and attemper them to the region of life. They are otherwise cut off as from the land of the living, and have no place nor fellowship there.

6. Let us see the wonderful grace of this blessed Spirit. Well may it be called the Spirit of grace, Who hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace, Heb. 10. 29. We should frame our apprehensions accordingly of this blessed Spirit, as the light of such a scripture would dictate, and account it the Spirit of all love, and goodness, and benignity, and sweetness that admits such souls to have a livelihood in it. "If ye live in the Spirit;" O strange goodness this! Such impure creatures so lost in darkness and death, now brought within those blessed confines ! That the Spirit of the living God should have taken them into such association with itself! As though he had said, "Come, you shall live with me here is safe living, comfortable living." The communion which God holds with such souls is called the communion of the Holy Ghost in 2 Cor. 13. 14. That it should come and lead 'souls out of death and darkness into the divine presence, and say to them, "Dwell here, in the secret of the Almighty, and under the shadow of his wing. His feathers shall cover you, and his continual influence cherish you and maintain your life: here you shall spend your days!" This is a wonderful youchsafement. How should we magnify to ourselves the grace of the Spirit upon this account! And yet farther,

7. We see the great hazard of withdrawing ourselves from under the tutelage and influence of this Spirit. It is done by neglect, done by self-confidence, done by remitting our dependance, done by resistance, by our disobedience, our little obsequiousness to the Spirit: and you see the hazard of it. Step out of this region of life, and there is nothing but impure and desolate darkness. We languish and die, if we retire, or recede and step without these sacred boundaries. To be confined and kept within them how great a vouchsafement is it! And, that it is undertaken that it shall be so! But though it shall be so, we are not to expect that this should be done without our care. We shewed you, in speaking of that influence, that it is an assisting and co-operative influence, among many other particulars.

Lastly, We may infer, that is a most weighty and important charge that lies upon every renewed soul. For think, how precious and excellent a life is to be maintained in them; that spiritual, divine life, a thing which both requires and justifies their utmost care: requires it; for what would a person think of it, if he should be intrusted with the care of the life' of a prince, the child of a great monarch? If any of us had

such a charge committed to us, "I charge you with the life of this child, and to use your best care and endeavour for the nourishing of its life, and for the cultivating of it, and fitting it to the best purposes whereof it may be capable." How would this engage one's utmost diligence, that it is a very important life that is committed to my care. We have every

one of us the care incumbent upon us of the life of a divine thing produced and brought forth in us, and which we are to apply the name first to, when we call ourselves the sons or children of God. There the name falls first; it is that divine thing that is his son, and we are only his sons or children upon the account of that. To have a divine life to maintain and cherish in my soul, as I may have a subordinate agency, under the Spirit in order thereto, how should it engage my utmost solicitude and care, that nothing be done offensive to this life, that every thing be done that may tend to preserve and improve it!

And as it requires our care, so it finally justifies it. A great many are apt to think, yea, and do often speak, reproachfully concerning those who do any thing to discover and hold forth the power and efficacy of such an inbeing life in them. To what purpose do these persons take so much more care than other men about their souls, and about their spiritual state as they are wont to call it? Why, they have a life more than you to be solicitous about; a life that you know nothing of; a noble, a divine life which it is incumbent upon them to care for. They wonder that this race of men do not run with them into the same excess of riot, when they never consider, these are things that would be noxious to my life. It may be you find nothing in you, unto which such things would be an offence: they would hurt my very life. This hath the holy soul to say to justify all that care and concern which he hath about the maintaining and preserving his spiritual life. And would not he be thought to talk every unreasonably that should say; why should such, and such men, who are observed to be much addicted to study, and retirement, and contemplation, why should they inure themselves to more thoughts than the beasts do? They, who apply themselves to a course of praying, meditation, &c. why should they do so more than the beasts, who, say they, do but eat and drink, and what is given them that they gather, and no more ado? The answer would be obvious from such persons: "I have a thing called reason in me, which I am to cultivate, and improve, and make my best of, which beasts have not." And is not that a sufficient answer; "I have a life more in me, than other men have, which I am to tend, and take all possible care of; a life capable of great

