then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh," ver. 16. See what the foregoing verses are, ver. 14 15. All the law is fulfilled in one word, by love, (as he had said, ver. 13. By love serve one another.) For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." Upon which follows the 16th verse. The lusts of the flesh, which he hath more direct and immediate reference to there, are therefore those opposed to love, such as wrath and anger, envy and malice; which he speaks of, both afterwards in this chapter, and in other of his epistles. When he comes to enumerate the fruits of the flesh, how great a part do things of this nature bear in that enumeration! The works of the flesh are manifest. And after he had named some things more grossly sensual, (as adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,) and interserted idolatry and witchcraft; then comes hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings. And when he had been speaking in Col. 3. 5. of the earthly members, that must be mortified, and for which the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience; in the which, says he, to those Colossians, Ye also walked sometime, when ye lived in them: then he adds, But now put ye off all these: and as he had named before fornication, uncleanness, &c. so now he goes on with the enumeration, mentioning farther anger, wrath, malice, &c. And indeed, if we will not admit the apprehension deep into our souls, that it is the great business of the Spirit of God equally and alike to enliven and animate both parts of the law of God, to turn both tables into a living law, transcribing them out upon the hearts and spirits of men; we shall never understand the great work that is to be done upon our souls by the Spirit. We are to consider it as the Spirit of all love and goodness and benignity and meekness; and then we may easily apprehend what the fruits of this Spirit will be: The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, Eph. 5. 9. It is the reproach of our age, and (which is worse than that,) of the Christian name, that there are so many that conjoin eminent pretences unto religion and spirituality with a froward, peevish, perverse, envious, spiteful, malicious spirit, as if it were possible for these things to consist. It is not strange indeed, that a worse spirit should assume and put on some appearances of a better; but you may be sure, that that better Spirit will never disguise itself by the appearances of the worse. This is the spirit of the world, a spirit that fills the world with nothing but violence and mischief, that shakes and agitates the world with perpetual commo

tions; as it will be with it, till it dissolve and be burst asunder at last by the malignity of its own wickedness, and the wrath of God in a just conjunction therewith, coming upon the wicked. That spirit, and a just nemesis, that falls by way of punishment upon it, hath made the world so miserable a region, the very region of all miseries. So that any one may see, that the spirit of the world hath a great hold upon one, if things of this import are frequently observable in the course of his conversation.

(4.) A vain walk is a discovery, that a man's conversation is acted and influenced by the spirit of this world, which is a vain spirit. Such persons, who can never find a time wherein to be serious, who shew this to be a thing that their hearts abhor from, whom you will find always vain, though you should meet them never so often in a day; as if a serious thought fled from their spirits as none of its element, and could not tell how to dwell with them; the very countenance and shew of whose conversation discovers a continual vanity of spirit. What! will such persons dare to entitle the Spirit of God to this? Hath the Spirit of God the government of that man's walking, in which there is no face of seriousness, so that any one that sees hath reason enough to conjecture, that seriousness was never akin to his spirit or had any place in it? This is matter of very necessary self-reflection. We ought to commune with ourselves very strictly and closely about this thing. Do we think, that we are under the guidance of the Spirit of God, and yet from day to day are unacquainted with what it means to have serious thoughts and serious frames and dispositions of heart about us?

Thus far conformity to the world speaks an unsuitableness and contrariety to walking in the Spirit. There are some other things, that are thought to be out of that verge, and are really beside the more common and general course of this walk; which I shall mention under distinct heads from this, because I would speak of them as they are thought of. And therefore I add,

2. Opinionativeness in the business of religion. Many would little suspect this to be from the spirit of this world. And indeed it is not the very common course of this world to be much concerned about such matters. But no matter from what spirit it is, their own or a worse; it is not from the Spirit of God; that doth not influence their course. But take aright what I mean by the term, opinionativeness: I mean such as in their ordinary course from day to day either are wholly taken up about speculative matters that either really belong or that they affix to religion; or who only converse about

most practical matters speculatively, as if they were matters of mere opinion, and not to be turned or employed to practice at all. A course of walking so managed as this is, certainly is not governed by the Spirit of God; that is the author of no such persuasion to men. Men are apt to think, that they are very safe from sin and blame in this case, because they are things of religion that they are much concerned and taken up about. But what things? and how are they employed about them? Either they converse about the mere skirts and borders of religion, and keep as remote as they can from the heart and vitals of it, from having any commerce with such things: or, if the case be not so, then they presume (and it is a dreadful presumption,) to touch those most sacred things with sacrilegious hands; to alienate the great and deep things of God, that appertain to his kingdom and glory, from their proper and genuine purposes; that, whereas they should be the food of souls, and the maintenance of the spiritual life, they employ them only to feed curiosity, and so to satisfy a more refined lust. This is the very truth of the case; and so a great many, that are persons of more leisure and vacancy from worldly affairs, spend most of their time. It is doleful to think, that the design, for which such important things are revealed to men, should be so little understood, and so little complied with and answered; and that so great things should be perverted unto so mean and ill services. And it is sad to think of the injury, that such men do to their own souls; they go with famished souls from day to day, while they have most proper and suitable nutriment for them just at hand, but they will not touch, so as to taste or feed upon these things. Starving in the midst of plenty is their case: or, as if a sick man should have by him, in the midst of his languishing sickness, some via! of very choice and precious spirits, that in all likelihood would be relieving to him, and save him from death, but he keeps it by him, and will discourse to you very curiously and philosophically concerning the nature and virtues of this thing, yet never uses it, nor apprehends that he is concerned to use it, or that his case requires it; and so dies away with a medicine at hand all the while, that might have saved his life.

