7. And lastly, the soul hath not always, possibly, the same relish and taste of divine truths and ordi

H

nances, but it hath the same estimate; it keeps up high thoughts of spiritual things, and when it cannot relish them, yet even then it doth hunger after them. My soul breaketh for the longings it hath unto thy judgments

AT ALL TIMES.

And yet even in reference to these dispositions, which 1 call inseparable concomitants to saving teaching, I must add this one caution in close of all, namely,

THAT ALLOWANCE BE MADE IN CASE OF DESERTION. A child of God, for causes which here we cannot stand to mention, may be cast into so deep a state of desertion for a time, that he may (as the apostle speaks) forget that he was purged from his old sins. A child of light may walk in darkness. And though there be no such decay in the new man, wherein both habits and acts do cease, yet they may be so stupified by the impressions of the present temptations, as the poor soul shall be sensible of neither, but reduced as it were into such a state, as when grace was but an embryo in the womb; that spiritual life shall be (tantum non extinguit, almost extinguished ;) there may be life, but no sense of that life.

More might be added, but I am sensible how this discourse swells beyond the proportion I intended, and therefore muft hasten. Thus much,therefore, for the second thing propounded in the doctrinal part, the nature and properties of divine teaching.

I come now to the third thing propounded, viz. To enquire How AFFLICTION LIETH IN ORDER TO INSTRUCTION? WHAT TENDENCY CHASTISEMENT HATH TO PROMOTE THE TEACHINGS OF GOD: IN THE SOUL? WHAT USE GOD MAKES OF CORREC TION TO THIS END?

It is true, there is need of an arm of omnipotence to make chastisement to have a saving influence upon the heart; and so there doth also even in the word itself; and divine ordinances; they do not save ex opere operato, by an intrinsical virtue, or power of their own but yet there is a passive fitness in them to serve omnipotence for divine and saving ends; a fitness of instrumentality; as there is in a saw to cut, and in a wedge to cleave, &c. The instrument can do no thing alone, but there is a fitness in it to serve the hand of the workman. Thus it is, in a proportion, with affliction; it is true, there is not so immediate and direct a tendency in the rod, as there is in the word, to teach and instruct the children of God; yet there is in chastisement a subserviency to prepare the heart of man, and to put it into a better disposition to close with divine teaching, than naturally it is capable of. Christ works in the hot furnace; the most excellent vessels of honour are formed there; Manasseh, Paul, the jailor, were all chosen in this fire; as God saith, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. Grace works in a powerful, yet in a moral way. God speaks when we are most apt to hear, congru

ously yet forcibly, by a fit accommodation of circumstances, which you may discover in these four particulars:

1. By correction God taketh down the pride of man's heart: There is not a greater obstruction tó saving knowledge than pride and self-opinion, whereby man either thinks he knows enough, or that that is not worth learning which God teacheth; therefore it is proclaimed before the word, Hear and give ear, BE not proud, for the Lord hath spoken. In divine matters, as well as human, only by pride cometh contention. It is pride which raiseth objections against the word, and disputeth the commands when it should obey them. The proud men in Jeremiah, when they could elude the message of God by his prophet no longer, do at length stiffen into downright rebellion. First, they shift, thou speakest falsely; and then they resolve, As for the word thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee; be it Baruch, or be it God, we will have none of it: but we will certainly do whatsoever goeth forth of our own mouth. Such a master-piece of obduration is the heart of man, that it stands like a mountain before the word, and cannot be moved, till God comes with his instruments of affliction, and digging down those mountains, casteth them into a level, and then God may stand, as it were, upon even ground, and talk with man. This pride of heart speaketh loud in the wicked, and whispereth too audibly even in the godly: it is a folly bound up even

in the hearts of God's children, till the rod of correc tion driveth it out; and then the poor bleeding wretch cries, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?

2. Affliction is God's forge wherein he softens the iron heart. There is no dealing with the iron while it remaineth in its own native coldness and hardness; put it into the fire, make it red hot there, and you may stamp upon it any figure or impression you please; God maketh my heart soft, saith Job: melted vessels are impressive to any form. So it is with the heart of man; naturally it is colder and harder than the northern iron; and that native hardness is much increased by prosperity, and the patience of God towards sinners: the iron sinew will rather break than bend. It is the hot furnace only which can make it pliable and impressive to God's counsels; which course therefore God resolveth on, I will melt them and try them; and sometimes God is forced to make the furnace seven times hotter, to work out that dross which renders men so uncomformable to the ministry of the word, while God sends his prophets, rising up early, and sending them; and yet they will not incline their ear, but harden their necks against divine in

struction.

When the earthly heart of a man is so dried and hardened by a long sunshine of prosperity, that the plough of the spiritual husbandman cannot enter, God doth soften it with showers of adversity, maketh it capable of the immortal seed, and blesseth the spring

ing thereof: The seed falleth upon stony ground, till God turn the ftone into an heart of flesh.

3. By chastisement man is made more attentive unto God; in prosperity the world makes such a noise in a man's ears, that God cannot be heard, He speaks indeed once and twice, again and again, very often, yet man perceiveth it not, he is so busy in the crowd of worldly affairs, that God is not heeded. In the godly themselves there is much unsettledness and giddiness of mind: naturally our thoughts are vain and scattered, the spirit slippery and inconsistent, which is a great impediment to our clear and full comprehensions of spiritual things: and therefore God deals with man as a father with his child playing in the market place, and will not hear or mind his father's call; he comes and takes him out of the noise of the tumult, carries him home, lays him upon his knee with the rod in his hand, and then the father can be heard: So doth God, I say, with his children; He openeth their ears, Heb. He uncovereth their ears, which the world had stopped, and then instruction will enter. When Joab would not come to Absalom, he sets his field on fire; and thus after neglects, God brings us to treat with him by affliction: God saith, as it were, Come, let us reason together; and the soul echos back again, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth and when the soul is thus silent unto God, he cometh and sealeth instruction by his Spirit.