CHAPTER VI. The place Luke 24:32.

CHAPTER VI. The place Luke 24:32.

PART III.

Influences of Grace.

CHAPTER I.

Of divers sorts of Influences.

Having formerly spoken of Influences of grace in general, we are now to descend to more specials: Hence these particulars.

1. Some influences are from Satan, some from God.

2. The way of Satan's influences.

3. Its lawful to dispute with Heretics, instruments of Satan, but not lawful to dispute with Satan.

4. Christ sought neither the Tempter nor the temptation.

5. Some influences are natural, some supernatural.

6. Some moral, some Physical.

7. Some Prophetical, some not.

8. Some public on the Church, some personal.

9. Some influences are given for the habit of grace or gifts, some for the act, some for both.

10. Some proper to the head Christ, some for the members.

11. Some influences are fundamental, some not.

12. Some influences are given for saving graces actings; some for the actings of a gift.

13. Differences between acting of grace, and acting of gifts.

14. Some influences are viatorum, of such as are in the way to their country; some are comprehensorum, of perfected ones; some of grace, some of glory.

For the fuller opening of the Doctrine of Influences: some influences are from Satan, some from God. Influences from God are both moral, when he commands good, and forbids evil; and real and physical, in that all move in him, as the first cause and mover in operations of nature. 2. of grace. 3. of glory. But Satan being no Master or Lord of providence, hath no real stirring in second causes; his actings upon angel or men's souls are not physical, but only moral or tempting actings, or hellish inspirations inductive to sin; and it's no small mercy that the Prince and God of a lost world, who by permission acteth really on the air, earth, and waters, yet hath no power of immediate, real, or physical acting upon mind, will, affection, and conscience, he having only a borrowed key, and at the second hand power to suit the heart, by fancy, senses, and outward objects, 1 Kings 22:22. John 13. Acts 5:3. Some one way or other the court-gate of Ahab's heart, of Judas, of Ananias and Sapphira, lie open to Satan's scout-watches. It were safer to watch and fear, then to dispute how that subtle Spirit can blow up the lock and get in; for he knows not what is in a man's spirit. The spirit of a man is under God, the only keeper of this castle, and knows rooms, doors, and what is within, 1 Cor. 2:11. But devils lying about the out-works, the senses, the fancy, and the imagination, which is a material house, and hath doors, windows, and entries passable to devils; he can here blow the bellows, and kindle iron works.

There be two ways to know the secrets that are done in a cabinet-camber. 1. Satan can send in posts with letters, and write his wiles to the heart. This is one way of putting it in the heart of Judas to betray Christ, by sending his mind and will through the fancy to the heart, and the fancy being set on work by the will and understanding, can carry the missive letter; else how could the Lord rebuke the sin of actual imaginations? As he doth Jer. 9:4. Jer. 13:10. Jer. 18:11, 12. Nah. 2:11.

2. The heart can write back an answer of the missive letters, and print it on the fancy. We know there is fire in the house by the smoke that comes out at the chimney. A man may speak out at a window to another. Satan conveyed by the serpents tongue, and by Evahs eyes, the living thoughts of a Godhead growing on the tree, and can send in a word of a message to the heart, All these will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. And thou shalt have thirty pieces of silver, if thou wilt deliver up the Lord to us; and from the sons of disobedience he gets a return; he knew what Ahab should answer to the 400 Prophets, and heard that, Thou shalt go, and also prevail. And reason would say since all Satan's prevailing's have these two; 1. A commission sought and obtained to tempt Job c. 1, and as particular as if written, as is clear v. 12. Or a sentence of the great Judge to punish sin, 1 Kings 22:20, 21, 22, 23. 2 Sam. 24:1. It may appear that the lictor and executioner, though he know not the heart and the thoughts of the Judge directly, yet he knows his own written commission, and what sentence he is to execute, and what mischief he shall do, 1 Kings 22:22, as the executioner knows whether the sentence bear heading or hanging.

2. Ananias is blamed for Satan's lie that he put in his heart, Why hath Satan filled thy heart (it's like there were a good many seeming arguments moved by Satan to promote the work in Ananias) to lie to the holy Ghost? Then though Satan's knocking and active tempting be not our sin; for our Savior was tempted by Satan, yet without sin; yet he hath so access to the heart, as our yielding and being passively tempted with any degree of inclination to the temptation, is our sin.

3. Neither may we dispute or racket arguments with Satan.

Object. We may dispute with Heretics, and convince them, though they be Satan's instruments, Tit. 1:9. Tit. 3:10, and the blind man John 9, hold up a dispute in defense of Christ against the Pharisees; therefore we may dispute with Satan himself.

Answ. Men, to whose ears the Gospel comes, are to be gained by the power of the truth, 2 Tim. 2:24, 25. We are commanded to confess Christ before men, not before devils. This end is not attainable in the fallen Angels; therefore Christ rebukes Satan's confessing of him, Luke 4:34, 35.

Obj. Christ holds up dispute with Satan, Matth. 4.

Answ. We are to follow what is ordinary in Christ's disputing, that is, to reject Satan's temptations, not brutishly and irrationally (that is not victory over Satan by the light of faith) but by evidence of Scripture, and must refuse to yield to the temptation, and refuse in faith.

2. There is something extraordinary in this, which we cannot follow; for the second Adam here as Mediator carries the person of all the tempted ones, as the first Adam did represent all his, and gives a proof that he is Michael, stronger than the Dragon; and that all the tempted seed are by faith to rely on the strength of the tempted Savior.

3. Nor did Christ hold up or entertain the dispute with Satan; he only gave one simple answer to every temptation, It is written. Nor had the dispute

1. Its rise from Christ. Christ is rather a patient for our instruction, then an agent as touching the rise of the temptation; for Matthew saith, the tempter came unto him; then Christ fetched neither the tempter, nor the temptation, or dispute.

2. Satan brought him to the holy city, Matth. 4:5. <H&G> — <H&G>, Satan set him on a pinnacle of the Temple, v. 8, The Devil took him unto an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. Then did not the man Christ go as from himself to the pinnacle of the Temple, nor to the exceeding high mountain to fetch and bring on himself the temptation or the dispute. See Luke 4:5, 6, 7, 8. Yea Divines think he submitted that his holy body should be so far acted upon by Satan. So Mark 1:12, the Spirit drives him, casteth him violently to the desert. Eve entertains a dialogue with Satan. 1. Speaks by way of complaining of God. 2. And doubtingly of the Lord's word of threatening, Gen. 3. Saul the 1 Sam. 28, seeketh after Satan, and makes a journey to him. Some influences of God are 1, upon the act, yet so as they are willingly received by us. 2. Though they be terminated upon the material act under transgression, yet is there neither moral warrant nor persuasion to the sinfulness from the Lord, but the contrary. But when the influence is to gracious acts, there are many strong allurements from precept, promise, threatening, to move us to close with the gracious act, and virtually with the real influence. 3. Satan's influences are to shameful acts, to walking naked. 2. To bloody delusions, to kill the children to Molech. 3. To unwarrantable delusions, to lay aside Scripture, and walk in the dark, attending on unwritten dreams.

2 Divis. Some influences of God are ordinis naturalis, natural; he commands the Sun to rise; he sends rain, and joins his concurrence to the things of nature. Some are ordinis supernaturalis, supernatural; such as are of the Father choosing. 2. Of the Son. If Christ died without the camp, that he might sanctify the people with his blood, Heb. 13:12, and if by his will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, Heb. 10:10, then sure sanctifying influences must be bought and purchased for his chosen people. The doubt is yet answered more fully; what a wise man hath deliberately bought, and with the price of blood, he must bestow that for the end for which he hath bought it. Then Christ must bestow saving influences for sanctifying his people. We look too much to what we cannot do, and too little in this business to what Christ must do, upon the necessity of his offices, of his bargain of redemption that he hath closed; he must work in his own to will and to do until the end.

3 Division. Some influences are moral, some physical and real. The moral influences are the persuading actings of God from the word of precept, of promise, of threatening, from the Law, from the Gospel; such are common to all within the visible Church. Hence from these flow warnings, inspirations, holy motions, strong convictions, that Christ is to be followed, all are to be forgone and cast over-board that we may gain him, in regard of these. Christ stands at the door and knocks, Revel. 3:20. Thousands refuse to open to him; as howbeit the word carries along with it the high and glorious authority of the Law-giver, the promise of a Kingdom, the threatening of everlasting chains; yet it works but morally, and the robber in the woods laughs at the paper-laws, and at the far-off general justice that is in cities, which cannot reach the robbers that are in woods; so moral influences from the word bear in upon the thought afar off a letter-heaven, or a literal hell, with a suspicion of lying unbelief; these are but fables. But when the Lord in real influences lays hands on the sinner, the man is then as if he were at the bar; the robber on whose legs and arms the law hath laid bolts and iron fetters, and is really wrought upon by more than literal influences, as Saul for three days speaks supplications: And when the influences physical of God are upon the soul of the spouse, then love itself and love-sickness speak with sense, His love is better than wine. O he is the chief among ten thousand. Many thousand professors live and die under letter-influences, and a paper-New-Testament; they hear, read, know the word, are baptized, and deceive their own souls, and have but seen (as James saith) their image in the glass, and forget themselves. Such never knew heart-sickness, nor the terrors of God, nor any real work on the conscience: then seek heart-drawing, and heart-divinity.

4. Some influences are moral and ordinary of some professors; some are prophetical and extraordinary. Now as to these which are prophetical, it may be a question whether they be real and physical, or only moral. It seems there are two things here, 1. The visions. 2. The publishing of them. As to the first, Jeremiah sees the rod of an Almond-tree, and a seething pot, and the face of it toward the North. Ezekiel sees a whirlwind and a cloud out of the North, and fire enfolding itself, and the color of amber out of the midst of the fire, and the likeness of four living creatures, and every one of them had four faces, and four wings, &c. And Daniel saw a ram with two horns, one higher, another lesser, pushing northward, and westward, and southward, &c. It's clear these were real visions, and had real influences of God carrying them into their mind really, and they could not shun but they were in an ecstasy, and God really made them see as to the publishing of them, just as they saw them. They seem to be moral agents, yet so as Caiaphas could not shun to prophecy; nor could Balaam, when his eyes were opened, and he falling in a trance, but see the visions of the Almighty, and could not go beyond the word of the Lord, but must prophetically bless (and no more thanks and praise can be due to them in so doing, then to Satan confessing Christ to be the Son of God, Luke 4.) So are many, who are convinced, and tremble at the word, and when the terrors of God, and a fever or ague of the pressing indignation of God takes them, declare God to be righteous, and themselves guilty, are but little praise-worthy: For the Law acting in a natural conscience, is another party representing God the Judge; and when such turn again to their vomit, as there be many false births of this kind, how prodigiously profane are such? For they carry about Satan's light of a natural conscience, and their own profane hearts: so dreadful it is to do violence to light which speaks from God. Saul at the beginning of his reign, and Demas, and some others, are hellish examples of Apostasy to cause others fear.

5. There are some personal influences upon a single man that are more private, which are very desirable: But there be some more public influences on the Church; so the Lord walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and rains down Ministerial blessings on his Church, holds the stars on his right hand, and waters his Church. So Isa. 27:2. A garden of red wine. 3. I the Lord do keep it: I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Beside protection that the Lord is the keeper of the Vineyard, and Christ answers for the vines, the mystical body is like a parcel of ground subject to drought and withering, and Christ with showers of influences must water our withering, and he leading captivity captive, and ascending on his coronation-day, sent down royal gifts, Apostles, Prophets, Pastors on his body mystical, which also is made visible by him. The times of sweet refreshing showers, and of the singing of the birds under the Messiah's Kingdom, require that we exercise our faith in looking toward these promises. When the heavens seem to be heavy, and (as it were) with child of Summer-rain, Ezek. 34:26. I will make them and the places round my hill a blessing, and I will cause the showers come down in his season, there shall be showers of blessings. It's not rain for grass or corn, but of spiritual influences upon Emmanuels land, where floods and rivers run milk and wine, Isa. 55:1, as also Isa. 32:3. The eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. 4. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak plainly. Then is that true also Isa. 35:1. The desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose. 5. The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6. Then shall the lame man leap as a heart, and the tongue of the dumb sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. 7. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of waters: in the habitation of dragons where each lay (shall be) grass with reeds and rushes. And that all this is a prophecy of showers of influences of grace upon the holy people under the New Testament, is clear v. 8. And a high-way shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those; the way faring men, though fools, shall not err (therein.) 9. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereupon, it shall not be found there: but the redeemed shall walk there. Were all the stones and rocks of a Land turned into gold, it should prove that the Sun had most strong influences on that land. The stony hearts under the New Testament are changed into new hearts, Ezek. 36:26, and a people of hard metal of iron and stone, transformed into precious stones, Carbuncles, Agats, Sapphires; and that made true, All thy children shall be taught of God, Isa. 55:11, 12. This doth evince that the influences of God shall be mighty in those who believe under the New Testament, even the exceeding greatness of his power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places. Such things say that such as live under the Gospel would say what a change is made in them. The Gospel finds you stones and iron, and leaves you stones and iron; O but that is sweet, Christ found me clay, and now I am gold, as the man John 9:25. One thing I know, that where I was blind, now I see. 1 Tim. 1:13. Once I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an injurious person, but I obtained mercy. Ah it's a hard condition, born an heir of wrath, dying worse than an heir of wrath; for sin original, and the habit of wickedness was but a little brook when the reprobate man was born; but when he dies, it's a mighty river, and a great sea. What hath the Gospel done to you? It's more than the power of the Sun, it's a strong influence of God the first cause, that makes clay gold, and common earth silver, and copper, and brass. Many cannot tell where Christ found them, and where they are now.

2. If there be such summer-showers of heavenly influences under Christ, how is our fleece dry? And many are rained upon green, and the bones flourishing like an herb and a lilly, and thou art dry. This is not seen; profaneness is exceeding profane, and is twice, yea seven times profaneness under Gospel-influences. The Gospel-devil is fiercer, and more a devil (to speak so) then the Indian devil. O but the Gospel makes a sad eik to wickedness, Gospel-swearing, Gospel-whoring, Gospel-drunkenness, are worse than Sodom's filthiness, Matth. 10:15. There is an unperceived vengeance that cleaves to every Judas; the man who is long in Christ's company; and sees and hears what Christ does, and what he says, his traitory is twice, yea seven times traitory. Spilt and rotten wine is a worse liquor then fountain-water; some water is better than some wine.

