the name of the Spirit. The great Almighty Spirit of God, in the creation of the world, did move upon the waters; and in the continual sustentation, direction and government of the creatures, it hath its agency; Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created, and thou renewest the face of the earth, Psal. civ. 30. If we should conceive no such thing as spirit to influ→ ence this same material world, what a heap would it soon be? As a house would in time become, only much sooner, which should never have any inhabitant, or any body to reside there; for the influence of an inhabitant is not so much to keep the house up, as this Almighty Spirit is to keep up the frame of nature, and continue things in the course and order, wherein they naturally were. Upon this account, many of the more refined philosophers have made it very much their business, to speak debasingly and diminishingly of man, and to represent him as a despicable thing; that is the mere body or matter separate from spirit; which plainly carries this signification with it, that spirit was, in their account, a most excellent sort and kind of being. This expression, that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit, holds forth this production to be such, that is, of the noblest kind. When the prophet would speak diminishingly and with contempt concerning the Egyptian power, he says, their horses are flesh and not spirit, Isa. 31. 3. They have no spirit in them; an expression merely designed to set forth how little they were to be feared or regarded, and how contemptible they were.

(6.) It is a soul rectifying, or restoring thing. It being a thing of a very high excellence, must needs not only render the spirit of a man into which it is put, a great deal more excellent than it was; but it was withal designed to restore it to its pristine excellence, and make it what it was, or what it ought to be. It is by this work or production in the spirits of men, that souls are said to be restored; Thou restorest my soul, Psal. 23. 3. So far as this work hath taken place in me he hath brought me back and made me to return, where I was and ought to have been. It is therefore the very rectitude of the soul, or setting it right again: Create a right spirit within me, Psal. li. 10.

(7.) It is a divine thing, as we must needs understand it. For it is the birth and production of the divine Spirit, and is immediately from God; and it is his very image; and the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. It is something which is as it were copied out of God himself, and whereof he is at once both the immediate efficient and exemplar. And upon this account it is called, by the apostle, the divine nature. 2 Pet. 1. 4.

creatures.

but this

(8.) It is a thing by the very nature of it, instincted into a dependance upon God; or immediately dependant upon him as to its continual subsistence. There is a natural dependance which is common to all creatures, and essential to them as All have a kind of instinct drawn from the continual sustaining them, from the great Author of all: is a creature which depends knowingly and of choice; and so as to own and avow itself to be a depending creature : I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, Gal. 2. 20. And therefore there are continual breathings of desire after God: As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. Psal. xlii. 1.

(9.) It is a creature which not only depends on God voluntarily and of choice, but aims at him, and tends to him as an end, and carries the heart and soul of a man to do so. It is by this same inwrought Spirit that the soul is principally rectified and set right towards God, so as to design him only, and to do all for him. Hence this becomes the sense of such a one; "I desire to be nothing, Lord, but for thee. My whole life and being are things of no value with me, but for thy sake. I care not whether I live or die; whether I am in the body or out of the body, is all one to me; for to me to live is Christ; and my great desire is, that Christ may be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. Phil. 1. 20, 21. And I through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." Gal. 2. 19. As soon as ever he becomes, in the former sense, dead; delivered from the law, and rescued from under the dominion and curse of it, he lives unto God. His life becomes a devoted thing; and the tenour and stream of all his thoughts and designs, and endeavours is altogether and wholly to him.

(10.) It is an active powerful thing: or a creature made for action and contest. It is a Spirit of power. 2 Tim. 1. 7. That which is born of God overcomes the world, 1 John. v. 4. This son of God, this product and begotten Spirit, is born of God. What? Shall not this son of God which is begotten of him, overcome? Nay, in whom it obtains, they are more than conquerors: they conquer over and over; they conquer abundantly and with the greatest advantage imaginable. It is to them who overcome, that the crown and throne are designed at last. They shall have a new name; and the heavenly hidden manna, and sit down with Christ upon his throne, as he overcame, and is set down upon the Father's throne, Rev. 3. 21.

(11.) It is an immortal thing, and which never dies. Spirit is a thing which essentially carries life in it, and therefore can never cease to live. It is an incorruptible seed, and

the seed of God put into the soul. He who is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remains in him, 1 John 3. 6. His seed, of whom he is born. Can that be a mortal thing ? It is observable therefore, how the apostle argues concerning those, whom he supposes to have been the subjects of this mighty and blessed operation of the Spirit of God. If by the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live'; for as many as are led by the Spirit, are the Sons of God, Rom. 8. 14. He takes it for granted they are the begotten sons of God, by the Spirit. And it is as if he had said; What do you think the sons of God shall not live? hath he begotten any mortal sons, or such as can corrupt and die? So those words are commonly, and very probably, understood to signify, Rev. 20. 6. Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection; over him the second death shall have no power. I will not assert that to be the sense, but it is not improbable to be so. They who are regenerate, and have got this Spirit of life into them; they have got that in them which will spring up into life everlasting having their fruit unto holiness their end is eternal life. As our Saviour speaks, John 4. 14. and the apostle Paul, Rom. 6. 22.