improvements, a life of great hopes, a life put into me upon high accounts, and for the greatest and most noble designs." And therefore if any of us be tempted by the licentious persons of the age to run their course, and do as they do, pray let us learn to distinguish our cases. The matter is not with us as it is with them. We have somewhat else in us; a divine thing, which hath a sacred life belonging to it, implanted in our na tures; which hath given us hope, and which is in us the earnest and pledge of a blessed eternity; an immortal state of life: And what! Shall we be prodigal of this? Is this a thing to be exposed, and ventured, and thrown away, merely to comply with the humour of a sensual wretch, who knows nothing of the matter, and is a stranger to all such affairs?

SERMON XII.*

You have heard of a twofold work of the Holy Spirit upon such souls as it hath regenerated, or put a principle of spiritual life into, namely, the maintaining of that life, which is mentioned in the former part of this verse, "If we live in the Spirit ;" and the causing, and conducting, and governing the motions which are agreeable to that life, in the latter part, "let us also walk in the Spirit."-We have spoken of the former of these, and are now to proceed unto the latter, that is, to treat of that part or hand which the Holy Spirit hath, about the motions and actions of renewed souls; and these must be considered in a reference unto that life unto which they are connatural, as you see they are mentioned in that reference in the text, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." Therefore the latter truth which we have to note to you from this Scripture you may take thus ;-That it belongs to their state, who live in the Spirit, to walk also in the Spirit.-In speaking to which we shall,

I. Shew, what it is to walk in the Spirit.

II. How it belongs unto the state of such persons so to walk. I. What walking in the Spirit imports. This we may understand by inquiring severally into, and then joining together.

Preached March 6th, 1677. at Cordwainer's Hall.

these two notions; that is,-what walking doth import; and then,-what it imports to do any thing in the Spirit.-These being explained and put together will give us the full and true import of walking in the Spirit.

And

1. Walking in the general, you know, is an expression that signifies action or motion; and sometimes it is taken in a natural sense, and then you know what it signifies: sometimes it is taken in a moral sense, a sense borrowed from the natural, because of some analogy and agreement between the one and the other; and then it plainly signifies the course of a man's conversation. So it must necessarily be understood to signify here, according to the transumed or borrowed sense. nothing is more ordinary in Scripture than to express the course of a man's conversation, whether it be good, or whether it be bad, by the phrase of walking; as you cannot but have taken notice, such of you as have been conversant with the Scriptures, how often it is said concerning the kings of Israel and Judah, that they walked so and so; such, and such a one in the way of his fathers, and the like: where the series of his actions, morally considered, is most expressly intended to be signified.

But that we may speak more distinctly unto the notion of walking, because it will give much light unto the matter which we have before us; as, in general, walking doth signify action or motion, so it also carries with it some specification of that action or motion, and so doth import action or motion of some special kind. For, though all walking is motion, yet all motion is not walking: and therefore it is an expression that serves to be some way restrictive of the general notion of action or motion. And that we may speak more clearly hereunto, we must take notice of something that walking doth expressly denote, or that is more formally included in the notion of it; and somewhat that it doth connote or import by a kind of collateral signification thereof.

(1.) There are some things which walking doth more directly and formally denote. As

[1.] It denotes a self-motion. A motion which proceeds from an internal principle in the thing that moves: though not originally; for that cannot be supposed concerning it in a creature, but subordinately only. If one rolls a stone to and fro upon the ground, it would be very improper to say, that stone walks. It signifies motion from an internal principle a kind of self-motion.

[2.] It doth most properly signify a voluntary motion. There may be motion from an internal principle which is not voluntary, as there are many things that have a principle of