صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

comfort in him. Your forwardness is a thing very pleafing unto God: If you be alwayes upon your feet, and your feet be alwayes running towards him, you please him moft. Your perfon is made pleafing to him through your Faith and your life is made pleasing to him through the readinefs of your Faith. The union of your Faith caufeth your Perfons to be pleafing to him: and the readinefs of your Faith caufeth God to take content in. your way. As the Centurian faid, I am in Autbority, I can fay to one, Go; and be goes, c. It was in the commendation of him in Power, that whatever he bid to be done, was done readily: So it's the commendation of a Soul to be ready to receive, Grace and Mercy from God in jefus Chrift. If God did boast concerning any one, it would be of fuch a one after this manner;

This is that which paffeth knowledge, and is not to be comprehended, no not by Angels themselves, that after fo great an offence, when men were defiled and polluted, I fhould be so kind and open hearted to the Sons of men: The moft part of this World doth not take this as credible: nay those that i have by my almighty power brought to be leeve, yet ftick at it when they come to confider it fericully: But there is fuch a Soul, and fuch a Soul that walks in the fenfe of their guilt, and count themselves worthy to be destroyed every moment; if I do but speak any word against any fins, they have it by and by verified in their Confciences concerning themfelves, and they fay they are the men: But if i tell them again, and fay, Come, my love is towards you, then they lift up their ear and hear, and the found of my voice revives their heart. And if Ifay the word, they truft not to their own underftanding, but are quick and nimble in beleeving in

me.

As a man takes pleasure in one that is nimble

in running of an errand: So doth God in one that is forward to take comfort in him. Put them altogether. As ready as God is to give, As ready as a Fool is to beleeve, As ready as a prefumptuous Perfon is to be confident, And a good man to be Obedient, And a converted man to have notice of Gods love, And a natural man to commit fin, And a guilty Confcience to apprehend the wrath of God fo ready ought a believer be to lay hold on the fulness of all that which the Prophets have revealed concerning the love of Jefus Chrift to us. There remains fomething ftill to be fpoken: Only I will fay this,That although thou art backward and hard to beleeve, God will not caft thee off. He hath his glory by overcoming our evil with his goodnefs. If Thomas will not without feeling of the print of his nails, and the wound of the fpear, beleeve that Jefus Chrift is he that was put to death, it may be Jefus Chrift will be contented to come and unbare his fides, and his hands to him, Joh. 20. 25. But as he said to Thomas, Bleffed is be that hath not feen, and yet beleeves: So I say that man is happy that hath Faith, although he be very dull and flow to beleeve; but he is ten thousand times more hapPy whom God hath made quick, and fpeedy, and forward, and apt to go to Chrift to take in the Mercies of him, as he was prone to fin in the dayes of his vanity, and to entertain every motion of it. And so much shall suffice at prefent.

[blocks in formation]

CHAP. XII.

The former Exhortation continued to endeavour for a promptitude to beleeve. Some have this Quickneß of Faith from their firfl Converfion: Others attain to it by Industry under the means which God affords. Motives to endeavour for this Readineß of Faith: 1. Herein principally lies their love of God. 2. Every good thing poken of in the Gospel is to you. An Objection Answered. 3. No burt can poffibly come to you by being forward to beleeve. Object. Answered. 4. There is no ground for their backwardneß to beleeve. An Object. Answered..

Now in helping you to get this which I exhort

you unto, you must know that there are fome Chriftians that have a quickness of Faith from their firft Conversion: As fome Children are from the Womb of quicker parts and understanding than others: So fome Chriftians are even from their new Birth, and Regeneration, apter to beleeve than others are. The Apoftle faith in Acts 17.11. of the men of Berea, That they were use (it's tranflated) more noble but the word fignifies better bred, as well as noble. And it intimates to us that there is a different kind of breeding of Saints ;Some are bred by God one way, and fone another, and they have Spirits accordingly. For the judicious receiving of the Truth, by the men of Berea, and not to be led afide by what was spoken, did arife from their manner of being converted. As it is faid concerning Jobn Baptift, That he was fan&tified from the Womb, Luk. 1. 41. So while he was in the Womb,

Womb, be leaped and vaulted, (as the word imiprnoEY fignifies) when as he beard but only the voice of the Mother of Jefus Chrift. Sanctified from the Womb; and then in the Womb; he is mighty full of joy and glorying in Jefus Chrift. But that is an extraordinary cafe: Only it proves the thing strongly.

Sometimes the work of a mans Converfion is fuc ceffive, it is done by parts; God is long about it, it may be, years: He comes and toucheth the Confcience, but it is but a touch, and no conviction : The Soul hath a sense of fin, and of judgement, but it goes off again: like a fit of an Ague that goes off again which comes on, and then goes of, and he is well again. It goes off, and then God comes and fets it on.

There are some which after, or at their Converfion, have had large difcovery of their fins by the Miniftry they have lived under, but the Miniftry they have lived under, have been very iparing in opening the Gofpel to them. The Golpel was preached legally and upon fuch terms that mens fingers were knocked off from the Grace offered to them. Mark it now beloved; As when Parents do eat trash and unwholfome things, the Children that they go withal, are bred ful of humors and become groffe and exceeding dull: So I may fay with reverence, when at our converfion there are many coolings of. heart, when God lets a man fall from the fight and fenfe of fin, and fin takes them up a gain, then it comes to pafs that the Spirit grows heavier and dull. Whereas when God makes haft of the work of Converfion, the throws are ftrong, and the conviction is home, and goes through and through: There is the abounding of iin, and the fuperabounding of Grace laid open then the Spirit is more apt to take in the things of the Gofpel.

Buc

But in the fecond place, you must know that there are fome, Who although they have not this quickneß of Faith from the manner of their converfion, and Gods bearing ofthem in the womb of bis mercy, yet they come to it by industry and taking pains under that meanes which God afforded them. In Deut. 6. 7. Saith God to the Parent, thou shalt whet these things upon thy childen. Whet them which is tranflated Teach, but in the Hebrew it is ano and thou fhalt Whet. As Iron being whetted becomes Sharp although it be dul in its felfe: So dul parts with industry being alwaies exercised, do become pollifhed and acute. My meaning is that there is no beleever but by the using of his faith, he may in time come to be quick and apt to beleeve, A cloath hath not in it a readiness to take fier, but but when it is made into tinder, then the leaft park takes. The use of means makes you tinder, and it brings you into a sharpness and largnefs of capacity of Grace. You can never come to get Grace,or to be fpiritually wife by the use of nature becaufe fpiritual things are known by a spiritual and fupernatural light. Let a man use hearing never fo much, it wil make a mans fight no better: & it is an equal an abfurdity to imagine a mans ufe of nature fhould make him fupernatural. But though a man cannot by the ufe of nature come to fupernatural light, yet he nay (being made 1piritual) by that little that he hath be made more active and nimble in the use of means, and fo come to greater degrees of grace. And this I take to be the meaning of the talents Mat. 25. 16. A man increafed that Talent, that he traded with; that Talent in kind gained more of the fame kind: because it was of the fame kind, therefore it was grace did increase more grace: and because it was of the fame kind,therefore it was grace did increase more

grace;

« السابقةمتابعة »