s no more with church titles, as if these were sufficient
evidences for your salvation. You would all be called Christians, but it
fears me you know not many of you the true meaning and signification of
that word, the most comfortable sense of it is hid from you. The meaning
of it is, that a man is renewed by Christ in the spirit of his mind. As
Christ and the Spirit are inseparable, so a Christian and a spiritual
nature are not to be found severed. Certainly, the very sound of the name
whereby you are called, imports another nature and conversation than is to
be found in many; you cannot say, that you have a shadow of spirituality,
either in your affections or actions, or that you have any real design and
study that way but only to please your flesh, and satisfy the customs of
the world. Why do you then usurp the name of Christianity? This is a
common sacrilege, to give that which is holy unto dogs. Others give it to
you, and you take it to yourselves. But know, that though you please
yourselves and others in this, yet without such a renovation of your
natures, and such a sincere study to be inwardly and outwardly conformed
to the profession and nature of Christianity, you have not your praise of
God, and him whom God praises not, and allows not, he cannot bless for
ever. I am persuaded there are some who are not only in the letter, but in
the Spirit, whose greatest desire and design is to be indeed what they
profess, and such is their praise of God and if God praise them now, they
shall be made to praise him for ever hereafter; such are allowed to take
the name and honourable style of Christianity unto them. You are Christ's
nearly interested in him, and if you be Christ's own, he cannot be happy
without you, for such was his love, that he would not be happy alone in
heaven, but came down to be miserable with us. And now that he is again
happy in heaven, certainly he cannot enjoy it long alone, but he must draw
up his members unto the fellowship of that glory.

Now the other thing, that which gives even being to a Christian is, the
Spirit of Christ dwelling in him. Of this inhabitation, we shall not say
so much as the comparison, being strained, will yield, neither expatiate
into many notions about it. I wish rather we went home with some desires
kindled in us, after such a noble guest as the Holy Spirit is, and that we
were begun once to weary of the base and unclean guests that we lodge
within us, to our own destructi