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fore it. But if wickedness invite the society of devils to it (as we learn by the sad experience of these present times, in many examples of those, that were possessed with malice, revengefulness and lust), so that those cursed fiends do most readily apply themselves to it, and offer their service to feed it and encourage it, because it is their own life and nature, their own kingdom of darkness, which they strive to enlarge and to spread the dominions of; shall we then think, that holiness, which is so nearly allied unto God, hath no good genius at all in the world to attend upon it, to help it and encourage it? Shall not the kingdom of light be as true to its own interest, and as vigilant for the enlarging of itself, as the kingdom of darkness? Holiness is never alone in the world, but God is always with it, and his loving Spirit doth ever associate and join itself to it. He, that sent it into the world, is with it as Christ speaketh of himself; "The Father hath not left me alone, because I do always those things that please him." Holiness is the life of God, which

he cannot but feed and maintain wheresoever it is and as devils are always active to encourage evil, so we cannot imagine, but that the heavenly host of blessed angels above are busily employed in the promoting of that, which they love best, that which is dearest to God, whom they serve, the life and nature of God. "There is joy in heaven at the conversion of one sinner;" heaven takes notice of it; there is a choir of angels, that sweetly sings the epithalamium of a soul divorced from sin and Satan, and espoused unto Christ. What therefore the wise man speaks concerning wisdom, I shall apply to holiness: "Take fast hold

of holiness, let her not go, keep her, for she is thy life: keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life," and of death too. Let nothing be esteemed of greater consequence and concernment to thee than what thou doest and actest, how thou livest. Nothing without us can make us either happy or miserable; nothing can either defile us, or hurt us, but what goeth out from us, what springeth and bubbleth up out of our own hearts. We have dreadful apprehensions of the flames of hell without us; we tremble, and are afraid, when we hear of fire and brimstone; whilst in the mean time we securely nourish within our own hearts a true and living hell,

et cæco carpimur igni :

The dark fire of our lusts consumeth our bowels within, and miserably scorcheth our souls, and we are not troubled at it. We do not perceive how hell steals upon us whilst we live here. And as for heaven, we only gaze abroad, expecting that it should come in to us from without, but never look for the beginnings of it to arise within, in our own hearts.

But lest there should yet haply remain any prejudice against that, which I have all this while heartily commended to you, true holiness, and the keeping of Christ's commandments, as if it were a legal and a servile thing, that would subject us to a state of bondage, I must here needs add a word or two, either for the prevention or removal of it. I do not therefore mean by holiness, the mere performance of outward duties of religion, coldly acted over as a task; nor our habitual prayings, hearings, fastings, multiplied one

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upon another (though these be all good, as subservient to a higher end); but I mean an inward soul and principle of Divine life, that spiriteth all these that enliveneth and quickeneth the dead carcass of all outward performances whatsoever. I do not here urge the "dead law of outward works," which indeed, if it be alone, subjects us to a "state of bondage;" but the inward law of the gospel, the "law of the Spirit of life," than which nothing can be more free and ingenuous: for it doth not act us by principles without us, but is an inward self-moving principle living in our hearts.

The first, though it work us into some outward conformity to God's commandments, and so hath a good effect upon the world; yet we are all this while but like dead instruments of music, that sound sweetly and harmoniously, when they are only struck and played upon from without by the musician's hand, who hath the theory and law of music living within himself.

But the second, the living law of the gospel, the "law of the Spirit of life" within us, is as if the soul of music should incorporate itself with the instrument, and live in the strings, and make them of their own accord, without any touch or impulse from without, dance up and down, and warble out their harmonies.

They, that are acted only by an outward law, are but like neurospasts, or those little puppets, that skip nimbly up and down, and seem to be full of quick and sprightly motion; whereas they are all the while moved artificially by certain wires and strings from without, and not by any principle of motion from themselves within: or

else like clocks and watches, that go pretty regularly for a while, but are moved by weights and plummets, or some other artificial springs, that must be ever now and then wound up, or else they cease.

But they, that are acted by the new law of the gospel, by the "law of the Spirit," they have an inward principle of life in them, that from the centre of itself puts forth itself freely and constantly into all obedience to the will of Christ. This new law of the gospel is a kind of musical soul, informing the dead organs of our hearts, that makes them of their own accord delight to act harmoniously according to the rule of God's word.

The law, that I speak of, is a law of love, which is the most powerful law in the world; and yet it freeth us in a manner from all law without us, because it maketh us become a law unto ourselves. The more it prevaileth in us, the more it eateth up and devoureth all other laws without us; just as Aaron's living rod did swallow up those rods of the magicians, that were made only to counterfeit a little life.

Quis legem det amantibus?
Major lex amor est sibi.

Love is at once a freedom from all law, a state of purest liberty; and yet a law too of the most constraining and indispensible necessity.

The worst law in the world is the "law of sin, which is in our members;" which keeps us in a condition of most absolute slavery, when we are wholly under the tyrannical commands of our lusts: this is a cruel Pharaoh indeed, that sets

his hard task-masters over us, and maketh us wretchedly drudge in mire and clay.

The law of the letter without us sets us in a condition of little more liberty, by restraining us from many outward acts of sin; but yet it doth not disenthral us from the power of sin in our hearts.

But the "law of the spirit of life," the gospel law of love, it puts us into a condition of most pure and perfect liberty; and whosoever really entertains this law, he hath "thrust out Hagar" quite, he hath "cast out the bond-woman and her children;" from henceforth Sarah, the free-woman, shall live for ever with him, and she shall be to him a mother of many children; her seed shall be "as the sand of the sea-shore for number," and "as the stars of heaven." Here is evangelical liberty, here is gospel freedom, when "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death;" when we have a liberty from sin, and not a liberty to sin: for our dear Lord and Master hath told us, that "whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of it."

He that lies under the power and vassalage of his base lusts, and yet talks of gospel freedom, he is but like a poor condemned prisoner, that in his sleep dreams of being set at liberty, and of walking up and down wheresoever he pleaseth, whilst his legs are all the while locked fast in fetters and irons. To please ourselves with a notion of gospel liberty, whilst we have not a gospel principle of holiness within us, to free us from the power of sin, is nothing else but to gild over our bonds and fetters, and to fancy ourselves to be in a golden cage. There is a straituess, slavery, and

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