theirs, but one in nature, so that his death for sin causes theirs to it. They are baptized into his death, Rom. vi, 3.

This suffering in the flesh being unto death, and such a death, even crucifying, hath indeed pain in it; but what then? It must be like his, and the believer be like him in willingly enduring it. All the pain of his suffering in the flesh, his love to us went through with; so all the pain to our nature in severing and pulling us from our beloved sins and in our dying to them, if his love be planted in our hearts, that will sweeten it and make us delight in it. Love desires nothing more than likeness, and shares wil. lingly in all with the party loved; and above all love, this divine love is purest and highest, and works most strong, ly that way; takes pleasure in pain, and is a voluntary death, as Plato calls love.

I beseech you, seek to have your hearts set against sin, to hate it, to wound it, and be dying daily to it. Be not satisfied, unless you feel an abatement of it, and a life within you. Being bought at so high a rate, think yourselves too good to be slaves to any base lust. You are called to a more excellent and more honorable service. And of this suffering in the flesh, we may safely say, what the apostle speaks of the sufferings with and for Christ, that the partakers of these sufferings are coheirs of glory with Christ; If we suffer thus with him, we shall also be glorified with him; if we die with him, we shall live with him for ever.

III. We have the actual improvement of this conformity; Arm yourselves with the same mind, or thoughts of this mortification. Death, taken naturally in its proper sense, being an entire privation of life, admits not of degrees; but this figurative death, this mortification of the flesh in a Christian, is gradual. In so far as he is renewed and is animated and acted by the Spirit of Christ, he is thoroughly mortified, but because he is not totally renewed and there is in him the remains of that corrup tion, which is here called flesh, therefore it is his great task to be gaining further upon it, and overcoming and mortifying it every day. And to this tend the frequent exhortations of this nature; Mortify your members that

are on the earth. Likewise reckon yourselves dead to sin. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies. Thus here, Arm yourselves with the same mind, or with this very thought. Consider and apply the suffering of Christ in the flesh, to the end that you with him suffering in the flesh, may cease from sin. Think that it ought to be thus, and seek that it may be thus with you.

Arm yourselves. There is still fighting, and sin will be molesting you; though wounded to death, yet will it struggle for life, and seek to wound its enemy; it will assault the graces that are in you. Do not think, if it be once struck, and you have given it a stab near to the heart by the sword of the Spirit, that therefore it will stir no more. No; so long as you live in the flesh, in these bowels there will be remainders of the life of this flesh, your natural corruption; therefore you must be armed against it. Sin will not give you rest, so long as there is a drop of blood in its vein, one spark of life in it; and that will be so long as you have life here. This old man is stout, and will fight himself to death; and at the weakest he will rouse up himself, and exert his dying spirits, as men will do sometimes more eagerly than when they were not so weak, nor so near death.

This the children of God often find to their grief, that corruptions which they thought had been dead, stir and rise up again, and set upon them. A passion or lust, that after some great stroke lay a long while as dead, stirred not, and therefore they thought to have heard no more of it; but though it will never recover fully again, to be lively as before, yet it will revive in such a measure as to molest and possibly to foil them yet again. Therefore is it continually necessary that they live in arms, and put them not off to their dying day; till they put off the body and be altogether free of the flesh. You may take the Lord's promise for victory in the end; that shall not fail; but do not promise yourself ease in the way, for that will not hold. If at sometimes you be undermost, give not all up for lost he hath often won the day, who hath been foiled and wounded in the fight. But likewise take not all for wou, so as to have no more conflict, when sometimes you have the better in particular battles. Be not

desperate when you lose, nor secure when you gain them. When it is worst with you, do not throw away your arms, nor lay them aside when you are at best.

Now the way to be armed is this, the same mind--How would my Lord Christ carry himself in this case? And what was his business in all places and companies? Was it not to do the will and advance the glory of his Father? If I be injured and reviled, consider how would he do in this? Would he repay one injury with another, one reproach with another reproach? No; being reviled, he reviled not again. Well, through his strength, this shall be my way too. Thus ought it to be with the Christian, framing all his ways, and words, and very thoughts, upon that model, the mind of Christ, and studying in all things to walk even as he walked; studying it much, as the reason and rule of mortification, and drawing from it, as the real cause and spring of mortification.

