souls have digested it by a lively faith, and converted themselves into it, and it into themselves; and can they now think it can be severed from their own substance?

Can they find themselves truly ingrafted in the tree of life, and grown into one body with that heavenly plant, and, as a living branch of that tree, bearing pleasant and wholesome fruit, acceptable to God, and beneficial to men, Rev. xxii. 2; and can they look upon themselves as some withered bough, fit only for the fire?

Can they lay themselves living stones surely laid upon the foundation, Jesus Christ, to the making up of a heavenly temple for the eternal habitation of God; and can they think they can be shaken out with every storm of temptation?

Have these men ever taken into their serious thoughts that Divine prayer and meditation which our blessed Redeemer, when at the point of his death, left for a happy farewell to his church, in every word whereof there is a heaven of comfort: 66 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me," John xvii. 20—23. Oh heavenly consolation! Oh indefeasible assurance! What room can there be now here for our diffidence? Can the Son of God pray, and not be heard? For himself he needs not pray, as being eternally one with the Father, God blessed for ever. He prays for his; and his prayer is, That they may be one with the Father and him; even as they are

one. They cannot, therefore, but be partakers of this blessed union; and being partakers of it, they cannot be dissevered. And to make sure work, that glory which the Father gave to the Son of his love, they are already (through his gracious participation) pre-possessed of. Here they have begun to enter upon that heaven, from which none of the Oh the powers of hell can possibly eject them. unspeakably happy condition of believers! Oh that all the saints of God, in a comfortable sense of their inchoate blessedness, could sing for joy; and here, beforehand, begin to take up those hallelujahs, which they shall ere long continue, and never end, in the choir of the highest heaven!

SECT. IX. The privileges and benefits of this union; the first of them, life.

Having now taken a view of this blessed union, in the nature and resemblances of it, it will be time to bend thine eyes upon those most advantageous consequences, and high privileges, which necessarily follow upon and attend this heavenly conjunction. Whereof the first is that which we are wont to account sweetest-life. Not this natural life, which is maintained by the breath of our nostrils. Alas! what is that but a bubble, a vapour, a shadow, a dream, nothing! As it is the gift of a good God, worthy to be esteemed precious; but as it is considered in its own transitoriness, and attendant miseries, and in comparison of a better life, not worthy to take up our hearts. This life of nature is that which arises from the union of the body with the soul, many times enjoyed upon hard terms; the spiritual life which we now speak of, * Begun.

arising from the union betwixt God and the soul, is that wherein there can be nothing but perfect contentment, and joy unspeakable and full of glory. Yea, this is that life which Christ not only gives, but is; he that gave himself for us, and is that life that he gives us. "When Christ, which is our life, shall appear," saith the apostle, Col. iii. 4; and, Christ is to me, "to live," Phil. i. 21; and most emphatically, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," Gal. ii. 20. Lo, it is a common favour that in him we live; but it is an especial favour to his own, that he lives in us. "Know you not your own selves," (saith the apostle, 2 Cor. xiii. 5,) "how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates:" and wheresoever he is, there he lives. We have not a dead Saviour, but a living; and where he lives, he animates. It is not, therefore, St. Paul's case alone, it is every believer's; who may truly say, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Now, how these lives, and the authors of them, are distinguished, is worth thy most careful consideration.

Know then, my son, that every faithful man's bosom is a Rebekah's womb, Gen. xxv. 22, wherein there are twins; a rough Esau, and the seed of promise; the old man, and the new; the flesh, and the spirit; and these have their lives distinct from each other: the new man lives not the life of the old; neither can the old man live the life of the new; it is not one life that could maintain the opposite strugglings of both these. Corrupt nature is it that gives and continues the life of the old man. It is Christ that gives life to the new. We cannot but say the old man, or flesh, is the man too; "For I know" (saith the chosen vessel, Rom. vii. 18) "that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth

no good thing." But the spiritual part may yet better challenge the title; "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man," Rom. vii. 22. That old man of ours is derived from the first Adam: as we sinned in him, so he liveth in us. The second Adam both gives, and is, the life of our regeneration, like as he also is the life of our glory; the life that follows our second resurrection; "I am" (saith he)" the resurrection and the life." What is it, then, whereby the new creature lives? Surely no other than the Spirit of Christ; that alone is it which gives being and life to the renewed soul. Life is no stranger to us, there is nothing wherewith we are so well acquainted; yea, we feel continually what it is, and what it produces; it is that from whence all sense, action, and motion flows; it is that which gives us to be what we are. All this is Christ to the regenerate man. It is one thing what he is, or doth, as a man; another thing what he is, or doth, as a Christian. As a man, he hath eyes, ears, motions, affections, understanding, naturally as his own; as a Christian, he hath all these from him with whom he is spiritually one, the Lord Jesus; and the objects of all these vary accordingly. His natural eyes behold bodily and material things; his spiritual eyes see things invisible his outward ears hear the sound of the voice; his inward ears hear the voice of God's Spirit speaking to his soul: his bodily feet move in his own secular ways; his spiritual, walk with God in all the ways of his commandments. His natural affections are set upon those things which are agreeable thereto; he loves beauty; fears pain and loss; rejoices in outward prosperity; hates an enemy. His renewed affections are otherwise and more happily bestowed: now he loves goodness

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for its own sake; hates nothing but sin; fears only the displeasure of a good God; rejoices in God's favour, which is better than life. His former thoughts were altogether taken up with vanity, and earthed in the world; now he seeks the things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, Col. iii. 1. Finally, he is such, as that a beholder sees nothing but man in him; but God and his soul find Christ in him, both in his renewed person and actions; in all the degrees both of his life, and growth of his sufferings and glory. 'My little children," (saith St. Paul, Gal. iv. 19,) "of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." Lo here, Christ both conceived and born in the faithful heart.-Formation follows conception; and travail implies a birth. Now the believer is a new-born babe in Christ, 1 Cor. iii. 1 ; 1 Pet. ii. 2; and so mutually Christ in him; from thence he grows up to strength of youth, 1 John ii. 14; and at last to perfection, even towards the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, Eph. iv. 13; 2 Cor. xiii. 9; Heb. i. 9. And in this condition "he is dead with Christ," Rom. vi. 8. "He is buried with Christ," Rom. vi. 4. "He is alive again unto God through Christ," Rom. vi. 11. "He is risen with Christ," Col. iii. 1. And with Christ he is glorified, Rom. viii. 17; yea, yet more than so, his sufferings are his, Col. i. 24. He is, in Christ, an heir of glory; and "Christ is, in him, the hope of glory," Col. i. 27. SECT. X. A complaint of our insensibleness of this mercy, and an excitation to a cheerful recognition of it.

Dost thou not now find cause, my son, to complain of thyself, as I confess I daily do, that thou