In vain shall a man who is dead in trespasses and sins, toil and labour, and hope to attain life any other way. God is the spring of all life, and he has trusted it to the hands of Jesus Christ: _I am the way, the truth and the life_, says our Saviour; John xiv. 6. No man can have life without coming to the living Father; and no man cometh to the Father but by me. Seneca and Plato, with their moral lectures, and the writings of human philosophy, may give a man new garments, may make his outward life appear much better than before; they may teach him, in some measure to govern his passions too, and subdue some of the fleshly appetites; but they cannot raise him to the love of God, to the hatred of every sin, to the well grounded hopes of the favour of God, the blessed expectation of a holy immortality, and a preparation for heaven. They cannot give the man a new life: He must be born again of the Spirit of Christ, or he can never become a living christian. And in vain would the poor backsliding christian, with his withering decaying graces, recruit and renew his divine life, without applying himself afresh to Jesus Christ: While he forgets Christ, he must go on to wither and decay still. There is nothing in earth or heaven can supply the utter absence of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the stream of spiritual life ebbs or runs low, it is not to be quickened, recovered, and increased, but by new supplies from the fountain which is on high. Remember, O degenerate christian, remember whence it was you derived your first life, when you were once dead in trespasses and sins; fly to the Saviour by new exercises of faith and dependance, mourning, in all humility, for your unwatchful walking, and your absence from the Lord. Commit your soul afresh to his care, exert your utmost powers, and beg of him renewed instances of the living Spirit, that the face of your soul may be like a watered garden, and the beauty of the divine life may be recovered again. IVth Instruction. See the reason why a lively christian desires and delights to be so much, and so often, where God and Christ are; for his life is with them. This was the divine temper and practice of the saints under a much darker dispensation than what we enjoy. How does the holy soul of David pant and long for the presence of God! and he brings even his animal nature, the very ferments of his flesh and blood, into his devotions; Ps. lxiii. 1. _My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee._ Ps. lxxxiv. 2. _My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God._ In all the various and fervent language of sacred passion and transport, he breathes after God, who is the strength of his life and his salvation; Ps. xxvii. 1. The Jewish saints cleaved to the Lord, _for he was their life, and the length of their days_; Deut. xxx. 20.