VI. *This is the true point of view, in which every Christian is to behold himself. He is to overlook the poor projects of this life, and consider himself as a creature, thro’ his natural corruption, falling into a state of endless misery; but by the mercy of God, redeemed to a condition of everlasting happiness.
All the precepts and doctrines of the gospel are founded on these two great truths, the deplorable corruption of human nature, and its new birth in Christ Jesus.
The one includes all the misery, the other all the happiness of man.
It is on these that the whole frame of Christianity is built, forbidding only such things as fasten us to the disorders of sin, and commanding only those duties which lead us into the liberty of the Sons of God.
So that if we think and act as Christians, we act suitably to these terms of our condition, fearing and avoiding all the motions of our corrupted nature, cherishing the secret inspirations of the Holy Spirit, opening our minds for the reception of the divine light, and pressing after all the perfections of our new birth.
All Christians are continually to behave themselves conformable to this double capacity. We are to fear and watch and pray, like men that are always on the brink of eternal death; and to believe and hope, labour and aspire, like Christians that are called to fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life.
VII. This knowledge of ourselves makes human life a state of infinite importance, placed upon so dreadful a point betwixt two such eternities.
Well might our Saviour say to one that begged first to go and bury his father, _Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead_.
For what is all the bustle and hurry of the world but dead shew, and its greatest actors but dead men, when compared with that real life to which the followers of Christ are redeemed?
Had we been made only for this world, worldly wisdom had been our highest wisdom; but seeing we are redeemed to an intirely contrary state, worldly wisdom is now our greatest foolishness.
It is now our only wisdom, to understand our new state, and conduct ourselves by the principles of our redemption.
VIII. The nature of our Christian calling is of that concern, as to deserve all our thoughts, and is indeed only to be perceived by great seriousness and attention of mind.
The Christian state is an invisible life, supported, not by sensible goods, but the spiritual graces of faith and hope: so that a man busied in earthly cares and enjoyments, perceives nothing of this great and heavenly calling.
The changes which Christianity make in the present state of things, are all invisible: its goods and evils, which are the only true standards of our actions, are not subject to the knowledge of our senses.
In God _we live and move and have our being_; but how unseen, how unfelt is all this!
Christ _is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world_. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all things. The whole creation subsists in him and by him. No person is in any favour with God, but by this great Mediator. But how invisible, how unknown to all our senses is this state of things!
Christians are temples of the Holy Ghost, consecrated to God, members of Christ’s mystical body, of his flesh and his bones, receiving life, spirit and motion, from him their head.
But our senses see no farther than our parents and kindred according to the flesh, and fix our hearts to earthly friendships and relations. Well then may this life be deemed a state of darkness, since it thus clouds and covers all the true appearances of things, and keeps our minds insensible and unaffected with matters of such infinite moment.
IX. *Would we therefore know our true condition, we must search after _a life that is hid with_ Christ _in_ God. We must consider ourselves as parts of Christ’s mystical body, and as members of the kingdom of heaven. In vain do we consider the beauty and strength of our bodies, our alliances with men, and the distinctions of this world; for these things no more constitute the state of human life, than rich _coffins_ or beautiful _monuments_ constitute the state of the dead.
We justly pity the last poor efforts of human greatness, when we see a breathless carcase lying in _state_. It appears so far from any real honour, that it rather looks like ridiculing the misery of our nature. But were religion to form our judgments, the life of a proud, voluptuous, sensual man, tho’ shining in all the splendour of the world, would give us no higher an idea of human dignity, than a poor corpse laid in state.
For a sinner, when glorying in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is a more shocking sight of misery ridiculed, than any pageantry that can expose the dead.
X. We have an apostle’s authority to say, that _he who liveth in pleasure is dead whilst he liveth_.