The Nature of Regeneration
eee if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. — 2 CoRINTHIANS v. 17.
I sexecr these words to show the nature of regeneration, the necessity of which I have already insisted upon. —
ie is difficult to describe exactly the Nature of Regeneration:
Because of the disputes about it; whether it be a quality, or a spiritual substance; whether, if a quality, it be a habit, or a power, or whether it be the Holy Ghost personally. The Scripture discovers it to us, under the terms of the new creature, a new heart, a law put into us, the image of God, a divine nature; these, though Scripture terms, are difficult to explain.
It is difficult, because it is visible, not in itself, but. in its effects. We know seed doth propagate ‘itself, and produce its like, but the generative part in the seed lies covered with husks and skin, so that it is
hard to tell in what atom or point the generative par- — ticle doth lie. We know we have a soul, yet it is hard to tell what the soul is, and in what part it doth principally reside. We know there are angels, yet what mortal can give a description of that glorious nature? It is much like the wind, as our Saviour describes it, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”” John iii. 8. The wind we feel, we see the effects of it, yetycannot tell how it #riseth, where it doth repose itse. f, and how it is allayed: and all the notions of philosophy about it,
will not satisfy a curious inquirer: so likewise it is in this business of regeneration; the effects of it are known, there are certain characters whereby to discern it; but to give a description of the nature of it, 1s not so easy.
It is difficult, because of the natural ignorance. which is still, in the minds of the best. A man cannot understand all iniquity, for there is a mystery of iniquity, neither can he fully understand this work, for there is a mystery of godliness; not only in the whole scheme of it without, but in the whole frame of it in the heart. It is called the “hidden man of the heart.”? 1 Pet. i. 4. Hidden from the world, hidden from reason, hidden from the sight sometimes of them that have it: a man can hardly sometimes see it in his own heart, by reason of the steams of corruption; as a beautiful picture is not visible ina cloud of smoke. The blindness the god of this world hath wrapt us in, that we might not know God, or the things of God, is not wholly taken off. And even what we know of the truths of God, suffers an eclipse. by our carnal conceptions of them; for all the notions we frame of them, have a tincture of sense and fancy.,
It is hard for those to conceive it, who have no experience of it. If we speak of the motions of natural corruption, as wrath, passion, distrust of God, and enormous sins, men can easily understand this; because we have all sad experience of an inward corruption; but the methods and motions of the Spirit of God in this work, are not comprehended, but by those that have felt the power of them. The motions of sin are more sensible, the motions of the Spirit more secret and inward, and men want as much the experience of the one, as they have too much of the other. Hence it is that many carnal men, love to have the nature of sin explained and discovered; partly perhaps, for this reason among others, that they can better understand that by the daily evidence of it in their own practices; whereas other things, out of the reach of their experience, are out of the grasp of their understanding; and therefore seem to them paradoxes and incredible things: the spiritual man is not judged or discerned by any, but them that are spiritual. It is certainiy true, that as a painter can better delineate a stormy and cloudy air, than the. serenity of a clear day, and the spectator conceive it with more pleasure: so it is more easy to represent the agitations and affections of natural corruption, than the inward frame of a soul wrought by the Spirit of God. Ishall therefore describe it consonantly to the Scripture, thus: Regeneration is a mighty and powerful change, wrought in the. soul by the eflicacious working of the Holy Spirit, wherein a vital principle, a new habit, the law of God, and a divine nature are put into, and framed in the heart, enabling it to act holy and pleasingly to God, and to grow up therein to eternal glory.. This is included in the term of a new creature in the text. There is a change, a creation; that which was not, is brought into a state of being. If anew creature, and in Christ, then surely not a dead but a living creature, having a principle of life; and if a living creature, then possessed of some power to act, and habits to make those actions easy: and if a power to agt, and a habit to facilitate that act, then a law in their nature g* as the rule of their acting; every creature hath so: in this respect the heavens are said to have ordinances; “knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?”’ and they seem to act in the way of a covenant, according to such articles as God hath pitched upon. And lastly, as in all creatures thus endued, there is a likeness to some other things in the rank of beings: so in this new creature there is a likeness to God, whence it is called the image of God in holiness and righteousness; and a divine nature. So that you see the divers expressions whereby the Scripture declares this work of regeneration, are included in this term of the new creature, or the new creation, as the wordis. Itisa certain spiritual and supernatural principle, or permanent form, infused by God, whereby it is made partaker of the divine nature, and enabled to act for God.
Let us therefore see how it differs from other states of the Christian.
It differs from conversion. Regeneration is a spiritual change, conversion isa spiritual motion. In re- generation there is a power conferred; conversion is the exercise of this power. In regeneration there is given us a principle to turn; conversion is our actual turning; that is the principle whereby we are brought out of a state of nature, into a state of grace: and conversion the actual fixing on God. Conversion is re-, lated to regeneration, as the effect to the cause. Life precedes motion, and is the cause of motion. In the covenant, the new heart, the new Spirit, and God’s putting his Spiritintothem, are distinguished from their walking in his statutes, from the first step we take in the way of God, and is set down as the cause of our motion: “I will cause you to walk in my statutes.” “In renewing us, God gives us a power; in converting us he excites that power. Men are naturally dead, and have a stone upon them. Regeneration is rolling away the stone from the heart, and a raising to newness of life; and then conversion is as natural to a regenerate man, as motion is to a living body. A principle of activity will produce action.
In regeneration, man is wholly passive: in conversion, he is active; as a child in its first formation in the womb, contributes nothing to the first infusion of life; but after it hath life, it is active, and its motion natural. The first reviving of us is wholly the act of God, without any concurrence of the creature; but after we are revived, we do actively and voluntarily live in his sight; “he will revive us, he will raise us up, and then we shall live in his sight,”’ then we shall walk before him, then shall we “follow on to know the Lord.’’ Hos. vi. 2. Regeneration is the motion of God in the creature; conversion is the motion of the creature to God, by virtue of that first principle; from this principle all the acts of believing, repenting, mortifying, quickening, do spring: in all these a man is active; in the other merely passive; all these are the acts of the will, by the assisting grace of God, after the infusion of the first grace: conversion is a giving ourselves to the Lord: giving our own selves to the Lord is a vo-. luntary act, but the power whereby we are enabled thus to give ourselves, is wholly and purely in every part of it from the Lord himself. A renewed man is said to be “led by the Spirit,’ Rom. viii. 14, not dragged, not forced: the putting a bias and aptitude in the will, is the work of the Spirit quickening it; but the moving the will to God by the strength of this bias, is voluntary, and the act of the creature. The Spirit leads asa father doth a child by the hand: the father gave him that principle of life,and conducts him, and hands him in his motion; but the child hath a principle of motion in himself, anda will to move. The day of regeneration is solely the day of God’s power, wherein he makes men willing to turn to him. So that though in actual conversion the creature be active, it is not from the power of man, though it be from a power in man; not growing up from the impotent root of nature, but settled there by the Spirit of God.
It differs from justification. By justification we are reconciled to God; by regeneration we are assimilated and made like toGod.. They always go together. As our Saviour’s resurrection, which was the justification of him from that guilt which he had taken upon himself, and a public pronouncing him to be his righteous servant, is called a new begetting him, “God hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second Psalm: thou art my son, this day have I besotten thee.” Acts. xiii. 33. Because it was a manifestation of him to be the Son of God,:who before, being covered with our infirmities, did not appear so to the world: so our justification from guilt, and new begetting us, and manifesting us to the angels, to be the sons of God, are at one and the same time, and both are by grace; by grace you are justified, Rom. v. 1, the quickening and raising us together with Christ is by grace. The blessing of Abraham, which is the application of redemption from the curse of the law, and the receiving the promise of the Spirit by faith, are both together.
It differs from justification in the nature of the change.
Justification is a relative change, whereby a man is brought from a state of guilt to a state of righteousness; from a state of slavery to a state of liberty;.
from the obligation of the covenant of works, to the privilege of the covenant of grace; from being a child of wrath to be an heir of promise. Regeneration is a spiritual change, and real, as when a dead man is raised from death to life; it is a filling the soul with another nature, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”? Eph. ii. 1. It is
a change of nature, and of that nature whereby we % = are children of wrath, not only by the first sin, but by a conversation according to the course of the world. And this quickening respects the change of that nature which was prone to a worldly conversation, and a fulfilling the desires of the flesh. The first is a change of a man’s condition, this a change in a man’s. disposition. When a man is made a masistrate, there is a change in his relation; when a servant or slave is made a free man, there i is an alteration of his condition; but neither the one’s magistracy, nor the other’s liberty, fill their hearts with hew principles, or plants a new frame in their nature. Relation and nature are two distinct things. In creation there is a relation of a creature to God, which results from the mere being of the creature; but there is also the nature of the creature in such a rank of being, which is added over and above to its mere being. The apostle in the verses following the text, speaks of reconciliation, or non-imputatiom of our trespasses, as distinct from that change wrought in, us in the new creation. In justification we are freed. from the guilt of sin, and so have: a title to life; in regeneration we are freed from the’ filth of sin, and have the purity. of God’s image in part restored to us.,
Justification is the immediate fruit of the blood of Christ, ‘“‘ Being justified by his blood;’’ regeneration is by the immediate operation of the Spirit, therefore called “the sanctification of the Spirit;”’ the matter of that is without us, the righteousness of Christ; the matter of the other within us, a gracious habit: the form of the one, is imputing; the form of the other, is infusing or putting into us: they differ in the end; one is from condemnation to absolution; the other from pollution to communion. In the immediate effect, one gives us a right, the other a fitness. In their qualities, the righteousness of one is perfect in our head, and imputed to us. The righteousness by
Necens 08 regeneration is actively in us, and aspires to perfection.
It differs from adoption. Adoption follows upon justification, as a dignity flowing from union to Christ, and doth suppose reconciliation. Adoption” gives us the privilege of sons, regeneration the nature ° of sons. Adoption relates us to God as a father; regeneration engraves upon us the lineaments of a father. That makes us relatively his sons by conferring a power; this makes us formally his sons by conveying a principle. By that we are instated in the divine affection; by this we are partakers of the divine nature. Adoption doth not constitute us the children of God by an intrinsic form, but by an extrinsic acceptation; but this gives us an intrinsic right; — or adoption gives us a title, and the Spirit gives us an earnest; grace is the pledge of glory. Redemption being applied in justification, makes way for adoption. Adoption makes way for regeneration, and is, the foundation of it. “God sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’”’ Gal. iv. 5, 6. Because you are thus adopted, God will make you like his Son, by sending forth the Spirit of his Son, to intimate the likeness it shall produce in the hearts of men to Christ, that you may cry, Abba, Father; behave yourselves like sons, and have recourse to God with a child like nature. The relation to Christ as brethren is founded upon this new creature, “For both he that sanctifies, and they who are sanctified, are all of one.’’? Heb. ii. 11. They are all. of one nature, not the divine nature which Christ had by eternal generation, but that divine nature Christ had by the Spirit’s unction. And being of one nature, he is not ashamed, though glorious in heaven, to call. them brethren; and being Christ’s brethren by a divine nature, thence results also the relation of the sons of God.
It differs from sanctification. Habitual sanctification indeed is the same thing with this new creature; as habitual rectitude with the spiritual life of Adam: but actual sanctification, and the gradual progress of it, grows from this principle as from a root. Faith purifies the heart, ‘‘ Purifying their hearts by faith.”’ Acts. xv. 9. And is the cause of this gradual sanctification; but faith is part of:this new creature, and that which is a part cannot be the cause of the whole, for then it would be the cause of itself. We are not regenerated by faith, though’ we are sanctified by faith; but we are new created by the Spirit of God, infusing faith into us. Faith produceth the acts of grace, but not the habit of grace, because it is of itself a part of this habit; for all graces are but one in the habit or new creature; charity, and likewise every other grace is but the bubbling up of a pure heart and good conscience. Regeneration seems to be the life of this gradual sanctification, the health and liveliness of the soul.
Regeneration is not a removal or taking away of the old substance or faculties of the soul.” Some thought that the substance of Adam’s soul was corrupted when he sinned, therefore suppose the substance of his soul to be altered when he is renewed.. Sin took not away the essence, but the rectitude; the new creation therefore gives not a new faculty, but a new quality. The cure of the leprosy is not a destroying of the fabric of the body, but the disease; yet in regard of the greatness of man’s corruption, the soul is so much changed by these new habits, that it is, as it were, a new soul, a new understanding, anew will. It is not the destroying the metal, but the old stamp upon it, to imprint a new: human nature is preserved, but ‘the corruption in it expelled.
The substance of gold is not destroyed. in the fire, though the metal and the flame mix together, and fire seems to be incorporated with every part of it; but it is made more pliable to what shape the artist will cast it into, but remains gold still: it is not the breaking the candlestick, but setting up a new light in it; not a destroying the will, but putting a new bias into it. It is a new-stringing the instrument, to make a new harmony. It is an humbling the loftiness, and bowing down the haughtiness of the spirit, to exalt the Lord alone in the soul. The essential, nature of man, his reason and understanding, are not
taken away, but rectified. As a carver takes not ‘away the knots and grain in the wood, but planes
-and smooths it, and carves the image of a man upon it, the substance of the wood remains still; so God pares away the rugged pieces in man’s understanding and will, and engraves his own image upon it;
but the change is so great, that the soul seems to be of another species and kind, because it is actuated by that grace, which is another species from that principle which actuated it before. New creation is called a resurrection: our Saviour in his resurrection had the same body, but endued with a new quality. As in Christ’s transfiguration, neither his deity nor humanity were altered, both natures remained the same. But there was a metamorphosis, and a glorious brightness conferred by the deity upon the humanity, which it did not partake of before. So, though the essence of the soul and faculties remain the same, yet another kind of light is darted in, and other qualities implanted. It was the same Paul when he complied with the body of death, and when he complained of it, but he had not the same disposition. As Adam in’ a state of corruption had the same faculties for sub- ‘stance, which he had in the state of innocency; but. the power, virtue, and form in those faculties, whereby
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/he was acceptable to God, and in a capacity to please him, were wholly abolished. We lose not our substantial form, as Moses’s rod did, when it was turned
into a serpent; or the water at Cana, when turned into
wine. Our nature is ennobled,.not destroyed; enriched, not ruined; reformed, not annihilated.
It is not a change of the essential acts of the soul, as acts: the passions and affections are the same, as
to the substance and nature of the acts; but the dif- —
ference lies in the object. And acts, though for substance the same, yet are specifically distinguished by the diversity of objects about which they are conversant. Whatsoever is a commendable quality in nature, and left in man, by the interposition of the Mediator, is not taken away; but the principle, end, and objects of those acts, arising from those restored qualities, are altered. The acts of a renewed man and the acts of a natural man are the same in the nature. of acts; as when a man loves God, and fears God, or loves man, or fears man, it is the same act of love, and the same act of fear; there are the same motions of the.soul, the same substantial acts simply considered;
the soul stands in the same posture in the one as in the other; but the difference lies in the objects; the object of the one is supernatural, the object of the
other natural. As when a man walks to the east or
west, it is the same motion in body and joints, the same manner of going; yet they are contrary motions, because the terms to which they tend are contrary one to the other: or, as when we bless God and bless men, it is with one and the same tongue that we do both; yet these are acts specifically different, in regard of the difference of their objects. The nature of the affections still remain, though not the corruption of them, and the objects to which they are wa ie are different.
It is not an excitation, or awakening of some gra.
10 amncious principle, which lay hid before in nature, under the oppression of ill habits: as corn lay hid under the chaff but was cornstill. Not a beating up something that lay hid in nature; not an awakening, as of a man from sleep; but a resurrection, as of a man from death; anew creation, as of a man from nothing. It is not a stirring up old principles, and new kindling of them; as a candle put out lately, may be blown in again by the fire remaining in the snuff, and burn upon the old
stock; or as the life, which retired into the more secret parts of the body, in those creatures that seem dead in winter; which is excited and called out to the exterior parts, by the spring sun. Indeed there are some sparks of moral virtues in nature, which want blowing up by a good education; the foundation of these is in nature, the exciting of them from instruction, the perfection of them from use and exercise.
- But there is not in man the seed of one grace, but the
seeds of all sin, “I know, that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing.’? Rom. vil. 18. Some good thing may be in me, but it ariseth not from my flesh; it is not from any seed sown by nature; but it is another principle put into me, which doth seminally contain in it all grace; it is a putting a new seed into the soil, and exciting it to grow; an incorruptible seed. Therefore the Scripture doth not represent men in a trance or sleep, but dead; and so it is not only an awakening, but a quickening, a resurrection. We are just in this work, as our Saviour was when the devil came against him, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.”’ John xiv. 30. He had nothing to work upon in Christ. But he rakes in the ashes of our nature, and finds sparks enough to blow upon: but the Spirit finds nothing in us, but a stump, some confused desires for happiness: he brings all the fire from heaven, wherewith our hearts are
-kindled. This work therefore is not an awakening of good habits, which lay before oppressed, but a taking off those ill habits, which were-so far from oppressing nature, that they were connatural to it, and by incorporation with it, had quite altered it from that original rectitude and simplicity wherein God at first created it.
