Discourse of the Nature of Regeneration
by
Stephen Charnock
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.—2
Cor. v. 17.
The apostle in those words, ver. 13, 'For whether we be
besides ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is
for your cause,' defends his speaking so much of his integrity;
though some men would count him out of his wits for it, yet he
regards not their judgment; for if he were in an ecstasy, or
'beside himself,' his purpose was to serve God and his church,
and therefore he did not regard the opinion of men, whether he
were accounted mad or sober, so he might perform the end of his
apostleship. The sense therefore of it, as Calvin renders it, is
this: Let men take it as they will, that I speak so much of my
integrity, I do it not upon my own account, but have respect to
God and the church in speaking of it, for I am as ready to be
silent as to speak, when my silence may glorify God and advantage
the church as much as my speech; 'for the love of Christ
constrains me,' ver. 14, for whom I am bound to live; and so he
passes on to inculcate the duty of every man that bath an
interest in the death of Christ. The love of Christ constrains us
actively; the love wherewith Christ has loved us is a powerful
attractive to make us live to him. It is the highest equity and
justice that we should live to him who died for us. Whence
observe,
The true consideration and sense of the love of Christ in his
death, has a pleasing force, and is a delightful bond and
obligation upon us to devote ourselves wholly to his service and
glory. There is a moral constraint upon the soul to this end: 'if
one died for all, then were all dead,' then all were obnoxious to
eternal death. Others (Vorstius, Calvin, editor) dislike this
interpretation, and understand it not of the death to God brought
in by the first Adam, but a death to sin and the flesh, procured
by the second Adam, which death is spoken of Rom. vi. 2, 'How
shall we, being dead to sin,' &c., and called 'a suffering in
the flesh, and a ceasing from sin,' 1 Peter iv. 1. If one died
for all, then all for whom he lied are dead, jure et
obligatione, dead to themselves, that they might not be under
their own power, but the power of him that died for them, and
rose again. Since, therefore, we are dead to sin, we should take
no care to maintain the life of it. And this seems, by the
following verse, to be the true meaning of it: ver 15, 'And that
he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live
unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose
again.' He has redeemed us by the price of his blood, that he
might have us in his own power, as his own property, so that we
are no longer our own masters, and have no longer right to
ourselves. They ought to die to themselves, that they may live to
Christ; it being fit they should live not to their own wills, or
own honour, but to the glory and will of their Redeemer. It was
to this end that Christ died, that he might have a seed to serve
him, and live to him. It is ingratitude and injustice to deny him
our service, since thereby we endeavour to frustrate the design
of his coming. and the end of his death. Observe,
1. Self is the chief end of every natural man. 'That they
which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves.' Implying
that all men living, who are not under the actual benefit and
efficacy of our Saviour's death, do live to themselves. The
greatest distinction between a regenerate and a natural man is
this, self is the end of one, and Christ the end of the other.
The life of a natural man, and all the dependencies of it, is to
gratify corrupt self, with the greatest detriment to his natural
and moral self, the happiness and flood of his soul, but the life
of a new creature, with all the dependencies of it, is for the
glory of God and the Redeemer. This self-dependence, and a desire
of independence on God, which was the great sin of Adam, whereby
he would malice himself his own chief end, has run in the veins
of all his posterity, and is the bitter root upon which all the
fruits of gall and wormwood grow.
2. The end of our Saviour's dying and rising again was to
change the corrupt end of the creature. The end of redemption,
and consequently the end of the Redeemer, must be contrary to the
end of corruption and the end of the first Adam. As Adam
dispossessed God of his dominion to set up self, so does Christ
pull down self to advance God to his right of being our chief
end. It is called, therefore, a redemption of us to God: Rev. v.
9, 'For thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy
blood;' redeemed us from a slavery under sordid lusts, to God as
our end.
3. Therefore we must be taken off from ourselves, as our end,
and be fixed upon another, even upon Christ, else we answer not
the end of Christ's death and resurrection: 'He bore our sins in
his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live
unto righteousness,' I Peter ii. 21. And if the ends of our
Saviour's death and resurrection be not accomplished upon us, the
fruits of it shall not be enjoyed by us. The whole work of
regeneration, and conversion, and sanctification, and the
efficacy of the death of Christ in the soul, consists in these
two things: a taking us off from self, and pitching us upon God
and Christ as our end. The terminus a quo is self, the terminus
ad quem is Christ. We are 'redeemed by the precious blood of
christ from our vain conversation received by tradition from our
fathers,' I Peter i. 18, even from our first father Adam. This is
properly to set up no other gods before him, and to abhor the
grossest idolatry.
4. It is highly equitable, that if Christ died for us, and was
raised for us as our happiness, we should live to his glory, and
make him our end in all our actions, and the whole course of our
lives. The apostle uses this consideration as an argument, and as
a copy and exemplar. As Christ died not for himself, nor rose
again for himself, but he died for God's glory and our
redemption, to vindicate God's righteousness, and justify us in
his sight, and rose again to make it appear that he had done our
business in redeeming us, and went to heaven to manage our cause
for us, so we are to rise to keep up the honour of God's
righteousness and holiness, and to justify Christ in our
professions of him, and conformity to him in the design of his
death and resurrection. It is a high disesteem of ourselves not
to live to Christ, which is both a more rightful and a more
satisfying object of our affections, who returns our living to
him with a happiness to ourselves. By his dying he purchased a
dominion over us; by his resurrection his dominion over us was
confirmed, and thereby our obligation of love and service
increased. He died as our surety to satisfy our debts, and rose
as our Saviour to justify our persons; so the apostle, Rom. iv.
26, 'He was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our
justification.' Therefore, as he rose to justify us, we must rise
to glorify him. And indeed it is a great sign of a spiritual
growth when we grow in our ends and aims for God.
5. The resurrection of Christ, as well as his death, was for
us. He rose again, it must be understood, for them for whom he
died; he died as a public person, bearing our sins, and rose
again as a public person, and head of the believing world,
acquitted from our sins: Heb. ix. 24, 'He is entered into heaven,
to appear in the presence of God for us.' And in a conformity to
these two public acts of Christ does our regeneration and
communion with Christ consist; in a mortification of the body of
sin in conformity to his death; in newness of life, by quickening
grace, in conformity to his resurrection, Col. ii. 12.
The apostle proceeds on, and makes his inference in the 16th
verse, 'Henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we
have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him
no more.' To know is used in Scripture for love and
delight, both on God's part,—Ps. i. 6. 'The Lord knows the
way of the righteous, that is, loves and delights in the way of
the righteous,—and on man's part: Hosea iv. 1, 'No knowledge
of God in the land,' that is, no love of God. Not to know men
after the flesh then, is either not to judge of men according to
the endowments, though never so glittering, which arise only from
fleshy principles; to esteem no man according to his greatness,
his knowledge, and worth, in the account of the world, or, not to
love men for our secular interest; or, not to regard men
according to those fleshly privileges of circumcision and carnal
ceremonies. Not ourselves, which is included in no man; not to
esteem of ourselves by our knowledge, wealth, credit, honour, or
any other excellency which falls under the praise of men, but by
inward grace, living to God, fruitfulness to him, which falls
under the praise of God. Men esteem not their fields for the gay
wild flowers in them, but for the corn and fruit; 'yea, though we
have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him
no more.' We do not glory in him because he was of kin to us, and
our countryman according to the flesh; we look upon him no more
only as a miraculous man, but we have more noble thoughts of him;
we know him as the great Redeemer of the world; we consider him
in those excellent things he has done, those excellent graces
which he has communicated, those excellent offices he does
exercise, we know him after a spiritual manner, as the author of
all grace, appointed by God for such ends, accepted by God upon
such works, glorified by God for such purposes; we regard him as
transacting our great affairs in heaven, where he is entered as a
forerunner for us, Heb. vi. 20, and as such we serve and honour
him; we desire not his company in the flesh, but in the spirit,
in his heavenly appearance and glory. Observe,
1. Natural men have no delight in anything but secular
concerns; love nothing, but for their own advantage; admire not
any true spiritual worth; they know and love men, yea, what love
they pretend to Christ is only a fleshly love, a love from
education, a customary love.
2. An evidence of being taken from ourselves and living to
Christ, is our valuation either of ourselves or others, according
to holiness. Though a civil respect be due to men according to
their station in the world,—such a respect the writer of
this epistle gave to Agrippa;—yet our inward valuations of
men ought to be upon the account of the image of God in them.
God, who loves righteousness, knows no man after the flesh, but
as he finds the image of his own righteousness in him; and as a
new creature is framed after the image of God, so his affections
and valuations of men or things are according to God's affections
to them, or esteem of them.
3. Our professions of Christ, serving him and loving him
barely for ourselves and for fleshly ends, does not consist with
regeneration. Such a love is a love to ourselves, not to Christ,
a making him only subservient to us, not ourselves subservient to
Christ.
4. We should eye Christ, and arise to the knowledge of him, as
he is advanced and exulted by God. Look upon him as our head,
delight to come under his wing, and have our whole dependence on
him, know him in his righteousness to justify us, know him not
only as a Saviour risen, but in the power of his resurrection in
our souls, and the fellowship of his sufferings, and to be made
conformable to his death; such a knowledge the apostle aims at,
Philip. iii. 8-10; the other knowledge is a knowledge of him in
the head, this a knowledge of him in the heart; the other is a
knowledge of him after the flesh, this a knowledge of him after
the spirit, in the draught of Christ in our hearts by the Spirit,
an inward conception of him in the womb of our hearts.
The text is another inference made from that position, ver.
15. If there be such an obligation upon us to live to Christ,
because he has died and rose again for us; then certainly
whosoever has an interest in the death and resurrection of
Christ, as to the fruits of it, must be a new creature, a changed
person; old things have passed away, all things are become new in
him. Whosoever is in the kingdom of Christ, engrafted into him,
under the participation of his death and resurrection, is a new
creature; all other excellencies are defective, though they may
be useful to the world; it is a 'new creation' only makes a man
excellent and worthy of the kingdom. 'Old things are passed
away,' old affections, old dispositions of Adam; those things,
the "archaia", things that are very near of as old a
standing us the world. Adam would be his own rule and ruler; he
would be the rule of good and evil to himself; he would be his
own end. These things must pass away; we must come to a fiduciary
reliance upon God, under the new head of his appointment, and
make him our highest good, our chief end, our exact rule, and
therefore what is called the 'new creature, Gal. vi. 15, is
called 'faith working by love,' Gal. v. 6. Adam's great failures
were unbelief and self-love; he would not believe God's precept
and threatening; he would not depend upon God. To this is opposed
faith, which is a grace that empties us of ourselves, and fixes
us in our dependence on another. He would also advance himself,
and be his own rule and end, to know as God; to this is opposed
love, which is an acting for God and his glory. And these two are
the essential parts of the new creature. Some of late would
understand, by the new creature, only a conversion from
idolatry to the profession of Christianity. But there must be a
greater import in the words than so. The apostle makes it a
qualification necessary both to Jew and Gentile, that neither the
circumcision of the one did avail without it, nor the
uncircumcision of the other prejudice them that possess it.
Besides, men may turn from one profession to another without
living to God, and directing all their actions to the glory of
Christ. Some translate it, 'Let him be a new creature;' others,
'He is a new creature.' One notes his state, the other his
obligation. 'Old things are passed away.' It is a reason
rendered; there is a change in the whole frame of things. If you
understand it of the old economy, the old legal state, then it is
an argument showing the necessity of the new creature. Old things
are withered; there is a new frame in the church, in the kingdom,
therefore there ought to be so in the subjects of it; for the
prophets use to speak of the state of the gospel under the names
of a 'new heaven and new earth,' Isa. lxv. 17. As old rites in
the church are removed, so the old principles and the old frames
of Adam should pass away. The old rubbish must be thrown out when
the house is new built. And they are passed away in a regenerate
man, jure, obligatione, potestate, though not wholly in
actu. 'All things are become new', but not of ourselves, but
by the grace of God, ver. 18, 'and all things are of God.' It is
likely the apostle expresses himself thus, to pull down the
swelling thoughts of the Corinthians which they had of
themselves. They were proud of their gifts, wherein, by the
apostle's own confession, they came behind no church in the
world, 1 Cor. i. 7; and he discourses to them much of the
excellence of charity above knowledge, and advises them to 'covet
the best gifts,' 2 Cor. xiii. He depresses their confidence in
knowledge without grace, which does but puff up, not edify to
eternal life. He wishes them, therefore, to look more to the new
creature in them, to try themselves whether they be in Christ or
no, by the change they found in their hearts. 'If any man be in
Christ,' that is, be a member of Christ, engrafted into him.
In the words observe,
1. The character of a true Christian by his state, a new
creature.
2. The necessity of this new creation, if any man; if
he be not a new creature, he is not in Christ; he has nothing at
present to do with him, he is no true member of his body.
3. The universality, any man; not a man can be in
Christ by any other way, without this new creation pass upon him.
4. The advantage of it: if he be a new creature, he is
certainly in Christ, it is an infallible token that the Redeemer
did die and rise again for him.
5. The nature of it.
(1.) Removal of the old form: old things are passed away.
(2.) Introduction of a new: all things are become new,
as without in the church, so within in the soul.
6. The note of attention: behold, more particularly set
to this passage, of all things becoming new, to remote the deceit
that men are liable to. Old things in some measure may pass away,
but look to that, whether new things come in the place contrary
to those old, whether there be new affections, new dispositions;
old things may pass away, when old sins are left, and no new
frames be set up in the stead of them. The doctrine I shall
insist upon is this:
Doct. Every man in Christ has a real and mighty change
wrought in him, and becomes a new creature.
I pitch upon these words to show the nature of regeneration,
the necessity of which I have already discoursed of.
It is difficult to describe exactly the nature of
regeneration.
1. Because of the disputes about the nature of it; whether it
be quality, or a spiritual substance; whether, if a quality, it
be a habit or a power, or whether it be the Holy Ghost
personally. Many controversies the wits of men have obscured it
with. 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.
2. It is difficult, because it is visible, not in itself, but
in its edicts. We know seed does 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 particle does lie. We know we have a soul, yet it
is hard to tell what the soul is, and in what part it does
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: John iii. 8, 'The wind blows
where it lists, and thou hears the sound thereof, but can not
tell whence it comes, nor whither it goes: so is every one that
is born of the Spirit.' The wind, we feel it, we see the effects
of it, yet cannot tell how it arises, where it does repose
itself, 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 is not so easy.
3. 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,' 1 Tim. iii. 16; 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 Peter iii. 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 in a cloud of smoke. The blindness the god
of this world has wrapped 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.
4. 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 experiments of an
inward corruption; but the methods and motions of the Spirit of
God in this work are not comprehended, but by those who have felt
the power of it. 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 ripped up 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, 1 Cor. ii. 15. It is
certainly true, that as a painter can better decipher 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. I
shall therefore describe it consonantly to the Scripture thus:
Regeneration is a mighty and powerful change, wrought in the soul
by the efficacious 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 holily and
pleasingly to God, and to grow up therein to eternal glory. This
it 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 a new 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 act, and a habit to
facilitate that act, then a law in their nature as the rule of
their acting; every creature has so. In this respect the heavens
are said to have ordinances: 'knows thou the ordinances of
heaven?' Job xxxviii. 33; and they seem to act in the way of a
covenant, Jer. xxxiii. 25, according to such articles as God has
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 flew creation, as the word is,
"kaine ktisis". It is a certain spiritual and
supernatural principle, or permanent form, per modem actus
primi, infused by God, whereby it is made partaker of the
divine nature, and enabled to act for God.
Let us therefore see,
1. How it is differenced from other states of a Christian.
2. What it is not.
B. What it is.
1. First, How it is differenced from the other states of a
Christian.
(1.) It differs from conversion. Regeneration is a spiritual
change, conversion is a spiritual motion. In regeneration 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, as the terminus ad quem.
One gives posse agere, the other actu agere.
[1.] Conversion is related 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 Spirit into them, is distinguished from their walking in his
statutes, Ezek. xxxvi. 27, 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 a 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.
[2.] 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
has life, it is active, and its motions 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: Hosea vi. 2, '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.' 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, 2 Cor. viii. 5; giving our own selves to the Lord is a
voluntary 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, as a
father does 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 has a principle of motion in himself, and a will to
move. The day of regeneration is solely the day of God's power,
wherein he makes men cavilling to turn to him, Ps. cx. 3; 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 in nature, but settled there by
the Spirit of God.
(2.) It differs from justification. They agree in the term to
which, that is God: by justification we are reconciled to God; by
regeneration we are assimilated, made like to God. 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: Acts xiii. 33, 'God has
raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second Psalm:
Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee;' 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, Eph. ii. 5, 6. 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, Gal. iii. 14.
But [1.] 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 physical change, and real, as when a dead man is raised from
death to life; it is a filling the soul with another nature, Eph.
ii. 1, 'And you has he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and
sins.' The translators have inserted those words, 'has he
quickened,' because those words are put in the 5th verse; but
methinks the words refer better to the 23rd verse of the first
chapter, speaking of Christ, 'who fills all in all,' and fills
you too with a spiritual life; or he passes from the power of God
in raising Christ, to his power in raising us. 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 magistrate there is a change in his relation; when a
servant or slave is made a freeman there is an alteration of his
condition; but neither the one's magistracy nor the other's
liberty, fills their hearts with new 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-imputation
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.
[2.] They differ in the cause, and other ways. Justification
is the immediate fruit of the blood of Christ: 'Being justified
by his blood,' Rom. v. 9. 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 aptness. In their qualities, the righteousness of one is
perfect in our head, and imputed to us. The righteousness by
regeneration is actively in us, and aspires to perfection.
(3.) It differs from adoption. Adoption follows upon
justification as a dignity flowing from union to Christ, and does
suppose reconciliation. Adoption gives us the privilege of sons,
regeneration the nature of sons. Adoption relates us to God as a
father, regeneration entrances upon us the lineaments of a
father. That makes us relatively his sons by conferring a potter,
John i. 12. This makes us formally his sons by conveying a
principle, I Peter i. 23. By that we are instated in the divine
affection; by this we are partakers of the divine nature.
Adoption does 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: Gal. iv. 5, 6, '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 has sent forth
the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.'
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 childlike nature. The relation to Christ as brethren
is founded upon this new creature: Heb. ii. 11, For both he that
sanctifies and they who are sanctified, are all of one.' 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 result also the
relation of the sons of God.
(I.) It differs from sanctification. Habitual sanctification,
indeed, is the same thing with this new creature, as habitual
rectitude was 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, Acts xv. 9,
'purifying their hearts by faith,' 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 produces 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, 1 Tim.
i. 5. Regeneration seems to be the life of this gradual
sanctification, the health and liveliness of the soul.
2. The second thing proposed is, what it is not.
(1.) It 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, a new 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,
Isa. ii. 11, speaking of the times of the gospel. The essential
nature of man, his reason and understanding, are not taken away,
but rectified. As a carver takes not away the knobs and grain in
the wood, but planes and smoothes 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
acted by that grace, which is another species to from that
principle which acted 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,
Mat. xvii. 2, neither his deity nor humanity were altered, both
natures remained the same. But there was a metamorphosis
("metamorfosen"), 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 substance which he had in the state of
innocence; but the power, virtue, and form in those faculties,
whereby he was acceptable to God, and in a capacity to please
him, was wholly abolished. We lose not nor substantial form, as
Moses his rod did, when it was turned into a serpent; or the
water at Cana was turned into wine. Our nature is ennobled, not
destroyed; enriched, not ruined; reformed, not annihilated.
