sus Christ, if I may so say, is a great vessel which will carry all that are in it safe to heaven: therefore let us embark in him, not only because we would not be drowned by the way, but because we love to be in him. There is a love to Jesus Christ that flows from faith, or that makes the following acts of faith more sensible to believers. Therefore,

Lastly, This employing of Christ must be by an adventuring trust an adventure is that which a man hath some uncertainty about; I do not say, it should be so, but many times it is so. This is our trusting, it is a committing our greatest concern to this only safe hand to keep it. See now, how narrowly this matter is brought: Whensoever any of you have, at any time, any heart-concern about your salvation, remember now, hereafter, and at death, the matter can be only secured by a bold adventuring on the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. "I am such a sinner, saith the man, so undone, so "distressed, so destroyed, so endangered by the law of God "because of sin, that if the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus "Christ be not able to bear me out, I must sink to eternity "under the burden of it." Every one that adventures upon this should do it confidently, though but few can till they have tried the trade of believing for a time. It is a great work to save a sinner; and it is well that it is put into so great a hand; never had a sinner been saved unless Christ had been the Saviour. We have been speaking of employing Christ by faith, and this very faith Christ must be the author of. Oh that Christ might grow in our hearts, that holy one of God! Oh what reason have we to be ashamed of the bad entertainment that we have given to the Son of God! The Lord forgive and help us, and grant that the life that we live in the flesh may be by the faith of the Son of God!

SERMON VI.

1 PETER i. 2.

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied. YOU have heard that this description of the parties which

the apostle here writes to, is not only a discrimination of the persons, but it hath in it an account of all the great work of God about the salvation of his people. The election of the Father; the sanctification of the Spirit; and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. This sprinkling of the blood of Jesus is by the apostle put in the last place; yet because in the order of nature it hath indeed the second place in the dispensation of grace about our salvation, therefore I spoke unto it in the second place and two things I proposed to handle upon it; 1st, The sprinkling of the blood of Jesus itself; 2dly, The respect that electing love and grace hath to it. To the former of these I have spoken at some length; I shall pass by the other at present, until I have spoken to the third thing, viz. the sanctification of the Spirit, and then I shall jointly handle the respect that electing grace hath to both. I come now to this third thing in the order of nature, though it be the second thing in the order of words; the sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience: so it is expressed. And here we have three things to discourse of. 1st, The sanctification itself. 2dly, The sanctification of the Spirit; what is to be understood when sanctification is thus expressed to us, The sanctification of the Spirit. 3dly, The end of this sanctification of the Spirit, it is sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience. It is not sanctification of the Spirit that is got by obedience, but it is sanctification of the Spirit that works obedience. Of these in order.

I. Of sanctification itself. There is a sanctification that is the same with justification, mentioned expressly by the apos

tle to the Hebrews, x. 10. By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all. Sanctification is also an Old Testament phrase, whereby special devotedness to the Lord is expressed. Concerning sanctification, there are three things that I would speak to. 1st, What sanctification is. 2dly, Wherein it agrees with justification. 3dly, Wherein it differs from justification. And then I shall make some application of it for your edification.

That they

1st, What sanctification is. It is a great deal better to feel it than to express it. Sanctification is the same with regeneration; the same with the renovation of the whole man; sanctification is the forming and the framing of the new creature; it is the implanting and engraving the image of Christ upon the poor soul. It is what the apostle breathed after, That Christ might be formed in them, Gal. iv. 19. might bear the image of the heavenly, 1 Cor. xv. 49. Sirs, there are but two men only that all the world is like; and so will it fare with them, as they are like the one, or like the other: the first Adam, and the second Adam. Every man by nature is like the first Adam, and like the devil: for the devil and the first fallen Adam were just like one another. Ye are of your father the devil, saith our Lord, John viii. 44. and he was a murderer from the beginning. All the children of the first Adam are the devil's children, there is no difference here. And all the children of the other sort, are like to Jesus Christ, the second Adam; and when his image shall be perfected in them, then they shall be perfectly happy. As we have also borne the image of the earthly, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly, 1 Cor. xv. 49. Pray observe; We bear the image of the earthly by being born in sin and misery; we bear the image of the earthly by living in sin and misery; we bear the image of the earthly by dying in sin and misery; and we bear the image of the earthly in the rottenness of the grave: and we bear the image of the heavenly Adam when we are sanctified by his Spirit. This image increases in us according to our growth in sanctification: and we perfectly bear the image of the heavenly Adam when we are just like the man Christ, both in soul and body, perfectly happy, and perfectly holy; when we have overcome death by his grace, as he overcame