Nor is it an addition to nature. Christ was not an addition to Adam but a new head by himself, called Adam in regard of the agreement with him in the notion of an head and common person. So neither is the new creature, or Christ formed in the soul, an addition to nature. Grace grows not upon the old stock, It is not a piece of cloth sowed to an old garment, but the one is cast aside, the other wholly taken on; not one garment put upon another, but a taking off one, and a putting on another, “Putting off the old man, putting on the new man.” Col. ii. 9,10. It is a taking away what was before; “old things are passed away,”’ and bestowing something that had no footing before. It is not a new varnish, nor do old things remain under a new paint; not new plaister laid upon old; a new creature, not a mended creature. It is called light, which is not a quality added to darkness, but a quality that expels it: it is a taking away the stony heart and putting an heart of flesh in the room. The old nature remains, not in its strength with this addition, but is crucified, and taken away in part with its attendants, “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts.”? Gal. v.24. As in the cure of a man, health is not added to the disease; or in resurrection, life added to death; but the disease is expelled, death removed, and another form and habit set in the place. Add what you will, without introducing another form, it will be of no more efficacy, than flowers and perfumes strewed upon a dead carcass, to restore it to life, and remove the rottenness. It supposeth nonee THE NATURE
thing before, as a subject capable: nothing in a natural man, isa subject morally capable to have grace, without the expulsion of the old corrupt nature. It is called a new creature, anew man; not an improved creature, or a new dressed man.
It is not external baptism. Many men take their baptism for regeneration. The ancients usually give it this term. One calls our Saviour’s baptism his regeneration. This confers not grace, but engageth to it: outward water cannot convey inward life. How can water, a material thing, work upon the soul in a spiritual manner? Neither can it be proved, that ever the Spirit of God is tied by any promise, to apply himself.to the soul in a gracious operation, when water is applied to the body. If it were so, that all that were baptised, were regenerate; then all that were baptised, would be saved; or else the doctrine of perseverance falls to the ground. Baptism is a mean of conveying this grace, when the Spirit is pleased to operate with it. But it doth not work as a physical cause upon the soul, as a purge doth upon the humours of the body: for it is the sacrament of regeneration, as the Lord’s Supper is of nourishment. As a man cannot be said to be nourished without faith, so he cannot be said to be anew creature without faith. Put the most delicious meat into the mouth of a dead man, you do not nourish him, because he wants-a principle of life to concoct and digestit. Faith only is the principle of spiritual life, and the principle which draws nourishment from the means of God’s appointment. Some indeed say, that regeneration is conferred in baptism upon the elect, and exerts itself afterwards in conversion. But how so active a principle asa spiritual life should lie dead, and asleep so long, even many years which intervene between baptism and conversion, is not easily conceivable.
Let us see what it is positively.
It consists in a real change from nature to grace, as well as by grace. The term of creation is real: the-form introdticed in the new creature, is as real as the form introduced by creation, into any being. Scripture terms manifest it so. A divine nature, the image of God, a law put into the heart, they are not nominal and notional. It is a reality the soul partakes of; it gives a real denomination, a new man, a new heart, a new spirit, a new creature, something of a real existence; it is called a resurrection. ‘‘ The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.”? John v.25. If Christ had said only, that the hour shall come, it had been meant of the last resurrection; but saying, that it was already come, it must be meant of a resurrection in this life. There is as real a resurrection of the soul, by the trumpet of the Gospel, accompanied with the vigorous efficacy of the Holy Ghost, as there shall be of bodies by the voice of the Son of God, at the sound of the trumpet of the archangel. All real operations suppose some real form whence they flow; as vision supposeth a power whereby a man sees, and also a nature wherein that power is rooted. The operations of a new creature are real; and therefore suppose a real power to act, and a real habit as the spring of them. It is such a being that enables them to produce real spiritual actions; for the spirit of power is conveyed to them; whereby as when they were out of Christ, they were able to do nothing, so now being in him, they are able to do all things.
It is a change common to all the children of God. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: every man in Christ is so. It is peculiar to them, and common to all of them. The new creation gives being to ali Christians. It is a new being settled in them, a new impress and signature set upon them, whereby they are distinguished from all men, barely considered in their naturals. As all of the same species have the same nature; as all men have the nature of men, all lions the nature of lions; so all saints agree in one nature: the life of God is communicated to all, whose names are written in the book of life. All believers, those in Africa, as well as those in Europe; those in heaven, as well as those on earth, have the same essential nature and change. As they are all of one family, all actuated by one spirit, the heart of one answers to the heart of another, as face to face in a glass. What is a spirit of adoption in them below, is a spirit of glory in them above; what in the renewed man below, is a spirit crying, Abba, Father; that is in them above, a spirit rejoicing in Abba, Father; the impress and change are essentially the same, though not the same in degree.
It is a change quite contrary to the former frame. What more contrary to light than darkness? Such a change it is, instead of a black darkness, there is a bright light. As contrary as flesh and spirit; “that which is born of the flesh, is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit.’ John iii. 6. Where both are put in the abstract, one is the composition of flesh, the other of spirit: as contrary as east to west; as the seed of the woman to the seed of the serpent; as the spirit of the world, and the Spirit of God. The frame of the heart before the new creation, and the frame of the heart after, bear as great a distance from one another as heaven from earth. As God and sin are the most contrary to one another; so an affection to God, and an affection to sin, are the most contrary affections. It is quite another bent of heart, as if a man turn from north to south. Itisa position quite contrary to what it was; the heart touched by grace, stands full to God, as before to sin; it is stripped of its perverse inclinations to sin, clothed with holy affections to God: he abhors what before he loved, and loves what before he abhorred: he was alienated from the life of God, but now alienated from the life of his lusts: nothing would before serve him but God’s departure from him; nothing will now please him, but God’s rays upon him. He was before tired with God’s service, now tired. with his own sin. Before, crucifying the motions of the Spirit, now crucifying the affections and lusts. That which was before his life and happiness, is now his death and misery; he dislikes his foolish pastimes and. sinful pleasures, as much as a man does the follies of his childhood; and is’as cheerful in loathing them, as before he was jolly in committing them. It is a translation from one kingdom to another; a translation “from the power of darkness, into the kingdom of his dear son.’”’ Colos. 1.13. A word taken from the transplanting of colonies: they are in a contrary soil and climate, they have other works, other laws, other privileges, other natures: as Christ’s resurrection was a state quite contrary to the former; at the time of his death he was in a state of guilt by reason of our sin; at his resurrection he is freed from it; he was before made under the law, he is then freed from the curse of it; he was before in a state of death, after his resurrection in a state of life, and lives for ever. God pulls out the heart of stone, that inflexibleness to him and his service; and plants a heart of flesh in the room, a pliableness to him and his will. It is as great a change, as when a wolf is made a lamb, the nature of the wolf is lost, and the lamb-like nature introduced, By corruption man was carnal and brutish; by the new creation he is spiritual and divine; by corruption he hath the image of the devil; by this he is restored to the image of God; by that he had the seeds of all villanies; by this the roots of all graces: that made us fly from God, this makes us return to him; that made us enemies to his authority; this subjects us to his government; that made us contemn his law; this make us prize and obey it. “Instead of the thorn, there shall come up the fir-tree; instead of the briar, shall come up the myrtle-tree,’’ Isa. lv. 13; and God will preserve it from being cut off, speaking of the time of redemption.
It is a universal change of the whole man. It is a new creature, not only a new power, or new faculty: this, as well as creation, extends to every part, understanding, will, conscience, affections, all were corrupted by sin, all are renewed by grace. Grace sets up its ensigns in all parts of the soul, surveys every corner, and triumphs over every lurking enemy; it is as large in renewing, as sin was in defacing. The whole soul shall be glorified in heaven; therefore the whole soul shall be beautified by grace. The beauty of the church is described in every part, Can. iv. 1, 2, 3, 4, &c.
This new creation bears resemblance to creation and generation. God in creation creates all parts of the creature entire. When nature forms a child in the womb, it doth not only fashion one part, leaving the other imperfect; but labours about all, to form an entire man: the Spirit is busy about every part in the formation of the new creature. Generation gives the whole shape to the child, unless it be monstrous. God doth not produce monsters in grace; there is the whole shape of the new man. You mistake much, if you rest in a reformation of one part only; God will say, such a work was none of my creation. He doth not do things by halves.
It bears proportion to corruption: as sin expelled the whole frame of original righteousness, so regenerating grace expels the whole frame of original corruption. It was not only the head, or only the heart, only the understanding, or only the will, that was overcast with the blackness of sin; but every part of man did lose its original rectitude. Not a faculty could boast itself, like the Pharisee, and say, it was not like this or that publican; the waves of sin had gone over the heads of every one of them. Sin, like leaven, had infected the whole mass; grace overspreads every faculty to drive out the contagion. Grace is compared to light, and light is more or less in every part of the air above the horizon, for the expulsion of darkness when the sun ariseth. The Spirit is compared to fire, and therefore pierceth every part with his warmth, as heat diffuseth itself from the fire to every part of water. The natural man is denominated from corruption, not an old understanding, or an old will, but the old man. So a regenerate man is not called a new understanding, or a new will, but a new man.
The proper seat of grace is the substance of the soul, and therefore it influences every faculty. It is the form whence the perfection both of understanding and will do flow; it is not, therefore, placed in either of them, but in the essence of the soul. It is by this the union is made between God and the soul, but the union is not of one particular faculty, but of the whole soul.. He that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit; it is not one particular faculty that is perfected by grace, but the substance of the soul. Besides, that is the seat of grace which is the seat of the Spirit; but this or that particular faculty is not the seat of the Holy Ghost, but the soul itself, whence the Spirit rules every particular faculty by assisting grace, like a monarch in the metropolis sending orders to all parts of his dominions. The Spirit is said to dwell in a man, in the whole man, as the soul doth in the body, in forming every part of it; if it dwelt only in one faculty, there could be no spiritual motion of the other; the principles in the will would contradict those in the understanding; the will would act blindly, if there were no spiritual light in the understanding to guide it: the light of the understanding would be useless, if there were no inclination in the will to follow it; and grace in both those faculties would signify little, if there remained an opposing perversity in the affections. The Spirit, therefore, is in the whole soul, like fire in the whole piece of iron, quickening, warming, mollifying, making flexible, and consuming what is contrary: like Aaron’s ointment, poured upon the head, and thence running down to the skirts of the soul.
Therefore there is a gracious harmony in the whole man. As in generation two forms cannot remain in ‘the same subject: for in the same instant wherein the new form is introduced, the old is cast out: so at the firsts moment of infusing grace, the body of death hath its deadly wound in every faculty, understand-. ing, will, conscience, affection. The rectitude reaches every part; and all the powers of the soul by a strong combination, by one common principle of grace actuating them, conspire together to be subject to the law of God, and advance in the ways of holiness; it is with the whole heart that God is sought. In the understanding there is light instead of darkness, whereby it yields to the wisdom of God, and searches into the will of God; the spirit of the mind is renewed. In the will there is softness instead of hardness, humility instead of pride, whereby it yields to the will of God, and closes with the law of God. In the - heart and conscience, there is purity instead of uncleanness, whereby it is purged from dead works, settled against the approbation of sin, and a resolution to be void of offence. In the affections there is — love instead of enmity, delight instead of weariness, — whereby they yield to the pleasure of God, have flights into the bosom of God; “oh, how love I thy law! it is my delight day and night.’?? The memory - is a repository for the precepts and promises of God, as the choicest treasure. It is.a likeness to Christ; the whole human nature of Christ was holy, every faculty of his soul, every member of his body, his nature holy, his heart holy. If we are not’so formed, Christ is not formed in us: look therefore whether the reformation you rest in, be in the whole, and in every part of the soul.
It is principally an inward change. It is as inward as the soul itself. Not only a cleansing the outside of the cup and platter, a painting over the sepulchre, but a casting out the dead bones, and putrified flesh; of a nature different from a pharisaical and hypocritical change. It is a clean heart David desires; not only clean hands. If it were not so, there could be no outward rectified change. The spring and wheels of the clock must be mended, before the hand of the dial will stand right. It may stand right two hours in the day, when the time of the day comes to it, but not from any motion or rectitude in itself. So a man may seem by one or. two actions to be a changed man; but the inward spring being: amiss, it is but a deceit. Sometimes there may be a change, not in the heart, but in the things which the heart is set upon, when they are not what they were: as a man whose heart was set upon uncleanness, change of beauty may change his affections; the change is not in the man, but in the object. But this change I speak of, is a change in the mind, when there is none in the object; as the affection of a child to his trifles changeth with the growth of his reason, though the things his heart was set upon remain in the same condition as before.
It is a change of principle. The principle of a natural man in his religious actions, is artificial; he is wound up to such’a peg, like the spring of a machine, by some outward respects which please him: but as the motion of the machine ceaseth, when the spring is down, so a natural man’s motion holds no longer than the delight those motions gave him, which first engaged him in it. But the principle in a good man is spirit, an internal principle; and the first motion of this principle is towards God, to act from God, and to act for God. He fetches his fire from heaven, to kindle his service: an heat and fervency of spirit precedes his serving the Lord. There may be a serving God from an outward heat, conveying a vigour and activity to a man; but the new creature serves God from inward and heated affections. Examine, therefore, by what principles do I hear, and pray, and live, and walk? For all acts are good or evil, as they savour of a good or bad root, or principle in the heart. The two principles of the new creature, are faith and love. What is called the new creature, Gal. vi. 15, is called faith working by love, Gal. v. 6.
The first principle of the new creature is faith. Faith is a part of this new creature. This is the first discovery of all spiritual life within us, and therefore the immediate principle of all spiritual motion. A splendid action without faith is but moral; whereas one less glittering, is spiritual with it. The new creature being begotten by the seed of the word, and having thereby an evangelical frame, hath therefore that which is the prime evangelical grace, upon which all other graces grow; and consequently all the acts of the new creature spring from this principle immediately, viz. faith in the precept, as a rule; faith in the promise, as an encouragement; faith in the Mediator, as a ground of acceptance. Therefore if we have not faith in the precept, though we may do a service not point-blank against the precept, yet it is nota service according to a divine rule; if we have not faith in the promise, we do it not upon divine motives; if we act not by faith in the Redeemer, we despise the way of God’s ordaining the presentation of our service to him. All those that you find, Heb. xi., acting from faith, had sometimes a faith in the power of God, sometimes in the faithfulness of God; but they had-not only a faith in the particular promise, or precept, but it was ultimately resolved into the promise of the Messiah to come: ‘* These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but. having seen them afar off,” &c.. Ver. 13. The performance of particular promises, they had received; but not the performance of this grand promise; but that their faith respected. They, as new creatures, did all in observance of God promising the Mediator; and we are to do all in observance of God sending the Mediator, being persuaded of the agreeableness of our services to him, upon the account of the command; and of the acceptation of our services by him, upon the account of the Mediator. This put a difference between Paul’s prayer, after the infusion of grace into him, and before; so that our Saviour sets a particular emphasis upon it, “Behold he prays.’’ Acts ix.11. Paul, no doubt, had prayed many times before his believing, but nothing of that kind was put upon the file, as a prayer: before, they were prayers of a self-righteous Pharisee, but these of an evangelical convert; these were prayers springing from obedience to Christ, and faith in him; from a ‘ Lord what wilt thou have me to do?’’
There are many principles of action, hope of heaven, fear of hell, reputation, interest, force of natural conscience, some of those are inward, some outward, which are the bellows that blow up a man to some fervency in action; but the true fire that contributes an heavenly frame to a service, is the love of God.
The desire of the heart is carried out to God; his heart draws near to God, because his sole delight is in God, and his sole desire for him, “Whom have I in heaven but thee?’’ Psal. lxxiu. 25. Then verse 28, “But it is good for me to draw near to God.’’ This choice affection in the new creature, inspires his services, makes his soul spring up with a wonderful liveliness. The new creation is the restoration of the soul to God from its apostasy; a casting down those rebellious principles which contended with him, and reducing his affections to the right centre; and when all the lines meet here in one centre, in God, all the returns to him flow from this affection. It is but one thing settled in the soul, as the object of its earnest desire; and that should be the spring of all its inquiries and actions, the “beholding the beauty of the Lord.’’ Things may be done out of a common aflection; as when a man will raise a child fallen into the dirt, out of a common tenderness; but a father would raise him with more natural affection, which is a sphere above that common compassion. Every affection, therefore, is not the renewed principle, but a choice affection to God. This is a mighty ingredient in this change, and doth distinguish the new creature from all others. One acts out of affection to God, the other out of affection to self. Man may be offended with sin, because it disturbs his ease, health, estate, &c. He may pray, and hear, merely out ofa respect to natural conscience: but how can these be the acts of the new creature, when there is no respect to God in all this? But a newcreature would quench the fire of corrupt self-love, to burn only with a spiritual and divine flame: he depresseth the one to exalt the other, and would be disengaged from the burdensome chains of self-love, that he might be moved only by the spiritual charms of the other purer affection: It is a death to him to have any steams of self-love rise up to smoke and black a service.
This inward change is a.change of end, as well as principle. The glory of God is the end of the new creature, self the end of the old man. Before this new creation, a man’s end was to please self; now his end is to please God. A man that delights in knowledge to please his understanding, and for self-improvement, when he becomes a new creature, though his desire for knowledge is not removed, yet his end is changed, and he thirsts after knowledge, - not merely to please his inquisitive disposition, but to admire and praise God, and direct himself in ways agreeable to him. As the end of the sensualist is to taste the sweetness in pleasure, so the end of a renewed man is to know more of God, to taste a sweetness in him, and in every religious duty. This is the distinguishing character of the new creature. This design for the glory of God was not to be found among any of the heathen, who were so great admirers of virtue. Most of them intended only an acquiring a reputation among their countrymen; and though some of them might esteem virtue for its native dignity, yet this was to esteem it by the moiety of it, when they referred it not to the honour of God, from whence it flowed to the world. Man was not created for himself, and to be his own end. He therefore that chiefly aims at his own satisfaction in any thing, is not a new creature; he hath his old deformed end into which he sunk by the fall. But grace carries a man higher, and reduceth all to God, and to his well-pleasing. The apostle desires they may be “filled with the knowledge of the will of God, that they may walk worthy of the Lord, unto all well pleasing.”? Col. i. 9,10. The very first motion of this new principle is towards God, to act for God. As the first appearance of a living seed in the ground, is towards heaven; thither it casts its look, from whence its life came. What the new creature receives is from God. ‘They received it as the word of God.’”? 1 Thes. il. 13. And therefore what he doth is for God.
