though by reason of these he commit not the sin he would, yet he lives in it, because he loves it, because he would commit it. And generally, that metaphorical kind of life, by which man is said to live in any thing, hath its principal seat in the affection: that is the immediate link of the union in such a life; and the untying and death consists chiefly in the disengagement of the heart, the breaking off the affection from it. Ye that love the Lord, says the psalmist, hate evil. An unrenewed mind may have some temporary dislikes even of its beloved sins in cold blood, but it returns to like them within a while. A man may not only have times of cessation from his wonted way of sinning, but, by reason of the society wherein he is, and the withdrawing of occasions to sin, and divers other causes, his very desire after it may seem to himself to be abated, and yet he may be not dead to sin, but only asleep to it; and therefore, when a temptation backed with opportunity and other inducing circumstances, comes and jogs him, he awakes, and arises, and follows it. A man may for a while distaste some meat which he loves, possibly upon a surfeit, but he quickly regains his liking of it. Every quarrel with sin, every fit of dislike to it, is not that hatred which is implied in dying to sin. Again; some men's education, and custom, and moral principles, may free them from the grossest kind of sins, yea, a man's temper may be averse from them; but they are alive to their own kind of sins, such as possibly are not so deformed in the common account, covetousness, or pride, or hardness of heart, and either a hatred or a disdain of the ways of holiness which are too strict for them and exceed their size. Besides for the good of human society and for the interest of his own church and people, God restrains many natural men from the height of wickedness, and gives them moral virtues. There be very many and very common sins, which more refined natures, it may be, are scarcely tempted to; but as in their diet, and apparel, and other things in their natural life, they have the same kind of being with other persons, though they are more neat and elegant, so in this living to sin, they live the same life with other ungodly men, though with a little more delicacy. They consider not, that the devils are not in themselves subject to nor capable of many of those sins that are accounted grossest amongst men, and yet are greater rebels and enemies to God than men are. But to be dead to sin goes deeper and extends further than all this. It involves a most inward alienation of heart from sin, and most universal from all sin, an antipathy to the most beloved sin. Not only doth the believer forbear sin, but he hates it-I hate vain thoughts; and not only doth he hate some sins, but all-I hate every false way. A stroke at the heart does it, which is the most certain and quickest death of any wound. For in this dying to sin, the whole man of necessity dies to it; the mind dies to the device and study of sin, that vein of invention becomes dead; the hand dies to the acting of it; the ear to the delightful hearing of things profane and sinful; the tongue to the world's dialect of oaths, and rotten speaking, and calumny, and evil-speaking, which is the commonest effect of the tongue's life in sin, the very natural heat of sin exerts and vents itself most that way; the eye becomes dead to that intemperate look that Solomon speaks of, when he cautions us against eyeing the wine when it is red, and well colored in the cup; and to that unchaste look which kindles fire in the heart, to which Job blindfolded his eyes, by an express compact with them; I have made a covenant with mine eyes, Job xxxi, 1. The eye of a godly man is not fixed on the false sparkling of the world's pomp, honor, and wealth: it is dead to them, being quite dazzled with a greater beauty. The grass looks fine in the morning, when it is set with those liquid pearls, the drops of dew that shine upon it; but if you can look but a little while on the body of the sun, and then look down again, the eye is as it were dead; it sees not that faint shining on the earth that it thought so gay before and as the eye is blinded and dies to it, so, within a few hours, that gaiety quite vanishes and dies itself. Men think it strange that the godly are not fond of their diet, that their appetite is not stirred with desire of their delights and dainties; they know not that such as be Christians indeed are dead to these things, and the best dishes that are set before a dead man, give him not a stomach. But why may not you be a little more sociable to follow the fashion of the world, and take a share with your neighbours, may some say, without so precisely examining every thing? It is true, says the Christian, that the time was when I advised as little with conscience as others, but sought myself and pleaded myself, as they do, and looked no further; but that was when I was alive to those ways; but now truly I am dead to them; and can you look for activity and conversation from a dead man? The pleasures of sin wherein I lived, are still the same, but I am not the same.—Are you such a fool, says the natural man, as to bear affronts and say nothing? Can you suffer to be so abused by such and such a wrong? Indeed, says the Christian again, I could once have resented an injury as you or another would, and had somewhat of what you call high-heartedness when I was alive after your fashion; but now that humor is not only something cooled, but it is killed in me; and a greater Spirit, I think, than my own, hath taught me another lesson, hath made me both deaf and dumb that way. They that seek my hurt, says David, speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long. What doth he in this case? But I, as a deaf man, heard not, and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth—and why? For in thee, O Lord, do I hope, Psal. xxxviii, 12. 