SERMON VII.

THE BELIEVER A NEW CREATURE.

2 COR. v. 17.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

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I AM rejoicing in hope, my brethren, that while I am describing the character of a new creature, many of you, by the grace of God, will become such. prospect which indeed, emboldens me to use such plainness of speech with you. For is it not, ought it not to be my heart's desire towards you, you especially, that ye may be saved? But what! will you, that while I see many among you, who are walking after the course of this world, and not after Christ, whose end must be destruction unless ye be plucked out of the fire, I even let you contentedly alone? You would not, I am sure you would not, that I should deal thus unfaithfully by you. Ye are not yet so much your own enemies. Ye desire to be happy; and, believe me, it is all the harm I wish you. But ye cannot be happy, if ye abide in your sins. These, I would needs you should leave, and you care not to part with. Here is all the quarrel

between us.

You like not to be told, plainly, "unless ye repent, ye shall perish;" and I, while I live, have nothing else to tell you. Say, we are sometimes troublesome to you, and raise some uneasy reflections upon your minds, yet I hope you may be the quieter for it upon your dying beds, and then, I am sure, you will thank us. I shall esteem it a blessed thing, if I may any how help you to such an end. But this cannot be, unless you be in Christ: and none are in Christ, but those who are a new creature; and it is plain many of you are not, from the carnal, worldly lives ye lead. And who those are among you, I will endeavour with all freedom to

show you.

You have seen, in what a peculiar, humble, and spiritual manner, the understanding of the new creature judges and apprehends all things. The most important matters wherewith man is conversant, were taken under consideration, and illustrated also in a way of opposition to the judgment of the formal and the careless.

2. I shall introduce what we have to say concerning the will of the new creature, which is the second power or faculty of the soul, with this observation, that such due apprehensions in the understanding do naturally influence the choice of the will, and, consequently, prove themselves to be right and just, by the power they have to engage the heart. less our apprehensions do draw the will after them, all our supposedly renewed way of judging, can be but speculative and mistaken. To instance in one of them:—If our apprehensions of heaven be humble

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and spiritual, that state of glory will have such a preference in our choice to the best things here, that we shall find ourselves, comparatively, indifferent about them. Pleasure will have lost much of its alluring power over us; the relish for interest and honour will be abated. Rather, we shall fear these present competitors for our souls against heaven, be aware of them, and care not how little we deal with them, knowing that we have a lasting treasure and a sure inheritance before us in the eternal world. Now, such a rejecting the things of life in comparison with the determination we have for the other world, must effectually evince an understanding, in this particular, renewed. And should we find a like effect wrought upon our choice by the other instances of a renewed understanding above produced, we must remain confirmed, that our apprehensions were those of the new creature, and that our judgment was enlightened by the Spirit and word of God; that we, "who were some time darkness, are now light in the Lord." Whereas, doth not such gracious influence manifest itself in the choice of our wills? We must needs have been mistaken, if we had conceived our apprehensions were right, and our judgment in spiritual things just. Here then is so fair a foundation laid, on which to build what the determination of the will, under the guidance of an enenlightened understanding, must be, that it shall hardly be possible to miss of seeing it: for which reason I shall not stop you particularly to observe, what choice doth really follow in the will of the new creature, from every one of the former apprehensions.

The result of the whole of them, or the choice of that person's will, whose mind is renewed, shall rather serve to show the new creature, in this second faculty of the soul. Now, inasmuch as choice supposes the offer made to us of different things, the new creature is peculiar to his determination, choosing that which all others refuse, and refusing that which they choose. Of the two different portions, God and the world, he prefers the former, and rejects the latter; of the two differing courses, obedience to God and pleasing ourselves, he refuses his own pleasure, and determines for God's: while the careless and the formal choose directly the other way; the world hath with them the preference to God, and the pleasing themselves to the obeying God. In which two points doth principally lie the choice of the renewed will.

1. The new creature chooses God for his portion, and not the world.

This the careless sinner doth not, his choice being just the other way. He doth not indeed determinately say, "I will have nothing to do with God;" but he is so much better pleased with the things about him, that he cannot find what possible happiness it could be, to have God for a portion. He cannot understand what fellowship with God All that he hears about it, appears to him an unintelligible jargon, and he is apt to count it no better than mere enthusiasm. Indeed he would not that God, whose perfections he knows are infinite, should be his enemy; he would not be without the blessings of his goodness, nor would he fall under

means.

But he wants, that

the vengeance of his power. God should stand by at a distance, and suffer him unmolested to take his fill of the joys of life.

This

is the measure he would hold with God. He would enjoy the world, and withal that both God should not see it with displeasure, and should also uphold 'him in it. He hath not the least inclination to God as a portion; but so obstinately is he bent the other way, that he will have the world, though he knows it is upon the forfeiture of God's favour, and at the hazard of his wrath. He will have the enjoyments of life at any rate, and his continual conduct is but a scene which evidences how cheap he holds God, in comparison with his ease and interest. Every action bespeaks a denial of God, and a refusal of him in his heart, seeing he assiduously lays that out upon any thing, and next to nothing, rather than God. The formal person hath indeed a better appearHe looks like one concerning whom you might be ready to conceive better hope; imagining, from his exactness and decency, that his whole heart was indeed with God. Nay, and no doubt himself imagines no less. But let him be brought to the scrutiny, and he no more shall be found to have given his heart to God, than his thoughtless neighbour. Say thou, who art fair to look upon, dost thou know what it is to have made a full, free, and deliberate choice of God for thy portion, thy present and eternal portion, so as thou canst say from the bottom of thy heart," Here shall be my rest for ever; I have none in heaven but thee, nor is there any upon earth that I desire beside thee?" Art thou so well dis

ance.