God's law; and weakeneth our hopes, by weakening the promises. 3. It shaketh the universal government of Christ, by shaking the authority or perfection of the laws by which he governeth. 4. It maketh way for human usurpations, and traditions, as supplements to the Holy Scriptures; and leaveth men to contrive to amend God's Word and worship, and make co-ordinate laws and doctrines of their own. 5. It hindereth the conviction and conversion of sinners, and hardeneth them in unbelief, by questioning or weakening the means that should convince and turn them. 6. It is a tempting men to the cursed adding to God's Word.

IV. The dangers of overdoing here are these; 1. It leadeth to downright infidelity; for when men find that the Scripture is imperfect or wanting in that which they fancy to be part of its perfection, and to be really insufficient, e. g. to teach men physics, logic, medicine, languages, &c., they will be apt to say, 'It is not of God, because it hath not that which it pretends to have.' 2. God is made the author of defects and imperfections. 3. The Scripture is exposed to the scorn and confutation of infidels. 4. Papists are assisted in proving its imperfection. But I must stop, having spoke to this point before in Quest. 35. and partly Quest. 30. 31. 33. more at large.

Quest. CLXVII. How far do good men now preach and pray by the Spirit?

Answ. 1. Not by such inspiration of new matter from God as the prophets and apostles had which indited the Scriptures.

2. Not so as to exclude the exercise of reason, memory, or diligence: which must be as much and more than about any common things.

3. Not so as to exclude the use and need of Scripture, ministry, sermons, books, conference, examples, use, or other means and helps.

But 1. The Spirit indited that doctrine and Scripture which is our rule for prayer and for preaching.

2. The Spirit's miracles and works in and by the

apostles seal that doctrine to us, and confirm our faith in it *.

3. The Spirit in our faithful pastors and teachers teacheth us by them to pray and preach ".

4. The Spirit by illumination, quickening, and sanctification, giveth us an habitual acquaintance with our sins, our wants, with the Word of precept and promise, with God, with Christ, with grace, with heaven. And it giveth us a habit of holy love to God, and goodness and thankfulness for mercy and faith in Christ, and the life to come, and desires of perfection, and hatred of sin; and he that hath all these, hath a constant habit of prayer in him; for prayer is nothing but the expression with the tongue of these graces in the heart; so that the Spirit of sanctification is thereby a Spirit of adoption and of supplication. And he that hath freedom of utterance can speak that which God's Spirit hath put into his very heart, and made him esteem his greatest and nearest concernment, and the most necessary and excellent thing in all the world. This is the Spirit's principal help *.

5. The same Spirit doth incline our hearts to the diligent use of all those means, by which his abilities may be increased; as to read, and hear, and confer, and to use ourselves to prayer, and to meditation, self-examination, &c.

6. The same Spirit helpeth us in the use of all these means, to profit by them, and to make them all effectual on our hearts.

7. The same Spirit concurreth with means, habits, reason, and our own endeavours, to help us in the very act of praying and preaching: 1. By illuminating our minds to know what to desire and say. 2. By actuating our wills to love, and holy desire, and other affections. 3. By quickening and exciting us to a liveliness and fervency in all. And so bringing our former habits into acts, the grace of grace of prayer is the heart and soul of gifts; and thus the Spirit teacheth us to pray.

t Heb. ii. 3, 4.

1 Pet. i. 2. 22.

u 2 Thess. i. 11. * John iii. 5, 6. Rom. viii. 8, 9. 15, 16. 26, 27. 2 Tim. i. 7. Isa. xi. 2. Ezek. xxxvi. 26. xxxvii. 14. Gal. iv. 6. Zech. xii. 10. 31. xi. 19.

Neh. ix. 20.

Ezek. xviij.

y Rom. vii. 6. John iv. 23, 24. 2 Cor. iv. 13. Gal v. 5. 16—18. 25. v. 19.

vii. 38, 39. 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11.
Ephes. iii. 16. v. 9. 18. vi. 18.

vi. 11. 17.

1 Thess.

Yea, the same Spirit thus by common helps assisteth even bad men in praying and preaching, giving them common habits and acts that are short of special saving grace. Whereas men left to themselves without God's Spirit, have none of all these aforementioned helps. And so the Spirit is said to intercede for us by exciting our unexpressible groans; and to help our infirmities when we know not what to ask as we ought".

Quest. CLXVIII. Are not our own reasons, studies, memory, strivings, books, forms, methods, and ministry needless, yea, a hurtful quenching or preventing of the Spirit, and setting up our own, instead of the Spirit's operation?

