefore, though fo eminent a faint might have peculiar degrees of them, yet as to their reality and kind, they equally belong to all true chriftians.

Nothing can be more profitable, nothing more neceffary, than right notions about fpiritual life. It is the main bufinefs of thofe that have it not to feek it, and of those that have it to cherish it; but how can they do either, if they know not what it is? Without it our religion is vain; we cannot ferve the living God here, nor enjoy him hereafter; we are expofed to the eternal agonies of the fecond death, and our

fouls

fouls are pining under a spiritual decay, that will at length confume our vitals. How neceffary then is spiritual life! And the neceffity of the thing infers the neceflity of the knowledge of it. The profeffion of it is the fource of all vital religion; it is the health of the spirit; the ornament and perfection of the human nature; the grand pre-requifite to everlaiting happinefs; the dawn of celeftial glory; is it not then incomparably profitable? And muft not the right knowledge of it be fo too? Yet fome are entirely ignorant of it; others, who say they fee, are widely mistaken about its nature, the time and manner of its communication, its fubjects, the author and meritorious cause of it, and the way in which it is fupported and cherifhed and therefore, for the instruction of the ignorant, the rectification of wrong fentiments, and the confirmation of our minds in the truth, it may be expedient briefly to attempt the solution of the following inquiries :

I. Wherein spiritual life confifts?

II. When it is communicated?

III. Whether it be inftantaneously communicated, or gradually acquired by repeated acts?

IV. Who are the fubjects of it? or, in what extent is it communicated?

V. In what fenfe is it communicated and fupported through Chrift?

VI. How faith derives fupplies from him for its fupport and nourishment?

I." Wherein does fpiritual life confift?" This inquiry, though neceffary both to inform your minds and to repel the charge of unintelligibleness, fo frequently alledged against this doctrine, yet is exceeding difficult, both because of the myfteriousness of the thing in itself, and because of the blindness of the minds of those that are not endowed with it. It is myfterious in itself, as every kind of life is. The ef fects and many of the properties of animal life are plain, but what animal life is in itself is an inquiry too

fublime