Chapter 7

CHAP. VII.

Characters of a spiritual disposition are these. 1. To be willing to be under the guidance of the spirit. 2. Four expressions in the Scripture hold forth opposing of the spirit. 3. We are to acknowledge and adore the spirit in his actings, and joyn hearty consent thereto. 4. Self-denial. 5. In a bewildered condition to desire to be led by the spirit. 6. Spiritual facility in acting. 7. To act much in public works, in the spirit. 8. Much watching and praying. 9. To converse with spiritual men. 10. To be much in spiritual conference are all characters of a spiritual disposition.

The third particular is, what speaks a spiritual man and spiritual influences?

He who puts himself under the guidance of the spirit, is a spiritual man: the will of the Guide should be master of the journey.

The Prophets (Acts 13), Paul and Silas (Acts 16), Philip (Acts 8), accurately observe the command of the spirit, as being as binding as the command of the Father and the Son. The commands of God to the men of God were more legal in the Old Testament; but the commands of the spirit now in the New Testament have more of free grace and persuasive leading (Acts 10:19; Acts 11:12; Acts 18:9, 10, 11; John 14:16, 26; John 16:13). We shall speak hereafter of the lying under and obedient receiving of the breathings and influences of the spirit; only here where there is a strong bensil of will and much freedom in obedience, there is much of the spirit. Backdrawing in spiritual works proclaims much carnality; but who had the anointing above measure, was all will, and all heart, and all spirit to obey and suffer (John 10:17, 18; Psalm 40:8, 9).

2. The leading and drawing of the spirit, when it brings forth running, and is strongly closed with, speaks a spiritual man (Canticles 1:4; Psalm 119:32; Canticles 3:4). I held him and would not let him go. Is not this violence? Sweet feelings and high commending of him follows; when the spirit's violence in drawing, and the spouse's violence in running meet, there is a spiritual closing (Canticles 1:4). The King has brought me into his chambers; and what follows, we will be glad and rejoice in you, we will remember your love more than wine. See verse 12, 13. Canticles 2:3, I sat down under his shadow, and his fruit was sweet in my mouth. Delighting in him is followed with his delighting in the Spouse, verse 6. His left hand is under mine head, and his right hand does embrace me.

2. Here, if in any, it's true, to him that has shall be given: he that is willing to be led shall be led; and keeping of the Commandments of Christ makes room for the Father and the Son to come here and dwell; fire makes more fire.

3. A state of translation is to be gone about; the man has not the spirit till he be once over the water translated to the Kingdom of the dear Son of God. Christ is not owner of the man that has not the spirit. If any have not the spirit, he is none of Christ's (Romans 8:9). Christ and the Spirit cannot be severed; the spirit that is in the first heir is in all the rest; and we should take it hard to be called, or to be none of Christ's.

3. Heed must be carefully taken that none of the organs or parts of the new creation be broken. A spiritual man cherishes the spirit in all his operations, he loves and honours his guide and leader. The Scripture notes in four words the wrongs we do to the spirit (Isaiah 63:10): they vexed his spirit of holiness; the word is (Psalm 56:6), they painfully wrested: as they gave another figure or fashion to my words. Ephesians 4:30, Grieve not the holy spirit. The word [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] is to sadden rather than to anger (Matthew 14:9; Matthew 17:23; Matthew 26:22). Can a friend lodge in a house, where he is every hour saddened? Is not this to chase him away? And especially to sadden the King in the act of sealing your writs and evidences of Heaven, is not this dreadful? You shall know the spirit to be saddened when he acts deadly and lently; as the man who rides on a lame and halting horse advances little in the way, the fault is not in the Rider. So when the man is straitened in praying, and he knocks faintly, life and liberty and godly boldness is away; the tools of the worker being broken, how unhandsome is the work?

2. There should be an eike made to the working of the spirit; there is needful a sort of helping of the spirit by widening, opening and enlarging the heart; the extending of love, desires, faith, fear to their outmost borders. There is an opening of the mouth wide commanded (Psalm 81:10; Psalm 24:7): Lift up your heads and be you lift up you everlasting doors. Canticles 5:2, Open to me my sister, my love, my dove, &c. And this is needful under the actings of the spirit, that we stretch the soul beyond itself and make an eike to the spirit of his own. Hence that charge, 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Quench not the spirit. The word is (Matthew 12:20; Matthew 25:8): Our lamps are out, or quenched (Mark 9:44, 46). Some cast water upon the fire and holy flamings of the spirit: this makes a cold hearth-stone, and mightily obstructs the working of God; whereas we should add new fuel to his fire, and blow away the ashes and wrestle against deadness, dullness, faintness, and stir up the grace of God (2 Timothy 1:6), as smiths with the bellows blow up and quicken the flame. Do not quench it in yourself by unbelief and uncheerful walking; and break not one another, know that so do the enemies of Christ. He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him; Let him deliver him, since he delighted in him (Psalm 22:8). That is to act Satan's office, when men cast water on the flamings of the spirit and crush the spirit and his actings in others.

