to fulfil the lusts of it, Gal. v. 16, 17. the seed of God will keep down the strength of sin, 1 John iii. 9.

3. By a holy jealousy, and godly fear of the falseness and backsliding of our corrupt heart, lest, like Lot's wife, it should look back towards Sodom, and like Israel have a mind hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt, the wonted profits and pleasures of forsaken lusts. A godly heart prizeth the love of God, and the feelings of spiritual comfort from thence arising above all other things, and is afraid to lose them. It hath felt the burnings of sin, the stinging of these fiery serpents, and hath often been forced to befool itself, and to beshrew its own ignorance, and with Ephraim to smite upon the thigh. And the burnt child dreads the fire, and dares not meddle any more with it; considers the heaviness of God's frown, the rigour of his law, the weakness and fickleness of the heart of man, the difficulty of finding Christ out when he hath withdrawn himself, and of recovering light and peace again when the soul hath wilfully brought itself under a cloud; and therefore will not venture to harden itself against God. Thus godly fear keeps men from sin, Job xxxi. 23. Psa. cxix. 120. Prov. xxviii. 14. Ecc. ix. 2. Jer. xxxii. 40. Phil. ii. 12. Psa. iv. 4

4. By a love to Christ, and a sweet recounting of the mercies of God in him. The less a man loves sin, the more he shall love Christ. Now repentance works a hatred of sin, and thereupon a love of Christ, which love is ever operative, and putting forth itself towards holiness of life. As the love of God in Christ towards us worketh forgiveness of sin: so our reciprocal love, wrought by the feeling and comfort of that forgiveness, worketh in us a hatred of sin. A direct love begets a reflect love, as the heat wrought

66

in the earth strikes back a heat into the air again. The woman in the gospel, having much forgiven her, loved much, Luke vii. 47. We love him because he loved us first;" and love will not suffer a man to wrong the things which he loves. What man ever threw away jewels or money when he might have kept them? except when the predominant love of something better made these things comparatively hateful, Luke xiv. 26. What woman could be persuaded to throw away her sucking child from her breast unto wild beasts to devour it? Our love to Christ and his law will not suffer us to cast him off, or to throw his law behind our backs. New obedience is ever joined unto pardon of sin and repentance for it, by the method of God's decrees, by the order and chain of salvation, and ariseth out of the internal character and disposition of a child of God. We are not sons only by adoption, appointed to a new inheritance; but we are sons by regeneration also, partakers of a new nature, designed unto a new life, joined unto a new head, descended from a new Adam, unto whom therefore we are in the power of his resurrection, and in the fellowship of his sufferings to be made conformable, Phil. iii. 10. And the apostle hath many excellent and weighty arguments to enforce this upon us: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory," Col. iii. 1-4. 1. Our fellowship with Christ; 66 we are risen with him:" what he did corporally for us, he doth the same spiritually in us. As a Saviour and Mediator, he died and rose alone; but

as a head and second Adam, he never did any thing, but his mystical body and seed were so taken into the fellowship of it, as to be made conformable unto it. Therefore, if he rose as a Saviour to justify us, we must as members be therein fashioned unto him, and rise spiritually by heavenly-mindedness, and a new life to glorify him. 2. We must have our affections in heaven, because Christ is there. The heart ever turns towards its treasure; where the body is, thither will the eagles resort. 3. He is there in glory at God's right hand, and grace shall move to glory as a piece of earth to the whole. And he is there on our business, making intercession in our behalf, providing a place for us, sending down gifts unto us. And the client cannot but have his heart on his business, when the advocate is actually stirring about it. 4. We are dead with Christ, as to the life of sin. And a dead man takes no thought nor care for the things of that life from whence he is departed. A man naturally dead looks not after food, or raiment, or land, or money, or labour, &c. And a man dead to sin, takes no more care how to provide for it. 5. In Christ we have a new life, therefore we should have new inclinations suitable unto it, and new provisions laid in for it. A natural man feeds on worldly things by sense, a spiritual man feeds on heavenly things by faith and conscience. We can have nothing from the first Adam which is not mortal and mortiferous.* Nothing from the second which is not vital and eternal. Whatever the one gives us shrinks and withers unto death; whatever the other, springs and proceeds unto immortal life. Our life therefore being new, the affections that serve it, and wait upon it, must be new likewise, 6. This life is our own, *Tending to death.

not so any thing in the world besides. I can purchase in the world only to me and mine heirs for ever. But spiritual purchases are to myself for ever. And every man's affections are naturally most fixed upon that which is most his own. 7. It is a hidden life, the best of it is yet unseen, 1 John iii. 2. and though the cabinet which is seen be rich, yet the jewel which is hidden in it is much richer. As there is a sinful curiosity in lust, to look after the hidden things of iniquity, and to hanker after forbidden pleasures; so there is a spiritual curiosity or ambition in grace, to aspire towards hidden treasures, to press forward towards things that are before us, to be clothed upon with our house that is from heaven. As Absalom, being brought from banishment, longed to see the face of his father; so the soul, being delivered out of darkness, never thinks it sees enough of light. When God did most intimately reveal himself unto Moses, Moses did most earnestly beseech him to show him his glory, Exod. xxxiii. 11. 18. The more sweetness we find in the first fruits, in so much of Christ as is revealed to us, the more strong are our affections to the whole harvest, to that abundance of him which is hidden from us. A few clusters of grapes and bunches of figs will inflame the desire of enjoying that Canaan which abounds with them. 8. It is hidden with Christ, so hidden as that we know where it is. Hidden so that the enemy cannot reach it, but not hidden from the faith of the child. 9. It is hidden in God. It is life in the fountain, Psa. xxxvi. 9. and every thing is most perfect in its original and fountain. And this is such a fountain of life as hath in it fulness without satiety, and purity without defilement, and perpetuity without decay, and all-sufficiency without defect. Lastly, it is but hidden, it is not lost,

hidden like seed in the ground; when Christ the Sun of righteousness shall appear, this life of ours in him will spring up, and appear glorious.

Now next let us consider this care of repentance against a man's own more particular and special sins. Asshur shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses," &c. Israel had been guilty of very many provocations, but when they come to covenant with God, and to renew their repentance, their thoughts and cares are most set against their carnal confidence and spiritual adultery. Their most unfeigned detestations, their most serious resolutions were against these their most easily besetting sins. True repentance worketh indeed a general hatred of every false way, Psa. cxix. 128. and suffereth not a man to allow himself in the smallest sin. Yet as the dog in hunting the deer, though he drive the whole herd before him yet fixeth his eye and scent upon some one in particular, which is singled out by the dart of the huntsman; so, though sound conversion works a universal hatred of all sin, because it is sin, (for hatred is ever against the whole kind of a thing,) though every member of the old man be mortified, and every grace of the new man shaped and fashioned in us: yet the severest exercise of that hatred is against the sins whereunto the conscience hath been more enslaved, and by which the name of God hath been most dishonoured. A man that hath many wounds, if there be any of them more deep, dangerous, or nearer any vital part than the other, though he will endeavour to cure them all, yet his chief care will be towards that. the king of Syria gave command to his army to single out the king of Israel in the battle, 1 Kings xxii. 31. so doth repentance lay its batteries most against the highest, and strongest, and most reigning sin of the

As