Watts - Houston-Packer Collection BX5207.W3 S4x 1805 v.1

1 J4 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. [SERM. IX. wrought at first? how this heavenly breath, this divine life .was infused, which changed a dead sinner into a living saint ? Our Saviour himself compares this work of the Spirit to the wind ; John iii. 8. We hear the sound, we feel and see the effects ofit, but we know not whence it comes, nor whither it goes ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Who can describe those se- cret and almighty influences of the blessed Spirit on the mind and will of man, which work with such a sove- reign, and yet such a gentle, and con-natural agency, that the believer himself hardly knows it, but by the gra- cious effects of it, and the blessed alterations wrought in his soul. It is this glorious Agent, this Creator, this blessed Spirit, who is the uncreated principle of this life. The Spirit, as proceeding from our Lord Jesus Christ, begun this life at first in the soul.: and the same glorious unseen power carries it on through: all difficulties and opposi- tions, arid will fulfil it in glory. . Ì must acid.also, that Christ: himself, who is said to be our life in the verse following my. text, is at present hidden from us ; he dwells in the unseen world, and the Leavens must receive him till the restitution of all things; . .cts iii. 2,1. Christ Jesus is the bread from heaven; John vi. °2, 33. by which the believer is nourished; he is the hidden manna, the divine food of souls: It is upon him the christian lives daily and hourly; it is upon the blood of the Lamb,. which is carried up to the mercy- seat, that the believer lives for pardon and peace with God : It is upon the righteousness of his Lord and Head, that Le lives for his everlasting acceptance before the throne; it is upon the grace and strength of Christ, that he rests and depends all the day, when he is called forth to encounter the boldest temptations, to fulfil the most difficult duties, or to sustain the heaviest strokes of a painful providence. " Surely, saith the saint, in the Lord alone have I righteousness and strength, Is. xlv. 24. In the Lord my Saviour, whom the world sees not; but I see him by the eye of faith." I shall enlarge farther on this subject under the second doctrine. Thus, whether we consider the spiritual acts and ex-. 4

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