Acknowledge and adore the Holy Spirit as God, and follow not Ananias to play the devil to the Holy Ghost, to try if the Holy Spirit shall find out hypocrisy (Acts 5). Satan is the great [illegible] (Matthew 4:3), who tempted the Son. And a man may ride so near the rotten margin on the bank of a mighty river, as he will try the highest of free grace; why but I may do this and be pardoned? No, the Holy Spirit never said, Sin at will with greediness, you were once a believer. It's dreadful to put a trial upon the worth of an infinite ransom. Upon the most noble and transcendent actings of the Spirit: this God has done in me, therefore I have liberty to sin. Tempted free grace is a transgression with so loud a cry, it's heard all Heaven over.

Join hearty consent to all the actings and influences moral or physical of the Holy Ghost, and be not beaten from that. There is an anger vented in the Father as the offended law-giver pursuing all that are out of Christ. Ah, who can drink unmixed wrath, as Christ did, and live? And who may stand when he is angry? Then resisting is terrible.

There is vengeance in readiness, and grinding of men to powder, and everlasting burning for such as so far resist the Son, as they say, This man shall not reign over us.

But there is a vengeance beyond a vengeance, and fiery indignation, and more than an ordinary hell to such as resist the Spirit in the Prophets, and do despite to the Spirit of grace (Hebrews 10:28, 29, 30; Matthew 12:31, 32). Killing of the Prophets and slaying of them is a sort of killing of the Spirit in men, as the Jews killed the Lord of glory in the man Christ, and wished there were neither in the world, God nor the Spirit, nor God incarnate: and this is just as if men would put hands in so much of God and of the Spirit as they find acting anything of God in others or themselves. This hateful persecuting of godliness is the dreadful national sin of this age. Find you not the actings of the Spirit sweet and heaven-like? If so, it speaks a spiritual disposition.

Much of self-denial speaks much of the spirit: he who will be least his own is most God's, and partakes most of the divine nature. The spirit loves the room of self; I live not, but Christ (by his Spirit) lives in me (Galatians 2), and the spirit, to speak so, is the full predominant element in the acting (not that nature sinless is wholly dead and passive, as Familists and others teach) and self appears to be sunk into nothing, and is denied: as Matthew 10:20, It's not you that speak, but the spirit of your Father that speaks in you. Though they be living persons in their nature and being, Peter and John speaks: and yet the spirit so discourses and lays aside the creature called self, and sets up God, that as if self were annihilated and not there at all (I mind no Libertine annihilation) the spirit as the predominant speaks in the man and acts in him, rather than the man. And the Spirit of the Father, prays, preaches, reigns, acts, disputes, confesses in the believer. 1 Corinthians 15:10, But I laboured more abundantly than they all; then must I in Paul be preferred and exalted above John the beloved disciple, and all the eminent Apostles? O no; I laboured more abundantly; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Acts 6:10, And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which Steven spoke. He says not they were not able to resist and dispute against the sinful man Steven. Acts 4:8, Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said to them, and made answer to the persecuting rulers; this is a far other thing than if he had said, then answered Peter the Apostle; for Peter was before this, filled with the Holy Ghost, but now the Holy Ghost in a new fullness and flowing of heavenly influences in the man Peter is master-speaker. In the Prophets this is clear from 2 Peter 1:21, Prophecy came not of old by the will of man (though the Prophet was not compelled to prophesy, nor his will physically sunken down to nothing) but holy men of God spoke [in non-Latin alphabet], acted by the Holy Ghost. 1 Peter 1:11, The Spirit of Christ spoke in the Prophets before hand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. Though there be a difference between the speaking of a Prophet, and the acting of a believer; there is much of self in the Prophets, who bite with the teeth and cry peace. Micah sets himself against such, chapter 3:8, But truly (says he) I am full of power, by the spirit of the Lord, and of might, and of judgement to declare to Jacob his transgressions and to Israel his sin. There is little of self in children; the children of God ([in non-Latin alphabet], the word given to sucking children of two years old, Matthew 2:18, Acts 21:21) are like such as are learning to walk; there is little self-wisdom or of self-designs in the motions of young children. So does the spirit act with facility and without resistance in the sons of God; who may not see the color of self, and feel some savor of the creature and of self in men? O if we could savor in looking, speaking, acting, of the spirit! The rivers, lakes, and fountains issue themselves in the sea and be mixed therewith; it's the salt sea and not the rivers which ebb and flow: the under-acting of sinless nature in spiritual actings hinders not the work to be denied of the man and affirmed of the spirit; so as we say not the man, but rather God in the man acts and speaks. Indeed things are not denominated from their externals; a vessel of copper washed over with silver, or a cup of brass over-gilded and lustered with gold, is not, nor is named a vessel of silver or a cup of gold. Though we name things by their skin and out-side, yet when the hypocrite prays, the Lord says the man prays (Psalm 18:41), but the Spirit of God prays not in him. Nor does the Lord name Magus a true believer from his profession, only the Holy Ghost says, he believed. It's good when the conversation speaks heaven, and the spirit is visibly seen acting in the behavior and walk of men. It's true, there is much of renewed self (as 1 Corinthians 15:9, 10, Galatians 2:20, Romans 7:17, 22, 1 Corinthians 9:20, 21) in spiritual actings, and this heightens the excellency of the actions: corrupt self renders the act of praying and preaching wider and bigger, but not better and more excellent; especially in public renewed self renders it more excellent.