Answ. 1. Yes if we do it in a conceit of the sufficiency of ourselves, our reason, memory, studies, books, forms, &c. without the Spirit: or if we ascribe any thing to any of these which is proper to Christ or to his Spirit. For such proud self-sufficient despisers of the Spirit, cannot reasonably expect his help : I doubt among men counted learned and rational there are too many such, that know not man's insufficiency or corruption, nor the necessity and use of that Holy Ghost into whose name they were baptized, and in whom they take on them to believe. But think that all that pretend to the Spirit are but fanatics and enthusiasts, and self-conceited people; when yet the Spirit himself saith," If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his "." And "Because we are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, whereby we cry Abba, Fatherd."

2. But if we give to reason, memory, study, books, methods, forms, &c. but their proper place in subordination to Christ and to his Spirit, they are so far from being quenchers of the Spirit, that they are necessary in their places, and such means as we must use, if ever we will expect the Spirit's help. For the Spirit is not given to a brute to make him a man, or rational; nor to a proud despiser, or idle neg

z Rom. viii. 26.

a John xv. 1. 3-5.7. Even among them that in their ordination heard "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," and "Over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.",

c Rom. viii. 9.

d Gal. iv. 6.

lecter of God's appointed means, to be instead of means; nor to be a patron to the vice of pride or idleness, which he cometh chiefly to destroy; but to bless men in their laborious use of the means which God appointed him: read but Prov. i. 20, &c. ii. iii. v. vi. viii., and you will see that knowledge must be laboured for, and instruction heard; and he that will lie idle till the Spirit move him, and will not stir up himself to seek God, or strive to enter in at the strait gate, nor give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, may find that the spirit of sloth hath destroyed him, when he thought the Spirit of Christ had been saving him. He that hath but two articles in his creed must make this the second; for he that "cometh to God must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him f."

Quest. CLXIX. How doth the Holy Ghost set bishops over the churches?

Answ. 1. By making the office itself, so far as the apostles had any hand in it, Christ himself having made their office.

2. The Holy Ghost in the electors and ordainers directeth them to discern the fitness of the persons elected and ordained, and so to call such as God approveth of, and calleth by the Holy Ghost in them: which was done, 1. By the extraordinary gift of discerning in the apostles. 2. By the ordinary help of God's Spirit in the wise and faithful electors and ordainers ever since.

3. The Holy Ghost doth qualify them for the work, by due life, light and love, knowledge, willingness and active ability; and so both inclining them to it, and marking out the persons by his gifts whom he would have elected and ordained to it: which was done, 1. At first by extraordinary gifts. 2. And ever since by ordinary. (1.) Special and saving in some. (2.) Common, and only fitted to the church's instruction in others. So that whoever is not competently qualified, is not called by the Holy Ghost;

e Isa. Ixiv. 7. Matt. vii. 13, 14. 2 Pet. i. 10.
f Heb. xi. 6.

h Acts i. 24. xiii. 2. xv. 28, &c. xiv. 23.

g Acts xx. 28.

when Christ ascended, he gave "gifts to men, some apostles, prophets, and evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the edifying of his body i," &c.

Quest. CLXX. Are temples, fonts, utensils, church-lands, much more the ministers, holy? And what reverence is due to them as holy?

Answ. The question is either de nomine' whether it be fit to call them holy; or 'de re,' whether they have that which is called holiness.

I. The word 'holy' signifieth in God, essential transcendent perfection; and so it cometh not into our question. In creatures it signifieth, 1. A Divine nature in the rational creature (angels and men) by which it is made like God, and disposed to him and his service, by knowledge, love and holy vivacity; which is commonly called real saving holiness as distinct from mere relative. 2. It is taken for the relation of any thing to God as his own peculiar appropriated to him; so infinite is the distance between God and us, that whatever is his in a special sense, or separated to his use, is called holy; and that is, 1. Persons. 2. Things. 1. Persons are either, (1.) In general devoted to his love and service. (2.) Or specially devoted to him in some special office; which is, (1.) Ecclesiastical. (2.) Economical. (3.) Political. Those devoted to this general service are, (1.) Either heartily and sincerely so devoted, (who are ever sanctified in the first real sense also). (2.) Or only by word or outward profession. 2. Things devoted to God are, 1. Some by his own immediate choice, designation, and command. 2. Or by general directions to man to do it. And these are, 1. Some things more nearly. 2. Some things more remotely separated to him. None of these must be confounded; and so we must conclude,

1. All that shall be saved are really holy by a Divine inclination and nature, and actual exercise thereof; and relatively holy in a special sense, as thus devoted and separated to God.

2. All the baptized and professors (not apostate) are

Ephes. iv. 7-10. 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13. 28, 29.