the firm and stable purpose of our perseverance in good. True sorrow and contrition of heart must begin the work, and then, an unmoved constancy of endeavour must finish it. Whosoever

thou art therefore, if thy heart have not been touched, yea torn and rent in pieces, with a sound humiliation for thy sins, the old slough is still upon thy back: thou art not yet come within the ken of true renovation. Or, if thou be gone so far, as that the skin begins to reave up a little in a serious grief for thy sins; yet, if thy resolutions be not steadily settled and thine endeavours bent to go through with that holy work, thou comest short of thy renewing thine old loose film of corruption shall so encumber thee, that thou shalt never be able to pass on smoothly in the ways of God.

But, because now we have a conceit, that man, as we say of fish, unless he be new, is naught; every man is ready to challenge this honour of being renewed: and, certainly, there may be much deceit this way. We have seen plate or other vessels, that have looked like new, when they have been but new gilded or burnished: we have seen old faces, that have counterfeited a youthly smoothness and vigorous complexion: we have seen hypocrites act every part of renovation, as if they had fallen from heaven. Let us therefore take a trial, by those proofs of examination, that cannot fail us: and they shall be fetched from those three ways of our renewing, which we have formerly specified.

If we be renewed by CREATION, here must be a Clean Heart. Cor mundum crea, saith the Psalmist; Psalm li. 10. For, as at the first God looked on all his works, and found them very good; so still, no work of his can be other than like himself, holy and perfect. If thy heart therefore be still full of unclean thoughts, wanton desires, covetousness, ambition, profaneness, it is thine old heart of Satan's marring: it is no new heart of God's making; for nothing but clean can come from under his hands. But if we plead the closeness of the heart, which may therefore seem impervious even to our own eyes, see what the Apostle saith, Eph. ii. 10. We are his workmanship, created unto good works. The cleanness of the heart will shew itself in the goodness of the Hands. But if our hands may deceive us, as nothing is more easily counterfeited than a good action, yet our Feet will not; I mean, the trade of our ways.

That, therefore, from our Creation we may look to our REGENERATION; if we be the sons of God, we are renewed: and how shall it appear, whether we be the sons of God? It is a golden rule, Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God; Rom. viii. 14. Yet, if, in both of these life could be counterfeited, death cannot.

That, therefore, from our Creation and Regeneration we may look to our RESUSCITATION, and from thence back to our grave; Mortify your members, which are on earth; Col. iii. 5. There is

a death of this body of sin; and what manner of death? Those, that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts; Gal. v. 24. Lo, as impossible as it is for a dead man to come down from his gibbet, or up from his coffin, and to do the works of his former life; so impossible it is, that a renewed man should do the works of his unregeneration.

If, therefore, you find your Hearts unclean, your Hands idle and unprofitable, your Ways crooked and unholy, your Corruptions alive and lively, never pretend any renewing: you are the old men still; and, however ye may go for Christians, yet ye have denied the power of Christianity in your lives: and, if ye so continue, the fire of hell shall have so much more power over you, for that it finds the baptismal water upon your faces.

IV. Our last head is the Subject of this Renewing, THE MIND.

There are, that would have this renovation proper to the inferior (which is the affective) part of the soul; as if the rÒ yeμovkov, as they call it, the supreme powers of that Divine part needed it not. These are met with here by our Apostle, who placeth this renewing upon the Mind.

There are, contrarily, that so appropriate this renewing to the Mind, which is the highest loft of the soul, as that they diffuse it not to the lower rooms, nor to the out-houses of the body; as if only the soul were capable as of sin, so of regeneration.

Both these shoot too short; and must know, that as the mind, so not the mind only, must be renewed. That part is mentioned, not by way of exclusion, but of principality. It is the man, that must be renewed; not one piece of him. Except ye please to say, according to that old philosophical adage, “The Mind is the man; and the body, as the wisest ethnic had wont to say, nothing but the case of that rich jewel. To say as it is, the most saint-like philosophy was somewhat injurious in disparaging the outward man. Whatever they thought, this body is not the hang-by, but the partner of the soul; no less interested in the man, than that spirit that animates it; no less open to the inhabitation of God's Spirit; no less free of heaven. Man, therefore, that is made of two parts, must be renewed in both: but, as, in the first birth, whole man is born, only the body is seen; so, in the second, whole man is renewed, only the soul is instanced in. Our Apostle puts both together; 1 Thess. v. 23: The God of peace sanctify you wholly, that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus.

Why then is the Mind thus specified? Because it is the best part; because, as it enlivens and moves, so it leads the rest. If the Mind therefore be renewed, it boots not to urge the renovation of the body. For, as in nature we are wont to say, that the soul follows the temperature of the body; so, in spiritual things, we say rather more truly, that the body follows the

temper and guidance of the soul. These two companions, as they shall be once inseparable in their final condition, so they are now in their present dispositions. Be renewed therefore in your Minds; and, if you can, hold off your earthly parts. No more can the body live without the soul, than the soul can be renewed without the body.

First, then, the Mind; then, the body. All defilement is by an extramission, as our Saviour tells us: That which goeth into the body, defileth not the man; so as the spring of corruption is within. That must be first cleansed; else in vain do we scour the channels. Ye shall have some hypocrites, that pretend to begin their renewing from without. On foul hands, they will wear white gloves; on foul hearts, clean hands; and then all is well. Away with these pharisaical dishes; filthy within, clean without; fit only for the service of unclean devils. To what purpose is it, to lick over the skin with precious oil, if the liver be corrupted, the lungs rotten? To what purpose is it, to crop the top of the weeds, when the root, and stalk, remain in the earth? Pretend what you will, all is old, all is naught, till the Mind be renewed.