The principal intent of God in the new creation is for himself, “I will sow her to me;’? Hosea ii. 23. speaking of the church in the time of the Gospel: not to sin, not to the world, not for herself, but I will sow her to me. Husbandmen sow the ground for themselves, for their own use, to reap the harvest; and the corn grows up to the husbandman that sowed it. What the seed doth naturally, the new creature doth intentionally, grow up for God. Since the new creature is a divine infusion, it must needs carry the soul to please God, and aim at his glory. God would never put a principle into the creature, to drive it from himself, and conduct it to his own dishonour; this consists not with God’s righteousness, this would be a deceiving of the creature. It is impossible, but that which is from God in so peculiar a manner, and with gracious intentions to restore the creature to his happiness, must tend to the advancement of God. Where there are no aims at the divine glory, there is no divine nature, nothing in the soul that can claim kindred with God. Regeneration is a forming the soul for God himself, and to show forth his praise. Hence they are said to be a peculiar people, in respect of their end as well as their state. Certainly that man who makes not God his pattern, and his end, that doth not advance the praise and glory of God, was never new formed by him. What comes from God must naturally tend to him. Is it possible, that the living image of God should disgrace the original? That.a divine impression should be unconcerned in the divine honour? “3
pripe new creation is an evangelical impression, and therefore corresponds in its intention with the gospel. This is the instrument whereby the creature was wrought; and this was appointed and published for the glory of God; “Glory to God in the highest.” It isto promote holiness in the creature, which is the only way whereby we can honour God: this is the prime lesson the grace or gospel of God teaches, ‘to live godly,’’ to live to God. What therefore is produced by the efficacy of such an instrument, cannot but aim at the glory of God, which was intended in it: otherwise the gospel would work an effect contrary to itself, which no instrument doth produce, when managed by a wise agent, and contrary to the end of the agent, viz. the Spirit of God, whose end is to glorify Christ, “He shall glorify me,’ John xvi.14. The frame and acts of a renewed man, are like the grain, or seed of the word sown in the heart. Nothing the gospel designs more than the laying self low, even as low as dust and death. The first lesson is self-denial. It is in self that the strength and heart of the body of sin and lust lie: and it is the principal end of the gospel, to bring the creature to sacrifice self-love to righteousness, self-interest, self-contentment, wholly to God and his law, and his love, that God may be all in all in the creature. Before the heart was touched with the gospel, it had not the least impulse to bring forth the virtues and excellencies of God into the world; but when it is changed, it is filled to the brim-with zealous desires to have his name exalted upon a high throne among men. A new creation is the bringing forth the soul ina likeness to God. The end therefore of the new creature is the glory of God. As God is the cause, so he is the pattern of the new creature, according to which he doth frame the soul; it is “after God created in righteousness,” &. Eph. iv. 24. There can be no likeness to God, where the creature dissents from hie him in the chief end. Without such an agreement, there can be nothing but variance between God and the creature. All the commotions and quarrels upon earth, are founded upon the difference of ends. God aims at his own glory, so doth the new creature: otherwise it were impossible he should walk with God, or follow him, as a dear child. It consists also in a likeness to Christ; his resurrection is the pattern, and cause of our regeneration; ‘‘ Ye are risen with Christ;’? what, to contrary ends? Did Christ rise only to live to himself?. No; but to live to God, as the great end for which he was appointed Mediator. Did he design to glorify God on earth, and doth he live to dishonour God in heaven? No, he lives to the same end there for which he lived and died here. Our spiritual resurrection is not only a restoring us to a spiritual life, but to the ends of this life, a living to God and Christ, and to the ends of his mediation. Surely the new creature cannot be so brutish, as not to mind the honour of that nature, to which it is so nearly allied, the glory of that God unto whom it hath the honour to bear a resemblance. A new creature hath a mighty sprightliness, and a height of spirit in some measure, when any thing in his hands concerns God, more than when it concerns himself; for his will being framed according to the will of God, is filled with an ambition es promoting the excellency of his name.
The end of the new creation is to advance the soul. It can never be advanced by an end lower than itself, or equal to itself. Any interest, lower than God, would be. a degrading of it, a disparagement to its state, and too sordid for the soul to drive at; for it is the excellency, or sordidness of the end, which doth elevate or debase a man’s spirit, and his action also; the one enlargeth, the other shrivels up the soul in its operation. All things below God are unworthy of a soul rectified by a new creation. ‘The soul is only perfected in a tendency to this end, and disgraced and lost in the impurity of lower aims. That grace that is most durable, and doth: most ennoble the spirit of a man, has this property, that it seeks not her own, nor vaunts itself.
It is impossible the soul can have this new creation, without a change of end. It is not conceivable how any thing can return to that, which it doth not eye as its end. The soul, as deriving its original from God, hath an obligation in all its motions to return to him, as its chief end. The new creature hath an higher obligation by grace. Doth that therefore deserve the name of the new creature, that is so far from answering a gracious tie, that it doth not so much as answer a natural one? That is yet below the sphere of inanimate creatures, who all run back to their fountain, and one way or other, declare the glory of God. He is no new creature therefore, who is devotedly fawning upon himself, caressing himself: he is one that is yet bemired in his old nature, and hath not yet received of the fruit of Christ’s purchase, redeeming and renewing grace. ‘Those that are under the efficacious influence of it, and are the temple of the Holy Spirit, do glorify God in their body and spirit too, inwardly as well as outwardly, because they are God’s. The understanding and will are both elevated by grace. The more intelligent any creature is, the more noble is his end, or ought to be; and the more he doth intend his end. The aim of a man is higher than that of a child: the aims of men in this or that station, are still more noble than the ends of men in a lower rank. Since the new creation therefore endues man with the most excellent nature he is capable of, it must fixa man upon the most excellent end, which is God and his glory; it were not else a new creature, or worthy of such a title.
This change of end only fits the soul for its proper service. From this end arises a quickness, and an heartiness in every service. When God and his glory are not our end, our hearts flag, and we feel our spirits tired at our entrance into any service for him. When the apostle had made the glory of God his end, in testifymg the gospel of the grace of God, then his life-was not counted dear to him, that he
might finish his course with joy. Where this end.
sits uppermost in the heart all allurements to the contrary are mightily despised. What a scornful eyedoth the apostle cast upon all other things? and sets no higher value upon them than he would upon dross and dung, when they were not conducing to his main end, which was the knowledge of Christ.
Well then; this is one of the most essential properties of the new creature, and that which is the clearest discovery of this state. A new creature is as earnest in secret, for the glory of God, and as industrious for God, as if the eyes of all the world were upon him; the bent of his heart always stands this way; he glorifies God in his spirit as well as body. When men will be zealous in things that concern God, before men, and negligent in their spirits, and inward part.of the soul, then the glory of God was not their end, but themselves. For what isa man’s end, sets an edge upon his spirit in private, as well as public. But a new creature is of another frame, when he finds that he hath missed of his full aim, and hath not had that single respect as he ought, he is unsatisfied, and troubled that God hath been no more glorified by him. But he that is not renewed, is well pleased, if any concerns of self have been advanced, though God be not glorified; and his soul is at rest in that act, as it hath lived to himself, and brought in something to increase the treasure of his self ends.
+s As it is an inward change, in respect of principle and end; so it is a change of thoughts. Being new, he is new in the choicest faculty. As when he was after the flesh, he minded the things of the flesh; so now being after the Spirit, he minds the things of the Spirit. Asa child hath not the thoughts of a man, so neither hath a natural man the thoughts of a new creature. A principle is placed in his understanding which doth emit other beams different from that smoky light, which was in it before. Though a new creature cannot hinder the first motions, yet he endeavours to suppress their proceeding any further, and excites others in his heart, to make head against them; and would, as far as he could, hinder the rising of any wave, the least bubbling against right reason and the interest of God. When David had an inclination in his heart to God’s statutes, the immediate effect of it is to hate vain thoughts. “I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes:’’ and it follows, “TI hate vain thoughts,”’ Psal. cxix, 112, 113. The vanity of his heart was a burden to him, and he loathed all the inward excrescences; and buds from that bitter stump he still bore within him. A new creature is as careful against wickedness in the head or heart, as in the life. He would be purer in the sight of God, than in the view of men: he knows none but God can see the workings of his heart, or the thoughts of his head; yet he is as careful that they should not rise up, as that they should not break out. The soul is so changed,
that it is no longer a stranger, and an enemy to the,
motions of the Spirit; it will welcome them upon their entrance, conduct them into the innermost room, converse familiarly with them, and delight in their company; it invites their stay, pursues them when they seem to depart, holds them fast, and will not Jet them go, as the church doth to Christ. He turns much in upon himself, sets his eye upon his own heart, keeps that with all diligence, to observe what issues of a
spiritual life are there; as it is directed, “Keep thy»
heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life,’’ Prov. iv. 23. If he perceivesany weeds to spring up there, or mushrooms, as they often will in a night, he cuts them up, and throws them out. The understanding is more quick and sensible, to discern them in the first risings, to receive good ones, or check bad ones, than it was before; the new creature is sensible of any touch contrary to its interest. A corrupt mind draws to it the vilest things, and unproportionable to the true nature of the soul, till by a new creation it be set higher, and by a sanctified reason becomes more choice about its objects; and then like David, the heart is filled as with marrow and fatness, when he meditates on God in the night-watches. The
thoughts of God are an inward spring of pleasure to”
him, more than the thoughts of sin can be toa deformed and depraved soul.
Change of comforts follows upon this. Since there is a change of nature, there is a change of his complacency.. The former. nature is his trouble, therefore all his delights which arise from it, are its discontents and burden. Every nature hath a pectliar pleasure belonging to it: the nature of a dove will not acquiesce in that which pleases a swine; nor the new nature in that which pleased the old. The comforts of manhood are of another make than those of a child; and the comforts of a prince more elevated than those of a peasant, because he hath another spirit. That Spirit who is appointed to renew him, is appointed an. officer to comfort him: as therefore he gives him new principles, so he gives him new consolations. He is, as a comforter, to glorify Christ; to receive of his, and show it unto the new creature. They are Christ? s own words, “He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, ‘and shall show it unto —
a
7 * you,”’ being described before under the title of a. comforter. He shall receive of mine, grace from me, suitable.to the grace in me, wherewith to beautify; and comforts from me, suitable to those comforts in me, wherewith to refresh you. As they are brought to live the life of God in holiness, so they are brought to live the life of God in joy and comfort. Righteousness, peace, joy, are the trinity which make up the kingdom of God in the heart, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,’”’?’ Rom. xiv. 17. As the grace of God is their life, so the joy of the Lord is their strength. Strangers to God intermeddle not with it,and have no share init. There is a joy put into the heart,together with this new creature; “‘ Thou hast put gladness into my heart.’? A gladness not founded upon any worldly consideration, as the joy of men, not a joy of their own putting in; but the new creature’s joy, is a joy of God’s putting in. Other mens’ comforts are in the creature; the new creature’s - comforts in the Creator. Others cannot joy, if worldly things be removed, because the foundation of their joy is without them. But these by the loss of worldly things, have their comforts rather increased than impaired, because the foundation of their joy is within them. The comforts of a natural man are derived from broken cisterns. The comforts of a new creature are derived from the full fountain of life, which makes their very sufferings gloriously comfortable to them. The prodigal by his change of mind, had a change of refreshment, robes for rags, and a fatted calf for husks. It is as much his comfort to loathe himself, as derived from Adam, and to love the self implanted by God, as it was before the contrary. He can never look upon the new creature in him, but with delightful views; and a pleasure mingles itself with every east of his eye upon it. For certainly from making
é
God our end, and doing all things for his slory, flows the highest delight; since God is the only happiness
of that soul that is in conjunction with him, as his
main end, he must needs have a share in the happi- “ness of God as well as his nature. Felicity and con-
. solation follow it, as the shadow doth the body; and
y every act of the new creature towards God, is edged with comfort in the very acting.
As it is an inward change, so it is also an outward —
change. I call it outward, in regard of objects, in regard of operations: though it is principally inward,
in regard of the prime seatofit; in regard of the form —
which causeth the outward. The power of seeing is in the soul, though the vision itself be in the eye.
The change our Saviour made in those he cured, was
in the organ, when he made the blind to see, the deaf
to hear, and the lame to walk, which did necessarily By
infer a change of objects, and a change of actions.
So a man by this new creation sees the things of God,
hears the voice of God, walks in the ways of God.
All outward changes argue not an inward; but an
inward is always attended with an outward.
In regard of objects. The world and sin were
before the objects of his inquiries and endeavours: now he seeks the face of God, “his soul follows hard after him.’’? The world and God are so contrary, that the love of the one is enmity to the other. From multitudes: of objects which distracted him, he is come to unity, which quiets and settles him. ‘“One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple.” Psal. xxvii. 4, It is
no lower an object than this that the soul. is conversant about, about God himself, to embrace him; about what hath most of God in it, to value and cherish it; about the word of God, to direct him in his ways, and to do his work. The understanding is conversant about the things of God, in the apprehension of them; the will in the election, the affections in complacency in them. Spiritual objects are set up by every faculty, as the delightful things which it heartily embraceth. Before a man had no affection to God, you might as well have persuaded a swine to love the music of a lute, as a natural man supremely to love God. All his desires were set upon the dross of the world, the customs, course, corruptions, pleasures of the world: but a truly regenerate man can as little make the world his chief object of desire and affection, as a man used to choice viands can feed upon chaff and husks. The design of the gospel is to set forth God in Christ, as an amiable object, as infinitely glorious. It declaims against the world, to draw men from the affectionate considerations of it. The renewed work then doth consist in fixing upon God in Christ, as the main object of desire and affection. When the heart therefore complies with the gospel, there must be a compliance with the chief subject of the gospel, and in such a manner as may answer the intendment of the gospel. While Paul was in his natural and pharisaical state, Christ and his truth was accounted as dung, trampled upon as dross, fit to be thrown out of the converse of mankind: but when his heart is changed, there is a change in the object of his valuation; Christ is then his treasure, his all; and other things but dross, in comparison of him..
In regard of operations. Old things are passed away, old actions as well as old affections. Operations are never’ constantly against nature; the heart and the actions do not always contradict one another. According to the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. According to the spring of grace in the heart, will the hand of the life stand. It will vent biealls more or lous according to the quantity of it. It is an inward baptism with fire, which will quickly break out, and show itself in the members, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them,” Matt. vii. 20.
New apprehensions infer new operations. An alteration of judgment cannot be without an alteration of acting. As he hath received Christ Jesus the Lord, so he walks in him. The very design of God in the new creation was this, “Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them,’ Ephes. ii. 10. If, there be not then new works, there is no new creation, for the chief intention and aim of God cannot be frustrated.
Christ formed in a man is not a sleepy and inactive being; actions will scent of him. Fruits bear the image of the root whence they spring, and upon which they flourish. A new root cannot bring forth old
fruits: if the nature of a crab tree, be changed into
that of a vine, it will bear no longer crabs but grapes.
Where holiness is implanted in the nature, holiness, -
will be imprinted in the life. A man that hath reason superior to sense, doth use his sense rationally: a renewed man that hath grace superior to reason, useth his reason graciously. The operations were rational when bare reason held the sceptre; but they are spiritual, when grace ascends the throne. For it cannot be, that that person who is actuated by the Spirit, lives in the Spirit, walks in the Spirit, should do any
thing without a spiritual tincture, in that wherein he
is actuated by it. For it is impossible, but every action must be dyed of the same colour with the
principle whence it flows, and by which it is directed. 1
Actions of sensitive nature are, by reason of grace, directed by a new rule, directed to anew end. He eat and drank to the flesh before, now to God. He degraded his soul to invent ways to pamper his body: now he puts his body in its due posture, to serve the soul, and both to exalt God.. Yea, his religious duties are changed, not as to the matter, but the manner. He knew them before, as he did Christ, after the flesh; he now knows them, and performs. them after the Spirit. There is zeal instead of coldness, liveliness instead of deadness, brokenness instead of presumption, a spirit of liberty instead of the whip of conscience, confidence in God instead of confidence in duty, melting pleading of promises instead of a pharisaical pleading of works; in a word, grace instead of nature, spirit instead of flesh. Paul of a pharisaical boaster, becomes a Christian suppliant; “behold he prays.’’ This change is outward as well as inward: in a man of an exact morality it is chiefly inward; he walks in his old outward ways with a new heart; in a loose man renewed, it is apparently outward; he hath left both his old ways and his old
nature: but a man only outwardly reformed, without.
any inward change, walks in new ways with an old spirit. “He that lacks these things,” saith the apostle, after an enumeration of several graces, “hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins;”’ for indeed he never was.
