heart (including the affections) is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;" and again, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that the imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, and that continually-evil from his youth up." 4. How much then do our passions need to be sanctified! How necessary is it that a change should be wrought in them! That they should be properly restrained and duly regulated! Subjected to the will of God, and fixed upon their proper objects! all which is implied in their sanctification. "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God," says St. Paul,* that is, May the whole train of your affections be under the influence of the love of God. Now this is really and fully done when we are sanctified. Then God and his holy will, religion and virtue, holiness here, and happiness hereafter, engage our chief attention, and possess the supreme place in our affections. We highly esteem and fervently love them, eagerly desire, and diligently pursue them: they are the objects of our hope and joy, and we take complacency and delight in them from day to day. And if we desire or delight in any thing else, it is in subordination to God and his holy will. We are therefore "crucified unto the world, and the world is crucified unto us :" we are saved from the love of things temporal, from all undue attachment to them, and desire after them, well knowing, "if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” At 5. In the meantime, our aversion to the evil things of the world, as poverty, reproach, sickness, and pain, is so moderated, that we are resigned to suffer them when God shall so appoint; neither fearing them when absent with any fear that hath torment, nor sorrowing as those that have no hope nor portion in God, when they are present. But rather we desire often to "have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings, and rejoice that he is magnified in our body," whether by ease or pain, "life or death." Yea, when our "afflictions abound, our consolations do much more abound." the same time, sin, all sin, whatever honour, or pleasure, or profit it promises, is the object of our hatred and abhorrence. We are heartily sorry for our past sins, the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, and by the grace of God we determine for the future not to repeat them. We have an utter hatred to every ap pearance of evil, and a filial fear of offending him whom our souls love. And thus are all our passions exercised upon their proper objects, and duly regulated. * 2 Thess. iii. 5. 6. Having dwelt so long upon the foregoing particulars, I shall say less upon the appetites, the sanctification of which comes next to be considered. By the appetites, I mean those propensities or inclinations which are suited to an animal nature, and which God hath, for wise ends, implanted in us, whom he hath endued with such a nature. These it is not the will of God to eradicate, any more than our passions, but only to regulate and restrain them, of which surely they have great need. For, alas! how frequently, how almost universally are they indulged to excess? How much delicacy and expensive superfluity in eating and drinking! How many useless, nay, destructive dishes and invented liquors! How much intemperance among all orders and degrees of men! How much gluttony and drunkenness! How many estates are squandered away! How many families reduced to beggary, to gratify a vile appetite, to fulfil a beastly desire! And, what is yet more to be deplored, how many thus ruin a good constitution, and bring various diseases upon themselves, at once painful and loathsome, which it is beyond the power of medicine to remedy, and which terminate at last in an untimely death; while, in the meantime, they deprive themselves of the divine favour, and cast their souls into endless perdition! "Their end is destruction, because their God is their belly, and their glory is their shame." In fine, how much uncleanness of every kind, the scandal and reproach, I will not say of Christianity, but of human nature itself! How far, in these respects, is man degraded beneath the brutes that perish! 7. Now the sanctification of our appetites puts an entire end to all this, and enables us to live soberly, as well as righteously and godly in this present world, strictly cultivating temperance and chastity in all their branches. It implies the crucifixion of all desire after superfluous or delicate food, and the restraint or eradication of all impure lusts whatsoever. Then shall we only take that quantity and quality of food which is most conducive to our bodily health, and best fits us for the service of God in that lawful calling wherein his providence hath placed us. Then shall we manifest in all our tempers, words, and works, the inward purity of our hearts. We shall glorify God by chastity and modesty in a single life, the more excellent way to those who can receive it, or by temperance and fidelity in a marriage state, which is honourable in all, and necessary for many. In either state we shall preserve ourselves free from the " pollutions that are in the world through lust." Remembering that our bodies as well as souls, are temples of the Holy Ghost, and bought with the blood of Christ, we shall not prostitute them to sin and the devil by gratifying any base desire, but shall keep them holy, that we may "glorify God, as well in our body as spirit, which are God's." This leads me, 3dly, to subjoin a few words on the sanctification of the body. 1. The spirit and soul being depraved, seduced from God, de: bauched by sin, and devoted to the service of Satan, the body, a mere servant and instrument in their hands, is obliged to accom. pany them in their revolt, and obey the dictates of its leaders. As the understanding of the natural man does not discern the evil of sin, nor his conscience remonstrate against it; as his will and affec tions choose and embrace it, and his appetites hurry him on to the commission of it, it is no wonder if his flesh" serve the law of sin," and he "present his members as instruments of unrighteous ness" thereunto. Indeed the members of our bodies may be always said to serve sin, when we are not influenced by the love of God, and a regard to his glory; because then our motives and ends are not good, nor, of consequence, the words and actions to which they give