It is a supernatural principle of a new life, planted in the heart of every child of God by the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit, whereby they endea- vour to approve themselves to God and man in performing what the word of God requires to be performed to both. Briefly let us unfold what is rolled up in this description.
First, Here is the efficient, or workman, ' the Holy Spirit :' hence it is the several parts of holiness are called 'fruits of the Spirit,' Gal. v. 22. If the Spirit be not at the root, no such fruit can be seen on the branches as holiness ; ' sensual,' and ' not having the Spirit,' are inseparably coupled, Jude 19. Man by his fall hath a double loss — God's love to him, his likeness to God. Christ restores both to his children : the first by his righteousness imputed to them ; the second by his Spirit reimparting the lost image of God to them, which con- sists in righteousness and true holiness. Who but a man can impart his own nature, and beget a child like himself? and who but the Spirit of God can make a creature like God, by making him partaker of the Divine nature ?
Secondly, Here is the work produced, ' a supernatural principle of a new life.'
1. By a principle of life, I mean, an inward disposition and cpiality, sweetly, powerfully, and constantly inclining it to that which is holy ; so that the Chris- tian, though passive in the production, is afterwards active, and co-working with the Spirit in all actions of holiness : not as a lifeless instrument is in the hand of a musician, but as a living child in tlie hand of a father ; therefore they are said to be ' led by the Spirit,' Rom. viii.
2. It is a principle of new life. The Spirit's work was not to chafe and recover what was swooning, but to work a life de novo in a soul quite dead : ' You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses.' The devil comes as an orator to persuade by argument, when he tempts ; the Spii'it as a creator, when he converts. The devil draws forth and enkindles what he finds i-aked up in the heart before ; but the Holy Spirit puts into the soul what he finds not there, called in the Scripture ' the seed of God,' 1 John iii. 9; ' Christ formed in you,' Gal. iv. 19 ; 'the new creature,' Gal. vi. 15 ; ' the law put by God into the inner man,' Jer. xxxi. 33 ; which Paul calls, ' the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,' Rom. viii. 2.
3. It is a supernatural principle, by which we distinguish it ft-om Adam's righteousness and holiness, which was connatural to him as now sin is to us ; and had he stood, would have been propagated to us as naturally as now his sin is. Holiness was as natural to Adam's soul as health was to his body, they both resulting ex priiw'ipiis recte constitutis, from principles pure and rightly disposed.
Thirdly, Here is the soil or subject in which the Spirit plants this principle of holiness, ' the child of God.' ' Because ye are sons, he hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,' Gal. iv. 6 ; not a child in all his family that is imlike his Father ; ' as is the heavenly, so are they that are heavenly ;' and none but children have his stamp of true holiness on them. As the apostle, Rom. viii. 9, concludes, 'we have not the Spirit' if we 'be in the flesh,' (that is, in an unholy, sinful state,) so he concludes ' we are not his' (children) if we ' have
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not his Spirit' thus transforming and sanctifying us. There is indeed a holi- ness and sanctification taken in a large sense, which may he foimd in such as are not children ; so all the children of believers are holy, 1 Cor. vii., who are not all children of God ; yea, false professors also gain the name of being sanctified, Hcb. x. 29, because they pretend to be so ; but that which the Scripture calls righteousness and true holiness, is a sculpture tl\e Spirit engraves on none but the children of God. The Spirit sanctifies none but whom Christ prays his Father to sanctify, and they are his peculiar number given of God to him, John xvii.
Foiu'thly, Here is the efficacy of this principle, planted by the Spirit in the heart of a child of God, ' wliereby he endeavours.' As the heart, which is the principle of natural life in the body, from the infusion of natural life, is ever beating and working; so is the principle of new life in the soul ever endeavouring. The new creature is not still-born ; true holiness is not a dull habit, that sleeps away the time with doing nothing. The woman cured by Christ ' rose up presently and ministered unto thcni,' Matt. viii. No sooner this principle is planted in the heart, but the man riseth up to wait on God, and act for God, with all bis might and main; the seed which the sanctifying Spirit casts uito the soul is not lost in the soil, but quickly shews it is alive by the fruit it bears.