(2.) 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 difference 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 game 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 man, 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 directed are different. If a man be given to
thoughtfulness, grace removes not this temper, but turns his
meditations to God. The solitariness of his temper is not
altered, but something new offered him as the object of his
meditation. If a man be hot and earnest in his temper, grace
takes not away his heat, but turns it into zeal to serve the
interest of God. Paul was a man of active disposition; this
natural activity of his disposition and temper was not dammed up
by grace, but reduced to a right channel, and pitched upon a
right object; as he laboured more than any in persecuting, so
afterwards he 'laboured more than any' in edifying, 1 Cor. xv. 9,
10. His labour was the same, and proceeded from the same temper,
but another principle in that temper, and directed to another
term. As it is the same horse, and the same mettle in the beast,
which carries a man to his proper stage that carried him before
in a wrong way, but it is turned in respect of the term. David's
poetical fancy is not abolished by this new principle in him, but
employed in descanting upon the praises of God, which otherwise
might have been lavished out in vanity, and foolish love-songs,
and descriptions of new mistresses. So that the substance and
nature of the affections and acts of a man remain; but anger is
turned into zeal by virtue of a new principle, grief into
repentance, fear into the fear of God, carnal love into the love
of the creator, by another principle which does bias those acts.
(3.) It is not an excitation, or awakening of some gracious
principle which lay hid before in nature, under the oppression of
ill habits, as corn lay hid under the chaff, but was corn still.
Not a beating up something that lay sculking in nature, not an
awakening as of a man from sleep; but a resurrection as of a man
from death; a new 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
extreme 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: Rom. vii. 18, 'I know that in me, that is, in
my flesh, dwells no good thing.' Some good thing may be in me,
but it arises not from my flesh; it is not from any seed sown by
nature, but it is another principle put into me, which does
seminally contain in it all grace; it is a putting a new seed
into the soil, and exciting it to grow, 'an incorruptible seed,'
1 Peter i. 23. Therefore the Scripture does not represent men in
a trance, or sleep, but dead; and so it is not only an awakening,
but a quickening, a resurrection, Eph. ii. 6; Col. ii. 12; Eph.
i. 19, 20. We are just in this work as our Saviour was when the
devil came against hem: John xiv. 30, 'The prince of this world
comes, and has nothing in me.' 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 non-natural to it, and by
incorporation with it, had quite altered it from that original
rectitude and simplicity wherein God at first created it.
(4.) 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 sewed 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,
Col. iii. 9, 10, 'putting off the old man, putting on the new
man.' 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,
nor new plaster 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, Ezek.
xxxvi. 26. The old nature remains, not in its strength with this
addition, but is crucified, and taken away in part with its
attendants: Gal. v. 24, 'They that are Christ's have crucified
the flesh with the affections and lusts.' 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, can
restore it to life, and remove the rottenness. Nothing is
the terminus a quo, in creation; it supposes nothing
before as a subject capable; nothing in a natural man is a
subject morally capable to have grace, without the expulsion of
the old corrupt nature. It is called a new creature, a new man;
not an improved creature, or a new-dressed man.
(5.) 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 engages to it: outward water cannot convey inward
life. How can water, a material thing work upon the soul in a
physical 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 bow. 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 means of conveying
this grace, when the Spirit is pleased to operate with it. But it
does not work as a physical cause upon the soul, as a purge does
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 a new 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 digest it.
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 as a spiritual life should lie dead, and
asleep so long, even many years which intervene between baptism
and conversion, is not easily conceivable.
3. Let us see what it is positively.
(1.) It is a change; and, as to the kind of it is,
[1.] A real change, real from nature to grace, as well as by
grace. The term of creation is real; the form introduced 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: John v. 25, '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.' 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 supposes 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,
2 Tim. i. 7, 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, Philip. iv. 13.
[2.] It is a common change 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 all 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 acted 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 is
essentially the same, though not the same in degree.
[3.] It is a change quite contrary to the former frame. What
more contrary to light than darkness? Such a change it is, Eph.
v. 8; instead of a black darkness there is a bright light. As
contrary as flesh and spirit, John iii. 6, 'that which is born of
the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'
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. It
is a 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 disaffects
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: Col. i. 13, a translation 'from the
power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son.'
"Metestese", 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, Ezek. xxxvi. 26. It is as
great a change as when a wolf is made a lamb; that wolfish nature
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 has the image of the devil; by this he
is restored to the image of God. By that he had the seeds of all
villainies; 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 makes 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,' and God will preserve it from
being cut off, Isa. lv. 13, speaking of the time of redemption.
[4.] 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,
Cant. 1-4, &c.
First, 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 does 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 does 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 does not do
things by halves.
Secondly, 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
arises. The Spirit is compared to fire, and therefore pierces
every part with its warmth, as heat diffuses 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,' Eph. iv. 22. So a regenerate man is not called a new
understanding, or a near will, but 'a new man,' ver. 24.
Thirdly, 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, Gal. iv. 4, Rom.
viii. 9; in the whole man, as the soul does 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 heart,
and thence runs down to the skirts of the soul.
Fourthly, 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 first moment of
infusing grace, the body of death has its deadly wound in every
faculty, understanding, 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 acting
them, conspire together to be subject to the law of God, and
advance in the ways of holiness: Ps. cxix. 10, 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, Eph. iv. 23. 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 filth (whereby it is purged
from dead works, Heb. ix. 14, settled against the approbation of
sin), and a resolution to be void of offence, Acts xxiv. 16. 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 formed, Christ is not formed
in us; look therefore whether your reformation you rest in be in
the whole, and in every part of the soul.
Fifthly, 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 putrefied flesh; of a nature different from a
pharisaical and hypocritical change, Matt. xxiii. 25-27. It is a
clean heart David desires, not only clean hands, Ps. li. 10. 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 was set upon, when they
are not what they were. As a man whose heart was set upon
uncleanness, change of beauty may change his affection; the
change is not in the man, but in the object. But this change I
speak of is a chance in the mind, when there is none in the
object; as the affection of a child to his trifles changes with
the growth of his reason, though the things his heart was set
upon remain in the same condition as before.
First, It is a change of principle.
Secondly, A change of end.
First, 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 an engine, by some outward respects which
please him; but as the motion of the engine ceases, 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, Rom. xii. 11. 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.
Faith. 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
of a less glittering is spiritual with it. The new creature being
begotten by the seed of the word, and having thereby an
evangelical frame, has 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 acceptation. Therefore if we have not faith in the
precept, though we may do a service not point-blank against the
precept, yet it is not a 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 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: ver. 14, 'Those all died in faith, not having
received the promises, but having seen them afar off,' &c.
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: Acts ix. 11, 'Behold he prays.'
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 a
flexibleness to Christ, a faith in him; from a Lord, what
wilt thou have me to do?
Love. 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
whole desire for him: Ps. lxxiii. 25, 'Whom have I in heaven but
thee?' Then, ver. 28, 'But it is good for me to draw near to
God.' This choice affection in the new creature spirits 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. Ps. xxvii. 4. Things may be
done out of a common affection; 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 attraction therefore is not
the renewed principle, but a choice affection to God. This is a
mighty ingredient in this change, and does difference the new
creature from all others. One acts out of affection to God, the
other out of affection to itself. Men may be offended with sin,
because it disturbs their ease, health, estate, &c. He may
pray, and hear, merely out of a 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 new creature would quench
the fire of corrupt self-love, to burn only with a spiritual and
divine flame; he depresses 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.
Secondly, 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
pleasure 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 heathens, 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
does chiefly aim at his own satisfaction in anything, is not a
new creature: he has his old deformed end into which he sunk by
the fall. But grace carries a man higher, and reduces all to God,
and to his well-pleasing. Col. i. 9, 10, 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'. 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: 1 Thes. ii.
13, 'They received it as the word of God,' and therefore what he
does is for God.
(First.) The principal intent of God in the new creation is
for himself: Hosea ii. 23, 'I will sow her to me,' 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 does naturally, the new creature does
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 deceit 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 fit 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's
self, and to show forth his praise, Isa. xliii. 21, 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 does 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 author?
(Secondly.) The new creation is an evangelical impression, and
therefore corresponds in its intention with the gospel. This is
the instrument whereby the new creature was wrought; and this was
appointed and published for the glory of God: 'Glory to God in
the highest,' Luke ii. 14. It is to 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, Titus ii. 12, 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 does
produce when managed by a wise agent; and contrary to the end of
the agent too, viz., the Spirit of God, whose end is to glorify
Christ: John xvi. 14, 'He shall glorify me.' 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 lies; 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.
(Thirdly.) A new creation is the bringing forth the soul in a
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 does frame the soul; it is
'after God created in righteousness,' &c., Eph. iv. 24. There
can be no likeness to God where the creature dissents from 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 does the new creature, otherwise it
were impossible he should walk with God, or follow him as a dear
child. It consists also in likeness to Christ: his resurrection
is the pattern and cause of our regeneration: 'Ye are risen with
Christ,' Col. iii. 1. 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 does 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 near allied, the glory of that God unto whom it has the
honour to bear a resemblance. A new creature has a mighty
sprightliness, and a height of spirit in some measure, when
anything 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 for the promoting the excellency of
his name.
(Fourthly.) 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 does elevate or debase a man's spirit, and his actions
also: the one enlarges, the other shrivels up the soul in its
operation. All things below God are unworthy of the boundless
nature of the soul of man, much more 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 mud and dirt of lower
aims. That grace that is most durable, and does most ennoble the
spirit of a man, has this property, that it 'seeks not her own,'
nor 'vaunts itself,' 1 Cor. xiii. 4, 5.
(Fifthly.) It is impossible the soul can have this new
creation without a change of end. It is not conceivable how
anything can return to that, which it does not eye as its end.
The soul, as deriving its original from God, has an obligation in
all its motions to return to him as its chief end. The new
creature has an higher obligation by grace. Does that, therefore,
deserve the name of the new creature, that is so far from
answering a gracious tie, that it does 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 has not yet partaken 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, 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. 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 does 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 fix
a 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.
(Sixthly.) This change of end does only fit the soul for its
proper service. From this end does arise a quickness and an
heartiness in every service. When God and his glory is 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 testifying the gospel of the grace of
God, then his life was not counted dear to him, that he might
finish his course with joy, Acts xx. 24. Where this end sits
uppermost in the heart, all allurements to the contrary are
mightily despised. What a scornful eye does 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, Philip. iii. 8, 10.
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, 1 Cor. vi.
20. 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 as not their end, but themselves. For what
is a 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 has missed of his full aim, and has not had that single
respect as he ought, he is unsatisfied and troubled that God has
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 has
lived to himself, and brought in something to increase the
treasure of his self-ends.
Thirdly, As it is an inward change in respect of principle and
end, so, thirdly, 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, Rom. viii. 5. As a child has not
the thoughts of a man, so neither has a natural man the thoughts
of a new creature. A principle is placed in his understanding
which does 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
farther, 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',
Ps. cxix. 112, 113, 'I have inclined my heart to perform thy
statutes;' and it follows, 'I hate vain thoughts.' The vanity of
his heart was a burden to him, and he loathed all the inward
excrescences, any 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 ill-willer 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 let them go, as the church does 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 in Prov. iv. 23,
'Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues
of life'. If he perceives any weeds to spring up there, or
mushrooms (as they 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, as a corrupt stomach does unwholesome food, 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, Ps. lxiii. 5, 6. The thoughts of God are an
inward spring of pleasure to him, more than the thoughts of sin
can be to a deformed and depraved soul.
Fourthly, 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 has a
peculiar 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 pleases 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 has 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 ho 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
you'—being described before under the title of a Comforter,
John xvi. 14. 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: Rom. xiv. 17, 'The kingdom of God is
not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the
Holy Ghost.' 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 in it. There is a joy put into the heart
together with this new creature: 'Thou hast put gladness into my
heart,' Ps. iv. 7—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 men's 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 sucked from the
dry breasts of creatures, the comforts of a new creature are
derived from the full fountain of life, which makes their very
sufferings gloriously comfortable to them, 1 Peter iv. 13, 14.
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 cast of his eye
upon it. For certainly from making God our end, and doing all
things for his glory, endows 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 happiness of
God as well as his nature. Felicity and consolation follow it, as
the shadow does the body; and every act of the new creature
towards God is edged with comfort in the very acting.
Fifthly, 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 seat of it, in regard of the form, which causes 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 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.
First, In regard to objects. The world and sin was before the
object 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 the enmity to the other.
>From multitudes of objects which distracted him, he is come to
unity, which quiets and settles him: Ps. xxvii. 4, '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.' It is no
lower an object than this, that the soul is conversant about,
about God himself, to embrace him; about what has 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 embraces. 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, coarse
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 intendment 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 does 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, Philip. iii. 8.
Secondly, In regard of operations. 'Old things are passed
away,' old actions as well as old affections. Operations are
never constantly against nature, operari sequitur esse. The heart
and the actions do not always contradict one another. 'According
to the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks,' Mat. xii. 24.
According to the spring of grace in the heart will the hand of
the life stand. It will vent itself more or less, according to
the quantity of it. It is an inward baptism with fire, which will
quickly break out and show itself in the members: Mat. vii. 20,
'By their fruits you shall know them.' New apprehensions infer
new operations. An alteration of judgment cannot be without an
alteration of acting. As he has received Christ Jesus the Lord,
so he walks in him,' Col. ii. 6. The very intendment of God in
the new creation was this: Eph. ii. 10, 'Created in Christ to
good works, which God has before ordained, that we should walk in
them.' 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 fire. A man that has reason superior to sense
does use his sense rationally; a renewed man that has grace
superior to reason uses 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 acted by the Spirit, 'lives in the Spirit,
walks in the Spirit' (Gal. v. 18, 25), should do anything without
a spiritual tincture, in that wherein he is acted 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.
Actions of sensitive nature are be reason of grace ordered be a
new rule, directed to a new end. He ate and drank to the flesh
before, now to God, 1 Cor. x. 31. 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 has 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,' says the apostle, after an enumeration of
several graces, 'has forgotten that he was purged from his old
sins;' for indeed he never was.
Thus have I considered this new creation in the nature of a
change.
2. Let us consider it in the nature of a vital principle. This
new creation is a translation from death to life: 1 John iii. 14,
'We know that we have passed from death to life.' And we have not
a spiritual life till we are in Christ. 'He that has not the Son
has not life,' 1 John v. 12. When our Saviour called Lazarus out
of the grave, he gave him a principle of life and motion. The
same he does 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 does animate the
faculties in their several motions, as the soul does quicken the
members of the body. It is called the hidden man, the inward man,
implying that it has 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 does proceed from an external cause is
not life or a living motion. A piece of wood may be carved in the
shape of a man, but remains wood still in such a form and figure.
But a Christian has 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.
3. Let us consider it as a habit, and then see what light the
consideration of it, as a vital principle and a 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 artifices has 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 respects 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 has the same soul and
body which he had before, but he has 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, Eph. v. 8. This is meant by the seed:
1 John iii. 9, 'His seed remains in him.' 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 info it;
and it is expressed by 'a fountain of living water springing up
into eternal life,' John iv. 14 ("pege").
(1.) There is such a habit. God does provide as much for those
that he loves, in order to a supernatural good, as for those
creatures that he loves in order to a natural good; but God has
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 does 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 has 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 consequent,
so the habit of grace is called the new creature and spirit, Gal.
v. 17, in regard of its term and consequent, life. This habitual
grace is the principle of all supernatural acts, as the soul
concurs as an immanent 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 has 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, Ps. li. 6. As the corrupt nature is a habit of
sin, so the new nature is a habit of grace; God does 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.
(2.) 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, Luke xxiv. 49. 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, whereby 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.
(3.) 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,'
Col. iii. 9, 10. 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 strings of
this one root. As from that primogeneal 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 Peter 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, 1 Cor. xii. 8,
9, 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 does 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 intention.
(4.) This habit receives various denominations, either,
[1.] 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 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, ignorance; in the will,
enmity; in the conscience, deadness; in the affections, disorder
and frowardness. As diseases receive several names, as they are
centred in several parts, yet are but the dyscrasy or distemper
of the humours.
[2.] From the object it is diversified. As it closes with
Christ dying, it is faith; as it rejoices 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's 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 a unity there is in all these
diversifications. As the holy oil wherewith the vessels of the
tabernacle were anointed was but one ointment, though composed of
many ingredients, Exod. xxx. 25, 26; as all the perfections of
creatures are eminently in one God all the evil dispositions of
the creatures 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,
1. Ready in respect of disposition. He stands ready and
disposed to every good work upon God's call. As the habit of sin
disposes 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: 2 Tim. ii. 21, '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.' It
is just as it was with Isaiah, chap vi. 6, at the first sight of
the vision he complains, 'Woe is me, a man of unclean lips,'
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, ver. 7, 8, 'Whom shall
I send? Here am I, send me.' No demurs; it was a live coal from
the altar had quickened him into a new frame for God. David does
not say he had performed the statutes of God, but he had
'inclined his heart' to perform them, Ps. cxix.
That I may not grate upon any troubled spirit, consider,
(1.) 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 men 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 has an habitual
disposition to the exercise of all grace, because it has the
seeds of all graces in it, yet it does 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
has 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 has 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 has sullied the soul, as a 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 had passed upon it. A
grown Christian, who has his senses exercised in the ways of God,
does 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 does habitually mind the glory of God, yet he
does 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 habitual repentance in
him while he lay asleep in his sin, and by virtue of this habit,
he does 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.
(2.) This readiness to every service does 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: Acts xi. 23, '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.' 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 in a 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 does not presently rise to the utmost of
its force, till ripened by time and other intervening causes. So
though the new creature has 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
predominance of sense, 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 habits 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 more than to another, from
the strength of some corruption particularly opposite to that
grace; yet 'to will is present 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; as a young boy first come to school may have as
strong a purpose to get learning as a man that has 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 odd stock and setting up a new, as it
relates to the old stock, it does 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 engrafting 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.
2. 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 it is a 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 has 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 has 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, winch Adam had by creation, which was
not a sluggish and unwieldy principle; it must therefore have an
activity, it could not else be a 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 venting to endue the
principle of his conveyance with a suitable activity. Grace
abounds in its vigour, as well as sin has abounded in its kind,
Rom. v. 20. 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 a 'looking upon
him whom they have pierced,' by an act of their understanding,
and a 'mourning' by an act oft he will, Zech. xii. 10, 11. First
a 'sanctification of the spirit,' then a 'belief of the truth,'
to the obtaining of glory, 2 Thes. ii. 13. When anything ceases
to act, there is either an oppression, or a death of nature.
(1.) 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,
&c, which all the reason of a man cannot hinder. It is as
natural to this new habit to produce new actions, as for anything
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, Gen. i. 12. All living
creatures move agreeably to their natures, with a spontaneity and
freedom of nature. The bramble does not more naturally bring
forth thorns, than a habit of sin does 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:
Eph. ii. 10, 'We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to
good works.' A well dressed vine does not more naturally bring
forth grapes, than a soul rooted in Christ does the fruits of the
spirit; neither does 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: Rom. vi. 2, 'How can you that are
dead to sin, live any longer therein?' 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 does 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.
(2.) 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: Ps.
cx. 8. The apostle tells us there was a 'necessity laid upon him
to preach the gospel,' 1 Cor. ix. 16, 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; a natural, not a
coactive necessity. How freely does the soul, winged with grace,
move to and for God, as a bird in the air! With what a free and
ready spirit does the new creature go to prayer, reading, and
hearing! How freely does it breathe in the air of heaven! Not
spurred by outward interest, or dragged by the threatenings of
the law, nor chased to it by the clamours of conscience; but
gently moved to it, and upheld by it, by a soft, and dove-like,
and 'free spirit,' Ps. li. 12. 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,
'has made us kings and priests unto God,' Rev. i. 6. 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 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 dullness 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 says, 2 Cor. xiii.
8, 'We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.' 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 has a habit of holiness with 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.
(3.) It is fervently active. The nobler the being of anything
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 glory of God, the happiness of
the creature; the higher the end, the more elevated the soul.
