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ship which is enmity with God. It strengthens those affections which are already too strong: the desire of the eye, and the pride of life. All such diversions as these are the noblest instruments the devil has, to fill the mind with earthly, sensual, and devilish passions; to make you of a light and trifling spirit: in a word, to make you a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God. Are you, who desire to go to it, advanced in years, and, therefore, less subject to such temptations? Take heed that your hearts deceive you not. But be it as you suppose, hath it not done you hurt enough, if it has hindered any of you from partaking of the blessed sacrament? If by preventing either that serious examination, or that private devotion which you wisely use before you come to it, it has occasioned your neglecting to come to this holy table; and so not only disobeying a plain command of God, but likewise losing all those inestimable advantages which are there reached out to them who obey him. Are you a rich man that desire to go? Then you have probably given something towards it. That is, you have thrown away that seed, which might have borne fruit to eternity! You have thrown away a part of that talent, which, had you rightly improved, you might have been an everlasting gainer by it! You have utterly lost, what God himself, had you lent it to him, would richly have repaid you: for you have given to those who neither need, nor perhaps thank you for it; which, if you had bestowed upon your helpless brethren, your blessed Redeemer would have esteemed it as done unto himself, and would have treated you accordingly at the great day. Are you a poor man, who have gone or given any thing to this diversion? Then it has done you most hurt of all. It has made you throw away for an idle sport. abroad, what your wife and family wanted at home. If so, you have denied the faith, and are far worse than an infidel. But suppose it cost you no money, was it not hurt enough, if it cost you any of your time? What had you to do to run after trifling diversions, when you ought to have been employed in honest labour? Surely if the rich think, that God hath given them more than they want, (though it will be well if they do not one day think otherwise,) yet you have no temptation to think so. Sufficient for your day is the labour thereof.

I have but a few words to add,-and those I speak not to them who are unwilling to hear, whose affections are set upon this world, and therefore their eyes are blinded by it; but I speak to them in whom is an understanding heart, and a discerning spirit;-who, if they have formerly erred, are now resolved, by the grace of God, to return no more to the error of their ways; but for the time to come, not only to avoid, but also earnestly to oppose whatsoever is contrary to the will of God. To these I say, Are you young? So much the rather scorn all employments that are useless, but much more if they are sinful. For you are they, whose wisdom and glory it is "to remember your Creator in the days of your youth." Are you elder? So much the rather bestow all the time which you can spare from the necessary business of this life, in preparing yourself, and those about you, for their entrance into a better life for your day is far spent, and your night is at hand Redeem, therefore, the little time you have left. Are you rich? Then you have particular reason to labour that you may be rich in good works. For you are they to whom much is given, not to throw away, but to use well and wisely; and of you much shall be required. Are you poor? Vol. II.

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Then you have particular reason to work with your hands, that you may provide for your own household. Nor when you have done this have you done all; for then you are to labour that you may give to him that needeth not to him that needeth diversions, but to him that needeth the necessaries of nature; that needeth clothes to cover him, food to support his life, or a house where to lay his head.

What remains, but that we labour, one and all, young and old, rich and poor, to wipe off the past scandal from our town and people. First, by opposing to the utmost, for the time to come, by word and deed, among our friends, and all we have to do with, this unhappy diversion, which has such terribly hurtful consequences. By doing all we possibly can to hinder its coming among us any more. And, secondly, by showing all the mercy we can to our afflicted neighbours, according as God hath prospered us, and by this timely relief of them, laying up for ourselves a good foundation against the day of necessity. Thirdly, by our constant attendance on God's public service, and blessed sacrament, and our watchful, charitable, and pious life. Thus giving the noblest proof before men and angels, that although even after we were troubled, we went wrong, yet upon more deeply considering how God hath blown his trumpet among us, we were afraid. We then shall say, with an awakened heart, Behold, the Lord our God hath showed us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. Now, therefore, while time is, let us put away far from us every accursed thing; "for it we hear this voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die."

SERMON CXXXVIII.-On the Holy Spirit.

Preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, on Whitsunday, 1736.

"Now the Lord is that Spirit," 2 Cor. iii, 17.

