is not our home, nor the place of our reft; therefore our loins must be ftill girt up, our affections kept from training and dragging down upon the earth.

Men that are altogether earthly and profane, are. fo far from girding up the loins of their mind, that they set them wholly downwards. The very highest part of their foul is glued to the earth, and they are daily partakers of the ferpent's curfe, they go on their belly and eat the duft, they mind earthly things, Phil. iii. 19. Now this difpofition is inconfiftent with grace; but they that are in fome measure truly godly, though they grovel not fo, yet may be fomewhat guilty of fuffering their affections to fall too low, that is, too much converfant with vanity, and further engaged than is meet, to fome things that are worldly, and by this means abate of their heavenly hopes, and make them less perfect, lefs clear and fenfible to their fouls.

And because they are most fubject to take this liberty in the fair and calm weather of profperity, God doth often, and wifely and mercifully, cause rough blasts of affliction to arife upon them, to make them gather their loose garments nearer to them, and gird them closer.

Let us then remember our way, and where we are, and keep our garments girt up, for we walk amidst thorns and briers, that, if we let them down, will entangle and ftop us, and poffibly tear our garments. We walk through a world where there is much mire of finful pollutions, and therefore cannot but defile them; and the crowd we are among will be ready to tread on them, yea our own feet may be intangled in them, and fo make us ftumble, and poffibly fall. Our only safest way is to gird up our affections wholly.

This perfect hope is enforced by the whole strain of it: For well may we fix our hope on that happiness to which we are appointed in the eternal election of God, ver. 2. and born to it by our new birth, ver. 3, 4. and preferved to it by his almighty power, ver. 5. and cannot be cut fhort of it by all the afflictions and oppofitions in the way, no nor fo much as deprived by them of our

present

present joy and comfort in the affurance of it, ver. 6, 7, 8, 9. And then being taught the greatness and excellency of that bleffed falvation, by the doctrine of the Prophets and Apoftles, and the admiration of Angels, all these confpire to confirm our hope, to make it perfect and perfevering to the end.

And we may alfo learn by the foregoing doctrine, that this is the place of our trial and conflict, but the place of our reft is above: We must here have our loins girt; but when we come there, we may wear our long white robes at their full length without disturbance, for there is nothing there but peace; and without danger of defilement, for no unclean thing is there, yea the streets of that New Jerufalem are paved with pure gold. To Him then, that hath prepared that city for us, let us ever give praise.

Ver. 14. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lufts, in your ignorance: 15. But as he which hath called you is boly, fo be ye holy in all manner of converfation;

16. Because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am boly. THY word is a lamp unto my feet, fays David, and a

light unto my path, Pfal. cxix. 105. not only comfortable, as light is to the eyes, but withal directive, as a lamp to his feet. Thus here the Apostle doth not only furnish confolation against diftrefs, but exhorts and directs his brethren in the way of holiness, without which, the apprehenfion and feeling of thofe comforts cannot fubfift.

This is no other but a clearer and fuller expreffion, and further preffing of that fobriety and spiritualness of mind and life, that he jointly exhorted unto, with that of perfect hope, ver. 13. as infeparably connected with it. If you would enjoy this hope, be not conformed to the lufts of your former ignorance, but be holy. There is no doctrine in the world either fo pleasant or fo pure as that of Christianity: It is matchlefs, both in fweetness and holiness. The faith and hope of a Chriftian

Christian have in them an abiding precious balm of comfort; but this is never to be fo lavished away, as to be poured into the puddle of an impure confcience: No, that were to lose it unworthily: As many as have this hope purify themselves, even as he is pure, 1 John tii. 3. Here they are commanded to be holy as he is holy. Faith firft purifies the heart, Acts xv. 9. empties it of the love of fin, and then fills it with the coníolation of Chrift and the hope of glory.

It is a foolish mifgrounded fear, and fuch as argues inexperience of the nature and workings of divine grace, to imagine that the affured hope of falvation will beget unholiness and prefumptuous boldnefs in fin, and therefore that the doctrine of that affurance is a doctrine of licentiousness: Our Apoftle, we fee, is not fo fharp-fighted as these men think themselves; he apprehends no fuch matter, but indeed fuppofes the contrary as unquestionable: He takes not affured hope and holiness as enemies, but joins them as nearest friends, hope perfectly, and be holy.

