that Christ is their Immanuel, God with and in them; they are living temples of the Holy Ghost. And therefore, being a holy habitation unto the Lord, the whole Trinity dwells and walks in them; even here, they sit together with Christ in heavenly places, and are vitally united to him, their head, by a living faith; their Redeemer, their Maker, is their Husband; they are flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone; they talk, they walk with him, as a man talketh and walketh with his friend; in short, they are one with Christ, even as Jesus Christ and the Father are one.

Thus is Christ made to believers sanctification. And O! what a privilege is this! To be changed from beasts into saints, and from a devilish to be made partakers of a divine nature; to be translated from the kingdom of Satan, into the kingdom of God's dear Son! To put off the old man, which is corrupt, and to put on the new man, which is created after God, in righteousness and true holiness. O what an unspeakable blessing is this! I almost stand amazed at the contemplation thereof. Well might the apostle exhort believers to rejoice in the Lord; indeed they have reason always to rejoice, yea, to rejoice on a dying bed; for the kingdom of God is in them; they are changed from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord. Well may this be a mystery to the natural, for it is a mystery even to the spiritual man himself a mystery which he cannot fathom. Does it not often dazzle your eyes, O ye children of God, to look at your own brightness, when the candle of the Lord shines out, and your Redeemer lifts up the light of his blessed countenance upon your souls? Are you not astonished, when you feel the love of God shed abroad in your hearts, by the Holy Ghost, and God holds out the golden sceptre of his mercy, and bids you ask what you will, and it shall be given you? Does not that peace of God, which keeps and rules your hearts, surpass the utmost limits of your understandings? And is not the joy you feel unspeakable? Is it not full of glory? I am persuaded it is; and in your secret communion, when the Lord's love flows in upon your souls, you are as it were swallowed up in, or, to use the apostle's phrase, "filled with all the fullness of God." Are you not ready to cry out with Solomon, "And will the Lord, indeed, dwell thus with men? How is it that we should be thus thy sons and daughters, O Lord God Almighty!"

If you are children of God, and know what it is to have fellowship with the Father and his Son; if you walk by faith, and not by sight, I am assured this is frequently the language of your hearts.

But look forward, and see an unbounded prospect of eternal

happiness lying before thee, O believer! What thou hast already received, are only the first fruits, like the cluster of grapes brought out of the land of Canaan; only an earnest and pledge of yet infinitely better things to come: the harvest is to follow; thy grace is hereafter to be swallowed up in glory. Thy great Joshua, and merciful High Priest, shall administer an abundant entrance to thee into the land of promise, that rest which awaits the children of God: for Christ is not only made to believers, wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification, but also redemption.

But, before we enter upon the explanation and contemplation of this privilege,

First, Learn hence the great mistake of those writers, and clergy, who, notwithstanding they talk of sanctification and inward holiness, (as indeed sometimes they do, though in a very loose and superficial manner) yet they generally make it the cause, whereas they should consider it as the effect, of our justification. Of him "are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness," and then sanctification. For Christ's righteousness, or that which Christ has done in our stead without us, is the sole cause of our acceptance in the sight of God, and of all holiness wrought in us. To this, and not to the light within, or any thing wrought within, should poor sinners look for justification in the sight of God: for the sake of Christ's righteousness alone, and not any thing wrought in us, does God look favorably upon us; our sanctification at best, in this life, is not complete. Though we are delivered from the power, we are not freed from the in-being of sin; but not only the dominion, but the in-being of sin, is forbidden by the perfect law of God: for it is not said, thou shalt not give way to lust, but, thou shalt not lust. So that whilst the principle of lust remains in the least degree in our hearts, though we are otherwise never so holy, yet we cannot, on account of that, hope for acceptance with God. We must first therefore look for a righteousness without us, even the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this reason the apostle mentions it, and puts it before sanctification in the words of the text. And whosoever teacheth any other doctrine, doth not preach the truth as it is in Jesus.

Secondly, From hence also, the Antinomians and formal hypocrites may be confuted, who talk of Christ without, but know nothing experimentally, of a work of sanctification. wrought within them. Whatever they may pretend to, since Christ is not in them, the Lord is not their righteousness, and they have no well grounded hope of glory. For though sanctification is not the cause, yet it is the effect of our accept

ance with God; "who of God is made unto us righteousness and sanctification." He therefore, that is really in Christ, is a new creature; it is not going back to a covenant of works, to look into our hearts, and, seeing that they are changed and renewed, from thence form a comfortable and well grounded assurance of the safety of our states. No, but this is what we are directed to in scripture; by our bringing forth the fruits, we are to judge whether or no we ever did truly partake of the Spirit of God. "We know (says John) that we are passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." And however we may talk of Christ's righteousness, and exclaim against legal preachers; yet, if we are not holy in heart and life, if we are not sanctified and renewed by the spirit in our minds, we are self-deceivers, we are only formal hypocrites: for we must not put asunder what God has joined together. We must keep the medium between the two extremes; not insist so much on the one hand upon Christ without, as to exclude Christ within, as an evidence of our being his, and as a preparation for future happiness; nor on the other hand, so depend on inherent righteousness or holiness wrought in us, as to exclude the righteousness of Jesus Christ without us. But,

Fourthly, Let us now go on, and take a view of the other link, or rather the end, of the believer's golden chain of privileges-redemption. But we must look very high; for the top of it, like Jacob's ladder, reaches heaven, where all believers will ascend, and be placed at the right hand of God. "Who of God is made unto us, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption."

