Chapter 1

CHAP. I.

Of divers sorts of influences.

Having formerly spoken of influences of grace in general, we are now to descend to more specials: Hence these particulars.

1. Some influences are from Satan, some from God.

2. The way of Satan's influences.

3. It's lawful to dispute with Heretics, instruments of Satan, but not lawful to dispute with Satan.

4. Christ sought neither the Tempter nor the temptation.

5. Some influences are natural, some supernatural.

6. Some moral, some physical.

7. Some prophetical, some not.

8. Some public on the Church, some personal.

9. Some influences are given for the habit of grace or gifts, some for the act, some for both.

10. Some proper to the head Christ, some for the members.

11. Some influences are fundamental, some not.

12. Some influences are given for saving graces actings; some for the actings of a gift.

13. Differences between acting of grace, and acting of gifts.

14. Some influences are viatorum, of such as are in the way to their countrey; some are comprehensorum, of perfected ones; some of grace, some of glory.

For the fuller opening of the doctrine of influences: some influences are from Satan, some from God. Influences from God are both moral, when he commands good, and forbids evil; and real and physical, in that all move in him, as the first cause and mover in operations of nature. 2. of grace. 3. of glory. But Satan being no Master or Lord of providence, has no real stirring in second causes; his actings upon angel or mens souls are not physical, but only moral or tempting actings, or hellish inspirations inductive to sin; and it's no small mercy that the Prince and God of a lost world, who by permission acteth really on the air, earth, and waters, yet has no power of immediate, real, or physical acting upon mind, will, affection, and conscience, he having only a borrowed key, and at the second hand power to suit the heart, by fancy, senses, and outward objects (1 Kings 22:22; John 13; Acts 5:3). Some one way or other the court-gate of Achab's heart, of Judas, of Ananias and Sapphira, lie open to Satan's scout-watches. It were safer to watch and fear, than to dispute how that subtle Spirit can blow up the lock and get in; for he knows not what is in a man's spirit. The spirit of a man is under God, the only keeper of this castle, and knows rooms, doors, and what is within (1 Corinthians 2:11). But devils lying about the out-works, the senses, the fancy, and the imagination, which is a material house, and has doors, windows, and entries passible to devils; he can here blow the bellows, and kindle iron works.

There be two ways to know the secrets that are done in a cabinet-chamber. 1. Satan can send in posts with letters, and write his [illegible], his wiles to the heart. This is one way of putting it in the heart of Judas to betray Christ, by sending his mind and will through the fancy to the heart, and the fancy being set on work by the will and understanding, can carry the missive letter; else how could the Lord rebuke the sin of actual imaginations? as he does (Jeremiah 9:4; Jeremiah 13:10; Jeremiah 18:11, 12; Nahum 2:11).

2. The heart can write back an answer of the missive letters, and print it on the fancy. We know there is fire in the house by the smoke that comes out at the chimney. A man may speak out at a window to another. Satan conveyed by the serpent's tongue, and by Eve's eyes, the living thoughts of a Godhead growing on the tree, and can send in a word of a message to the heart, All these will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me. And you shall have thirty pieces of silver, if you will deliver up the Lord to us; and from the sons of disobedience he gets a return; he knew what Achab should answer to the 400 Prophets, and heard that, You shall go, and also prevail. And reason would say since all Satan's prevailings have these two: 1. A commission sought and obtained to tempt Job c. 1. and as particular as if written, as is clear v. 12. Or a sentence of the great Judge to punish sin (1 Kings 22:20, 21, 22, 23; 2 Samuel 24:1). 2. It may appear that the lictor and executioner, though he know not the heart and the thoughts of the Judge directly, yet he knows his own written commission, and what sentence he is to execute, and what mischief he shall do (1 Kings 22:22), as the executioner knows whether the sentence bear heading or hanging.

2. Ananias is blamed for Satan's lie that he put in his heart, Why has Satan filled your heart (it's like there were a good many seeming arguments moved by Satan to promote the work in Ananias) to lie to the holy Ghost? Then though Satan's knocking and active tempting be not our sin; for our Savior was tempted by Satan, yet without sin; yet he has so access to the heart, as our yielding and being passively tempted with any degree of inclination to the temptation, is our sin.

3. Neither may we dispute or racket arguments with Satan.

Object. We may dispute with Heretics, and convince them, though they be Satan's instruments (Titus 1:9; Titus 3:10), and the blind man (John 9) hold up a dispute in defence of Christ against the Pharisees; therefore we may dispute with Satan himself.

Answ. Men, to whose ears the Gospel comes, are to be gained by the power of the truth (2 Timothy 2:24, 25). We are commanded to confess Christ before men, not before devils. This end is not attainable in the fallen Angels; therefore Christ rebukes Satan's confessing of him (Luke 4:34, 35).

Obj. Christ holds up dispute with Satan (Matthew 4).