And 5. Not unlike to that touched before is a character of a spiritual man, when the man is spiritually bewildered, and doubts of all ways he walks in, except the way he is sure to be of God (Psalm 143:10). Teach me to do your will, your spirit is good, lead me into the land of uprightness. Hence these three follow. 1. The spiritual man doubts of all ways, and knows that he is a bewildered and ignorant traveller of himself, and knows not by his own light, 1. The way. 2. The home and lodging. Or 3. The guide. It says, the spiritual man judges the spirit of God a good leader and guide: it's no sophism à divisis, your spirit is good, you are a leader; therefore the spirit is a good leader and guide: it's much to have the faith fixed upon influences of daily guiding by God. 3. It says I am willing to commit my goings to you; Take the guiding of me; be father, guide, leader, tutor, king to me. All these speak spiritual bewilderedness; And those two are well joined. 1. Sense of bewilderedness; and 2. Praying to the one only guide in heaven and earth: Psalm 119:19. I am a stranger on earth: hide not your Commandments from me. The Commandments are the way, and a hid and covered way is a misery to a stranger or pilgrim. A frequent sight of ignorance and errors, and a being in love with the spirit's leading is good. Though a man could get the work through, be it praying, hearing, reading, warring, governing, eating and drinking, yet he is not satisfied with the bulk of the work, except the spirit be the doer. This gracious spirit looks not so much to praying as to praying in the Holy Ghost; nor to hearing as to hearing in the spirit of faith; nor to fighting, though David be stronger than the enemy, except the spirit of the Lord lead the army (Psalm 60:1, 2, 9, 10; Psalm 140:7, 8; Psalm 18:29, 30, 31). No, it's not enough to eat and drink except the spirit act the man to eat and drink for God. Men spend and waste away their actings, and call not for the spirit to get them compassed about. We are men abundance to build the Temple, and mighty Kings favor us, and work-men have strength in legs and arms to lay stones in the wall: O but that will not do it (Zechariah 4:6). Not by might, nor by power; but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts; and so only is the Temple builded.

