[3.] There is no way of enjoying communion with Christ, but in a constant uniform course of holiness and obedience : 1 John i. 6, 7, ' If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin ; ' Heb. xii. 14, ' Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.' Therefore this turning that we may live everlastingly consists in three things — (1.) In a turning from the creature to God ; (2.) From self to Christ ; (3.) From sin to holiness, and herein lieth the great work of grace. Let me a little evince the necessity of these three things.
(1.) That there must be a turning from the creature to God. Here is man's original deviation, his lapse and fall from God to the creature, and by repentance we return to God again, as our chief good and last end. That appeareth partly by the end of our creation. Man was made for God, for the glorifying and enjoying of him : the very con- stitution of his soul shovveth it. There are three sorts of beings; angels, that are pure spirits without flesh, made for heaven, and the company of God, not for earth. Brutes that are made flesh without immortal souls, made for earth, not for heaven ; and man that is of a middle nature between both these, that hath a fleshly substance, and an immortal soul : so that he was made partly for earth, and partly for heaven, as partaking of both. A body that was made out of the dust of the earth, and a soul that came down from the superior world, and must return thither again. Now these two things must be sorted according to the dignity of the parts of which man consisteth. The soul being the better part, the good of the soul is the chiefest good, and the good of the body inferior and subordinate. The one is the way and means, the other the end. He was made for earth in his passage and way to heaven, but his house and happiness is in heaven, where he is to enjoy the blessed God, and to glorify him among his holy angels, and those blessed creatures that dwell above in the region of spirits. Well, then, this was the end for which man was created, and while he remained innocent he had an heart disposed and inclined to God as his chiefest good, to love and fear him, and depend upon him as the fountain of happiness. Partly by the first temptation, by which man was foiled. Satan's aim in the temptation was to set man loose from God ; and to fasten him
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upon the creature, that he might have no cause to look back upon God any more ; to draw him off from God by unbelief and disobedience, and to fasten him to the creature, by bringing him to delight in some outward thing forbidden by God. Man at first referred and carried on all things to God's glory ; afterwards made his own l)odily good the end and scope of his actions : Jer. ii. 13, ' Left the fountain of living waters, and hewed out to themselves broken cisterns that will hold no water.' As subtle men, when they intend to break off a treaty of marriage, set another match afoot : as those that would draw a man's heart from the love of his own wife entangle him in the love of a strange woman ; so as Jeroboam when he fell off from Judah for the securing of the kingdom of the ten tribes to himself and his posterity, thought of keeping them from going up to Jerusalem according to God's ordinance, which might in time unite them to the kingdom of Judah again, and for that end sets up two calves in Dan and Bethel ; so Satan sets up sensual good, the creature, to detain our affections. Well, then, the fall was nothing else but change of the last end of man's actions. He fell off from God as envious, false, and wishing ill to him which before he loved and feared, and depended upon as his chief good and last end ; turned to the creature, especially sensible things, that whether God would or no, he might seek his own happiness there. By the change of the end, all moral goodness is lost, for all actions are subordinated to the last end, and determined by it. In relation to it, things are good or evil. Here was man's disease, a conversion from God to the creature. Partly by his restitution by grace. What is the work of grace, but to bring us to this, that we may make God our great end and scope, that we may enjoy God ? As the needle that is touched with the loadstone turneth to the north ; so is the soul wrought upon by gi-ace turned to God : Ps. Ixxx. 19, ' Turn us again, 0 Lord of hosts ; cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved ;' Ps. Ixxiii. 2.5, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee ; ' Deut. xxx. 6, 'The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.' The soul is awakened, made sensible of the emptiness of the creature and carnal things, in the enjoyment of which we were formerly satisfied. Secular vanities become tasteless. Then seeking and inquiring after God, and how they may be happy for ever, is their work. Before they loved pleasures morc than God, 2 Tim. iii. 2;- now all their desires and endeavours are to enjoy him. This man is turned and gone a-whoring from God to the cieature.