eye to see things aright, by cleansing refreshing water, by purifying refining fire, Rom. 1. 4. correspondent to his sacred operations in the soul. As the Spirit of truth, he illuminates the understanding to see the reason and excellency of supernatural and heavenly things, of the great mysteries of godliness, of eternal glory; so that a christian, in his most deliberate, solemn and composed thoughts, in his exactest valuation, infinitely prefers them before the gaudy vanities of this transient world. When the eyes of the mind are truly enlightened, present things appear, or rather disappear, as shadows. As the Spirit of holiness, he renews the will and affections, inspires the soul with divine and unutterable desires after the favor and grace of God, and communicates spiritual power for the prosecuting and obtaining those desires. The Holy Spirit raises such a love to God, that habitually and strongly inclines the soul to obey his commands. This is the most clear and essential character of a christian, the special and most excellent property of a saint, upon which all other holy qualifications depend. As reason is the first and chief excellence of man, from whence his other perfections are derived, that distinguish him from the brutes, and give him a natural and regular preeminence and dominion over them, so that a man is most properly defined a reasonable creature: Thus the love of God is the most divine grace, the true form of holiness, the root from whence all other virtues spring and flourish, and most peculiarly distinguish a saint from unregenerate men, however adorned and accomplished; so that a saint is most properly defined to be a lover of God.

This is the principle of true holiness inherent in the soul, and shining in the conversation, that distinguishes the sincerity of a saint from the art of hypocrisy, an affected appearance of religion for carnal sordid respects; and from civil virtue, that restrains from what is ignominious and disgraceful to our reputation, and makes obnoxious to penalties of the laws, and excites to praiseworthy actions, upon worldly motives; and from philosophical morality, that forbids vice as contrary to reason, and commends virtue as the chief ornament and perfection of human nature, without a regard to please and glorify God.

And divine love is the principle of universal holiness. Love is called "the fulfilling of the law," as it is a comprehensive grace, and as it draws forth all the active powers of the soul to do God's will in an exact manner. Universal obedience is the exercise of love in various instances. As the spouse in the Song of Solomon is transformed in divers representations; sometimes as a sister, sometimes a warrior, sometimes as the keeper of a vineyard, but she always acted as a lover, and her chief business was to please her beloved. This allegorical description of the church, signifies that when the soul is inflamed with the love of God, that affection will be active, and discover itself in all it does

or suffers in the service of God. This will make a christian very desirous and diligent to please God in all things, and careful not to displease him in any thing; for that is the inseparable effect of love. The felicity of the natural temper, and the force of education, may cause a loathing of some evils, and dispose to some good works, but with a reserved delight in other sins, and a secret exception against other duties. Servile fear is a partial principle, and causes an unequal respect to the divine precepts: it restrains from sins of greater guilt, at which conscience takes fire it urges to some duties, the neglect of which causes disquiet; but the love of God causes the hatred of sin; and therefore it is against all sin, not only to prevent the exercise of it, but to eradicate it out of the soul. All the fearful consequences of sin do not render it so odious to a gracious spirit, as its own proper idea and intrinsic evil, as it is contrary to the holy nature and law of God. Love unites the soul to God, and turns the thoughts continually to him: and the lively sense of his majesty and presence, who is so pure that he cannot behold iniquity, causes an aversion from all that is displeasing to his divine eyes. And from hence it is that a zealous lover of God is frequent and strict in reviewing his heart and ways; and upon the discovery of sinful failings, renews his repentance, which is the exercise of grief and love, and renews his purposes of more care and circumspection for the future. Love aspires to be like God in all possible degrees of purity; for it inflames our desire after his favor, as that which is better than life, and all the sweetest enjoyments of it: and holiness is the powerful attractive of God's delightful love

to us.

Love is the principle of free, ingenuous, and joyful obedience. It was our Saviour's meat and drink to do the will of his Father. For love is the fountain of pleasure, it moves the soul with election and liberty, and makes every thing grateful that proceeds from it. Therefore the apostle declares, "that the law is not made for a righteous man," that is, as it is enforced by terrible penalties, to constrain rebellious sinners to obedience: for love is an internal living law in the heart, and has an imperial power over his actions. And this also distinguishes the renovation of one sanctified by the Spirit from the imperfect change that is made in the unregenerate. They may stop the eruption of corrupt nature, but are swine, that being washed, have an inclination to wallow in the mire: they may by strong impressions of fear be urged to do many good things; but in this they are like a bowl that is thrown with such violence, as controls the drawing of the bias, and makes it run contrary to it. But love inclines the soul to obey the holy motions of the Spirit with facility: as the wheels in Ezekiel's vision turned every way with readiness as the Spirit moved them.

And with holy love there is a spiritual power communicated,

CHAPTER IV.

The reasons why believers die, and are in a state of death for a time, notwithstanding the sting of death is taken away. Sin is abolished by death. The graces are eminently exercised in the encounter with the last enemy. The natural body is not capable of the celestial life. The resurrection of the saints is delayed till the coming of Christ. The resurrection proved from revelation; and the possibility of it by reason. How the resurrection of Christ is an assurance of the happy resurrection of the saints.

Before I proceed to the third head, I shall resolve a question, how it comes to pass, since believers are freed from the sting of death, that they die, and remain in a state of death for a time? For there are several reasons.

1. By this means all the sinful frailties that cleave to the saints in this life, are abolished. The body is dead because of sin, Rom. 8. And what is more becoming the wise and holy providence of God, than that as by sin man was at first made subject to death, so by death sin dies entirely forever. Thus, as in Sampson's riddle, out of the devourer comes meat; and our worst enemy is conquered by his own weapons.

