CHAPTER II.'

Ver. 1. Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and ail evil speakings,

Ver. 2. As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.

THE same power and goodness of God that manifests itself in giving being to His creatures, appears likewise in sustaining and preserving them. To give being is the first, and to support it is the continued effect of that power and goodness. Thus it is both in the first creation, and in the second. In the first, the creatures to which He gave life, He provided with convenient nourishment to uphold that life (Gen. i. 11): So here, in the close of the former chapter we find the doctrine of the new birth and life of a Christian, and in the beginning of this, the proper food of that life. And it is the same word by which we there find it to be begotten, that is here the nourishment of it; and therefore Christians are here exhorted by the Apostle so to esteem and so to use it; and that is the main scope of the words.

Observe in general: The word, the principle, and the support of our spiritual being, is both the incorruptible seed and the incorruptible food of that new life of grace, which must therefore be an incorruptible life; and this may convince us, that the ordinary thoughts, even of us who hear this word, are far below the true excellency and worth of it. The stream of custom and our profession bring us hither, and we sit out our hour under the sound of this word; but how few consider and prize it as the great ordinance of God for the salvation of souls, the beginner and the sustainer of the Divine life of grace within us! And certainly, until we have these thoughts of it, and seek to feel it thus ourselves, although we hear it most frequently, and let slip no occasion, yea, hear it with attention and some present delight, yet still we miss the right use of it, and turn it from its true end, while we take it not as that ingrafted word which is able to save our souls. James i. 21.

Thus ought they who preach to speak it; to endeavour their utmost to accommodate it to this end, that sinners may be converted, begotten again, and believers nourished and strengthened in their spiritual life; to regard no lower end, but aim steadily at that mark. Their hearts and tongues ought to be set on fire with holy zeal for God and love to souls, kindled by the Holy Ghost, that came down on the apostles in the shape of fiery tongues.

And those that hear should remember this as the end of their hearing, that they may receive spiritual life and strength by the word. For though it seems a poor despicable business, that a frail sinful man like yourselves should speak a few words in your hearing, yet, look upon it as the way wherein God communicates happiness to those who believe, and works that believing unto happiness, alters the whole frame of the soul, and makes a new creation, as it begets it again to the inheritance of glory. Consider it thus, which is its true notion; and then, what can be so precious? Let the world disesteem it as they will, know ye, that it is the power of God unto salvation. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness; but unto them that are saved, it is the power of God, says the Apostle, 1 Cor. i. 18. And if you would have the experience of this, if you would have life and growth by it, you must look above the poor worthless messenger, and call in His almighty help, who is the Lord of life. As the philosophers affirm, that if the heavens should stand still, there would be no generation or flourishing of any thing here below, so, it is the moving and influence of the Spirit that makes the Church fruitful. Would you but do this before you come here, present the blindness of your minds and the deadness of your hearts to God, and say, "Lord, here is an opportunity for Thee to shew the power of Thy word. I would find life and strength in it; but neither "can I who hear, nor he that speaks, make it thus unto me; that "is thy prerogative; say Thou the word, and it shall be done." God said let there be light, and it was light.

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In this exhortation to the due use of the word, the Apostle

continues the resemblance of that new birth he mentioned in

the preceding chapter.

A's new born babes.] Be not satisfied with yourselves, till you find some evidence of this new, this supernatural life. There be delights and comforts in this life, in its lowest condition, that would persuade us to look after it, if we knew them ; but as the most cannot be made sensible of these, consider therefore the end of it. Better never to have been, than not to have been partaker of this new being. Except a man be born again, says our Saviour, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, John iii. 3. Surely they that are not born again, shall one day wish they had never been born. What a poor wretched thing is the life that we have here! a very heap of follies and miseries! Now if we would share in a happier being after it, in that life which ends not, it must begin here. Grace and glory are one and the same life, only with this difference, that the one is the beginning, and the other the perfection of it; or, if we do call them two several lives, yet the one is the undoubted pledge of the other. It was a strange word for a heathen to say, that that day of death we fear so, æterni natalis est, is the birth-day of eternity. Thus it is indeed, to those who are here born again: this new-birth of grace, is the sure earnest and pledge of that birth-day of glory. Why do we not then labour to make this certain by the former? Is it not a fearful

thing to spend our days in vanity, and then lie down in darkness and sorrow for ever; to disregard the life of our soul, while we may and should be provident for it, and then, when it is going out, cry, Quò nunc abibis? Whither art thou going, O my soul?