The pious contemplation of his death will most powerfully kill the love of sin in the soul, and kindle an ardent hatred of it. The believer, looking on his Jesus as crucified for him and wounded for his transgressions, and taking in deep thoughts of his spotless innocency which deserved no such thing, and of his matchless love which yet endured it all for him, will then naturally think, Shall I be a friend to that which was his deadly enemy? Shall sin be sweet to me, which was so bitter to him, and that for my sake? Shall I ever lend a good look or entertain a favorable thought of that which shed my Lord's blood? Shall I live in that, for which he died, and died to kill it in me? O let it not be.

It is the only thriving and growing life, to be much in the lively contemplation and application of Jesus Christ; to be continually studying him and conversing with him, and drawing from him, receiving of his fulness grace for grace. Wouldst thou have much power against sin, and much increase of holiness? Let thine eye be much on Christ; set thine heart on him; let it dwell in him and be still with him. When sin is likely to prevail in any kind, go to him; tell him of the insurrection of his enemies and thy inability to resist, and desire him to suppress them and to help thee against them, that they may gain nothing

by their stirring, but some new wound.

If thy heart begin to be taken with and move towards sin, lay it before him; the beams of his love shall eat out the fire of those sinful lusts. Wouldst thou have thy pride, and passions, and love of the world, and self-love, killed? Go sue for the virtue of his death, and that shall do it. Seek his Spirit, the Spirit of meekness, and humility, and divine love. Look on him, and he shall draw thy heart heavenwards, and unite it to himself, and make it like himself. And is not that the thing thou desirest?

Ver. 2. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.

us.

3. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idola

tries.

THE chains of sin are so strong and so fastened on our nature, that there is in us no power to break them off, till a mightier and stronger Spirit than our own come into Men's resolutions fall to nothing; and as a prisoner who attempts to escape and does not, is bound faster, thus usually it is with men in their self-purposes of forsaking sin they leave out Christ in the work, and so remain in their captivity, yea, it grows upon them. And while we press them to free themselves and show not Christ to them, we put them upon an impossibility. But a look to him makes it feasible and easy. Faith in him, and that love to him which faith begets, break through and surmount all difficulties. It is the powerful love of Christ, that kills the love of sin and kindles the love of holiness in the soul; makes it a willing sharer in his death, and so a happy partaker of his life; for that always follows, and must of necessity, as here is added; He that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sin, is crucified and dead to it; but he loses nothing; yea, it is his great gain to lose that deadly life of the flesh for a new spiritual

life, a life indeed, a living unto God: this is the end why he so dies, that he may thus live, that he no longer should live to the lusts of men, and yet live far better, live to the will of God. He that is one with Christ by believing, is one with him throughout, in death and in life. As Christ rose from the dead, so be that is dead to sin with him, through the power of his death, rises to that new life with him through the power of His resurrection. And these two constitute our sanctification, which whosoever do partake of Christ and are found in him, do certainly draw from him. Thus are they joined, Rom. vi, 11; Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, and both through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All they who do really come to Jesus Christ, as they come to him as their Saviour to be clothed by him, and made righteous by him, so they come likewise to him as their sanctifier, to be made new and holy by him, to die and live with him, to follow the Lamb whither soever he goeth, through the hardest sufferings, and death itself. And though a believer might be free from these terms, he would not. No; surely. Could he be content with the easy life of sin, instead of the divine life of Christ? No; he will act thus, and not accept of deliverance, that he may obtain a better resurrection. Think on it again, you to whom your sins are still dear and this life sweetyou are yet far from Christ and his life.

The apostle, with the intent to press this more home, expresses more at large the nature of the opposite estates and lives that he speaks of, and so sets before his Christian brethren the dignity of their new life; and then, by a particular reflection upon their former life, he presses the change. The former life he calls a living to the lusts of men, this new spiritual life a living to the will of God.

The lusts of men; such as are common to the corrupt nature of man; such as every man may find in himself and perceive in others. The apostle in the third verse more particularly, for further clearness, specifies thosekinds of men that were most notorious in these lusts and those kinds of lusts that were most notorious in men. Writing to the dispersed Jews, he calls sinful lusts the will of the Gentiles, as having least control of contrary light in them, and implies,