15. This is the true character of a Christian; he is dead to sin. But, alas! where is this Christian to be found? And yet thus is every one who truly partakes of Christ; he is dead to sin really. And this death to sin is not a swooning fit, that one may recover out of again; the believer is buried with Christ. But this is an unpleasant subject to talk thus of death and burial. The very name of death, in the softest sense it can have, makes a sour, melancholy discourse. It is so indeed if you take it alone, if there were not, for the life that is lost, a far better one immediately following; but so it is here; living unto righteousness succeeds dying to sin. And the strongest inducement to this death, is the true notion and contemplation of this life unto which it transfers us. It is most necessary to represent this, for a natural man hath as great an aversion every whit from this figurative death, this dying to sin, as from natural death; and there is the more necessity of persuading him to this, because his consent is necessary to it. No man dies this death to sin unwillingly, although no man is naturally willing to it. Much of this death consists in a man's consenting thus to die; and this is not only a lawful, but a laudable, yea, a necessary self-murder. Now no sinner would be content to die to sin, if that were all ; but if it be passing to a more excellent life, then he gaineth, and it were a folly not to seek this death. It was a strange power of Plato's discourse on the soul's immortality, that moved a young man, upon reading it, to throw himself into the sea, that he might leap through it to that immortality: but truly, were this life of God, this life to righteousness, and the excellency and delight of it known, it would gain many minds to this death whereby we step into it. But there is a necessity of a new being as the principle of new action and motion. There is a new breath of life from heaven breathed on the soul. Then lives the soul indeed, when it is one with God, and sees light in his light, hath a spiritual knowledge of him, and therefore sovereignly loves him and delights in his will. And this is indeed to live unto righteousness, which, in a comprehensive sense takes in all the frame of a Christian life, and all the duties of it towards God and towards men. By this new nature, the very natural motion of the soul is obedience to God; and walking in the paths of righteousness, it can no more live in the habit and ways of sin, than a man can live under water. Sin is not the Christian's element; it is as much too gross for his renewed soul, as the water is for his body; he may fall into it, but he cannot breathe in it; cannot take delight, and conti-nue to live in it. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; that is the walk which his soul refreshes itself in; he loves it entirely and loves it most, where it most crosses the remainders of corruption that are within him. He bends the strength of his soul to please God; aims wholly at that; it takes up his thoughts early and late. He hath no other purpose in his being and living, than only to honor his Lord. This is to live to righteousness. He doth not make a byework of it, a study for his spare hours; no, it is his main business, his all. In his law doth he meditate day and night. This life, like the natural one, is seated in the heart, and from thence diffuses itself to the whole man: he loves righteousness, and receiveth the truth in the love of it. A natural man may do many things which, as to their shell and outside, are righteous; but he lives not to righteousness, because his heart is not possessed and ruled by the love of it. But this life makes the godly man delight to walk uprightly and to speak of righteousness. His language and ways carry the resemblance of his heart. I know it is easiest to act that part of religion which is in the tongue, but the Christian nevertheless ought not to be spiritually dumb. Because some birds are taught to speak, men do not for that reason leave off to speak. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. And his feet strive to keep pace with his tongue, which gives evidence of its unfeignedness. None of his steps shall slide, or, he shall not stagger in his steps. But that which is betwixt these is the common spring of both; The law of God is in his heart, and from thence are the issues of his life. That Jaw in his heart is the principle of this living to righteous ness. 2. The second thing here is, that it was the design of the sufferings and death of Christ, to produce in us this death and life; He bare sin and died for it, that we might die to it. Out of some conviction of the consequence of sin, many have a confused desire to have sin pardoned, who -look no further: they think not on the importance and necessity of sanctification, the nature whereof is expressed -by this dying to sin and living to righteousness. But here we see, that sanctification is necessary as inseparably connected with justification, not only as its companion, but as its end, which, in some sort, raises it above the other. We see that it was the thing which God eyed and intend ed, in taking away the guiltiness of sin, that we might be renewed and sanctified. If we compare them in point of aime, looking backward, holiness was always necessary un |