3. Formality in the business of religion. There are those, who think it cannot serve their turn to speculate all their days, and, therefore would practise somewhat. But what do they practise? They run in a common road of duties, in which their own hearts upon reflection must confess, that they never had the Spirit of God breathing, and never concerned themselves. to have it so. Theirs is a religious course, and a course of practical religion; but transacted at the utmost distance from

the Spirit of God, so that it and their spirits have no communion from day to day in the whole. They keep up a course of prayer in their families, and it may be in secret, go to public assemblies, attend upon the ordinances of worship; but never find any impression upon their spirits, any warmth or vigour there, or a concern to look after any such thing. They think it well, that such a duty is over, and so that they have walked in a religious course, though strangers to God and his Spirit all their time.

4. The neglect of the very form itself. This is too known a thing among some persons; and that too under the very pretence of spirituality. They are too spiritual to be bound to any forms of worship, or any stated course of duties; and that they may be more spiritual, they cast prayer out of their families, and refuse, yea even disdain to live worshipping lives, as too mean for them. All these things speak a manifest repugnancy to walking in the Spirit. Sure it is not the governor of any such courses of walking as these are.

I shall shut up all with some brief reflections of the text together.

upon both parts

Since it doth belong to the Spirit of God by office, as we have asserted, to maintain the life, and govern the walk and motions of christians; we should bethink ourselves, of how indispensable necessity the communications of the Spirit for these purposes are unto us, and how miserable a thing it is to be destitute of them. We may easily apprehend how necessary that influence is, without which we can neither live nor move; and how miserable to be without it. For represent we to ourselves the case of a poor languishing, decrepit creature, that is deprived of motive power; suppose him barely to live, to have only life enough to feel himself in a dying condition: now is not the case so with many christians, with some of those perhaps that have the root of the matter in them? They have but life enough to feel that they are consuming, and in a state wherein the things that remain are even ready to die! That they do not die, is by divine vouchsafement, and none of their care. What a sad case is this! And is it not yet worse with some? They have not life enough to take any notice or make inquiry, whether they live or no: as persons that have some life left, yet may be uncapable of considering whether they are alive or dead. Many christians are so far from having that motive power, that is to be exercised in the managing of their own walk, and that would be so if it were not through their own default; that they are so altogether destitute also of any presence and vital influence of the Spirit, as never to consider the

case, "Am I alive or dead?" certainly this is a miserable case. And I may add,

Where there is manifestly such a destitution, there are some things very intolerable, which yet are too obvious and frequent with many such. As,

1. It is intolerable in the case, to lay aside the apprehension of the distinction' between natural and spiritual life, natural motion and spiritual. You may judge, whether the mention of this be not a most apparently needful thing. Are there not a great many, that spend away their days without so much as ever considering, that there is such a thing as spiritual life and motion, or a region all replenished with spiritual vitality, a distinct sphere from that of nature wherein alone the rest of men do converse? They never think of such a distinction between world and world; an orb of spiritual life, and that mean and lower orb, wherein only a low kind of animality fills up

all.

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2. It is an intolerable thing in this case, to be unapprehen sive of what others find of the power and vigour of that other Spirit moving in them, even the Spirit of God. There are some, that through grace (though that is not to be vannted of and whereof it becomes none to make a boast:) feel the stirrings of another principle in them different from the spirit of this world: they feel themselves to live, and to be acted in their walk by a spring of life that is from above. Those that are without the experience of such a thing, will not believe there is any such thing; as if their knowledge were to measure all realities; as though they were persons commensurate in their understandings and experience with the whole nature of things. This is just for all the world, as if a languid person, that hath been long confined to his chamber and bed, should come to fancy, that his chamber and bed were all the world, and that there was nothing done among mankind but what he saw trans acted in his own chamber: or, if we should imagine a thinking power to be in the grave, and fancying a grave to be the universe.

3. It is intolerable, to be unconcerned about our own part and share in the world and region of spiritual life and motion, of which we have been speaking. If there were a line to be drawn through the world to sever in it the living from the dead, and a public notification were made of this all the world over; would we not then be very much concerned, on which side of the line we placed ourselves, that it might be where we could live? But how strange is it, that in this case many are altogether unconcerned, whether they are of the living or the dead side! Lastly,