CHAPTER IV.

The active and vigorous nature of true religion proved by many scriptural phrases of the most powerful importance; more particularly explained in three things; 1. In the soul's continual care and study to be good. 2. In its care to do good. 3. In its powerful and incessant longings after the most full enjoyment of God.

I COME now to the second property of true religion, which is to be found in this phrase, "springing up," or leaping up; wherein the activity and vigorousness of it is described. Religion, though it be compared to water, yet is no standing pool of water, but a "well of water springing up." And here the proposition that I shall establish, is, "That true religion is active and vigorous." It is no lazy and languid thing, but full of life and power: so I find it every where described in Scripture, by things that are most active, lively, vigorous, operative, spreading, powerful, and sometimes even by motion itself. As sin is, in Scripture, described by death and darkness, which are a cessation and privation of life, and light, and motion; so religion is described by life, which is active and vigorous; by an angelical life, which is spiritual and powerful; yea a divine life, which is, as I may say, most lively and vivacious. " Christ

liveth in me," and the production of this new nature in the soul is called a quickening, "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;" and the reception of it, a "passing from death unto life." Again, as sin and wickedness is described by

flesh, which is sluggish and inactive, so this holy principle in the soul is called spirit-" The Spirit lusteth against the flesh;" yea, "the Spirit of power," and the "Spirit of life," Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath from the law of sin and death."

the law of the

made me free How can the

power and activity of any principle be more commended than by saying it is life, and the Spirit of life, and the law of the Spirit of life in the soul? which hath made me sometimes to apply those words of the prophet, as a description of every godly soul, "I am full of power and might by the Spirit of the Lord."

Yea, further, the holy Apostle seems to describe a godly principle in the soul by activity and motion itself, where he gives this excellent character of himself, and this lively description of his religious disposition, as if it were nothing else but activity and fervour; "I follow after, that I may apprehend; I forget those things that are behind, and reach forth unto those things that are before; I press towards the mark," &c. It were too much to comment upon those phrases of like importance, labouring, seeking, striving, fighting, running, wrestling, panting, longing, hungering, thirsting, watching, and many others, which the Holy Ghost makes use of, in the Scriptures, to express the active, industrious, vigorous, diligent, and powerful nature of this divine principle, which God hath put into the souls of his elect. The streams of divine grace, which flow forth from the throne of God, and of the Lamb, into the souls of men, do not cleanse them, and so pass away, like some violent land-flood, that washes

the fields and meadows, and so leaves them to contract as much filth as ever: but the same becomes a "well of water," continually springing up, boiling, and bubbling, and working in the soul, and sending out fresh rivers, as our Saviour calls them: "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

But, more particularly, to unfold the active nature of this divine principle in the soul, we shall consider it in these three particulars, namely, as it is still conforming to God, doing for him, and longing after him.

1. The active and sprightly nature of true godliness, or religion planted by God in the soul, shows itself, in a continued care and study to be good, to conform more and more to the nature of the blessed God, the glorious pattern of all perfection. The nature of God being infinitely and absolutely perfect, is the only rule of perfection to the creature. If we speak of goodness, our Saviour tells us, that God alone is good, Luke xviii. 19. of wisdom, the Apostle tells us, that God is only wise, 1 Tim. i. 17. of power, he is omnipotent, Rev. xix. 6. of mercy and kindness, he is love itself, 1 John iv. 8. Men are only good by way of participation from God, and in a way of assimilation to him: so that, though good men may be imitated, and followed, yet it must be with this limitation, as far as they are followers of God: the great Apostle durst not press his example any further, "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." But the nature of God being infinitely and absolutely perfect; is to be eyed and imitated singly, entirely, universally, in all things wherein the creature is capable of following him, and

becoming like unto him. So Christians are required to look up unto the Father of lights, the fountain of all perfections, and to take from him the pattern of their dispositions and conversations, to eye him continually, and, eyeing him, to derive an image of him, not into their eye, as we do by sensible objects, but into their souls, to polish and frame them into the most clear and lively resemblances of him; that is, in the language of Scripture, to be "perfect, as their heavenly Father is perfect," to be "holy as God is holy." And thus the genuine children of God are described by the Holy Ghost, they are "followers of God." This is the shortest, but the surest and clearest mark that can be given of a good man, a follower of God." They are not owned for the children of God, who are created by him, nor they who have a notional knowledge of him, who profess him, or exhibit some external worship and service to him in the world, but they that imitate him the true children of Abraham were not those that were descended from him, or boasted of him, but they that did the works of Abraham, John viii. 39. even so are they only the offspring of heaven, the true and dear children of the living God, who are followers of him; "be ye followers of God as dear children." A godly soul having its eyes opened, to behold the infinite beauty, purity, and perfection, of that good God, whose nature is the very fountain, and must, therefore, be the rule of all goodness, presently comes to undervalue all created excellencies, both in itself, and all the world besides, as to any satisfaction that is to be had in them, or any perfection that can be acquired by them, and cannot endure

to take up with any lower good, or live by any lower rule than God himself. A godly man, having the unclean and rebellious spirit cast out, and being once reconciled to the nature of God, is daily labouring to be more intimately united thereunto, and to be all that God is, as far as he is capable,—the nature of God being infinitely more pure and perfect, and more desirable than his own. Religion is a participation of life from him, who is life itself, and so must needs be an active principle, spreading itself in the soul, and causing the soul to spread itself in God: and, therefore, the kingdom of heaven, which, in many places of the gospel, I take to be nothing else but this divine principle in the soul, which is both the truest heaven, and most properly a kingdom (for thereby God doth most powerfully reign and exercise his sovereignty, and most excellently display and manifest his glory in the world) is compared to "seed sown in good ground," which both springeth up into a blade, and bringeth forth fruit; to mustardseed, which spreadeth itself, and groweth great, so that the birds of the air may lodge in the branches thereof; to leaven, spreading itself through the whole quantity of meal, and leavening the whole, and all the parts of it. By a like similitude, the path of the just is compared to a shining light, whose glory and lustre increaseth continually, "shining more and more unto the perfect day;" which continual growing up of the holy soul into God, is excellently described by the Apostle, in an elegant metaphor, "We all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory;" that is, from