is within them. The law hath entered and killed them. Oh!
"what shall I do to be saved?" Who will deliver me from the wrath to come?
What are all present afflictions and miseries in respect of eternity? Yet
there is one moan and lamentation beyond all these, when the soul finds
the sentence of absolution in Jesus Christ, and gets its eyes opened to
see that body of death and sin within, that perfect man of sin diffused
throughout all the members. Then it bemoans itself with Paul--"O wretched
man--who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Rom. vii. 24. I am
delivered from the condemnation of the law, but what comfort is it, as
long as sin is so powerful in me? Nay, this makes me often suspect my
delivery from wrath and the curse, seeing sin itself is not taken away.

Now, if you could be persuaded to hearken to Jesus Christ, and embrace
this gospel, O what abundant consolation should ye have! What a perfect
answer to all your complaints! They would be swallowed up in such a
triumph as Paul's are here. This would discover unto you a perfect remedy
of sin and misery, that ye should complain no more, or at least, no more
as those without hope. You shall never have a remedy of your temporal
miseries unless ye begin at eternal, to prevent them. "Seek first the
kingdom of God," and all other things "shall be added unto you." Seek
first to flee from the wrath to come, and ye shall escape it, and besides
the evil of time, afflictions shall be removed. First remove the greatest
complaints of sin and condemnation, and how easy is it to answer all the
lamentations of this life, and make you rejoice in the midst of them!

You have in this verse three things of great importance to consider,--the
great and precious privilege, the true nature, and the special property of
a Christian. The privilege is one of the greatest in the world, because it
is of eternal consequence, and soul concernment, the nature is most
divine,--he is one that is in Jesus Christ, and implanted in him by faith,
his distinguishing property is noble, suitable to his nature and
privileges,--he walks not as the world, according to his base flesh, but
according to the Spirit. All these three are of one latitude,--none of them
reaches further than another. That rich privilege and sweet property
concentres and meets together in one man, even in the man who is in Jesus
Christ. Whoever enters into Jesus Christ, and abideth in him, he meets
with these two, justificat