Neither is the body more renewed without the mind, than the renewing of the mind can keep itself from appearing in the renewing of the Body. The soul lies close; and takes advantage of the secrecy of that cabinet, whereof none but God keeps the key; and therefore may pretend any thing: we see the man, the soul we cannot see; but, by that we see, we can judge of that we see not.

He is no Christian that is not renewed: and he is worse than a beast that is no Christian. Every man, therefore, lays claim to that renovation, whereof he cannot be convinced: yea, there want not those, who, though they have a ribaldish tongue and a bloody hand, yet will challenge as good a soul as the best. Hypocrite, when the conduit-head is walled in, how shall we judge of the spring, but by the water that comes out of the pipes? Corrupt nature hath taught us so much craft, as to set the best side outward. If, therefore, thou have obscene lips; if bribing and oppressing hands; if a gluttonous tooth, a drunken gullet, a lewd conversation; certainly, the soul can be no other than abominably filthy. It may be worse than it appears; better, it cannot lightly be.

The mind then leads the body, the body descries the mind: both of them, at once, are old; or both, at once, new.

For us, as we bear the face of Christians, and profess to have received both souls and bodies from the same hand, and look that both bodies and souls shall once meet in the same glory, let it be the top of all our care, that we may be transformed in the renewing of our Minds; and let the renewing of our minds bewray itself, in the renewing of our Bodies. Wherefore have we had the

powerful Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ so long amongst us, if we be still ourselves? What hath it wrought upon us if we be not changed?

Never tell me of a Popish Transubstantiation of men of an invisible, insensible, unfeisible change of the person; while the species of his outward life and carriage are still the same. These are but false, hypocritical jugglings, to mock fools withal. If we be transformed and renewed, let it be so done, that not only our own eyes and hands may see and feel it, but others too: that the bystanders may say, "How is this man changed from himself! He was a blasphemous swearer, a profane scoffer at goodness: now he speaks with an awful reverence of God and holy things. He was a luxurious wanton: now, he possesseth his vessel in holiness and honour. He was an unconscionable briber, and abettor of unjust causes: now, the world cannot fee him to speak for wrong. He was a wild roaring swaggerer; now, he is a sober student. He was a devil: now, he is a saint."

Oh, let this day, if we have so long deferred it, be the day of the renovation, of the purification of our souls! And let us begin with a sound humiliation, and true sorrow for our former and present wickednesses.

It hath been an old (I say not how true) note, that hath been wont to be set on this day, that, if it be clear and sun-shiny, it portends a hard weather to come; if cloudy and louring, a mild and gentle scason ensuing. Let me apply this to a spiritual use; and assure every hearer, that, if we overcast this day with the clouds of our sorrow and the rain of our penitent tears, we shall find a sweet and hopeful season all our life after.

Oh, let us renew our covenants with God, that we will now be renewed in our Minds. The comfort and gain of this change shall be our own, while the honour of it is God's and the Gospel's: for this gracious change shall be followed with a glorious.

Onwards, this only shall give us true peace of conscience: only upon this, shall the Prince of this World find nothing in us: how should he, when we are changed from ourselves? And, when we shall come to the last change of all things, even when the heavens and elements shall be on a flame, and shall melt about our ears, the conscience of this change shall lift up our heads with joy; and shall give our renewed souls a happy entry into that new heaven. Or, when we shall come to our own last change, in the dissolution of these earthly tabernacles, it shall bless our souls with the assurance of unchangeable happiness; and shall bid our renewed bodies lie down in peace, and in a sweet expectation of being changed to the likeness of the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of an eternal participation of his infinite glory. Whereto, he who ordained us graciously bring us; even for the merits of his Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Just: To whom, with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, be all praise, honour, and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

SERMON XX.

THE FALL OF PRIDE:

OUT OF PROVERBS, XXIX. VERSE 23.

PROV. XXIX. 23.

A man's Pride shall bring him low; but Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.

THAT, which was the ordinary Apophthegm of a greater than Solomon, (He, that exalteth himself, shall be brought low; but he, that humbleth himself shall be exalted; which our Saviour used thrice in terminis, oft in sense,) is here the Aphorism of wise Solomon. Neither is it ill guessed by learned Mercerus, that our Saviour in that speech of his alludes hither.

I need not tell you how great, how wise, Solomon was. The great are wont to be most haunted with pride; the wise can best see the danger of that pride, which haunts the great: great and wise Solomon, therefore, makes it one of his chief common-places, the crying down of Pride: a vice, not more general than dangerous; as that, which his witty Imitator can tell us is initium omnis peccati, the beginning of all sin; Ecclus. x. 13.

Now pride can never be so much spited as by honouring her contemned rival, Humility. Nothing could so much vex that insolent Agagite, as to be made a lackey to a despised Jew. Besides her own portion therefore, which is ruin, Solomon torments her with the advancement of her abased opposite.

My Text then is like unto Shushan, in the streets whereof, honour is proclaimed to an humble Mordecai; in the palace whereof, is erected an engine of death to a proud Haman: A man's Pride shall bring him low; but Honour shall uphold the humble.

The propositions are antithetical; wherein pride is opposed to humility, honour to ruin. Hear, I beseech you, how wise Solomon hath learned of his father David, to sing of Mercy and Judgment; Judgment to the proud, Mercy to the humble; both together with one breath. The judgment to the proud, is their Humbling the mercy to the humble, is their raising to Honour.

It is the noted course of God, to work still by contraries; as indeed this is the just praise of Omnipotence, to fetch light out of darkness, life out of death, order out of confusion, heaven out of hell, honour out of humility, humiliation out of pride; according to that of the sacred Way-maker of Christ, Every hill shall