" dead to sin :" in both cases, the soul is hid with Christ in God. Again, when our life was committed to the keeping of the first Adam, he, though perfect, and in Paradise, suffered it to be wrested from him by the subtilty of Satan. To pre- vent a recurrence of such a calamity, our renewed life is not committed to our own care, but is treasured up in the second Adam, and is hid with Christ in God, out of the reach of any enemy. Who then shall prevail against us ? Not all the powers of earth or hell shall effect our ruin : " our life being hid with Christ in God," we are placed beyond the reach of evil ; and therefore may be sure, that when he shall appear again to judge the world, we also shall appear with him in glory. This seems to be the true import of the passage ; and nothing less than this will adequately convey to our minds the security and blessedness of a believing soul ]
Address —
1. Let believers be sensible of the distinguished mercy vouchsafed unto them —
[" Who is like unto you, O people saved by the Lord ?" Behold the unregenerate world : they are " dead," it is true ; but to what are they dead ? Not to self, but to God and to every thing that concerns the soul ; whilst you are dead to the law, and to sin, and to the world, and alive unto God, through Jesus Christ. Light and darkness are not more different from each other, than is the spiritual from the natural man, and the regenerate man from him that remains dead in trespasses and sins. And who has put the difference between you and the unbelieving world ? Who has made you children of God and heirs of glory, whilst so many millions of your fellow-creatures have the wicked one for their father, and everlasting misery as their portion ? Verily, if you do not bless and adore your God, and rend the air with your hosannahs, the very stones will cry out against you.]
2. Let them endeavour to walk worthy of their high calling —
[This is the entire scope both of the preceding and the following context. " Set your affections on things above," "for ye are dead," &c. Then after the text it is added, " Mortify therefore your members upon earth." This should be the effect of all God's mercies to us : and I call on every one who professes to have received life from Christ, to give evidence of that life, by " walking in all things as Christ walked " ]