by Spirit is meant not merely the graces of God and his gifts, enabling us to do holy things; but the Spirit of adoption, through Christ, by which we are made sons of God, capable of a new state, intitled to another mode of duration, &c. : this subject fully dilated on. This very mystery itself is the greatest possible encouragement to us in our duty, and by way of thankfulness. He that gives great things, ought to have great acknowlegements. If the fire be quenched, the fire of God's Spirit, God will kindle another in his anger that shall never be quenched : but if we entertain God's Spirit with our own purities, employ it diligently, and serve it willingly, then we shall be turned into spiritual beings. If this be a new principle, and be given us in order to the actions of a holy life, we must take care that we receive not the Spirit of God in vain, and remember that it is a new life. Every man hath within him either the Spirit of God or the spirit of the devil: this topic enlarged on and illustrated. Here is a greater argument for a holy life than Moses had when addressing the children of Israel; Behold I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing : this said Moses : but by this Scripture is set before us the good Spirit and the bad, God and the devil: we have to choose unto whose nature we will be likened, and into whose inheritance we will be adopted: this topic enlarged on. The purport of this discourse stated to be, that since the Spirit of God is a new nature, we are thereby taught and enabled to serve God, by a constant course of holy living, without the frequent returns and interventions of such actions as men call sins of infirmity. Whosoever hath the Spirit of God, lives the life of grace; the Spirit of God rules in him, and is strong, and allows not such sins which we think unavoidable: this topic enlarged on, and the question more particularly considered. 1. No great sin is a sin of infirmity, or excusable on that score though indeed every sin may be said to be a sin of infirmity, in some sense or other. When a man is in the state of spiritual sickness or death, he is in a state of infirmity, a prisoner, a slave, weak in his judgment, impotent in his passions, &c. but he that is thus in infirmity cannot be excused; for it is the aggravation of the state of his sin: such a one is the servant of sin, a slave to the devil, and heir to corruption; that is, he hath not the Spirit of Christ in him; for where the Son is, there is liberty: this topic enlarged on. 2. Sins of infirmity, as they are small in their instance, so they put on their degree of excusableness only according to the weakness or infirmity of a man's understanding: this enlarged on. 3. The violence or strength of temptation is not sufficient to excuse an action, if it leaves the understanding still able to judge; because a temptation cannot have any proper strength, but from ourselves, &c. 4. No habitual sin, which is repented of and committed again, is excusable under a pretence of infirmity; but that sin is certainly noted, and certainly condemned, and therefore returns, not because of the weakness of nature, but of grace: the principle of this is an evil spirit, an habitual aversion to God, a dominion of sin: this topic enlarged on. Concluding remarks. SERMON I. WHITSUNDAY.-OF THE SPIRIT OF GRACE. ROMANS, CHAP. VIII.-VERSES 9, 10. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin; but the Spirit is life, because of righteous ness. PART I. THIS day, in which the Church commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, was the first beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the first day that the religion was, professed: now the Apostles first opened their commission, and read it to all the people. The Lord gave his Spirit,' (or, the Lord gave his Word) and great was the company of the preachers.' For so I make bold to render that prophecy of David. Christ was the Word' of God, Verbum æternum; but the Spirit was the Word of God, Verbum patefactum: Christ was the Word manifested in the flesh; the Spirit was the Word manifested to flesh, and set in dominion over, and in hostility against the flesh. The gospel and the Spirit are the same thing; not in substance; but the manifestation of the Spirit is the gospel of Jesus Christ:' and because he was this day manifested, the gospel was this day first preached, and it became a law to us, called the law of the Spirit of life; that is, a law taught us by the Spirit, leading * Rom. viii. 2. us to life eternal. But the gospel is called the Spirit,' 1. Because it contains in it such glorious mysteries, which were revealed by the immediate inspirations of the Spirit, not only in the matter itself, but also in the manner and powers to apprehend them. For what power of human understanding could have found out the incarnation of a God; that two natures, a finite and an infinite, could have been concentred into one hypostasis, or person; that a virgin should be a mother; that dead men should live again; that the κόνις ὀστέων λυθέντων, 'the ashes of dissolved bones' should become bright as the sun, blessed as the angels, swift in motion as thought, clear as the purest noon; that God should so love us, as to be willing to be reconciled to us, and yet that himself must die that he might pardon us; that God's most holy Son should give us his body to eat, and his blood to crown our chalices, and his Spirit to sanctify our souls, to turn our bodies into temperance, our souls into minds, our minds into spirit, our spirit into glory; that he, who can give us all things, who is Lord of men and angels, and King of all the creatures, should pray to God for us without intermission; that he, who reigns over all the world, should, at the day of judgment, 'give up the kingdom to God the Father,' and yet, after this resignation, himself and we with him should for ever reign the more gloriously; that we should be justified by faith in Christ, and that charity should be a part of faith, and that both should work as acts of duty, and as acts of relation; that God should crown the imperfect endeavors of his saints with glory, and that a human act should be rewarded with an eternal inheritance; that the wicked, for the transient pleasure of a few minutes, should be tormented with an absolute eternity of pains; that the waters of baptism, when they are hallowed by the Spirit, shall purge the soul from sin; and that the spirit of man should be nourished with the consecrated and mysterious elements, and that any such nourishment should bring a man up to heaven; and, after all this, that all Christian people, all that will be saved, must be partakers of the divine nature, of the nature, the infinite nature, of God, and must dwell in Christ, and Christ must dwell in them, and they must be in the Spirit, and the Spirit must be for ever in them? These are articles of so mysterious a philosophy, that we could have inferred them from no premises, discoursed them on the stock of no natural or scientifical principles; nothing but God and God's Spirit could have taught them to us: and therefore the gospel is Spiritus patefactus,' the manifestation of the Spirit,' ad ædificationem,* as the Apostle calls it,' for edification,' and building us up to be a holy temple to the Lord. 2. But when we had been taught all these mysterious articles, we could not, by any human power, have understood them, unless the Spirit of God had given us a new light, and created in us a new capacity, and made us to be a new creature, of another definition. Animalis homo, vxiòs, (that is, as St. Jude expounds the word, veuμa un exwr) the animal, or the natural man, the man that hath not the Spirit, cannot discern the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned ;'† that is, not to be understood but by the light proceeding from the Sun of Righteousness, and by that eye whose bird is the holy Dove, whose candle is the gospel. Scio incapacem te sacramenti, impie; Haurire nostrum: nil diurnum nox capit.‡ He that shall discourse Euclid's elements to a swine, or preach (as venerable Bede's story reports of him) to a rock, or talk metaphysics to a boar, will as much prevail on his assembly, as St. Peter and St. Paul could do on uncircumcised hearts and ears, on the indisposed Greeks and prejudicate Jews. An ox will relish the tender flesh of kids with as much gust and appetite, as an unspiritual and unsanctified man will do the discourses of angels or of an Apostle, if he should come to preach the secrets of the gospel. And we find it true by a sad experience. How many times doth God speak to us by his servants the prophets, by his Son, by his Apostles, by sermons, by spiritual books, by thousands of homilies, and arts of counsel and insinuation; and we sit as unconcerned as the pillars of a church, and hear the sermons as the Athenians did a story, or as we read a gazette? And if ever it come to pass, that we tremble, as Felix did, when we hear a sad story of + 1 Cor. ii. 14 + Prudent. * 1 Cor. xii. 7. |