You see the first proposition, 'Ye are dead.' With whom ? 'With Christ, in God.'
A Christian is dead many ways. He is dead to the law, to the moral law. He looks not to have comfort and salvation by it, by the law ; he is dead to the law, and so flies to Christ.
A Christian is dead also to the ceremonial law. Now, in the glorious lustre of the gospel, what have we to do with those poor elements that were for children ? A ceremonious disposition is opposite to the glory and lustre of the gospel, as the apostle speaks in the former chapter.
He is dead likewise to sin. Having communion with Christ, when he died for sin, he is dead to sin. He that hath communion in the death of Christ, hath the same affection to sin that Christ had. Christ hated it infinitely when ho suffered for it ; so every Christian thinks that Christ died for my sins, and by union with Christ ho hath the same affection to it, he is ' dead' to it.
And because this is but an inchoation and beginning, a Christian is not perfectly dead to sin. He stands in need of afflictions, and in regard of
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aflictions he is dead. They must help the work of mortification. And because no affliction can sufficiently work mortification but death itself, which is the accomplishment of mortification, we are dead in respect of death itself, which is the accomplishment of all. Though we live here for a time, we are dead in regard of the sentence that is passed on us, as we say a man is dead when the sentence is passed on him. In that respect ■we are dead men, for our life is but a dead life. Besides the sentence that is passed upon us, death seizeth upon us in the time of our life, in sick- nesses, &c. And so they prepare us to death. Thus, and many other ways, we are dead.
The second proposition is, ' Our life is hid with Christ in God.' We are dead, and yet we have a life. A Christian is a strange person. He is both dead and alive, he is miserable and glorious. He consists of contraries. He is dead in regard of corruption and miseries, and such like, but he is alive in regard of his better part, and he grows two ways at once. It is a strange thing that a Christian doth. He grows downwards and upwards at the same time ; for as he dies in sin and misery, and natural death approaching, so he lives the life of grace, and grows more and more till he end in glory.
This life is said to be a hidden life, ' It is Jiicl with Christ in God.' The life of a Christian, which is his glorious spiritual life, it is hid. Among other respects,
1. It is hid to the world, to ivorldhj men, because a Christian is an unknown man to them. Because they know not the Father that begets, therefore they know not them that are begotten, as St John saith, 1 John iii. 1. They know not the advancement of a Christian : he is raised into a higher rank than they. Therefore, as a beast knows not the things of a man, no more doth a carnal man, in any excellency, know the things of the Spirit, ' for they are spiritually discerned, 1 Cor. ii. 14. Therefore it is a hidden life in the eyes of the world. A worldly man sees not this life in regard of the excellency. He passeth scorns and contempts of it, of folly and the like. A Christian, in respect of his happy life, is a stranger here, and therefore he is willing to pass through the world, and to be used as a stranger.
2. It is a hidden life likewise ofttimes, not only to worldlings, but in regoxA. of the children of God themselves ; because by reason of some infir- mities that are in the best of God's children, they are apt to judge amiss, harshly and rashly one of another. Likewise by reason of those calamities that are common to all men alike. They are afflicted as others, and have sicknesses, and are contemned more than others ; and by reason of this the children of God often censure those that have the beginnings of spiritual life in them. It is hid from them.
It is hid likewise from themselves, for often God's children know not themselves, in temptation, in their nonage, in the beginning of their con- version, in the time of desertion, and spiritual slumber and sleep, grace seems to be dead in them, and then they know not that they have this spiritual life. Especially if this desertion be joined with outward abase- ment, they call their estate into question, as in Ps. Ixxiii. 2, seq., and in divers places of Scripture. God's children ofttimes, by reason of their inquisition and search, they raise clouds, whereby they conceal from their own eyes their own life. Partly through distemper of body, and partly by distemper of spirit, there are clouds raised between them and their hap- piness, that they cannot see their spiritual Ufe.
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But especially it is hid in regard of common infirmities, wanting gifts that others have, that have not a dram of grace sometimes, that live to please men, and look altogether to the outside. They do that many times to please men hetter than a Christian,