Having considered this new creation in the nature of a change,
Let us consider it in the nature of a vital principle. This new creation is a translation from death to life, “We know that we have passed from death to life,”’ 1 John, iii. 14. And we have not a spiritual life, till ‘we are in Christ; “he that hath not the Son, hath not life.” When our Saviour called Lazarus out of the grave, he gave him a principle of life and motion; the same he doth when he calls men from a spiritual death in sin: whatsoever we had from the first Adam, is mortal; whatsoever we have from the second Adam is vital; the one communicates a spiritual life, as the other propagated a spiritual death. The new creature is a vital, powerful principle, naturally moving the soul to the service and obedience of God, and doth animate the faculties in their several motions, as the soul doth quicken the members of the body. It is called the hidden man, the inward man, implying that it hath life and motion. As the life of the body is from the soul, as the effect from the cause, so the life of the soul is from grace; Christ is the meritorious cause of this life in his person; the efficient cause of it by his Spirit; but grace is the formal cause of this life: as God is the cause of our bodily life efficiently, and the soul the cause of it formally. It is not then a gilding, but a quickening; not a carving, but an enlivening. Whatsoever doth proceed from an external cause, is not life or a living motion. A piece of wood may be carved into the shape of a man, but remains wood still, in such a form and figure. But a Christian hath a spiritual life breathed into him, as Adam had a natural. When Adam’s body was formed of the earth, it was no more than earth, till a heavenly spark was breathed into him by God, to set him upon his feet, and enable that piece of earth to move. It is distinguished therefore from hypocrisy, which is but the shadow of Christianity; this is a living principle; that a form, this a power; that a piece of art, this a nature. A picture may have the lineaments of a man, but not the life, understanding, and affections of a man.
Let us consider it as a habit, and then see what light the consideration of it, as a ‘vital principle anda habit, give us into the nature of this new creation. By habit we must not understand, as we do in common speech, a clothing; as when we say, such a one was in such a habit; but by habit we mean an inward frame, enabling a man to act readily and easily; as when an artificer hath the habit of a trade. Since this new creation is not a destruction of the substance of the soul; but that there is the same physical being, and the same faculties in all men, and nothing is changed in its substance, as far as repects the nature of man: it is necessary therefore that this new creation consist in gracious qualities and habits, which beautify and dispose the soul to act righteously and holily. Corruption of nature is the poison, the sickness, and deformity of our nature; grace is the beauty, health, ornament of it, and that which gives it worth and value. When a debauched man is become virtuous, we say, he is another man, a new man, though he hath the same soul and body which he had before, but he hath quitted those evil habits wherewith he was possessed. It is impossible to Conceive a new creature without new habits: nothing can be changed from a state of corruption to a state of purity, without them. The making darkness to become light, in the very nature of it, implies the introducing a new quality. This is meant by the seed, “His seed remains in him,’? 1 John iil. 9. As seed makes the earth capable to bring forth good fruit, which had a nature before to bring forth, not corn, but weeds, till the grain was put into it: and it is expressed by “a fountain of living water springing up into eternal life,” John iv. 44. There is such a habit. God doth provide as much for those that he loves, in order to a supernatural sood, as for those creatures that he loves in order to a natural good: but God hath put into all creatures such forms and qualities, whereby they may be inclined of themselves to motions agreeable to their nature, in an easy and natural way. Much more doth God infuse into those that he moves to the obtaining a supernatural good, some spiritual qualities, whereby they may be moved rationally, sweetly, and readily to attain that good: he puts into the soul a spirit of love, a spirit of grace, whereby as their understandings are possessed with a knowledge of the excellency of his ways, so their wills are so seasoned by the power and sweetness of this habit, that they cannot, because they will not, act contrary thereunto. And this habit of grace hath the same spiritual force in a gracious way, as those principles in other creatures in a natural way. As the habit of sin is called flesh, in regard of its nature, and death in regard of its consequence, so the habit of grace is called the new creature and spirit, in regard of its term and consequent life. This habitual grace is the principle of all supernatural acts, as the soul concurs as an imminent principle to all works by this or that faculty. As Christ had a body prepared him, to do the work of a Mediator, so the soul hath a habit prepared it to do the work of a new creature. To this purpose there is a habit of truth or sincerity in the will, and a hidden wisdom in the understanding. As the corrupt nature is a habit of sin, so the new nature is a habit of grace; God doth not only call us to believe, love, and obey, but brings in the grace of faith, and love, and obedience, bound up together, and plants it in the soil of the heart; to grow up there unto eternal life: he gives a willingness and readiness to believe, love, and obey.
This habit is necessary. The acts of a Christian are supernatural, which cannot be done without a supernatural principle; we can no more do a gracious action without it, than the apostles could do the works of their office, unless endued with power from above, which our Saviour bids them tarry at Jerusalem for. If there were not a gracious habit in the soul, no act could be gracious; or supposing it could, it could not be natural, it would be only a force. New creation is not from the Spirit compelling, but inclining; not like the throwing a stone contrary to its nature, but changing the nature, and planting other habits whereae OF REGENERATION. 135
by the actions become natural. .As sin was habitual in a man by nature, so grace must be habitual in a new creature, otherwise a man is not brought into a contrary state (though the acts should be contrary) if there be not a contrary habit; for it is necessary the soul should be inclined in the same manner towards God as before it was towards sin; but the inclination to sin was habitual.
This habit is but one. For it is an entire rectitude in all the faculties, and an universal principle of working righteously. As the corrupt nature is called the old Adam, and a body of death; the gracious nature is called the new man, as a man is but one man, a body one body, though consisting of divers members and several parts, all formed by one Spirit, and making up but one habit, so that as all sins are parts of that body of death; so all graces are but branches of this one root; as from that original light, kindled at the first creation by God, were framed the stars and lights of heaven, which have their several appearances and motions, and are distinct from one another, though all arising from the womb of that first light; so all particular graces, though they have their stated seasons of action, and are distinct in themselves, yet all flow from, and are contained in this habit as in a root. They are so many grapes growing upon one stalk, clusters proceeding from one root of the new nature. It is from the participation of the divine nature, that all those graces arise, the exercise of which the apostle exhorts them to, 2 Pet. i. 4. &c. And indeed it being a divine nature, must needs include all the perfections due to it: as the divine essence of God is one, yet contains all perfections eminently; and if there were a deficiency of any, it could not be the divine essence; so the grace infused into the heart contains in it virtually all the perfections wherein it may agree with the nature of God’s holiness, otherwise it were not a divine nature; if there were any defect in the nature of the habit, I say in the nature of the habit. And it cannot be otherwise, for though the Spirit may give one gift to one man, another gift to another, yet when he would make a new creature, there must be a nature or habit containing all graces. It could not else be a divine nature, for if the Spirit doth purpose to make a new creature, he cannot but give all grace, which belongs to the essence and constitution of that new creature, otherwise he would either wilfully or weakly cross his own intention.
This habit receives various denominations:
From the subject. It is subjectively in the essence of the soul; but as it shows itself in the understanding, it is called the knowledge of God; as it is in the will, it is a choice of God; as it is in the affections, it is a motion to God; as the body of death is in the understanding, ionorance; in the will, enmity; in the conscience, deadness; in the affections, disorder and frowardness. As diseases receive several names, as they are centered in several parts, yet. are but the distemper of the humours.
From the object. As it closes with Christ dying, it. is faith; as it rejoiceth in Christ living, it is love; as it lies at the feet of Christ, it is humility; as it observes the will of Christ, it is obedience; as it submits to Christ afflicting, it is patience; as it regards Christ offended, it is grief; yet all arising from one habit and - animated by faith; so that it is the love of faith, the joy of faith, the humility of faith, the patience of faith; they all spring from one habit, seated in one soul, conversant about one object, God in Christ; such an unity there is in all these diversities. As the holy oil wherewith the vessels of the tabernacle were anointed, was but one ointment, though composed of many ingredients; as all the perfections of creatures are eminently in one God; all the evil dispositions of the creatures ae OF REGENERATION. 137
seminally in man by nature; so all the beauties of grace are eminently included in this habit.
Hence we may take a prospect of the nature of the new creature. It being thus a vital principle, and a habit, therefore the motion to God, and for God, must be::
Ready, in respect to disposition. He stands ready and disposed to every good work, upon God’s call. As the habit of sin disposeth the soul to every evil work, so the habit of grace prepares it for every good work, and makes it meet for its master’s use, “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for his master’s use, and prepared unto every good work,”’ 2 Tim. ii. 21. It is just as it was with Isaiah, at the first sight of the vision he complains, “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips,’ chap. vi. 5; taken up with self-reflection; no offers to act for God: but when a live coal was taken from the altar, and laid upon his mouth; there is a ready answer to God’s question, “Whom shall I send? Here am I, send me,”’ verse 7. 8. No demurs; it was a live coal from the altar had quickened him into a new frame for God. David doth not say, he had performed the statutes of God, but he had inclined his heart to perform them.
That I may not grate upon any troubled spirit; consider, that this readiness is seminally in every renewed person, yet it does not always actually appear. As the old nature contains in it seminally all sins, yet every man is more prone to one than another, according to education, temper of body, or a set of temptations; so the heart of a renewed man hath an habitual disposition to the exercise of all grace because it hath the seeds of all graces in it; yet it doth not act all alike, for want of vigorous occasions. As the attributes of God, though in the highest perfection, yet in their exercise in the world, sometimes one appears more triumphant than another, sometimes more of patience, sometimes mercy, sometimes justice, sometimes wisdom, one is more eminently apparent than another: so the divine nature hath seminally in this habit all grace, and an agreeableness to every duty enjoined; a principle to send forth the fruits of all, when an object is offered, and the grace excited by the Spirit of God; yet sometimes one is more visible than another, according to the call it hath to stand forth and show itself. This habitual disposition may be, when there is not a present actual fitness for some service of a higher strain, by reason of some particular commission of sin, which hath sullied the soul. Asa vessel of honour in respect of its formation, may be fit for use; but in respect of some foulness contracted, may not be immediately fit for some noble service, till a new scouring hath passed upon it. A grown Christian who hath his senses exercised in the ways of God, doth not always actually exercise this habit; yet he is ready upon the least motion actually to do it: as a new creature - having a change of end, doth habitually mind the glory of God, yet he doth not in every action actually think of it, or will it as his end: but he is ready to bring this habitual aim into exercise upon the least motion, and reaches out his arm to embrace and stand right to that point. David had an habit of repentance in him, while he lay asleep in his sin; and by virtue of this habit, he doth without any resistance comply with the first touch God gave him by Nathan. His repentance flowed, and never ceased, till it had done its perfect work. It was a sign of a heart of flesh; a heart of stone could not have been so flexible. Job was eminent for patience; but being a new creature, he had a disposition to all the rest, and had acted them with as high a strain, had he had the same occasions.
This readiness to every service doth not actually appear in persons newly regenerate. I think the lowest degree of this habit in one newly regenerate, is a purpose of heart to cleave unto the Lord “When he came, and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and exhorted them, that with purpose ‘of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.”? Acts xi. 23. Certainly when there is such a fixed and constant purpose, it is a token of the grace of God: yet to this purpose there may not always be connected an actual readiness to every service: for at the first beginning of the new creature there is a strong resistance; it is ina strange soil; the armies of hell are in array against it; it is like a Daniel in a lion’s den, or a Lot in Sodom, only God restrains the force of these enemies. As it is in a child derived from Adam, there is a principle. in the natural corruption to exert all kind of wickedness; yet it doth not presently rise to the utmost of its force, till ripened by time and other intervening causes: so though the new creature hath in it a readiness virtually to the most raised action, to be as believing and laborious as Paul, as zealous as Elijah, as patient as Job, yet it mounts not presently to this state; a time must be allowed for growth. There is an infancy in grace, as well as in manhood. And as a child, though his soul be of the same nature with that of a man, yet he cannot exercise those acts of understanding and reason, because of the predominancy of sénse, and the indisposition of the organs: so neither can a young Christian: he may have a disposition equal to the best Christians, but not an equal strength; the reluctance of the corrupt habit is more vigorous, not being much mortified; he wants also that additional strength gained by exercise. There may be a greater resistance to one grace, than to another, from the strength of some corruption particularly opposite to that grace; yet “to will is preene sent with him; though he cannot perform that which is good,’’. Rom. vii. 18. The posture of the soul to God, was as natural to him, as the posture of the heart was before to sin. Asa young boy first come to school, may have as strong a purpose to get learning, as a man that hath taken all his degrees in the University. The first graces which appear in a renewed soul, are repentance and faith; because regeneration being a rooting up from the old stock, and setting up a new, as it relates to the old stock, it doth necessarily produce repentance upon the sight of his misery, and for being upon the old stock so long. And faith, as a necessary grace for closing with the Redeemer upon a sight of him, and for ingrafting him upon a new stock. And then love, admiration and thankfulness walk the stage, from a reflection upon the greatness of the misery escaped, and the great deliverance attained. Sprouts from a root grow up some faster, some slower; yet all arising from the same root. So some graces appear at the very first setting this habit in the soul, other graces lie hid till new occasions draw them out. ‘This disposition, inclination, will, readiness, purpose, is the first language of a habit.. A second thing wherein you have a prospect of the
‘new creature is this; as it is ready in respect of disposition, so it is in activity of motion. Since itisa life infused by infinite activity; since it is a habit bearing the impression of God, and maintained by a union with him, it is impossible it can be sleepy and dull in a constant way. All life hath motion proper to the principle of it. Rational life is attended with rational actions. Sensitive life, with acts proper to sense. It is as impossible then that a spiritual life should be without acts consonant to it, as that the sun should appear in the firmament without darting forth its beams. All life is accompanied with natural heat, which is the band of it, whereby the body is enabled. to a vigorous motion.. The new creature is not a marble statue, or a transparent piece of crystal, which hath purity, but not life. It is a living spirit, and therefore active; a pure spirit, and therefore purely active, according to the degree of it. It is the same habit in part renewed, which Adam had by creation, which was not a sluggish and unwieldy principle; it must therefore have an activity, it could not else bea proper principle to contest with the contrary principle, which is active like the sea, casting out mire and dirt. Since the old Adam conveyed such a vigorous principle of corruption, the new Adam is not wanting to endue the principle of his conveyance with a suitable activity. Grace abounds in its vigour, as well as sin hath abounded in its kind.» Upon Christ’s call, Matthew left his receipt of custom, the other Apostles their nets; motion presently follows an enlivening call of God. It is first a habit, then an act; first a spirit of grace and supplication, then ais looking upon him whom they have pierced,”’ by an act of their understanding, and a mourning by an act of the will. First a sanctification of the spirit, then a belief of the truth to the obtaining of glory. When any thing ceaseth to act, there is either an oppression, or a death of nature.
This principle of the new creature is naturally active. All vital motions are natural, sometimes in men there are natural actions without any actual exercise of reason; as when the spirits flow out to any part for the defence of it upon the motion of any passion, as blood starts to the face upon shame, which all the reason of a man cannot hinder. It is as natural to this new habit to produce new actions, as for any thing to engender according to its own likeness and species; as for a living tree to spring out in leaves and fruits. A renewed man, whose seed is within himself, brings forth fruit after its kind, as well as the herbs and the trees. All living creatures move agreeably to their natures, with a willingness and freedom of nature. The bramble doth not more naturally bring forth thorns, than a habit of sin-doth steam out sinful actions; nor a fountain more freely bubble up its water, than a habit of grace springs up in holy actions. For shall the workmanship of God be more unapt to the proper end of it, than the workmanship of the Devil, since good works are the end of God’s new creating us, that we should walk in them? Walking is a natural motion, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works.’? Eph. ii. 10. A well-dressed vine doth not more naturally bring forth grapes, than a soul rooted in Christ doth the fruits of the Spirit; neither doth the sun more naturally enlighten the world with its beams, than the new creature shoots forth its desires and affections to God; for it is impossible but this habit should tend to him, since it is planted by him. The new creature’s services are his meat and drink, not his work; it is as natural to him to do it, as for a creature to desire and take its proper food; you need not hire a child to suck, by the promises of fine things, it will naturally, without imitation, take the breast. The new creature having a righteous and just nature, cannot but do righteous things; nothing can act against its nature, while nature is orderly and not disturbed by some disease or frenzy.. As God, whose image a regenerate man bears, cannot but do good, because his nature is goodness. ‘ How can you that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”? Rom. vi. 2. He can no more ‘naturally do it, than a dead man can walk. Not but that there are some mistakes sometimes, which proceed not from nature, but from some obstructing humour. Nature doth not err in its right course, unless hindered by some adversary: the errors renewed men are subject to, proceed not from the regenerate principle in them, but from that remainder of corruption, which by degrees is weakened by the other, and at last wholly put off.
