A Goodly Heritage

Prayer is an exercise far beyond our natural power, and demands the exercise of graces which can only be imparted by the Spirit of God; and this reflection, again, should direct us to look to the Spirit of all grace, and to implore his aid, as often as we come to the throne. We learn from it that God has made the most ample provision for our being restored to his communion and fellowship: for not only is he revealed as the hearer and the answerer of prayer, sitting on the throne of grace, and waiting to be gracious; and not only is Christ revealed as our advocate and intercessor, standing beside the throne, and ready to present our requests, perfumed with the incense of his own merits; but lest, when all outward impediments were removed, there might still remain some hindrance in our own hearts, the Holy Spirit is also revealed as ‘the Spirit of grace and supplication,' ‘who intercedeth for the saints according to the will of God'; and as this precious truth should encourag...

"What is it to bring sin to Christ's cross, and to crucify it there?" I answer, it contains the following things: -- 1. To behold the sinfulness of sin in the death of Christ. You may see much of the evil of it by looking into the holy law, and observing its polluting effect upon your own hearts: but such sights of sin, by themselves, will not subdue it. Look upon the cross of Christ; behold him suffering, bleeding, dying, and under his Father's withdrawment for sin imputed to him: there you may look and wonder, look and mourn, look and raise your indignation against sin in the strongest manner. This will be a most effectual means of making you to be truly ashamed of it, and to mourn for it with a godly, an evangelical sorrow. 2. To account every indulged sin in you as crucifying the Son of God afresh. By giving way to iniquity, by harboring it in your bosoms, or by casting a pleasing glance upon the abominable thing, you are guilty, not only of breaking the...

The  life  of Christianity consists very much in our  love  to Christ. Without love to Christ, we are as much without spiritual life—as a carcass when the soul is fled from it is without natural life. Faith without love to Christ is a dead faith, and a professor without love to Christ is a dead professor, dead in sins and trespasses. Without love to Christ we may have the  name  of Christians—but we are wholly without the  nature  of Christians. We may have the  form  of godliness—but are wholly without the  power  of godliness. "Give me your heart!" is the language of God to all people, Proverbs 23:26; and "Give me your love!" is the language of Christ to all His disciples. Christ knows the command and influence which love to Him, in the truth and strength of it, has; how it will engage all the other affections of His disciples for Him; that if He has their love, their  desires  will be chiefly after Him. Their...

 The soul is not now capable of the fullest and clearest manifestation of Christ. This is a happiness reserved for heaven. 1 John 3:2, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know, that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." John 17:24, "Father, I will that they also whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory which You have given Me." It is  hereafter  that Christ's disciples shall be perfectly like Christ, and shall have a perfect manifestation of Christ, that they shall see Him as He is. It is  hereafter  that they shall behold His glory. The luster and brightness of Christ's glory is so great that, should He now let forth the beams thereof upon them—it would dazzle and astound them; it would strike them blind. Yes, it would strike them dead. There is need, because of their weakness, that Christ should keep a  veil  on His face...

 It was the intent of God you should walk in a nobler manner than the rest of the world. Did God infuse into Adam a soul of a higher nature than that of beasts, to enable him to live only the life of beasts? God intended by the infusion of this new principle, that you should live above the sphere of humanity and the rate of man. How does the apostle chide the Christians because they did not advance above the life of mere man; and therefore gives them a title chiefly belonging to the unregenerate world: 1 Cor. iii. 3, 'Are you not carnal. and walk as men?' Our Saviour expects a more worthy carriage from his children than what barely nature can teach them. He would have them as God, and imitators of him, Mat. v. 44-47,

Justification is a relative change, whereby a man is brought from a state of guilt to a state of righteousness; from a state of slavery to a state of liberty; from the obligation of the covenant of works to the privilege of the covenant of grace; from being a child of wrath to be an heir of promise. Regeneration is a physical change, and real, as when a dead man is raised from death to life; it is a filling the soul with another nature, Eph. ii. 1, 'And you has he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.' The translators have inserted those words, 'has he quickened,' because those words are put in the 5th verse; but methinks the words refer better to the 23rd verse of the first chapter, speaking of Christ, 'who fills all in all,' and fills you too with a spiritual life; or he passes from the power of God in raising Christ, to his power in raising us. It is a change of nature, and of that nature whereby we are children of wrath, not only by the first sin...

 Regeneration is a spiritual change, conversion is a spiritual motion. In regeneration there is a power conferred; conversion is the exercise of this power. In regeneration there is given us a principle to turn; conversion is our actual turning; that is the principle whereby we are brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace; and conversion the actual fixing on God, as the  terminus ad quem . One gives  posse agere , the other  actu agere . [1.] Conversion is related to regeneration, as the effect to the cause. Life precedes motion, and is the cause of motion. In the covenant, the new heart, the new spirit, and God's putting his Spirit into them, is distinguished from their walking in his statutes, Ezek. xxxvi. 27, from the first step we take in the way of God, and is set down as the cause of our motion: 'I will cause you to walk in my statutes.' In renewing us, God gives us a power; in converting us, he excites that power. Men are naturally dead, and ha...