6. There is a spiritual facility in the spiritual actings of a spiritual man. 1. The acting is connatural and easy when it comes from an inward principle; the stream naturally without violence flows from the fountain, and so does heat from the fire: nor is it any pain to the earth to fall down and descend, or for the light bodies, fire and air to ascend; it's neither toil nor labor to the Sun to give light: for all these come from principles internal. There is violence in the motion of a clock, and therefore the wheels shall be worn out by time; but the actings of the spirit are sweet and facile; grace makes the Commandments not grievous; it's no pain but easy to a gracious pastor to love Christ; it breaks neither leg nor arm to desire Christ and be sick for him, and to feed his flock for love to the chief shepherd. 2. Psalm 25:9. The meek will he guide in judgment, the meek will he teach his ways. It's easy for God, to guide any man, to guide and lead Lions and Unicorns; but in the very object there is a facility to counsel a broken and daunted spirit. If a man be in his flower and prime, and rich and mighty, healthy and prosperous, readily he will do but what he will; but if the man be in chains and broken and meekened with the rod of God, he is easily bowed and counselled to what is good; as iron red hot will bow and yield to the smitings of the hammer: it's hard to lead a Lion. The Lord speaks like the Lord to Job (chapter 39:9), Will the Unicorn be willing to serve you? or abide by your cribs? Can you bind the Unicorn with his band in the furrows? or will he harrow the valleys after you? But it is easy to bind a lamb. Meekness is easily led and drawn: when the spirit comes in, the man is made pliable for counsel; he is a plowed and a broken man, who says (Acts 9), Lord what will you have me to do? There was no pride in him, but the fullness of the spirit of the anointing above all his fellows and all mankind, who said, not my will, but your will be done. And if any living man should have had his will or a piece of his will, it was a man whose holy will could never crook; and it was now when sinless, holy, harmless nature was debating the greatest question that ever Heaven or Angels knew. But the fullness of the spirit bids him quit his will, and so he did. The sweet passive tractableness of the spirit of grace will enjoin the man to be ranged, bridled and led of God: there be some, whom God can neither lead nor drive: any inspiration falls upon him, a moral influence, this I should and ought to do; but I shall not, I will not do it let God do his best; and it is as if a burning coal were cast into the sea or river, will it burn the sea? Will it be welcomed and received? No, it's presently quenched. An unbroken Tyrant void of the spirit, when he heard that charge, Let my people go; They are my servants (says the Tyrant) not your people (Exodus 5:2). Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice, and let Israel go? Let his influences be lodged with meekness. O wrestle not against warnings, but yield to them! So are all gracious influences sweet, delectable and easy; is it pain, no it's sweet and pleasant for a field of Roses, of Vine-trees to receive showers and summer influences from the Sun and Heaven. It was sweet for the baptised man Christ to receive and lodge the Holy Ghost who came down in the form of a Dove on him in all his influences.

7. To act much in the spirit brings more abundance of the spirit. The more public the work be, the more is the man under the spirit. Christ must have been under mighty flowings of the spirit, who for the public catholic duty of redeeming mankind was willing to be suspended from the influences of his personal comfort, and to be under that sad cloud of being forsaken of God that God might embrace us. It's the proper work of the spirit to glorify God (John 16:14). He shall glorify me (says Christ of the spirit) for he shall receive of mine. Then the more we glorify God and Jesus Christ his Son we testify we partake the more of the flowings of the spirit. The Church has so much the more of the spirit that she is willing to bear the Lord's indignation, because she has sinned (Micah 7:9), and bear public sufferings to illustrate the glory of his justice.

2. We are also with Magdalen and other godly persons so far to be dead to the private comforts of love to Christ and his presence, and waiting about the grave to anoint his body, that we are to wait upon the more public duties of resting in, and of sanctifying of the Sabbath; though otherwise, the rescuing of the life of an ox be mercy above this sacrifice. If we have much of the spirit, we shall patiently submit to the Lord's dispensation of his sovereign withdrawing of influences of comfort, yes and delight in other inferior duties. What though he will not feast me with the apples of the tree of life, and suspend his comforts? What if he withdraw joyful influences of believing, of glorying, and rejoicing in the Lord, and feed the poor sinner with absence and exercise him with sad desertions?

3. It's a spiritual condition, when Christ casts in feelings, and discernable motions of the spirit, and not only knocks, but (Canticles 5:2, 4) puts in his hand by the hole of the door, if this follow, my bowels were moved for him. And it's a spiritual condition when the soul fails, and the spouse falls a swoon at these words, Open to me, my sister, my love, &c. (Canticles 5:2, 6). And these lesser feelings would be turned into consent, and into fixed resolutions; as the spouse, I opened to my beloved; I sought him, but I found him not; I called him, but he answered me not: and that came from the feeling of his hand, put in by the hole of the door, verse 4, compared with verse 6. For that word, Quench not the spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19), includes an affirmative; that is, cherish kindly and yield sweetly to the flowings and sweet influences of the spirit.

