of the greatest importance, men are apt to be mistaken in the cafe; to think themselves to be fomething, when they are nothing; or at least to think of themselves above what they ought to think. But think a little, how prejudicial a mistake here must be; and that, whether your state be good or bad.

If you are still in a ftate of fin, and alienated from God, you deceive yourselves with vain hopes, which muft fail you. You judge differently of yourselves from what God does and in what muft that iffue at last, but dreadful difappointment, if you fhould come to fee your miftake too late to rectify it? And by this felf-flattery you are prevailed upon to neglect the proper feafon, the prefent one, for rectifying that which is amifs. It is impoflible, that at any time you fhould come to yourselves, and have your ftate made fafe, without beginning here at the knowledge of your fpirits.

On the other hand, if your state should now be good, you are enemies to your own comfort, in neglecting the ftricteft fcrutiny of yourfelves; for that would give you a more fatisfactory view of your fincerity, and featter the doubts, which muft remain till you difcern diftinctly the work of God in your hearts. And you must greatly obftruct an improvement and progress in the divine life, while, for want of a fuller acquaintance with yourfelves, you are infenfible of many wants which ftill need to be fupplicd, and of many infirmities to be out-grown.

I

I will close this difcourfe with the mention of three directions.

1. Be not afraid to know the plague of your own heart; the worst of your cafe, and whatever is amifs in your fpirits. Our Saviour obferves, John iii. 20. that "every one that doeth evil, hateth the light; neither cometh to the light, left his deeds fhould be reproved." To be averse to bring ourselves to the light, is at once a very bad symptom, and of dangerous tendency. It muft either abfolutely fhut us up in a fatal felf-ignorance, or prevent our being impartial in our fearches.

2. Often take a view of yourselves in the glafs of the gofpel. A good and a bad fpirit are very fully and plainly diftinguifhed there. Bring your own tempers to the test by that rule. Do this with the utmoft ferioufnefs, as under the eye of God: and frequently review the matter, left you should have committed a mistake.

3. Accompany all your rational inquiries with earnest prayer to God, that he would fearch and try you, and enable you by the grace of his holy Spirit to difcern the true ftate of your own cafe. The apostle says in another case, 1 Cor. ii. 11." What man knoweth the things of a man, fave the spirit of a man which is in him? even fo the things of God knoweth no man, but the fpirit of God." So I may fay, in this cafc; no other man is confcious of what paffes within our own fpirits, but ourfelves; and therefore the review of that muft be our own province: the spirit of God, on the other hand, who best knew the mind of VOL. I.

D

God,

God, has drawn the lineaments of that fpirit and temper which is truly pleafing to God, in fcripture. But in comparing these two, we need his gracious agency in concurrence with the actings of our own fpirits. That will produce the fulleft fatisfaction, when he "witneffeth with our fpirits, '[ouppapruger] that we are the children of God." Rom. viii. 16.

SERMON II.

The Christian Spirit a new Spirit.

EPHES. iv. 23.

And be renewed in the Spirit of your Mind.

THE

HE Apoftle had exhorted these Ephefians, in ver. 17. "not to walk as other Gentiles walked," who had not embraced Christianity. He defcribes their fad cafe to the end of ver. 19. and expreffes his better hope of thofe to whom he wrote, who had known and profeffed the chriftian doctrine, ver. 20, 21. "But ye have not fo learned Chrift; if fo be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jefus." Your temper and character is become quite of another kind from that of other Gentiles, and from that which was once your own in the days of your ignorance, if you have been well acquainted with the defign of Christianity

Chriftianity, and have heartily embraced it with that view.

Now what is the great design and scope of Christianity, which all, who hear it, fhould learn; and which all, who have been taught by Chrift, as the truth is in Jefus, do learn? An account of that follows in the three next verfes It is, to put off, concerning the former converfation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lufts," ver. 22. It is to abandon the old corrupt practices, to which you were accustomed by the governing influence of depraved nature, while you purfued its irregular inclinations and lufts and to be renewed in the fpirit of your mind ;" and thereupon to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holinefs," ver. 23, 24.

:

That which I propofe now to confider, and to begin with, as the first general view of the christian fpirit, is, That it is a new temper of mind. And the text leads us to obferve,

That those who have learned Chrift to good purpofe, are renewed in the fpirit of their minds.

The right difpofition of the foul is reprefented both in the old and new teftament by this character. The Pfalmift prays, that "a right fpirit might be renewed within him," Pfal. li. 10. So God expreffes his promifes

of

grace by the prophet Ezekiel, ch. xi. 19. "I will put a new fpirit within you." And ch. xxxvi. 26. "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Divine calls to repentance are expreffed in the

fame

"Caft away

fame language, Ezek. xviii. 31. from you all your tranfgreffions, whereby ye have tranfgreffed, and make you a new heart, and a new fpirit." In the fame manner the gofpel itself fpeaks, 2 Cor. v. 17. "If any

ye transformed Do not imi

man be in Chrift, he is a new creature: old things are paft away; behold, all things are become new." We are faid to be delivered from the law, that we might ferve in newness of the fpirit," Rom. vii. 6. So the Apostle's exhortation runs, Rom. xii. 2. "Be not conformed to this world; but be by the renewing of the mind." tate the finful customs of the world, but fee there be a change in the temper of your mind, as a foundation for better practice. So in this context we read of the old, and the new man. This is therefore a frequent and familiar representation which the Scripture gives of the good difpofition of the foul, that it is new.

I need not tell you, that this does not fignify a change of our faculties themselves, as if in a ftrict and literal fenfe our fouls were to be made anew: But that which is intended, is the introducing of new and holy qualities, in oppofition to the finful diforders which once prevailed in them by the biafs of corrupt nature and evil custom, to the old leaven, with which they were once deeply tinctured. The main feat of thefe diforders is in the foul or mind; and therefore there the cure and change is to begin, and there the greatest alteration is made; though wherever this inward change is genuine, it will defcend in its influence and effects to the outward conversation. Conversion