SERMON XV.

THE CHRISTIAN DEAD, AND ALIVE.

COLOSS. 3. 2, 3.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

IN a discourse on the first part of this text, I put you upon a method of examining your own hearts, in order to find out in what degree your affection is really set on things above. Many of you I should hope, during the interval, have pursued the method thus proposed. And many have, I trust, in consequence resolved to set their hearts more earnestly on heaven. You will attend therefore the more readily to the reason for doing so which the apostle in the text enforces: "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

These words were addressed to the Co

tians. In applying them therefore to ourselves, we must consider them as expressing what all ought to be, rather than what all are. In order the better to understand them, we must first see what kind of death is here intended; in what sense true Christians are here said to be dead. Now the Scripture speaks of death in three kinds. There is first the natural death, the separation of soul and body at the end of our abiding in this world. Hence, secondly, by figure, the future punishment, of those who shall be condemned, is called their "second death;" (Rev. 20. 14;) that is, the separation of both soul and body from the presence of God, and from the enjoyment of his mercy for ever. But in neither of these senses could the apostle mean that the Colossians either were, or ought to be, dead. No; it is of the death unto sin that he speaks; of that utter estrangement of the heart, from the world, the flesh, and the devil, which should distinguish the Christian from the unbeliever, as plainly as the dead are separate from the living. St. Paul has used death

frequently in this latter sense.

And we

will now refer to some passages in which the expression occurs; comparing, at the same time, several chief particulars of the natural death, with the state in which Christians are, or rather ought to be.

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I. First then, death is the leaving this present world. So also is the death which the Christian is here said to die; it is a renouncing of the world, of its vanities, its cares, its transgressions. In this sense it is that the apostle exclaims to the Romans, (chap. 6. 2,) " God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein ?” The Christian then, though he live in the world, lives as though he were out of it, for he lives out of its snares, out of its sins. He is not conformed to this world. true Christian if he were.

He

not be in this sense dead.

could not be a

For he could

If he know

ingly continue in the practice of sin, out of deference to the custom or opinion of the world, he cannot be dead to the world, for he shews that he is alive to its com

death the deceased is utterly cut off from the motives, engagements, and connexions of this life. No voice of enticement from others can engage the attention of those ears, which were once so quick to hear and to consent. In vain would the late companions of his mirth call out for his society. In vain are reported the tidings of wealth, honours, or prosperity. He hears not, he heeds not. He is utterly unconcerned in all that is going on amongst those whom he has left behind him. Arẹ you then in any wise thus deaf to the invitations of sin? Are you thus entirely estranged, not indeed from the world, but from all its sinful ways and engagements? Are your hearts firmly set and fortified against all liability to be led astray by the influence of ill company, ill example? Are you as deaf to their solicitations as though the grave had closed over you, and the impenetrable tomb had cut you off from all such intercourse for ever? If not, then are ye not yet dead; not dead unto sin, as the apostle would have you.

II. Secondly, death consists also in the

soul's being delivered from the captivity of the flesh; in its putting off the body, as a clothing with which it has been encumbered, but which it is no longer constrained to wear. Thus St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, (chap. 4. 21, 22.) tells them, that, according "as the truth is in Jesus," they should "put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." And in the 9th verse of the same chapter to the Colossians, "Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds." And that in this putting off the old man, the apostle alluded to the nature of death, appears plain from the following words to the Romans, (ch. 6. 6, 7.) "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin."

Call to mind then the state of the deceased body. Behold it senseless, lifeless, cold. Which of its former works will it perform? which of its former movements