3. How blessed then is that, this man and this man was born in Zion! To be born and dwell in a Land where Christ dwells, speaks mercy: To be a plant of a young Vine where the garden of red wine is, must be a mercy; to be a plot of ground that Christ plows; to be a branch that the Father of Christ purges that it may bring forth more fruit, is an incomparable mercy. You might have been born in China, in America, in Brasilia, where Satan dwells; but ye were born in a land of Vine-trees and Olive-trees. To be born in the Church (though men despise it) and in covenant with God, and to be baptized, is to be born in Paradise, in the borders of heaven; for there is the Gospel and the Prince, who both can promise and give Heaven.

6. Divis. Some are influences for the habit, others for the act of grace. Influences for the habit, as Isa. 44:3. I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thy offspring. A land that rains showers of rain and milk, and rains down showers of glory and grace, must be the glory of all lands, and it must needs be an excellent and a glorious Sun that shines upon that land. 2. There are influences for heavenly dispositions. Christ speaks and opens the Scriptures to them, and their hearts burn within them, Luke 24:32. Every word of Christ casts in a fiery coal of love: Every fitting down under the Apple-tree brings sweetness; he hath influences by which he brings on love-sickness, Cant. 5:7, 8. Christ casteth in a praying disposition on Saul, Behold he prays, Acts 8, and casts in a mourning disposition on the woman that washed his feet with tears; and a disposition of love, she loved much, so she weeped over Christ's feet, and kissed them, and wiped them with the hair of her head. He cast in a hearing disposition in Mary, Luke 10. A love-sickness after Christ in the Spouse, Cant. 2, a mourning disposition on Peter, he weeps bitterly. 3. There are influences by which Christ acts in us, and the spirit acts in us to will and to do, Phil. 2:13, and the spirit groans and prays in the Saints, Rom. 8:26. Christ by his influences makes someone new work or other what he hath done in you. Are ye a dry Eunuch, and the heath in the wilderness? And are ye the dried up fig-tree, and withered up by the root, neither leaves nor fruit? God will blast brambles, and cast them over the hedge, and deny Sun and rain to them. Some there be on whom Christ never acted as Christ; they are in the shadow all their life, and never saw nor felt the Sun.

7. Divis. There be some influences proper to the head Christ, some peculiar to the members. O what rare actings upon the Son, Psal. 45:2. Grace is poured in thy lips. v. 7. God thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness. Isa. 61:1. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. 2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. In which words are holden forth the influences of the Lord in their fullness, the anointing of the spirit of the Lord upon the head upon the head Christ, and the influence of that anointing upon the members, to wit, on the meek, on the broken-hearted, on the captives, on those that are bound and sold. Then saith the man Christ, the Spirit of the Lord hath sent the strong and fountain-influences of the abounding anointing on me, and I may send the fruits of these holy influences upon the meek to preach to them glad tidings, that they may believe, and influences upon the broken hearts, that they may be bound up, and influences on the captives and prisoners, and the sold and oppressed with debt, that they may be made free for binding up of hearts; and freeing of captives and prisoners are impossible without the healing influences of Christ. Then (saith he) God lets out to me and to the members; I the head receive anointing, and a full fountain, and I issue out streams and life to the members; look then as the dry earth hath a sort of connatural right of means and end to the full clouds and bottles of heaven, and the rain in the clouds, and the cold and dead earth hath a sort of connatural right, by the Lord's holy appointment, to the influences of the Sun; so by a decree of free grace, the broken-hearted, the meek, the captives, the prisoners have a right of means in order to the end, to the influences of compassion and tenderness, and of real grace, that in its fullness is in the soul and heart of the Mediator Christ, toward their brokenness bondage and misery who are his. Then may the captive and prisoner claim influences from Christ, as the dry earth in its kind suites and begs that rain that is in the bosom and womb of the clouds for its refreshments: and so much the more that fullness of Christ's anointing is not only ordered by a free and gracious decree as the means for this end, to supply the emptiness of the meek and the poor captives, but 2. also which is more, the influences of the fullness of Christ's anointing is due by way of merit, and of buying and selling to those captives, as when there is a large price of blood given for to redeem the man in his vain conversation, as 1 Pet. 1:18, from the present evil world, Gal. 1:15, from the living to sin and in sin, 1 Pet. 2:24, from all iniquity and the bondage and filthiness thereof, Tit. 2:14. There is a due right in law, by way of bargain and payment, made to Justice upon Christ's part, that such ought not to be detained slaves, captives, and prisoners. Now the earth hath no such right by buying, nor any Jus emptionis, to have rain and influences from the clouds and the sun; for the Lord may without violation of any bargain turn the earth into iron, and the heavens into brass; and so may the Lord simply and absolutely deny the fruits Christ's anointing, binding up of wounds, and freedom to the broken-hearted, and to the captives and slaves of sin, for any deserving in them; yet as touching the bargain and engagement of redemption from sins, and the dominion, masterdom, and law imprisonment thereof, the meek and the captives have a more noble right in the surety Christ, by way of buying and selling, to the healing influences of Christ's holy anointing, then the world can express. See also how the spirit in its fullness is given to Christ, Isa. 11:2. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. Isa. 42:1. I will put my spirit on him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. These be mighty influences on him, to whom (said John the Baptist) God gave not the spirit by measure, John 3:34:3. There is a right of promise to influences, Rev. 2:7, 17, 26. Rev. 3:12, 20, 21. John 14:18, 21. John 15:1, 2. In Christ promissio facit legale jus, Christ, as it were, oweth me showers of grace; for he promised to water me. This promise is a draught of the river of life to the deadened spirit. 4. There is a mystical dueness and connatural love-right: The head by natures law is a sort of debtor for influences of life to the members.

Here are sweet grounds for the streams to beg from the fountain, the members dry and withering from the living head.

2. It was fit there should be another higher providence about the head, then about the members, and so more admirable and transcendent influences extended toward Christ, then toward any of the sons of men, as that a new star should be created at his birth.

That 2. God should give testimony of him from heaven immediately, This is my beloved Son, &c.

3. That Angels, immediate messengers from heaven, should preach his birth-day and place, Luke 2, should minister to him in his agony in the garden; should watch the corps of this King sleeping in the grave; should witness his ascension; and what mighty influences above nature must be in his raising the dead, commanding devils, &c. In his coming down from heaven to be man, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily; and that the holy body should ascend visibly through the air, and through the heavens, cleaving, yielding, and giving way to him; what influences in that the clouds are his chariots, and that the man Christ intercedes at the right hand of God, and sends influences of life all the world over to his members, rules all Empires and Kingdoms, the languishing and fainting believer is comforted? O how suitable is Christ's fullness and life to my death and emptiness!

3. These must be strong influences, that with the anointing, Isa. 61:1, 2, is given a power to preach the year of vengeance, to judge and trample upon the necks of all his enemies; that the man Christ shall come visibly and locally from the highest heavens, and the heavens bow and yield to his blessed manhood, when he comes with his mighty Angels to judge all.

And he sends 4. influences of judgments through the stars which fight against his enemies, Judge. 5:20, through winds, seas and rivers, fire and sword, and evil Angels that are armed against his enemies, Exod. 14:21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. Exod. 15:10, 11, 12. Judge. 5:21. Gen. 19:23, 24, 25. Numb. 16:31, 32, 33. Psal. 78:43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, &c. All which teach us not to murmur at providence, government of the world. Why say we, this is sad, and yet fallen out? God might otherwise have disposed of all, and we reflect upon his providence, while as we offend at second causes, but be comforted in a new world, and in a more glorious providence of influences in ruling heaven and earth, and in carrying the chosen of God to glory, then if all were ruled to our will.

1. None shall wither or be blasted that are planted in Christ, and committed to his husbandry.

2. We could not in the other first providence, which was before sin entered into the world, have claimed to influences of glory from the fullness of the anointing that is in Christ; for Christ then was not the public good, and communicable treasure of his redeemed, he was not our God, nor our Emmanuel, nor our Goel or Kinsman-redeemer, but a reserved and estranged God to be made our God by our own earning and law-merit.

3. The Lord Jesus was infinite God, and the fountain as large as now; but he was not our own fountain, nor the influences and waterings due to in our withering's as now.

4. Christ is made the new great Lord, Factor, and public Agent for his Church, to rule all for their good and salvation; and heaven, and earth, and the world, and life, and death, and things present, and things to come, are put over in Christ's hands; the morrow, the next years deliverance, the believers outgoing in death, are all made over to Christ, and then in Christ all things are ours, 1 Cor. 3:21, and the watering of my witheredness, and the quickening of my deadness hic & nunc, in this same moment of time is first Christ's, and I got it seasonably from him in a better time and way then according to my time and way.

Object. Many things fall out which may be well otherwise.

Answ. Not so; one godly husbandman prayers for rain to his ground, another godly husbandman prays for drought, as more useful for his field, for he hath rain enough. Now is it not good that there is a wise providence in Christ, which fits both their prayers, and does the business well? A number of believers are to fail to such a land, they pray for a North-east-wind; another number of believers are to sail to another land, they suit from the Lord a South-west-wind; is it not best that Christ in his new spiritual providence take a course to hear both their prayers, to deny both the winds they suit, and to bring both in his own way to their desired harbors.

Object. 2. It were better God should hear the prayers of his people in their straits.

Answ. The Lord neither casteth off his foreknown people nor their prayers, though visible Israel externally called be rejected.

2. God hears wicked men's prayers, and grants them not in a way of promise, but in his wrath, 1 Sam. 8:22. 1 Sam. 12:13. Hos. 13:11. Psal. 78:20, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30.

3. God hears the prayers of his people in way of promise which is better than simple hearing. See the judicious Treatise of the servant of God Mr. Gee.

Obj 3. Many wicked men are green and flourishing, that they may swallow Jacob.

Answ. Nor is it evil that the Lord's fire in Zion be hot and fierce, that he may remove the dross, though the coals that melt the gold be digged out of hell, and their flaming against his people sinful and cruel; it is not only in relation to him, who is above his laws, binding Angels and men; not evil, but equally done in wisdom and righteousness; for as much may be said by carnal reason in the Lord's efficacious permission of sin, which he may hinder in the reprobate, as well as some way he hindered it in the elect Angels, and in chosen heirs of glory. 1. Against the wisdom. 2. goodness. 3. sovereignty. 4. righteousness. 5. and love of God, as Jesuits, Arminians, Socinians, and others say against the holiness of God. No earthly Father but he should fail both against natural love, goodness, and wisdom, should he permit, if he could hinder, his children to commit sins, which shall procure their eternal misery and woe. Let all flesh be silent, here is holy dominion.

8. Divis. Some influences of Christ are fundamental, and simply necessary, and principally promised; some not fundamental, and less necessary. As

1. The influences by which the Lord gives a circumcised, Deut. 30:6, a one and single, Ezek. 11:19, 20, a soft and a new heart and spirit, Ezek. 36:26. Zech. 12:10. Isa. 54:13. John 6:45. Isa. 44:1, 2, 3. These are simply necessary.

2. These influences are also fundamental, in which the Lord promiseth and doth put in act the habit of grace for the persevering of believers, Ezek. 36:27. Isa. 54:10. Isa. 59:21. Psal. 1:3, 4. Psal. 89:28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35. John 10:27, 28, 29. John 15:1, 2. If Christ plant, his planting lays on him some necessity, so far to give watering-influences, as not to suffer his planted trees to dry up by the roots, and to wither root and branch; and Christ so builds on a rock his people and believers, never to be prevailed against by the ports of hell; as he must watch the city that it be not surprised, nor the living stones hammered to nothing, and removed off the rock and the foundation Christ. Christ so buys with a price his own, that he carries them on to the purchased glory, and bringeth them actually to the fruition of life eternal; for Christ is an established high Priest to intercede for his own, and the intercession of Christ is nothing but a continual showring down upon the redeemed ones new vigorous influences as the head, so long as it lives, night and day, sleeping and waking, sends down influences of life to the members: ever-living and ever-interceding Christ is the fountain, running along through the roots of the Lord's planting, so that they are ever green, ever blooming and budding, and in old age bring forth fruit, John 14:19. Isa. 27:3. Christ interceding is that live fire on the Altar, Isa. 6, ever sending forth live flaming's, and heat of life through his live coals to all his, John 14:19. Because I live, ye shall live also. Now there is no interruption of Christ's living by sickness, sleeping, or death, and so he lives always. Just as the Sunbeams and rays of light and heat are kept in their being by the presence of the body of the Sun, casting out these influences, and the darting out of heat, and warmness, and light, and the flaming's are kept in being by the presence of the fire, which by new fuel is continued still in the act of flaming; so are the Saints kept still in a spiritual living, being by Christ issuing out his influences upon them. So sweet is the union of dependency daily and momently upon Christ that blessed root of Jesse. Ah, if we knew what it were to live in Christ, to breath in Christ, pray in him, love in him, rejoice in him, suffer and triumph in him, praise in him, wait in him for the Lord; but our actings, separated from Christ and his influences of life, not known to be such, through our unwatchfulness are dreadful. Now there be some single influences hic & nunc, that the Saints may want and be saved; as the influence necessary for Peters confessing of Christ when he denied him; the influence by which David should have been guarded against the temptation to adultery and murder, the Lord may withdraw such influences, that the fallen Saints may know that they stand by grace; and therefore from the Lord's withdrawing's hic & nunc, let us not conclude we are out of Christ, yet we are not to be slack, but in trembling and godly fear to keep near to Christ, and censure not the Lord for withdrawing of his influences, since he stands obliged by his holy covenant not to deny the substantial and fundamental influences by which we shall be saved, and persevere to the end.

9. Divis. There be some influences in which the Lord concurs with the actings of saving grace; as of faith, love, hope, and other influences, in which the Lord concurs with the actings of a mere gift, or other principles, possibly the flesh, custom, &c. and it were good to know the difference betwixt the one and the other.