8. A watching condition is a spiritual condition. The Spirit of God is much seen in keeping the soul watching. Praying with all prayer and supplication in the spirit is joined with watching (Ephesians 6:18); for it's added, and watching thereunto with all perseverance: and Jude conjoins praying in the Holy Ghost, with looking for or watching after the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life (Jude 21). The spirit is willing (Matthew 26:4, forward, watchful, so is the renewed part,) but the flesh is weak, sleepy, and lazy; and as much as the man has of the spirit, so much holy watchfulness has he. And Matthew 25:26, the evil servant that dug his master's talent in the earth, is called wicked and slothful, sleepy, in opposition to the watching and painful servant, who (verse 20) gained five talents to five talents. Drowsiness counter-works the knockings and gracious influences of the Spirit of Christ's calling (Canticles 5), and answers Christ's piercing words Open to me, my sister, my love, &c. with a carnal excuse from drowsiness; it's not time of night for Christ to seek lodging; I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them (Canticles 5:3)? The flesh is a sleeping thing, and a dead: were we more diligent and painful we might be richer; lesser motions closed with become the seed of larger motions. The moving of the bowels at Christ's spiritual stirrings that he makes upon the heart grows to this, I rose to open to my well-beloved. Watching guards against sleeping, and watchfulness puts the soul upon a resolution to watch: sleeping guards no more against watching, than the privation fences off the habit, or does set a man to work against life. We sit not watchfully upon the motions of the spirit, to warm them and to draw life out of them, as the hen by careful sitting upon dead eggs brings forth living birds. Who would think a tree and a huge tree can come from a sorry plant? Or sixty or a hundred grains of wheat in harvest to be in one single grain cast in the earth in sowing time? Can the flesh wait for the Lord? Is not hope an act of life? Yes, it's lively hope opposite to a dead and rotten hope: and waking is nearer to life, and influences of life, than sleeping, which is the death of the man as touching the exercise of the sensitive life. Then since the spirit is a spirit of life, and a quickening and living spirit (Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 15), the more watchfulness in any, the more of the spirit; for when the spirit enters in the dry bones, they become an army of living men, whereas before they were farther from life and spirit than sleeping bones. Let us not sleep as do others: but let us watch, and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night (2 Thessalonians 5:6, 7). The night is far spent, let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, nor in strife and in envying (Romans 13:13). This is like the putting on of the Lord Jesus, which is a work of the spirit; for sleeping men put not on their garments. Ministers especially are to watch, yes to watch in all things: then in sleeping they must watch (2 Timothy 4:5). And hardly can fighting, and enduring hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, commended to the minister (1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 2:3), consist with sleeping, if we know how near Satan the roaring lion (who sleeps not) is to our quarters and camp (1 Peter 5:8). Who can sleep and be secure, and resist Satan? Or stand against him steadfast and fixed in the faith (verse 9)? Christ is much upon this, by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Watch, Watch, and pray; and lest it slip them again, I say to you, Watch (Matthew 26:38, 40, 45; Matthew 24:42; Matthew 25:13; Mark 13:23; Mark 14:38; Luke 17:26, 27, &c.; Luke 21:8, 38; chapter 2:2, 46). How can sleeping men receive influences of grace? Does the Lord cast influences upon sleeping men's bosoms? So are we to act as our acting way be fathered on the spirit; as the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, upon Sampson, and they fight, and the Spirit of the Lord upon Zechariah the son of Jehojadah, and he prophesied (2 Chronicles 24:20). Luke 1:64, the father of John Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied. Simeon came by the spirit into the Temple. This acting in the spirit is opposed to acting in the flesh, and in the spirit of Satan; as Bullinger of one brother who slew his brother, and pretended the spirit: and Pareus tells us the like. As the Lord the Father and Son never spoke to Abraham, Moses, to patriarchs or prophets, but he made them know it was the Lord; so neither does the spirit act in any, though the way seem violent, as in Phineas and Samuel, their executing of justice, but the Spirit makes it known that it is the Spirit, and that he is not in the mighty wind, nor in the fire, but in the calm voice. So Samuel leisurely and advisedly convinces Agag ere he kill him, and gives a reason to his conscience from divine justice (1 Samuel 35:32, 33), though Samuel then had laid down the sword. It's a useful word (Jude 20), Praying in the Holy Ghost; and (Ephesians 6:18) Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the spirit. What, is there a praying in the flesh? Yes, if preaching may be from a principle of the flesh, out of envy and strife (Philippians 1:15), so may praying be from some rotten principle of fleshly presumption. Lord, Lord, open to us. Which us? To us workers of iniquity (Matthew 25:11; Luke 13:25, 26). And second, some prayer flows from fleshly despair, and not from the spirit (Revelation 6:16): Mountains and rocks fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne. And third, the enemies of David cry to the Lord out of fleshly fear and unbelief, not in the spirit (Psalm 18:41). There is a praying out of deadness and from the flesh, not from the spirit: and often the mere office and the letter not the spirit prays and preaches out of the man; it's far from that praying (Romans 8:26). And learn to discern the literal fair influences in praying in the flesh, and the sweet, calm, fiery also, and spiritual paining influences of love-sickness (Canticles 5:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, &c.).