There is an innate principle in everything 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 what man supply a
fuel; much more will other creatures act vehemently for that
which preserves their being: the toad to its plantain, the
swallow to its celandine, 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. It is a baptism of fire
following that with water. The Spirit is first as water, washing
us from our filth; then as fire, quickening us with grace: Mat.
iii. 11, 'I baptise you with water, he shall baptise you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire.' 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, melts the lumpish leaden
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: John iii. 6, 'That which is born of
the Spirit is spirit;' that is, a spiritual creature. The
activity of a spirit does 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,' Hosea iv. 12; 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
almightyness bids him let him alone. Where there are rivers of
living water in the belly, they will flow, John vii. 38; 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 intendment of the Creator, and therefore
not the disposition of the creature.
(4.) It is unboundedly active. This new creature's desires 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, does but bungle at his work, is quickly tired,
desponds of attaining what he would; but he that has a habit,
suppose of mathematical knowledge, finds one proposition
following upon another, one deduction rising up from another,
that he has 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 knows no limits.
It is unfoundedly active;—
[1.] In 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 has pitched upon in
heaven; all its operations tend thither; nothing below can give
them a cessation, 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,' Ps. lxxiii. 25. H seems to
scorn everything else in comparison of God, though it were an
angel, 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 darlings of his soul to the highest heavens.
'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,' 2 Cor. iii.
16,17, the veil 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, peers 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, with 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, Ps. cxix. 32; 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 dullness, and his pleasure consists much in a liberty
in God's service.
[2.] In disaffection 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 cheek in his
religious course; it is a violence to his new nature, and he
cannot bear it without regret. His anger and impatience rises
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 has 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 gates for new strength and recruits of power against
sin in the spiritual conflict. It is a trouble to him that he has
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 skulks, and
beat it to death; for by this habit 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.
(5.) 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,' Eph.
iii. 16; and a 'spirit of power,' 2 Tim. i. 7. 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,' 2 Cor. iv. 20. 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,' Rom. v. 6, because
without life, Eph. ii. 1. But in the renewing there is strength
conveyed together with life, an ability to walk in God's
statutes, convoyed 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 from a staff in a sick man's hand, but an
inward might. But besides this inherent strength there is an
adherent ability; for Christ, who is his life, Col. iii. 4, is
also his strength: Philip. iv. 13, 'I can do all things through
Christ which strengthens me.' So that whatsoever active power is
wanting in itself can be supplied by the head. And therefore the
new creature has 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, "eis
hemas", in them that believe, Eph. i. 19. This power does
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 has a greater power to act than he puts forth upon
all occasions.
(6.) 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 the belly 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: 1 John ii. 20,
'But you have an unction from the Holy One;' 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,—Acts x. 38, 'God anointed
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went
about doing good,'—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 does with as much
ease fly upward as a beast walks upon the ground, and the seed
does with as much ease spring up, and put its ear out of the
ground, as a bitter root does 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, Mat. xi. 30, and
the motion under a light yoke cannot be grievous. The very yoke
is not a shackle and burden, but a privilege. There is indeed
some reluctance sometimes, which arises 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
does distinguish between the posture of his will, and the
interruptions by that sin which dwelt in him, Rom. vii. 18-20.
(7.) It is pleasantly active. "Hedu men to kata
fusin", says the philosopher. 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, Prov. xxi. 16.
That is, the entire inclination of the soul stands right to such
actions; and 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 it. His soul leaps as much at an
opportunity of pleasing God, as John Baptist did in his mother's
womb at the appearance of Christ, as much as his heart sprang 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, Ps. xix. 5, as the new man does spiritually rejoice
to run his race to heaven. It is a 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
him. He is shallowed up in these choicer pleasures, as a man that
has had his full draughts of learning is in his studies, whence
his diseases cannot draw him, though in his childish time he
counted them his task and burden. The delights of an heart
seasoned with habitual grace are more ravishing than all the
pleasures of sense, because they arise from an habit planted in
the soul by that Spirit which is a Spirit of joy as well as of
grace. The fatness of God's house, the sacrifices presented by
him, are his delight, and he drinks of a river of pleasure in his
very acts of worship: Ps. xxxvi. 8, 'They shall be abundantly
satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them
drink of the rivers of thy pleasures.' 'In keeping thy
commandments there is great reward,' Ps. xix. He finds much
sweetness in the very acts of worship. Ah, how can the motions of
the habits of sin, under the quarrels of conscience, yield as
much delight as the habits of grace under the breathings of the
Spirit! The very marks of Christ in his body are his delight and
triumph. He takes pleasure in distresses for Christ's sake: 2
Cor. xii. 10. says the apostle. 'I take pleasure in infirmities,
in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for
Christ's sake.' The motions of his soul to Christ are his life
and joy. He chides his soul that her flights to Christ are not so
strong as Christ's flights to him. He would have a delight in
doing the will of God's precept, as Christ had in doing the will
of the mediatory command. He rejoices in his breathings after
God, though he wants him, and is glad his soul can have any
flights towards him though he cannot find him. The tabernacles of
God are amiable, when his 'heart and his flesh cries out for the
living God': Ps. lxxxiv. 1, 2, 'How amiable are thy tabernacles,
O Lord! my soul longs, yea, even faints for the courts of the
Lord.' And when, by reason of some distemper, he cannot move so
readily, some disease fetters him, some corruption has cast a
clog upon him, yet he delights in the thoughts of what he had, as
a man in the former converses with his friend, though now at a
distance, and cheers up his soul with the thoughts that he will
again return: Ps. xiii. 6, 11, 'Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him,' He grieves
because he at present cannot do what he would, and hopes for
another frame, and rejoices in the faith that he shall repossess
it: 'He will turn again,' &c., Micah vii. 19. A natural man
without an habit of grace may move in some ways outwardly good,
but with some reluctance, and without any pleasure in the
goodness of the thing enjoined, or the goodness of that God who
enjoins it. He may have a sudden inclination to do a good action,
but he is not pleased with that inclination itself. Ahab's
humiliation was good in itself, no doubt, but Ahab was pleased
with it, but not as it was a humiliation, or had a likeness to a
gracious action, or a tendency to the pleasing God, but as it was
a means of removing the judgment threatened, so that his pleasure
was only in the issue of it; but a gracious soul is pleased with
the habit itself, for he considers it as the perfection of his
nature, regards it as an ancient inmate, though separated from
his nature by Adam's degeneracy, as friends long absent rejoice
in one another. When this rectitude is in part restored, and
understood to be of kin to it by creation, but lost and now
returned, there must needs be an high complacency in the soul,
and a joyful compliance with it. And the stronger and more
vigorous this inward rectitude is in habit, the more pleasure a
man has in the exercise of it. As God, who is infinitely
righteous in all his ways and in all his works, has an infinite
pleasure in the exercise of this righteousness, and an infinite
loathing of what is contrary to it, because it is his infinite
nature, so the stronger the habit in a man, the more contentment
there is in the exercise of it, because his nature is more
elevated. And what is natural is delightful, and the more
natural, the more delightful. Mercy is natural to God, therefore
he delights in it; and because infinitely natural, therefore he
does infinitely delight in it.
Well then, since all the motions of nature are pleasant, the
new nature is not inferior in the pleasure of acting to any other
nature whatsoever. It being the most perfect nature, must beget
the most delightful operations. What a pleasure is it to draw
near to God, to melt before him, to pour out a prayer to him, and
dissolve itself into love and affection in any address to him!
(8.) It is a permanent activity. There is a spring of
perpetual motion. The fountain does constantly bubble. The sun
does constantly move, because naturally. Whatsoever is natural is
constant in its posture; a fire perpetually burns, and water
perpetually cools. What is the essential property of a thing does
competere semper. A man is always rational, and
ready to act reason; if there be any indisposition, it is not in
the soul, but in the organ or ill habit of the body, which does
obstruct the motions of the soul, and is an unfit instrument for
it to act by. This habit is not a passion, but a principle; not a
motion, but a spring of uniform motion; it is wrought in the
nature, and like the heart is continually beating. The principle
is permanent, it is an abiding anointing, 1 John ii. 27, it is
settled by God, given to us in Christ, backed and assured by the
earnest of the Spirit in the heart, where this habit is seated.
All is expressed, 1 Cor. i. 21, 22, 'Now ho which establishes us
with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God, who has also
(that is, beside this) sealed us, and given the earnest of the
Spirit in our hearts.' It is a life and habit more fixed than
that in Adam: his life depended upon the rectitude of his soul,
but this depends principally upon the power of the Spirit, and
the everlasting life of Christ. It is a water which quenches all
thirst, and never leaves springing till it mount up to eternal
life, John iv. 14; it is perpetually active and springing, till
it be swallowed up in glory, as rivers in the sea. Others may
move by some wires, and have some strains of a natural religion,
by some sudden impulses which touch the strings and faculties of
the soul but the wires break, the touch ceases, and the motion
with it, it has no living spring. Nay, sometimes those motions in
natural men under the gospel may be more quick, and warm, and
violent for a time than the natural motion of this habit; as the
motion of a stone out of a sling is quicker than that of life,
but faints by degrees, because it is from a force impressed, not
implanted and inherent in the nature. They are just like water
heated by the fire, which has a fit of warmth, and may heat other
things; but though you should heat it a thousand times, the
quality, not being natural, will vanish, and the water return to
its former coldness. But the new heart being in the new creature,
causes him to walk in the statutes of God, not by fits and
starts, but with an uniform and harmonical motion, Ezek. xxsvi.
27, 'Ye shall keep my judgments and do them;' you shall treasure
them in your minds and act them in your lives. Not but that there
are in the new creature some faintings; it is sometimes more
vigorous, sometimes more weak in its motion; it has its
sicknesses; it meets with wounds, but none of them to death.
Every one that is born of the Spirit is like the wind, John iii.
8, it moves and blusters, and when you think it is passed away,
it returns, resumes its force, and you feel as stiff a motion as
you did before. A man is never weary of that which is habitual to
him. There may be a weariness in duty and service, but not a
weariness of it, so as to throw it off; but after he has
refreshed and recruited himself, his habit will put him upon a
delightful return to it. Where the ways of God are in the heart
habitually, such shall go from strength to strength, till they
appear in Sion, though there may be some rests and intermissions
by the way: Ps. lxxxiv. 5, 6, 'In whose heart are the ways of
them;' some read, 'the high way of God in their hearts,' more
consonant to the Hebrew.
(9.) It is an orderly motion and activity/.
Natural motions are orderly. As affirmative precepts bind semper,
but not ad semper, so this habit enables the soul semper,
but not ad semper; I mean, not to this or that service at
all times. Natural things have their stated times, places, and
measures. As trees bring forth fruit in their season, so does the
new creature bring forth fruit 'in his season,' Ps. i. 3, in a
season proper for that fruit. It is always producing some fruit
or other, according to the particular seasons, sometimes love,
sometimes humility, sometimes patience. This habit is ready at
hand, whence he draws out fruits new and old. As God does all
things in weight, and number, and measure, so does this habit of
his own implanting. As God gives every creature meat in due
season, so the new creature renders God his fruit in due season.
As a wicked man is always acting sin, sometimes one, sometimes
another, according to the seasons of them, so does this habit in
the new creature act grace, sometimes one, sometimes another.
From all these things put together there follows,
1. 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, which spreads itself over the whole soul,
striving with the powerful opposite, which in part resides there
still. It is a habit put in to mate and destroy that habit of sin
which was there before; the soul by it is made alive from the
dead: Rom. vi. 13, 'Yield yourselves to God, as those that are
alive from the dead.' 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 stepped 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 does 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 has this habit has 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,' Isa.
xi. 2. 'They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the
affections and lusts,' Gal. v. 24: 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 anything more to do with idols, Hosea xiv. 8. He overcomes
the world: 1 John v. 4, 'Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the
world.' He can do all things: enter the lists with the strongest
Goliath, repel the sharpest temptations, through Christ which
strengthens him, Philip. iv. 13, so that grace is predominant.
2. 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? Men never do so by nature, but when frenzy has
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 proportionately in every nature that is of nearest
approach to it. Righteousness and holiness is the very
constitution of the new creature: Eph. iv. 24, 'That new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.'
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. vii. 20 'Sin that
dwells in me' still, and acts according to its nature, though
much over-powered and weakened by degrees by that habit of grace.
Therefore it is a hard thing for him to sin: 1 John iii. 9, 'He
cannot sin.' It in as hard for him to contradict the new nature
as before to cross the old: 'I cannot do this wickedness,' says
Joseph; it is against the frame and disposition of my soul.
(1.) It must be difficult to sin against 'purpose of heart,'
which is the lowest step of the new nature, Acts xi. 23, though
it be not hard to sin against a flashy resolve.
(2.) It is hard for a man to sin who has cordially chosen God
for his portion, which every new nature does, with a fixed
revelation to keep his word: Ps. cxix. 67, 'Thou art my portion,
O Lord: I have said that I would keep thy word.' 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.
(a.) It is difficult for him to contradict the new habit,
wherewith he is so highly pleased, and which he is assured has
nothing but happiness in the womb of it.
(4.) It must be difficult for him to act that which, by virtue
of this habit, he is daily in the mortification of.
(5.) It is difficult for the habit of sin in him to do the
same acts after it has received a deadly wound, as for a wounded
man to do that which he could when he was sound.
(6.) This nature cannot be in a 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: Gen. iii. 16, '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 scarce 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 does 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 does at any time sin, this new
nature can no more be pleased with it than the nature of a man is
with the poison which he has 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 caught at a disadvantage, and be
bemired by the remaining habit of sin in the heart, his spirit is
wounded, his soul bleeds, his conscience upbraids him, he is
displeased with himself and with his sin, runs to God, searches
into himself, calls heaven 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 has overcome this
rebellion of lust, dispossessed it, removed the guilt, and cast
out the filth.
4. As we have considered this work as a change, a vital
principle, a habit, so we will consider it as a law put into the
heart. Every creature has a law belonging to its nature, so has
the new creature. Man has 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 has a law pot into his heart: Jer.
xxxi. 23, 'I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it
in their hearts,' cited by the apostle, Heb. viii. 10. It is
called the 'law of the mind,' Rom. vii. 23, it beginning first 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.'
Now, as to this law put into the heart, you may know what is
meant by it in some propositions.
(1.) 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 in a 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 does, for the conviction of this is a work of the
Spirit: John xvi. 8, 9, 'Of sin, because they believe not in me.'
The law of nature is the general work of the mediator in all men,
'who enlightens every man that comes into the world,' John. i. 9.
This is the peculiar work of the Mediator, by his Spirit, in the
hearts of those that believe; the law of nature does not oppose
sin as sin, this law of grace does; the law of nature is no part
of sanctification, for this is in men that are born of the flesh,
are flesh still; 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.
(2.) 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: Eph. iv. 24, 'That new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;'
or after God was created "ktisthenta", alluding to that
righteousness wherein Adam was created, lost by him, and restored
by Christ. This righteousness which Adam had was the
righteousness of the law: holiness towards God, which includes
the duties of the first table; righteousness, including the
duties of the second table; and truth being added (as it may be
referred both to holiness and righteousness), shows the sincerity
of it in the manner and the end of being holy to God and
righteous to man. 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 engraved in the
soul by regeneration. God does not say, I will write another law
in their hearts, but 'my law' Jer. xxxi. 33,—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, Rom. viii.
7; the law of sin had taken place instead of it. Regeneration is
a taking down the law of sin, and fixing the law of God in its
due place and posture.
(3.) This law is written in the heart wholly. The whole law,
every command which has the print of God upon it, is written
there. As God wrote his whole law in tables of stone, so he
writes the whole law in the 'fleshly tables of the heart,' 2 Cor.
iii. 3. It is true holiness and righteousness; true, as to its
essential and integral parts. God does 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 a new
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.
(4.) This law written in the heart does 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. If a man has any 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, Ps. xix. 7, 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: Ps. cxix. 9, '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, ver. 11, there was also an
inward teaching promised: Jer. xxxi. 32, 'And they shall teach no
more every man his neighbour, saying, Know the Lord;' 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 does the limiting the law in the heart make
the outward written law useless, but rather it does 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 has
in his mind of it; but that idea or figure of it which he has in
his mind, is to be suited to that role which is prescribed to him
in the outward pattern; and therefore that pastern is to be
consulted with. The law of God is of eternal duration; and as it
is a law of holiness and love of God, does oblige every
reasonable creature, in what condition soever he be, whether of
nature, grace, or glory.
Quest. Wherein does this writing of the law in the heart
consist?
Ans. (1.) 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: Isa. li. 5, 'Hearken to me, ye
that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law.'
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
guides 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, does, as
every seed, produce a being like itself, and like that plant
whose seed it is: from the seed of corn arises 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, 2 Cor. iii. 3, and an ark to preserve the tables of the
law; whence David speaks of his soul keeping God's testimonies,
Ps. cxix. 167, and not forgetting them, ver. 16. The new creature
by its new light sees an amiableness in the law, a holiness in
the precepts, and a filthiness in himself thereby.
(2.) It consists in an inward conformity of the heart to the
law. The soul has a likeness to the word and doctrine of the
gospel within it; it is delivered into that mould: Rom. vi. 17,
'You have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, into which
you were delivered.' He considers the gospel as a mould, and the
Romans as a 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; 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 has 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;
as a 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 does, because of some rust or some filth got up 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 law to themselves,' Rom. ii. 14, having it
written upon their minds 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,' says the apostle, 'is not made for a
righteous man,' 1 Tim. i. 9, 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 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 one judgements and
inclination. So that what a new creature does in observance of
the law, is from natural freedom, choice, and judgment, and not
by the force of any threatenings annexed to it.
(3.) It consists in a strong propension 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, biasing
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,' Rom. vii. 25, 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, an
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 embraces 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 is a powerfu1 operative law of the Spirit of life,
which 'sets us free from the law of sin and death,' Rom. viii. 2;
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 hindrance to it. As the devil does act in men's hearts,
Eph. ii. 2, not personally, but by a principle in the heart, the
law of sin, so does 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 or the whole new creation, to cause us to walk in
God's statutes, Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. Ps. xxxvii. 31, 'The law of
God is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide.' The soul
being thus evangelised and spiritualised, 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, Rom. ii.
14, because there was a law of nature engraved in them.
(4.) It consists in a 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,' Gal. v. 14. 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 does love
it. As we say, a beloved thing is in our hearts, not physically,
but morally, as Calais was said to be in Queen Mary's heart. They
might have looked long enough before they could have found there
the map of the town, but grief for the loss of it killed her. It
is a love that is inexpressible. David delights to mention it in
two verses together: Ps. cxix. 47, 48, 'I will delight myself in
thy commandments, which I have loved: my hands will I lift up to
thy commandments, which I have loved;' 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 a 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 inscription, 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 does he
dissolve in tears, mourn and groan, till his former affection has
recovered breath, and stands upon its feet! If he finds not his
heart answering the law, he longs after the precepts, as the
prophet says: Ps. cxix. 40, 'I have longed after thy precepts,
quicken me in thy righteousness.' 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 has no mind ever to
part with it, because of its intrinsic goodness, as well as
convenience for him. It is his pleasure, not his confinement; his
ornament, not his fetter; he hates every thing that is contrary
to it. How does 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'? Rom. vii. 23, 21. The law in his
members 'brought him into captivity to the law of sin.' Then, 'Oh
wretched man that I am! though he knew he was in part delivered
from it. How does 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 says the effect of his 'delight in the law of God after the
inward man,' ver. 22. And that this writing the law does
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, Ps. xl. 8, so it is with a new
creature.
(5.) 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,' 2 Cor. iii. 6, 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
righteousness, 2 Cor. iii. 9; 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 rape 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 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.
5. The fifth thing. 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 has 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 does 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: Col. ii. 10, 'renewed in
knowledge after the image of him that created him.' His misery
consisted in losing it; our felicity, therefore, does consist in
recovering it. Hence it is called a 'divine nature,' 2 Peter i.