It is voluntarily active. There is a kind of natural necessity of motion, from life and habit, yet also a voluntary choice; it is a power which constrains and inclines the will. The Apostle tells us, there was a necessity laid upon him to preach the gospel, yet it was not a compulsion, but a voluntary act, after his will was changed. The new creature is not constrained from without, but flows freely, is not forced; the chief work is upon the will; the proper effect of any work upon the will is voluntariness; the Spirit works to make it willing, its motion then is not by compulsion: there is a sweet necessity of the new nature, and a gracious choice of will, which meet together, and kiss each other. How freely doth the soul, winged with grace, move to and for God, as a bird in the air? With what a free and ready spirit doth the new creature go to prayer, reading and hearing? How freely doth it breathe in the air of heaven? Not spurred by outward interest, or dragged by the threatenings of the law, nor chid to it by the clamours of conscience, but gently moved to it, and upheld in it, by a soft and dovelike and free spirit. How great is the difference between the flowing of a fountain, and the dropping of a sponge? One is free, the other squeezed. Between a statue drawn upon wheels and a living motion; one moves, the other is moved. Our Saviour by washing us from our sins in his own blood, “hath made us kings and priests unto God.”’ First, kings, putting into the new creature a. royal and magnanimous frame, as he did into Saul, when he advanced him to the kingdom; and then priests to offer sacrifices to God with this royal and generous spirit: so that it is as troublesome to a soul, having this royal ahs Lc spirit, to omit things proper to this frame, as it is for a legalist to do them. ‘Therefore where there are frequent omissions of duty, or a constant dulness in it, it shows the want of this kingly frame, and, consequently, that we are not washed from our sins in the
blood of Christ. There is both such a nature and such a choice that as the apostle saith, “We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth,” 2 Cor. xiii. 8. So the new creature cannot but do the things which are holy, just, and good, so far as he is regenerate, were there no rule without to guide him, because he hath a habit of holiness within him, a will set to the right point. His former state made him have an aversion from holy services; this makes all spiritual duties connatural to him: so that it is as irksome for him to live without God in the world, as before it was to live with him: he can as soon strip himself of his own soul as act from a renewed principle contrary to God and
righteousness. It is fervently active. The nobler the being of any
thing is, the greater degree of activity it is attended
with; the more spiritual the quality, the more vigorous the effect. Both the spirituality of the principle, excellency of the object, and affection to the end, conspire together to increase this activity. ‘The principle is spiritually vital; the operation therefore is vigorous: the object is God as amiable, the warmer therefore the zeal: the acts are, loving God, trusting in God, depending on God, promoting his kingdom in the heart, acts delightful in themselves, delightful in their issue, the motion in them more quick: the end is the clory of God, the happiness of the creature; the
higher the end, the more elevated the soul. There i is
an innate principle in every thing to preserve its happiness, it is as natural as life itself. Inanimate creatures are endued with this nature; the flame aspires
to heaven, and waves on this and that side greedily, to catch vit may supply a fuel: much more will other creatures act vehemently for that which preserves their beings; the toad to its plantain, the swallow to its celendine, the babe to the breast, and the Christian to the word. There is in the new creature. an impetus and force, settled in the soul to do good. In this respect it is likened to creatures of the greatest activity: fire, wind, a spring of living water; what more active, in the rank of corporeal beings, than fire and wind, either above, or in the bowels of the earth? Witness the many stately buildings speedily consumed by the one, or overthrown by the other. The new principle in the creature fills every part, dissolves the hard heart, and makes it moveable in the ways of God with a glowing heat. But above this, there is a higher denomination, the new creature is called spirit. “that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit;”’ John iii. 6, that is a spiritual creature. The activity of a spirit, doth inconceivably surmount that of a body; what vast strides can a spirit take in a moment, from heaven to earth? The habit of sin, in respect of its vehemence to evil, is called a spirit, a spirit of whoredom; as well as the habit of grace, in respect of its vehemence to good, “a spirit of love,’? 2 Tim.i. 7. How active is the new creature in its motion to God? It can fly in a thought from earth to heaven, enter the bosom of God, clasp about him, hold him fast, even till the Almighty says, let me alone. Where there are rivers of living waters in the soul they will flow; where there is a divine habit, the soul will have a paroxysm of divine heat for the glory of God. Acts xvii. 16. Paul’s spirit was stirred in him upon the sight of the Athenians’ idolatry. If created to good works, then not to a dull and sluggish motion in them; this was not the design of the Creator, and therefore not the disposition of the creature.; It is unboundedly active. This new creature’s de-Le is sires are as large as his nature; he cannot be bound up in the narrow and contracted motions of his former disposition. The natural activity of the soul overflows, like a swelled river, all natural bounds, since it is possessed by a spiritual habit. A man without a habit in an art, doth but bungle at his work, is quickly tired, desponds of attaining what he would; but he that hath a habit, suppose of mathematical knowledge, finds one proposition following upon another, one deduction rising up from another, that he hath a largeness he knows not where to end: so the new creature finds one affection coming upon the neck of another many times in transports and out-goings to God, which know no limits. It is unboundedly active, a affections to God. The new creature would be as unlimited in its affections to God, as God is in his affection to him. It will not fix lower than the object it hath pitched upon in heaven; all its operations tend thither; nothing below can give them a cessa- — tion, though ‘they may suffer an interruption; it flies up, and is pulled back; it mounts again and again, follows hard on after the Lord. His affections are larger than his ability. “Whom have I in heaven ‘but thee? and there is none in earth that I desire besides thee.”? Psalm lxxiii. 25. He seems to scorn every thing else in comparison of God, though it were -anangel. Like a man that makes haste to some mark, turns the impediments on this side and that side; the new creature puts by the temptations of the flesh and the world, to make its way into the bosom of God, the centre of its rest, and the boundless limit of its soul. The sun, so many thousand miles distant from us, sends its rays as far as the lowest valley of the earth; and the new creature, the dartings of his
soul to the highest heavens. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;”? the vail is taken away, it “beholds, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord;” like an eagle, mounts up as near as it can to the sun, gazes upon it till its eyes be dazzled with its brightness: he is never glutted with the views of him; his desires for him are never bounded but by him; one breathing after another, that he may fill God, as it were, Wi ith his affections, as he is filled: by him, with his Spirit. In his obedience too, he would have his heart enlarged, that he may run, not creep, in the ways of God’s commandments; it is his grief that he cannot keep pace with God’s commandments: it is his joy that God flies upon the wings of the wind to him, and his sorrow that he cannot fly upon the wings of the wind to God. He groans under his dulness, and his pleasure consists much in a liberty in God’s service.
The principle of the new creature is active in 1 disafe” fection to sin. He hates that body of death which hinders the accomplishment of the desires of his soul; and regards it at no other rate, than his fetter, disease, and torture. He is discomposed when he meets with any check in his religious course; it is a violence to his new nature, and he cannot bear it without regret. His anger and impatience rise with as much force against any obstacle to a free converse with God, as it did before against any impediment in the way of his lust. Nature is restless till it hath got the conquest of the disease and corrupt humours of the body.
Neither can a new creature be at quiet, till all that is against the interest of the new nature be purged out; and to that purpose he daily knocks at heaven’s gate for new strength and recruits of power against sin in the spiritual conflict. It is a trouble to him that he hath not as full a sense of his own corruptions as he would, and therefore he goes frequently to God to beg new discoveries of sin, that he may fetch his enemy out of his holds, and beat it to death; for by this ha- — bit the understanding is more quick in discerning the first rising of any sinful motion, and sensible of the least touch contrary to the new interest of it.
The new nature is powerfully active. There is not only an unbounded affection, but there is a power inherent in this habit to enable the soul to act; all habits add strength to the faculty. It is. therefore called “might in the inner man;’’ “and a spirit of power.”’ It is put as a stock into the heart, to maintain the acts of holiness; as there is a stock of sap in the root to -. produce branches and fruit; a power of acting is always united with a form, and rooted in it. In regard the new nature is implanted by a higher cause than any moral-habits, even by the Spirit of God, it must be able to do more than any moral nature can; and being more excellent than moral nature, must produce more excellent operations, otherwise it were not of a more excellent kind, if it had not a more excellent power: Jesus Christ was appointed to be a quickening Spirit, to convey a powerful life, to enable us to live to God. The kingdom of God in the heart, as well as that in the world, is not in-word but in power. Move steel as often as you will, you can never make it of itself move towards the north; but by the impression made on it by the loadstone, there is a power derived to turn, and stand that way of its own accord. By nature we are without strength, because without life. But in the renewing there is strength conveyed together with life; an ability.to walk in God’s statutes, conveyed with the new heart: out of weakness the soul is made strong; and the grace within, in concurrence with the supplies of the Spirit, is sufficient for it. It is not only an outward strength, as is a staff in a sick man’s hand; but an inward might. But beside this inherent strength, there is an adherent ability; for Christ, who is his life, is also his strength; “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,”’ Phil. iv. 13. So that whatsoever active power is wanting in itself, can be supplied by the head. And therefore the new creature hath a kind of almighty power of activity, by the communication of another, which is called a greatness of power, and a mighty power which works towards them, or in them that believe. This power doth reside in the heart, and this adherent power is ready for it; but neither of them is always perceptible, but upon some emergency; as a sound man: hath.a greater power to act than he puts forth upon all occasions. It is easily active. Since that motion to God, and for God, is connatural and voluntary, and a power
- and ability also in the new creature, it must follow,
that the motion is very easy. Habits are to strengthen the faculty and facilitate the acting of it. Bubbling is no pain to a fountain: rivers of water flow out of their sources easily, because naturally. The motion of this habit is as easy as the motion of the lungs, or the pulse of the artery; though constant, yet not troublesome or painful in itself; but by reason of some imparted humour settled in them. This stock of grace is called the unction. “But ye have an unction from the holy one;’’ 1 John ii. 20; the inward oiling the soul, as oil communicates agility to the body. This unction some understand of habitual grace, conveyed from the holy one by the Spirit. As this unction upon our Saviour was the cause of his activity for God in doing good; “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good;”’ Acts x. 38. So it being the same in the new creature, will have the like effect upon him. Supernatural motions are as easy by the strength of a supernatural habit, as natural motions are by the strength of natural habits. A bird flies with as much ease upward, as a beast walks upon the ground; and the seed doth with as much ease spring up, and put its ear out of the ground, as a bitter root doth its unwholesome fruits and flowers. So when the soul is filled with this new habit, the walks in the ways of God are as easy by virtue of it, as a course of sin and folly was before. The yoke of itself is easy, and the motion under a light yoke cannot be grievous: the very yoke is not. a shackle and burthen, but a privilege. ‘There is indeed some reluctance sometimes, which ariseth not from the will, as renewed, but from some evil habits resident in the soul, not yet fully conquered by renewing grace. You know how the apostle Paul doth distinguish between the posture of his will, and the interruptions by that sin which dwelt in him.
It is pleasantly active. As all actions which flow from life are pleasant, so those which flow from a divine life in the soul. It is a joy to a just man to “do judgment.” That is, the entire inclination of the soul, stands right to such actions: and it is as much a joy to him to do judgment, when enabled thereunto by a gracious habit, as it is to a sinful man under the bonds of iniquity, to commit evil. His soul leaps as much at an opportunity of pleasing God as John the Baptist did in his mother’s womb at the appearance of Christ; as much as his heart sprung up before at
the proposal of a sinful object. Never did the sun —
naturally rejoice so much “like a strong man, to run its race” in the heavens, as the new man doth spiritually rejoice to run his race to heaven. It isa mighty pleasure to have our spiritual enemies under our feet, to be estranged from them: it is the purest delight to comply with God, and be embosomed in ares Pips From all these things there appears, ial A predominance of grace in the new creature. As a state of nature consists in the prevalence of the corrupt habit, which leavens the whole man; so the state of grace in a predominance of the gracious habit,
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e ‘ which spreads itself over the whole soul, striving with the powerful opposite, which in part resides there still; it is a habit put into man, and destroys that habit of sin which was there before; the soul by it is made alive from the dead, “Yield yourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead,’ Rom. vi. 13. Life triumphs over death; grace over nature, whereby the members become instruments of righteousness unto God, instead of being instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. It is put in to guide reason and will, and therefore is invested with the sovereign power. As sense was first in man, but that veiled when reason stept into the throne, as being a more excellent principle than sense; so must reason descend and give place to grace when that comes in, as being a more excellent principle than reason: it is reason it should have the sovereignty, for it doth but regain its own right, and take possession, which by the law of creation it ought to have kept till violently ejected by man. He that hath this habit hath a spirit of might, as well as of the fear of the Lord, the same Spirit which was in Christ, which is a spirit of might. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts;’’ have, not shall: as soon as ever they are
Christ’s, which they are by this principle, a deadly - wound is given to sin; such a one scorns to have any
thing more to do with idols; he overcomes the world, “‘ Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world,”» 1 John v. 4; he can do all things, enter the lists with the strongest Goliah; repel the sharpest temptations, through Christ which strengthens him.
There follows from hence a difficulty to sin. No creature can easily act against a rooted habit; how hard is it to make a beast do that which is different from, and contrary to his nature? To act contrary to nature is burdensome and intolerable. What creature would willingly change its element? Will a bird sink of its own accord into the water, or a fish delight to
leap upon the land, whose only element is the water? What creature would court the destruction of its life?
What man would willingly deform and gash his own body? Mennever do so by nature, but when phrenzy.
hath dispossessed them of their reason. Sin must dispossess a Christian of his grace, before it can be easy
for him to run into ways destructive to his nature and
blessedness. That principle which is in all natures,
must be more eminently in the highest nature, and proportionably in every nature that is of nearest approach to it. Righteousness and holiness are the very constitution of the new creature, “That new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,”’ EXphes. iv. 24. It is as impossible for the new creature to sin by the influence of habit, as for fire to moisten by the quality of heat, or water to burn by the quality of cold. It is as impossible for that habit to bring forth the fruits of sin, as for the sun to be the cause of darkness; or a sweet fig-tree to bring forth sour fruit. Yet as there is darkness in the air, though the sun be up, by the interposition of thick clouds, so is there darkness in the new creature from the habit of sin in the soul, which is not only a lodger, but an unwelcome inhabitant; Rom. vil. 20. Sin that dwells in me still, and acts according to its nature, though much overpowered and weakened by degrees by the habit of grace. Therefore it is a hard thing for him to sin, “he cannot sin,’? 1 John iii. 9. It is as hard for him to contradict the new nature, as before to cross the old. I cannot do this wickedness, said Joseph, it 1s against the frame and disposition of my soul.
It must be difficult to sin against purpose of heart, which is the lowest step of the new nature, though it be not hard to sin against a flashy resolve.
It is hard for a man.to sin who hath cordially chosen God for his portion, which every new nature doth,
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with a fixed resolution to keep his word, “Thou art my portion, O Lord: I have said, that I would keep thy words,’”’ Psal. cxix. 57. When it is carried out with a free motion to God, it cannot easily be-diverted from that charming object: he cannot but value’ any diversion at no better a rate than that of punishment.
It is difficult for him to contradict the new habit, wherewith he is so highly pleased, and which he is assured hath nothing but happiness in the womb of it. It must be difficult for him to act that, which by virtue of this habit he is daily in the mortification of. It is difficult for the habit of sin in him, to do the same acts, after it hath received a deadly wound, as for a wounded man to do that which he could when he was sound.
This nature cannot be ina man without an universal enmity to sin, though it may without an universal victory; this belongs to the perfection of it; but enmity to the very constitution of it; I will put enmity between the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent. He can at the best but half sin, and scarcely that: he could not commit sin very: freely before, because of the reluctance of natural conscience; he can less freely do it now, since there is a habit of grace in him, which doth more powerfully fly in the face of sin when it appears; therefore there can be but a partial will to it, or delight in it. The new man in the heart can never do it; the old man remaining cannot fully do it, because of the contradiction it receives from the new habit. If he doth at any time sin, this new nature can be no more pleased with it, than the nature of a man is with the poison. which he hath wilfully taken, which will- contest with it, and endeavour to expel it, whether a man will or no: so that if a new creature be overcome at a disadvantage, and be defiled by the remaining habit of sin in the heart, his spirit is wounded, his soul bleeds, his conscience up- ‘- braids him, he is displeased with himself, and with
his sin, runs to God, searcheth into himself, calls hea — ven and earth to his assistance, sharpens his spiritual
weapons, and by virtue of this habit in him is dissatisfied, and in little ease, till he hath overcome this rebellion of lust, dispossessed it, removed the guilt, and
cast out the. filth.
As we have considered this work as a change, a vital principle, a habit, so we will consider it as law put into the heart. Every creature hath a law belonging to its nature, so hath the new creature. Man hath a law of reason; beasts a law of sense and instinct; plants a law of vegetation; inanimate creatures a law of motion. A new creature hath a law put into his heart. “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts,’ Jer. xxxi. 23: cited by the Apostle, Heb. viii. 10. It is called, the law of the mind, Rom. vii. 23, its first beginning is in the illumination of that faculty; as sin begun first in a false judgment made. of the precept of God, you shall be as Gods knowing good and evil.
This law of the mind, or law written in the heart, is not wholly the same with the law of nature. Some indeed tell us, that it is nothing but the law-of right reason. But certainly they are mistaken, it is a law of grace. The law of nature was the law of a covenant of works; this law of the mind is the law of the covenant of grace. The law of nature is in all men; this law of grace only in some: the law of nature was in Paul before his conversion, this law of the mind was in him upon his conversion. The law of nature consists not of faith ina Mediator; but faith is a main part of the law of grace. The law of nature acquaints not a man with the knowledge of all sins, not with unbelief; this law of grace doth, for the conviction of this is a work of the Spirit. “Of sin, because they believe not in me,” John xvi. 8. 9.
The law of nature is the general work of the Media-:
tor in all men, who enlightens every man that comes into the world. This is the peculiar work of the Mediator by his Spirit, in the hearts of those that believe: the law of nature doth not oppose sin as sin, this law of grace doth: the law of nature is no part of sanctification, for this is in men that are born of the flesh; but the law of the mind is a part of sanctification, and wars against the law of the members: there is indeed a war and a contest from the law of nature against some gross sins, but not against the law of sin in the members. As sin wars against the law of the mind, as a law of direction; so the law of the mind, or the law of grace, wars against sin, as it is a law which pretends to guide and order the ways of a man.
