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be, to the subjection of the Spirit of glorj-, to the Spirit of Christ in him. Though old Adam stir in him, yet he brings him down, that he doth not discover himself to the scandal of the gospel and profession, and to the weakening of the love of good things in the hearts of others. It shall not break out. He subjects these rising thoughts. Here grace is glorious.
Another man cannot do this. He cannot love God ; he cannot deny himself; he cannot resist temptations, not inwardly. He may forbear an action out of fear, but a Christian can love, and fear, and delight in good things ; and he can resist, and he can enjoy the things of this life, in a subordinate manner to better things. A worldling cannot do it. There is a glory upon a Christian, a derivative glory from Christ. For we shine in his beams. We are changed according to his image ' from glory to glory.'
Obj. The thing is not much questionable that grace is glorious, but it may be objected. Doth grace make one glorious ? Then how comes the world to despise such as have grace ? such as are like Christ ?
Ans. 1. I answer it is from blindness, from spiritvcd drnnkenness and madness. They cannot discern of things ; they are besotted ; they see no difference. Therefore they cannot discern things that are excellent. But take a man in his right principles ; take a sober man, and he will see an excellency in a Christian above himself.
Ans. 2. Again, grace is not made so much of ofttimes in the world, hseause it is joined ivith so many infirmities. Our life ' is hid with Christ,' CoL iiL 3. It is hid under infirmities and under afflictions ofttimes ; and being hidden it doth not appear so much in this world.
Ans. 3. And then again, however men force upon themselves a contempt of grace, and of the best things, yet notivithstanding it is but forced; for their conscience stoops at it. Witness conscience when it gives evidence on their deathbed. Take a man when he is himself, when he is sober, when he is best able to judge, when those things are taken from him, that obscured and darkened his judgment, and then you shall have him justify all things that are good, both grace and the means of grace.
Ans. 4l. Again it must be so, that ive may be conformahJe to Christ. The world misguideth* the state of a Christian. They think them vile and base persons. So they did Christ the head of the church. You see how Christ was esteemed. His glory was veiled with our nature and with misery a while ; but it sparkled out ofttimes in his miracles. Now this was that he might suffer and perform the work of salvation. For the devil nor the wicked world would never have done that they did to him, if his glory had broken forth to the full lustre of it.
So it is with the body mystical of Christ. The woi*ld misjudgeth of them. It appears not now what they shall be hereafter, nor what they are now indeed ; because God will have them conformable to Christ. If so be that the glory of Christians were discovered in the true lustre, who would wrong a Christian ? If they did see him indeed to be a member of Christ and an heir of heaven, the care of angels and the price of Christ's death ; if they did see him in his excellency, all the world would admire him, and make another man of him than of potentates and monarchs ! But how then should he be conformable to his head in afflictions ? The head was to save us by death. He must be abased. The world must take him as a sti-ange man, and we that must be conformed to him, we must pass as unknown men in the world. But not so unknown, but that grace breaks out some- times to admiration and imitation ; and when it hath not imitation, it stirs * Qu. ' misjudgeth ' ?-G.
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up envy and malice in others, in the children of the devil. Therefore, not- withstanding all objections, grace is glory. It makes us like Chi'ist, who is glorious, who is ' the Lord of glory.'
And then it draws glory with it, glorious peace and glorious comfort, and joy in the Holy Ghost, the attendants of grace in the hearts of God's people. Is it not, as I said, a glorious thing for a man to have that peace in him that passeth all understanding, that shall settle and quiet his soul in all tumults in the w^orld ? When all things arc turned upside down, for a Christian to stand uumoveably built upon the rock : whence comes this glorious pitch, but from grace ? Grace and peace : one follow another. Then for a man to have inward joy and comfort in the midst of afflictions and disconsolations in the world, it is a wonderful and a glorious thing. It is called 'joy unspeakable,' 1 Peter i. 8, and 'glorious grace,' 2 Cor. iii. 8. Therefore in i-egard of that that follows it, in this world it is glory.