314 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [VeR. 16.
suitableness of it to our hopes, 1 Peter ii. 11. We are passing on to another country, where we shall enjoy a pure and sinless estate.
Let us now apply the point : —
Use 1. It dissuadeth us from walking after our own lusts. You that are Christians should deny them, and not gratify them, otherwise you renounce your allegiance to God. Lust sets up another lord, and maketh us stand in defiance of the God that made us ; his laws call for one thing, and your lusts crave another. God saith, ' Put off the old man with his deceitful lusts,' and you say. We will keep them. Can they be good subjects that live in defiance of their sovereign's laws ? If a prince should send a message to a city not to harbour such and such traitors, but to search them out, and bring them to con- dign punishment ; if they never look after them, yea, are angry with those that discover them, it argueth they do inhaunt with traitors, and are enemies to their prince. We are often warned in God's name to look to our sinful lusts, to put them away ; and we go home and never regard it, nay, are angry with those that grate upon the conscience : Herod would not have his Herodias touched. We take it heinously when the word beareth hard upon our hearts ; what do we but show oui'selves traitors to the crown of heaven ?
2. Otherwise you renounce your interest in Christ : Gal. v. 24, ' They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof He doth not say they are Christ's that take up this opinion and naked belief that he was crucified, or died for sinners, but they are Christ's that feel that he was crucified, that, by the virtue of his cross, do crucify their own lusts and sinful affections. What ! a Christian, and yet worldly ! a Christian, and yet sensual ! a Christian, and yet proud ! You that are given to pleasures, do you believe in Christ that was a man of sorrow ? You that are carried after the pomp and vanity of the world, do you believe in Christ, whose ' kingdom was not of this world' ? You that are proud and lofty, do you profess an in- terest in Christ, who said, ' Learn of me, for I am humble and lowly' ? It is in vain for you to talk of his dying for sinners, and boasting of his cross, when you never felt the virtue of it, Gal vi. 14. What ex- perience have you that his cross was the cross of the Son of God, when your hearts linger as inordinately after carnal things as ever ? Have you got anything by it ? Do you feel any weakening of lusts ? any decay of sin ? Are you ' planted into the efiicacy of his death ' ? Kom. vi. 5. If not, how can you glory in the cross of Christ ?
3. Otherwise you are not acquainted with the Spirit ; his work is to mortify lusts, Eom. viii. 13, and 'they that are after the flesh do savour of the things of the flesh ; and they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit,' Eom. viii. 5. After whom do ye walk ? After your own lusts, or after the Spirit of God ?
4. God doth not only require you in point of sovereignty to put away your lusts, but also pleadeth with you upon terms of grace : Titus ii. 11, 12, ' The grace of God that bringeth salvation, teacheth you to deny worldly lusts.' Grace hath denied us nothing, it hath given us Christ, and all things with him ; and shall we stick at our lusts, that are not worth the keeping ? Nature is much addicted to these lusts, but surely God loves Christ much more than we love the world;
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his love is infinite and unlimited, like his essence, yet God gave up the Son of his love. Grace countetli nothing too dear for us, not the blood of Christ, the joys of heaven ; and shall we count anything too dear to part with for grace's sake ? God forbid ! A ' right eye,' and a 'right hand,' Mat, v. 29, cannot be so dear to us as Christ was to God. "What a cost hatli grace been at to redeem us and save us ! and shall grace be at all this cost for nothing? If God had commanded us a greater thing, ought we not to have done it ? If to ' give the body to be burned,' to offer ' the first-born for the sin of the soul ' ? Considering his absolute right over the creature, he might have required thy life, and thy children's life, but he only requireth thy lusts, things not worth the keeping, the bane of the soul, a bad inmate, which, if we know its pestilent influence, we needed no more arguments to turn out of doors. Thy lusts God requireth ; things we are bound to part with, to preserve the integrity and perfection of our natures, if God had never dealt with us in a way of grace. But how shall grace plead in vain when it presseth to deny lusts ? It will be the shame and horror of the damned to all eternity that they have stood with God for a trifle, that they would not part with dung for gold, with a little brutish contentment for the consolations of the Spirit, especially when grace, which hath so deeply pre-engaged us, pleadeth for it.