spiritual life; and stands in opposition to the relish and propensities of mere nature. Rom. viii. 6. By virtue of this, the strongest bent of their souls is God-ward; they tend, they gravitate towards him as their proper centre. Their desire is unto him, and to the remembrance of his name. Isa. xxvi. 8. Their soul follows after him. Psalm lxiii. 8. By virtue of this they incline to keep all God's commandments; they have an inward tendency to obedience; they love God's law; they delight in it after the inner man, Psalm cxix. 97; Rom. vii. 22; and their love and delight will habitually sway them to observe it; religion is their element, their choice. It is not in them forced and unnatural, as all those operations are which do not proceed from an intrinsic principle; and that reluctancy and indisposedness which they sometimes unhappily feel in themselves to religious duties, is preternatural with respect to this spiritual disposition; as the loathing of healthful food is to the human body; it proceeds from a disorder, a weakness in their spiritual life, occasioned by the strugglings and transient prevalency of contrary principles it is owing to the lustings of the flesh against the spirit. Again, Their obedience is not servile and mercenary, resulting merely from the apprehension of the misery which will ensue upon disobedience; but it is generous and filial, proceeding from a convictive view of the intrinsic reasonableness, congruity, and amiableness of the duties of holiness; from the pleasure and satisfaction which the performance of them, under this view, naturally produces; (so a man is excited to eat, not merely by his apprehension of the necessity of it for the support of his body, but also by the pleasure he finds in the very action,) and from a sense of the divine authority enjoining those duties. By this the genuine acts of spiritual life are infallibly distinguished from that low and ignoble devotion which flows

from custom, education, horrors of conscience, and all the principles of mere nature.

It is true, indeed, some persons by nature, and consequently without this supernatural disposition, may incline to and delight in sundry things, that, as to the matter of them, are religious duties. So (e.g.) some are naturally averse to intemperance; and sobriety is inwrought in their very constitutions. Yet still this gracious disposition is distinguished from such a natural inclination by these two marks: the first implies a distinct reference to, and a sense of the authority of, the divine Lawgiver as enjoining those duties, and prompts a person to observe them formally as duties, as acts of obedience; but the latter prompts to the observance of them, considering them as things agreeable to the person's natural temper, without any distinct reference to God; and so they are rather acts of self-gratification than of obedience to the divine authority; and the person would incline to them if they were not commanded at all. They are duties materially in themselves, but not formally, as performed by him; a regard to the authority of God, which is the constitutive form of obedience, is left out. A generous temper may incline to give alms; for the Lord's sake is omitted. (2.) Spiritual life disposes to all duties of religion and acts of holiness universally. It delights in holiness as such, and regards the authority of the law for itself; and consequently, whatever has the nature of holiness, whatever has the sanction of divine authority, it cannot but affect and relish, even though it should be very contrary to a man's natural inclinations and temporal advantage. But a natural propension is always partial and limited, and inclines to some duties only, neglecting others of equal or greater importance, which thwart the man's corrupt propensions. In a word, such a one's religion proceeds from the very same

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disposition that his sins proceed from, namely, a disposition to please himself. Hence it is always a maimed, imperfect, half-formed thing; it has not that amiable symmetry and uniformity, that congruous proportion and connection of parts, which are the ornament and distinguishing characteristic of that religion which flows from a heart universally disposed to holiness.

3. Spiritual life implies a power of holy operation. A heavenly vigour, a divine activity animates the whole soul. It implies more than an inefficacious disposition, a dull, lazy velleity, productive of nothing but languid wishes. So every kind of life implies a power of operation suitable to its nature. Animal life (e. g.) has not only an innate propensity, but also a natural power to move, to receive and digest food, &c. They that wait on the LORD shall renew their strength, Isa. xl. 31; that is, they have strength given them; renewed and increased by repeated acts, in the progress of sanctification. They They are strengthened with might, by the Spirit in the inner man. Eph. iii. 16. I do not mean that spiritual life is always sensible and equally vigorous; alas! it is subject to many languishments and indispositions: but I mean there is habitually in a spiritual man a power, an ability for serving God which, when all pre-requisites concur, and hindrances are removed, is capable of putting forth acts of holiness, and which does actually exert itself frequently. So animal life is subject to many disorders, which weaken its powers of operation, but yet still retains those powers; and they are in some measure active, even under the greatest indisposition, at least in resisting the disorder, though perhaps with faint struggles. Again, I do not mean an independent power, which is so self-active as to need no quickening energy from the divine Spirit to bring it into act, but a power capable of acting under the animating influences of grace,

which, as to their reality, are common to all believers, though they are communicated in different degrees to dif ferent persons, There is no need of the infusion of a new power, which the Spirit might actuate; but they have a power already, which needs nothing but the suitable concurrence of other causes to educe it into act. So the power of reason is not independent, so as to be capable of operation without the concurrence of divine Providence, common to mankind, to quicken it into act; yet it is a power of reason still, because it is capable of rational acts, under common providential influence. But should we suppose a beast the object of that influence, it would still continue incapable of rational acts, till a rational power be implanted in it. The illustration itself directs us to the application of it.

Thus I have briefly shown you wherein spiritual life consists; but I am afraid it may be still wrapped in obscurity from the eyes of some. And indeed it would require longer time, larger extent, and greater abilities to reflect sufficient light on so mysterious a point. Before we lose sight of this head, let us improve it to these purposes:

Let us improve it as a caution against this common mistake, viz., that our mere natural powers, under the com'mon aids of divine grace, polished and refined by the institutions of the gospel, are a sufficient principle of holiness, without the addition of any new principle. You see a principle of spiritual life is supernatural; it is a divine, heaven-born thing; it is the seed of God; a plant planted by our heavenly Father. But, alas! how many content themselves with a self-begotten holiness! They have formed to themselves a system of natural, self-sprung religion, (I mean that it is natural originally and subjectively, though it be pretended to be divine objectively, because its patrons acknowledge objective revelation,) in this they

acquiesce as sufficient, as though they knew not that that which is born of the flesh is flesh. The cogitiveness of matter appears to me a notion very like this; for I think it might be demonstrated as clearly, that our mere natural powers, in our present lapsed state, without the infusion of any divine supernatural principle, are incapable of living, evangelical holiness; as it can, that mere matter, without the superaddition of a principle entirely distinct from it, is capable of thinking, however much it be polished, or however differently it be modified.

Let us also improve what has been said, to remove another equally common and pernicious error, namely, That gospel-holiness consists merely in a series of acts materially good. Some imagine that all the actions they do, which are materially lawful, and a part of religion, have just so much of holiness in them: and as they multiply such actions, their sanctification increases in their imagination. But alas! do they not know, that a principle, a disposition, a power of holy acting must precede, and be the source of all holy acts? That a new heart must be given us, and a new spirit put within us, before we can walk in God's statutes and keep his judgments, and do them! Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. That we must be created in Jesus Christ unto good works, Eph. ii. 10, before we can walk in them! That the love of God must be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Rom. v. 5, before we can love him! I do not say that they that are void of spiritual life should not attempt to perform religious duties in the best manner they can, by virtue of their natural powers; for this is undoubtedly their duty, both because their sin is less when only the manner of their actions is sinful, than when the matter and manner too are sinful; and because God, who has a right to appoint what methods he pleases, for the collation of his own favours, has constituted this as the way