birth. Our eye is not single, but evil, and hence " Our whole body is full of darkness," our whole conduct a scene of sin : We serve ourselves and the devil, but not the Lord Jesus. And however innocent our outward deportment may appear before men, it is far from meeting with his approbation "who searcheth the heart, and trieth the reins of the children of men." 2. But, alas! too often it is not outwardly innocent, but we present our members servants to uncleanness, and iniquity unto iniquity." Our eyes are employed in beholding vanity, if not in gratifying the lustful, envious, or covetous desire. Our ears are attentive to idle songs, to flattering lips, and a slanderous tongue. If our hands do not pick and steal, rob and defraud, hurt and maim any one if they do not injure our neighbour in his person or property, yet they are perhaps incentives to concupiscence or wrath, or negligent in our calling and in relieving the indigent. If our feet be not "swift to shed blood," if they do not assist us to pursue, overtake, and abuse or destroy those for whom Christ died; yet do they perhaps walk in the way of sinners, and follow the multitude to do evil," conveying us to places of debauchery and excess, riot and uncleanness. And our tongue, that glory of our frame, whereby we should praise our God and edify our fellow-creatures, supposing shame and humanity preserve it (would to God they always did!) from blaspheming that holy name whereby we are called," and cursing our brethren of mankind: yet will it backbite and slander the absent, or talk unprofitably before such as are pre!sent. Thus, through sin, do we abuse and dishonour our own bodies, and turn the gifts of God against him. We do not, indeed, hide our Lord's talent in a napkin, but we do what is still worse, we employ it to his manifest dishonour. 3. But observe the change sanctification produces, even in the use of our body. Then it is that we comply with the Apostle's exhortation, "let not sin reign in your mortal body, to obey it in the lusts thereof, neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves to God, as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Our eyes are now employed in reading the word of God, and discovering the wonders of his wisdom, power, and love, manifested in the works of creation. Our ears are open to receive instruction, to hearken to the complaint of the poor, and the distress of the afflicted. Our tongues proclaim the loving-kindness of the Lord, and speak of all his wondrous works." Grace is poured into our lips," and "the law of kindness dwells upon our tongue." "Our conversation is seasoned with salt, meet to minister grace to the hearers." Our hands are exerted in honest labour, or stretched out in acts of charity, according to the ability God hath given. Our feet convey us to the house of God, the assembly of the saints, and we walk in all his pleasant ways; we walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, and serve him with every faculty of our soul and member of our body. 4. Thus have we seen how every part of us is to be sanctified; I have only to add, before I dismiss this head of my discourse, 4thly, That it is further intended by the word oλ0]ɛλɛis, that every part should be sanctified perfectly. Not as if the apostle meant that any bounds could be set to this sanctification, so that we could at any period say, "hitherto shalt thou go, and no further :" not as if there were any state to be arrived at on earth, wherein our holiness should be incapable of increase. Surely no: nor, it is probable, even in heaven. It seems essential to the happiness of a creature, a finite being, that it should continually advance in perfection. And this it may do through millions of ages, and still come infinitely short of the perfection of God. It appears, from what has been said, that the sanctification of our other powers arises from, and depends upon, the sanctification of the understanding. The more the understanding is enlightened in the true knowledge of God, the more our will and affections centre in him as our chief good. The more we discern, by the light of grace, the vanity of the world, the more must our hearts be disengaged from it. The same I may say of sin in general: the more evil it appears, the more shall we hate and guard against it. And with regard to holiness, the more excellent in its nature, and happy in its tendency, it seems to us, the more shall we love and pursue it. Now, who can say he is as much enlightened in these respects as he may be? Surely none. And surely then, none can reasonably think he is arrived at the top of the ladder in holiness, and can therefore advance no further. But while we are in the world, we may and must consider it to be our duty and privilege, to “ grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 2. But when the apostle prays that we may be perfectly sanctified, he means as far as we are capable of being in this world; "that the darkness may pass away, and the true light continually shine:"" that we may walk in the light, as he is in the light," having daily fellowship with him, and one with another. "That we may have an unction from the Holy One teaching us all things," the " Spirit of truth guiding us into all truth." He means further, that our will should be wholly conformed to, and swallowed up in the will of God, so that we may lie in his hands as clay in the hands of the potter, to be disposed of according to his will, and formed after his likeness, choosing him for our only portion, and resigning up all our designs and desires to him. Again, that our conscience should continually feel the cleansing virtue of Jesus's blood; that we should wash in the fountain and be ever clean, saying, from the heart, "Every moment, Lord, I have and that we should find continual matter of rejoicing in the testimony of a good and tender conscience. He means, lastly, that our passions and appetites should be so regulated and inflamed with divine love, that "a peace passing understanding may keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus," and we may "dwell in love, and in God, and God in us.' Thus shall we be able to adopt the following language, very expressive of the full assurance of hope: ""Tis done at last, the great deciding part, The world's subdued, and thou hast all my heart: It triumphs in the change, and fixes here, Nor does another separation fear; |
