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help and not in excuses. For we must not plead our personal maladies and natural inclinations, and think that God will take it for an answer, and ask no more.

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'I am dull of understanding,' says one, and what I am taught I cannot bear it away. I am suddenly transported with indignation, and cannot choose but. break out: I am retentive of an injury, and cannot easily be reconciled.' All this, and the like, is no better than the answer of those ill-mannered guests in the Gospel, which were invited to a feast made by a king, "We cannot come, I pray you have us excused: " which sounds like confession and humility, but it is denial and defiance. Spend your breath in a better way, and cry out often and affectionately, "Give me not over to myself, O Lord; take away from me my stony heart, and give me a heart of flesh." Drop down upon this barren earth, and it shall bring forth quite against the bias of nature. The highminded will grow meek as a lamb, the covetous will begin to disperse and scatter abroad, the lying lips will confess the truth, bitter cruelty will melt into pity, new-fangled braveries will be laid aside, and blush at vanity. To what purpose are the pourings in of the Spirit, but that what is wickedly inbred from our conception, should be shaken off from the tree, and a better fruit spring up in the place, from the increase of God?

Mark the rain that falls from above, and the same shower that dropped out of one cloud, increaseth sundry plants in a garden, and severally according to the condition of every plant: in one stalk it makes a a rose, in another, a violet, divers in a third, and sweet in all. So the Spirit works its multiformous effects in several complexions, and all according to the increase of God. Is thy habit and inclination choleric? Why, try thyself if thou be very apt to be zealous in a good cause, and it turns thy natural

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infirmity into holy heat.-Is melancholy predominant? the grace of God will turn that sad humour into devotion, prayer, and mortifying thy pleasures to die unto the world. Is thy temperature sanguine and cheerful? the goodness of God will allow it unto thee in thy civil life, in a good mean; but over and above it will make thee bountiful, easy to pardon injuries, glad of reconciliation, comfortable to the distressed, always rejoicing in the Lord.- Is a man phlegmatic and fearful? if this freezing disease, which is in thee from thy mother's womb, be not absolutely cured, yet the Holy Ghost will work upon it, to make thy conscience tender, wary to give no offence, to make thee pitiful, penitent, contrite, ready to weep for thy transgressions. "There are two handles to take hold of every thing," says a heathen: a dissolute man takes hold of original frailties, and makes them serpents : a holy man declines their serpentine nature, and catcheth them by that part, which may conduce to all manner of virtue. This is the comfort of hope against original inquination, that this great enemy, by the operation of the Spirit, shall be made our friend, or our footstool. "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."*

What is stronger than a lion? yet if the lion be killed, "out of the strong comes forth sweetness."† For all this, the worst is not past: beside natural pronity to sin, we have contracted much more evil by custom, education, strong habits, noxious examples, bad enticements and infusions. The cockatrice egg was laid, when we were in our mother's womb, but it proves more venomous being hatched, and grown able to fly abroad. There are seventy sons of Ahab, who shall kill thee? Even the sword of the Spirit: "there is none like it,” as David said of that Rom. vii. 24. + Judges xiv. 14.

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of Goliath. This is sufficient, not merely to cut down grass and briars, but to hew down the trees, to cut off the branches, to shake the leaves, to scatter the fruit, to frighten away the fowls from the branches, and the beasts from grazing under it; † or, as the apostle comforts us in plain words, without a parable, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me." If you be over toiled and heated too much, you know how to cool: cast off some garments, wipe away the sweat, sit still and stir not, lest you inflame yourself with motion. Follow the same method, lay aside the burden of sin that inflames you, cast off the weight and the superfluity of naughtiness: bear in mind that Christ sweat drops of blood in his agony, to make you ashamed of toiling and sweating in Satan's drudgery. Take ease in a sabbath of holy rest, and moil not in the unprofitable works of darkness. Try what refrigeration this will give unto your conscience: else take heed that you be not put to a terrible sweat of fear, lest God take you away in his wrath, and give you up for ever unto Satan, whom you have served so willingly.

