ion and sanctification, these are nowhere else,
and they are there together.

If ye knew the nature and properties of a Christian, ye would fall in love
with these for themselves, but if these for your own sakes will not allure
you, consider this incomparable privilege that he hath beyond all others,
that ye may fall in love with the nature of a Christian. Let this love of
yourselves and your own well-being pursue you into Jesus Christ, that ye
may walk even as he walked, and I assure you, if ye were once in Christ
Jesus, ye would love the very nature and walking of a Christian, no more
for the absolution and salvation that accompanies it, but for its own
sweetness and excellency beyond all other. Ye would, as the people of
Samaria, no more believe for the report of your own necessity and misery,
but ye would believe in Jesus Christ, and walk according to the Spirit,
for their own testimony they have in your consciences. You would no more
be allured only with the privileges of it to embrace Christianity, but you
would think Christianity the greatest privilege, a reward unto itself.
_Pietas ipsa sibi merces est_,--godliness is great gain in itself, though
it had not such sweet consequents or companions. That you may know this
privilege, consider the estate all men are into by nature. Paul expresses
it in short, Rom. v. "By the offence of one, judgment came upon all unto
condemnation and the reason of this is, by one man sin came upon all, and
so death by sin, for death passed upon all, because all have sinned," ver.
18, 12. Lo, then, all men are under a sentence of condemnation once! This
sentence is the curse of the law--"Cursed is every one that abideth not in
all things commanded to do them." If you knew what this curse were, ye
would indeed think it a privilege to be delivered from it. Sin is of an
infinite deserving, because against an infinite God, it is an offence of
an infinite majesty, and therefore the curse upon the sinner involves
eternal punishment. O what weight is in that word, (2 Thess. i. 9,) Ye
"shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord and the glory of his power." If it were duly apprehended, it would
weigh down a man's soul, and make it heavy unto death. This condemnation
includes both _damnum et poenam, poenam damni et poenam sensus_, and both are
infinite in themselves, and eternal in their continuance. What an
unpleasant and bitter life would one lead, that were bor