Solomon says, are the issues of his life'. That law in his heart, is the principle of this living to righte

ousness.

2. The second thing here is the design or intention of Christ by his sufferings and death, to produce in us this death, and life, he bare sin, and died for it, that we might die to it;

Out of some conviction of the consequence of sin, many have a confused desire to be justified, to have sin pardoned, and they look no further; they think not on the importance and necessity of sanctification, the nature whereof is expressed by this dying to sin and living to righteousness.

But here we see, that sanctification is necessary as inseparably connected with justification, not only as its companion, but as its end; which in some kind raises it above the other; we see that it was the thing which God eyed, and intended in taking away the guiltiness of sin, that we might be renewed, and sanctified: If we compare them in point of time, and look backward, holiness was always necessary unto happiness; but satisfying for sin and the pardon of it, was made necessary by sin; or if we look forward, the estate we are appointed to, and for which we are delivered from wrath, is an estate of perfect holiness. When we reflect upon that great work of redemption, we see it aimed at there, Redeemed to be holy. And if we go yet higher to the very spring, the decree of election, with regard to that it is said", Chosen before, that we should be holy; and the end it shall suit the design, Nothing shall enter into the new Jerusalem, that is defiled, or unholy; nothing but perfect purity is there; not a spot of sinful pollution, not a wrinkle of the old man. For this end was that great work undertaken by the Son of God, that he might frame out of polluted mankind a new holy generation to his Father, that might compass his throne in the life of glory, and give him pure praises, and behold his face in that eternity. Now, for f Prov. iv. 3, Eph. v. 25, 26. Tit. ii. 14. Eph. i. 4.

this end it was needful, according to the all-wise purpose of the Father, that the guiltiness of sin, and sentence of death should be once removed, and thus the burden of that lay upon Christ's shoulders on the cross; and that done, it is further necessary, that souls so delivered be likewise purged and renewed; for they are designed to perfection of holiness in the end, and it must begin here.

Yet it is not possible to persuade men of this, that Christ had this in his eye and purpose when he was lifted up upon the cross, and looked upon the whole company of those his Father had given him to save, that he would redeem them to be a number of holy persons. We would be redeemed, (who is there would not?) but he would have his redeemed ones holy; and they that are not true to this his end, but cross and oppose him in it, may hear of redemption long, and often, but little to their comfort. Are you resolved still to abuse and delude yourselves? Well, whether you will believe it or no, this is once more told you; there is unspeakable comfort in the death of Christ, but it belongs only to those that are dead to sin, and alive to righteousness. This circle shuts out the impenitent world: there it closes, and cannot be broke through; but all that are penitent are by their effectual calling lifted into it, translated from that accursed condition wherein they were: so then if you will live in your sins, you may; but then resolve withal to bear them yourselves, for Christ in his bearing of sin, meant the benefit of none, but such as in due time are thus dead, and thus alive with him.

3. But then in the third place, Christ's sufferings and death effect all this. 1. As the exemplary cause the lively contemplation of Christ crucified, is the most powerful of all thoughts, to separate the heart and sin. But 2. besides this working as a moral cause, Christ is the effective natural cause of this death, and life; for he is one with the believer, and there is a real influence of his death and life in

to their souls. This mysterious union of Christ and the believer, is that whereon both their justification and sanctification and the whole frame of their salvation and happiness depends; and in this particular view the apostle still insists on it, speaking of Christ and believers as one in his death and resurrection, crucified with him, dead with him, buried with him, and risen with him.

Being arisen, he applies his death to those he died for, and by it kills the life of sin in them, and so is avenged on it for its being the cause of his death; according to that of the*: Raise me up that I may requite them. He infuses, and then actuates and stirs up that faith and love in them, by which they are united to him; and these work powerfully in producing this change.

