2. Let us a little see wherein they differ.
[1.] They differ in the state of them bbtli ; for this spiritual life is a life that is consistent with some degree of death. Even then when we live, we are troubled with a body of death. Paul complains of it, though grace hath the upper hand in the soul, yet corruption cleaves to us still. Outwardly a man cannot be said to be dead and alive together ; but a christian yet hath sin dwelling in him, and is dying to sin every day, that he may live unto God. And as sin decays, so the spiritual life takes place ; for mortification makes way for vivifica- tion ; and according to the degrees of the one, so are the degrees of the otlier. The more we die to sin, the more we are alive to righteous- ness, 1 Peter ii. 24.
YeR. 15.] SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. 203
[2.] Tliere is a difference in the dignity of this life. Natural life, what is it ? A benefit vouchsafed to us by God, that we may have time for repentance ; but yet it is but a ' wind ' that is soon blown over, and passeth away, Job vii. 7 ; and a suitable expression you have, James iv, 14, for this life is but as a ' vapour.' This life is a little warm breath turned in and out by the nostrils, soon gone. It is indeed a continued sickness; and om' food is as it were constant medicine to repair and remedy the decays of the natural life. Oh, but this is a life that flows from God himself, and is a more worthy thing, it is the life of God ; and as Christ liveth in the Father, so we in him by the Spirit. This was a life bought at a dearer rate than the life of nature : John vi. 51, ' My flesh which I give for the life of the world.' Nothing less than the death of the Son of God would serve the turn; and therefore it is more noble than the other life, which is called ' the life of our hands,' Isa. Ivii. 10, because it costs us hard labour to maintain it.
[3.] As it differs in the dignity and value, so in the original. The natural Kfe is traduced and brought down unto us by many successions of generations from the ' first Adam ; ' he was ' a living soul,' but the ' last Adam was a quickening spirit,' 1 Cor. xv. 45. We have a living soul by virtue of our descending from the first Adam ; all that our l)arents could do was to make way for the union of soul and body together. But by this life we and Christ are united together, and he becomes a Ihe-making spirit unto us.
[4.] There is a difference in the duration. Grace is an immortal flame, a spark that cannot be quenched. All our labour and toil here in the world is to maintain a dying life, a lamp that soon goes out, or to i)rop up a tabernacle that is always falling ; when we have made the best provision for it, it is taken away — ' Thou fool, this night,' &c. This life is in the power of every ruffian and assassinate that values not his own. Oh, but the spiritual life is a life that begins in grace and ends in glory ; the foundation of it was laid in justification, that took ofi" the sentence of death ; sanctification is the beginning of it, the which by degrees is carried on till it end in glory, where we shall be never weary of living it. The outward life, though short, yet we soon grow weary of it ; the shortest life is long enough to be numbered with a thousand miseries. If we live to old age, age is a burthen to itself, Eccles. xii. 1. Life itself may become a burthen, for some have wished and requested for themselves that they might die. But no man ever wished for the end of this spiritual life. Who ever cursed the day of his new birth ? This is life indeed ; then we begin to live in good earnest, we may reckon from that day forward that we live. The seed of eternal life was laid as soon as grace was infused into the {^oul, and you may ' take hold of eternal life,' 1 Tim. iv. 20, before you enter into it. Maintain this life, and it will end in eternal glory. Thus I have despatched my first question, namely. What is this life that Christ hath purchased for us ? A spiiitual death, that we might die to sin, and also a spiritual life, that we might live unto God.
Secondly. AYe come to speak of the respect that is between this life and Christ's resurrection.
I Answer, Christ's resurrection is — (1.) An example and pattern of it ; (2.) a pledge of it ; (3.) a cause of it.
204 SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. [SeR. XXIX.
1. An example of it. There is great likeness and correspondence be- tween Christ's rising from the grave, and a christian's resurrection from the death of sin.