his blood hath a virtue to fanctify you? Yea, hath he promised, fin fhall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace? Should ye not study, through his grace, to let it be feen, that his promife is verified in you?

(5.) In refpect of the danger you are in, if you do not study holinefs. If you be a child of God, you are indeed freed from the curfe of the covenant of works, that penalty can never reach you; but is it nothing to you, that your heavenly Father should chastise you, hide his face from you, deny an answer to your prayers, hide your evidences of heaven from you, give you up to the tyranny of your lufts, and then take vengeance on your inventions?

(6.) In refpect of the advantage herein. You are obliged to holiness: Why? In this way you may come to live joyfully, and die comfortably; in this way your integrity may be supported, as it was with Job; in this way you may come to have fweet communion with God, according to Chrift's promife, John xiv. 21. He that bath my commandments, and keepeth them, be it is that loves me, and I will love him, &c. In this way you fhall be fitted for ferving him in your generation, 2 Tim. ii. 19. In this way you will have an evidence of your juftification, John iii. 19. In this way you shall bring down the bleffing of God on every work of your hand, all that ye do fhall profper, Pfal. i. 4. Yea, in this way you fhall become a publick good, a common good, a bleffing, and a benefit to all about you, both in communicating good to them with whom you converfe, and in diverting judgments from these that are about you, as ten righteous men would have preferved Sodom. O what a Sodom is

the

the prefent generation! And as it is like Sodom and Gomorrah, and perhaps a thousand times worse, in refpect of fins against law and gofpel-light, which Sodom never had; fo, if the Lord do not leave us a remnant, we shall be like Sodom and Gomorrab, in refpect of judgments. All these things, and a thoufand more that might be adduced, fhould prefs you mightily to the study of holiness, and living unto God; you are dead to the law, that you may live to God. But next,

2dly, For direction. Queft. O how fhall I live unto God? I fhall offer you no directions but one, which my text leads me to, and that is, if you would live unto God, O ftudy to be more and more dead to the law: The more you are dead to the law as a covenant, the more you will live according to the law as a rule? What? Do you not find a legal spirit that remains with you, and weakens your hands in duties of holiness? When you are wrestling at duties in your own natural strength, it is a legal old covenant way; and do you not find it a hard, heavy, wearifome task? I believe there is little holiness there. But when you are leaning on the strength of Chrift, do you not find your foul enlarged and quickened in duty? When you perform duty from a principle of flavish fear, that is a legal way; and do you not find your hands weakened, and little heart to the work? But on the contrary, when the love of Chrift conftrains you, is it not then that you run with pleasure in the ways of his commandments? Yea, fin hath dominion over you, when you are, and in fo far as you are under the law; for the motions of fin are by the law: The law irritates corruption, and cannot fubdue it; for it is the grace of God, revealed

in the gofpcl, that effectually teaches to deny un-
godliness and worldly lufts. To be dead to the law,
is to be married to Chrift; it is to be brought off
from the first Adam, and united to the fecond Adam.
And, believer, as you are in Chrift, fo you are to
abide in him, if you would be fruitful, and live
unto God, John xv. 4. As the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more
can ye, except ye abide in me. Now, to abide in
him, is just to be strong in the grace that is in
him, and to continue to be strong in him by faith;
and this is neceffary in order to fruitfulness: As,
tho' an imp be grafted into the root, if it be not
faftened and take firm rooting, it does not come
to fruitfulness; fo the finner is made a christian,
by being cut off from the law, and ingrafted into
Chrift; but he is not a fruitful chriftian, if he do
not take a faft hold of Chrift, and draw virtue
from him: Therefore, abide in me, and I in you,
says Christ; and O but it is well faid! For, if he
do not abide in us, we will never abide in him by
the grace of faith, unless he abide in us by the
fpirit of faith. If we provoke God to take away
his fpirit, our faith fades, fails and withers; and
then we depart from the Lord by an evil heart of
unbelief. Here is the way then to live unto God,
and to bring forth fruit to him, even to die more
and more to the first hufband, the law, and to live
by faith upon your bleffed husband, Chrift. Quest.
But by what outward means fhould we thus live?
May we not neglect duties, fince we are dead to
the law? Nay, God forbid. It was the devil's
temptation to Chrift, to caft himself headlong
from the temple, becaufe God had promited to
preferve him in all his ways; fo, believer, God
VOL. II.
R

hath

hath promised to preferve you, he hath promised that fin fhall not have dominion over you, and that you shall never perish; and is the devil tempting you therefore to throw yourself down headlong from the temple, and from temple-means and ordinances, publick and private? O tell that abominable devil, as Chrift did, It is written, thou halt not tempt the Lord thy God. If you neglect means, you tempt the Lord your God, who hath commanded you to ufe means, and made this the method of the communication of grace and strength, to wit, in the use of such means, as faith, prayer, reading, hearing, meditation, watchfulness: Therefore, O be diligent in the use of these means; only do not truft to the means, by putting them in Chrift's room; give means their own room, and do not expect, without the grace of the new covenant, that means will do the business. Grace is the fpring from which the living water does flow, and means are the channel and pipes thro' which the water is conveyed; and if the fountain do not send out ftreams, all the conduits and pipes in the world can never convey it unto us. Therefore in the ufe of means, be ftill looking to the Lord: Look to him, both for grace to use the means, and for grace to blefs the means. If you lay stress upon the means, they become unprofitable: In the use of these means, O cry, cry mightily to the Lord, that he would kill your felf-confidence; cry for the fpirit of life, to quicken you, that you may live unto God; for, till the fpirit of life enter into the dry bones, there will be no "tirring, no motion, no living to God. Cry for the fpirit of faith, fo as you may fay with Paul in the context, I live, yet not I, but Chrift liveth

;

in me; and the life I live, is by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. O cry for faith and the affurance of faith: No doubt one may have faith, and yet want that affurance, which we commonly call fo; but whether there be fome kind of affurance or perfuafion in the nature of faith, is a question that I do not here enter upon: Only, this I am fure of, from the word of God, that doubting is no part of faith for faith and doubting are as oppofite as light and darkness. Some believers indeed have many doubts, many doubts, many doubts; why? because they have little faith, little faith, little faith; O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And I find the believer that walks in darkness, and hath no light, is directed to faith, as the antidote against his darkness and doubting; Let him "trust in the name of the Lord, and ftay himself upon his God. Cry, I fay, for the fpirit of faith, and faith will work by love: Cry for a gofpel-fpirit; for I teftify in the Lord's name, that gofpel-holinefs will never flourish among us, or in the generation, till we be more free of a legal fpirit; and that we will not live unto God, unlels we be dead to the law.