Psal. 57:8. Awake my glory, awake psaltery and harp; and so he speaks to the gift of music to awake and be concurrent in the praising of God, and stirs up the grace of God in himself to praise, when he says I myself will awake early, he teacheth that gift and grace should concur and be stirred up in spiritual duties of praying and praising: hence how we may know when we act from a gift, and when we act from saving grace these Assertions following.

Assert. 1. Some sinful sleepiness of the flesh may concur in both the acting of the gift and of the grace; for David bidding both his harp, and so the gift of music awake, and himself awake, teacheth some sinful dullness was upon both one and the other. So when David excites his soul and all that is within him to bless the Lord, Psal. 103:1, he insinuates that in praising of God fleshly dullness may come upon all that is within him, both the powers of the soul, and the habit of grace and gift, and the skill of singing: it's much to get the fountain made clean in our actings.

2. How condescending is his mercy, who denies not his influences of grace to us, though the flesh be acting often, and retarding the spirit in our actings?

Assert. 2. We are to take heed that we knock not at the wrong door: we may pray and preach from a gift of praying and human eloquence, and a civilized and well-skilled fancy, and a literal mind versed in the letter of the Scripture, when we think that we are praying from the spirit of adoption, and the gracious habit of praying. So the like may be said of Preaching, and singing praises; how many prophesied and cast out Devils from a mere gift, and die in that deluded condition, and are possessed with that habitual mistake (which is never tried) that they prophesied and cast out Devils from a sanctified principle? Read Matth. 7:22, 23, 24. Luke 13:25. Matth. 25:11, 12.

If any say, May not sound believers also blow at the wrong hearthstone and think the like?

Answ. There may be a particular mistake in this or that act, but not a habitual deluded condition all their life; as sometimes the believer may pray from mere custom, when there is little stirring of the spirit.

Assert. 3. It's not enough to do the same that heathens do; for if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? And if ye salute your brethren only (not your enemies also) what do ye more then others? So Christ Matth. 5, to the multitude, and to the disciples, Matth. 5:1, 46. Believers then should not stint themselves to only publicans and heathens duties. Samuel speaks as a man, as Samuel when he calls Elijah the Lord's anointed, 1 Sam. 16, and supposeth that he speaks as a Prophet; so doth Nathan, 1 Sam. 16:6, 7. 2 Sam. 7:3. There is a vast difference betwixt (thus saith the Prophet by the Lord) and (thus saith the man) and therefore where are we when our righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees? The devils believe there is one God, and they do well, James 2:19, and we fools say in our hearts there is no God, Psal. 14:1, and do we well in so saying? The devils do tremble when they believe there is one God: ah, Satan believes in sad earnest when he believes! We sport, yea do not we laugh and mock at a Godhead, or at the word of a hell? The faith conveyed with godly trembling were good: Ah, that we know not the influences of God conjoined with the out-lettings of a gift, and of a temporary faith, and the influences that go along with the out-letting of saving grace, as touching the matter!

Assert. 4. Hardly can the use of a gift ascend above itself to intend God and his glory; for the glory of God is graces end, not gifts end. Zech. 7:5. When ye fasted, did ye at all fast unto me? 6. And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did ye not eat for yourselves? And did not ye drink for yourselves? Heb. did not ye yourselves eat as carnal men? Did ye not eat, and drink, and feast, and fast? He means the spirit of grace in them did not keep these religious fasts and feasts, but their own spirit, and custom, and self; and did ye fast for me at all? And he doubles the word, that so he may the more convince them, even for me? So the Lord might say to the Pharisees who prayed in the streets, Did ye at all pray to me, even to me? Or did the gift and vain-glory in you, or the spirit in you? So he may say to us, Do ye preach, hear, swear a covenant for me at all? Saving grace must sanctify the gift in its use and end, that it be for God; but a gift can never sanctify saving grace in its use and end. As grace which is above nature sanctifies nature, and heightens nature in its actings, principles, and end; but nature, that is below grace, can never sanctify and heighten grace in its actings, principles, and ends.

Assert. 5. The same sun, the same air and heaven, send the same influences on the true and natural olive, and on the wild olive; the same clouds and rain act upon the vine-tree and the thorn-tree, upon the rose, and the briar, and the nettle; and so the same word comes to the ears of both elect and reprobate, but not the same quickening influences of grace upon both. Saul governs, and leads the Armies of the Lord by a gift; and David governs, feeds, and leads the Armies of the Lord by the grace of God, and the same word of command lays an obligation upon both; false Apostles preach Christ from a gift, and labor by a gift, but Paul labors not as Paul, but the grace of God in him. The virgins are drawn and run, Cant. 1, and John is drawn and runneth; but the same lively influences act not upon the one and other: it is a deluding conclusion, we have eaten and drunken where Christ was present, and his Saints present, therefore the Lord should open to us; and Christ hath preached and his faithful Prophets in our hearing, in our streets, therefore should we be admitted into the Bridegroom's chamber, Luke 13:25. What can then be built on this? I was at the Lord's Supper, where undoubtedly Christ was in his influences of life; I did swear a covenant to God, I preached the Gospel, I heard ordinarily such a Preacher in whom undeniably the Spirit of God spoke, and was intimately acquainted with him, and loved him dearly, and shall that man be saved, and I thrust in hell? The great error is, men try not their ways, principles, motives, and ends.

Now as touching influences of grace, it is not as when the same hand smites upon the string of the harp well tuned, and on another string of the harp that is mistuned; it's the same word that sounds in the ears of these in the visible Church, but not the same spirit of grace in the same saving influences that act upon the heart; yea the spirit leaves the heart of some to its own deadness, and acts upon others to bring them to wonder, to be amazed and astonished, and leaves them there; and acts upon a third sort, to leave a strong conviction and a work of humiliation upon them; but it does no good, it's nothing above a law-work mixed with some letter of the Gospel; and the Spirit works in some a lively sound work of saving grace; and the same word is the common instrument in all. So our Savior's enumeration of four sorts of hearers takes in all, Matth. 13. How many wonder, and despise, and persecute? Luke 4. Mark 7. Mark 9. Matth. 12. John 11. Acts 3. Acts 4, &c.

2. Influences of the spirit saving and lively are called by the names of the Fathers drawing, of the Bridegroom's drawing, John 6:44. Cant. 1:4, the Spirits leading, Rom. 8:14, the Lord's teaching, Isa. 54:13. John 6:45, the blowing and breathing of the wind upon the garden, Cant. 4:16, the Lord's quickening in his way, Psal. 119:37, the Lord's circumcising of the heart, Deu. 30:6, the Lord's opening of the heart, Acts 16:14, the Lord's instructing and speaking to men with a strong hand, Isa. 8:11, the Lord's power in believers, not inferior to that by which he raised his Son from the dead, and quickens the dead that are in the graves, Eph. 1:18, 19, 20. Joh. 5:25. But no such showers of influences go along with a mere gift; which is eminent in many, and exercised to the full, to the good of the Church, and yet such builders of the ark for saving of others perish themselves in the waters.

3. If we consider the Lord's intention, this is clear; Did ever the Lord decree or promise to bring any to heaven by the gift of prophecy, of wisdom, of learning and arts, whether the men believe or not? Or does the husbandman so labor the ground for the growing of the bramble, as for the growing and flourishing of the vine-tree, or for the thistle and the briar as for the wheat? What can Christ make out of a preaching Judas never given to him of the Father? Nothing, he never believing, but to send him to his place.

Assert. 6. In one and the same spiritual acting of praying and believing the spirit and the flesh may concur, not as formal principles, for the flesh and corrupt nature is no formal principle of praying in the spirit, and of believing; the holy Ghost useth no such tools, but the flesh concurs by way of retarding and weakening of the acts of praying; for it is of the flesh only that our praying is not with that deepness of humble sense of want, with that strong desire with that fervor of believing that becomes.

So corruption concurs in the work as the broken thigh or leg in the halting horse, as half a tooth in eating, not as a formal principle of motion. Hence the influences of grace must be accommodate to our gracious actings, that are mixed: he is a meek Spirit, who is willing to sigh in a Saint, beside the body of sin which casts in something of our sinful corruption to retard the work.

2. In the same prayer the spirit and the flesh speak at once or by turns, Jer. 15:15, prays in the spirit, O Lord thou knowest me, remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering; know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke. 16. Thy words were found, and I did eat them: and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. But in the same prayer the spirit in his suspended influences, as it were resting, lies by, and the flesh mixes in itself, v. 18. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether to me as a liar, and as waters that fail? Calvin saith we must distinguish betwixt the doctrine, yea I add the prayer that is from the spirit, and the sinful complaint in the prayer from the flesh. So Job complains spiritually, 10, he acknowledgeth and adoreth the power of God, which poured him out as milk, and curdled him like cheese, clothed him with skin and flesh, and fenced him with bones and sinews, and gave him life and favor, v. 9, 10, 11, 12. Yet the flesh almost casts all down, and makes him to lose his thanks, v. 18. Wherefore hast thou (saith he) brought me forth out of the womb? O that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! Compare Jobs sad complaint with his triumphing faith, in looking through so many hundred years to his living Redeemer and Kinsman, who shall stand the last man upon the earth, v. 25, 26. Then are we taught to difference betwixt influences from our sinful flesh and his holy Spirit, and to beware of mixing our clay with the Lord's pure fountain actings of his Spirit, and not to adulterate and vitiate his wine with our rotten water. It looked like the zeal of God in the disciples to desire to call for fire from heaven to burn the Samaritans old and young; it was a cruel end merciless thing to refuse Christ and his disciples lodging. O but saith Christ, rebuking them, Luke 9:55. Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. Pray that God would rebuke the flesh while ye pray; and try your own spirit, and take heed to it.

2. Rest not on a gift, nor upon the literal stirring and bastard heat that comes from a gift, or upon literal tears that often flow from a weakened fancy in prayer. Esau both runs and was hot in his hunting for the blessing, and sought the blessing with tears; but there were here no influences of the spirit of grace. Esau, Heb. 12, was a profane man.

Assert. 7. It may be a child of God may be deluded in a particular, thinking his actings from a gift to be actings from grace; but

1. A habitual delusion, such as was in the five foolish virgins, all their life, and until the market of buying oil was spent and over, cannot fall into a regenerate man; for the Lord reveals his state to him.

2. A child of God may all his life not put a distinct difference between the gift of preaching in Judas and the grace of preaching; for there is no certainty of faith, of the saving grace of others as touching particular men.

3. There is in the Saints a spiritual sense of discerning Christ's voice; and here two things are to be distinguished.

1. The actings of sense.

2. The objects of sense, and spiritual discerning the acts of sense in order to others, are not infallible either in the habit or the act; the eleven may all their life mistake Judas. But as touching the object, the saving influences and actings of God have them in some singular and peculiar thing by which actu primo, and in themselves they may be discerned. As Christ's preaching had such grace in it, never man spake like him. Paul's preaching in the evidence, and demonstration, and power of the Spirit, 1 Cor. 2, had something that a spiritual discerning might take up: the garden flower and the wild flower that grows in the mountains are like other, yet the senses of seeing and smelling find a difference. It's dreadful when Christ's preaching, and the Apostles speaking and praying in the holy Ghost, brings forth mocking and persecution, and the miracles of Christ that were done by the power of God are fathered upon the Prince of devils; it's hard to persuade men of the naughtiness of their own heart. What comes from self, comes from grace: the heart, because it is the man's own, is good to God; the prayers are the man's own and good; the lamps they are our own, and they shine, and therefore the shining is from the oil of grace within, and yet the lamp is empty.

2. As to others, hardly see we what condition they are in; and because the smell of dead bones comes not through marble-stones in the Tomb, therefore the paintry of a profession satisfies us; yet it was not want of charity that made Micah 7:2, say, The good man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men; they lie in wait for blood. As now it's called morosity, rash judgment, to say that the generality of Ministers, and too many time-covenanters know little of any work of the Spirit on their hearts.

10. Divis. There are influences proper to the way to the Country, and influences proper to the end and to the Country; or influences of grace, and influences of glory. Influences for the way, though they come from Christ our life, yet for the most part they come by some means, the word, the seals, prayer, faith in the promises: what influences they have who never heard the Gospel, but have the law of nature within, and book of creation and of providence without, by which they may read and spell a Godhead, and duties they owe to God Creator, is harder to determine: But they shall be witnesses to judge us, and shall justify Sodom, Matth. 10:15. But did we read more, meditate more the covenant of grace, we should have more of the influences of grace: the influences of glory are the immediate and eternal out-lettings of God without word, or faith, or praying. The tree of life hath growing on it apples of life all the moments of the year; that is, a long summer, and a long year; the tree is ever green, ever blossoming, eternally bearing fruit, and the inhabitants eternally feasting on the fruit. The river of life runs for ever and ever, flows eternally and never ebbs: they eternally drink in life and joy from him which sits upon the Throne, and the Lamb. So many millions of glorified ones as there are, so many eternal and immediate dependencies and living beams of glory united to the Son of righteousness: because Christ is our life, Col. 3:4, therefore must heaven be a life of immediate influences of grace in the first glorious conserving power of God in preserving bodies of clay in a being of 1. Incorruption and immortality, beyond sickness, cold, pain, old age, and death. 2. In a state of glory, free of shame. 3. In a state of bodily strength, power, and activity free of weakness. 4. In a state of spirituality, free of a necessity of earthly helps, eating, drinking, sleeping, 1 Cor. 15:42, 43, 44.

2. It must be an immediate out-letting of God in the fourth life of eternal blessedness and glory above the life of nature.

2. The life intellectual of reason.

3. The life of grace, in the vision of the face of God, 1 John 3:2. Rev. 22:4. Job 19:26, knowing him.

4. In the influences of fullness of joy and delights, or pleasures, and that so long as Christ-God shall live for evermore.

Now these three. 1. Fruition of God, as the last end and satisfaction in him only, seeking no other lover but God in Christ.

2. Loving and adhering to God, there being no room for faith and hope, 1 Cor. 13:13. (whence comes filling of the concupiscible part, desire, delight.)

3. Praising him eternally and the Lamb.

These three (I say) have both the consideration of duties, and of a reward; in both considerations the Lord lets out his immediate influences on that blessed company in all these. 1. We are sick of love after our prison here, rather then for our choicest life. 2. We seek not the earnest and first fruits of this life.

CHAPTER II.