4. Every thing receives its denomination from the better part. A
man is denominated rational, though he has 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 supposed to be
essentially somewhere. Every impression supposes a seal that
stamped it, every stream a fountain from whence it sprang, 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? His womb and power is the womb that bare
it, and the breasts which gave it suck. 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,' 1 John iii. 9. Now to
be born of any thing is to receive a form like that, which the
generating person has. But,
(1.) It is not a likeness to God in essence: it is no
participation of the essence of God. It is a 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, Gen. i. 27; which was not a communication of the divine
essence, but of a righteousness resembling the righteousness of
God, according to the capacity of Adam's nature; which image of
God in Adam is by the apostle restrained to that of
'righteousness and true holiness,' Eph. iv. 24. The likeness in a
state of glory is founded upon a sight of God as he is, 1 John
iii. 2; which may more properly 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, ver. 5,
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 bowels,
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 are
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, "he", 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 "el", a communicable name of God.
(2.) Yet it is a real participation. It is not a picture, but
a nature: it is divine. God does not busy himself about
apparitions. It is a likeness, not only in actions, but in
nature. 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 does not seem to do this. Love
constitutes a man a friend, not a son and heir by generation. The
apostle argues, 'if children, then heirs,' Rom. viii. 17. 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
does 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'? 1 Pet. i. 15, 1 John
iii. 3. 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 has no
communion with its nature; but as wax receives the image of the
seal, which though it receives nothing of the substance, yet
receives exactly the stamp, and answers it in every part. So the
Scriptures represents it: Eph. i. 13, 'You were sealed with that
holy Spirit of promise.' Something of God's perfections are in
the new creature by way of quality, which are in God by way of
essence. In a 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 in the highest measures in glory.
(3.) It is the whole image of God which is drawn in the new
creature. It is 'the image of God,' Col. iii. 10, 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 has not only the face, or eyes,
but the other members. Though a Christian may have one or too
parts of this image more beautiful than the rest, as a man may
have a sparkling eye that has not a proportionable lip, yet he
has 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,' Eph. v. 9; 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, spirits 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.
(4.) It is more peculiarly a likeness to Christ, wherein we
partake of his nature: 'He that does righteousness is righteous,
as Christ is righteous,' 1 John iii. 7. 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 it
were) 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,' Gal. iv. 19. 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,' Philip. ii. 5, and to 'arm ourselves with the same mind,' 1
Peter iv. 1, 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, Philip. iii. 10. And God did 'predestinate' all his
own 'to be conformed to the image of his Son,' Rom. viii. 29,
"summorfous", of the same form and shape. 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, Isa. liii. 10; not a 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,' Heb. i. 9. 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 his advancement. 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 upon
others by a figure, metonymia causae pro effectu. 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,' 1 Cor. xv. 48, 49; 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.
(5.) It is a likeness to the Spirit, which is the immediate
cause of it. Therefore the new creature is called spirit
in the abstract, as a natural man is called flesh in the
abstract: John iii. 6, 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh;
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.' 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 has. 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 too, 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 cleanses it, an heavenly
spirit, and therefore elevates it.
Quest. Wherein does this likeness to God chiefly consist?
Ans. 1. In a likeness of affections. God is 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 loses 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 God in his nature. And the apostle
positively affirms, that 'he that loves, is born of God,' 1 John
iv. 7. The new creature extends its arms to every thing which has
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 grieves 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, and God does 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 does reach out herself to all that is good, and has 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.
2. In a likeness of actions. Men by sin are 'alienated from
the life of God,' Eph. it. 17, 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 lives then the life
of God, be 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 motion, a
lifeless colour. The divine image is not a painted statue, but an
active being. The nearer any thing approaches 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 stamped
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 does the soul by that
divine quality it partakes of. It is as impossible that this
image of God can produce anything 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, 2 Cor.
iv. 10. Natural men are called the devil's children, because they
resemble him in nature and works, egging on to sin, and
delighting themselves in their own and others' iniquities, John
viii. 44; so renewed men are God's children, because they live
the life of God, and abound in the works of God, 1 Cor. xv. 58.
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 has only the actions of a man which bear
no resemblance to God?
3. This likeness to God consists principally in a likeness to
him in holiness. It is only 'he that does righteousness is born
of him:' 1 John ii. 29, 'If you know that he is righteous, you
know that every one that does righteousness is born of him'. 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
unlike to God in this, we are like him in nothing; God has not a
pretence of holiness, but a real purity. He that has 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 Peter i. 4. If by afflictions good men
are partakers of God's holiness, much more by regeneration: Heb.
xii. 10, 'He chastened us for our profit, that we might be
partakers of his holiness.' 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 near
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', Rom. iii. 23; 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.
Use 1. It serves for information. 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,
1. 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 text 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.
(1.) Profane men are numerous. None will offer to rank these
in the number of new creatures. Such nasty 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:
Col. ii. 11, 'Putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by
the circumcision of Christ;' 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 as a lamb? 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, unregarded?
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?
(2.) Among professors, is there much evidence of a new
creation? When men shall say, All that the Lord speaks to us we
will do, has not God as great occasion to say as he did of old,
Deut. v. 24, 'Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they
would fear me, and keep my commandments!' 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 lie upon them, and the nature of Christ not in them. They may
he 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; wherever 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, does not 'pride compass men as a chain,' Ps. lxxiii. 6,
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.
2. It informs us that a dogmatical change, or change of
opinion, is not this new creature. It is not, if any man change
his opinion from Gentilism 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 in dogmatical
assents, 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,
Titus i. 1b. This new-creature change is not from one doctrine to
another, barely considered as doctrine, but a change to the
gospel in the main intendment of it, as it is 'a doctrine
according to godliness,' 1 Tim. vi. 8, as it may affect, purify,
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,' verse 4. A heap of motions may consist with
a body of death in its full strength, but a spirit of grace
cannot; a nationalist 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.
3. Morality is not this new-creature change; that is, moral
honesty, freedom from gross vices, &c. I have before spoken
something about it, 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 spiritualised wickedness.
(1.) 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 in it. It is a fruit of
Christ's mediation, left for the preservation of human societies,
without which the world would be a mere Bedlam and shambles. 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.
(2.) Yet we must not set the crown belonging 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 to a higher
elevation. It is a 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 Christian 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, 2 Tim. iii. 5; a form of
godliness; as a change that is made upon does in the draught of a
picture, but no change in it by the conveyance of life. For,
[1.] 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 putrefied 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 vainglorious and envious
spirit: Eph. iv. 17, 18, 'Henceforth walk not as other Gentiles
walk, in the vanity of their minds; having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God.' By the Gentiles,
from whom the apostle would have the Ephesians differences, he
means not the lower sort, but the whole rank, ver. 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 phrases it, a walking in 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.
[2.] Therefore the highest morality without a new creation is
but flesh; all men out of Christ agree in a 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 an higher form. A profane man reduced to
a philosophical morality is putrefied 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 is a 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. xvii. 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. So though 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 refined sensuality, an animal life.
[3.] 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 be the strength of nature; for man being flesh,
cannot prepare himself to it. That may be the fruit of education,
example, philosophy; this is of the Spirit; that is a 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; that 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 of 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 a rising from sleep by the jog of conscience, this a
rising from death by the breath of the Spirit, working a deep
contrition, and making all new.
[4.] 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, 2 Cor. vii. 1; that binds the hands, this
clears the heart; that purges 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 fashion of walking, this of nature, heart, and spirit;
that seems to be a dislike of some sins, this of all. If anything
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: Ezek. xviii. 31, 'Cast away from you all your
transgressions, and make you a new heart and a new spirit.' That
is a casting away the loathsome works of the flesh, this a new
root to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit.
[5.] 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 is a 'perfecting holiness in the fear of God,' 2 Cor. vii.
1. That is an outward reformation from the hearing of the word,
some acts materially performed from the newness of the thing,
John v. 35, this from a judicious and hearty approbation of the
law and will of God; that arises 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 a while in that seminal principle;
the greater virtues contain the less, but the less do not infer
the greater.
4. 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: Gen. xx. 6, 'I
withheld thee from sinning against me;' 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 did 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 baffled by the temptation.
Restraints may spring from the law in the hand of the magistrate,
when it does 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 diminishes it:
Isa. i. 5, 'Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt
more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is
faint.' 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.
5. 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 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 heavenward, 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 extrinsic 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 word
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 but merely natural. May not
sometimes affections be stirred much at the hearing 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 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 in a sponge, 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 will be as volatile as the fancy
which entertained them. Those in Mat. 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,
euthus", is the same, a lightning 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.
6. 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 it a change from 'glory
to glory,' 2 Cor. iii. 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 of a man. 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 has 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, uses 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
does exceed a rational creature, considered only as rational,
more than a rational does a brute. The apostle makes a manifest
distinction between the natural or the "psuchikos", 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
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 has 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 Thess. i. 10. He does 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 them, that
they were 'partakers of the divine nature.'
7. How much therefore should new creatures be esteemed and
valued? Is anything, next to God, more worthy our esteem than
that which bears his image? Is anything, 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 characters of God upon
them, and have communion with God, and Christ, and the Spirit, in
their nature! If the dead image of God in a natural man ought to
be respected, much more the living image of God in a renewed man.
If a 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, Luke x. 16: 1 Thess. iv. 8, 'He
therefore that despises you, despises not man but God, who has
also given us his Holy Spirit.' 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.
8. It the new creature be such a thing as you have heard, then
the sin of a regenerate man has 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 does 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 does not
complain of a member of death, or a piece of sin, but the whole
'body of it,' and 'the law of sin in his members,' Rom. vii. It
seems it did reside there still, and so it does in all the
renewed, though but faint and feeble, an 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
against an habit of common notion, you against an 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, whatsoever some men dream to the
contrary.
Use 2. Is of comfort. 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
bare 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 does disquietness and sorrow.
1. 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 connection is there between you and the
three persons! God in Christ, and Christ in you, that you may be
'made perfect in one,' John xvii. 23. 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; Christ in
you as a head 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
propriety, for then you are his; to the Spirit as the tutor of
you and inhabitant in you, all implied, Rom. viii. 8-10. By your
former birth you were children of wrath; by this, children of
God: by that, partakers of the serpentine 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 from the Son of God,
and 'counted to the Lord for a generation,' Ps. radii. 30, 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 has a right to
the inheritance of the lather; as a subject, not. Men are
subjects by covenant, though born of others, sons by generation.
By being a new 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.
2. If you be new creatures, you are the delight of God. It is
impossible but God should have the most tender respect to his own
likeness; he must needs take a pleasure in a resemblance to his
own nature, in a habit of his Spirit's infusing. Can God despise
the work of his own hand? Can he then despise the work of his
heart, a likeness to himself, to his Son, to his Spirit? His
delight is strengthened by a threefold cord, 'he delights not in
the strength of a horse, nor takes pleasure in the legs of a
man,' but 'in them that fear him, in them that hope in his
mercy,' Ps. cxlvii. 10, 11. You are the first fruits of his
creatures, peculiarly dedicated to him as his portion by the new
birth: James i. 18, 'Of his own will begot he us, with the word
of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his
creatures,' taken out of the mass of the world for a holy
offering to himself; the more refined part of his creation, not
barely creatures, but first fruits peculiarly belonging to him,
upon whom he looks with a delightful eye, and under another
relation. God cannot but love himself, and therefore that which
approaches most near to himself, for nothing in the creature is a
fit object for God's love, but his own living image in him. As he
loves himself in himself, so he loves himself in his creature. To
deny his truth, is to deny himself; to deny his love to his
image, would be to deny his love to himself. He can as soon hate
his Christ glorified at his hand, as hate Christ formed in the
soul. If sin makes men the objects of his hatred, as being
contrary to his nature, grace then makes them the objects of his
love, as being agreeable to his nature. He cannot but delight in
his own birth, and delight in the seals of his own Spirit. You
could not but displease him by being in the flesh; 'those that
are in the flesh cannot please God,' Rom. viii. 8; you then
please him by being in the Spirit. Shall the pleasure of the
Father of spirits, in his own image, be of a lower degree than
that of a natural father in his son, which bears the lineaments
of his body? He has no pleasure in anything in the world, if not
in you. Sin soon deformed all after he had pronounced them good,
and stopped the joy God had in his works; it is by your
redemption by his Son, and regeneration by his Spirit, that the
joy in his works is restored to him; if he should not delight in
you, what has he in the world to please himself with? Your
services please him; a new spirit, a new beauty is added to all
your addresses. A new creature prays not as before, hears not as
before, he refers all to God; there is a brokenness instead of
pride, every sacrifice is washed in contrition, a zeal of spirit,
a heavenly warmth, a sweet and delightful savour ascends up to
him. It is you only that with grace 'serve him acceptably,' Heb.
xii. 28, with such a godly fear and frame wherein he takes a
pleasure.
Well then, the new creature is the delight of God, though the
scoff of men; the pleasure of him that commands the world, though
reproached by them that shall fill hell with their souls.
3. How great a foundation then is laid in this for your
happiness! New creatures, divine nature, a relation to God, the
delight of heaven: 'If any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature; old things are passed away, behold, all things are
become new.' New for them, as well as in them. Distance and
dissimilitude from God is the foundation of all misery; a
likeness then to him is the basis of all blessedness. Divine
happiness is non-natural to the divine nature, and due to it, as
it were jure intrinseco; as new creatures you are heirs,
as sanctified creatures you are made meet for the inheritance;
you have a hereditary right, and an aptitudinary right. Can any
comfort be greater, than to have right to an inheritance, and a
fitness to enjoy it? 'Now are we the sons of God,' 1 John iii. 2,
we have this real relation; not only named so, but are so, which
is a certain foundation of a happiness which does not yet fully
appear to us. But such a knowledge we have, that when the
original of this new nature shall appear, our imperfect likeness
shall arise to a full perfection, 'we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is;' upon the account of this relation we
know there will be an exact likeness between him and us. I
suppose it is properly meant of a likeness to Christ, we shall
see him as he is; for the apostle, verse 5, refers it to Christ,
without altering the person he had spoke of before; so that it is
not meant of a seeing the essence of God, but the sight of
Christ. Where lust reigns, the natural consequence is storms and
dissatisfaction; he that has the image of the devil, has a model
of hell; the new creature having the image of God, has a model of
heaven. A drop of grace is a drop of glory; so much as there is
of the new creation, so much of heaven is put into the soul. It
is 'a lively hope' of heaven here, and a full enjoyment of heaven
hereafter, that the soul is 'begotten unto,' 1 Peter i. 8, 4. The
greater the progress in this state, the more lively are the hopes
of it, and the nearer approaches of heaven to the soul; such a
foundation of happiness, with the hopes and foresight of it,
cannot but be attended with inconceivable pleasure.
4. How highly comfortable is it to view yourselves, and
consider the draught of this image, and the progress of the new
creation in your souls? How comfortable is the work of
self-examination to such a soul! With what pleasure may you look
upon your present estate, and be filled with ravishments at every
view? When you look back upon your former condition, and think of
your state of death, the noisomeness of your hearts to God, the
stiffness of your souls against him, when you consider how
spiritual death reigned over every part; and now see your nature
changed, your souls upon a lively and quick motion to God, your
relishes of the sweetness of spiritual pleasures to be greater
than those of sensual; how comfortable is it to behold those
diffusions of God in your souls, and to feel them full of love to
him, and full of love from him! How comfortable to view the
original, and copy from it, and to see how near the one does
resemble the other; to cast your eye upon the state of wrath you
were in by your first birth, and upon the state of grace you are
in by the latter; to consider your former drudgery under sin, and
your present freedom in the service of righteousness! It would
make you perform those commands so often repeated of rejoicing in
the Lord always, and shouting for joy, since mercy does so
compass you about, Ps. xxxii. 11, Philip. iv. 4. As upon the
awakenings of conscience, and the exercise of its reflective
office, there must needs arise an anguish and torment in an
unrenewed soul, so upon the reflections of the same faculty in a
new creature, there must spring a sparkling delight. As God by
the reviews of himself and contemplation of his own excellency
has an infinite joy, so the new creature by the views of itself
has a joy in its measure proportionable to that of God himself.
As it is in itself the image of God, so it is a lower fruition of
him. I enjoy my friend somewhat in his picture when the original
is absent; and this joy is greater when a beam from heaven does
shine upon this image, and both illustrate and discover the
beauty of it, which in the darkness of ignorance and mistakes
cannot be seen. But take heed that in these reviews you impair
not your comfort by any proud and God-neglecting reflections, but
with humble and debasing thoughts of yourselves, and thankful
admirations of the grace of God, and praises of him for so
excellent a draught in your hearts. It is wonderful to perceive
how by such a carriage the comforts of heaven flow in upon the
soul, when thus humbly and thankfully it opens itself before God
in this review. And let this add to your comfort, that if the
reviews of so imperfect an image in you, and the dark sight of
God, whose image it is, be so delightful, how much more pleasant
will it be when your souls shall be elevated to the highest
perfection and the most satisfying fruition!
5. And how great a comfort it is to consider that this
imperfect image, which is the foundation of happiness, will in
time be perfect, and as fully resemble him whose image it is as
the creature is capable of! There is a day of perfect and
glorious regeneration coming, wherein you will appear in all your
royalty as heirs of God. The divine nature shall glitter without
any filth of sin to sully it; holiness shall hold the sceptre
without any lust to shake it. There is a day wherein Christ shall
make all things new in the church, and in the; he sits upon his
throne and says it: Rev. xxi. 5, 'Behold, I make all things new.'
It will be so new and admirable, that when you look back upon
that mean draught of it while you were in the world, you would
think you never had a grain of the divine nature before in you.
As the vision of God will be perfect, so will your likeness to
him, 1 John iii. 2; as it will be a vision without any clouds, so
it will be a likeness without any dissimilitude, according to the
creature's capacity. The vision of Christ here transforms us into
a likeness to him in his death and resurrection, the vision
hereafter transforms us into a likeness to him in glory; the
close look of the soul upon God shall divest it of all carnal
conceptions; the understanding shall perfectly behold the
original, the will closely embrace it, the affections centre in
it without distraction; the whole soul shall be changed from a
less degree of glory to an inconceivable perfection in it,
changed 'from glory to glory,' 2 Cor. iii. 18, when the well of
living water springing up in thee to eternal life shall spring
into it. This fire-baptism will not leave till it has fully
consumed your dross, and refined your souls. That Spirit that
begun the work will fill the heart with the knowledge and love of
God, as his promise is to fill the earth, Isa. hi. 9. He will not
leave despoiling you of the oldness of the flesh till there be
not a mite left, and clothing you with a newness of the spirit
till there be not a grain of the soul free from this new
enlivening. As he began, so he will finish, in abolishing that
which remains of vanity, and in filling this holy temple with the
glory of the Lord. There is certainly as much power in the second
Adam to perfect, as well as to begin this new creation, as there
was in the first to convey his soul and defiled image to his
posterity. The honour of Christ and the good of the new creature
are concerned in it; the honour of Christ in point of power and
affection, the good of the new creature in point of happiness;
his honour would suffer if he did not perfect what he had begun.
As Moses pleads with God for the perfecting the Israelites'
deliverance in bringing them into Canaan, that the nations might
not say, God was not able to deliver them, Num. xiv. 16. In point
of affection he loves his Father, therefore the image of his
Father; he loves himself, therefore the picture of himself; he
loves his Spirit which glorifies him, therefore will perfect the
draught he has made. It will, then, in time be perfect, not a
lineament of God but will be illustriously drawn; there shall be
no more complaints of a body of death, nor any snarlings of sin
and lust.