Yet it is the restoring of that law, which was the law of nature originally. It is a renewing in the heart that law, which was written in the heart of Adam, “That new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, Eph. iv. 24; alluding to that righteousness wherein Adam was created, lost by him, and restored by Christ: this righteousness which Adam had, was the first righteousness of the law. This was the law written in the heart originally, which was defaced by the fall; and whatsoever relics there were of this law in man, were only upon the account of the mediation of Christ; it is this law which is new engraven in the soul by regeneration. God doth not say, I will write another law in their hearts, but my law; that which was my standing law, my law to Adam, and to your fathers. The law written in the heart’ is not substantially distinct from that in the nature of Adam. Man by his fall did blot this law, lost his righteousness, had an enmity in his heart to it, and to the very relics of it. He is not naturally subject to the law, nor can be,.as it is the law of God, because of his enmity to God; the law of sin had taken the place of it. Regeneration is a taking down the law of sin, and fixing the law of God in its due place and posture.
This law is written in the heart wholly The whole law; every command which hath the print of God upon it, is written there. As God writ his whole law in tables of stone, so he writes the whole law in the fleshly tables of the heart. It is true holiness and righteousness; true, as to its essential and integral parts. God doth not write one part of the law upon the heart, and leave out another; it is not a moiety of it, the impression of one command, and the defect of another. If it were not the whole law, something belonging to the essence of a new creature would be wanting; it would not be a new creature, because it would be a monster, wanting something necessarily requisite to the constitution of it; and would not be anew creature according to the original copy. Where there is an agreeableness in one nature to another, it is to the whole nature, the nature of the soul to the nature of the law.
This law written in the heart doth not make the outward law useless: for that is still a rule. This inward law written in the heart, is a conformity to the outward rule; and therefore is not.a rule itself. The
law in the heart is imprinted by the external word
in the hand of the Spirit; and therefore to try the truth of the law within, we must have recourse to the law written. Ifa man hath notions of any human law, he must consult the law written, to know whether his notions of it be right, and whether his actions be according to the letter and reason of the law, or no: as the law of sin within a man is not the rule of judging of sin, but the law of God; so neither is the law of grace within the rule of judging good, but the word of God. The law within, though it be commensurate to the law in its essential parts, yet it is imperfect as yet; but a rule ought to be perfect, and so the written law is. It is this law written in the word, that we are to take heed to, for the cleansing of our ways. “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.’?. When this writing of the law in the heart was promised, there was also an inward teaching promised. “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, saying, know the Lord:’”’ Jer. xxxi..32. Which is spoken in regard of the abundance of the knowledge which should be in the time of gospel light, above what was in the twilight of Jewish ceremonies; so that the weakest Christian under the gospel knows more of God and his attributes in Christ, than the greatest Jewish doctor did before the coming of Christ. This was not so understood by Christ, as if teaching others were utterly useless; for then why should he institute Apostles, Pastors, Teachers, &c., and promise to be with them to the end of the world, if this promise of inward teaching made outward teaching useless? In like manner, neither doth the writing the law in the heart, make the outward written law useless, but rather it doth establish and advance it,.and the esteem of it. The outward law is the rule; as the model of a house is the rule by which a carpenter is to make a building, and to which he is to conform that idea he hath in his mind of it; but that idea or figure of it which he hath in his mind, is to be suited to that rule which is prescribed to him in the outward pattern; and therefore that pattern is to be consulted. The law of God is of eternal duration; and as it isa law of holiness and love of God, doth oblige every reasonable creature, in what condition soever he be, whether of nature, grace or glory. Wherein doth this writing of the law in the heart consist? I answer;
In an inward knowledge of the law, and approbation of it in the: understanding. The knowledge of righteousness, and the being of the law in the heart, are put together as the proper character of the people of God. “Hearken to me ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law.’ Isa. li. 5. Lest. they should think a knowledge were enough, he adds, in whose heart is my law; not in the head, but in the heart. There is in a renewed understanding, a principle teaching how to make use of the law. It is like the inward skill of a pilot, who suides the ship by the compass and rudder. The outward law is the compass by which we must steer; the inward law is the practical knowledge of this; an inward skill to make application of it to particular occasions. The word of. God being a seed, doth, as every seed, produce a being like itself, and like that plant whose seed it is; from the seed of corn ariseth a grain of the same nature. This seed being sown first in the understanding, is there cherished, and grows up in principles and thoughts agreeable to itself, whereby the mind becomes the epistle of Christ, and an ark to preserve the tables of the law; whence David speaks of his soul keeping God’s testimonies, and not forgetting them. The new creature by its new light sees an amiableness in the law, a holiness in the precepts, and a filthiness in himself thereby.
It consists in an inward conformity of the heart to the law. The soul hath a likeness to the word and doctrine of the gospel within it; it is delivered into that mould. “You have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, into which you were delivered.’’ Rom. vi. 17. He considers the gospel as a mould, and the Romans asa metal poured into it, and putting on the form of it. As melted metal poured into a mould, loses its former form, and puts on a new shape, the same figure with the mould into which it is poured:
‘nail!
Je the soul which before was.a servant of sin, and had the image of the law of sin, being melted by the Spirit, is cast into the figure and form of the law. As when a seal hath made its impression upon wax, the stamp in the one answers exactly to the stamp on the other; put the seal on again, and they. both will meet as close as if they were one body, the wax will fill every cavity in the seal; but put this seal to any impression made by another seal, there will be an inequality, the stamp on the seal and that on the wax will not close. The law of sin and the law of God being contrary impressions, cannot close together; but the law of grace in the heart, and the law of God, close, they being but one and the same stamp. So that when any command of God appears, a new creature finds something within it of kin to it; asa natural man finds something ready to close with sin upon the appearance of it. The heart answers to the law as a lock to a key, ward for ward; sometimes it may not answer, but resist, as a lock doth, because of some rust or some filth got into it; but then it needs not a new making, but a new cleansing, to answer exactly to the key of the law: so that as the “Gentiles having not the law, are a Jaw to themselves,””? having it written upon their minds i in those notions common to mankind; so the new creature, if he had not the written law, would be a law to himself. So natural is this conformity, that were there no law without, the renewed soul would naturally be carried out in the ways of holiness. The law, saith the Apostle, is not made for a righteous man: it is not chiefly intended for the righteous, but for the unrighteous, who would not stir one step in any good action without it, and will hardly stir with it. There would be no need of any written law in a commonwealth, if all men had an exact justice and righteousness in their own minds, and did jointly conspire to the good of the community. But when disturbers of the peace and common welfare start up, there is need then of public laws to restrain them. But there is no need of a public enacting of a law for them that are good, because what the law enjoins, they do by their own judgment and iuclination. So that what a new creature doth in observance of the law, is from natural freedom, choice and judgment, and not by the force of any threatenings annexed. to it.
-It consists in a strong propensity to the obedience of it. As there was a strong impetus in the old nature, inclining it to sin; so there is a strong impulse in the new nature, biassing it to observe the commands of the law. In this respect it is chiefly called a law written in the heart, in regard of the efficacious virtue of this new nature, sweetly constraining, and directly conducting to the performance of it. The law without us commands us; the law within constrains us: that enjoins a thing to be done; this inclines us to the doing of it. The first law is written in the scripture, or in the conscience, whereby we judge those commands to be kept; the other consists in the propension of love, or faith working by love. As the impulse of concupiscence is called the law of sin, so the impulse of grace is called the law in the heart; not as a thing distinct from the law without, but only a counterpart of it; and indenture answering to the other. They are but two parts united between themselves, and compose one perfect law: one as the direction, the other as the practice: that lays the injunction, this embraceth it; and as naturally from the disposition of the new nature, as he did embrace the law of sin, from the disposition of the old. It isa powerful, operative law of the Spirit of life, which sets us free from the law of sin and death; not a dead letter, but an active principle, quickening the heart to close with the law, and delivering it from that which was the great hinderance to it. As the Devil doth act in men’s hearts, not personally, but by a principle in the heart, the law of sin; so doth the Spirit.of life, by the law of grace: for being written by a living Spirit, it is.a living law. This is the chief intent of the whole new creation, to cause us to walk in God’s statutes. “The law of God’is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide.”’? Psai. xxxvii. 31. The soul being thus evangelized, and spiritualized, may be said to do by nature the things contained in the gospel, as the Gentiles are said to do by nature the things contained in the law, because there was a law of nature engraven in them.
It consists ina mighty affection to the law. What
is in the word a law of precept, is in the heart a law of love: what is in the one a: law of command, is in the other a law of liberty. “Love is the fulfilling of the law:’’ the law of love in the heart, is the fulfilling the law of God in the spirit. It may well be said to be written in the heart, when a man doth love it; as we say, a beloved thing is in our hearts, not physically, but morally. It is a love that is inexpressible. David delights to mention it in two verses together, “YT will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved: my hands will I lift up to-thy commandments, which J have loved,’ Psal. cxix. 47, 48; and often in that Psalm resumes the assertion. Before the new creation, there was no affection to the law: it was not only a dead letter, but a devilish letter in the esteem of man: he wished it razed out of the
world, and another, more pleasing to the flesh, enacted: he would be a law to himself: But when this is
written within him, he is so pleased with the inscrip- —
tion, that he would not for all the world be without that law, and the love of it: whereas:what obedience he paid to it before, was out of fear, now out of affection; not only because of the authority of the lawgiver, but of the purity of the law itself. He would maintain it with all his might against the power of sin within, and the powers of darkness without him. He loves to view this law; regards every lineament of it, and dwells upon every feature with delightful ravishments. If his eye be off, or his foot go away, how doth he dissolve in tears, mourn and groan, till his former affection hath recovered breath, and stands upon its feet? If he finds not his heart answering the law, he longs after the precepts, as the prophet saith, “‘] have longed after thy precepts, quicken me in thy righteousness,’’ Psal. cxix. 40. He longs to join hands again with the holiness of them. As his heart is inclined to obey it, so it is wounded upon any neglect of it, and never at ease, till he be reduced to his former delight in it. He hath no mind ever to part with it, because of its intrinsic goodness, as well as conveniency for him. It is his pleasure, not his confinement; his ornament, not his fetter: he hates every thing that is contrary to it. How doth Paul grieve, and groan under the body of death, when he considered what opposition the law in his members made against the law of his mind? The law in his members brought him into captivity to the law of sin: then, Oh wretched man that Iam! though he knew he was in part delivered from it: how doth he long for a perfect redemption from his shackles, which hindered him from following the law of his delight. And he that never murmured at his sufferings, but could glory in persecutions and death for Christ, seems to be impatient, till he could hear the last expiring groan of this enemy: all which was the effect of his delight in the law of God after the inward man. And that this writing the law, doth principally consist in this affection, those two expressions, “putting the law into the inward parts,” and “writing it in the heart,’’ intimate. The nature of man being enmity against the law of God, the writing it argues, not a change of the law, but.a change of the frame of the heart to the law, that should be so fashioned, that the law should reign there, and all his affections subscribe to it. As the writing the law in the heart of Christ, was nothing else but the agreeableness of the mediatory law to him, and his delight in it; so it is with a new creature.
It consists in an actual ability to obey. Writing the law in the heart, implies a putting a power and strength into the soul, enabling it to run the ways of God’s commandments, as well as to incline the heart and affections to them; the promise is made to the latter times: not but that the ancient patriarchs were regenerate, but not by the law; not by any covenant of works: this ability did not reside in the law, but was transferred to them from the Gospel. In this respect it is called a letter, because it did only instruct the eye or ear, when read or heard; this teaches the heart; that a killing letter, this a quickening spirit; that exacted the observance of its precepts, but wrote nothing in the heart to answer it, but condemned upon
neglect, this commands the observance of the law, and gives an ability evangelically to perform it. That was a ministration of condemnation, this of righte- -ousness; that could do no other but condemn, because it gave no intrinsic power to observe it. It is through Jesus Christ that we are enabled by virtue of this inward writing to serve with our minds the law of God, though in our flesh we be captivated by the law of sin. As an unregenerate man is dragged to any good, but willingly obedient to the motions of sin; so a regenerate man is sometimes under the tyranny of sin, but is willingly obedient to the motions of grace. So that the law is written in the heart, in respect of the assent of the understanding, consent of the will, pleasure of the affections: in the understanding, by the clearness of the light of faith; in the will, by the heat
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Pueigi of the fire of love. In the understanding there is a judicious approbation of it;.in the will, a motion to it, closing with it, and an affection to keep it; and according to its ability,an endeavour to keep pace with it.
As there is a vital principle, an habit, a law written in the heart, so there is a likeness to God in the new creature. Every creature hath a likeness to something or other in the rank of beings; the new creature is framed according to the most exact pattern, even God himself. In this the form of regeneration doth consist. The new creature is begotten; begotten then in the likeness of the begetter, which is God. As sin is the impression of Satan’s image, which was drawn over all by the fall, so renewing grace is the impression of the image of God; for it is a quite contrary thing-to corruption. This likeness to God was man’s original happiness in creation, and is his restored happiness in redemption, “renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him,’’ Col. 11. 10. His misery consisted. in losing it; our felicity therefore doth consist in recovering it. Hence it is called a divine nature. Every thing receives its denomination from the better part. A man is denominated rational, though he hath both a sensitive principle common with beasts, and a vegetative, or growing principle, common with plants: so a new creature is denominated .divine, because grace, a divine principle, is superior in the soul. Every perfection in the creature is sttpposed to be essentially somewhere. Every impression supposeth a seal that stamped it; every stream a fountain from whence it sprung; every beam a sun from whence it is shot. ‘Grace being the highest perfection of the creature, must be somewhere essentially: where can that be but in God? It must then have a resemblance to him as a child to the father, the copy to the original. We are said to be born of God. Now to be born of any thing, is to receive a form like that, which the generating person hath. But,
It i is not a likeness to pee in essence. It is no participation of the essence of God. It isa nature, not the essence; a likeness in an inward disposition, not in the infinite substance, which is communicated by generation, only to the Son, and by procession to the Holy Ghost. The divine essence is incommunicable to any creature. Infiniteness cannot be represented, much less communicated. Man is no more renewed according to God’s image, than he was at first created according to it; which was not a communication of the divine essence, but of a righteousness resembling the righteousness of God, according to the capacity of Adams nature; which image of God in Adam, is by the apostle restrained to that of “righteousness and true holiness.”’ The likeness in a state of glory, is founded upon a sight of God as he is; which may more aaa hn be meant of the seeing of Christ, as he is in glory; for the apostle goes on in the discourse, without naming of Christ; but without question, means him, when he says, that “he was manifested to take away our sins.”’ We shall be like him as we shall see him; therefore not in essence. His essence is concluded by most to be invisible, even in glory. How can finite creatures behold an infinite being?) He must be God that knows God’s essence. We shall understand him in his affections, as a father; in his wise acts, as a governor; in his judicial acts, as a justifier; in his merciful acts, as a reconciler: we shall see him in all his relations to us. Such a vision we shall have, whatsoever — it is; which shall transform us into as high a likeness to him as a finite creature is capable of. There can be no participation of the substantial perfections of God, which aré incommunicable: for then it would not be a participation, but an identity, oneness, or equality. God put in one letter, and the chiefest of his name, Jehovah, which is twice repeated in it, into the names of Abraham and Sarai, reckoned Nehem. ix. 7, as one of his favours to Abraham; but not the -whole name; that is incommunicable, and Jacob’s name is changed to that of Israel, putting in a communicable name of God. Yet it is a real participation. It is not a picture, but a nature; it is divine. God doth not busy himself about apparitions. It is a likeness, not only in actions, but in nature. If God communicates to the creature, a singular participation of the divine vision, and divine love, why may he not also give some excellent participation of his nature? ‘There is a nature, for there is something whereby we are constituted the children of God: a bare affection to God doth not seem to do this. Love constitutes a mana friend, not a son and heir by generation. The apostle argues, “If children, then heirs.”’ He could not argue in a natural way, if friends, then heirs. And the scripture speaks of believers being the children of God, by a spiritual generation, as well as by adoption. So that grace, which doth constitute one a child of God, is another form whereby a divine nature is communicated. Generation is the production of one living thing by another, in the likeness of its nature, not only in the likeness of love; so is regeneration. Were not a real likeness attainable, why should those exhortations be, of being holy as God is holy, pure as he is pure? The new creature receives the image of God; not as a glass receives the image of a man, which is only an appearance, no real existence, and though it be like the person, yet hath no communion with its nature: but as wax, receives the image of the seal, which though it receives nothing of its substance, yet receives exactly the stamp, and an-Swers it in every part: so the scripture represents it, “You were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise. 3 Eph. i. 13. Something of God’s perfections are
in the new creature by way of quality, which are in God by way of essence. Ina word, it is as real a likeness to God as the creature is capable of, laid in the first draughts of it in regeneration, and ‘completed i in the highest measures in glory.
It is the whole image of God, which is drawn in the new creature. It is the image of God, not a part: a foot, or a finger, is but the image of those: parts, not of a man. The members in a child answer to those in a parent, that is but a chip from the body of his father, though not in so great a proportion. The image of a man hath not only the face, or eyes, but the other members. Though a Christian may have one or two parts of this image, more beautiful than the rest; as a man may have a sparkling eye, that hath not a proportionable lip: yet he hath all the members of a man. The painter’s skill appears in some lineaments more than in others. So the Spirit’s wisdom appears in making some eminent in one grace, some in another, according to his good pleasure; yet the whole image of God is imprinted there; it would be else not a likeness, but a monstrous birth in defect. “The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth:”’ and therefore the immediate effect of the Spirit in the soul is the engraving all goodness, righteousness, and truth in the essential parts of it. As God’s nature is holy, his perfections holy, his actions holy, so holiness beautifies the nature, inspirits the actions, and is written upon all the endowments of a renewed man. There is an impression of the wisdom of God in the understanding, and of the holiness of God in the will.