THE apostle had been showing, how the gospel ministry was supe rior to that of the law: the time being now come when types and sha dows should be laid aside, and we should be invited to our duty by the manly and ingenuous motives of a clear and full revelation, open and free on God's part, and not at all disguised by his ambassadors. But what he chiefly insists upon, is not the manner, but the subject of their ministry: "Who hath made us able ministers," saith he, "of the New Testament not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." Here lies the great difference between the two dispensations: that the law was indeed spiritual in its demands requiring a life consecrated to God in the observance of many rules. but not conveying spiritual assistance, its effect was only to kill and mortify man; by giving him to understand, that he must needs be in a state of great depravity, since he found it so difficult to obey God; and that, as particular deaths were by that institution inflicted for particular sins, so death, in general, was but the consequence of his universal sinfulness. But the ministration of the New Testament was that of a "Spirit which giveth life:" a Spirit not only promised, but actually conferred; which should both enable Christians now to live unto God,

and fulfil precepts even more spiritual than the former, and restore them hereafter to perfect life, after the ruins of sin and death. The incarnation, preaching, and death of Jesus Christ, were designed to represent, proclaim, and purchase for us this gift of the Spirit; and, therefore, says the apostle, "The Lord is that Spirit," or the Spirit.

This description of Christ was a proper inducement to Jews to believe on him; and it is still a necessary instruction to Christians, to regulate their expectations from him. But I think this age has made it particularly necessary to be well assured, what Christ is to us? When that question is so differently resolved by the pious but weak accounts of some pretenders to faith on one hand, and by the clearer but not perfectly Christian accounts of some pretenders to reason on the other : while some derive from him a "righteousness of God," but in a sense somewhat improper and figurative; and others, no more than a charter of pardon, and a system of morality: while some so interpret the gospel, as to place the holiness they are to be saved by, in something divine, but exterior to themselves; and others, so as to place it in things really within themselves, but not more than human. Now the proper cure of what indistinctness there is one way, and what infidelity in the other, seems to be contained in the doctrine of my text: "The Lord is that Spirit."

In treating of which words, I will consiner,

I. The nature of our fall in Adam: by which it will appear, that if "the Lord" were not "that Spirit," he could not be said to save or redeem us from our fallen condition.

II. I will consider the person of Jesus Christ: by which it will appear, that "the Lord is that Spirit." And,

III. I will inquire into the nature and operations of the Holy Spirit, as bestowed upon Christians.

I. I am to consider the nature of our fall in Adam.

Our first parents did enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit; for they were created in the image and likeness of God, which was no other than his Spirit. By that he communicates himself to his creatures, and by that alone they can bear any likeness to him. It is, indeed, his life in them; and so properly divine, that upon this ground, angels and regenerate men are called his children.

But when man would not be guided by the Holy Spirit, it left him. When he would be wise in his own way, and in his own strength, and did not depend in simplicity upon his heavenly Father, the seed of a superior life was recalled from him. For he was no longer fit to be formed into a heavenly condition, when he had so unworthy a longing for, or rather dependance upon, an earthly fruit, which he knew God would not bless to him; no longer fit to receive supernatural succours, when he could not be content with his happy state towards God, without an over curious examination into it.

Then he found himself forsaken of God, and left to the poverty weakness, and misery, of his own proper nature. He was now a mere animal, like unto other creatures made of flesh and blood, but only possessed of a larger understanding; by means of which he should either be led into greater absurdities than they could be guilty of, or else be inade sensible of his lost happiness, and put into the right course for regaining it. That is, if he continued a careless apostate, he should

love and admire the goods of this world, the adequate happiness only of animals; and, to recommend them and dissemble their defects, add all the ornament to them that his superior wit could invent. Or else (which is indeed more above brutes, but no nearer the perfection of man as a partaker of God, than the other) he should frame a new world to himself in theory; sometimes by warm imaginations, and sometimes by cool reasonings, endeavour to aggrandize his condition and defend his practice, or at least divert himself from feeling his own meanness and disorder.

If, on the other hand, he should be willing to find out the miscries of his fall, his understanding might furnish him with reasons for constant mourning, for despising and denying himself; might point out the sad effects of turning away from God and losing his Spirit, in the shame and anguish of a nature at variance with itself; thirsting after immortality, and yet subject to death; approving righteousness, and yet taking pleasure in things inconsistent with it; feeling an immense want of something to perfect and satisfy all its faculties, and yet neither able to know what that mighty thing is, otherwise than from its present defects, nor how to attain it, otherwise than by going contrary to its present inclinations.