Upon these considerations you may apply the comfort this new
creation affords you,
(1.) Against troubles in the world. Old things are passed
away, even the old events and issues of your afflictions, they
are no longer used merely to trouble you or punish you, but to
perfect this new creation, to engrave more deeply or exercise
this divine image. All things are but fellow-labourers to throw
out the rubbish, and blow up this divine spark: Rom. viii. 28,
they 'all work together for good, to them who are called
according to his purpose.' As regenerating grace gives us a
relation to God, so it should expel fear: Isa. vliii. 1, 'Fear
not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by name; thou
art mine.' What reason is there to fear when he has called you by
name, in a special manner, not in a general way? What reason to
fear when thou hast the badge of God upon thee, who has new
created thee? The grace wherein you stand, or the state of grace,
should make you not only to 'rejoice in the hope of the glory of
God,' but to 'glory in tribulations also,' as well as the
apostle, Rom. v. 2, 3, because it 'works patience,' &c. It
dresses up the new creature; and draws the several parts of the
gracious habit into exercise. Though it seem strange, yet the
'glorying in tribulation' is as proper an effect of this new
creation as 'rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.' Grace, being
the foundation of your glory in heaven, cannot but be the
foundation of glorying in everything else which heightens it, and
pushes it nearer to its centre. Let not affliction, crosses,
reproaches, molest your new nature; be new creatures as to four
respects to them as well as relation to God. Our Saviour's
sonship, and the meat the world knew not of, supported him under
greater injuries than we can ever be subject to. What clouds of
trouble should ever sadden that heart which has the living image
of God in his soul? This alone should turn the wormwood of
affliction into honey, and bitterness into sweetness.
(2.) You may apply the comfort of your new creation against
temptations. Will not the power of God be employed in the defence
of that which is his only image in the world, since he knows that
Satan is most active against it, because it is his image? And
upon the same account will not God be active for it? Surely that
Spirit which begot it broods upon its own birth, and watches for
the defence of it against its mighty adversaries. Satan watches
to cast dirt upon the divine nature; the Spirit watches to hinder
it, and if cast on, to wipe it off, and restore it to its beauty.
Can it enter into the heart of an infinite affection nakedly to
expose his own work, his affectionate new creature, made up of
faith in him and love to him, that which maintains his honour in
the world, designs all for his glory, values his honour above his
own credit, yea, his life; opposes everything that opposes him,
hates everything that is loathsome to him, would endure any
misery rather than displease him; I say, shall a God of infinite
tenderness expose this creature to the violences and furies of
hell without any defence? What should we make of God, by
entertaining such thoughts of him, but a hard master, a cruel
tyrant, one that would make his own work the sport of devils, to
stand by carelessly and see his image trampled upon, and leave
the best subjects he has in the world to the mercy of his mortal
enemy? Let not such a thought enter into any new creature, nor
let us believe that the love in the heart of the new Creator is
less than the power in his hand. It was the sonship and
resurrection of our Saviour secured him against the counsels of
enemies: Ps. ii. 2 and 7 compared, 'Thou art my Son, this day
have I begotten thee.' So our communion with him in his
resurrection secures us against the malicious designs of Satan.
Thou art my son, this day have I regenerated thee, is the voice
of God to a new creature; and by this relation his happiness is
secured under the greatest assaults, if he keep up faith, which
will fetch vigour from the Head. The devil by his whole legions
of temptations cannot more prevail against the seed of God, than
Haman could against Mordecai, because he was of the seed of the
Jews, as his wife prudently advised him, Esther vi. 13.
(3 ) This comfort of the new creation is applicable against
fears of falling away. Were grace like a moral habit, acquired by
moral acts, it might sink under a force, it might be lost; but it
is a divine work, a new creation in Christ, not anything gained
by moral philosophy, and a road of virtuous actions. Men may seem
to begin in the Spirit and end in the flesh; but does the Spirit
begin this regeneration work, to suffer it to end in the flesh?
When the apostle speaks of men's works, he fears the consequence;
but when he speaks of God's working in a man, he is confident of
a good issue, Philip. i. 6. God never begins but he resolves to
perform and finish. As it is impossible for one united to Adam in
a natural way not to partake of his sinful life, so it is
impossible for one united to Christ in a gracious way not to
partake of his spiritual life. And as every man is really in the
loins of Adam, so every believer is, in a sort, spiritually in
the loins of Christ, and is as truly denominated his seed, and as
no man can be cut off from the stock of Adam but be the grace of
God, so no man can be taken off from the stock of Christ, when
once implanted, but by the retraction of that grace, against
which there is sufficient security in the covenant of grace, and
several promises in Scripture, like stars in the heavens, set to
give light to this truth. The new creature under the gospel shall
grow in beauty as the lily, in strength like a cedar, his beauty
shall be as fresh as that of the rose or lily, his root as firm
as that of a cedar; and this from God, who will be as the dew
unto it: Hosea xiv. 5, 'I will be as the dew to Israel: he shall
grow up as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.' As dew
quickens the plant, so will God enliven Israel; what withering
can there be under such an influence? If you have been made new
creatures in Christ, you are made stable creatures, his charge is
as great to preserve you as it was to renew you. Besides, the
divine nature is so delightful a thing, that he that once is a
possessor, has no mind to be a loser of it. He that has once put
off the old man, and put on the hew, will have little heart to
make another exchange, and divest himself of his beautiful robe,
to be clothed again with the old tattered rags which he has dung
upon the dunghill. The new creation is a 'fellowship with Christ
in his resurrection,' Philip. iii. 10, and therefore in the
consequents of it. As Christ did not rise to die again, so the
soul is not made new to become old again. Christ formed in the
soul is like Christ incarnate in the world: the divine nature may
be obscured, it may and will have its humiliations; it cannot
indeed die, but though it seem to die, it will have its
resurrection, and afterwards its ascension into glory.
(4.) It is comfort against weakness of grace, and strength of
corruptions. The whole frame of the new creature is wrought at
once: the soul is infused at once, but not as Adam was, created
in his full stature, and perfect strength, and exercise of all
his faculties. But as Adam's posterity were generated, first
infants, then men, others may be more honourable creatures, but
the weakest grace is a new creature; others may be more noble
members, but every new creature is a member of the body; others
may have more grace, but not a better title; the weakest is a
heaven-born heir, and has the same title by the purchase of the
Redeemer, the reality of the new creation, and the spirit of
adoption. I do not mean by the weakest grace a superficial
desire, or a velleity not to sin, and yet a daily running into
it; but a grace mating and mastering corruption, though residing
with it, a grace that is daily eating into the bowels of lust,
and growing up to a sharper animosity and strength against what
is contrary to it; for the least degree of grace is prevalent
against sin, and is not overpowered by it, though it be mightily
opposed. The essence of grace is the same in every new creature,
though the degrees be different: it is one thing to have the
nature of fire, another thing to have the strength of it; a spark
is essentially fire, and will burn, though not so much as a
flame. If the frame be new, though the draughts be not so clear,
nor the lineaments drawn with such lively colours, yet there is a
representation; the first draught of a picture bears a likeness
to the person, but it will be more lively after the second or
third sitting, when the limner has laid on his fresher colours.
[1.] If your complaints of the weakness of grace and strength
of corruption be sincere, it is a comfortable sign you will hold
out. Hasty pretenders and proud boasters are not durable. The
seed sown in the stony ground 'presently sprung up,' Mat. xiii.
5; grew faster, as if it would outstrip the common harvest, but
as soon withered, whereas that which was sown in the good ground
sprung up leisurely to perfection, and endured the storm.
[2.] You cannot reasonably think you should presently be rid
of your corruptions. Some spice of a cured disease will remain in
the soul as well as the body, and a certain spiritual weakness
after the raising of the new creature. The law in the mind does
not presently raze out the law of sin in the members. There is a
diabolical nature as well as divine. The Platonist could say, The
virtuous man who does something, "aproaireton", is both
a god and a demon. Christ formed in the heart does not presently
dispossess the serpentine nature, but master it. A man restored
to health from a sharp disease may do the actions of a sound man,
yet not in that manner and soundness, for all his motions are
infected with the relics of that disease which lately mastered
his body. Original corruption is not as a cistern (then it may be
emptied), but a spring; pump out all you can at one duty, it will
rise again, you will see it, before the next service. It is true
that 'he that is born of God commits not sin,' he sins not with
such a frame as he did before; but it is as true that 'if we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth' of
grace 'in us,' 1 John i. 8. There will be a running issue, that
you may frequently touch the hem of Christ's garment for a cure.
The soul of the best is never like to be 'without spot or
wrinkle' till it be glorious, Eph. v. 26.
[3.] All God's communications of grace are gradual. Doth the
mustard seed spring up in an instant to the tallness of a tree?
Grace is sown in an instant, but grows not up so suddenly. Christ
formed in the heart is like Christ in the flesh; first in his
cradle, before he be upon his legs. The new creation is not a
sudden leap from corruption to perfect purity; the day dawns in
the heart, but the light takes a time to expel the darkness:
Prov. iv. 18, 'The path of the just is as the shining light, that
shines more and more unto the perfect day.' The first appearance
at the dawning is an earnest that the victory will be complete at
last. God did not make a full discovery of Christ to Adam, his
revelations of him grew brighter with every age; the nearer his
coming, the clearer was the foresight of him. The divine nature
has its time of discovery in the creature, as it had in Christ
the original; there were forty days between his resurrection and
ascension, wherein he was but in the first degree of his
exaltation. Christ risen in the heart will take some time before
he ascends and carries up the soul to spiritual heights with him.
[4.] Consider well how it is with thy will. It is not the
having of lusts, but the fulfilling of them, wherein our danger
lies: Rom. xiii. 14, 'We have then put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
when we make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil it in the
lusts thereof,' but endeavour to walk holily. The author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews could pretend to little more than will:
chap. xiii. 18, 'willing to live honestly,' "kalos",
comely, beautifully. And herein Paul 'exercised' himself, Acts
xxiv. 16. He manifested this will by compliance with all
seasonable occasions to that purpose. Is there grace in thy whole
soul? Is there an enlightened judgment to see the foulness of sin
and the loveliness of Christ? Is there a renewed will to incline
to God and to close with the Redeemer? Is there a rectified
affection, consisting of love, desire, delight, though yet but
weak in all the faculties? Are there dissatisfactions in you upon
internal reviews? Have you not strong bewailings and laments for
the strength of sin and weakness of grace, and breathings after a
more vigorous and active grace? Let not then your complaints of
the body of death stifle your praises of God for what he has
wrought in Christ in order to your full deliverance. They did not
so in Paul, Rom. vii. 24, 25; let them not do so in you. Take
comfort in what God has wrought, bless him for it, and solicit
him to confirm that which he has wrought in you, Ps. lxviii. 24.
He that provides food for the ravens that cry, will not stop his
ears at the voice of his own image.
(6.) It is comfort against the fear of death. If you were born
only of the old Adam, you were spiritually dead, and you must
eternally die; it were unavoidable, if not changed; but if born
of an incorruptible seed, the dissolution of your body shall be
the consummation of your glory. Death strikes the outward man,
and the new creature elevates the soul. The new nature will as
naturally ascend to heaven, when it is unclothed of flesh, and
has left all the relics of corruption behind it, as the pure
flame aspires into the air, and seems to long to embody itself
with the son, the first fountain of light. How joyfully will the
original and copy meet: Philip. i. 23, 'to depart from hence,' is
'to be with Christ.' The truth of grace in the creature, and the
infinite righteousness in the Creator, kiss each other. How
affectionately will God entertain that image of himself! How
delightfully will Christ view himself in the soul, and the soul
view itself in the heart of Christ! The soul shall see Christ in
glory, and Christ shall behold the soul in perfection, where
there will be nothing but life and love, love and life for ever.
Is death then to be feared, that brings the new creature to this
happiness?
Use 3. Is for examination. Of all things, this deserves the
strictest inquiry, in regard of its absolute necessity, and in
regard of its superlative excellency.
1. It is possible to know it, and not very difficult to know
it. You may know the acts of your own heart. Can you not view
your own thoughts? Can you desire, or love, or hate, or grieve,
but you must know that you do so? Can you not tell what is the
object of your inclinations, what your affections run most
greedily after? No man can be such a stranger to his own soul, if
he look into it. Can you not tell whether you are the same men as
before; whether you love what before you hated, and hate that
which before you loved? A soul may know whether it loves God
supremely or no, so as to appeal to God for the truth of it, as
Peter to our Saviour: John xxi. 17, 'Lord, thou knows that I love
thee.' It is in this reflexive power that a man excels a brute.
2. You must inquire into the effects and operations of it.
Where there is this spiritual change, there is life; where there
is a spiritual life, there will be spiritual operations. You must
inquire, then, what sense and motion you have, that is superior
to a life of nature. This new creation is not only the taking
down the old frame, but setting up a new. The old creature frame
will grow more inactive, the new creature form more sprightly.
Regeneration is never without some effect; if we have not the
properties, we have not the nature. If the air be dark and
pitchy, that a man cannot see his way, it is a sign the sun is
not up to enlighten that hemisphere. A thick darkness cannot
remain with the sun's rising. The works of darkness, with their
power, cannot remain with a new creature state. The old rubbish
cannot wholly remain with a new building. Look well, therefore,
whether old principles, aims, customs, company, affections, are
passed away, and whether new affections, principles, ends, be
settled in the room. Be sure to distinguish well between the form
and the power, between a paint and life, and regard well your
inward acts. The acts of the new creature are principally in the
proper seats of it, the mind, the heart, the will, the
conscience, the affections. Outward acts are no sign at all; no
man can perfectly judge of another by them, nor any man judge of
himself. As the strength of sin, so the strength of grace, the
new creature, lies in the heart. Those waters which are bitter,
are bitterest, and those which are sweet, are sweetest, at the
fountain; they lose somewhat of their qualities in the streams,
by the mixture of other things with them.
3. In general observe, what contrariety there is to what you
were before, and the very point wherein this contrariety does
consist. It is a spiritual habit, a divine nature, the law of God
in the heart. It must principally be discerned in its motion to
God, in its respect to God, whose law, nature, habit it is,
directly contrary to the sinful habit, the law of sin in the
heart, the old serpentine nature which moved to sin. Let us see
in general how it was with Paul, who speaks so much of the new
creature. He was quite another man after his being in Christ than
he was before. He was before an admirer of his own righteousness,
a contemner of grace, a persecutor of Christ and his members.
After the new creation, his pharisaical plumes fall, his own
righteousness is as dross, he lays it down at the feet of Christ;
grace is highly admired by him, and his whole labour is spent in
glorifying Christ, and edifying his church. He abhors that which
before he delighted in: he did before his own will, and the will
of his sect; now, 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' He is now
an admirer, where he was a despiser; his industry, passions,
heart, are for Christ, as before they were against him. The
doctrine of the cross is no longer folly, but wisdom: he glories
as much in being persecuted for Christ, as in being a persecutor
of him and his people. His ravaging wolfish nature is gone, and a
lamb-like nature in the place of it; he has as much sweetness
toward the people of Christ, as he had sourness against them. Of
an executioner, he becomes a martyr; and would not only lose his
life, but be an Anathema, to do them good whom before he hated.
Christ was his life, Christ was his joy, Christ was his all, and
nothing but Christ dear to him. A quite contrary strain. And this
is a new creature; and therefore examine yourselves. Is there
faith instead of unbelief, the knowledge of God instead of
ignorance, a constant glowing affection to him instead of enmity,
or a coldness of love, the love of the Creator instead of that of
the creature? This is to have the image of God instead of that of
the devil.
But, in particular,
1. What fervent longings have you after a likeness to God? The
first draught of this image begets strong desires for a farther
perfection. The sighs and groans for a likeness to God are the
first lineaments of God in the soul, and arise from some degree
of affection to him, and delight in him. The breathings of the
soul are 'for the living God,' as David, Ps. xiii. 2; Ps. lxxxiv.
2, for God, as a principle of life and spirit in him. This
hungering and thirsting after righteousness is a sign of
righteousness already in the soul, and an earnest of a further
fullness, Mat. v. None can fervently and unweariedly long for a
divine nature but such as have had some taste of it. The divine
nature in the soul will be returning to that nature whence it
derives its essential purity. The principle coming from God will
be aspiring to that nature which it is a part of, as rivers to
the sea, and swell if they be hindered. He must needs long after
a full draught, and can no more satisfy himself with imperfect
lineaments, than a sick man can with an imperfect cure. It is to
this end he breathes after heaven, because it is a state of
perfection, not from any carnal notion of it. He knows he is not
already perfect, and therefore presses forward with eager desire
and endeavour, 'if by any means he may attain the resurrection
from the dead,' Philip. iii. 11-13, &c. He does not only
desire a freedom from sin, but to be as pure and elevated in
affection to God as an angel. God is not only free from
unrighteousness, but full of righteousness; and therefore those
desires of a divine nature are not limited to, and centred in, a
negative holiness. He would set himself no other pattern but God.
It is an excellent speech of a heathen, exhorting not only to
live the life of a good man, which civil virtue and the vogue of
men approved of, but to look above that to the choicest desire of
a divine life; for, says he, our endeavours should be for a
likeness to God, not to good men. To endeavour to be like to man,
is to make one image like another; but a new creature aims at the
highest exemplar; it aspires after no lower a pattern than God
himself, his will, his rule, his glory, his pleasure. Do the
breathings of your spirits rise as much for it, as the steams of
your lusts did before against it?
2. Put this question to yourselves, What inward authority has
God over your hearts? Is the government of God set up in your
souls? Can you with joy say, The Lord reigns, and none but he
shall reign over me? The new creature coming under another
government, has frames suitable to it, and delightfully owns that
supreme authority, and pleases himself more in a subjection to
God, than the wicked can in their slavery to sin. Do you 'yield
yourselves to God, and your members as instruments of
righteousness unto God'? Are the motions of your souls guided by
him? You are then 'alive from the dead;' it is the apostle's
assertion, Rom. vi. 4. Sin does reside; but which reigns, God or
lust? An usurpation may be on sin's part, when no voluntary
subjection on ours. Is it an absolute, or only a partial
resignation of yourselves to him? Do you give him a moiety, or do
you give him the whole? Has he the sole sovereignty? or would you
give him an associate? Are any evil ways hated, out of a respect
to his word, to his authority, wisdom, goodness, or a respect to
yourselves? Ps. cxix. 128, 'I esteem thy precepts concerning all
things to be right, and I hate every false way.' Ver. 133, 'Order
my steps in thy word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over
me.' Are God's dictates readily obeyed? Does a free submission to
his authority govern and act thee in his ways? Do you count his
yoke easy, and his burden light? Do you glory in the chain of
grace, and count the service of sin as iron fetters? Is the will
of God above your own wills? Do you defy the one to observe the
other? Is God's will sacred with you, when it thwarts your own,
or only when it suits your interest? It is not then the authority
of God which prevails with you, but the authority of some
extraneous thing which has the chief moving force. If so, there
is no sign of the new creature in such a frame.
3. How are your affections to God? It is a new creature we are
speaking of, and that is inward chiefly. Sin may be left in the
practice, and not hated: goodness may be practised, when it is
not affected. Where, then, is the new creature? It is not only a
change of professions. Simon Magus had changed that before his
baptism, but not his heart, either before or after, Acts viii.
21. The strength of sin, lies in the understanding, will, and
affections, and it is there that the strength of grace must
appear, and set up its banners. Are your affections and lusts of
your flesh crucified? They must be so, if you are Christ's new
creatures, Gal. v. 24. The strong stirring of natural conscience
may weaken a present resolution to an act of sin, but not an
affection to it, and to the habit of sin. It may restrain from
outward exercises, not from inward dispositions. Natural
conscience informs of the evil, but does not confer upon us a
disaffection to that evil. What are the inclinations of your
affections? Are they pitched upon God? What are they for
duration? Are they constantly in motion to him? Is it your
pleasure to think of him, to live to him? Are the remainders of
unlikeness to him your grief, your yet imperfect image your
delight, not because it is imperfect, but because it is his
image? Every sigh, or a slight affection, is not a new creature.