it by his own strength. It will never be known how like be lievers are to Jesus Christ, till they are risen again: when they shall arise from their graves, like so many little suns shinning in glory and brightness; Oh! how like will they then be to Jesus Christ! though his personal transcendant glory will be his property and prerogative to all eternity.

2dly, Wherein are justification and sanctification alike? We find them both in the text; the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus is justification; justification is an effect of the sprinkled blood of Jesus. Sanctification is also spoken of here, Wherein are these alike one to the other? I answer, in many things. 1st, They are like one another as they are the same in their author; it is God that justifieth, and it is God that sanctifies. Rom. viii. 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? it is God that justifieth. I am the Lord that doth sanctify you, is a common word in the Old Testament. Exod. xxxi. 13. Lev. xx. 8. 2dly, They are alike and the same in their rise, being both of free grace; justification is an act of free grace, and sanctification is the same. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he SAVed us by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, Tit. iii. 5. They are both of grace. 3dly, They are alike in that they are both towards the same persons. Never a man is justified but he is also sanctified; and never a man is sanctified but he is also justified; all the elect of God, all the redeemed, have both these blessings passing upon them. 4thly, They are alike as to the time, they are the same in time. It is a hard matter for us to talk or think of time, when we are speaking of the works of God: these saving works of his. are always done at the same time; a man is not justified before he is sanctified, though it may be conceived so in order of nature, yet at the same time, the same grace works both. Such were some of you, saith the apostle, 1 Cor. vi. 11. but ye re washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 5thly, They are the same as to the operation of them by the same means, that is, by the word of God: we are justified by the word, sentencing us to eternal life by the promise; and we are also sanctified by the power of the same word. Now ye are clean,

saith our Lord, through the word that I have spoken unto you, John xv. 3. That he might sanctify and cleanse his church, saith the apostle, with the washing of water by the word, Eph. v. 26. Lastly, They are the same as to their equal necessity to eternal life; I do not say, as to their equal order, but as to their equal necessity; that is, as it is determined that no man who is not justified shall be saved, so it is determined that no man who is not sanctified shall be saved: no unjustified man can be saved, and no unsanctified man can be saved. They are of equal necessity in order to the possessing of eternal life.

3dly, Wherein do justification and sanctification differ? This is a matter of great concernment for people's practice and daily exercise; wherein they differ. They agree in many things, as has just now been declared, but they likewise differ vastly. 1st, Justification is an act of God about the state of a man's person; but sanctification is the work of God about the nature of a man; and these two are very different, as I shall illustrate by a similitude. Justification is an act of God as a judge about a delinquent, absolving him from a sentence of death; but sanctification is an act of God about us, as a physician, in curing us of a mortal disease. There is a criminal that comes to the bar, and is arraigned for high-treason; the same criminal has a mortal disease, that he may die of, though there was no judge on the bench to pass the sentence of death upon him for his crime. It is an act of grace which absolves the man from the sentence of the law, that he shall not suffer death for his treason; that saves the man's life: but notwithstanding this, unless his disease be cured, he may die quickly after, for all the judge's pardon. Therefore, I say, justification is an act of God as a gracious judge, sanctification is a work of God as a merciful physician; David joins them both together, Psal. ciii. 3. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases. It is promised, That iniquity shall not be your ruin, Ezek. xviii. 30. in the guilt of it; that is justification: and it shall not be your ruin, in the power of it; there lies sanctification. 2dly, Justification is an act of God's grace upon the account of the righteousness of another, but sanctification is a work of God, infusing a righte ousness into us; now there is a great difference between