■ And then after the life of justification, being justified by faith, we have the life of sanctification and holiness. For God out of his love, when he hath pardoned our sin, he gives his Spirit as the best fruit of his love ; and we having our consciences absolved and acquitted by the Spirit of God, through the obedience of Christ, we love God. God so loveth us when he is appeased by Christ, that the bar being taken away, our sins being par- doned, and the sluice of mercy open, there is way made for another life, the life of sanctification by the Spirit. Upon pardon of our sins he gives the Spirit ; and we feeling that love, have love wrought in us to him again, and that love stirs up every Christian to obedience.
In the next place, After he hath acquitted us by his all-sufficient satisfac- tion, being God and man, and hath given us his Spirit, there is another life, the life of comfort, which is the life of our life, in peace of conscience and joij unspeakable and f/lorious. This Hfe issues from the former. For when we find our conscience appeased, that God saith to our souls he is ' their salvation,' Ps. xxxv. 3, and find a newness wrought in our nature by the Spirit of God, and some strength to obey him, then we begin to have a sweet * That is, 'reversal.' — G.
VOL. V. O
210 THE HIDDEN LIFE.
peace, as the children of God find in themselves, and joy unspeakable and glorious.
This is the life of this life. Having union with Christ and his righteous- ness and Spirit, we have this peace, which is the way to glory and the beginning of it. For besides that Christ is our life in glory afterwards, in this life he is our life. Answerable to our servile fear, as we are dead in law, we have a life in justification. As we are dead in nature, so we have a life in sanctilication. We are dead in despair, and run into terrors of conscience ; so we have a life in joy and peace.
But all those in this life are imperfect, because there is only an union of grace here, till we come to the union of glory in heaven ; and then at the day of judgment there will be a perfect just if i/iHff of us. Wo shall not only be acquitted in our conscience, as we are now, but we shall be acquitted before angels and devils and men, and Christ will acknowledge us. These are they for whom I died. These are they for whom I made intercession in heaven. We shall be acquitted there, and there we shall bo acknow- ledged.
And then the Hfe of sanctification, that is now in part, shall then be perfect, and likewise the peace that now ' passeth understanding ' shall then be full ; and our joy shall be full by Christ who is our life.
So then we see we have in Christ, ' the second Adam,' whatsoever we lost in the first root. Whence did we draw sin and miseiy ? By union with the first Adam we have damnation, we have the wrath of God, we have corruption opposite to sanctification, we have terrors and horror of conscience. By the second Adam, and union with him, we have a spring of life and pence, and all that we lost in Adam ; and more than all we lost, he being God-man. The sin of the first Adam was the sin of a man ; the obedience of the second Adam was the obedience of God-man, which raiseth us to life everlasting, Rom. v. 16, seq. So that there is more comfort in the life we have by Christ than there is discomfort in our death by Adam.
We see then hence that in all our deadness and dulness and want of grace, there is a spring in our nature. God hath given Christ, God-man, that there should be a treasure in him for all the church, that we may fetch supply out of our nature. He is fit to be our life, for our nature in him is united to the Godhead ; therefore Christ is a fit fountain to derive * grace to believers, because man's nature in him is advanced ; by being united to the second person he is God-man, able to derive all grace and comfort and righteousness w'hatsoever. Shall the first Adam derive unrighte- ousness, discomfort, and misery, that was a man ? and shall not Christ, God-man, derive righteousness and comfort and joy and peace, and what- soever is good ? Undoubtedly he shall. Therefore in all want of grace, in all temptations and assaults, let us go to the fountain, to the fulness of grace, to the fulness of God's love in Christ. Christ, God-man, is our life. As when we are cold we come to the fire, so when we are dull-hearted let us come to this quickening Spirit.
And to this end let us be stirred up to use those means wherein Christ will be eff'ectual, whereby, as by veins, the blood of this spiritual life is con- veyed, as the word and sacraments, the communion of saints and all sanctified means, whereby the life of grace and comfort ma}^ be conveyed to us. Let us never be out of such ways and courses as whereby Christ derives this life of grace ; and let us take heed of those that are contrary.