The nature of the habit of grace

That there is 2. Such a habit is clear in the word. 3. It's purchased by Christ's merit. 4. Hath supernatural actings flowing from it. 5. Influences without this habit are but delusions. 6. Differences betwixt the habit of grace and other habits, 7. Resolutions must be followed with prayer. 2. Godly trembling. 3. Faith. 8. The stronger the habit of grace is, the stronger and more connatural are the acts flowing from it.

The third particular is, how the Saints may fetch the holy breathings of the Spirit by supernatural habits: And touching this we shall speak to these.

1. What the habit of grace is.

2. How it is the seed of influences of grace.

1. What necessity there is of the connection betwixt the habit of grace; and how we may fetch breathings of the Spirit from the habit of grace.

As to the first: The habit of grace is a fixed disposition infused in the soul by the Lord, purchased by Christ's merit of his death, by which we perform supernatural duties.

1. A habit is a heavenly disposition or quality gracious, by which the man even sleeping is denominated a convert, a believer, a translated man from darkness to light, Col. 1:13. Acts 2:44. Acts 4:4. 1 John 3:14.

2. It is a fixed quality different from a spiritual disposition, as Psal. 57:7. My heart is fixed or disposed, O God, or prepared; but his heart was not ever and always fixed and prepared to praise, though he had ever the habit and seed of God in him after his conversion.

3. It is a fixed disposition infused in the soul by the Lord, as a permanent quality; so Isa. 44:3. I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. What is that flood? I will pour my spirit upon thy seed. Zech. 12:10. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication. Ezek. 11:19. And I will give them one heart; and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh. Jer. 31:33. I will put my Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. Ezek. 36:26. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh.

And also that this is an inbiding and permanent quality, infused of God, and an habit not acquired by our industry, by which the Saints are, and really are named anointed, renewed, born again, new creatures, is clear 2 Cor. 3:3. Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the Epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart. So this habit is called the seed of God, 1 John 3:9. The anointing (saith John 1:2, and 20.) which ye have received of him, and abides in you. 27. Yea the Father and the Son making their abode in the soul. John 14:13. The well of water springing up to life eternal in the believer. John 4:14. Rivers of living waters flowing out of the belly. By which the Saints are said to be denominated quickened, Ephes. 2:1, 4, and 5, and to be light in the Lord, whereas they were once darkness, Ephes. 5:8, new creatures, 2 Cor. 5:17, born of God, 1 John 5:1. 1 John 3:2. Now this is infused, and no more an acquired habit then regeneration, conversion, translation is acquired.

4. This new fixed disposition is given through the merit of Christ, Acts 5:30. Whom ye slew and hanged on a tree, v. 31. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Then is Christ the giver of repentance, and of all spiritual habits, not simply, but as crucified and made a meriting Prince.

2. The Father hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; then also with the habit of sanctification.

3. We are sanctified by the willing offering that Christ made, when he gave himself a sacrifice once for all, Heb. 10:8, 9, 10, and the people sanctified by his blood, Heb. 13:12. Then in the merit of this blood must we have the habit of sanctification.

4. If the conscience be purged by the blood of sprinkling from dead works, Heb. 9:14, then is the heart of stone removed, which is nothing but this deadness in us before our conversion and new birth; and if this be done, so that we are sprinkled with clean water, cleansed from all our filthiness and idols, and the heart of stone taken out of us, and a new heart of flesh, even a new heart given us, not for our own doings, but for his own names sake, Ezek. 36:22, 25, 26, 32, that is, from the precious and only saving grace of Jesus Christ, as it is exponed in the New Testament, Acts 3:16, 25, 26. Acts 4:12. Rom. 3:24, 25. Ephes. 1:17. Coloss. 1:13. Acts 10:42, 43. So for David's sake is exponed in the New Testament for the Son of David's sake; and for the Lord's names sake, is all one with this, for the merits and death of Christ.

5. Christ's blood is a ransom, not to buy us from wrath only, and from the evil of punishment, but also from the evil of iniquity and sin, and so from the bondage of our vain conversation, 1 Pet. 1:18, from all iniquity, Tit. 2:19, from living to sin, 1 Pet. 2:24, and so to purchase the grace of the new birth, and to make us Kings and Priests to God, Rev. 1:5, 6.

6. The Spirit poured on the thirsty ground, Isa. 44:3, on the house of David, Zech. 12:10, is either a gift of nature or a grace. The former can be said by none but Pelagians and Socinians; for if the only principle of the life of God, and the new birth, be a work of our industry, Christ died in vain; if it be a free grace, we must receive it out of Christ's fullness; For out of his fullness we all receive, John 1:16.

5. By this supernatural habit, we perform supernatural duties, and new acts of life; for Isa. 44. By the Spirit given they shall spring up as among the grass, as (verse 4.) willows by the water course. They shall graciously profess and swear a covenant to the Lord, v. 5. One shall say I am the Lord's, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel. And when the Spirit is poured on the house of Jacob, the second acts flowing therefrom are acts of believing, and looking on Christ whom they pierced, and mourning over Christ, and being in bitterness, as if his first-born were dead. So Ezek. 36, the putting in the new heart hath walking v. 27, in the Lord's statutes, keeping his judgments. The first young motions and life-stirrings of the circumcised heart, are the loving of the Lord, Deut. 30:6, the returning and obeying the voice of the Lord, v. 8.

Then 1. saving influences in spiritual actings, in praying, praising, hearing, are mere delusions without this new habit, not the motions and actings of a living man from influence of life: But some cozeners by the art of Satan have made dead images to speak, but that speaking, or laughing, or weeping was but counterfeit, and from no kindly influence of life in the dead stone. The heavy elements move downward, and that from an inward principle of nature; but the motion of the wheels in a horse-mill is not from nature within, but from the beasts that draw the wheels; nor is the motion of the several pieces of the horologe from a principle of life, but from art. And the actings of men destitute of such a supernatural habit, suppose they give all their goods to the poor, and give their bodies to be burnt, yet are there no influences of the life of Christ in these actions, they come from composed art and industry of hypocrisy, custom, formality, and vain-glory, and such leave their name in the earth for a curse. Be not satisfied while the wind breaths out of the right air, even from a life of Christ, and from the head Christ. Christ lives in me, Gal. 2, and the actual influences of grace from above are suitable, having Christ living in you. Christ shall furnish wind and sweet breathings of the Spirit to his own life; it's a cursed case of conscience, when the man hath peace and so much quietness as to be satisfied with, and to thank God for his formal fasting, and paying of his debts to all, Luke 18:11, and such counterfeit influences please him all his life.

2. How do they undervalue Christ and his blood, who father all influences of praying and seeking of God upon their own industry and nature; in this the mouth may kiss the hand, we kiss not the Son. It speaks grace when every sincere sigh, and every good word and thought is referred to the price and ransom of blood; when the soul is at this, O I would kiss Jesus Christ for this loosing and melting of heart; and I am the endeared debtor of Jesus Christ for this lively breathing upon the heart. This keeps from murmuring and fretting at other times when the man weeps over his deadness; ah, it's (saith the complainer) long since I saw him.

2. The differences betwixt the habit of grace and other habits of arts and sciences would be considered,

1. In the rise; industry and free-wills trading may purchase the habits of sciences and arts; this is infused from heaven. I will pour water on the thirsty ground, saith the Lord, for mine own sake do I this, Isa. 44. Ezek. 36:32. This habit is indeed Christ's trading, and the fruit of the travel of his soul, and stands Christ at a high price.

2. Other habits may be forgotten and lost; this is a part of the believers stock, of Christ's buying, and so in Christ's keeping. Christ keeps his own purchase from wasting in shipwreck: It's the immortal seed, the well that springs up to life eternal, John 4:14, the remaining anointing, 1 John 2:20, the imbiding seed of God, 1 John. 3:9.

3. The less excellent the habit is, the more it is under the dominion of free-will: the Musician may sing when he will, he needs no influences of grace to stir up his habit; the natural man from himself may blow upon the natural habits of arts and sciences, and the remnants of the image of God, and he may do much from common honesty; but the more excellent and spiritual the infused habit is, the further it is from being under the dominion of free-will; only the North and South-wind of the Spirit can act upon this habit supernatural: nor can we pray simply at the nod and stirring of free-will, only the Spirit of Jesus is steersman here; and this is to be holden, that the Spirit so withdraws, as we are guilty consenters to his withdrawing, and in the sinful omission of calling upon the Lord; and when the Spirit acts upon the free-will, and the habit of grace, we are willing consenters to that blessed breathing, and willing joiners in the work of praying; and some commendation and praise the holy Ghost gives to his Saints in all holy actings, Num. 14:24. Gen. 22:16. Gen. 32:28. Num. 12:7. Rev. 2:3, 13, 19. Rev. 2:4, 8, 9, 10.

So we are 1. not to engage in the strength of free-will; and let us know thus much, that when resolutions of relying upon the grace of Christ are taking, and we say this we shall do by the grace of Christ, we but use the name of grace; but there is within 1. A fixedness of relying on nature, and we follow not our resolution with prayer, as David, Psal. 119:106. I have sworn and will perform, that I will keep thy righteous judgments. He seconds his vow with prayer, v. 108. Accept, I beseech thee, the free-will offering of my mouth, O Lord; and teach me thy judgments. In praying for any mercy, as for grace to keep the way of God, which we have vowed to keep, we are to interpose Christ as Surety for the performing of the vow.

2. There is not godly fear and trembling in distrusting ourselves. David, after the Lord makes a covenant with him, and David by the Lord's grace had accepted and engaged to stand to it, he casts himself down to the dust, 2 Sam. 7:18. Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto? If we did but consider how cozening and unstable as water our hearts are, we should fear our own bentness to backsliding when we so vow. It speaks honest ingenuity after a man hath borrowed money, and given word and writ to pay it, when he is anxious how to answer the day, and be acquit of the debt.

3. Faith should rely upon the promise of God for influences of grace, and look away from nature, and cease from the breathings of free-will, especially since they are involved in the promises of perseverance, and in the promises of the covenant, Isa. 54:10. Isa. 59:21. Jer. 31:35. Ezek. 36:27. For among men he who engageth for a good harvest, doth also engage to labor, to harrow and sow. He that covenants to bring home to a Prince a ships loading of gold from India, he must also engage to prepare a ship, and sea-men, and provision for them, and to set out to the Sea for sailing, and to take the opportunity of the winds. Now since the Lord hath promised to bring many children to glory, this puts on Christ a sort of engagement, especially if we add to this the trust that the Father hath put on him, John 17:2, chap. 6:37, to work in them to will and to do, and when they fall, to raise them again: and as faith relies upon the promise of glory, so is faith to rely upon Christ for grace and influences, and new breathings of the Spirit, without which, perseverance promised, even undeclinable attaining to glory, is impossible.

3. The stronger and the more intense the habit is, the more connatural and kindly, and the more signal, bended, and strong are the acts that flow from the habit.

1. Rain and sweet showers poured upon the dry ground, make the growing the more easy and connatural; and when a strong habit of the love of Christ, stronger then death and the grave, which many waters cannot quench, was fixed and rooted in the heart of the Martyrs, the acts of suffering, even the torments of the rack, of burning quick, of the teeth of wild beasts, of exquisite and long enduring tortures, were exceeding both easy, and rejoicing, and refreshing to themselves and others, and they had answerable strong acts of influences, and a mighty presence of God; as the three children have the fourth man, the Son of man walking in the fiery oven with them, Daniel hath the increated Angel to stop the mouths of the lions; and there must have been strong influences of grace, when they refused deliverance, and believed a better resurrection, Heb. 11:35:2. When there is a strong habit of love, and of soul-love to Christ, there are strong and painful acts of diligent seeking, as Cant. 3.

There be three acts of seeking and not finding. 1. In the bed. 2. About the streets, and the broad way. 3. At the watchmen; and yet no giving over until she find him whom her soul loves, Cant. 3:1, 2, 3, 4. The habit of love, even going on to love-sickness, produces strong praying, fervent adjuring of the daughters of Jerusalem to tell Christ that she is sick of love for him, and a most pathetic song of praising of Christ in all his excellencies, Cant. 5:10. My beloved is white and ruddy, and the chief among ten thousand. v. 11. His head is as the most gold, his locks are bushy and black as a raven. 12. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of water, &c. And there must be strong love within, when such high expressions came out, Psal. 42:1. As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. v. 2. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. Psal. 84:2. My soul longeth, yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth (shouteth aloud) out for the living God. Now answerable to these must be the actual breathings of God, strong impressions, even until the soul be like the thirsty ground, like the chased heart, dying, swooning, and fainting, and in a fever of love-sickness for Christ: all which argue there must be valid and mighty influences upon the soul. Ah, little of the love of Christ is a feast that soon fills and satisfies us. Dry, faint, and dead acts of praying and seeking, speak weak influences and coldness of indifferency, whether we have Christ or want him.

CHAPTER III.

A supernatural habit is a seed of influences.

2. We are to improve the habit of grace. 3. The habit of grace in order to the three persons brings a necessity of gracious influences. 4. The Lord is under divers necessities to confer influences. 5. Christ intercedes for the non-converted. 6. Christ's Office. 7. The Spirits office, put both under a necessity of conferring of influences. 8. Divers uses result from the necessity that the Lord hath brought himself under to confer influences. 9. How the habit of grace is acted upon, how it ceaseth not.

As to natural powers, the God of nature hath prepared influences to seeds and plants apt to grow. There are prepared of God also influences for their actual growing: So to the Sun, fire, clouds, he hath in readiness such influences, though he freely let them out; so to supernatural powers and habits he must let out and prepare supernatural influences.

The habit of grace is a sort of new nature, a heavenly power, a kind of seed of spiritual actings, and a weight that inclines the soul to acting, and by a sort of a pleasantly refreshing disposition sways and draws habitually the man to supernatural acting. In nature suitable influences are due to the powers; as the habit of music inclines the man to singing, and a natural instinct draws the bird to build its nest; and the Lord hath ordained suitable influences for this instinct: so this habit of grace as a weight inclines the soul to act, not by any necessity of exercise, but by necessity of specification; it inclines not by determining to the act, but only habitually. Therefore influences suitable to this habit must be some way due; as in nature, so also in grace. A habit of grace in the renewed man, does not determine him continually to pray, believe, praise God, while the habit is in him. Hence

1. Because corruption is in David, though as a broken and subdued habit, he sins in numbering the people, he is violently carried to be avenged on Nabal, he commits adultery and murder, which do weaken the habit of grace.

