Serm. CXLVIII. 31I SERMON C;XLVIII. The Fruits of the Spirit, the fame with Moral Virtues. EP HE S. V. g. .. For the Fruit of the Spirit is in all goodnefs, and righteoufnefs,, and truth. Have formerly, upon occafion of this Feftival Solemnity , * difcours'd on' P`reh,bed divers forts ofArguments relating to the Holy Spirit of God.; - As rani od,y 'concern- ing -I- the miraculous Powers and Gifts of the Holy Ghoft conferr'd upon the 1690. Apoftles in a Niiuble manner, when they were affembled together upon this day Serinná .of Petitecoft, to qualify and enable them for the morefpeedy and effectual plantingmot. ;and propagating of the Chriftian Religion in the World, which is the 'Argument more peculiarly proper to this day. .1 have likewife II difcours'd to you concerning the fati&ifyingPower and Virtue II See Sarin. Of the Holy Spirit of God, which is common to all Chriftians, and to all Ages-ofcxLy1I. the Chriftian Church. As alfoconcerning the bleffed Fruit and Effea of God's Holy Spirit conferred upon Chriftians in Baptifin, and which does continually dwell and refide in all thofe who do fincerely perform, and make good their bap- ifinál Vow, to affift and enable them to all the purpofes of Holinefs and Obe- dience, and to work and encreafe in us all thofe Graces and Virtues which. arehere in the Text, faid to be the Fruit of the Holy Spirit of God. FOP the Fruit of the Spirit is in all goodnefs, and righteoufnefs, and truth. 'The '.connexion,of which words, with the Apoftle's foregoing Difcourfe, is briefly this. -At the t7th Yerfe of .the former Chapter, the Apoflle gives a folemn charge to theChriftians atEphe- fus, who were newly converted fromHeathenifm to Chriftianity, to be careful that theirConverfation be anfwerable to that Holy Religion which theynow-made pro- feffìon of, and that as they had quitted the Religion and .Rites of:Paganifm, fo likewife that they would abandon the Vices and evil pra&ices of it; that the World might fee that they had made as great a change in their Minds and Man- ners, as in their Religion. This I fay therefore, and te/lify in the Lord, thatyehence- forth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the under/landing darkned, being alienated from the life of God, through theignorance that is in them, becaufe of the blindnefs of their heart: Who having loft the fenfe of good and evil, have given themfelves over toall filthinefsand brutifh hills. And then at the 20thVerfe he tells them, that the Chriftian Religion requires another fort of Converfation ; Butye have not fo learned Chrill: If fo be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is injefus: That yeput ,i f, concerning the former converfation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lr f s : And be renewed in the fpirit ofyour mind: And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteoufnefs and true holinefs; or, the ho- linefs of truth. And then he cautions them againft feveral forts of Vices which they had for- merly lived in, and recommends the contrary Virtues to their pra&ice; and as an Argument thereto, he puts them again in mind of the change which they had made, at the 8th Yerfe of this Chapter, For ye were fometimes darknefs, but now areye light in the Lord. The condition they were in, whilft they were. Heathens, he calls dark,refr; by which Metaphor he reprefents that difmal fiate of ignorance and wickednefs in which they formerly were ; but stow are ye light in the Lord : being adjoined into the Chriftian Religion by Baptifm, they were enlightned by the
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