2. Faith lays hold on right and on propriety. When the heirs possession is suspended, and an out-lawed heir, here is an heir; the use of the breathings and influences is removed; the mill stands and grindeth not, the ground is ploughed; yet the same Lord and heritor of mill and land remains. Hang not your rights, writs, and charters upon ⟨p. 313⟩your sense, or upon the ups and downs of the Lords dispensation; nor doth a believers heaven stand in the particular out-lettings of the Lords free grace, or his withdrawings, though the more of the Spirit any hath, the more doth their spiritual life and being depend upon the operations of grace; as all things that grow and have life depend upon the influences of the Sun and Heaven, trees; and plants,1 and flowers, and herbs, suffer a sort of death by the departure of the Sun from them, and they begin to live again when in the spring the Sun moves near toward them; so are the out-goings and gracious influences of the Sun of righteousness to the renewed ones, in whom is the life of Christ: for Christ keeps in being his own life, and cannot but keep it in being and operation, Rom. 8. 10. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin: but the spirit is life because of righteousness. v. 11. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you. See both the life of grace in this life is kept in being by the Spirit; and the life of the body, which shall be made spiritual in the resurrection, is restored again by the Spirit of Christ.
2. Faith layes hold on right and on propriety. When the heirs possession is suspended, and an out-lawed heir, here is an heir; the use of the breathings and influences is removed; the mill stands and grindeth not, the ground is plowed; yet the same Lord and heritor of mill and land remaines. Hang not your rights, writs, and charters upon ⟨p. 313⟩your sense, or upon the ups and downs of the Lords dispensation; nor doth a believers heaven stand in the particular out-lettings of the Lords free grace, or his withdrawings, though the more of the Spirit any hath, the more doth their spiritual life and being depend upon the operations of grace; as all things that grow and have life depend upon the influences of the Sun and Heaven, trees; and plants,1 and flowers, and herbs, suffer a sort of death by the departure of the Sun from them, and they begin to live again when in the spring the Sun moves near toward them; so are the out-goings and gracious influences of the Sun of righteousnesse to the renewed ones, in whom is the life of Christ: for Christ keeps in being his own life, and cannot but keep it in being and operation, Rom. 8. 10. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin: but the spirit is life because of righteousness. v. 11. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you. See both the life of grace in this life is kept in being by the Spirit; and the life of the body, which shall be made spiritual in the resurrection, is restored again by the Spirit of Christ.
- 1The life of grace depends on influences of grace.