:

You have by these hints some account, what kind of thing this same begotten Spirit is, when it is said, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The time doth not allow at present, to go farther in the explicatory part: I would hint this one thing by way of use before we depart, that we take heed of diminishing, or thinking slightly and meanly of this mighty distinguishing work of the Spirit of God. They are awful words, if duly considered, That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. There is nothing to be found in all this world, worthy the name of spirit, but that which is born immediately of the Spirit, and is its offspring. Our Saviour speaks in the other part of the verse manifestly in a way of contempt; That which is born of the flesh is flesh: that is but flesh, which is born of flesh! That is, men considered in their mere naturals only, or in this present corrupted state of nature. We must understand the whole being of man, to be the corrupted subject; and so to be altogether comprehended, under the name of flesh; his very soul and natural spirit itself in opposition to Spirit, in the other part of the verse, as the antithesis plainly shews. Let a man be of never so refined intellectuals, or great accomplishments; let him be never so much a man, and humanity cultivated to the highest pitch and degree; without this same additional superadded Spirit; he is nothing else but a lump of flesh. If this thought did sink into the hearts of men, what despicable and self loathing thoughts would they have of them

selves, while as yet they can find nothing of this begotten increated Spirit in them; while that Spirit is not yet come into me by which I live to God, and my soul is turned to him, and set on him, framed for him, and made active towards him, and on his behalf; all this while I am as if I were a body and no more, or a mere breathless carcass. For plain it is that to all the actions and comforts of the divine life, a man in his mere naturals, is as to these things, as a carcass is to the actions of a man : that is, a carcass can as well read and discourse, and travel, and trade, as a man in whom this Spirit is not, can love God, take pleasure in him, act in pure devotedness to him, design him as a portion, and have respect to him as such. So that now if men did but allow themselves the liberty of reflection, it could not be but sometime or other this would be their communing with themselves: "Either I have this new superadded Spirit, or I have not if I have, sure such a thing as I have heard it is, would make some work in my soul, and shew itself; it could not be latent there; I should find some changes and transformation wrought in me. And if I have not, then where am I? In how dismal and forlorn a state! it is for me to go and dwell among graves, for I am as a carcass, but a piece of spiritless flesh, or breathless lump." Oh that right thoughts of our case upon this account, might once obtain, and take place. If this Spirit is not in us, then we are dead creatures; if we have any thing of life in us, it is because the Spirit of the living God hath infused, and increated it. It is of no smal! concernment if this latter is our case, to observe and view the Spirit of God aright. And if the former is our case, to see to it, and deal truly with our own souls, while any natural breath remains, in order to the regaining that spiritual life, by which we may be capable of breathing spiritually. Methinks one should have a restless mind after it; Oh I have no spirit within me; nothing that moves towards God; no sense of him, or breathings after him. Oh that I were more acquainted with it. It is strange that there should be life, and no such motion; and impossible there should be this begotten spirit, and we should find no change within.

1

SERMON II.*

WE have proposed in order to the explication of the text, these three things, 1 To consider the product here spoken of, under the name of the Spirit. 2 The productive cause, or the divine parent, to which this birth owes itself; The spirit. 3. The kind of the production expressed here by being born, or begotten. We have already spoken to the first of those, and proceed now to the

II. The productive cause, which is here styled, in an emphatical sense, the Spirit. This name being spoken of the spirit, is commonly observed and known to be taken two ways, either essentially, or personally: essentially, so it signifies the nature of God; the pure perfect spirituality of that blessed Spirit So it is said, John 4. 24. God is a Spirit. But most frequently it is taken in the other sense, personally; that is, to signify the person known by that name; the third in the Godhead who by eternal spiration proceeds from the Father and Son. That which I at present design is to speak of this blessed Spirit, the parent of this great production, as such; and therefore shall not so much discourse to you concerning the Spirit absolutely considered; as in this relation, or as the author of this work wrought in the spirits of men. What we are to conceive of it, as it is a subsistence in the Godhead; or what its agency and operations may be, between the Father and Son; or what the kind and nature of that eternal Spirit is, and by what way it collectively proceeds from both, we are left very much in the dark, as being things of less concernment to us. But what is of more importance to us, we find more clearly, and expressly spoken of, that is, how we are to con

* Preached December 5th, 1677. at Cordwainer's Hall,