It is more peculiarly a likeness to Christ, wherein we partake of his nature. He that doth righteousness is righteous, as Christ is righteous. There is a real likeness to Christ in righteousness, though not an equal perfection. The new nature is a draught of Christ; ‘something of Christ put into the soul; such a likeness to Christ, that it seems to be, as another Christ; as the image of the sun seems to be another sun, in a pail of water; therefore called a “forming of Christ in us.’ Not by any communication of his substance, either of the divine or human nature; but by conveying such affections into us, which bear a likeness to the affections of Christ. Hence we are exhorted to have the same mind which Christ had, and to arm ourselves with the same mind; which supposes; such a mind put into the new creature, which he is to excite, and put into actual exercise. And the apostle speaks of a conformity to Christ in his death and resurrection. And God did predestinate all his own to be conformed to the image of his Son. Jesus Christ conformed himself to us, by assuming the human nature; and God conforms us to Christ by bestowing upon us a divine. Hence we are said to be the seed of Christ. Nota carnal seed, as the Jews say; and therefore deny Christ to be the Messiah, because he left no posterity. Whereas seed is spiritually understood; as in the first promise, the seed of the serpent, or the ‘devil. Devils do not beget, but metaphorically, as they instil their cursed principles into men. So Christ sows his principles in us, whereby we become his seed. Hence also renewed. men are called his fellows. If fellows with him in the covenant, and fellows with him in glory, fellows also with him in his. disposition of loving righteousness, and hating iniquity. This disposition was the inward motive of his death, and the foundation of his advancement. Without this disposition we cannot be conformable to him in his death, and consequently not his fellows in hisadvancement. The new creature is a likeness to Christ; therefore called the new man; as the natural man is like to Adam, therefore called the old man. The new man and old man are titles of Christ and Adam, and transferred to others by a figure. These are the heads and roots of the two distinct bodies of men in the world. All are in the old Adam by nature, and so partake of the old man. All believers are in the new Adam by faith, and so partake of the nature of the new man: as we did partake of Adam’s nature by our natural birth, so we partake of the nature of Christ by our spiritual; by the one we have the image of the earthly, by the other the new creature has the image of the heavenly; the one derives sin, the other righteousness: they both imprint their image according to the quality of their extraction. Christ is full of purity, righteousness, charity, patience, humility, truth, and in a word, all the parts of holiness; then the form and image of Christ in the new creature can be no other than a lively representation of those divine qualities: a soul glittering with goodness, humility, &c., which the apostle comprehends in two words, righteousness and true holiness. Therefore if there be-not a likeness to Christ in the frame and qualities of our souls, we are not born of him. No man will say an ox, or a sheep, or a dog, descends from Adam, because they have not the likeness, shape, and qualities of Adam; neither can any man: without such a likeness to Christ in faith, humility, patience, love, obedience, and minding the glory of God, number himself in the spiritual seed of Christ. He retains the nature poisoned by the serpent, creeping upon the earth, feeding upon the dust, not the nature formed by the eternal Spirit.
It is a likeness to the Spirit, which is the immedi- ate cause of it. Therefore the new creature is called spirit in the abstract, as a natural man is called flesh in the abstract. ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” John ill. 6. As that which is born of the flesh, is like to flesh in its nature; so that which is born of the Spirit is like to the Spirit in its nature; as light in the air, being the natural effect flowing from the sun, is like to that light which is in the sun: its relishes, delights, breathings, are according to its spiritual original. Its motions, purposes, dispositions, are like those of the Holy Ghost, of whom it is born.. The principles and impressions in the nature must be agreeable to those the Spirit hath. The Spirit is a Spirit of holiness, grace, love, and zeal to the glory of God; his office is to exalt and glorify Christ. If we are renewed, then we shall have the same draught in our hearts, the same design, the fleshly principle will be changed into spiritual. They will be habitual to, as the frame of the holy Spirit is; a natural man may do some acts that look like spiritual, by fits and starts; but there is no settled principle. Whereas the Spirit in a new creature is a spirit of meekness, and curbs the passions; a spirit of humility, and overthrows pride; a spirit of zeal, and fires the heart; a spirit of power, and arms the soul against sin; a holy spirit, and therefore cleanseth it; an heavenly spirit, and therefore elevates it.
. Wherein doth this likeness to God chiefly consist? In a likeness of affections. God has no bodily shape; we cannot be like him in our bodies, but in our souls as they are spirits; but if there be a dissimilitude of affection and disposition, the unlikeness to God is greater than a likeness to him in point of. the natural being. There is no draught of this image in us, unless we have a conformity of affections to God; it is then chiefly evidenced by a delighting in him, by faith and love, wherein we bear a resemblance to him in his affection to himself; by delighting in his image in others, wherein we imitate his affection to his creatures. He that loves not that image of God which is visible, cannot love the invisible original, 1 John iv. 12. 20, and so having no likeness to God in his affection, can have no likeness to him in his nature. And the apostle positively affirms, that “he that loves is born of God,’’ 1 John iv. 7. The new creature extendsits arms to every thing which hath a resemblance of that whose image it bears. The divine nature is chiefly seen in the objects of the affections; when they are set upon the same objects, and in a like manner as God’s and Christ’s are.. When we grieve most for sin, for this srieves the Spirit; when we desire most an inward holiness, this God most longs for; Oh that there were such an heart in them! When we hate sin as God hates it, because of the inward filthiness; when we love grace as God loves it, because of its native beauty; when we can love God and Christ above all the world, and other things in order to him and his glory; when we can trust Christ with all our concerns, as - God doth trust him with his glory; then, and. not till then, there is an image of God in us, which God values above all the world. When the soul is thus touched and quickened by grace, she can no more strip herself of the object and manner of her affections, than she can of the affections themselves. And when she doth reach out herself to all that is good, and hath a complacency in it, it is her happiness, because it is the great likeness to the spring of happiness. When we have the like affections with God, we have in our measure a like happiness and blessedness with God. In a likeness of actions. Men by sin are alienated from the life of God, by restoring grace then they are brought to have communion with God in his life, to live as God lives; by nature men live the life of beasts and devils; by grace they come to live the life of Christ. If he live then the life of God, he must be conformable in his actions to the acts of God. No nature is stripped of affections and actions proper to it; it would be else a picture without breath, a body without metion, a lifeless colour. The divine image is not a painted statue, but an active being. The nearer any thing approacheth in its nature to the fountain of life, the more of liveliness and activity it must needs partake of. The communicable perfections of God are instamped upon the soul as a pattern to imitate, and as a principle to quicken. A new creature acts like God; as melted and inflamed gold will act after the nature of fire, by the assistance of that quality communicated by the fire to it; so doth the soul by that divine quality it partakes of. It is as impossible that this image of God can produce any thing but divine acts, as that the image of the sun in a burning glass should produce a darkness and coldness in the air. There will be the manifestation of the life of Christ in the motions of our soul, as the apostle speaks in case of sufferings for him there will be in our bodies. Natural men are called the devil’s children, because they resemble him in nature and works, driving on to sin, and delighting themselves in their own and others’ iniquities:
so renewedmen are God’s children, because they live the life of God, and abound in the works of God. As there is the same nature, and the same Spirit which Christ had, there will be a following of him in his works: all creatures of the same species have the same instinct, the same nature, the same acts that the first creature of that kind had originally in its creation. Grace being a new excellency advancing the soul to a higher state, endues it with a more noble kind of operation. Nothing is lifted up to a more perfect state of being, but — in order to a more perfect manner of acting; if a beast should be elevated to the nature of man, would you then expect from him the actions of a beast still? And can any have the implantation of the divine nature, who hath only the actions of a man, which bens no resemblance to God?
This likeness to God consists principally ina Ppcocen to him in holiness. It is only he that does righteous- ness, that is born of him. “If you know that he is righteous, you know that every one that doeth righteousness, is born of him.” 1 Johnii. 29. It is by this the children of God are manifest from the children of the devil, 1 John iii. 10, in doing righteousness. If we are Rolike to God in this, we are like him in nothing; God hath nota pretence of holiness, but a real purity. He that hath not escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, is no partaker of the divine nature; the apostle puts that as a necessary qualification, 2 Pet. i. 4. If by afflictions good men are partakers of God’s holiness, much more by regeneration. “He chastened us for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.’? Heb. xii. 10. If God aim in his corrections at the bringing his people to partake with him in holiness, as a father does at the reformation of his child, that he may be a follower of his virtues; much more does God aim at it in regeneration, when a spirit of holiness is infused into the soul. The new creation is a drawing this excellency of God in the soul: if any attribute lift up his head above another, it is this; in this we chiefly are to imitate him; this is the greatest evidence of the divine nature. By sin we come short of that which is the glory of God; by the renewing of the soul we attain the glory of God; that is, attain a state of holiness, and at last a perfection of it, a communion with him in holiness here, and a full enjoyment of it hereafter. Whatsoever our fancies, our hopes, our presumptions are, if this be not drawn in our soul, if we have not an internal holiness, we are not new creatures, and therefore not in Christ..
If regeneration be such an inward change, a vital principle, a law put into the heart, the image of God and Christ in the soul; then,
How few in the world are truly new creatures? Is the law transcribed in many men’s lives? Nay, can we all read it copied in our own hearts? Cannot many see the image of the devil sooner than the image of God in their own souls? Is not the law of sin written in capital letters, and with many flourishes; when the law of God is written in characters hardly legible, and crowded into a narrow room? How many are changed from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to age, and the old nature still remaining in its full strength, and the body of death more vigorous than twenty or thirty years ago? Changed years, and unchanged hearts, are a very sad spectacle.
Profane men are numerous. None will offer to rank these in the number of new creatures. Such filthy souls are no branches of Christ, nor habitations for him; we read of the devil in swine, but never of our Saviour in swinish souls; are such regenerate? Can brambles. be ever accounted vines, or thistles fig-trees? These rather look like hellish than divine creatures; diabolical, not god-like natures. A devotedness to the sins of the flesh is inconsistent with the circumcision made by Christ. “Putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,’? Colos. li. 11, that is, the body of sins which exert themselves in the flesh or natural body; whereas such have the body of sin, with an activity in every member of it. Is the image of Christ in such men? Is not he meek asalamb? Are not they fierce as lions? Is not he holy, and they defiled with intemperance? Did not he labour for nothing but the glory of his father, and the salvation of souls? And they mind nothing but the dishonour of God, and the destruction of themselves and others. Did not he do good to his enemies, and they scarcely spare their friends? Alas, with this contrariety, how can they pretend the image of Christ, when they have nothing but what looks like the image of his enemy, the devil? Is not the Gospel counted as great a foolishness by such, as at the first times of its publishing. Are not the great mysteries of God, and the contrivances of eternity, entertained with coldness, and sometimes with scoffs, and the word, the great instrument of this change, disregarded? Are such new creatures, that contemn the very means to attain it? Surely they are so far from being near the kingdom of God, that they are in the very suburbs of hell. Is a hugging base lusts against the light of nature, a contempt of God’s law and authority, the nature of Christ? Were any such spots upon our Saviour’s garment? Is this to be like him who was holy, harmless, separate from sin and sinners?
- Among professors is there much evidence of a new creation? When men shall say, all that the Lord speak to us we will do, has not God as great occasion to say as he did of old, “O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep my commandments!?’ Deut. v. 24. We may find a change of language in some, a change of outward actions in others; but how few are there among many who stand up before God with the breath of life? Here and there a man or woman, wherein God may see the image of his own nature. How few are they with whom Christ can shake hands, and justly call them his fellows! Christ may be in the mouth, and the devil formed in the heart; the name of Christ may be upon them, and the nature of Christ not in them. They may be born of the will of man in a religious education, but not born of the will of God in a spiritual regeneration. Is it not a graceless Christianity in many men, a faith without holiness, a Christianity without Christ? Regeneration is never without faith, love, and righteousness; they depend upon grace as the property upon the form; wherever the new creation is, these are, for they are the qualities created; where- éver they are not, there is nothing of a new creature, let the pretences be never so splendid. There may be a nearness to the kingdom of God by profession, when there is no right to it for want of regeneration.
Instead of humility, according to our Saviour’s pattern, doth not pride compass men as a chain? Counting that their ornament which is the strength of their old nature. Instead of patience, roaring passions; instead of meekness, boiling anger; instead of love, a glowing hatred. How few then are renewed? But few shall be saved, and therefore few regenerate. How little is the report of a likeness to God believed by the incredulous world? How few are the strivings of any towards heaven? Most lie quiet without any such motions like the dust on the ground, unless some stormy affliction raise them a ‘little towards heaven, whence they quickly fall back to their old place.
- It informs us, that a change of opinion is not this new creature. It is not, if any man change his opinion from Gentileism to Christianity, he is a new creature; but if any man be in Christ, by a vital participation from union with him. As men generally place saving faith ina mere assent, so they place the new creation in a change of opinion, as well from truth to error, as from error to truth, though there be no spiritual knowledge of God, nor internal cordial closing with the Gospel, nor practice of it. Such a change may endue the head with a knowledge which never gently slides down to the affections. It may indeed have some influence upon the life, as this or that principle comes nearest to, or is divine truth, and is settled as an opinion in the’soul; yet this great change may not be wrought. That is but a change in the head,
this in the heart; that of opinion, this of affection; that perfects the understanding, this both the understanding and will and the whole soul. There is a natural desire of knowledge, but a natural aversion from grace; whence this change becomes easy, the new creature change difficult. A hot contriving head may have a cold and sapless heart. A-head informed by the knowledge of truth, may be without a heart enlivened by the Spirit of truth. A head changed in opinion only, will descend into-the bottomless pit, when the least grain of renewing grace shall not receive so much as a singe from those flames. A change from error to truth, without a heart framed to the truth, does but more settle a man upon his lees, and makes him not only more regardless, but opposite to a true change to God: it stores up wrath for him, and his very judgment will be a witness for the condemnation of his practice. ~The knowledge of God will not justify, but condemn a practical denial of him; but for all that, they are abominable. This new creature change is not from one doctrine to another, barely considered as doctrine; but a change to the Gospel in the main design of it, as it is “a doctrine according to godliness,” 1 Tim. vi. 3,as it may affect purity, and direct the soul in its motion. And by the way, observe this; whenever you are solicited to a change of opinion, consider the truth of it by this rule, whether it have a tendency to encourage and promote internal godliness. Since this doctrine of regeneration was the first Gospel-lesson taught, to which all succeeding truths refer as to their end and centre; the apostle tells us what the issue of all such doctrines are, that refer not to this, pride, doting about questions, envy, strife, railings, and evil surmisings. A heap of notions may consist with a body of death in its full strength, but a spirit of grace cannot; a notionalist may speak great things, but a new creature acts them. Great speculations only are but leaves without fruit, like cedars that by their shadows may give a refreshment, but have no fruit to fill the soul hungering after righteousness: -Morality is not this new creature. Moral bron estiyy ‘Teeedomn from gross vices, &c., I have before spoken something of, showing it insufficient, when I handled the necessity of regeneration; we cannot speak too much against it, it being a soft pillow, from whence many slide insensibly into destruction. How many upon this account think themselves new creatures, who are yet deeply under the image of Satan; and though they have blown off some dust from the law of nature; yet never had a syllable of the law of grace written in their hearts. Nay, the image of the devil may be more deeply engraved in a soul, whose life is free from an outward taint. Profane men express more of the beast; a civil and moral conversation may have more of the devil and serpent within in spiritual wickedness.
Yet morality is to be valued. It is a comely thing among men, a beauty to human societies, satisfaction to natural conscience, security to the body, example to others; men are to be applauded for it, and encouraged init. It is a fruit of Christ’s mediation, left for the preservation of human societies, without which the world would be a mere bedlam; the works of kindness, justice, mercy, love, pity, &c. are useful and commendable. It is a thing which our Saviour loved, yet not with such a love as eternally to reward it; he looked upon the young man with some affection, Mark x. 21, but scarce upon the Pharisees without anger and disdain.
Yet we must not set the crown Mabdinging to grace upon the head of it, and place it in a throne equal to that of the new creation. It is too amiable for men
to be beaten off from it; yet with just reason we may
persuade them to arise toa higher elevation. It isa
curious paint, a delightful picture, an useful artifice, but not a vital principle: a glow-worm is a lovely light, yet it is not a star. We press not men to throw off morality, but to advance it, to exchange it for Christ, that their moral virtues may commence Chris-Ys a tian graces. It is an elevation near the kingdom of God, not a translation into the kingdom of God; it is nature improved, not nature renewed; it is a well coloured picture without a principle of life; an outward resemblance, not an inward power, a form of godliness; as a change that is made upon canvass in the draught of a picture, but no change in it by the conveyance of life. For,
It removes not the body of death. It is a cutting away the outward luxuriances, not the inward root. It removes the stench and putrefaction, not the death; an embalmed carcass is as much dead as a putrified one, though not so loathsome. It removes not that wherein the strength of sin lies, though it does somewhat of the stench of sin. It may check those degenerate lusts inconsistent with the peace of natural conscience, but not heal the corrupt nature. It may be a change from scandalous to spiritual sins; from vanity in the outward life, to vanity in the mind; from debauched practices, to a vain glorious and envious spirit. “Henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their minds. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God.”? Eph. iv. 17. 18. By the gentiles from whom the apostle would have the Ephesians differenced, he means not the lower sort, but the whole rank, verse 21, there was a truth in Jesus which they had been taught; he makes no distinction between the looser rabble, and the professors of wisdom, whom he calls fools, Rom. i. 22; the followers of the divine (as they called them) philosophers, were alienated from the
life of God, and walked in the vanity of their minds.
