The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…

I. The change which is made by the Spirit of Christ, doth consist in these particulars following: 1. It taketh down pride, and maketh men humble and low in their own eyes: to which end it acquainteth them with their sin, and their desert and misery.¹ 2. It teacheth men self-denial, and causeth them to resign themselves to God, and use themselves as being wholly his own. 3. It absolutely subjecteth the Soul to God, and sitteth up his Authority as absolute, over our thoughts, and words, and all our actions. And maketh the Christians life a course of careful obedience to his Laws, so far as they understand them. 4. It taketh up a Christians mind with the thankful sense of his Redemption; so that the pardon of his sins, and his deliverance from hell, and his hopes of everlasting glory, do form his soul to a holy gratitude, and make the expressions of it to be his work. 5. It giveth man a sense of the love of God, as his gracious Redeemer; and so of the goodness and mercifulness of his Nature: It causeth them to think of God as their greatest Benefactor, and as one that loveth them; and as LOVE it self: and so it reconcileth their estranged alienated minds to him, and maketh the love of God to be the very constitution and life of the Soul. 6. It causeth men to believe that there is an everlasting Glory to be enjoyed by holy Souls; where we shall see the glory of God, and be filled with his love, and exercised in perfect love and praise, and be with Christ, his Angels and Saints, for evermore: It causeth them to take this felicity for their portion, and to set their hearts upon it, and to make it the chief care and business of all their lives to seek it. 1. It causeth them to live in the joyful hopes and foresight of this blessedness, and to do all that they do as means thereunto: and thus it sweeteneth all their lives, and maketh Religion their chief delight. 8. It accordingly employeth their thoughts and tongues; so that the praises of ⟨p. 281⟩God, and the mention of their everlasting blessedness, and of the way thereto, is their most delightful conference, as it beseemeth travellers to the City of God: and so their political converse is in heaven. 9. And thus it abateth the fears of death, as being but their passage to everlasting life:

I. The change which is made by the Spirit of Christ, doth consist in these particulars following: 1. It taketh down pride, and maketh men humble and low in their own eyes: to which end it acquainteth them with their sin, and their desert and misery.