[1.] These promises should have some accomplishment at their return from Babylon, which was a new world to the ruined and exiled state of the church of the Jews.
[2.] These promises were fulfilled to all believers in their regenera- tion, which is as a new world to sinners.
[3.] They shall be accomplished most fully in the life to come, for the apostle telleth us, 2 Peler iii. 19, ' We look for new heavens and a new eartli, wherein dwelleth righteousness.' Here it signifieth then that all things which belong to the old man shall be abolished, and the new man, and its interests and inclinations, cherished.
Doct. All those that are united to Christ are, and ought to be, new creatures.
Here I shall inquire — (1.) What it is to be new creatures. (2.) In what sense we are said to be united to Christ. (3.) How the new creation floweth from our union with Christ.
First. What it is to be new creatures, It implieth —
1. That there must be a change wrought in us, so that we are as it were other men and women than we were before ; as if another soul came to dwell in our body. This change is represented in such terms in scripture as do imply such a broad and sensible difference as is between light and darkness. Eph. v. 8; life and death, 1 John. iii. 14; the new man and the old, E{)h. iv. 22-24. The vicious qualities must be subdued and mortified, and contrary qualities and graces planted in their stead. A man is so changed in his nature as if a lion were turned into a lamb, as the prophet says when he sets forth the strange effects of Christ's powerful government over the souls of those Avho by the ministry of the word are subdued to him: Isa. xi. 6.-8, ' The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together ; and a young child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down together : and the lion shall eat straw with the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.' They shall be so inwardly and thoroughly changed that they shall seem new creatures, transformed out of beasts into men; and instead of a hurtful, they should have an innocent and harmless disposition. Without a metaphor this is represented: 1 Cor. vi. 11, 'And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.' An instance we have, Philem. 11, in Onesimus, ' which in time past was unprofitable, now profitable both to thee and me.'
2. This change must be such as may amount to a new creation. There are some changes which do not go so far ; as —
[1,] A moral change : from profaneness to a more sober course of life. There are some sins which nature discovereth, wh'ch may be pre- vented by such reasons and arguments as nature suggesteth : Rom. ii.
VeR. 17.] SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. 233
14, ' For the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law ; these having; not the law, are a law unto them- selves/ This may be done by philosophical institution, without an interest in Christ, or the power of the Holy Ghost, or knowledge of the scriptures. Men may a little fashion their outward behaviour into an handsomer mode and dress ; but the new creature signifieth such a change that not only of vicious he becometh virtuous, but of carnal he becometh spiritual I gather that from John iii. 6, ' That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit/ A man by nature is carnal, yea, very flesh itself. He is so when he inclineth to things pleasing to the flesh, seeketh them only, favoureth them only, afl^ecteth them only, inclineth to them only. Tiiey that are guided by sense, and not by faith, by the interests and inclinations of the flesh, and not the spirit, are natural men, whatever change is wrought in them: Jude 19, 'Sensual, having not the Spirit ; ' and 1 Cor. ii. 14, ' The natural man discerneth not tlie things of God ; ' he acteth but as a nobler and better-natured animal or living creature. The flesh may be pleased in a cleanly as well as in a grosser manner ; and though men live plausibly, yet still they may live to themselves, and only live the animal life, not only common to us and other men, but us and beasts ; their thoughts, ends, cares run that way ; and being void of spiritual life, are ignorant, mindless of another world, or the way that leadeth thither, and desire it not. Now these, though they are not profane, do not wallow in gross sins and Avickedness, whereby others dishonour human nature, yet because they do not look after a better life, have no desire of better things fixed upon their minds, they are carnal. That is the true change, and they only are new creatures who before sought carnal things with the greatest earnestness, breathed after carnal delights, contented themselves with this lower happiness, but afterwards desire spiritual and heavenly things, and really en- deavour to get them, which mere human nature can never bring them unto ; for flesh riseth no higher than a fleshy inclination can move it. Others are but as a sow washed ; a sow washed is a sow still. So is a carnal man well fashioned.