But the hidden life is that whereby he is a christian indeed; his spiritual life, wherein he is devoted to God, and lives to the purposes of heaven and eternity. And this is the same life, which, in other parts of scripture, is called eternal; for the life of grace survives the grave, and is prolonged into glory. The same life of piety and inward pleasure, which begins on earth, is fulfilled in heaven; and it may be called the spiritual, or the eternal life, according to different respects; for it is the same continued life acting in different stations or places, and running through time and eternity; 1 John v. 11, 12. Eternal life is in the Son, and he that hath the Son, hath this life; it is begun in him, he is already possessed of it in some degree. As the life of the child is the same with that of the full-grown man; as the same vital principles and powers run through the several successive stages of infancy, youth and manhood; so the divine life of a saint, begun on earth, runs through this world, through death, and the separate state of souls; it appears in full-grown perfection, in the final heaven, when the whole saint shall stand complete in glory. Thus the spiritual life of a christian is eternal life begun; and eternal life is the spiritual life made perfect. If we would describe this life in short, it may be represented thus: It is a life of faith, holiness and peace; a life of faith, or dependance upon God for all that we want; a life of holiness, rendering back again to God, in a way of honour and service, whatsoever we receive from him in a way of mercy; and a life of peace in the comfortable sense of the favour of God, and our acceptance with him through Jesus Christ. All these begin on earth, and in this sense faith itself, as well as peace and holiness, shall abide in heaven: we shall for ever be dependants, for ever happy and for ever holy. In a state of nature the man lived such a sinful and carnal life, that was more properly called death; but when he becomes a believer, a true christian, he is new created; 2 Cor. v. 17. hew-born; John iii. 3, raised from the dead, and quickened to a new life; Eph. ii. 1, 5. which is called being risen with Christ, in the verses before my text; Col. iii. 1. And this very spiritual life, as the effect of our symbolical resurrection with Christ, is the subject of several verses of the 6th chapter to the Romans, whence I cannot but infer the same to be designed here, _viz._ that the christian who is dead to sin, is risen with Christ, and alive to God; as Rom. vi. 11. All the life that he lived before, with all the shew and bravery of it, with all the bustle and business, the entertainments and delights of it, was but a mere dream, a fancy, the picture of life, a shadow and emptiness, and but little above the brutes that perish. Now he lives a real, a substantial, a divine life, a-kin to God and angels, and quite of a different nature from what the men of this world live.