10. Conversing with spiritual men, born of the spirit of the same Father (John 5, John 3:1, John 3:14, Psalm 119:63), with Elias, leaning on Christ's bosom, in whom is fullness of the spirit, declares a spiritual man. None of the Disciples saw more spiritual and glorious visions than John in the book of the Revelation: he would have desired to lean on and dwell in Christ's heart, as in his bosom. Brethren love one another; the common nature and spirit of their Father dwells in them. Fowls of the same feathers and colours haunt together. Drunkards, malignants, swearers, love to be together: beware of wearying to haunt with the spirit and spiritual men, and to loath a spiritual ministry, and to look upon spiritual doctrine as upon fancies. If it be so with you, you shall back to the flesh-pots of Egypt again: it's a living near to the fountain to haunt much with the Saints; and as the streams are one in the well, so do the streams run in the same channel, and love to stick together. Natures of the same kind, lambs with lambs love to live together (Psalm 119:13): I am a companion of all them that fear you, and of them that keep your precepts. A part of the air keeps its being best in the whole element, whereas a part of the air is corrupted in the bowels of the earth, where it is out of its own element: a part of water is best preserved in being in the element of water; put it in a pit or hole of the earth it's alone, and it becomes rotten and unsavoury. The Saints keep their spiritual being with the excellent ones in whom is all their delight (Psalm 16:2), as being in their own element: and no wonder if it be their woe to dwell long in Mesech, and in Kedar's tents with such as hate peace (Psalm 120:5, 6; Psalm 57:4, 10). Nor is this to flatter such as separate from Christ and his ordinances; nor to say, Stand by yourself, come not near me; for I am holier than you (Isaiah 65:5), and yet they themselves remain among the graves and lodge in the monuments. Be rather frequenting hospitals of sick ones, making it your work to gain many; it's like to Christ (Luke 16:6, 7, 10; Matthew 9:10, 11, 12, 13; Luke 15). God ordinarily showers influences and promises influences to the flocking together of the godly, and the pouring of his spirit on them (Jeremiah 50:4, 5, 6; Zechariah 8:21, 22, 23; Malachi 3:16). And two speaking of Christ, Jesus himself comes in as third man (Luke 24:15, 16, 17, &c.), and as if they were the fit soil, he rains down influences of warmness and burning of heart on them while he opens the Scriptures to them (v. 32; see Acts 2:1, 2, 3, &c.; John 20:19). It's a spiritual condition to talk of spiritual purposes: when the well is full it must run over; when there is a treasure and abundance in the heart, the spirit comes to the tongue in Zachariah and Simeon (Luke 2:25, 27), and grace seethes and boils up to the tongue, when the conceptions of the King Christ are the good matter indited by the heart (Psalm 45:1). So to be filled with the spirit (Ephesians 5:18, 19), says Paul, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and Hymns, and spiritual songs: — Giving thanks always for all things to God is the spirit's work in his abundant influences. There is a spirit in men seen in language; the sea-man talks of winds; the husband-man of oxen and plowing; the soldier of battles and wounds; and the shepherd of flocks; and the spiritual man of Christ, redemption, imputed righteousness: and as the pilgrim's heart, and the pilgrim's tongue, the pilgrim's thoughts are all upon his way and his home; so is the spiritual man much upon eternity, heaven, Christ. For the three noble conferrers, the transfigured man Christ, glorified Moses, and Elias, speak of the celebrious heavenly subject, the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] and out-going of Christ when he was to leave the world. The man has been full of God who could not refrain from speaking of the Lord's testimonies before kings; and princes have no great list to hear but of state matters and of conquering new kingdoms (Psalm 119:46). The rotten, unsavoury, worldly and carnal speeches of many, bewray how little of the spirit is within them. It was Christ who had the fullness of the anointing of the spirit within him (Psalm 48:8): I delight to do your will, O my God, your law is within my heart. In sea and land, and house and field, by the way side journeying, at every table when he should have eaten he made good that word (ver. 9): I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips you know, O Lord. 10. I have not hid your righteousness within my heart, I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation: I have not concealed your loving kindness from the great congregation. Influences of grace are required for this; as pag. 45.