Answ. We are to follow what is ordinary in Christ's disputing, that is, to reject Satan's temptations, not brutishly and irrationally (that is not victory over Satan by the light of faith) but by evidence of Scripture, and must refuse to yield to the temptation, and refuse in faith.

2. There is something extraordinary in this, which we cannot follow; for the second Adam here as Mediator carries the person of all the tempted ones, as the first Adam did represent all his, and gives a proof that he is Michael, stronger than the Dragon; and that all the tempted seed are by faith to rely on the strength of the tempted Savior.

3. Nor did Christ hold up or entertain the dispute with Satan; he only gave one simple answer to every temptation, It is written. Nor had the dispute

1. Its rise from Christ. Christ is rather a patient for our instruction, than an agent as touching the rise of the temptation; for Matthew says, [in non-Latin alphabet], the tempter came to him; then Christ fetched neither the tempter, nor the temptation, or dispute.

2. Satan brought him to the holy city (Matthew 4:5). [in non-Latin alphabet] — [in non-Latin alphabet], Satan set him on a pinnacle of the Temple, v. 8. [in non-Latin alphabet], the Devil took him to an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. Then did not the man Christ go as from himself to the pinnacle of the Temple, nor to the exceeding high mountain to fetch and bring on himself the temptation or the dispute. See (Luke 4:5, 6, 7, 8). Yes, divines think he submitted that his holy body should be so far acted upon by Satan. So (Mark 1:12), the Spirit drives him [in non-Latin alphabet], casts him violently to the desert. Eve entertains a dialogue with Satan: 1. She speaks by way of complaining of God; 2. And doubtingly of the Lord's word of threatening (Genesis 3). Saul (1 Samuel 28) seeks after Satan, and makes a journey to him. Some influences of God are 1. upon the act, yet so as they are willingly received by us; 2. Though they be terminated upon the material act under transgression, yet is there neither moral warrant nor persuasion to the sinfulness from the Lord, but the contrary. But when the influence is to gracious acts, there are many strong allurements from precept, promise, threatening, to move us to close with the gracious act, and virtually with the real influence. 3. Satan's influences are to shameful acts, to walking naked; 2. To bloody delusions, to kill the children to Molech; 3. To unwarrantable delusions, to lay aside Scripture, and walk in the dark, attending on unwritten dreams.

2 Division. Some influences of God are ordinis naturalis, natural; he commands the Sun to rise; he sends rain, and joins his concurrence to the things of nature. Some are ordinis supernaturalis, supernatural; such as are of the Father choosing; 2. Of the Son. If Christ died without the camp, that he might sanctify the people with his blood (Hebrews 13:12), and if by his will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10), then sure sanctifying influences must be bought and purchased for his chosen people. The doubt is yet answered more fully; what a wise man has deliberately bought, and with the price of blood, he must bestow that for the end for which he has bought it. Then Christ must bestow saving influences for sanctifying his people. We look too much to what we cannot do, and too little in this business to what Christ must do, upon the necessity of his offices, of his bargain of redemption that he has closed; he must work in his own to will and to do until the end.

3 Division. Some influences are moral, some physical and real. The moral influences are the persuading actings of God from the word of precept, of promise, of threatening, from the Law, from the Gospel; such are common to all within the visible Church. Hence from these flow warnings, inspirations, holy motions, strong convictions, that Christ is to be followed, all are to be forgone and cast overboard that we may gain him, in regard of these. Christ stands at the door and knocks (Revelation 3:20). Thousands refuse to open to him; as howbeit the word carries along with it the high and glorious authority of the Law-giver, the promise of a kingdom, the threatening of everlasting chains; yet it works but morally, and the robber in the woods laughs at the paper-laws, and at the far-off general justice that is in cities, which cannot reach the robbers that are in woods; so moral influences from the word bear in upon the thought afar off a letter-heaven, or a literal hell, with a suspicion of lying unbelief; these are but fables. But when the Lord in real influences lays hands on the sinner, the man is then as if he were at the bar; the robber on whose legs and arms the law has laid bolts and iron fetters, and is really wrought upon by more than literal influences, as Saul for three days speaks supplications. And when the influences physical of God are upon the soul of the spouse, then love itself and love-sickness speak with sense, His love is better than wine. O he is the chief among ten thousand. Many thousand professors live and die under letter-influences, and a paper-New-Testament; they hear, read, know the word, are baptized, and deceive their own souls, and have but seen (as James says) their image in the glass, and forget themselves. Such never knew heart-sickness, nor the terrors of God, nor any real work on the conscience: then seek heart-drawing, and heart-divinity.