It is a deep engravement, a constant inclination, contrary to
what it was before, as white to black. Do your affections
correspond with the affections of God? Do you hate everything
that he hates? Or is there any one lust thou should caress and
hide among the stuff? Such a frame is not the new-creature frame.
God loves not one sin, neither must we, if we be like him. Is the
love to God and Christ more settled than love to father or
mother, which is an inbred affection, born with our natures? Mat.
x. 37. It must be so supreme. What desires have you to magnify
his name? Do you love him so intensely, as to part with your
lives to glorify and enjoy him? If you be new creatures, God and
his glory will be dearer to you than friends, credit, life. He
said not amiss, that no man is a true Christian who is not an
habitual martyr; that is, that has not a disposition to lay down
his life for the honour of God. And that apostle who has spoken
so much of the new creature had such a raised affection, Acts xx.
24, he would 'not count his life dear, so he might finish his
course with joy;' which was 'to testify the gospel of the grace
of God.' He could lay down his head more willingly upon a block
than upon a pillow, if he might finish his course to his Master's
honour, and publish his grace. Where there is no concern for the
honour of God, there is little sign of a likeness to him; for
this is an essential part of true Christianity. If we have a new
nature, we cannot but love that nature, wherever we find it. And
where we find it in a greater degree, and infinitely perfect, as
in God, we cannot but love it there above all; else we offer
violence to the divine nature; and in not loving it in God, we
love it not in ourselves. It is impossible there can be this
divine nature without spiritual affections, and that the image of
God can be in us without having an intense love to him whose
image it is. If anything, then, lie nearer the heart of any man
than God, the image of God is not in him. Therefore look into
your hearts. How does your hatred break out against sin? How is
your sorrow poured out for sin?
4. How stand your souls to inward and spiritual duties? How
vile are you in your own eyes because of sin? What grief is there
even for your least imperfections? Are you every day defacing
your pride, and strengthening your humility? Pride is the great
fort of the old man, humility the great security of the new. How
are you in prayer? Are you constant, are you fervent, have you
daily converses with God? I mean secret prayer and meditation:
there are the most intimate converses with God. I appeal to you
that neglect those duties; can you pretend to this new creation?
Do you think that the image of God in the heart would not often
move to its original? Can a likeness to God consist with an
estrangedness from him? Can any man live the life of God that
does not care for the presence of God, either speaking to him, or
thinking of him? Can that law in the heart, which is put in that
we may not depart from him, consist with this which is the prime
departure, never to seek him, or to seek him coldly? All the
affections of the new creature bend to him, and centre in him.
Can this be without a drawing near to him? The 'spirit of grace'
is followed with a 'spirit of supplication:' Zech. xii. 10, 'the
spirit of grace and of supplication.' The Spirit is not a dumb
spirit in the new creature. The first work in the heart is to
cry, 'Abba, Father': Gal. iv. 6, 'God has sent forth the spirit
of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' The first
impression made by the Spirit is upon the eye of the soul to look
to God, and the voice of the soul to cry to him. It is the first
work of a regenerate man as regenerate. It is the argument our
Saviour uses to Ananias, to have confidence that Paul was not the
same man as before: Acts ix. 11, 'Behold, he prays.' Our old
nature being made up of aversion from God, the proper language of
that is, 'Depart from us.' The new nature being made up of an
inclination to God, the proper language of that is, 'It is good
for me to draw near to God;' for upon this renewing grace God is
the proper centre of the soul, and the same principle which moves
other things to the centre will move the soul to God. It is made
the effect of a pure heart: 2 Tim. ii. 22, 'Peace with them that
call on the Lord out of a pure heart,' and the characteristical
note of a saint: 1 Cor. i. 2, 'Saints, with all that in every
place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.'
5. What valuations and relishes have you of the word and
institutions of Christ? As the life is, so is the food; a
spiritual appetite for spiritual food is a comfortable sign of a
renewed nature. In every nature there is an aversion to what is
destructive, an inclination to what is preservative. Every
creature does as much desire its proper food, as it abhors that
poison that would blast it. The new nature has a new taste, his
palate is embittered to his former pleasure, and refined and
prepared for his new delight: he relishes what before he loathed,
esteems that sweetest that before was most unpleasant. The law in
the heart, being an impression of the word, will answer it with a
choice affection. The first cleansing of the heart, and the
progressive sanctification of it, is wrought by the word: Eph. v.
26, 'That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of
water by the word.' The image of God in the heart cannot but
value the image of God in his law; since the soul is brought to a
love of God, it will love his operations, and all the methods of
them, and therefore his word. A rectified judgment will have a
rectified affection; there will be a spiritual palate, whereby it
proves and 'approves what is the good, acceptable, and perfect
will of God,' Rom. xii. 2. What is pleasing to God is good and
pleasing to him. And the same apostle sets it as a sign of a
perfect man, or a sincere new creature, to esteem that the wisdom
of God which the world counts foolishness: 1 Cor. ii. 6, 'We
speak wisdom among them that are perfect.' The Spirit of truth in
the new creature will fill it with a strong affection to those
truths in the word. Truth in the heart, and truth in the word,
being so near of kin, cannot be strangers or unwelcome to one
another. What sympathy, then, is there between the word and your
hearts? What exercise of grace in it? What improvement of grace
by it? Do you desire it to satisfy your curiosity, or to further
your growth? 1 Pet. ii. 2, 'As new-born babes, desire the sincere
milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.' Are you like the
plants, both cleansed and quickened by the showers, and
discovering themselves in a fresh verdure? How do you dilate your
souls for it? How do you work it upon your hearts? Do you desire
it should be stamped upon you? Do you long for a more perfect
intimacy with it? Do you prize it above the satisfactions of
wealth and the pleasures of sense? Is it 'more excellent than
gold,' Ps. xix. 10, 'and sweeter than honey?' Ps. cxix. 103. Do
you spiritually concoct it, and turn spiritual meat into a
spiritual juice, as the stomach does meat into chyle, and other
parts of the body into blood? Life can only do this. Do you love
to have it dwell richly in you, and bring down the highest
imaginations to the foot of it? Do you cut the throat of your
dearest Isaacs when the word commands you? Is it a
pleasure to you to see the face of God in his ordinances? Is your
pleasure raised most by the spirituality of truth? The more
spiritual any truth is, the more satisfactory it is to a
spiritual taste. Do your hearts burn within you at the warm
breath of Christ? Are they not only warmed, but raised into a
flame, and that lasting? Not like the straw, which does blaze and
vanish.
6. What holiness is there in your hearts and lives? God cannot
be otherwise than holy, therefore holiness is the perpetual
concomitant of the divine nature; and so the apostle makes it to
consist in 'escaping the pollutions that are in the world through
lust,' 2 Pet. i. 4. There is a principle which springs up in holy
motions and thoughts. It is in the soul the image of God is
stamped, and it is there that the new creature does chiefly
exercise and preserve it. Holiness must be the proper effect of
that which is planted by the Spirit of holiness. He that pretends
to a likeness to God without it, fathers an irregularity upon
him, and makes him a monstrous begetter. It is not born of the
will of the flesh, to follow sensual pleasures, nor of the will
of man, to follow only rational delights; but of the will of God,
and therefore follows that will it was born of, John i. 13. 'Let
thy kingdom come, thy will be done,' is the natural language of
the new creature, and glad he is to have the Spirit point him to
those ways that are most conformable to the divine will, for it
is not a strained holiness, but natural, such a one as arises
from the 'fear of God in the heart,' Jer. xxxii. 40, and a care
to please God in his walk: 2 Cor. vii. l1, 'Yea, what care!' It
is holy as God is holy, in some measure, and therefore like him
whose infinite purity cannot endure pollution. And it can no more
divest itself of its inclinations to righteousness than the soul
can strip itself of its natural activity. There is a certain
connection between a 'heart of flesh' and 'walking in God's
statutes,' Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. To what purpose does God give it?
either for his own work or for the devil's? There is no need of
it for the latter; the heart of stone would have done his work
effectually: therefore for the service of the former, and that
constantly, for the new creature is 'created to good works,' not
to do them by fits and turns, but 'to walk in them,' Eph. ii. 10;
and he is described by the apostle to be one that 'walks after
the Spirit,' Rom. viii. 1, the ordinary course of his heart is
spiritual. How is it with you, then? Is holiness your proper
element? Is it a death to you when any thing contrary to it buds
up in your hearts? Is there a purity of heart joined with a zeal
for goodness, Titus ii. 14? They go hand in hand, as being both
the ends of our Saviour's death, and both the works of the
Spirit. Is there an angry detestation of the loathsomeness of
sin, and a kindly affection to the purity of grace? It will be
thus if the new creation be wrought, for as in original sin there
was the root of all evil, therefore all holiness may be opposed,
and all sin practised; so in the habit of grace there is the root
of all grace, therefore all sin will be loathed, and every part
of holiness will be loved. But on the contrary, if your old lusts
be rather improved than impaired; if you are more charmed by
swinish pleasures, and enamoured of them; if the enmity in your
hearts or the loathsomeness in your lives remain, is there
anything of a new creature in you? Judge for yourselves. Do you
make as rich a provision for the flesh as before? Is your heart
and life set upon it with as much affection? Are you joyful when
employed in its drudgery? Is this to be a new creature? Can there
be such darkness, if the sun of grace were risen upon you? Such
fruits evidence the standing of the old root. He that has the
black mark of the devil in his life has no reason to think he has
the spiritual badge of Christ in his heart; and if he do, he does
deceive himself.
7. How is your disposition against those things which are
contrary to a divine nature? No creature has a greater antipathy
to that which is contrary to its nature, than a regenerate man
has against that which is contrary to the divine. It is as
impossible there can be a friendly neighbourhood between the new
man and the old, as between the ark and Dagon, between heat and
cold, which are always quarrelling, yea, between Christ and
Belial, 2 Cor. v. 16.
(1.) Against the motions of Sin. An irreconcilable war is
commenced between grace and corruption. At the first inlet flesh
is in arms to hinder; the spirit in arms to maintain its
standing, Gal. v. 17. The contest is in the whole man; grace
being seated in the heart, sends out its commands, and despatches
forces to every part to meet with its enemy, as motion beginning
at the centre diffuses itself through the whole sphere, shaking
every part to the circumference. Light will oppose darkness in
every part of the air; they cannot shake hands together; the
increase of one is the decrease of the other. Sensibility is a
sign of life; a dead man complains not of wounds and cutting; you
may take out his bowels, cut limb from limb, but a living man
will complain of the least prick of a pin or a pinch. Natural men
cannot complain of that which they do not feel. There is a mighty
friendship between a dead carcass and rottenness, nothing is
noisome to it. Loads of sin may lie upon him, like mountains upon
a dead body, and no complaint: 'The motions of sin work in his
members' without resistance, and 'bring forth their fruit unto
death,' Rom. vii. 5. But the new creature counts the least sin
that has stolen in upon him his torture, like the stone in the
bladder, a worm in the root, and can find no rest till he routs
the beginnings of the disease. If there be no antipathy then to
that which is contrary to the life and being of a Christian, it
is a sure sign that there is nothing of a divine life, for as a
renewed man 'esteems all the precepts of God to be right,' and
'hates every false way,' Ps. cxix. 128, so he must abhor every
motion which would divert him from what he values, and entice him
to what he hates. How are your understandings sensible of the
first risings contrary to the interest of the new creature? Are
they more ready to dissent from them, your wills more ready to
check them than before? What counterworkings against the flesh,
with its affections and lusts? Are you ready with weapons in your
hand to stay the first stirrings of corruption? Are you ready to
pluck those buds, and fling them away with disdain? Does both
your courage and strength increase? Can you more readily be in
arms against the rising of a lust than formerly you were, and
cannot without horror bear the approaches of them? Does a little
dust of sin got into your eye set you a-weeping before God?
(2.) How stand you affected to spiritual sins? Here you should
lay the great stress in your examination of the new creation, for
your lives may be the lives of saints, while your hearts are the
hearts of devils; we may have no spots of the flesh upon our
garments, and a world of them upon our souls; spiritual sins may
revel where the more fleshly and sensual iniquities are excluded.
There is a war in the heart of the new creature against spiritual
wickedness: Eph. vi. 12, 'For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places;' or wickedness
spiritualised in the high places, "Pros ta pneumatika tes
ponerias en tois epouraniois", the choicest faculties of the
soul. Satan does most excite those sins in the heart, and natural
conscience makes no resistance against them. It is only an
enlightened conscience that understands and abhors this darkness,
and loathes those steams which others cherish. Do you wrestle
against these which partake most of the devil's nature? Do you
dandle them in your minds, or do you groan at the appearance of
them? Do you fly from them as you would do from a visible
apparition of the devil? These are most contrary to the divine
nature and life of God. And a renewed man can no more avoid
contesting with them than the nature of a living creature can
with poison. But if you can without any reluctance play the
wantons with these in your hearts; if you think pride,
vain-glory, ambition, speculative wickedness, &c., no evils,
if your hearts never start at the appearance of them; if you
entertain them as welcome guests, though you be never so free
from the filthiness of the flesh, you have yet the strength of
Satan's image in you, nothing of a Christian formed. A natural
man may quarrel with some sins, not with all; renewed men with
all, because all are enemies to God, and to the life of grace in
the heart. He is always with arms in his hand to extirpate sin,
and drive the Canaanite from his forts as well as the open field.
(3.) Are you in the like manner affected against temptations
and occasions of sin? The state of regeneration makes the soul
more subject to the assaults of temptations than before, from the
envy of Satan, who stomachs the happiness of the new creature. Do
your souls start at the appearance of a temptation? Do you regard
any enticement to a departure from God as your torment? Do you
discountenance it at the first approach, and give it more civil
entertainment, than 'Get you behind me, Satan'? Christ in the
flesh did so, and Christ formed in the heart will do no less; if
he happen to come near the way of evil men, he will observe the
wise man's counsel, Prov. iv. 14, 15, he will 'avoid it, pass not
by it, turn from it, and pass away.' His spirit will rise against
anything that would intrude upon him, which looks unfriendly
towards God. The nobleness of the new nature will make him
disdain a sordid temptation, and inspire him with a holy
generosity; and the stronger the nature, the more vigorously will
it oppose that which would deform it. And if any temptation break
in upon it at any time, and master it, how restless is it to be
delivered from it, applies itself with all its force to heaven,
complains against it, engages God's power on its side, makes up
the gap where sin has broken in, and fortifies the place to
prevent a future assault! In short, a natural man nourishes
inward lusts, meets motions to sin half way, smiles upon an
approaching temptation A new creature starts at the first
appearance for the most part, frowns upon satanic suggestions,
turns away his eyes from beholding vanity. One makes provision to
maintain them, the other to destroy them; one submits to the
tempter, the other arms himself against him.
8. Put this question to yourselves, What delight do you find
in God and his ways? This indeed is an evident sign of the new
nature; by this men may judge of themselves, if they will not
deceive and flatter themselves in their search. This is the
greatest evidence of sincerity in all the ways of God. For the
law cannot be in any man's heart, unless he delight to do the
will of God: Ps. xl. 8, 'Thy law is within my heart, I delight to
do thy will, O my God.' He will be carried out with a spiritual
joy and triumph to the acting what is spiritually good, with a
mighty pleasure, as great as the body takes in eating when it is
hungry, or drinking when it is thirsty. It was thus with our
Saviour in the flesh, it is thus with Christ formed in the heart,
it is his meat and drink to do the will of God; not so much in
the new creature as it was in Christ, because in that there is a
remaining principle of resistance, in Christ none. It is then he
can 'delight himself in the Lord,' Isa. lviii. 14, and count him
his 'exceeding joy,' Ps. xliii. 4. As it is an argument that
Seneca gives of the divine original of the soul, that it is most
pleased with divine speculations, it is no less an argument of
the new creation, when it is delighted, not only with the
speculative, but with the practical contemplation of God, when
the soul that triumphed before in the pleasures of sin can burn
with an ardent love to God, and solace itself in communion with
him; and unless holy services be our delightful element, we have
not a likeness to that God, who is not only righteous, but
delights in 'righteousness, loving-kindness, and judgment,' Jer.
ix. 24. Every being owes so much respect to its own welfare, as
not to act sluggishly and drowsily in its main concern; for the
same love which excites it to perform those things which are
essential to its preservation will oblige it to act with the
highest complacency; and the more conducing they are to the
well-being of the creature, the more powerful is the joy which
spreads itself through the whole essence of the creature;
therefore holy services being as intrinsical to a holy principle
as the most inward operations of any creature can be to its
nature, will be done with a vigorous frame, and an edged
intenseness of spirit. Without this, in some degree, nothing
requisite to the operations of a new creature can be performed;
without it we have no aversion to that which is contrary to the
law, nor an inclination to what is conformable to it. It is a
consent of the will to the whole law, Rom. vii. 16, a delight of
the affections in it; a consent to it in respect of the goodness;
a delight in it (ver. 22), in respect of the authority enjoining
it, as it is the law of God; not principally as it is in some
parts conformable to human reason, but as it is the divine will,
whereby both the sovereignty, holiness, and righteousness of God
is owned by the whole inward man; the understanding, will, and
affections, conspiring together with a strong delight in God and
his law. Hence you find David so often expressing his delight in
it, Ps. cxix. 14, 35, 47, 70, 77, &c. And indeed so much of
weariness as we have in any service, so much of an old nature and
a legal frame; so much as we have of love and delight, so much we
have of a new creature, and new covenant grace. A natural man
cannot have any of this choice joy in any spiritual service,
because it is against his nature; no more than a fish can delight
to be upon the land out of its proper element; but a new creature
has little delight in anything, but as it regards God, and tends
to him; other men's delights are terminated in the flesh, but the
elevations of a renewed soul are highly spiritual. How then is it
with you? Are the duties of religion, communion with God in them,
your delightful element? Is a flight of your love to him, the
acting for his glory, as pleasant as flattery to a proud nature,
or gain to a covetous disposition? Have you little satisfaction
in what you do, but still breathe and strive after a higher
frame, and cannot rest, till with your choice embraces of your
souls you clasp about God himself? O happy man! None but a divine
nature could fill thee with such pleasing transports.
Use 4. Is of exhortation.
1. To those who are new creatures, that have some comfortable
evidence in their souls, that there is the image of God renewed
in them.
(1.) How should you admire and glorify God? Is it possible
that so noble a work can be unattended with a spirit of
gratitude? How should you be filled with a sense of divine
goodness, and formed to set forth his praise? Surely this of
thankfulness is not one of the least good works you are created
unto. Before, when you were alienated from the life of God, you
were estranged from his love and his praise, you would never
glorify him whom you did not affect; but since a heavenly nature
is introduced, a heavenly work should become the very life of
your souls; tongues and hearts should be set on fire by grace.
[1.] Has not God made you differ from the whole mass of the
corrupted world? There is as great a difference between a new and
an old creature as between the clearest day and the darkest
night; as between Christ, who is glorified in heaven, the head of
his own flock, and the devil, who is damned in hell, the head of
the unbelieving world; so they are opposed by the apostle, 2 Cor.
vi. 14, 15. Might you not have run down the stream with others,
lived only a natural life with others, and at last died an
eternal death, and descended, with all your intellectual and
moral endowments, to the place only due to corrupt nature? But
God, the God that is blessed for ever, has breathed into you a
breath of life, caused you to stand up before him with a
resemblance of his nature, set you apart for himself, wrought you
for glory, and made you live another life, a life by the faith of
the Son of God. And is it not reason you should differ from all
the world in your praises of him, who has made you differ so
vastly in your state and condition?