2. If the habit of grace be strong, and much of the fullness of God in Steven, in John the Baptist, in Paul, they act in the way of God accordingly.

3. If the habit of grace be qualified with a super-added disposition, heavenly and spiritual, there are boiling's and stirrings in the heart; as in Paul to pray, Acts 20, after the spirit in him hath been graciously and heavenly exhorting the Church of Ephesus, he kneels down and prays; and Acts 17:16, while he is waiting for Silas and Timothy, there is upon his mind a burning fever, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. And there will be some sweet aching's and gnawing's of the heart pressing the man to pray, praise, and sing, Psal. 57:7. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise.

2. What are we to do in such a case then?

Answ. We are to pursue these warmings and flaming's of the habits of grace with new spiritual actings and exercises of grace, as David verse 8. Awake up my glory, awake Psaltery and Harp, I myself will awake early: And therefore know,

2. That a kindled habit of grace qualified with a heavenly disposition of grace, is a fire near the flaming, and the call of God to you to pray hic & nunc. Besides the command of God for praying continually, smite the iron while it is hot; throw the rod while it is green; sail while the Lord's wind and tide doth call; stir up and blow upon the grace of God in you: happily we blow upon the gift of praying, when we should stir up the grace of praying.

Yea 3. Suppose the habit of grace were not kindled, or in any near disposition to flame, but there were deadness on the soul, and the habit of grace lying deadened and covered with ashes; yet is there warrant to blow aside the ashes, to stir the fire, and to smite upon the flint seven times until it cast fire. David Psal. 42, and Psal. 43, three times, Ps. 42:11, and Ps. 43:5, chides his casten down and unbelieving soul, and wakens up, and puts upon the habit of faith; and Psal. 103, and Psal. 104, four times he wakens up his soul to bless the Lord, and all that is within him to praise the Lord; Psal. 106:7, he charges his soul to return to its rest. It is dreadful to smother and bear down these births of God, and to blast and wither such buddings of the Spirit, and also to yield to carnal deadness, and to lie down under it; but let us await at the pool, and when the Angel comes down and troubles the water, step in and be healed. As the Martyr condemned to die was under great deadness of spirit when he was in the prison, and going to the place of execution; yet coming to the place, a gale of the wind of the Spirit blew fair, and he cried out to his Christian friends, to whom he made known his former deadness, now he is come, he is come, and he rejoicingly triumphed over death. In a moment there may come in a carnal disposition, and drown and quench the smoking and flaming of a heavenly kindling. We might draw down rich influences and sweet actual breathings, which are connatural and suitable to spiritual and supernatural influences; the Lord (though his liberty in breathing when and where he will be admirable) yet should we more vigorously improve ordinances, and specially promises: for ordinarily the Lord would let out more of his breathings, did we more improve the habits of grace; and sure he that trades not at all with his stock, may become poorer: and we might make influences more near to us; for the habit of grace is nearest of kindred of anything else to the actual breathings of the Lord, and the only culpable cause of our not growing in grace, and augmenting of the habit of grace, is our own sinful sluggishness.

CHAPTER IV.

Now the third particular we proposed to speak to, was the connection between the habits of grace, and actual breathings; and how we may by using habits fetch home the breathings of the Spirit.

The habit of grace is to be considered two ways.

1. In order to God.

2. In its own nature.

In order to God;

1. The Father.

2. The Son.

3. The Spirit.

1. In order to God and his holy decree, if the Lord ordain a certain number to glory, and upon that account bestow the habit of grace upon these so chosen; then God, who doth nothing in vain, when he creates powers and habits, must intend to send influences to act upon these powers and habits; as when God creates the Sun, a heavenly body, which is apt to move, to send forth heat and light, he must intend by constant law and decree to join his influences to the moving and shining of the Sun; otherwise, if he had created these heavenly bodies never to be acted upon for the sending forth of their virtues of light, heat, motion, he had created Sun and Stars in vain: So if the husbandman make a plough, and never make use of it for tilling the ground; and make a sickle, and never put it in act for reaping, he must have made the plough and the sickle in vain. If the Lord pour the habit of grace and supplication upon the house of David, then have the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who have received that grace, ground of faith and hope, that the Lord shall suitably to his intended end, and begun work, bestow saving influences on them, to believe and repent, to look on him by faith whom they have pierced, and mourn over Christ whom they have slain by their sins, as a man mourns and is in bitterness for his first-born, Zech. 12:10, otherwise the Lord bestows that habit of grace in vain, which we are not to imagine of the only wise Lord, Psal. 89:47. If the Lord pour water upon the thirsty ground, and his Spirit upon the seed of Jacob, the nature of husbandry, which joins end and means, requireth that he join to the new heart, and new spirit, influences for the growing of the seed of Jacob, as the willows by the water courses; and that he lead the trembling hand at the pen, and give influences of grace to swear and subscribe that they shall be the Lord's married land, joined to him in a perpetual covenant, Isa. 44:3, 4, 5.

2. The graciousness of the Lord's holy nature revealed, Exod. 34:6. The Lord God merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth to fallen man (for he hath revealed no pardoning grace and mercy to fallen Angels; nor is that the scope of Moses, Exo. 34, or of the Scripture anywhere.) Now if so, he as the Lord is under some necessity (upon supposal that he created men and Angels) to declare his pure immixed justice in the fallen Angels; so by some necessity of decency suitable to his goodness and holy nature he must choose some to glory, and give them inherent habits of grace, that he may carry them to heaven in a way of voluntary obedience: so that upon supposal he hath so declared himself to Angels and men, there must be glorious emanations and out-goings of free grace, both to ordain some to glory, and beautify them with the habit of faith to believe in him that justifies the sinner, and habits of sanctification. I say, upon supposal he so reveal himself in his word; otherwise, absolutely and simply the the contrary order, that he had placed fallen Angels in man's room, and men in the place of fallen Angels, had been as just and good as that which now is.

3. The holy Lord gives some to Christ: and his enduing them with grace to come, and giving to them of his free grace the habit of faith, it's an engaging of the holy Lord to give influences suitable to the habit: upon the very account that the Lord make over a man to Christ, and create his own image in him, he intends to make him an honorable vessel in his house, and to adorn the man so gifted to Christ; as when the Lord builds a house, he minds that some shall dwell in it.

And 2. the great design of free grace in Christ must in these two bring him under a holy necessity to bring his many children to glory; for the decree of election is an act of the three persons, John 10:16. Other sheep I have, and they are not yet in his actual possession, but he hath an actual right to them, I have paid a ransom for them, them also I must bring in, Christ is under a necessity of driving them in, then is Christ under a necessity of a decree common to him with the Father and the Spirit, to breath upon and cherish the habit of grace, that his great design of free grace in the work of redemption may stand sure, and attain its graciously designed end; as also he is

2. Under an official and mediatory necessity to the chosen, to bestow on them the freely given habit of grace; and so I judge, with reverence of the judgment of others, that Christ hath an advocation and office of intercession for the elect, even such as are not yet actually converted: not that he extends the same acts of advocation to the chosen converted, and to the chosen not yet converted.

1. Because Christ as Mediator and high Priest prays for them, and so that habits of grace and influences may be bestowed on them, John 17:20. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. Nor can it be said that Christ intends not they should reap any mediatory fruit of his prayer, till they be born and actually believe; for he prays and intercedes for their conversion and faith, they yet being in nature and unrenewed; for that is true in some sense, Christ prays for their faith actual, when it is in being, and shall actually be assaulted, that it may not fail them under temptation; and so that prayer of Christ for the disciples and Peter, stands good for all believers, when they shall actually believe and be winnowed, as Peter was: the millions of them neither did believe nor were born, when Christ as an high Priest offered to the father both the one and the other prayer; but that Christ in no sense intercedes for the chosen till they be converted and actually believe, cannot be defended. For

2. Whatsoever Christ hath purchased by the merit of his death, as our high Priest, offering himself on the cross for the elect, that same Christ as our high Priest in heaven applies them as Intercessor. This proposition must be sure; for what Christ purchaseth and buyeth by the merit of his death on the cross, that he actually makes good as Intercessor in heaven. It's true he is said to buy and redeem persons, not things, or graces, as faith and the habit of grace, he purchaseth an inheritance and a redemption to us, and we have repentance and remission of sins in and through his blood; for, in his blood, by a Hebraism, is, for his blood; and yet remission of sins is not properly redeemed or ransomed, never being captivated; but in justice that remission could not be ours but by satisfaction. But so it is, that Christ purchased by the merit of his death, as our high Priest, offering himself for the elect on the cross, that we should be freed from all iniquity, Tit. 2:14, from our vain conversation of unbelief, 1 Pet. 1:18, that we should have repentance, remission of our sins in his blood, and faith, the free gift of God in Christ even when we were not yet born. And he died for us while we were yet sinners, weak and ungodly, Rom. 5:6. And God commends his love to us that Christ died for us, while we were yet sinners; for if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. If Christ as high Priest offer himself a sacrifice for us, to obtain reconciliation to us, when we were not born, and when we were ungodly and enemy, she must intercede, that such a purchased reconciliation and merited grace, the grace of faith, and the habit of faith, be in his due time bestowed on us.

3. If Christ as our high Priest have received the elect from the Father, Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me; and as Redeemer entrusted to bring them in, he must send the Gospel to them as Mediator, and intercede, that Apostles, Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers may be gifted with the Spirit, and sent to preach; for the giving of the Spirit that way is a fruit of Christ's ascension and kingly triumphing, while as he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men, as Intercessor, for perfecting of the Saints, and the work of the Ministry, Eph. 4:11, 12, 13, that the Gentiles who believe not, and the blind, may see and be converted, Acts 26:17, 18. Acts 13:46, 47, 48. 1 Cor. 3:5. Matth. 4:15, 16. John 10:16.

4. Christ, who had reared up a new form of providence, having chosen his own to life, must, as Mediator, take care of the coming of the elect into the world, and have a special eye over the ways of his own chosen, that Saul and others fall not into that unpardonable sin against the holy Ghost, and that Saul before his conversion go not farther on then making havoc of the Church, yet ignorantly through unbelief; and this is the more to be laid hold on, that the man Christ's coming into the world, is, and goes along with his own decree of electing some to glory, and to the great work of saving lost sinners, Luke 19:10. Matth. 20:28. 1 Tim. 1:15, of bearing a rare and singular testimony to the Gospel beyond all Martyrs that ever lived, John 18:37, as is clear in the birth and deliverance of Moses, Exod. 2. Exod. 3. And also Christ in his providence of predestination to life, as Lord Mediator causeth the chosen to be born and live, when the Gospel is preached, and comes to their ears, and works powerfully on their hearts, Acts 16:9, 10. Acts 8:7, 8. Acts 19. Acts 9:11, 12, 13, &c.

5. In another consideration there is an official love of Christ, founded upon the identity of nature which is between Christ and chosen ones, and the man Christ loving his neighbor as himself; and the humanity and natural compassion in Christ is not destroyed, but perfected by his state of glory; he remains a feeling, compassionate high Priest, Heb. 4:14, 15. Luke 5:1, 2, 3. And also this puts Christ to stretch his love to the unconverted that are his flesh, and given to him, that he must bestow habits of grace on them, and gather the sheep with his arm, and drive gently those that are with young, and give new influences to fainting ones, and refreshing warmness in his bosom to the cold and weak young ones in the flock, Isa. 40:11. Isa. 42:1, 2, 3.

3. If the Spirit be a sanctifier, and a leader, he must be no less constant to his holy end, and gracious design, to give what fits the chosen for their journey; and so must both give the first anointing (the dewing and first rain of spirit poured on the wilderness) and also add new oil to prevent withering and drying up, and add the royal and kingly seal to confirm and make out his work unto the day of redemption. Ah, am I master of the fountain? (Saith the withered dry tree) yea, the three Agents in heaven bring themselves (to speak so) under this holy necessity to bring down influences to the souls of all his chosen.

2. If any saving work be in you, it speaks a design of grace in the Father and the Son, which they shall ripen and carry on to perfection.

3. Fret not at such as are without. God minds love to the chosen ones of them, and to reach them with his love in time.

4. Get the Spirit, he shall not be idle, but daily act, and Christ in him shall set up a new fabric of providence, and a new reign in the soul.

5. In the looking on the frame of providence in them, that they are not born in China, not in Turkey, not in America; but in a land of life, in the kingdom of heaven, where the Gospel is preached: Look spiritually, not naturally upon the time and place of your birth; it is either the greatest good, or the greatest ill and misery that ye can meet with.

2. Consider what is the weight of the guiltiness of a despised Gospel, that you go to hell through Christ's bounds, Emanuels land, where the word of the kingdom is preached in the very eye of the Redeemer; whereas Heathens are in a manner behind the Redeemers back.

3. The husbandman's plowing preacheth bread and corn in the land; the setting up of the shepherd-tents before your door, proclaims Christ's shepherd-care to feed you; love Christ, and follow the shepherd.

4. Collect rather the affirmative [not] the negative conclusion. When Christ sets up a husbandry in a Vineyard, can ye tell who are interdicted heirs, and say, I am a bramble, and a cursed briar, and no plant of righteousness, no vine-tree, therefore he hath no thoughts to make me a part of the soil that the Father of Christ shall labor and purge? Who told you news of Christ's thoughts to interdict you from getting good of the Gospel? Rather collect the contrary. I found a candle lighted in the land of my nativity, though my father be an Amorite, and my mother a Hittite. Why, but I may be a piece of lost money whom he seeks; if yea, love Christ. Loves logic is, I love Christ, or I desire to love Christ, therefore Christ loves me; and I desire to use the means of salvation, and to go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, and keep the Feast of Tabernacles; therefore I shall be no family or part of the land of Egypt, on which there comes no rain, Zech. 14:17, 18, 19. Seldom doth the use of means want influences; where the Lord gives any tolerable conscience of plowing and planting, there he sends down watering and refreshing showers from heaven.

