The sound believer. A treatise of evangelical conversion. Discovering the work of Christ's spirit,…

SECT. IV. Fourthly, Sanctification.

THIS is the fourth Benefit which follows in Order of Nature, our Justification, Reconciliation, and Adoption, for upon our being Sons in Adoption, we receive the Image of our heavenly Father in Sanctification; because we are under Grace. Hence it comes to pass that we are freed from the reigning Power of Sin, Rom. 6.14. so that our Sanctification follows our Justification, and Adoption, goes not before it. In justification, we have the Love and Righteousness of the Son; in Reconciliation, the Love of the Father; in Adoption, ⟨p. 217⟩the Love of a Father and Presence of the Spirit assisting, witnessing; in Sanctification, the Image of our Father by the same Spirit: And this I conceive, with Submission, is the Seal of the Spirit, mentioned, Eph. 1.13. the Seal sealing, is the Spirit it self; the Seal sealed, consists first in the Expression of it in Adoption; secondly, in the Impression of it in Sanctification, and that he only shall pass as current Coin, that hath both these: I know the most full and clear Expression & Testimony of the Spirit is after all God's Work is finished in Glorification, but the Beginning of it is here in Adoption, a full Measure of it in Sanctification; God's Seal is ever set to some Purpose (as Men's Seals to some Bonds, not to Blanks) the Lord's Promise of actual Justification and Reconciliation, pertains only to Men sanctified or called: In Adoption therefore we receive the Spirit, which looks both Ways; testifying either thou sanctified, art justified, or thou called, art justified and reconciled.

I speak not now of external Sanctification by outward Show and Profession, and common Illumination and Operation of the Spirit upon Men, from which many fall away,