I will not press the point any further.
Use of trial. To make use of what is spoken. If it is true that there is a spiritual life, another life, and this is most manifested in affliction ; how then shall we know whether we have this life of Christ or no ? for Christ conveyeth a spiritual life to all his.
We will speak of the evidence of them both, whether is there a gracious frame of life in us from Christ or no.
If the life of Christ be not in us, beloved, we are stark dead in regard of a better life ; and it is woeful to be in a dead condition. And therefore it behoveth us a little to take heed that we have the life of Christ, and if we have it, we may know it familiarly. I do but name the heads. Because it is a word borrowed from the life of nature, you may know it from pro- portion to the life of nature. Where spiritual life is, there it is. As in the outward life you know there is sense and motion, appetite, and such like ; so where the life of Jesus is, there be spiritual senses, eyes that see spiritual things, a taste that relishes spiritual things, a taste that can relish
420 COMMENTARY ON
them above all other thin<:;s, that can set the highest price upon the best things, that jiulgeth of things as they be. There is a spiritual taste and judgment suitable to the judgment of Christ. And so I might run through all the senses, if I would aliect correspondency in this kind.*
And as there is spiritual sense, so there is sensibleness. A natural life makes us sensible of any injury, of any comfort. So where there is the life of Jesus, it makes us sensible of anything that is suitable to nature, or contrary to it. Where there is life there is sympathy and antipathy ; sympathy, agreement with what is suitable to nature, and antipathy to what is contrar3\ So w'here there is the life of Jesus, there is a sympathy with all things that are Jesus his stamp f upon them, to spiritual things and spiritual persons, and an antipathy to the contrary.
And here is tlie ground why a godly man may be known by his hatred of sin, because it sheweth an antipathy ; and antipathy shcwcth the kinds of life. Sin is contrary to union and communion with Christ, for it is a dissolving and divorcing nature.
Now the soul that liveth by Christ, and knoweth sin to be of a divorcing and separating nature, to sever his soul from his head and life, and so to cause apoplexies and death itself, if it be not looked to in time, hereupon comes the soul to hate sin to the death, and to seek the death of sin by all means, because sin seeketh the death of the soul ; for what is sin but a separation of the soul from Christ, and a joining to the creature ? There- fore wheresoever there is grace, there is antipathy to sin, not only as bringing damnation with it, but as contrary to the life of Christ ; as every creature hath an antipathy to its enemy, as we see in doves and eagles ; the dove is the prey. The tamer and wild creatui'es have an antipathy in them by nature. So the soul that hath the life of Christ hath an antipathy to sin. So far as the life of Christ prevaileth in him it must be so, for every life labours to preserve its being. We are bid to be wise as serpents, that wind and turn themselves about, that cover their heads and will suffer all manglings so the head be safe, because the life is in the head ; so the Christian that hath the life of grace will endure anything, so the life of grace be not hurt. There be s^'mpathies and antipathies, an inward joining to that that preserveth, and an inward hatred to that that is destructive ; and therefore they that live in sin against conscience, that divideth between God and them, I cannot see how they can think of spiritual life ; for the soul liveth, and is swallowed up in base pleasures and in the creature. Now if they had spiritual life, it would preserve itself from breaches and all dangers.
Let us not deceive ourselves. Christ came not to free us from damna- tion only, but as an head, to infuse spiritual life into us, and to live in us by his Spirit. He came not only to purchase a life of glory for us, but likewise to live in us by his Spirit ; and if he overcome for us, he will over- come in us ; if he hath a life for us, he will have a life in us. The life of Jesus must be manifested in us. And therefore take heed of joining in affliction, to any sin ; for it doth divorce the soul from God, and joins it to the creature. And so the soul becomes fading like the creature, and Cometh to nothing ; and indeed it is worse than nothing, to be for ever in heU. It comes to that degree in misery that it would otherwise have bad in happiness.