But this new life puts us out of the danger and fear of that eternal death. We are passed from death to life, says St. John, (1 John iii. 14,) speaking of those who are born again; and being passed, there is no re-passing, no going back from this life to death again.

This new birth is the same that St. John calls the first resurrection, and he pronounces them blessed who partake of it :

Blessed are they that have part in the first resurrection; the second death shall have no power over them. Rev. xx. 6.

The weak beginnings of grace, weak in comparison of the further strength attainable even in this life, are sometimes expressed as the infancy of it; and so believers ought not to continue infants; if they do, it is reprovable in them, as we sec, Eph. iv. 14, 1 Cor. ii. 2, 1 Cor. xiv. 20, Heb. v. 12. Though the Apostle writes to new converts, and so may possibly imply the tenderness of their beginnings of grace, yet I conceive that infancy is here to be taken in such a sense as agrees to a Christian in the whole course and best estate of his spiritual life here below. So, likewise, the milk here recommended, is answerable to infancy, taken in this sense, and not in the former; (as it is in some of those cited places, where it means the easiest and first principles of religion, and so is opposed to the higher mysteries of it, as to strong meat ;) but here it signifies the whole word of God, and all its wholesome and saving truths, as the proper nourishment of the children of God. And so the Apostle's words are a standing exhortation for all Christians of all degrees.

And the whole estate and course of their spiritual life here is called their infancy, not only as opposed to the corruption and wickedness of the old man, but likewise as signifying the weakness and imperfection of it, at its best in this life, compared with the perfection of the life to come; for the weakest beginnings of grace are by no means so far below the highest degree of it possible in this life, as that highest degree falls short of the state of glory; so that, if one measure of grace is called infancy in respect of another, much more is all grace infancy in respect of glory. And surely, as for duration the time of our present life is far less compared to eternity, than the time of our natural infancy is to the rest of our life; so that we may be still called but new or lately born. Our best pace and strongest walking in obedience here, is but as the stepping of children when they begin to go by hold, in comparison of the perfect obedience in glory, when we shall follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes. All our knowledge here, is but as the ignorance

of infants, and all our expressions of God and of his praises, but as the first stammerings of children, in comparison of the knowledge we shall have of Him hereafter, when we shall know as we are known, and of the praises we shall then offer Him, when that new song shall be taught us. A child hath in it a reasonable soul, and yet, by the indisposedness of the body, and abundance of moisture, it is so bound up, that its difference from the beasts in partaking of a rational life, is not so apparent as afterwards; and thus the spiritual life that is from above infused into a Christian, though it doth act and work in some degree, yet it is so clogged with the natural corruption still remaining in him, that the excellency of it is much clouded and obscured; but in the life to come, it shall have nothing at all incumbering and indisposing it. And this is the Apostle St. Paul's doctrine, 1 Cor. xiii. 9-12.

And this is the wonder of Divine grace, that brings so small beginnings to that height of perfection that we are not able to conceive of; that a little spark of true grace, which is not only indiscernible to others, but often to the Christian himself, should yet be the beginning of that condition wherein they shall shine brighter than the sun in the firmament. The difference is great in our natural life, in some persons especially; that they who in infancy were so feeble, and wrapped up as others in swadling clothes, yet afterwards come to excel in wisdom and in the knowledge of sciences, or to be commanders of great armies, or to be kings: but the distance is far greater and more admirable betwixt the weakness of these new-born babes, the small beginnings of grace, and our after perfection, that fulness of knowledge that we look for, and that crown of immortality which all they are born to who are born of God.

But as in the faces or actions of some children, characters and presages of their after-greatness have appeared, (as a singular beauty in Moses's face, as they write of him, and as Cyrus was made king among the shepherds' children with whom he was brought up, &c.,) so also, certainly, in these children of God, there be some characters and evidences that they are born