[2.] Has not God in this bestowed upon you a higher perfection
than all natural perfection in the world? The lowest degree of
sense is more excellent than the highest inanimate perfection;
therefore a fly, in regard of life, is more excellent than a
diamond, or the sun itself. The lowest degree of reason is above
the highest degree of sense, and the lowest decree of renewing
grace transcends the highest degree of reason, because this in
the highest degree is but human and natural, that in the lowest
degree spiritual and divine. Therefore you owe more to God for
your regeneration than all creatures of the world do for their
natural existence. He has done more for you, in communicating to
you his own nature, than if he had made you viceroys over men and
angels and put the whole created world under your feet, without
investing you with this new creation.
[3.] And this God has done for you, when you were in the
common lump, and had no more worth in yourselves to move him to
it than the rest of the world. No other motive on your part but
misery. All the world had the same; for it lay in the like
condition. All that you had, all that you were, was proper to
move him to a contempt of you, and a loathing you forever. It was
the invention of his own overflowing love, not any persuasion of
your worth. What were you, and what was your father's house, that
he should thus translate you from the drudgery of sin to the
liberty of grace, from a spiritual death to a divine life? Had
God called you out of the womb of nothing, unshaped as the great
chaos, and asked you what degree of creatures you were willing to
be raised unto, would you have presumed to desire God to make you
like himself? Yet God in regeneration raised you to a state you
dared not ask, above a rational creature, even to a divine, when
he had no motive to anything, but to turn you, with
Nebuchadnezzar, to graze among the beasts, and partake with
devils in the eternal misery of that image you had contracted.
[4.] It is therefore a wonderful and miraculous change. If the
framing the body of man be so 'wonderful' a work, Ps. cxxxix. 14,
and a curious piece of embroidery, how much more admirable is
this new formation of the soul into the likeness of God. If we
should see a silly fly or a poisonous spider, a clod of earth, or
a glow-worm, transformed into a glittering star, it would not be
so great a miracle; it would be a change from one natural image
to another. But this is a change from hell to heaven, from being
a limb of the devil to become a member of Christ, from a worse
than Egyptian darkness into a marvellous light. That is but a
change of one innocent nature into another; this a change of a
nature hateful to God into a nature delightful to him, a corrupt
creature into an holy one, a change of something worse than a
bare creature into something like the great Creator and Redeemer.
This is your change, therefore the highest obligation in the
world lies upon you, to praise and glorify God. It is in the day
of your regeneration that God has rolled away the reproach of
your corruption and death, as he said of the Israelites when they
were circumcised in Canaan, Joshua v. 9.
To quicken you to praise,
First, Often reflect upon your former state. Cast your eyes
back upon what you were, that you may be thankful for what you
are. Ah, what was I once? A hater of God, and hated by him; one
bearing the image of Satan, and delighting in it; a noisome heap
of lusts, estranged from God, sold under sin, dead to goodness,
an enemy to the law. What a condition was I in then! Good Lord,
how astonishing was thy mercy, how wonderful thy love, how great
was thy power, to draw me out of this state!
Secondly, Review what you are. What am I now? Here is a new
light in my understanding, new inclinations in my will; I can now
look upon God with pleasure and run his ways with delight. Christ
is my only joy, and Christ is my only gain. My old nature is
wearing away, my new nature is rising higher and clearer; now am
I freed by the blood of Christ from my guilt, and by the Spirit
of Christ from my filth. What shall I render to the Lord for
these inestimable benefits towards me? O blessed God! O dear
Redeemer! O infinite condescending Spirit, to work these things
for me, in me; to clear such a nasty soul, imprint such a
heavenly image, conform me to so excellent a pattern, and by
grace to fit me for a glorious eternity! Let then the love of the
author, the excellency of the work, the misery of your former
state, the happiness of your new, be joined together in your
considerations to enhance your praise; and since you live the
life of God, be sure to live the life of thankfulness.
(2.) As it is your duty to admire and glorify God for making
you new creatures, so it is your duty and advantage too to
preserve in its vigour this new nature in you. When Adam's life
was infused, he was to preserve it by feeding upon the fruits of
paradise, Gen. ii. 29. And you must preserve your spiritual lives
by the fruits of divine institutions placed in the church. The
inner man is to be strengthened; Paul prays to this purpose for
the Ephesians, Eph. iii. 16, 'that he would grant you to be
strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man,' which is
not, as some understand it, a strengthening of reason, mind, and
understanding, The Scripture by heart understands the mind, will,
and judgment, but the apostle joins this inner man so with the
heart (ver. 17, 'That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith'),
that he does manifestly put a difference between this inner man
and the heart, making one the seat, the other the root in it. The
apostle wishes them not a strength of the soul, but a strength of
the new man and image of Christ in the soul. The devil is a
mighty enemy to it; he has lost a servant: he will leave no stone
unturned to recover him; his servant will be his judge; he will
therefore endeavour to overthrow him. Go to God, therefore, for
new supplies in the case of Satan's assaults; desire him to put a
vigour into your grace, water the seeds, and blow up the divine
spark. Our Saviour desired assisting and strengthening grace for
Peter, when he foresaw the devil's preparations to worry him,
Luke xxii. 31, 32. So should we for ourselves, and Christ will
not be backward to second us in it; yea, he will prevent us, and
send in an auxiliary force over and above the standing habit
which makes up the new creature. We need the gales of heaven to
blow us forward, the concourse of God to his gracious creature,
as well as his common concourse to his natural. Is it not the
highest reason to engage all in the defence, and strengthening
that which is the delight of God, the happiness of the soul, and
the envy of the devil? What is worth our care, if this be thought
worthy of our neglect? Sloth in preserving and strengthening
argues a lesser value of a thing. Would you lose beauty for
deformity, health for sickness? Would you lose the pleasures of
heaven for the anguish of hell? Preserve this image then from
being defaced, and look that Satan draw no more black lines in
your hearts. 'Skin for skin, and all a man has will he give for
his life;' eat his own flesh to preserve his life as long as he
can. Oh then, if I may so say, soul for soul, and all that you
have, you should give and employ for maintaining this spiritual
life, which is as much above a natural life as the sun above a
dunghill. Blow it up every day, dress the lamps as the priests in
the temple. It is for want of this strengthening it, that we have
so little liveliness in duty. It is for want of this excitation
that we walk so often in darkness. What have we else to do but
this? Preservation and strengthening of life is the chief design
of men in the world. Is not a divine life of more worth? Let not
then the cares of our bodies surpass those for our souls, and our
fondness to natural life exceed our affection to spiritual life.
We know but in part, we see but as in a glass darkly. The
inclinations of our hearts to righteousness are not in their full
strength.
(3.) Grow up to a taller stature. There must be a daily
putting off the old man, and a putting on the new, a renewing the
inward man day by day, 2 Cor. iv. 16. And though at the first
regeneration there is the forming all the essential parts of
grace, yet afterwards there is a daily augmentation (the
Galatians were both knowing God, and known of him, Gal. iv. 9,
yet of these did the apostle travail, till Christ was formed
again, ver. 19), till the design of Christ be fully complied
with, and the soul grown up to the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ, by the participation of his nature. As
providence is a continued creation, so growth is a continued
regeneration. As a man grows in reason by new improvements, so
ought a Christian in grace, by new additions. Things are not
ripened at once. The spirits in raw and immature bodies are
depressed by gross and earthy mixtures with them, till they are
encouraged by the sun and showers, and thereby able to digest the
crude parts, and arrive at perfection.
[1.] This must be: Job xvii. 9, 'The righteous shall hold on
his way, and he that has clean hands shall be stronger and
stronger.' The new nature can no more stand at a stay, than a
living tree can, till it come up to the measures of its nature.
It is the nature of seed to propagate itself, and spread its
virtue into branches and fruit. It will be aspiring to that
perfection which nature has allotted to it. If you do not grow,
it is a sign there is no life in you. It is but a common gift, or
a common grace, at best; the counterfeit, not the reality of the
new creature. Living natures do thrive; pieces of art stand at a
stay. He is no member of Christ, but as a wooden leg or arm; not
knit by any vital band, but some extrinsic ligaments; not fed
with the increases of God, because he does not grow. To content
ourselves with a low degree of grace, makes us unworthy of the
benefit of regeneration, and below those that pretend to a
likeness to God.
[2.] It must be uniform. As it is one habit which is infused,
so it equally thrives in all the parts of it. An unequal growth
is the effect of a disease, not of nature. As nature causes a
proportion of parts in the make, so likewise a proportion of
parts in the growth. It is not a growth in faith, and a decay in
love; or a growth in love, and a decay in faith. To pretend to
the one without the other, is to have an head without an heart, a
life without blood or spirits. A natural man may grow in some
moral ornaments, as a dead man in hair and nails; but a spiritual
vitality shows itself in an equal increase of all the members in
the new creature. And it is best discerned by the thriving of
those graces which are most contrary to your natural disposition
which cannot so well be discerned in those which have some
foundations in moral natures, as humility has a mild disposition,
which by the addition of grace, advances to an eminent humility.
But a new creature thrives in those graces which were most
contrary to his corrupt nature, now over-mastered. The second
draught of a picture defaces not one line or two of the former,
but the whole frame, to make it more near the original. And thus
a new creature ought to grow as the vine, and revive as the corn,
in all the branches and fruits proper to its nature, Hosea xiv.
7.
[3.] By this we please God and pleasure ourselves. The more
illustrious any work is, the more glory redounds to the artist.
If the beginnings of the new creation be so amiable as to make
heaven itself in love with it, how infinitely will God be pleased
to see it grow to maturity among the whirlwinds and storms of
temptations; every increase, adding new colours and lustre to
this beauty, will renew the jubilee in heaven. Thus will God
pronounce it good at first, and very good the nearer it comes to
perfection, as he did in the creation of the world. By this
growth you will have a greater capacity for heaven; for if the
first new creation capacitates a man for glory, the higher it
springs, the more beautiful the divine nature grows, the nearer
it is to glory and the fitter to be planted in an eternal
paradise, the more right to heaven will appear to yourselves.
(4.) A fourth exhortation. Behave yourselves in your ordinary
walk, as new creatures of another rank from the world. It is the
inference the apostle makes from the new state wherein the
Ephesians were, 'For you were sometimes darkness, but now light
in the Lord: walk as children of the light,' Eph. v. 8. You must
bring forth fruits meet for regeneration, meet for him by whom
you are renewed, as the ground does herbs, meet for him by whom
it is dressed, Heb. vi. 7.
[1.] Adorn the gospel, whereby the divine impression is made
upon you. The apostle argues against lying, and by the same
reason against all sin, from this head, Col. iii. 9, 10. The
gospel adorns the soul by its impression; the soul should adorn
the gospel by its conversation: Titus ii. 10, 'Adorn the doctrine
of God our Saviour in all things.' Let the writing of the law in
the heart appear on the other side of the life, and the divine
light in your hearts shine in your outward man, as a candle
through a lantern, that God may be glorified, Mat. v. 16. Let not
lust and sin, extraneous to the new creature, bear any rule in
any action; let no unworthy action reproach your profession. Do
nothing unbecoming one who is like him that rules the world,
unbecoming that word and gospel which God has magnified above all
his name. Defile not your garments; we can never walk with God
but in white, Rev. iii. 4, in the whiteness of purity, not in the
blackness of sin. Do not any works of Satan with the nature of
God upon you. Indeed, we may be ashamed, that when there is so
much of the image of Christ in the gospel, there should be so
little of the image of Christ in our lives. Walk as those that
are enrolled among the spirits of just men made perfect, as those
who have the honour to be of the assembly of the first-born; live
to God, not to yourselves. The more wicked the generation is you
live in, the more it is your duty to shine, as the lights of
heaven in the darkness of the earth, Philip. ii. 15, and the more
it will be your commendation, as it was the praise of Job, that
he was upright in the land of Uz, among the race of profane Esau,
not among the offspring of praying Jacob: Job i. 1, That man was
perfect, and feared God.'
[2.] Live above affections to a drossy world, if you would
honour your new nature. An earthly spirit cannot be the effect of
a heavenly birth. Let not the rattles of your childhood be your
present pleasure, or the bewitching world have any influence upon
you. The world is no fit boundary for the soul in its natural
capacity, much less in its spiritual; it is too empty for an
immortal soul, much more for a divine nature. Let not anything on
this side God be your darling, but your footstool, to mount you
nearer heaven. Value them only as they enable you to do the
higher duties of religion without distracting cares, and are
subservient to the honouring God in the world. As the new
creature was not redeemed with a vile price, so it is not endued
with so sordid a nature, as to be much in love with these things.
The conquest of this is one of the first fruits of the new birth.
1 John v. 4, 'Whatsoever is born of God, overcomes the world;'
there is a mighty antipathy between the world, and anything that
is the offspring of God. There cannot be so much ignorance of the
things of another world, as to prize so vile a piece, as a house
with walls and furniture, infected with a sinful leprosy. Let the
inward contempt of the blandishments of it grow up in you;
distract not yourselves with cares for it, but trust in God's
promise, and leave things to the conduct of his wise providence.
It is inconsistent with a new nature to lie at the bottom of this
great sea, sucking up weeds and sand, and never peep its head
above water, towards heaven.
[3.] Be much in the thoughts and views of the divine original
of your nature. Shall the new nature seldom look up to that place
whence it descended, or cast its eye upon that beautiful hand
that framed it? Surely the new creature cannot be so unnatural.
Employ your souls in exercises of an unbounded love to God, a
settled delight in him, a high esteem of the righteousness of his
nature, and an habitual walking with him; let the esteem of him,
and vilifying yourselves, be your daily employment. The looking
upon him will transform you more into his image; by this
spiritual converse you will partake of a new brightness, and
clearer lineaments. Every view will leave a greater perfection
upon his image in you, by a reflection of a glory, 2 Cor. iii.
18: By this your hearts will be more suitable to those regions of
blessedness to which the divine image is hastening. It will make
you sweat out some corruption every day, and advance you some
steps toward the state of bliss.
[4.] Fix your aims on a state of perfection. You are to walk,
not to stand still. Never rest till all that righteousness which
of right belongs to that divine nature in you, be conferred upon
you: breathe after a more close conjunction with the original.
Keep up in a due sprightliness your detestations of sin, which
you had when you were first enlivened, with what a holy
indignation you flung away your lusts, with a Get you hence,
and, What have I to do any more with idols? Set an edge
upon this hatred every day, sharpen your indignation more and
more. Preserve in your souls those affections which did rise up
in you, when the irresistible charms of divine love did first
allure you, when you first cast your eyes upon this new likeness
and image of God; quicken them daily, and 'press forward towards
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ.'
[5.] Let your affection be carried to everything which
partakes of the same image. There is in all creatures a kindness
to those of their own nature; the most ravenous do not prey upon
their own species; all men, descending from Adam, having the same
nature, have some kindness to those of their own kind and all
descending from Christ have the same nature, the same affections
and instincts. It is in love and holiness wherein God does
decipher himself in the soul, be would not be drawn in any other
attributes in the heart of man; and thus in the Scripture he
publishes himself in the abstract as holiness and love,
delighting to be imitated by his creature in those two
perfections, 'God is love, and he that dwells in God dwells in
love,' 1 John iv. 16. Love is, therefore, the nature of the new
creature, and love to the same objects whereon God's love is
pitched, first himself, then his image in his creature. So the
love of God and that of a new creature go hand in hand together;
first, the affections of the new nature stream out to God as the
prime and original beauty, then to all new creatures, as they
partake more or less of this divine image. This universal charity
to God, grace, and good men, is the inseparable property of the
new creature, the highest perfection of it, and the beginning of
a state of glory. Love all those that partake of this divine
nature.
[6.] Endeavour to propagate your new nature to others. It is
the property of goodness to be diffusive of itself; and God, the
highest goodness, is the most communicative. The divine nature
should imitate him in this. No nature but delights to propagate
itself. The new nature ought not to be sluggish in it; since the
great change lies in the end, since the glory of God is set up as
its main intendment, it will oblige it to propagate holiness and
righteousness, whereby God is most glorified; for thereby the
number is increased to represent him on earth and praise him in
heaven. No sooner was Paul renewed, but he endeavours to bring
all the world into the same frame. The apostate angels, being
revolted from God, labour to sink all the world into the same
disposition. Fire communicates by a touch its own nature to all
matter that comes near it, and turns the hardest metals into its
own likeness. So ought that holy fire in a new creature to labour
to convert everything into its own flames. This is a peculiar
mark set upon the evangelical times, and the special fruit of a
gospel impression: Isa. ii. 3, 'Many people shall say, Come se,
and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the
God of Jacob.' It should be your endeavour that all about you may
be the better for you. Strive to affect your children and
servants with a sense of the corruption of nature derived from
Adam, and the necessity of being implanted in the new head of the
world, and partaking of another nature from him. Thus to be a
fellow-worker with God is the most absolute work of grace, as to
beget in its own likeness is the most perfect work of nature.
And to persuade you to walk and act as new creatures,
consider,
First, The excellency of your birth. It is a birth of heaven,
a resemblance to God, do nothing below it or unworthy of it. Is
it fit for you to lie among the pots and smut yourselves? The
consideration of the relation you bear to God should inspire you
with heroic resolutions for his glory. You are the only persons
that keep up God's honour in the world, and his final anger from
it. Whenever you are tempted, reflect upon yourselves, as
Nehemiah: 'Should such a man as I' do this? Neh. vi. 1l. Or as
Joseph to his mistress, 'Behold, my master has committed all that
he has to my hand;' behold, God has put his divine nature in my
heart, and 'shall I do this wickedness?' Consider in every action
what that God you call Father by regenerating grace, that Christ
who is the great exemplar and copy of the image in you, would do
in such cases and circumstances. How unworthy is it for a living
man to do dead works! As your life springs from the highest
principle, let it be employed for the highest ends. Was ever any
prince ashamed of his honour? And shall any new creature be
ashamed of the particular badge of heaven upon it; of that
righteousness which is the true nobility of his nature? Holiness
is the beauty of an intellectual and rational creature; it must
then be your highest honour to live conformably to the dignity of
your nature.
Secondly, It was the intendment of God you should walk in a
nobler manner than the rest of the world. Did God infuse into
Adam a soul of a higher nature than that of beasts, to enable him
to live only the life of beasts? God intended by the infusion of
this new principle, that you should live above the sphere of
humanity and the rate of man. How does the apostle chide the
Christians because they did not advance above the life of mere
man; and therefore gives them a title chiefly belonging to the
unregenerate world: 1 Cor. iii. 3, 'Are you not carnal. and walk
as men?' Our Saviour expects a more worthy carriage from his
children than what barely nature can teach them. He would have
them as God, and imitators of him, Mat. v. 44-47,
and do something peculiar to this new state, which cannot be
done by any unregenerate man in the world. Your holiness is not
to be of the common level with the morality of the world, but
such as may set forth the 'praise of God,' I Peter ii. 9; they
are a 'chosen generation,' therefore should have choice
conversations; a 'royal priesthood,' therefore princes'
deportments; a 'holy nation and peculiar people,' therefore
should have holy and peculiar behaviours. They should thus be
public evangelists, to set forth "edzangeilete", the
graciousness and righteousness of God. There is also the highest
obligation, because he has called them out of darkness into his
marvellous light. God intended that their conversations should be
such as should amaze the world into a love of holiness, and
admiration of that light which gives them such excellent
directions, and that nature which enables them to so exact a
walk. God's temples were not intended to be made dunghills.
Thirdly, Not to walk as new creatures is a dishonour to God.
You that do not walk answerable to your high calling do more
highly dishonour him than all other persons. You are quite
contrary to his image, and represent God to the world as they
would have him, not what he is in his own nature; for by a
careless walk the world will judge God to be like you, or you
very unlike to God. Is God holy, and you impure; God merciful,
and you revengeful; God a God of peace, and you fomenters of
malice and contention? To pretend to his image with such
qualities is to disparage his nature, and rather degrade God to a
likeness to the flesh than to mount up to a true resemblance of
him: Ps. l. 21, 'Thou thought I was altogether such a one as
thyself' It is a disgrace to a noble father to have a swinish,
clownish, ill-bred person pretend to be his son. But how much is
the contrary a glory to Christ, as delicious fruit and choice
flowers credit the beams of the sun! What a mighty pleasure is it
to God to behold a suitable walk of his new creatures! He loves
them, and 'his countenance does behold the upright,' Ps. xi. 7.
