* The common cry of persecutors have been, Chrintianos ad Ltona : within the first three hundred years after Christ, upon the matter all that made a profession of the apostle's doctrine, were cruelly murdered.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 279
in sunshine weather, &c., these are still Satan's bond-slaves, and such as Christ can take no pleasure nor delight to espouse himself unto. But, 3. The third word of advice and counsel is this, viz. — 'Put off the old man, and put on the neiv,' Col. iii. 9, 10. Consult the scriptures in the margin, i You must be new creatures, or else it had been better you had been any creatures than what you are : 2 Cor. v. 17, ' If any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.' The new creature includes a new light, a new sight, a new understanding. Now the soul sees sin to be the greatest evil, and Christ and holiness to be the chiefest good, Ps. xxxviii. 4, and Cant. v. 10. When a man is a new creature he has a new judgment and opinion, he looks upon God as his only happiness, and Christ as his all in all. Col. iii. 11, and upon the ways of God as ways of pleasantness, Prov. iii. 17. The new man has new cares, new requests, new desires. Oh that my soul may be saved ! Acts ii. 37, and xvi. 30 ; Oh that my interest in Christ may be cleared ! Oh that my heart may be adorned with grace ! Oh that my whole man may be secured from wrath to come ! 1 Thes. i. 10. The new man is a man of new principles. If you make a serious inspection into his soul, you shall find a principle of faith, of repentance, of holiness, of love, of contentment, of patience, &c.2 There is not any one spiritual and heavenly principle respecting salvation, but may be found in the new creature. The new man experiences a new combat and conflict in his soul. ' The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit lusteth against the flesh.' ' I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind,' Gal. v. 17, and Kom. vii. 23. The new man ex- periences a combat in every faculty. Here is the judgment against the judgment, and the will against the will, and the afiections against the affections. And the reason is this ; because there is flesh and spirit, sin and grace co-existent and cohabiting in every faculty of the soul ; renevidng grace is in every faculty, and remaining corruption is also in every faculty, like Jacob and Esau struggling in the same womb, or like heat and cold in the same water, and in every part of it. The new man also combats with all sorts of known sins, whether they be great or small, inward or outward, whether they be the sins of the heart or the sins of the life ; and besides, the conflict in the new man is a daily conflict, a constant conflict. The new creature can never, the new creature will never, be at peace with sin ; sin and the new creature will fight it out to the death. The new creature will never be brought into a league of friendship with sin. The new man is a man of a new life and conversation. Always a new life attends a new heart. You see it in Paul, Mary Magdalene, Zaccheus, the jailor, and all the others that are upon Scripture record.^ The new man has new society, new company : Ps. cxix. 63, ' I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.' Ps. xvi. 3, - My goodness extends not to thee, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.' Holy society is the only society for persons of holy hearts, and in that society can no man delight until God renew
1 Eph. iv. 22-24 ; Gal. vi. 15 ; 1 Pet. ii. 2.
* Pliil. i. 29; Acts xi. 18; 1 Thes. iv. 9; Phil. iv. 11 ; 1 Cor. iv. 12.
^ See 1 John iii. 14 ; 2 Cor. vi. 14 ; Ps. cxx. 5, cxixix. 21, and xlii. 4.
280 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
his heart by grace. Many men be as the planet Mercury, good in con- junction with those that are good, and bad with those that are bad ; these are they that do Viriutis stragulam pude/acere, Put honesty to an open shame, i Clothes and company do oftentimes tell tales in a mute but significant language. Tell me with whom thou goest, and I will tell thee what thou art, saith the Spanish proverb. Algerius, an Italian martyr, had rather be in prison with Cato than with Caesar in the senate-house. 2 But to conclude this word of counsel, the new man wallvs by a new rule. As soon as ever God has made a man a new creature, he presently sets up a new rule of life to walk by, and that is no other but that which God himself sets up for his people to walk by, and that is his written word : Isa. viii. 20, * To the law and to the testimony;' Ps. cxix. 105, ' Thy word is a, lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path ;' ver. 133, ' Order my steps in thy word ;' Gal. vi. 16, ' And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.' This rule he sets up for all matters of faith, and for all matters of fact. The word is like the stone Garamantides, that hath drops of gold within itself, enrich- ing of every soul that makes it his rule to walk by. Alexander kept Homer's Iliads in a cabinet, embroidered with gold and pearls ; ^ and shall not we keep the word in the cabinet of our hearts, that it may be always ready at hand as a rule for us to walk by ? Well, friends, whatever you do forget, be sure that for ever you remember this — viz.j that none can or shall be glorious creatures, but such as by grace are made new creatures. But,