This is a golden chain indeed! And, what is best of all, not one link can ever be broken assunder from another. Were there no other text in the book of God, this single one sufficiently proves the final perseverance of all true believers: for never did God yet justify a man, whom he did not sanctify; nor sanctify one whom he did not completely redeem and glorify: no, as for God, his way, his work, is perfect; he always carried on and finished the work he began; thus it was in the first, so it is in the new creation; when God says, "let there be light," there is light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day, when believers enter into their eternal rest, as God entered into his. Those whom God has justified, he has in effect glorified: for as a man's worthiness was not the cause of God's giving him Christ's righteousness, so neither shall his unworthiness be a cause of his taking it away; God's gifts and callings are without repentance; and I cannot think, they are clear in the notion of Christ's righteousness, who deny the final perseverance of the saints; I fear, they understand justification

in that low sense, in which I understood it a few years ago, as implying no more than remission of sins: but it not only signifies remission of sins past, but also a federal right to all good things to come. If God has given us his only Son, how will he not with him freely give us all things? Therefore, the apostle, after he says, "who of God is made unto us righteousness," does not say, perhaps he may be made to us sanctification and redemption; but he is made: for there is an eternal, indissoluble connection between these blessed privileges. As the obedience of Christ is imputed to believers, so his perseverance in that obedience is imputed to them also: and it argues great ignorance of the covenant of grace and redemption to object against it.

By the word redemption, we are to understand, not only a complete deliverance from all evil, but also a full enjoyment of all good both in body and soul. I say both in body and soul; for the Lord is also for the body; the bodies of the saints in this life are temples of the Holy Ghost. God makes a covenant with the dust of believers; after death, though worms destroy them, yet, even in their flesh shall they see God. I fear, indeed, there are some sadducees in our days, or at least heretics, who say, either that there is no resurrection of the body, or that the resurrection is past already, namely, in our regeneration. Hence it is, that our Lord's coming in the flesh, at the day of judgment, is denied; and consequently, we must throw aside the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. For why should we remember the Lord's death until he come to judgment, when he is already come to judge our hearts, and will not come a second time? But all this is only the reasoning of unlearned, unstable men, who certainly know not what they say, or whereof they affirm. That we must follow our Lord in the regeneration, be partakers of a new birth, and that Christ must come into our hearts, we freely confess, and we hope, when speaking of these things, we speak no more than what we know and feel but then it is plain, that Jesus Christ will come, hereafter, to judgment, and that he ascended into heaven with the body which he had here on earth; for says he, after his resurrection, "handle me, and see; a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me have." And it is plain, that Christ's resurrection was an earnest of ours: for says the apostle, "Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept;" and as in Adam all die and are subject to mortality; so all that are in Christ, the second Adam, who represented believers as their federal head, shall certainly be made alive, or rise again with their bodies at the last day.

Here then, O believers! is one, though the lowest, degree of

that redemption which you are to be partakers of hereafter; I mean, the redemption of your bodies. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, this mortal must put on immortality. Your bodies, as well as souls, were given to Jesus Christ by the Father they have been companions in watching, and fasting, and praying. Your bodies therefore, as well as souls, shall Jesus Christ raise up at the last day. Fear not, therefore, O believers, to look into the grave; for to you it is no other than a consecrated dormitory, where your bodies shall sleep quietly until the morning of the resurrection; when the voice of the archangel shall sound, and the trump of God give the general alarm, "Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment;" earth, air, fire, water, shall give up your scattered atoms, and both in body and soul shall you be ever with the Lord. I doubt not but many of you are groaning under crazy bodies, and complain often that the mortal body weighs down the immortal soul; at least this is my case: but let us have a little patience, and we shall be delivered from our earthly prisons; ere long, these tabernacles of clay shall be dissolved, and we shall be clothed with our house which is from heaven: hereafter, our bodies shall be spiritualized, and shall be so far from hindering our souls through weakness, that they shall become strong; so strong, as to bear up under an exceeding and eternal weight of glory; others again may have deformed bodies, emaciated also with sickness, and worn out with labor and age; but wait a little, until your blessed change by death comes; then your bodies shall be renewed and made glorious, like unto Christ's glorious body; of which we may form some faint idea, from the account given us of our Lord's transfiguration on the Mount, when it is said, "His raiment became bright and glistening, and his face brighter than the sun." Well then may a believer break out into the apostle's triumphant language, "0 death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory!"

But what is the redemption of the body, in comparison of the redemption of the better part, our souls? I must, therefore, say to you believers, as the angel said to John, "Come up higher," and let us take as clear a view as we can, at such a distance, of the redemption Christ has purchased for, and will shortly put you in actual possession of. Already you are justified, already you are sanctified, and thereby freed from the guilt and dominion of sin: but, as I have observed, the being and indwelling of sin yet remains in you; God sees it proper to leave some Amalekites in the land, to keep his Israel in action. The most perfect Christian, I am persuaded, must agree, according to one of our articles, "that the corruption of nature remains even in the regenerate; that the flesh lusteth