There's an instinct of natures logic, framing hellish consequences; Christ loves not me, therefore I will not treat with Christ, nor come in terms of communing with him; and withal there is no anxious missing of inherent habits; it's not from the Spirit of God ever to be missing objective grace, which is eternally in God, and never in a paining way to miss subjective grace inherent: who is angry? Who hath resisted his will? Rom. 9. And it's Satan's method first to miss God's love to you, and make a quarrel with God for that, before you miss your love to God, and to the Redeemer Christ, and make a plea with yourself for not loving of lovely Jesus Christ. The servants word is Matth. 25. I knew thou wast a hard man. Knowest thou not thyself to be a servant graceless and malignant?

The habit of grace in its own nature is of a middle nature, betwixt a power and an act: (and to come now to the third particular) there is for the further clearing of the connection betwixt the habit of grace and the acts of grace a question to be cleared, Whether or not the habit of grace may he by and utterly cease from acting? To which the answer is in these assertions.

Assert. 1. No habit of grace, or any habit as such, can reduce itself to acting, for it is well near to the nature of a power; the Sun, Moon, and Stars move not themselves, but are moved by some other powers whatever they be. 2. We are commanded to stir up the grace that is in us, 2 Tim. 1:6, then must the habit lie dead as it were, except we improve it: the two talents do not make themselves four; the man to whom the talents were given must do that, Matth. 25.

Assert. 2. It's not improbable that saving grace of itself, being not God, nor the holy Ghost himself, but a created thing, may, as to its own nature, perish and dry up. 1. For it is not to be trusted in; nor doth the weight of our standing against temptations consist in our stock, but in the Lord's conserving power. Peter had saving faith, but that faith could neither keep Peter from falling, nor keep the faith from failing; but the standing of Peter 's faith (Luke 22:32.) is in Christ's intercession; I have prayed for thee, lest thy faith be sunken down: that which needs a keeper without itself, cannot keep itself; for faith is but an instrumental keeper. But 1 Pet. 1:5, we are kept, and our faith by the power of God. As also Jer. 1:9, the weight of Jeremiah 's standing courageously in his Ministry is not on Jeremiah, his stock and habit of grace, though the Lord had put much precious metal in him, and made him a brazen wall (as Prophets are of themselves but clay bottles that are soon broken) but in the Lord's actual supporting of him by influences from God, 19. I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee; and therefore the strength, immortality, and stability of the habit of grace is in his power who furnishes actual influences. 2. In the decree of God. 3. In his covenant and promise. 4. In the intercession of Christ; no man then can commit idolatry with saving inherent grace to put it in the room of God, and to trust in it. Be not secure, but be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might, Eph. 6:10, who must furnish new influences of grace.

Assert. 3. The habit of grace so far may cease to act and lie dead, as notwithstanding that the beloved Christ knocks and speaks heaven into the Church, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, &c. Cant. 5:2, yet she opens not; the habit being under the ashes, yea, being a little frozen and blunted, the spouse shifts his presence; I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? And the habit of grace doth not hinder David, and Peter, and Lot, but upon the Lord's withdrawing of actual influences they may fall into atrocious and heinous sins.

Assert. 4. Yet in some sense the habit of grace rests not. For 1. The habit of grace according to the degrees makes the man stronger: as John the Baptist by the indwelling of the holy Ghost in some fullness is stronger against temptations of persecutors; and so is Steven fuller of the holy Ghost, then men not converted. 2. The habit of grace debilitates, weakens the acts of sin in the regenerate, that they sin not with full force of will; as the indwelling body of sin again weakens the acts of faith, and others the like flowing from the habit of grace; the combat betwixt the flesh and the spirit proves both the one and the other, Rom. 7:14, 15, 16, &c. for this combat is ever in the regenerate. 3. The habit of grace of itself as a weight disposes the renewed man to resist sin; as a stone though violently detained in the air, actu primo, habitually of itself, inclines the stone to move downward to its natural place; whence come some far-off tendency and habitual bowings of the heart to the love of Christ, as warmness of heart, Luke 24:32, stirring of bowels at the inward motions of Christ on the soul, even when he is kept out, Cant. 5.

5. The covered and borne down habit of grace may and doth break out into praying after him when he is away, and most anxiously and carefully seeks him, Cant. 3:1, 2, 3, 4. John 20:13.

6. There is no such sleeping but the heart is waking, and breaks out in these acts first, and misses him; he knocks, and says, Open; then she knew he was without. They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him, John 20. I sought him, but I found him not, Cant. 3:2, there is a discerning that it was his knock and breathing. And 2. his voice, My heart waked at the voice of my Beloved. 3. She knew his very words, and repeats them, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, &c. though then sleeping. 4. There is a spiritual wishing; O! If I could open and overcome the temptation of carnal drowsiness; this appears in the Spouses confession of the excuse, he knocked and spake lovely, and I refused rudely to open; I have cast off my coat, this is told by her by way of confession of sin; I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on; for there may from the habit of grace arise an habitual and a conditional desire that the temptation had never assaulted, and yet there is an absolute consent to the temptation, and a wish that this sinful pleasure were not astray to the Law; which is in effect a laboring to reconcile my carnal lust and the Lord's holy Law, and it is as if I should say, Ah, if I might enjoy my lawless pleasure, and yet the Lord not be displeased: some sick man's lusts after contradictions that in his fever he might drink wine, and yet be free of a further pain of fever; but all this is but a virtual fretting against God that ever he made such a Law. Eve desired that the falsely supposed Godhead which Satan said should be the reward of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, should have been really and truly in eating that fruit, and that was a clear fretting against the wisdom of God, who made such a law as lays bands upon men, and forbids them to eat of all fruit, Gen. 3:2, 3, yet would difference be made betwixt the carnal man's wish, that he might enjoy his sweet lusts, and not feel the smart of the evil of punishment; and the spiritual man's woulding not to do the evil that he hates, Rom. 7:15, 16, and yet he does it, and so virtually desires there were nothing offensive and displeasing to God in it. 4. From this habit it is that the Spouse sends commendation to absent Christ (to speak so) and desires the daughters of Jerusalem to tell him that she is sick of love for him, Cant. 5:8. 5. There are checks and soul-sorrow at the thoughts of the words he once spake, Cant. 5:6, my soul failed when he spake; hence there are godly reluctancies and spiritual propensions of the spirit and renewed man entering dissent and protestations on the contrary. Rom. 7:15. For that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do. Hence the spirits spiritual counter-workings contrary to the flesh, and the gracious pleadings in favors of Christ, What do you? Is not this against free love? Ah, will you grieve such a beloved? Hence the inward pricking's and cuttings of the heart, like the wane-rest of the Horologue, ever stirring and checking the conscience; if experience say nothing of this thorn in the soul, and of the weakness of the bones, little is known of the work of the spirit. 6. There is ever a holy apology and clearing of the renewed part, that the spirit doth his part. Rom. 7:22. I delight in the Law of God after the inward man. v. 9. The renewed man would do good; v. 16, consents to the Law, that it is good, and lays the blame upon the fleshly will and sin dwelling in the man; v. 17, now its no more I that do it, but sin dwelling in me. 7. From this habit it is that the renewed man is a captive, a sufferer, a complainer, Rom. 7:23, 24. O wretched man that I am, &c. 8. The spirit is contrary to the flesh, Gal. 5:17, and when fire and water yoke in the cloud there is thunder, and nature suffers pain; and there are actions and passions, and reactions on both sides, and finally the habit of grace so far never rests, as the flesh cannot get sin perfected without a battle, and some thunder in the soul. Hence we see, did we improve the habit of grace, how many spiritual actions we may set about, and what wind and breathings we might fetch if we should hoist up all the sails; the very setting out to sea, and laying all the sails open in their breadth and length to the heaven should create some wind; we lay not open our affections in their length and breadth, in the use of all the ordinances before the Lord; Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it, Psal. 81, nor do we improve the stock of habitual grace; the not improving of the stock in trading brings on poverty.

CHAPTER V.

The fourth particular by which we fetch influences of grace is by heavenly and spiritual dispositions: hence in this we speak

1. Of heavenly dispositions, in order to heavenly influences. 2. Of our actings to come under the influences of grace. 3. Of the obstructions and impediments of heavenly influences, and the contrary cures.

As touching dispositions:

1. What dispositions are, and how differenced.

2. Of the division of good and evil dispositions.

3. Get heavenly dispositions, and influences connaturally follow.

4. Evidences that dispositions go and come.

5. Spiritual dispositions are different from the affections.

6. There are heavenly dispositions through all the powers and affections of the soul.

7. Sinful dispositions are in all, and they latently creep in.

8. Actings and life under deadness.

9. Many sweet actings there are under deadness.

10. It's fit to go about duties under deadness.

11. Less of strong real influences, and more of moral influence prove the obedience to be more perfect.

1. Dispositions are moveable qualities of the soul, beyond and above the habit enabling us to act graciously, and to perform actions suitable to those dispositions; I speak now of gracious dispositions, for there are wicked and sinful dispositions added to the habit of sin original.

2. Gracious dispositions are moveable qualities, this differenceth the disposition from the habit of grace; and therefore know wherein spiritual dispositions and spiritual habits agree; and 2. wherein they differ. 1. Both are above nature, for we being born in sin, mind, conscience, will, and affections, being polluted and corrupt in such heirs of wrath; no man is born with habits of grace, or gracious disposition. 2. Through the want of both, all are alike unfit by nature to be the work-house of the holy Ghost. 3. Both the habit of grace, as it is proved Book 2, and much more gracious dispensations are the purchase of the merit of Christ. 4. Both are the supernatural gifts of God infused from above, and neither of them acquired or purchased by natural actings: it's clear of the habit of grace. John 14:16. I will pray the Father, and he shall send you the Comforter. Christ sends him, the Father sends him in Christ's name. John 14:26, he shall receive of mine and show it to you. Now the holy Spirit, the Comforter dwells in the Children of God not personally, though he be said to dwell in them, and to speak in them. 1. In the habit and divine power, given to them to confess Christ before men, Matth. 10:19. Acts 4:8, or in preaching, working of miracles, Acts 6:8, or in praying, Acts 6:10, 11. Acts 7:55, 56. 2. In actuating that power, in giving grace actually to will and to do, to confess, prophesy, Luke 1:27, 41, 42. Luke 2:27, 28, to pray; Acts 7:55, 56, as the Lord is said to thunder in the clouds, to give rain, not that he is personally united with the clouds, but because he creates in the clouds the power of thunder and raining, and doth actually determine the clouds to rain. 5. Supernatural habits and supernatural dispositions are near to other, as the fire and the flaming of the fire, the clouds and the rain, the sea, and the ebbing and flowing of the sea; not that the disposition is the very operation and second act of the habit, but because the disposition is a quality superadded to the habit, or the nearer principle and power of spiritual acting. Stephen, and Peter, and John, were full of the holy Ghost, habitu, from the time that the holy Ghost was given them; but when they are conveyed to answer before the rulers, they are said to speak being full of the holy Ghost, Acts 4:8. Acts 7:55, 56, which is either an enlargement of the habit of grace, or a new spring-tide of the same sea, or a new infused disposition, promised by our Savior, and given, Luke 12:11, 12. Matth. 10:19. Mark 13:11, in that same hour. And;

3. There is much nearness of heavenly habits, dispositions, and heavenly influences; and they are like other, as life and breathing, fire and the flaming of the fire. get heavenly dispositions, and influences of grace to pray, to praise, to believe, almost connaturally follow. When the tide of the Spirit flows, Steven and the Apostles must preach, and boldly confess their precious Master Christ Jesus; and this is great condescension of love, that the spirit and the sinful believer are fellow-workers; for the Spirit to act in the man Christ, or in the elect Angels, is not so much a wonder, for they never sinned: influences upon us, who have but a sort of obediential power, as we are sinners, such as is the power of swimming in iron, is lowhness of love. What is it for the Spirit of grace and glory to beat upon such broken and mistuned harps, and to bring forth such excellent actings, as praying, praising, confessing, believing, rejoicing in God, in such unhandy tools? What holy trembling is required in us, that we offend not such an honorable and glorious help, and that we neglect not to join his own habit to his own influences, when he renders the work sweet and easy! O let us lend our heart, and give organs, and a work-house to the Spirit, who comes down to sigh in sinners! He mourns like a dove, and weeps like a father who hath lost his first-born in heirs of glory.

Q. But is not the habit of grace and spiritual dispositions all one and the same?

Answ. They are not one: For 1. The habit is the seed of God that remains always in us, 1 John 3:9, and the anointing that dwells in us, 1 John 2:20, 27, but a disposition comes and goes, ebbs and flows. A child of God will be under deadness and witheredness, the soul cleaving to the dust, dropping away for heaviness, like a bottle in the smoke, when the man with the habit of grace will pray like one sweating and rowing with oars against the tide and stream. Why doth David pray so often to be quickened, if he was ever in a lively disposition?

2. Doth not experience teach that there be times when David saith, 2 Sam. 7:27. Thy servant hath found his heart to pray this prayer. Was not this so much as to say, the heart and disposition to pray is lost sometimes, and is away, Psal. 57:7. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed or prepared.

3. To say that spiritual dispositions are as permanent and constant as habits, is to deny the going and coming of the Spirit in Christ's love-visits. Now certain it is the Spouse is not ever sick of love for Christ, as Cant. 2, nor is there such a flaming of love dispositions, as when the Spouse saith Cant. 1:5. A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall lodge all the night between my breasts. When a sleepy drowsiness is on, that she suffers the well-beloved to knock, and stand and knock, while his head is full of dew, and his locks wet with the rain of the night, and refuses to open, yea positively gives a reason that she cannot lodge him in the house, nor between her breasts, I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? Such a spiritual love-sickness is far off.

4. When a contrary disposition to adultery is on, and David's hand at the pen writing a letter to contrive the killing of innocent Uriah; and the unbelieving fear of loss of life is upon Peter, so that he denieth his Lord, there could not be a heavenly disposition to make spiritual songs, to pray, to praise, to confess Christ before men, on either the one or the other.

5. If those heavenly disposition were ever in it, it should speak much against the liberty of the blessed Spirit, whose breathings and out-lettings are sovereignly free. Now by this the work of grace should be like the work of nature: we see the fountain always casts out her streams, the Sun ever gives light; the work grace hath a day and a dark night, and Sun-light and Moon-light; that we are in a state of outlawry when he withdraws, to be humbled to the dust for abused love-visits, and may know what is Christ's, and what is ours; the fire is ever alike disposed to cast heat; a mill-stone, if not hindered, is alike disposed to fall to the earth, or down the mountain.

