ce this,--I know you not for mine, you
are none of mine. But if you would now take it to your hearts, there might
be hope that it should go no further, and come to no more public-hearing,
there were hope that it should be repealed before that day, because the
first entry of the Spirit of Christ is to convince men of sin, that they
are unbelievers, and without God in the world, and if this were done, then
it were more easy to convince you of Christ's righteousness, and persuade
you to embrace it, and this would lead in another link of the chain,--the
conviction of judgment, to persuade you to resign yourselves to the
Spirit's rule, and renounce the kingdom of Satan; this were another
trinity, a trinity upon earth, three bearing witness on the earth that you
have the Spirit of God.

Verse 10.--"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of
sin," &c.

All the preceding verses seem to be purposely set down by the apostle for
the comfort of Christians against the remnants of sin and corruption
within them, for in the preceding chapter, he personates the whole body of
Christ militant, showing, in his own example, how much sin remains in the
holiest in this life, and this he rather instances in his own person than
another that all may know that matter of continual sorrow and lamentation
is furnished to the chiefest of saints, and yet, in this chapter, he
propounds the consolation of Christians more generally, that all may know
that these privileges and immunities belong even to the meanest and
weakest of Christians,--that, as the best have reason to mourn in
themselves, so the worst want not reason to rejoice in Jesus Christ. And
this should always be minded that the amplest grounds of the strongest
consolation are general to all that come indeed to Jesus Christ, and are
not restricted unto saints of such and such a growth and stature. The
common principles of the gospel are more full of this milk of consolation,
if you would suck it out of them, than many particular grounds which you
are laying down for yourselves. God hath so disposed and contrived the
work of our salvation, that in this life he that hath gathered much, in
some respect, hath nothing over--that is to say, hath no more reason to
boast than another, but will be constrained to sit down and mourn over his
own evil heart, and the emptiness of it, and he that hath gathered less
hath, in some sense, no want. I mean, he is not excluded and shut out