Well might Adam now find himself naked: nothing less than God was departed from him. Till then he had experienced nothing but the goodness and sweetness of God: a heavenly life spread itself through his whole frame, as if he were not made of dust; his mind was filled with angelic wisdom; a direction from above took him by the hand; he walked and thought uprightly, and seemed not to be a child or novice in divine things. But now he had other things to experience; something in his soul, that he did not find, nor need to fear, while he was carried on straight forward by the gentle gale of divine grace; something in his body, that he could not see nor complain of, while that body was covered with glory. He feels there a self displeasure, turbulence, and confusion; such as is common to other spirits who have lost God: he sees here causes of present shame and a future dissolution; and a strong engagement to that grovelling life which is common to animals that never enjoyed the divine nature.

The general character, therefore, of man's present state is death: a death from God, whereby we no longer enjoy any intercourse with him, ́ or happiness in him; we no longer shine with his glory, or act with his powers. It is true, while we have a being, "in him we must live, and move, and have our being :" but this we do now, not in a filial way, but only in a servile one, as all, even the meanest creatures, exist in him. It is one thing to receive from Go an ability to walk and speak, eat and digest, to be supported by his and as a part of this earthly creation, and upon the same terms with it, fo farther trial or vengeance; and another, to receive from him a life which is his own likeness; to have within us something which is not of this creation, and which is nourished by his own immediate word and power.

Yet this is not the whole that is implied in man's sin. For he is not only inclined himself to all the sottishness of appetite, and all the pride of reason, but he is fallen under the tutorage of the evil one, who mightily furthers him in both. The state he was at first placed in, was a state of the most simple subjection to God, and this entitled him to drink of

his Spirit but when he, not content to be actually in paradise, under as full a light of God's countenance as he was capable of, must know good and evil, and be satisfied upon rational grounds whether it was best for him to be as he was, or not; when disdaining to be directed as a child, he must weigh every thing himself, and seek better evidence than the voice of his Maker and the seal of the Spirit in his heart; then he not only obeyed but became like to that eldest son of pride, and was unhappily entitled to frequent visits, or rather a continued influence from him. As life was annexed to his keeping the command, and ac cordingly that Spirit, which alone could form it unto true life, dwelt in his body; so being sentenced to death for his transgression, he was now delivered unto "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil;" whose hostile and unkindly impressions promote death and sin

at once.

This being the state of man, if God should send him a Redeemer, what must that Redeemer do for him? Will it be sufficient for him to be he promulger of a new law, to give us a set of excellent precepts? No: if we could keep them, that alone would not make us happy. A good conscience brings a man the happiness of being consistent with himself, but not that of being raised above himself into God; which every person will find, after all, is the thing he wants. Shall he be the foun tain of an imputed righteousness, and procure the tenderest favour to all his followers? This is also not enough. Though a man should be allowed to be righteous, and be exempt from all punishment, yet if he is as really enslaved to the corruptions of nature, as endued with these privileges of redemption, he can hardly make himself easy; and whatever favour he can receive from God, here or hereafter, without a communication of himself, it is neither the cure of a spirit fallen, nor the happiness of one reconciled. Must not then our Redeemer be, (accord ing to the character which St. John his forerunner gave of him,) one that "baptizeth with the Holy Ghost;" the Fountain and Restorer of that to mankind, whereby they are restored to their first estate, and the enjoyment of God? And this is a presumptive argument that "the Lord is that Spirit."

II. But it will appear more plainly that he is so, from the second thing proposed; which was the consideration of the person of Jesus Christ. He was one to whom "God gave not the Spirit by measure; bat in nim dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bolily; and of his fulness we have all received, and grace for grace." Indeed all the communications of the Godhead, which any creatures could receive, were always from him as the word of God: but all that mankind now in an earthly state were to receive, must be from him by means of that body, at first mortal like unto theirs, and then glorious "in the likeness of God," which he took upon him for their sake.

In the beginning, the heavenly Word,-being a Spirit that issued from the Father, and the Word of his power,-made man an image of immortality, according to the likeness of the Father: but he who had been made in the image of God, afterwards became mortal, when the more powerful Spirit was separated from him. To remedy this, the Word became man, that man, by receiving the adoption, might become a son of God once more; that the light of the Father might rest upon the flesh of our Lord, and come bright from thence unto us; and so

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