Q. Are not spiritual dispositions nothing else but the hearts affections?

Answ. Dispositions heavenly are different from the affections, much more than they are different from the habit of grace.

1. The spiritual dispositions go and come; the heart and affections of love, joy, sorrow, remain.

2. The heart is one thing, and the heavenly preparedness of the heart is another thing: As the subject iron differs from the fierceness and heat in iron, and the water differs from the cold and heat that goes and comes from and to the water; so dispositions are spiritual qualities, and the affections the subject; the heart is sometimes cold, and sometimes hot, lively or dead, as the Lord is pleased to visit.

Q. May we not then say that dispositions are the affections heavenly disposed?

Answ. Not so neither; the affections are not the complete and adequate subject of heavenly dispositions, because there is often a heavenly disposition in the mind to know spiritual truths; so Elihu, Job 34:32. That which I see not, teach thou me. A heavenly propension in the mind to be taught of God, Psal. 119:18, 26. There is a heavenly disposition of the spiritual mind to believe the Scriptures; and in place of that there is a slowness to believe divine truths, rebuked by our Savior, Luke 24:25.

3. There is a spiritual disposition in the conscience of the Centurion, Luke 23:47, in Thomas, John 20:27, in Peter 5:8. The contrary whereof was in the Pharisees and Rulers wresthng against the manifest light of God, Matth. 12:22, 23, 24. Matth. 21:33, 34. & 45, 46. Matth. 28:11, 12, 13. John 9:13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. & 34, 35. John 42:47, 48. Acts 4:13, 14, 15. Acts 13:44, 45. As also there is a heavenly disposition in the memory to retain the word, Psal. 119:11, forbidden, Heb. 2:1. And gracious dispositions go through the whole soul, in order to all gracious actings, in mind, conscience, will, memory, affections of love, faith, hope, desire, fear, anger, and order to all the spiritual duties that can be performed by men, as sinful dispositions may be in all the powers of the soul; if so, the heart being so ticklesome a piece, so ill to be guided, it is of great concernment to see with what dispositions the heart is seasoned, and who they be that lodge here: as heat and cold come in the water by turns, as the summer is hot, and the winter cold, so the soul even of the child of God hath ebbing's and flowing's of dead and lively dispositions; as the frequent triumphing and rejoicing, and the ordinary and much repeated complaints of the Saints do abundantly evidence, Psal. 22. Psal. 31. Psal. 77. Psal. 89. Lam. 3. Jer. 20.

There is a sinful disposition.

2. The children of God may act spiritually under sinful dispositions.

3. What acts they then put forth.

4. The obedience performed under greatest indispositions, upon the sole motive of the word, is the most spiritual obedience.

5. Sometimes the less sense, the more spiritual is the obedience.

That there be sinful and gracious dispositions in men can hardly be denied

1. In all men by nature there is the habit of natural and original sin. Hence an indisposition, and a reluctancy to believe in Christ, to love, desire, fear God.

2. There is an acquired wicked disposition in Doeg, he loves to lie; a disposition satanical and hellish in Saul when the evil spirit troubles him, he is disposed to kill David.

But the special ill disposition here is the dead untowardness of the children of God to pray, or praise, or confess Christ, &c.

Hence these considerations of this indisposition.

1. That it may befall the children of God.

2. That they may act under this indisposition.

3. What acts they may and ought to perform under it.

As to the first, it needs not much probation.

1. A doubting disposition comes on the disciples Matth. 8, when the ship is a drowning, and they in hazard of sinking. Christ reproves not the act not so much as the root and disposition, v. 26. Why are ye fearful? He says not, why fear ye? And he rebukes both in Peter, Matth. 14:31, for what end shouldst thou doubt? And both are clearly reproved, when they were affrighted, 37, 38, why are ye troubled, jumbled, or put out of order? Or why do dialogues, or bounded or racketed thoughts ascend in your hearts?

2. Job, David, and Jeremiah, sadly complaining and challenging God as an enemy, as fiery, and a God burning with hot displeasure, and as lying waters; and that says, that hardly could they but be under a disposition and fretting impatience.

3. Elisha is so jumbled, that the soul is made like muddy water with indignation at Jehoram, that he is in no spiritual disposition or capacity to see the visions of God, 2 Kings 13:14, 15, and Jonah is distempered at tender mercy in the Lord towards great Nineveh, and old and young in it, a straw, the withering of a gourd: the renewed soul may be hammered and knocked to pieces like a broken crystal glass, while the Lord be pleased to solder the broken pieces of the soul together again.

As to the second, under such dispositions there may be some stirring of the habit of grace, and of the new creation; the soul either under swooning or sleeping is still acting as the soul one way or other: it's not to be supposed that the life of God in a believer can more intermit all sort of lively and vital actings, then the soul can live of breathing, or to communicate vital heat to the body: the unbroken and intense habit of sin in the unrenewed, is the mother-indisposition that hinders influences of grace; as cast sparkles of fire on cold iron, it makes no flaming, because of the density and coldness of the object: the Lord does not bestow every the same Sun-influences on the thistle or nettle, and on the vintry; nor is it supposed that God more bestows actual influence of saving grace upon a man dead in sin, until there be a new heart, and the life of God first infused in him, then the Lord bestows moral or rational influences on a horse or a mule that hath no understanding. Now cast sparkles of fire upon flax or tow (though the sparkles be small) and there is presently flaming: if the Lord but blow upon the smallest measure of the spiritual life of God, though under many ashes, and a huge deal of indisposition, and there is some work flaming, which will beget more fire. There is much deadness and dullness of life in the affections to act in duties; when there is life, and some quickness of spiritual light, the life and warmness retiring in to the heart the fountain of life, when there is paleness and coldness in the external members: and as fire within creates fire in the nearest dry fuel, there is an act of renewed light consenting Rom. 7, to the good to be done, and yet deadness in the affections to perform, and lively light in the half sleeping Spouse, discerning the knock, voice, and words of the beloved, and assenting that it were just to open to Christ, and give him lodging in his own house; and yet a prevailing drowsiness in the affections, refusing to let him in.

As to the Third, under indispositions there may be divers lively actings. As,

1. Terrors and distractions, and all the waves of God's displeasure. Heman Psal. 88:1. O Lord God of my salvation, I cry day and night before thee. v. 9. Lord I have called daily unto thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee. Psal. 102, the afflicted soul saith, v. 4. My heart is smitten and withered like grass. And here though buried and dead bones scattered at the grave mouth, as when one heweth timber, speak and pray to God, Psal. 141, and the Church so overwhelmed, so that they cannot speak, Psal. 77:4, yet they speak prayers.

2. There is holy complaining laid in the bosom of an apprehended angry God; and though arrows of God stick in the flesh, Psal. 38:1, 2, 3, 4. Psal. 119:25. My soul cleaveth to the dust. 28. My soul droppeth away for heaviness. 83. I am become like a bottle in the smoke, Psal. 42:1, 2. Psal. 6:1, 2, 3, prays and complains in a holy way to God; Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter, I did mourn as a dove; mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord I am oppressed, undertake for me.

3. It's half a closing with a sinful disposition, when it pains us less. Paul protests against the fleshes sinful disposition, Rom. 7:15. I allow not the evil which I do.

2. He disowns it, v. 17. It's no more I that do it, but sin in me.

3. He condemns himself for it, v. 18. I know in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good.

4. He complains of it 23. I am led captive to the law of sin.

5. His complaining so grows, that he ends in an out-cry, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And triumphs victoriously in Christ, v. 25. From which it is clear that Paul and the flesh part open enemies, and that there is no treaty of peace betwixt the spirit and the sinful disposition flowing from the flesh, as if the flesh and the spirit were two free, co-equal, independent Lord's and Princes, and each must have his own kingdom and princedom to himself, and the one must not encroach upon the other; for the flesh and its accomplices must down, and the spirit must be up in Christ: Nor is there any arbitrary agreement of the matter; for the spirit yields no liberty to sin, nor gives away one jot or tittle of the holy Law, to say Herod by the new covenant may keep his lust and Herodias, so he gladly hear John the Baptist.

4. There ought to be a going about of all duties, of praying, believing, hearing, praising, &c. under the lowest ebbing's of the spirit, and the saddest deadness; so deadness and indispositions be the sin and sinful affliction, and the afflictive sin of the child of God; for our obedience to God is the more spiritual, that it hath no moral motive from sense and comfort, but rather the contrary, save only the word of command. So excellently Christ, Heb. 10:9. Loe I come to do thy will, to suffer wrath, and the curse for man; but Psal. 40:8. I delight to do thy will, thy Law is within my heart. His delight was in that saddest commandment (to speak so) in laying dow his life for his sheep, and so had no sense to bear him up; for an agony, and sadness, and sorrow to death was upon the holy Savior, when he obeyed, and that peculiar law was in the inner part of his heart. It's true, his Father loved him for it, John 10:17. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again.

But 1. It's a question if in the act of suffering he felt that love, when he complained that he was forsaken of God.

2. Therefore the Father loved Christ, and Christ did abide in his love, because he kept his Fathers commandments, John 15:11, because they were the Fathers commandments.

2. It's a temptation to act under deadness, which actually blunts the heart; therefore to obey under a formal temptation, is more spiritual obedience. As for Christ to pray, to believe, to exhort his disciples to watch, and when pain, wrath, the actual pressing curse puts him to tears and hideous cries, Heb. 5, is a perfect copy to all obedience: less thanks to you to pray when the heart is oiled with real influences, and feasted with some holy, and the bridegrooms honey-comb, and the feelings of the out-lettings of freest love; as what praise to a wheel to roll down the mount? Or for the fire to cast heat, or the Sun to yield light? Feelings of the strong impulsions and breathings of Christ's love carry along such a strong necessity of obeying Christ's love, being a stronger and a more imperious commander then a fiery Law, almost steals away the elective power, but to pray under the frame and current of a dead disposition working and re-acting on the contrary, from a principle that is strongly real, but from pure moral influences from the pure spiritual commands, 1 Thess. 5:17. Pray without ceasing, and Psal. 50:15. Call upon me in the day of trouble, is the most spiritual and perfect obedience. That wine hath the most kindly taste and color of wine, and is preserved most connaturally, that hath it's being on the mother grape; it's not so when there is something of art (I know not what) to preserve it by, steel or something like that. Hence appears the deceitfulness of our hearts, when the delight in the duty comes rather from a mere physical cause, and less moral, to wit, from the heavenly flaming's of quickening influences, not from the command, the only kindly mother and moral motive of obedience. The withdrawing of the rays and beams of the personally near Godhead now (as it were) under a cloud, which was wont to give the savoriness of strong delight, made our Redeemers obedience (as is said) the more excellent.

2. It speaks much of savory graciousness, when the temptation is cos gratiae, a whetstone to grace, and to the spirit of adoption, and as sails and oars to praying, and does not blunt us in duties.

3. The greater combat with nature, the more perfect is the obedience. Abraham 's natural disposition was strong to love Isaac his only son, to let the child take his good night at his aged mother; but the command of Jehovah his God in covenant so prevailed, as he would shift the temptation, and hid the matter from the mother Sarah, and strongly second the design of God's trying with resolved pure spiritual obedience from only the command of God

CHAPTER VI.

The place Luke 24:32.

Did not our heart burn, &c. is opened. 2. Believers can tell the history of the actings of the Spirit. 3. Feelings may be strongest after the actings of the Spirit. 4. The differences between literal heat and spiritual heat in many particulars. 5. And betwixt the Spirits actings with the Word, and Enthusiastical raptures.

There be other holy dispositions most considerable, specially these.

1. Burning of heart.

2. Enlargedness of heart

3. Fixedness of heart.

4. Love-sickness after Christ.

Besides these there be special dispositions to pray, to praise, to submit to God, to adore, to walk humbly, to walk circumspectly and tenderly, and such like; but most of them may be reduced to these.

Now to speak of the burning of the heart, the place Luke 24:32, is clear. The two disciples having parted with Christ, now risen from the dead, and not knowing him to be Christ, 32, they say one to another, Did not our hearts burn within us when he spake to us in the way, and opened to us the Scriptures?

In which words the nature of heavenly heart-burning, in the causes and properties thereof, is laid open; and the differences between the heat natural from natural influences, from the lively heat spiritual.

In the words these particulars are to be observed.

1. When the heat is gone and past, 1. they perceive it; they said one to another when he is gone, our heart did burn, in the past or preterite time.

2. They accuse their own stupidity, did not our heart burn? Were we sleeping when he burnt us.

3. The Author speaking, Christ, while he spake to us in the way.

4. The fuel that made the fire, and the burning coals, the Scripture opened by Christ.

5. The object of the burning, or the subject recipient, our heart, was burning, as an oven or a furnace.

They said one to another. The coal of fire which Christ cast into the heart, and is now smoking among the firewood, and on the heart, leaves two things behind it.

1. Telling of their experiences one to another.

2. The feeling and perceiving of the heavenly heart-burning, better when it's gone, then when it was on. Then the heart-working of Christ will leave histories behind it; as what is much of Solomon's Song, but a Narration of the daughters and virgins one to another of Christ's actings upon the soul, or a chronicle of Christ's love, and the Spouses sin; as

1. Of Christ's dispensation in withdrawing, Cant. 3. I sought him, but I found him not. Cant. 5:6. I opened to my beloved, and my beloved had withdrawn himself.

2. She tells his saving actings upon the soul be like to the virgins, Cant. 1:4. The King hath brought me unto his chambers. Cant. 2:4. He brought me into his banqueting house, and love was his banner over me.

3. She tells over songs of Christ's loveliness and excellency, Cant. 5:10, 11, 12, of the savoriness of his name, of the memory of his love, Cant. 1:3, 4, of the seat and room that Christ hath in her heart, and betwixt her breasts, Cant. 1:13, all the night.

