image of Chrift, in his life, death, refurrection, and afcenfion; and they have fellowship with him, as their living, reigning, crowned head, Lord, and Saviour: so that they walk up and down in the name and fear of the Lord of hofts. Being thus taught by Chrift in the knowledge, and by the revelation of him, they grow hereby all their lives, and are in due feafon removed from earth to heaven, to behold their Lord face to face; to fee him as he is, and to be filled with all the fulness of God. So that this knowledge of the truth differs from the former, as much as the fubftance doth from the fhadow. The truths of God, as making Chrift known to the foul, and letting him into the foul, through the inward evidence and influence of the cternal Spirit, give a fubfiftence to Christ in all the faculties of the new man. What a poffeffor of the knowledge of truth knows in theory only, the real believer knows fpiritually. What the one cannot fee in truths, viz. their original, inherent fpirituality; that the other does, and hence his mind becomes fpiritually affected. And, the more spiritual any truth appears, the more it takes hold of his heart, and draws his affections to Chrift, in whom it hath its being and foundation. As they are at best but pleasing to the one, to the other they are means of communion with the Lord, of ftrengthening hope, enlarg ing the heart heavenward, and filling it with hopes full of immortality. Having thus briefly filled up the heads of difcourfe, I leave the fubject with you for your improvement. May the Lord command his bleffing on it. Amen.

SERMON

XXIII.

A REAL CHRISTIAN, A MAN IN CHRIST.

2 COR. Chap. xii. Ver. 2.

I knew a Man in Chrift; or, A Man in Christ.

F all the apoftles and minifters which our Lord

Jefus Chrift ever had, or will have, Saul of Tarfus (afterwards called to be an apoftle) was and will be found the greateft. He received the gofpel immediately from Chrift. God revealed his Son in him: fo that his knowledge and understanding of the Father's everlasting love to the perfons of the elect, of the Son's complete and everlasting salvation, and of the teftimony and witness of the Holy Spirit to the truths and doctrines of the everlasting gospel, were fuch, that he fays himself, I was not a whit behind the very chiefeft apofles whilft in the true humility of his own fpiritual mind, he adds, I am nothing. His faith in Chrift was fuited to his knowledge of him, firm and unfeigned; his love to Chrift was fervent, flaming, and vehement; his zeal conftant; fo that he was continually employed in spreading the name, fame, honour, and renown of his most adorable Lord. He rejoiced

in fo doing, and thanks God for the effects which followed it, faying, Now thanks be unto God which always caufeth us to triumph in Chrift, and maketh manifeft the favour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a fweet favour of Chrift. As his very foul was engaged in this moft delightful work, fo his travels were great, and his journies very many. Bunting, one of our English geographers, computes, that from Paul's firft fetting out from Damafcus, to preach the unfearchable riches of Chrift, to the time. of his being a prifoner at Rome, he had traverfed one hundred and ninety thoufand two hundred and feventy miles. As he was fo fully and fpiritually illuminated by the day spring from on high, and most abundantly fuccefsful, he had many enemies. Even fome who called themselves apoftles and minifters of Chrift, withstood, fpoke againft, and backbit him. He fpeaks of thefe in the two former chapters; as alfo of his fufferings and perfecutions for the gofpel's fake. Yet the church of God is gainer hereby to the prefent moment. It was the occafion of his giving us an account of his rapture into heaven, and of what befell him afterwards, in which we have a choice experience of his, that, in all probability, would have been concealed, had it not been for the oppofition which he met with. He begins this chapter thus: It is not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory. No one was a greater enemy to glorying in the flesh. He was dead to all below Chrift. He was fully determined to glory only in the cross of Chrift. He therefore alters the fubject

he was constrained by those he wrote to, to be upon. Yet he must give them to know he had a knowledge of the vifions and revelations of the Lord, as much as, and more than any of them could boast of. However, he speaks of it in a concealed way. I knew a man in Chrift. He means himself. He means himself. He knew himself to be one in Chrift, and with Chrift; and he would not view himself abftracted from him, nor fpeak of himself but as in him. I knew fuch an one above fourteen years ago, caught up into the third heaven. Yet I cannot say concerning this, whether the body and foul were transported thither. How this was I cannot tell. Yet this I know (fuch an one, whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body: how this was, I cannot fay, God knoweth the cafe. Yet I know the truth of this) that fuch an one was caught up to the third heaven. And I knew fuch a man : (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth): how that he was caught up into paradife, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful (in the margin it is not poffible) for a man to utter. I know the truth of this rapture. Yet whether the foul was absent from the body, and thus admitted into the immediate prefence of Chrift; or, whether the body and foul were raifed up to the ftate of glory, this I cannot fay; it is the truth of the being tranflated firft to the third heaven, then to paradife, is all I know, or can declare of the matter. Moft conceive the third "heaven and paradife one and the fame. I rather prefer

Dr. Goodwin on this point, who confiders the third heaven to be the ultimate ftate of glory, in which

body and foul will be glorified, and where God, in all his perfons and perfections, will be to elect angels and faints, all in all; and paradife, the immediate ftate between this and the refurrection of the elect in their bodies, that ftate into which Chrift entered immediately on his yielding up the ghoft, and to which he promised to admit the thief, faved on the crofs, when he faid to him, Verily I fay unto thee, 10 day fhalt thou be with me in paradife. What the apostle faw in heaven, in paradife, he fpeaks not of. He tells us he heard unspeakable words: fuch as he could not himself utter on earth. My defign is to speak of the definition given of a Christian, of a real believer, in these words, I knew a man in Chrift. My text, however, will be fhorter, as I fhall confine it to the words a man in Chrift. Which are a true definition of a spiritual man. Twenty folios could not, fays Mr. Romaine, have fo fully expreffed it. A real Chriftian, a true believer, a child of God, he who is born again, is a man in Chrift. The expreffion is comprehenfive; the title is glorious. The idea raised in our minds from it by the Holy Ghoft, is heavenly and divine. To be in Chrift is true bleflednefs to know Chrift is true Chriftianity: to receive Chrift is the very effence of it: to believe on Christ is life everlasting: to live on Chrift is practical godlinefs: to die in Chrift is real bleffedness: and to live with Chrift in the flate of bleffedness and glory, will be the confummation of everlasting blifs. May the Lord the Spirit be most graciously prefent with mè, whilft I attempt to give you the fubftance of the words