2. Death is continued to the saints, for the more eminent exercise and illustration of their graces, for the glory of God, and in order to their future reward. *Faith, and love, and patience, are declared in their most powerful operations in our encounter with death. If every saint were visibly and entirely translated to heaven, after a short course of holy obedience; if the wicked did visibly drop down quick into hell, faith would be resigned to sight here. This would confound the militant state of the church with the triumphant. Therefore now death happens to the good as well as to the wicked. In the next state they shall be separated by a vast gulf, and an amazing difference. Now faith, whatever the kind of death be that a christian suffers, sees through the thickest clouds of disgrace and misery, the glorious issue. As the illustrious confessor, who was crucified with our Saviour, proclaimed his eternal kingdom in the midst of insulting infidels. And our love to God then appears in its radiancy

*Poterat autem Christus etiam hoc donare credentibus, ut nec istius experirentur corporis mortem: sed si hoc fecisset carni quædam fœlicitas adderetur, minueretur fidei fortitudo. Quid enim magnum erat vivendo eos non mori qui crederint se non morituros? Quanto est majus, quanto fortius, quanto laudibilius ita credere, ut se speret moriturus sine fine victurum? Aug. de pecc. Mort. Lib. 2.

and vigor, when we are ready for the testimony of his truth, and advancing his glory, to suffer a violent death: Or when it comes in a gentler manner, for it is even then terrible to nature, we are willingly subject to dissolution, that we may be united to God in heaven. And our patience has never its perfect work, and is truly victorious, until this last enemy be subdued. Death is the seal of our constancy and perseverance. Now the righteous rewarder will crown none but those that strive lawfully, and are complete conquerors. And how wise and sweet is the economy of the divine providence in this, that the frailty of our nature should afford us a means of glorifying God, and of entitling ourselves by his most gracious promises to a blessed reward?

3. Our Saviour, by his unvaluable obedience and sufferings, has procured for believers a celestial divine life, of which the natural body is not capable. The apostle saith, "Flesh and blood cannot enter into the the kingdom of heaven." The Exigencies and decays of the sensitive nature require a continual relief by food and sleep, and other material supplies: But the life above is wholly spiritual; and equal to that of the angels. Therefore until this earthly animal body be reformed and purified, it is not capable of the glory reserved in heaven. This is so absolutely requisite, that those believers, who are found alive at the last day, shall "in the twinkling of an eye be changed," that they may be qualified for it. Now herein the wisdom of God is wonderful, that death, which by the covenant of works, was the deserved penalty of sin, by the covenant of grace should be the instrument of immortality: That as Joseph by a surprising circuit was brought from the prison to the principality; so a believer by the grave ascends to heaven. This the apostle, in his divine disputation against infidels, proves in a most convincing manner; "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." As the rotting of the corn in the earth is necessary to the reviving and springing of it up: So we must die, and the image of the earthly Adam be abolished, that we may be transformed into the image of the heavenly one.

And to the other part of the question, Why the saints remain in the state of death for a time? There is a clear answer. The resurrection of the saints is delayed till Christ's coming to judgment, partly for the glory of his appearance: For what an admirable sight will it be, that the saints of all ages shall at once arise glorified and immortalized, to attend upon our Saviour in the last act of his regal office, and then to make a triumphant entry with him into heaven? And partly, that the established order of providence may not be disturbed: For the changing of

* Exercitia nobis sunt non funera, dant animo fortitudinis gloriam: contemptu mortis præparant ad coronam. Cypr. de mortal.

our nature into glory, in a sudden and inexplicable manner, cannot be without miraculous power; and if every believer, presently after death, were in his glorified body translated to heaven, the world would be always filled with miracles, which were to cease after the sufficient confirmation of the gospel by them. But how long soever the interval be to the resurrection, it shall be. with "them that sleep in Jesus," as it is with those that awake. out of a quiet natural sleep, to whom the longest night seems but as a moment: So when the saints first awake from death, in the great morning of the world, a thousand years will seem no more to them than to God himself, but as one day.

I now come to prove the third thing, that our Saviour will abolish the dominion of death over the saints. Whilst the bodies of the saints remain in the grave, they seem to be absolutely under the power of death. The world is a Golgotha, filled with the monuments of its victories. And it may be said to this our. last enemy, in the words of the prophet to the bloody king, "Hast thou killed, and taken possession?" But we are assured by an infallible word, that the power of death shall be abolished, and the bodies of the saints be revived incorruptible and immortal.

The resurrection is a terra incognita to the wisest heathens; a doctrine peculiar to the gospel: Some glimmerings they had of the soul's immortality, without which all virtue had been extinguished in the world, but no conjecture of the reviving of the body. But reason assists faith in this point, both as to the will of God, and his power for the performing it. I will glance upon the natural reasons that induce the considering mind to receive this doctrine, and more largely shew how the resurrection of the just is assured by our Redeemer.

The divine laws are the rule of duty to the entire man, and not to the soul only: And they are obeyed or violated by the soul and body in conjunction. Therefore there must be a resurrection of the body, that the entire person may be capable of recompences in judgment. The soul designs, the body executes : The senses are the open ports to admit temptations. Carnal af fections deprave the soul, corrupt the mind, and mislead it. The love of sin is founded in bono jucundo, in sensible pleasures: "And the members are the servants of iniquity." The heart is the fountain of profaneness, and the tongue expresses it. And the body is obsequious to the holy soul in doing or suffering for God; and denies its sensual appetites and satisfactions in compliance with reason and grace. The "members are the instruments of righteousness." It follows then there will be an universal resurrection, that the rewarding goodness of God may appear in making the bodies of his servants gloriously happy with their souls, and their souls completely happy in union with their bodies, to which they have a natural inclination, and his reveng