4. She tells of her carnal drowsiness; of her sinful refusing to open, and let in Christ to the heart. So does Jeremiah tell a sad experience of his own; he had quit the prophesying trade, and would speak no more in the name of the Lord; and he was burnt with a fire in his breast, he could not get the word housed in his heart, but it did come abroad. This shall be the first difference betwixt spiritual heart-burnings, and the influences that the Spirit leaves, and the natural heat. The literal burning leaves no work upon the heart, nor any impression of heavenly experiences. Jehu his heat against Ahab and Baal left no impression of God on him to hate the golden calves, or the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: He did cleave to that way, 2 Kings 10:28, 30. Let fiery professors show any influence of a gracious work in the heart: the flaming of thorns under a pot, and the flashes of heat from burning straw leave no fire but ashes, and much cold behind them in the cold winter frost; and the generality of dead professors can say nothing to one another, but I have long heard the Gospel, and yet am without God and without Christ. 2. I am convinced of the excellence of Christ, and there yet is no fire or coal of heart-love to Christ in me; and it were good such a missing there were.

2. Did not our hearts burn?

This is convinced to be a disposition spiritual rather than a habit; its a burning of heart while Christ speaks, that had a cooling before, though they were believing Disciples. But here observe, they feel not so the burning of heart in the meantime as afterward, when v. 31. Christ was vanished out of their sight and gone, now they take special notice, in a feeling way, of the warmness of heart they felt while he opened the Scriptures to them. The Lord preaches in a ladder reaching from earth to heaven; Jacob sleeps, and can give no judgment in the meantime; but Gen. 28:16, when the sweet vision and preaching is ended Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord was in this place, and I knew not. A strong impression of the presence and glory of God sometimes comes on after the Lord is away. David desires and thirsts, Psalm 63:2. (saith he in the wilderness of Judah) that I may see thy power and thy glory as I have seen thee. The enjoying of Zion and Zion's songs while the people is at home in their own land, hath not such influence on their spirit as when the Sanctuaries glory is removed; then Psalm 137:1. By the rivers of Babel, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. While one is in a fever, they may be ignorant that they are in a fever, but when the cooling of health comes, then he well remembers he was sick of a fever. When there is a fever of glory on Peter, he speaks he knows not what, Mark 9:6, yet after, 2 Pet. 1:16, 17, he makes sweet comfortable use of that glory of Christ on the mount: when the Lord waters the sown seed, and sends down new influences of grace, then doth it appear what warming hath been in the soul; this is a second difference betwixt literal heat and spiritual burning of heart; literal heat hath most sense when it is a thriving; there are no spiritual reflections upon that burning when it is gone and over, except the Lord give repentance, and that is accidental to all sinful movements and flaming of the flesh, or of a moral gift, it dies with its flaming, as fired powder that endures not long; whereas its useful to call to mind the gracious burnings of heart, yea, or any of the Lord's ancient paths, according to that Psalm 119:52. I remembered thy judgment of old, and have comforted myself; and its good to receive and lay up influences of heart warmings of Christ, Isa. 42:23. Who among you will hear this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come?

Did not our hearts burn?

The godly reprove their not knowing and not discerning of Christ in his heart flaming's of love; godly and spiritual sense challengeth self-dullness, Cant. 5:6. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. This is a sense of Christ's withdrawing, with a challenge of her refusing to open: Ah! Why did I not open while he did lovingly stand and knock, and lovingly speak, Open to me my sister, my love, &c. [--]

While he spake. The third particular, who works burning of heart in these men, speaking Jesus Christ; when Christ takes the bellows and the fan and stirs up the fire, it must needs burn boldly; and when Christ casts in a coal in the soul, it must make heart-flaming's. John 4. I am he that speaks to thee, that made a fire in the woman's heart, then she leaves well and water-pot and runs to the City. So Matth. 9:9. Matth. 4:20, 21, 22, with a word he kindles a fire in the breasts of fisher-men, who knew nothing of him before, and hath an inward work upon the heart. Cant. 5. He put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him; that was fire in the bowels; and what did Christ here but speak words? And this is the fourth difference, with little pain, but a word speaking he makes a fire. There is a huge deal of violence in Esau's running, sweating, hunting; Jacob stirred not after works, but staid at home and believed, and faith made him blessed: the spirit drives not, but by the words leading and persuading. But is there no violence in the natural and literal heat? Yea, for Baals priests to cut and bleed themselves with knives, and cry till noon, and to shout to a deaf God, must have in it much violence; and its a very unnatural fire, and its a most unnatural wild-fire heat to slay their young children to Molech. A man who forces a sigh when a sigh forces not him is a sufferer; but what violence is in the constraining Gospel-promise? What compulsion is there in love or love-sickness, when Christ makes love a key that opens all doors? How strongly and how sweetly doth the word of promise carried on by the spirit of Christ, force thy soul? There is a huge deal of force and violence in fainiheed sickness, as when a man makes and counterfeits distraction and madness, and runs naked.

While he opened the Scriptures.

The fourth particular is the fuel that makes the fire; the Scriptures opened, and opened by Christ's key; Is not my word like a fire? Saith the Lord, Jer. 23:15. Yea, in Christ's baptizing there is fire. John baptizeth with water, and no more, as a cold and watery seal; but Christ, Matth. 3:11, baptizeth with the holy Ghost and with fire. The word of prophesy was in Jeremiah's bowels, as a fire shut up; and this is the fifth difference betwixt the literal and spiritual heat; the heavenly heart-burning goes along with the Scriptures. 2. With the Scriptures so opened and applied by the spirit of Jesus as by a strong power, burning coals are cast into the heart. As touching the former, the difference betwixt this and the Libertines spirit, or the Enthusiasts, are to be observed, and the spirit of the children of God.

1. Christ's spirit extols the Scriptures; It is written, saith Christ against Satan. Have ye not read in the Scriptures, saith Christ against the Sadducees, Matth. 22. Search the Scriptures, saith Christ, they bear witness of me. He taught the multitude and disciples, as its written in the Scriptures. He rebukes them, Luke 24, v. 25, as fools and slow of heart, for not believing the Scriptures. When he would carry in real influences of grace to the heart, he carries them along by the Scripture, and opens the understanding that they may understand the Scripture, Luke 24:45, that is the spirit of Satan in some, who boast that they are beyond and above the word of the Kingdom, and such must be beyond and on the other side of heaven.

2. They who wait for the Lord, and whose soul waits for God, they hope in his word, Psalm 130:5, 6. Libertines souls cannot wait for the Lord as the watch for the morning.

3. Its a work of the spirit strongly to convince the conscience of not believing in Christ, John 16:7, 8, now to believe in him is the sum of the Scriptures, of the Gospel. Enthusiasts extol persuasions by raptures, according to which the brother killeth the brother, as Bullinger relates, in place of the Scripture-convictions of the spirit.

4. The work of the spirit is to comfort, for its the spirits office; and the sound comfort is patience and comfort of the Scriptures bringing hope, Rom. 15:4. The spirit of Enthusiasts persuades men of peace and comfort without and beside the promises of the Gospel.

5. The words of the book of the Law melt the heart of godly Josiah, 2 Kings 19:22, and the Lord looks to him that trembles at his word to dwell with him, Isa. 66:2. The Enthusiasts boldly mock the word as an instrument of carnal and fleshly regeneration, and seek a new birth from a spirit alone separated from the word.

6. Deep humiliation is wrought by the word, 2 Kings 22:14, the pride of Satan reigns in the spirits of Enthusiasts, who despise Scripture humility, and reproach tears and the work of repentance, as a work of the Law and the flesh.

7. Strong and courageous fighting, even to overcoming, gets for a reward the hid manna, the white stone, and the new name written thereon, which no man can read but he that receives it: now fighting and overcoming is by the word of the spirit, Rev. 2:17. Eph. 6:17, and faith in the word, 1 John 5:4. Enthusiasts tell us of a dumb and Scriptureless persuasion by which men are persuaded they are chosen to salvation, and can know others by the face that are so chosen.

8. The true spirit leads unto all truth, John 16:13 and opens the true sense of the Scriptures, and leads no man by a new wild-fire light; nor doth the spirit of God sway and determine a topic conjectural way, while there is a speculative doubting as touching any light from Scripture, whether the course be lawful or warranted by the word or not: for the spirit of God leads by Scriptures infallibility, Isa. 59:20, 21.

9. The actings of the true spirit are gentle, civil, human, and he bids us follow whatsoever is of good report —whatsoever things are pure, Phil. 4:8, 9. The spirit of Enthusiasts, leaving Scripture, licenses men to abominations which Heathens abhor.

10. The actings of the spirit of Christ are seasonable, Matth. 10:19, in that hour it shall be given you; it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your Father speaks in you. Enthusiasts spirit suggests night-works to be done in day light, and many unseasonable actions contrary to godly prudence, as to read godly Treatises when they should hear the Word preached; the spirit that suggesteth this is not of God, for the spirit of God cannot counter-work himself.

11. The spirit of God acts the soul and the man within his own orb and sphere of grace. Nature acts not upon the Moon to move it up to the sphere of the Sun, nor could it be called a kindly and connatural motion for the Sun to move down in the orb of the Moon. It's not the spirit of the Lord which acts the plow-man to move out of his element in the throne or in another calling in which God hath not placed him: for it is not from the motion of the spirit of sanctification for David to go out of his element of grace, and move in Satan's orb of uncleanness and blood-shed: the spirit of holiness is a friend to the holy Law of God; all influences and actings of the spirit are to be tried by the same rules by which the spirit is tried: some influences to Scriptural duties are from God and his spirit, other influences from the Scriptureless spirit of Satan, or corrupt man himself; every stirring and impulsion must not be fathered upon the spirit of grace.

The fourth particular is the subject or seat of burning, and its the heart; did not our hearts burn within us? The heart is the only seat of heavenly burnings; not simply, as the heart of man, which is evil, and only evil by nature in all its out-goings, Gen. 6:6. Gen. 8:21, and supplanted and wicked, Jer. 17:9. But the new heart of man, Ezek. 36:26, 27, the heart in which the love of God, as a flood, is spread abroad by the holy Ghost, Rom. 5:5, the heart and soul that loves the beloved Christ, Cant. 3:1, 2, 3, as for the unrenewed heart it is no more a hearth-stone, or a seat to kindle this fire upon, nor will it burn in this heart, then if you would kindle a fire of coals and fuel and dry timber upon the surface of the ocean sea; for the heart of the unrenewed man would eat up and quench all this fire; and the spirit does no more give influences for the heavenly burnings in the heart of an unrenewed man, then he gives influences to the water to burn, and cast out flaming's as a huge fire doth, or to the midnight darkness to shine as the Moon or Sun: and this is the sixth difference. The renewed heart is only the seat of this fire that comes down from heaven, the natural heart is not capable thereof.

Q. Is there not a heart warmness in the natural and unrenewed man?

Answ. Such as is the heart, such is the heat; such as is the hearth-stone, such is the fire and the fuel that but as on it

But the differences be these:

1. The heat of the unrenewed man is strong, and cannot be commanded; they hasten as mad men after their idols, who run after other gods, Psalm 16:4. And Paul says of his heat in persecuting the Saints, Acts 26:11. I compelled them to blaspheme, I was abundantly and exceedingly mad, and phrenic, out of my wit, in burning malice against them: now the mad man can hardly command his madness, yet upon other sinful and mad grounds Paul could have been persuaded on the contrary: as the Pharisees were mad against Christ, yet the fear of the people and of their own skins restrained them long from doing violence to him: and in matters which nearly concern God, the heat of an unrenewed man may be quenched; as a man that counterfeiteth himself to be mad can command his madness, and one who fains himself to be sick, can command his sickness; but one who is really possessed with a Devil and mad, and one who is really sick of a raging fever cannot command either madness or sickness; hypocrisy hath some dominion and empire over its own cursed heat and heart-flaming's; but lay mountains on the love of Christ, love breathes and lives under it. [--] So true is that Cant. 8:7. Many waters cannot quench love. That is a strong fire which all the waters in the Sea cannot quench. Nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Then drowning and burning, death, fair allurements and gifts, cannot counterwork the love of Christ. What? And are loves coals so hot? Yea he spoke to that, v. 6. Love is strong as death: jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which have a most vehement flame, the flame of God. But natural men for all their heat in the matters of God, can let out and let in, and stretch out the truth for all their heart-burnings, as if it were kid-leather; and they may take and give, and borrow and lend upon Christ's matters, whereas the Saints are awed with that, Buy the truth and sell it not. Let indifferent and cold men, who never felt the influences of loves fiery coals, know this. Ah, the interests of Christ have been looked on in Scotland too indifferently and coldly; the coals of self-interest burn strongly.

2. The bare letter of the Gospel wins not in upon the heart, it warms the skin and not the heart; whereas Christ's speaking and opening the Scriptures with his Spirit, and the key of David, casteth not fire upon the heart, the heat is all upon the letter and externals, and upon Sacrifices, New Moons, Solemn Assemblies, forms without taste: All Paul's heat is about Christ, and the hope of the resurrection; the Jews his adversaries heat could be nothing of this heart-burning, but for Moses Law in the letter, circumcision, and other ceremonies, now wanting their life Christ. For Christ had now 1. removed from the letter of the ceremonial law, and there is no life there as touching the observance thereof.

But Christ hath 2. not departed from, and gone out of the ceremonial law, as touching the doctrinal teaching thereof to lead us to Christ; and therefore that law should be read, preached, believed, and stands clothed with the authority of Canonic Scripture, otherwise Libertines must cashier the books of Moses.

3. Nor hath Christ removed out of the letter of the Scripture Law and Gospel, to teach us no more thereby, but only by the Spirits instruction; for even the doctrine of the Law curses, Deut. 27. Deut. 28, are a part of the immediately inspired word of God shining with the same majesty, holiness, divinity, convincing power, as the letter of the Gospel, Psal. 19:7, 8, 9, 10.

4. Christ hath not removed (as Saltmarsh, Dell, and others teach) from the Law moral the divine obligation to holiness and righteousness; for it lays the same bands and obligations to the duties of love and obedience to God, and of love, truth, mercy, righteousness, soberness, to man, which was upon us in Moses time; for that way grace should teach looseness, lawless wantonness, not holiness. We would press good works, holiness, godly walking, on all, as they would see God, and not be trees hewn down and cast in the fire. Suppose we could not with School accuracy rid marches as touching the necessity thereof; but we are to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, justification by works.

5. Christ and the Spirit of Christ dwell in the Law, to join gracious influences therewith to humble sinners, to cast them down, to bring them to self-despair, that they may flee to Christ

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