The new man he exhorts them to put on, was another kind of thing than what the greatest moralists among the heathen were acquainted with. It was at best human, not divine; an old nature purified, not a new implanted; or as the apostle phraseth it, a walking in
ie the vanity of their mind, in the darkness of their understandings, though not in a vanity of gross actions. It can never remove that body of death which was introduced into the world, while this outward morality stood. What immorality against the light of nature do you find in Adam? He did break a positive command in eating the forbidden fruit; you find nothing of drunkenness, lying, swearing; his great sin was inward pride and unbelief; nothing of those sins, the freedom from which you boast of, and rest on. Some would make Adam guilty of the breach of every command in the moral law; virtually I confess they may; expressly I do not see how they can; and also virtually the highest mere moralist is guilty of the breach of the whole; yet all his morality after the breach of this one command, could not preserve him in Paradise; nor all the morality without a new nature, restore you to it. You may have Adam’s morality with Adam,”s corruption; a freedom from gross vices, with a heap of spiritual sins in your hearts, as Adam had;
but not a true righteousness without the new Adam, the quickening Spirit.
Therefore the highest morality, without a new creation, is but flesh: all men out of Christ agree ina fleshly nature. It is the highest thing in the rank of flesh, but it is not yet mounted to spirit. Water heated to the highest. pitch, is but water still; and morality in the greatest elevation of it, is but refined flesh; an old nature in a higher form. A profane man reduced to a philosophical morality, is putrified flesh reduced to some sweetness, endued with a fresh colour, but wanting life as much as before: it is an old nature new mended. But a new creature is Christ formed in the soul. Moral virtue colours the skin, renewing grace enlivens the heart; that changes the outward actions, this the inward affections; that paints the man, this quickens him; that is a change indeed in the flesh, not of the: flesh into spirit; it isa new action, not.a new creation. There is a difference indeed among men in this respect; as there is of cleanly lambs from a filthy swine, or a ravenous wolf, yet both are in the rank of beasts. There seems to be a difference in the wickedness and malice of devils. Our Saviour tells us of a kind that are “not cast out but by fasting and prayer,’? Mat. xvil. 21; intimating, that there are other kinds of them, not altogether so bad, or so strong; yet all agreeing in one common diabolical nature: as there is a difference in gracious men, one shining like a star, another of a lesser light; yet all agree in the nature of light, and light in the Lord. Although there be a difference among men in point of moral virtue, yet all agree in the nature of flesh; “That which is born of the flesh, is flesh,”? John iii. 6. Let it be what it will, a Nicodemus as well as Judas, it is flesh, a more nelney sensuality, an animal life.
It must needs be differenced from the new creature, because its birth is different. Moral virtue is gained by human industry, natural strength, frequent exercises: it is made up of habits, engendered by frequent acts. But regeneration is an habit infused, which grows not upon the stock of nature, nor is it brought forth by the strength of nature: for man being flesh, cannot prepare himself to it. That may be the fruit of education, example, philosophy, this of the Spirit: that isa fruit of God’s common grace, this of his special grace; that grows upon the stock of self-love, not from the root of faith and a divine affection: this is like a wild flower in the field, brought forth by the strength of nature; this like a flower in the garden, transplanted from heaven, derived from Christ, set and watered by the Spirit. And therefore the other, being but the work of nature, cannot bear the characters of that excellency, which the affections planted by the Spirit do. That is the product of reason, this of the Spirit; that is the awakening af natural light, this the breaking out of spiritual light and love upon it; that is the excitation of an old principle, this the infusion of a new; that arising from sleep by the jog of conscience, this arising from death by the breath of the Spirit, working a deep contrition, and making all new.
It differs from the new creature in regard of the contractedness of the one, and the extensiveness of the other, That is in part a purifying of the flesh; this a purging both of flesh and spirit; that binds the hands, this clears the heart; that purgeth the body, this every part of the soul; that, at the. best, is but oil in the lamp of life, this oil both in lamp and vessel; that is a change of outward postures, modes, and fashions of walking, this of nature, heart, and spirit; that-seems to be a dislike of some sins, this of all. If any thing in moral honesty be given to God, it is but a certain part; the greatest and best is kept back from him. That may be a casting away some iniquity, but not making a new heart, when both are commanded together. “Cast away from you all your transgressions, and make you a new heart and a new spirit,’’? Ezek. xvill. 31. That is a casting away the - loathsome works of the flesh, this a new root to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit.
It differs from the new creature in the immediate principle of it, and its tendency. That is a cleansing the outward flesh in the fear of ’ man, out of reverence to superiors, as it is said of Jehoash, he did that which was right, while he was under the ‘awful instructions of Jehoiada, 2 Kings xii. 2. This isa “perfecting holiness in the fear of God,” 2 Cor. vii. 1. That. 1s, an outward reformation from the hearing of the word; some acts materially performed from the newness of the thing, this from a. judicious and hearty approba- — tion of the law and will of God: that ariseth from a natural love to reason justice, equity, this consists of love to God; that avoids some sins, because they are loathsome, this because they are sinful; that tends not to God for himself, but for something extraneous to him: it is an acting for self, not for the praise of God. The actions of unregenerate morality, as well as loathsome profaneness, are to gratify the flesh in some part of it; they all meet in that point, as the clearest brooks, as well as the most rapid and muddy streams run to feed the sea.
Well then; deceive not yourselves; conclude not yourselves new creatures by your moral honesty: it will not follow, that because you have some virtues, you have therefore true grace; but it will follow, that if you are new creatures, and have faith and love, you have all graces in the root; and they will appear in time, though they may lie hid awhile in that seminal principle; the greater virtues contain the less, but the less do not infer the greater.
It will certainly follow from hence, that restraints are not this new creature. Restraining grace, and renewing grace, are two different things; the one is a
withholding, “I withheld thee from sinning against
me.’’ Gen. xx. 6; the other an enlivening, with a free
spirit against it. Restraint may be from a chastisement,
attended also with something of natural conscience. Abimelech had some natural integrity in his conscience, not to meddle with another man’s wife, which God acknowledges; “I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee:” yet without this restraint by a punishment, this natural integrity might have been bafiled by the temp-. tation. Restraints may spring from the law in the
hand of the magistrate, when it doth not spring from
the law of God in the heart. Men may love that which they do not act; at least, they may love it in others, though not in themselves, for some extrinsic considerations; and wish they had as fair a way to commit it as others have. They may hate what they practise. Do all that hear the word, love the word, hide it in their hearts, and let it sink down into the bottom of their souls? Do all that abstain-from sin, loathe what they abstain from? the restraints of many being barely outward restraints, are no more arguments of regeneration, than God’s withholding the devils by the chain of his powerful Providence, is a sign of the new creation of them. The damned are hindered from committing many of those sins which were their pleasure upon the earth: it is not a change of their disposition, but of their condition. Neither punishments in hell, nor punishments upon the earth, alter the nature; though after lying a thousand years in hell, they should have leave to dwell upon the earth again, they would have the same inclinations, without an inward change. Do we not see it daily in men’s afflictions, though the sense of the smart nips a little those inclinations, yet when that sense is extinguished, those inclinations bud forth afresh? The bare pruning a tree, makes it bear more fruit of the same kind, as long as the root remains, rather than diminish it, ‘Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint.’?? Isa.i.5. While the head is sick, and the heart faint, though there may be a ‘weakness to act some sins under the stroke, yet afterwards the revoltings are more violent many times than they were before. The best that restraints work of themselves, is but a cautiousness to sin more warily. The act may be repressed, while the habit remains. A serious fit of melancholy, or a sudden start of affections, is not this work of the new creature. It is an habit, a law written in the heart: not a transient pang, or a sudden affection; not a skipping of fancy, or a a OF REGENERATION: 185
quick sparkling of passion; but a new nature, a divine frame spreading itself over every faculty; knowing God in our understandings, complying with him by our wills, aspiring to him by a settled and perpetual flame of our affections, rising heavenwards, like the fire upon the altar, conforming ourselves to him in the whole man, a denial of whole self for God. It is not a working of the imagination, or a melancholy vapour, which may quickly be removed, or a flash of joy and love; but a serious humility, a constant grief under the remainder of corruption yet unextirpated; a perpetual recourse to God, and delight in him through Jesus Christ. Are your affections raised sometimes to God? and are they not oftentimes raised higher to objects extrinsical to God? Such affections may arise rather from the constitution of the body, than alteration of the soul. They are but “a taste of the heavenly gift, and the good work of God,’’ Heb. vi. 4, 5. A. taste, and no more; and is but a transient work. The object about which our affections are stirred, may be divine; yet the operation be merely natural. May not sometimes affections be stirred much at the hearing of the sufferings of our Saviour pathetically expressed, yet only out of a natural compassion, from an agreeable impression upon the fancy? The story of Joseph in the pit, and Christ upon the cross, may be heard with the same workings of passion. And may not the same be done at a well humoured play, or at the hearing a report of the lamentable death of a Turk, or Heathen, pathetically expressed? These are but the workings of natural spirits. Some affections are as moveable as quicksilver, upon the least touch; they sweat like marble in moist weather, but resemble it also in hardness. You do not find the affections to be the chief seat of the law. This would be as to write letters upon melted wax, or running water: but the tenor of the covenant runs upon the mind; “I will put my
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ah “aly law into their minds,’’ Heb. viii. 8. 10. And when. God works upon the mind, the affections will attend the dictates of that, and the motions of the will. But a work upon the affections only, is like water ina spunge, easily sucked up, and upon the least compression, squeezed out. These may be where there is no root of grace; they suddenly rise, and suddenly vanish. When unrooted notions are received only into the fancy, without any illumination of the understanding, or determination of the will, the affections to them wily be as volatile as the fancy which entertained them. Those in Matt. xiii. 20, 21, that received the word with a sudden joy, were as suddenly offended for want of a root: Anon with joy receives it, by and by he is offended. The word translated anon, and by and by, is the same, a lightening of affection, and a sudden vanishing. Therefore this is not the new creature, sudden affections, or a melancholy fit. The law of God
seated in the heart, mind and will; though a constant course of affection, is a very good character to judge of the new creature.:,
It informs us of the excellency of the new creature. How excellent is this new creature? It is a change, a divine nature, a likeness to God, an excellency above that of the greatest moralist under heaven. The apostle calls ita change “from glory to glory,’’ 2 Cor. ili. 18, implying, that the first change wrought upon the soul is glorious, and a new creature excellent in its first make, more glorious in its progress, inconceivably glorious when God shall put his last hand to the completing of it. Regeneration is more excellent than creation. It is more noble to be formed a son of God by grace, than made a man by nature: nature deforms, grace beautifies. By nature we are the sons of Adam; by the new nature the members of Christ. As grace excels nature, and Christ surmounts Adam, so much more excellent is the state of a Christian, a real Christian, above that ofaman. Can there be a greater excellency, than to have a divine beauty, a formation of Christ, a proportion of all graces, suited to the imitable perfections of God? Man is an higher creature than others, because he hath an higher principle: a life of reason is more noble than that of sense. To live by sense, is to play the part, and live the life of brutes: to live by reason, is to live the life of a man: but he that lives by the Spirit, lives the life of God, answers the end of his creation, useth his reason, understanding, will, affection for God, by whom they were first bestowed; acts more nobly, lives more pleasantly, than the greatest angel could do without such a principle. A new creature doth exceed a rational creature, considered only as rational, more than a rational doth a brute. The apostle makes a manifest distinction between the natural, or the rational, and the spiritual man. 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15. A man with the richest endowments, is no more to be compared in excellency, with a regenerate man, than the top of a craggy mountain is with a well-dressed garden. That must needs be excellent, the forming of which is the end of all God’s ordinances in the world, the end of the Spirit’s being among the sons of men, the end of keeping up of mankind, the end of his patience in forbearing his punishment upon contempt of the Gospel. The end of his preserving the world, is to form Christ in the heart: and when the last new creature is formed, God hath no more to do in the world. When all that are given to him, shall come to believe, Christ shall then come “to be admired in them.’ 2 Thes. i. 10. He doth not come therefore, till all his chosen ones are brought in, to believe in him; for then he would not be admired by all those that are saints in his purpose. This, therefore, must needs be excellent. One new creature is more excellent than the whole unrenewed world, with their choicest ornaments. It was never pronounced of arses Shaw they were partakers of the divine nature.
How much therefore should new creatures be esteemed and valued? Is any thing, next to God, more worthy our esteem than that which bears his image? Is any thing, next to a crucified Christ, glorified in heaven, more worthy our valuation, than Christ formed in the heart of a believer? What esteem have men had for those who have had tempers like to some heroes, some generous and useful men in the world? How much more respect should be given to them that bear the character of God upon them, and have communion with God, and Christ, and the Spirit, in their nature? If the dead image of God ina
natural man, ought to be respected, much more the living image of God in a renewed man. Ifa picture is to have respect, much more the life. To slight them, therefore, redounds to the slighting that infinite perfection, whose image it is. They are his living images, sent into the world to represent him. He then that disesteems them for that work, disesteems him that wrought and engraved them, by the same rule, that he that despised the disciples, despised Christ, and the Father that sent him. ‘ He therefore that despiseth you, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given us his Holy Spirit.’ Luke x. 16. 1 Thes. iv. 8. Yet no better must be expected here: for the contracted spirit of the world, can love no other birth but its own, no other similitude but what draws near unto it: “If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you.’? John xv. 19. The copy can expect no better usage than the original. The nearer any approach in likeness to Christ, the more they will be exposed to contempt and scorn in the world. Aino If the new creature be such a thing as you have heard, then the sin of a regenerate man, hath a greater
aggravation than the sins of any in the world. If you’
slip into sin, the sins of the whole unregenerate world have not so great a blackness. It is true, a new creature may, and does sin: for though a new man is created in him with all his members and essential and integral parts, yet the body of death doth remain — still with all its members, and a seed-plot still, though — not in the same strength and fruitfulness as before:: for the apostle Paul doth not complain of a member of death, or a piece of sin, but the whole body of it, and the law of sin in its members. Rom. vii. It seems it did reside there still: and so it doth in all the re- ‘ — newed, though but faint and feeble, am old man - indeed, growing older every day, losing its teeth and strength, less able to bite, less able to assault. Yet ‘sometimes a new creature may fall into sin, but not without great aggravation. For other men sin against
natural, you against spiritual principles; others sin — 3:
against a habit of common notion, you against a habit of divine grace. A natural man sins against the light of God in his conscience, a renewed man against the life of God in his heart. Others sin against a Christ crucified, and risen from the grave; he sins against a Christ new formed, and risen in his heart. Others sin against the law of God in the word, he against the law written in his mind and word too. Such cast dirt upon the Spirit’s work, cross the end of so noble a piece, bring a thief into the Spirit’s temple, and grieve the Holy Spirit, who instructed him better. Whenever you sin, it must cost you more grief, because your sins are more grievous, and you must grieve the more for them, because the Spirit is grieved
- by them. Grief for sin is a standing grace in the new creature, and part of a likeness to the Spirit of God, gepetcoever some men dream to the contrary.
There is ground of joy unspeakable and full of glory that results from this. Are you of this new creation that I have been discoursing of? Then take your portion of comfort. The jewel of comfort belongs only to the cabinet of grace. It is fit you should have the comforts of heaven in your hearts, who have a fitness for heaven in your nature. “The day of the new birth was a happy day, to be brought from under the rule of sin and death in it, to the rule of the ‘Spirit of God and life in it; from bearing fruit to death, to bringing forth fruit ‘to God and everlasting life; if sin be a torment to the womb that bear it, no joy can reside in an unregenerate spirit; if sin be the soul’s rack in its own nature, grace must be its pleasure; for it carries as much contentment and satisfaction in its bowels, as sin doth disquietness and sorrow.
You have by the new creation, a relation to the
blessed trinity. Such are the sons of God, the seed of Christ, the temple of the Spirit; what a connexion
is there between you and the three persons? God in
Christ, and Christ in you, that you may be made perfect in one. God in Christ reconciling the world; you in Christ reconciled to God. God in Christ, as a father in a son; you in Christ as members in the body; the Spirit in you as an informing and enlivening principle. It makes you related to the Father as his friends, by the ceasing of your enmity: to the Son, as his property, for then you are his; to the Spirit, as
the tutor of you, and inhabitant in you; all implied,
Rom. viii. 8, 9,10. By your former birth you were children of wrath, by this, children of God; by that, partakers of the nature of the destroyer, by ‘this, partakers of the divine nature of your Creator and Redeemer; by nature you descended from the loins of
Adam, and thereby were related to all the corruption of the world, by the new birth, you are descended
oe from the son of God, and counted to the Lord for a generation, and thereby related to all the perfection of heaven: as really descended from Christ by a spiritual, as from Adam by a natural generation. What an overflowing comfort is this? To be a king’s son is a higher privilege than merely to be his subject; subjects have protection, sons affection; subjects partake of the kindness of the prince, sons-of his nature; as a son he hath a right to the inheritance of the father, as a subject not. Men are subjects by covenant, though born of others; sons by generation: by being anew creature, the regenerate man acquires a more noble relation, than by being a creature. That relation that he lost by a prodigal corruption, is restored to him in a more excellent way by his spiritual regeneration.