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3. Faith looks so stedfastly on its suffering Saviour, that, as they say, it makes the soul like him, assimilates and conforms it to his death, as the apostle speaks. That which papists fabulously say of some of their saints, that they received the impression of the wounds of Christ in their body, is true in a spiritual sense of the soul of every one that is indeed a saint and a believer: it takes the very print of his death, by beholding him, and dies to sin; and then takes that of his rising again, and lives to righTM teousness; as it applies it to justify, so to mortify, drawing virtue from it. Thus said one, " Christ "aimed at this in all those sufferings that with so "much love he went through; and shall I disap"point him, and not serve his end?"

4. That other powerful grace of love joins in this work with faith; for love desires nothing more than likeness and conformity: though it be a painful resemblance, so much the better and fitter to testify love, therefore it will have the soul die with him that died for it, and the very same kind of death; I am crucified with Christ, says the great apostle". The love of Christ in the soul takes the very nails

that fastened him to the cross, and crucifies the soul to the world, and to sin. Love is strong as death, particularly in this; the strongest and liveliest body, when death seizes it, must yield, and so becomes motionless, though it was so vigorous before: and the soul that is most active and unweared in sin, when this love seizes it, is killed to sin; and as death separates a man from his dearest friends, and society, this love breaks all its ties and friendship with sin. Generally, as Plato hath it, love takes away one's living in themselves, and transfers it into the party loved; but the divine love of Christ doth it in the truest and highest manner.

By whose stripes ye were healed.] The misery of fallen man, and the mercy of his deliverance, are both of them such a depth, that no one expression, yea, no variety of expressions added one to another, can reach their bottom. Here we have divers very significant ones: 1. The guiltiness of sin as an intolerable burden, pressing the soul and sinking it; and that transferred and laid on a stronger back, he bare. Then, 2. The same wretchedness under the notion of a strange disease, by all other means incurable, healed by his stripes. And, 3. Again represented by the forlorn condition of a sheep wandering, and

salvation to be found only in the love and wis

dom of our great Shepherd. And all these are borrowed from that sweet and clear prophecy".

The polluted nature of man is no other but a bundle of desperate diseases: he is spiritually dead, as the scriptures often teach. Now this contradicts not, nor at all lessens the matter; but only because this misery, justly called death, is in a subject animated with a natural life, therefore, so considered, it may bear the name and sense of sickness or wounds and therefore it is gross misprision, and they are as much out in their argument as in their conclusion, that would extract out of these expressions any evidence of remains of spiritual life or good in our corrupted nature. But they are not n Isa. liii.

worthy the contest, though vain heads think to argue themselves into life, and are seeking that life by logic in miserable nature, that they should seek by faith in Jesus Christ, namely, in these his stripes, by which we are healed.

It were a large task to name our spiritual maladies, how much more severally to unfold their natures; such a multitude of corrupt false principles in the mind that, as gangrenes, do spread themselves through the soul, and defile the whole man; that total gross blindness and unbelief in spiritual things, and that stone of the heart, hardness and impenitency, lethargies of senselessness and security; and then (for there be such complications of spiritual diseases in us, as in naturals are altogether impossible) such burning fevers of inordinate affections, desires of lust, and malice, and envy, such racking and tormenting cares of covetousness, and feeding on earth and ashes, as the prophet speaks in another case, according to the depraved appetite that accompanies some diseases: such tumours of pride and self-conceit that break forth, as filthy botches in mens words, and carriage one with another! and in a word, what a wonderful disorder must needs be in the natural soul, by the frequent interchanges and fight of contrary passions within it; and, besides all these, how many deadly wounds do we receive from without by the temptations of Satan and the world: we entertain them, and by weapons, with which they furnish us, we willingly wound ourselves, as the apostle says of them who will be rich, they fall into divers snares and noisome lusts, and pierce themselves through with many sorrows".

Did we see it, no infirmary or hospital was ever so full of loathsome and miserable spectacles, as in a spiritual sense, our wretched nature is in any one of us apart: how much more when multitudes of us are met together? But our evils are hid from us, and we perish miserably in a dream of happiness. That makes up and compleats our wretchedness P 1 Tim. vi. 9.

Isa. xliv. 20.