They are mutually ftrengthened and increafed each by the other. The more affurance of falvation, the more holiness, the more delight in it, and study of it, as the only way to that end. And as labour is then most pleasant, when we are made fureft it shall not be loft, nothing doth make the foul fo nimble and active in obedience as this oil of gladness, this affured hope of glory. Again, the more holinefs is in the foul, the clearer always is this affurance, as we fee the face of the heavens beft when there are feweft clouds. The greatest affliction doth not damp this hope fo much as the smallest fin, yea, it may be the more lively and fenfible to the foul by affliction; but by fin it always fuffers lofs, as the experience of all Chriftians does certainly teach them.

The Apostle exhorts to obedience, and enforceth it by a most perfuafive reason. His exhortation is, 1. Negative, Not fashioning yourselves. 2. Pofitive, Be ye boly.

I. For the negative part of the exhortation. That which he would remove and separate them from is lufts: This is in Scripture the ufual name of all the irregular and finful defires of the heart, both the polluted habits of them, and their corrupt ftreams, both as they are within, and outwardly vent themselves in the lives of men. The Apoftle St John (1 John ii. 17.) calls it the luft of the world, and ver. 15. love of the world; and then, ver. 16. branches it into those three, that are indeed the bafe Anti-trinity that the world worships, the luft of the eyes, the luft of the flesh, and the pride of life.

The foul of man unconverted is no other but a den of impure lufts, wherein dwells pride, uncleanness, avarice, malice, &c. juft as Babylon is described, Rev. xviii. 2. or as Ifa. xiii. 21. Were a man's eyes opened, he would as much abhor to remain with himfelf in that condition, as to dwell in a house full of fnakes and ferpents,' as St Auftin fays. And the first part of converfion is once to rid the foul of these noisome inhabitants, for there is none at all found naturally vacant and free from them. Thus the Apoftle here expreffes of the believers he wrote, that these lufts were theirs before in their ignorance.

There is a truth in it, that all fin arifes from fome kind of ignorance, or, at least, from prefent inadvertence and inconfideration, turning away the mind from the light; which therefore, for the time, is as if it were not, and is all one with ignorance in the effect; and therefore the works of fin are all called works of darkness. For were the true vifage of fin feen at a full light, undreffed and unpainted, it were 'impoffible, while it fo appeared, that any one foul could be in love with it, but would rather fly it, as hideous and abominable. But because the foul unrenewed is all darkness, therefore it is all luft, and love of fin; no order in it, becaufe no light. As at the firft in the world, confufion and darkness went together, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, VOL. I.

Gen.

Gen. i. 2. it is fo in the foul, the more ignorance, the more abundance of lufts.

That light that frees the foul, and rescues it from the very kingdom of darkness, must be somewhat beyond that which nature can attain to. All the light of philofophy, natural and moral, is not fufficient, yea, the very knowledge of the law, fevered from Christ, ferves not fo to enlighten and renew the foul, as to free it from the darkness or ignorance here fpoken of; for our Apoftle writes to Jews that knew the law, and were inftructed in it before their converfion, yet he calls thofe times wherein Chrift was unknown to them, the times of their ignorance. Though the stars fhine never fo bright, and the moon with them in its full, yet they do not, all together, make it day, ftill it is night till the fun appear. Therefore the Hebrew Doctors, upon that word of Solomon's, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, say, Vana etiam lex, donec venerit Meffias. Therefore of him Zacharias fays, That the day-Spring from on high bath vifited us, to give light to them that fit in darkness, and in the fhadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace, Luke i. 78, 79.

A natural man may attain to very much acquired knowledge of the doctrine of Chrift, and may dif course excellently of it, and yet ftill his foul be in the chains of darkness, faft locked up under the ignorance here mentioned, and fo ftill of a carnal mind, in fubjection to thefe lufts of ignorance.

The faving light of faith is a beam of the Son of Righteoufnefs himself, that he fends into the foul, by which he makes it difcern his incomparable beauties, and by that fight alienates it from all thofe lufts and defires that do then appear to be what indeed they are, vileness and filthiness itself, makes the foul wonder at itself, how it could love fuch base trash so long, and fo fully refolves it now on the choice of Jesus Chrift, the chief among ten thousands, Cant. v. 10. yea, the fairest of the children of men, Pfal. xlv. 2. for that

he