THE DEAD MAN.
405
I
a clothing of the ministerial word with an almighty power. It is a working word ; as when Christ spake to Lazarus when he stank in his grave, he said, ' Lazarus, come forth,' it was an operative working word. There went an almighty power to raise Lazarus. Therefore, though we find our- selves dead, and have no work of grace, yet let us present ourselves more and more to the ordinance of God. God will be mighty in his own ordi- nance. The blessed time may come ; let us wait when the waters are stirred, and take heed that we despise not the counsel of God, which is to bring man to spiritual life this way.
And object not, I am dead and rotten in sin many years ; I am an old man.
You know many were raised in the Gospel ; some that had been dead few days. Lazarus was rotten, and stank. It shews us that though a man be dead and rotten in sin, yet he may be raised first or last. The blessed time may come, therefore wait. Never pretend long custom and long living in sin. All things are in obedience to God. Though they have a resistance in themselves, yet God can take away that resistance, and bring all to obey him. All things in the world, though they be never so opposite to God's grace, they are in obedience to his command. Therefore though there be nothing but actual present resistance in the soul to that that is good, and a slavery to the bondage of sin, yet attend meekly upon the ordinance. God can make of lions lambs ; he can take away that actual resistance. As Christ, when he was I'aised, the stone that lay upon the gi'ave was removed, so when God will quicken a man, he will remove the stone of long custom that is upon him. Though he have been dead so many years, yet God can roll away the stone, and bid him rise up. Therefore let none despair. God is more merciful to save those that belong to him, than Satan can be malicious to hinder any way.
The best of us all, though we be not wholly dead, yet there are some relics of spiritual death hanging upon us, there be corruptions which in themselves are noisome. Therefore let all attend upon the means, that the Spirit of God by little and little may work out the remainders of death, the remainders of death in our understandings, and of rebellion in our wills and affections. For there be usually three degrees of persons in the church of God. Some open rotten persons, that are as graves, open sepulchres, that their stink comes forth, and they are profane ones. There are some that have a form of godliness that are merely ghosts ; that act things outwardly, but they have not a spirit of their own. They have an evil spirit and yet do good works. They walk up and down, and do things with no spirit of their own. The second are more tolerable than the first in human society ; because the other stink and smell to common society : common swearers and profane persons, that stink to any except it be to themselves. But the godly have this death in part. The life of sentence is perfect, the life of justification ; but spiritual life in us is by little and little wrought in the means. The Spirit of Kfe joins with the word of life, and quickens us daily more and more. A word of these words,
' And you hath he quickened.'
Suitable to the occasion.* This being our estate, let us know how much we are beholding to God ' who hath quickened us.' God quickens us with Christ and in Christ. It is a comfortable considei-atlon, in that God hath quickened Christ and raised him from the grave, it shews that his Father's wrath is pacified, or else he would not have quickened him. He gave him * In margin here, ' Easter-day.' — G.
406 THE DEAD MAN.