How much must he, who is holiness itself, take complacency in the
holiness of it. If he loves it while in a low degree, no question
but he loves it more in a higher exaltation. How does the Holy
Ghost repeat Enoch's walking with God twice in Gen. v. 22, 24, to
witness his pleasure in it?
Fourthly, Not to walk suitable to your new creation is a
mighty disadvantage to yourselves. Though a new creature does not
totally lose his grace if a temptation deflower his purity, yet
his grace suffers an impair, and perhaps he may never recover the
same degree of grace and comfort he had before. It is a question
whether David ever had his sails filled with such strong gales of
the Spirit after his fall as he had before. The marks of a
disease will hang about us after the disease is cured, and the
same stock of health may never be restored again. If you do let
your hearts run out at any time to any sinful pleasure, though it
may not raze out the image, yet it will make you more unfit for
those views of God which can only maintain it. When you come
before him, after such a departure, how will your hearts recoil
upon you? With what pleasure can you look upon him whom you have
so abused in his image in your souls, and in his image in his
law? Besides, every unworthy walk detracts somewhat from the
weight of that crown you might otherwise expect to be reserved in
heaven for you, and makes it of a greater alloy. But if you keep
close to the law in the word, and the law in your hearts, what
communications will you have from God? What inward torches and
feelings of him? How hastily will he run to meet you half way,
and kiss you with the kisses of his mouth? 'Thou meets him that
rejoices and works righteousness,' Isa. lxiv 5. How intimately
will he wind himself into the secret corners of your hearts, as
John xiv. 23, 'and make his abode with you;' and like fire in
every part of iron, fill every part of the new man with a glowing
and divine heat?
Fifthly, Such an exact walk will mightily stop the current of
sin. It may justly be feared, the sins of many have taken too
much heart from the unsuitable carriages of professors. But a
walk according to the rule of the new creation might inflame
others to godliness, at least stifle some corrupt motions,
suspend some inclinations to sin, and for a time bind up the
devil in them. This is the greatest charity to the world; by
other benefits we advantage particular persons, by a holy example
all that behold us. It strikes an awful reverence into the hearts
of men, as being a ray of God; what the gospel enjoins are things
comely, and of good report, many of them lovely and illustrious,
even in a carnal eye, therefore such expressions of a gospel
impression would engender admirations of it, cast a lustre upon
the truth of God; men will look upon such works with reverence,
and 'glorify God in the day of their visitation' or conversion,
as Calvin understands it. To be a holy people is to be 'sought
out,' they are both joined, Isa. lxii. 12. Many by seeing the
holiness of the church in gospel times shall be induced to give
up their names to the Lord; it will tend more to the regeneration
of others than a thousand sermons; it will raise the reputation
of Christianity, and cause them to believe it to be of a divine
extract; it would stir men up to a holy emulation to be like
them. And beholding the law of God transcribed in the life, it
would convincingly answer the cavils of the world, and
demonstrate the commands they count grievous to be in themselves
practicable. But whither is this gospel ornament we have been
speaking of fled? Where is it to be found? How few walk as new
creatures, 'as becomes the gospel,' however they profess it, and
pretend a zeal for it!
Exhortation 2. To those who lie still buried in the ruins of
the old Adam, who carry the image of beasts in their lives, or of
devils in their hearts, or both, such I would advise earnestly to
seek this new creature state. Let not your hearts be besotted to
a neglect of it, and stupefied into endless torments, which will,
as surely as you live, be the dreadful issue, if this be not
attained. To be so long under the gospel, and retain the
obstinacy of an old nature to God, is a high aggravation. Talk
not of sparing the old man; it is your enemy, wound it to death,
use the utmost severity towards it; put it off, leave not a rag,
if possible, behind; send it away, as Abraham did Hagar, and
without so much as a bottle of water, to despoil it of any hopes
of return. But, alas, how do you cherish and hug this enemy! How
do you value it, as if it were a part of yourselves; as if you
could not live without poison, or be happy without misery! How do
you bid the new man stand far from you, as if it were a real
torment to be in the arms of Christ, and the new creation your
disease, not your felicity! Though you were the most unblameable
in your lives, free from any pretence of an accusation there,
what were you without this change, but devils in the garb of
angels of light, poison in fair cabinets, and the natures of
serpents in the bodies of men? What is become of your souls? Are
they so immersed in flesh, that nothing of spirit can make
impressions upon them? Have men quite forsworn the attaining any
other excellency than what mere nature bestowed upon them? What
deformity do you find in God, that you slight his image, which
should be imprinted on you? What frightful thoughts have you of
the Spirit that solicits you? How come your souls so senseless of
their real happiness? Oh what a happy thing were it, if this day
Christ were formed in all our hearts; that though we are nasty
dunghills, worse than the stable wherein our Saviour was born in
the flesh, we might become the sanctuary of our Lord and his
Spirit; it is then the angels would renew their song at the birth
of Christ in the heart as well as that in the world, 'Glory to
God in the highest,' peace and eternal good will to such a soul.
If you have any strugglings in your hearts, any convictions upon
your consciences, and make not a further progress, these will be
so far from being your advantage, that they will add an emphasis
to your damnation.
Let me use some motives to press you.
(1.) Shall not the loathsomeness and misery of your present
state startle you? It is a nature that makes you 'the children of
wrath,' Eph. ii. 3. Were your old natures acceptable to God, what
need any change? But the requiring this change demonstrates the
old nature to be abhorred by God. This nature is the devil's
filth, the serpent's poison, a deformed leprosy; it is the pain,
anguish, torment, rack of every man that dies in it; it smells
rank of hell. Is not another nature then desirable? When you
commit some grievous sin, to which you are not accustomed, are
you not dejected? If you not think worse of yourselves for it?
And are you not pleased when you can escape it? If the
reformation of one sin be a desirable thing, how much more the
reformation of the whole nature! For if a drop of that filth
bubbling up in the life be so loathsome, what loathsomeness is
there in the heart, where the fountain springs! What gall of
bitterness must be in the root, when a little of the fruit is so
bitter to your taste! Corruption is the dishonour of your
natures, the poison of your souls, the cause of all your
unhappiness. It is this that banished you from paradise,
ravishing away your pleasures, subjected you to vanity, the wrath
of God, the hatred of angels, and tyranny of devils; it is this
that has deformed your souls. Despoil yourselves of this cursed
old man, give yourselves no rest till you have conquered it;
never say, it is incorporated in your entrails and marrow. Where
the question is about your everlasting happiness, let no excuse
prevail.
(2.) Shall not the excellency of another state allure you? It
is the excellency of any piece of art to come nearest its
original; that star is most glorious that does most partake of
the sun's light and power. The very light of nature tells us the
state wherein we are is not our perfection, something the soul
flutters at beyond this, though it naturally understands not what
it is. Is it not, then, the happiness of the soul to be reduced
to its true centre, to be reinstated in an unspotted nature, to
return to a due respect to those ends for which it was made, to
have the understanding conversant about the loveliest object, the
will inclined to the most amiable goodness, and the affections
twining about it, and growing up with it? Can it be anything else
but the highest excellency, to live the life of God; to have the
image of God wrought upon you, and your souls conformed to his
holiness? Can that be an imperfection, which makes you like an
infinite righteousness? It was the highest perfection of man to
be made according to the image of God, wherein God, as in a
glass, might see a resemblance of himself. Is it not then a
desirable thing to have it drawn again with more lively and
lasting colours, after sin and Satan have so basely defaced it?
All other things are not the perfection of man's nature; for
whatsoever else there is, is possessed by beasts or devils; the
pleasures of sense, by beasts; the endowments of knowledge, by
devils; but the divine nature by neither. This therefore, which
neither devils can be blessed with, nor beasts capable of, is
only the perfection of the soul, more excellent than the soul
itself, since that which perfects is more excellent than that
which is perfected by it. Original corruption destroys your
health, sullies your purity, enslaves your liberty. Regeneration
restores your health, expels your filthiness, and knocks off your
fetters. Let the excellency of this better state prevail with
you.
(3.) Will the honour of the thing allure you? Where shall you
meet with so honourable a relation? It is more honour to be a new
creature in rags than a carnal prince in purple, though the
greatest in the world, for you will then be settled heirs of all
the promises. Is it not, then, more glorious to partake of the
nature of that God, who created and commands the world, than by
the force of the old nature to be slaves to sordid lusts, which
are both a drudgery and a disease? As a spirit is more excellent
than the body, so a spiritual being and frame is more honourable
than a fleshly. There is a greater relation between God and a new
creature than between natural fathers and sons. The sons of men
have but a little particle of the vile matter and flesh of their
fathers, but a renewed man has the whole divine Spirit in him;
and by virtue of this, all things will, one time or other rise up
and call you blessed; you will be more allied to Jesus Christ, by
the inward formation of him in your hearts, than the blessed
virgin by the conception of Christ in her womb, Luke xi. 27. She
was more happy by partaking of Christ in her heart, than by
conferring a flesh on Christ from her body. What an honourable
thing is it to be moulded into the divine likeness! Can you be
more glorious, unless you were gods?
(4.) Will pleasure charm you? View it here. Pleasure must
necessarily follow this new state, as light the sun; there is no
state without a pleasure pertaining to it. Pleasures of sense
belong to a life of sense; intellectual pleasures to a life of
reason; divine pleasures to a divine nature. 'All the ways of
wisdom are ways of pleasantness,' Prov. iii. 17. An infinite
perfection is attended with an infinite happiness; the more
lineaments, then, you have of the divine perfection, the more
tastes you will have of the divine happiness. God has an infinite
pleasure in his own perfections; it is his felicity to enjoy
himself, to view himself. Pleasure then must naturally result
from this image drawn in the soul, and as naturally, I conceive,
according to the degrees of it, as the pleasure God has in his
own holiness and love. The pleasure of heaven is the perfection
of holiness; therefore there is a pleasure also attending the
draught of it here; an imperfect pleasure from the imperfect form
of it, as a perfect pleasure from the completing of it in glory.
What want can there be of pleasure, if you come into this state?
Will you not be conversant about the highest object, and that
with your choicest faculties? Can this be without some
communications of the pleasure of God, as well as his nature? You
will find a pleasure in the very strugglings to get into this
state, much more in it.
(5.) Do you profess yourselves enemies to the devil? Why then
will you gratify him by continuing in an old nature? He keeps a
jubilee when he can draw men into great sins, and bind them under
them, his main industry is to make men like himself, and continue
them in that likeness. The whole world, that are not of God, lie
wrapped up in the devil's image: I John v. 19, 'The whole world
lies in wickedness, or 'in the wicked one,' "En toi
poneroi"; more consonant to the former verses. Satan and
natural men lie nugging together, though the latter dream not of
it. His intent in assaulting man in paradise was to destroy the
righteousness of his nature; his design now is to hinder the
restoration of it, by keeping men off from the means, making them
have false thoughts of the unpleasantness of it, as though it
were a state injurious to man's tranquillity, by suppressing
convictions, which are the first portals to the courts of
blessedness. Oh, gratify not the devil; fly from his image, that
you may fly from his misery.
(6.) Why will you cross your own sentiments, when sober reason
in you may have leave to speak? What do you think was the end for
which you came into the world? Was it to serve the devil or God?
Whose image is it most rational for you to bear? Are there not
innate desires in man to be as God? Adam desired it unlawfully;
the same spirit runs through the veins of his posterity. God has
shown you a way in his word whereby you may lawfully desire it,
and successfully accomplish it. Do not all creatures, one way or
other, instruct you in it? Do they not all run back to their
fountain; rivers into the sea, that they may have a new formation
in it; beams retracted to the sun; and why not the soul to God?
Do they not all declare the glory of God? And shall man stand
alone? And what way is there for him to declare God's glory, but
by the reformation of his nature? You once had this desirable
nature in your first head, and lost it; you may have the
re-possession in the second head, and for ever preserve it. You
cannot deny your obligation to have it, therefore you cannot deny
your duty to seek it. You know your souls received their original
from him; you likewise know that there is an obligation to return
to him. As the spirit naturally returns to God who gave it, so it
cannot be happy in that return, unless it first morally return to
God, to be formed like him.
(7.) Nothing else can advantage you if you want this
new-creature state. You can no more enjoy happiness by Christ
without it, than Adam did in paradise, in the presence of God,
with the nakedness of his nature. His being in paradise, the
richer part of the whole lower creation, could neither heal him
nor content him, after the loss of the purity of his nature. In
that happy place his conscience racked him. There he fled from
his Creator, which in his innocent nature he never attempted to
do; and all the pleasures of that place could not restore him to
God's favour or his own peace, without the promise of a seed, and
by that seed the restoration in part of his former image.
(8.) Lastly, take this for your encouragement, it is
attainable by the meanest person, Col. iii. 11. In the new
creation 'there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is
all and in all;' that is, there is no distinction of any. The
eloquence of the Greek, or the rudeness of the barbarian; the
uncircumcision of the Gentile, or the circumcision of the Jew;
the baseness of the slave, or the liberty of the freeman, does
neither advantage nor disadvantage them in this work of the new
creation; and he names Scythians, as being the rudest and most
unpolished among all the known Gentiles. No natural endowments
advantage us; no worldly indigences hinder us. The soul of the
meanest is as capable of the new creation as the soul of the
highest. There is nothing required to the putting on the new man,
which is not attainable by the one as well as the other; yea,
sooner by those of the meanest endowments, as wanting that fuel
for their pride, which is the chief hindrance to a gospel
impression. God values nothing but his own image; neither is he
any more taken with the glittering parts and wisdom of men than
our Saviour with the glory of the temple, which his ignorant
disciples did so much admire.
Quest. But what means must be used to obtain this excellent
privilege?
Aim. It is indeed the work of God, yet means may be used. He
that observes precepts of morality shall gain moral habits; and
by practising acts of temperance become temperate. So he that
follows the rules given in the word for attaining the new
creation, shall have it produced in him; and the more assuredly,
because it is not produced by him but by God, who is more able to
create new hearts in us than the unregenerate man is to work a
moral reformation.
For means:
1. Be deeply sensible of original corruption. View yourselves
in the glass of Adam; reflect upon the fall, and the dreadful
consequences of it; take an exact account of the enmity of thy
nature, as the word represents it. We must acquaint ourselves
with our sin and misery, and have self-emptying thoughts, before
we can seek after a new creature. Man is apt to think his nature
good enough; and this makes him the more miserable and wretched,
and causes him to think there needs no change, Rev. iii. 17.
2. Be deeply humbled before God. Lay yourselves low before
him, and abhor yourselves in dust and ashes. Complain of your
corrupt nature, melt before God, dissolve into tears. When you
are weary and heavy laden, sensible of it by contrition, Christ
will give rest by regeneration. The heart must be melted before
it be made new. Pride must be humbled; we must be vile in our own
eyes, as well as vile in our own nature. 'The Lord is nigh to
them that are of a broken heart,' Psalm xxxiv. 18.
3. Often meditate of the excellency of this state, as it is
represented in the word. Men hear and forget; they leave behind
them what they have heard; they hide it not in their hearts;
therefore does not the word profit them. Think often of the
honour of being a new creature, as well as the necessity of being
a new creature; if you have any thoughts arising of resting upon
your knowledge, or morality, or good meaning, say to your soul,
as the apostle in another case, O my soul, 'covet earnestly the
best gifts, yet show I unto thee a more excellent way.' If any
imagination arise which flatters you with hopes of being in
Christ without an inward change, regard it as an angel from the
bottomless pit, sent from the great impostor to seduce you from
your happiness.
4. Fixedly resolve not to be at rest till you procure it at
the hands of God. Perhaps you may have had some resolutions
before, and some diversion has chilled those purposes; weaver not
with uncertain velleities between inclination and aversion.
Content not yourselves with sluggish wishes, and yawning desires,
but put heart and hand to the work. Set vigorously to it, and
those sons of Anak, those seeming terrifying difficulties, will
fly before you. Where does the Scripture tell you, that God will
neglect his laborious creature, and stand by without assisting
him in his serious endeavours? No, no; God will not be wanting in
his power, nor the Spirit in his operations, if we firmly purpose
and strongly pursue. 'God is near to all that call upon him in
truth,' Psalm cxlv. 18; that is, to all that call upon him with a
true purpose and desire for his mercy: he is near by his merciful
presence, not by his essential presence only. Fool not away your
vows in vain mirth, nor drown your resolutions in sensual
pleasures. Say as David in another case, 'I have sworn, and will
perform it,' that I will in good earnest endeavour that I may
become a new creature, Psalm cxix. 106.
5. Pray. Regeneration is against the inclinations of old
nature; intermit not therefore to call earnestly for help from
heaven; it is best attained upon the knee. God is the foundation
of all vitality; the life of grace is no less the effect of his
breath than the soul of Adam. Go to Christ, in whom, as in a
steward, is treasured up a fullness of grace, to dispense to him
that seeks it. Beg earnestly of the Spirit, who is the officer
appointed, the great limner to draw this image in us. Why can you
not go to Christ as well as the leper, and lie sobbing before
him, 'Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean,' thou canst
change my nature? Do it constantly, do it fervently, and take
notice with what inspirations you will be filled. But do you
solicit him for this mercy at all? Has God one breath from thee
in a whole week to this purpose? Have you, since you heard it,
pressed from the necessity of it, made your case known to God?
Has there been one groan, one sigh for it? What a stupid creature
is man! Time will not always last; God will be solicited for it,
and it is fit he should. An old nature is like an old devil, it
cannot be cast out without fasting and prayer. The great changes
of the soul are chiefly wrought in prayer and the word: our very
looking up to God and upon God in humble prayer makes a gradual
transformation in our souls: we never are in the mount with him,
but our souls (as Moses his face) look quite of another hue and
colour. By frequent converse with friends, we grow more into an
imitation of the excellent qualities we perceive in them.
Converse with God in frequent prayer and meditation, and you will
grow more and more into a holy likeness to him.
6. Attend diligently upon the word. To pray to God to renew
you, and slight the word which he has appointed as an instrument
to effect it, is to dishonour God; for while you pray to him to
be a father to beget you, you contemn him as a governor, by
neglecting the means he has appointed for such ends. As the devil
formed himself in the soul by man's listening to and sucking in
his temptation, so Christ forms himself in the soul, by our
sucking in the milk of the word, as the disposition of the nurse
is by the milk conveyed to the infant. It is wrought by the
gospel, 1 Cor. iv. 15, 'for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you
through the gospel.' Not by the word of God at large, which
consists of law as well as gospel. So the regenerations of old
were wrought, not by the law, but by that of gospel mixed in that
administration. By this means you may get a spiritual knowledge,
and discard that ignorance which is the foundation of an
alienation from the life of God, Eph. iv. 18, 'alienated from the
life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the
blindness of their hearts.' Study the promises, and plead them
before the Lord, for 'by these you are made partakers of the
divine nature,' 2 Peter i. 4. Resist not any divine impressions,
by a sluggishness and a listlessness. Be not in love with your
spiritual death, nor cherish the bondage to sin in your will,
when God makes motions to enliven and enlarge you. Welcome the
breathings of the Spirit. Open your souls, as some flowers do for
the sun; drink in the drops of heaven, as the earth does the
rain; and when the Spirit quickens you by its influences, quicken
the Spirit by your earnest supplications, Cant. iv. 16; make much
of him, persuade his stay. Breathe, O blessed Spirit, upon this
wilderness. Never leave till it be changed into a fruitful
garden, both pleasant to, and fruitful for, my blessed Creator
and gracious Redeemer.
End of A Discourse of the Nature of Regeneration.