a dead business, if you be not animated and
quickened by these considerations,--that Christ died to sin and lived to
God, and that in this he was a public person representing you, that so you
may conclude with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ," Gal. ii. 20. "We are
buried with him by baptism into his death," Rom. vi. 4. Consider that
mystical union with Christ crucified, and life shall spring out of his
cross, out of his grave, to kill sin in you,--that the great business is
done already, and victory gained in our Head, "This is our victory, even
faith." Believe, and then you have overcome, before you overcome, and this
will help you to overcome in your own persons. And then, consider and look
round about to the strong helper you have, the Spirit. "If ye through the
Spirit mortify," &c. Stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the
world. Though he does not vent all his power to you, yet you may believe
that there is a secret latent virtue in the seed of grace, that it cannot
be whole overcome or conquered, and there is one engaged in the warfare
with us who will never leave us nor forsake us, who of set purpose
withdraweth his help now and then to discover our weakness to us, that we
may cleave the faster to him, who never letteth sin get any power or
gather any strength, but out of wisdom to make the final victory the more
glorious. In a word, he leads us through weaknesses, infirmities,
faintings, wrestlings, that his strength may be perfected in
weakness,--that when we are weak, then we may be strongest in him, 2 Cor.
xii. 9. Our duty then is, to follow this Spirit wheresoever he leadeth us.
Christ, the captain of our salvation, when he went to heaven, sent the
Spirit to be our guider, to lead us thither where he is, and therefore we
should resign and give up ourselves to his guidance and direction. The
nature of a creature is dependence, so the very essence of a Christian
consists in dependence and subordination to the Spirit of God. Nature
itself would teach them that want wisdom to commit themselves to those
that have it, and not to carry the reins of their own life themselves.

Truly, not only the sense of our own imperfection, of our folly and
ignorance in these things that belong to life, should make us willing to
yield ourselves over to the Spirit of God, as blind men to their leader,
as children to their nurses, as orphans to their tutors;(211) but also,
because the Spirit is made our tutor and leader