"To the law and to the testimony: mind no examples but when they are wrapt up therein." "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."§ What a case had Noah been in, if he had framed his life by common practice, when all flesh had corrupted their way? Choose better company, as Enoch did to walk with God. || And "can two walk together unless they be agreed?" It is more than agreement: it imports endearment, benevolence, friendship with God. No title can be greater or sweeter: what can match that honour of Abraham and the apostles, to be called the "friends of God and Christ?" No league in the world more

1 Sam. xxi. 9. § Rom. xii. 2.

+ Dan. iv. 14.
Gen. v. 24.

D

Phil. iv. 13. ¶ Amos iii. 3.

sought for or more willingly accepted: no amity less burdensome or more beneficial. St. Austin * brings in a couple that served the Roman emperor, thus debating upon it: 'What can we look for in this palace, more than to be called the friends of our sovereign? When we have got this, it is no sure and unchangeable favour. And how long shall we attend before we be promoted to it? But let us then turn to God in this hour, and sue to be his friends, and it shall be done instantly, and remain eternally.'- Ask, and it shall be given, seek, and ye shall find." And as we trespass by sins of daily prevention, there is a dailiness of mercy to comfort

us.

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But as you love Christ, and would be beloved, struggle with temptations, do not yield upon the first enticement, no, nor upon the second or third assault. "Resist the devil, and he will fly from you: " quit yourself like a man, fight like a Christian: "the flesh is weak, but the Spirit is willing, ready, able to assist you." + Thus hope waxeth valiant, and assures itself of victory against customs, habits, and all contracted impotencies.

2. Lay now our adventure, the toil and peril of our labour, wherein we are employed, in another balance, and more difficulty will appear. For hope is wise and doth not flatter itself, as if the kingdom of heaven were accessible with little pains. What carefulness ought this to work in us? what self-denial? what fear? what zeal? what unblamable conversation? “I run, I fight, I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection." "For Christ Jesus I have suffered the loss of all things."§ Christ having overcome the sharpness of death, hath opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers: yet to put us to our labour and skill, to follow, mark what he has taught us, "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. "||

*Confess. 8. c. 6. 1 Cor. ix. 27.

§ Phil. iii. 8.

+ Matt. xxvi. 41.

Matt. vii. 14.

And, wherefore, is it so strait and narrow? a ques→ tion worthy to be resolved, to teach us and to comfort us.

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First; a very religious life is said, by a metaphor, to go in at a strait gate, because it is our master-piece to find the door, or to begin well; therefore, it is called to be born again." For, as to be born into the world needs more art, and skilful midwifery, than to bring us up; so to be regenerate, to begin to live the life that is in Christ, is exceeding irksome to flesh and blood: so many are the enticements that throng about the way, to keep us from the door, and to hold us in love with those sins, which have been our companions. As an orator will be more timorous to deliver the first period of his speech, than all that follows; so we stick long at the first onset to reform to be strict, to pass away with so much vanity as must be forsaken. The penitent thief could not find the door, till he was going out of the world: St. Paul, as some compute, was twenty-eight years old before he left to be a blasphemer. But rush on, and make way through all resistances: he that hath one foot over the threshold, and hath cast the world behind him, is well advanced into the courts of our God.

Secondly; a heavenly mind gathers itself up into one wish, and no more. "One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require. "'* Grant me thyself, O Lord, and I will ask no more. The new creature asks nothing of God, but to enjoy God: give me this, O Lord, and for the rest, let Ziba take all. I will part with all to buy that one pearl, the riches of heavenly grace. The servant of sin hath all manner of pleasures under heaven to trade in. Can he ask for a shop with more variety of ware? why may he not have these, you will say, and life eternal to boot? Some of them are inconsistent with life eternal; but * Psalm xxvii. 4.

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