4. Some influences are moral and ordinary of some professors; some are prophetical and extraordinary. Now as to these which are prophetical, it may be a question whether they be real and physical, or only moral. It seems there are two things here, 1. The visions. 2. The publishing of them. As to the first, Jeremiah sees the rod of an Almond-tree, and a seething pot, and the face of it toward the North. Ezekiel sees a whirlwind and a cloud out of the North, and fire infolding it self, and the color of amber out of the midst of the fire, and the likeness of four living creatures, and every one of them had four faces, and four wings, &c. And Daniel saw a ram with two horns, one higher, another lesser, pushing northward, and westward, and southward, &c. It's clear these were real visions, and had real influences of God carrying them into their mind really, and they could not shun but they were in an extasie, and God really made them see as to the publishing of them, just as they saw them. They seem to be moral agents, yet so as Caiaphas could not shun to prophecie; nor could Balaam, when his eyes were opened, and he falling in a trance, but see the visions of the Almighty, and could not goe beyond the word of the Lord, but must prophetically bless (and no more thanks and praise can be due to them in so doing, then to Satan confessing Christ to be the Son of God (Luke 4.)). So are many, who are convinced, and tremble at the word, and when the terrours of God, and a fever or ague of the pressing indignation of God takes them, declare God to be righteous, and themselves guilty, are but little praise-worthy: for the Law acting in a natural conscience, is another party representing God the Judge; and when such turn again to their vomit, as there be many false births of this kind, how prodigiously profane are such? For they carry about Satan's light of a natural conscience, and their own profane hearts: so dreadful it is to doe violence to light which speaks from God. Saul at the beginning of his reign, and Demas, and some others, are hellish examples of apostacy to cause others fear.

5. There are some personal influences upon a single man that are more private, which are very desirable: but there be some more public influences on the Church; so the Lord walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and raines down ministerial blessings on his Church, holds the stars on his right hand, and waters his Church. So (Isaiah 27:2) A garden of red wine. 3. I the Lord doe keep it: I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Beside protection that the Lord is the keeper of the Vineyard, and Christ answers for the vines, the mystical body is like a parcel of ground subject to drought and withering, and Christ with showres of influences must water our withering, and he leading captivity captive, and ascending on his coronation-day, sent down royal gifts, Apostles, Prophets, Pastors on his body mystical, which also is made visible by him. The times of sweet refreshing showres, and of the singing of the birds under the Messiah's Kingdom, require that we exercise our faith in looking toward these promises. When the heavens seem to be heavy, and (as it were) with child of Summer-rain (Ezekiel 34:26): I will make them and the places round my hill a blessing, and I will cause the showers come down in his season, there shall be showres of blessings. It's not rain for grass or corn, but of spiritual influences upon Emmanuel's land, where floods and rivers run milk and wine (Isaiah 55:1), as also (Isaiah 32:3): The eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. 4. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak plainly. Then is that true also (Isaiah 35:1): The desart shall rejoyce and blossome as a rose. 5. The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the eares of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desart. 7. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of waters: in the habitation of dragons where each lay (shall be) grass with reeds and rushes. And that all this is a prophecie of showres of influences of grace upon the holy people under the New Testament, is clear v. 8. And an high-way shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those; the way faring men, though fools, shall not erre (therein.) 9. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall goe up thereupon, it shall not be found there: but the redeemed shall walk there. Were all the stones and rocks of a Land turned into gold, it should prove that the Sun had most strong influences on that land. The stony hearts under the New Testament are changed into new hearts (Ezekiel 36:26), and a people of hard mettal of iron and stone, transformed into precious stones, Carbuncles, Agats, Saphires; and that made true, All your children shall be taught of God (Isaiah 55:11, 12). This does evince that the influences of God shall be mighty in those who believe under the New Testament, even the exceeding greatness of his power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places. Such things say that such as live under the Gospel would say what a change is made in them. The Gospel finds you stones and iron, and leaves you stones and iron; O but that is sweet, Christ found me clay, and now I am gold, as the man (John 9:25): One thing I know, that where I was blind, now I see. (1 Timothy 1:13) Once I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an injurious person, but I obtained mercy. Ah it's a hard condition, born an heir of wrath, dying worse then an heir of wrath; for sin original, and the habit of wickedness was but a little brook when the reprobate man was born; but when he dies, it's a mighty river, and a great sea. What has the Gospel done to you? It's more then the power of the Sun, it's a strong influence of God the first cause, that makes clay gold, and common earth silver, and copper, and brass. Many cannot tell where Christ found them, and where they are now.

If there be such summer-showers of heavenly influences under Christ, how is our fleece dry? And many are rained upon green, and the bones flourishing like an herb and a lily, and you are dry. This is not seen; profaneness is exceeding profane, and is twice, yes seven times profaneness under Gospel-influences. The Gospel-devil is fiercer, and more a devil (to speak so) than the Indian devil. O but the Gospel makes a sad addition to wickedness, Gospel-swearing, Gospel-whoring, Gospel-drunkenness, are worse than Sodom's filthiness (Matthew 10:15). There is an unperceived vengeance that cleaves to every Judas; the man who is long in Christ's company; and sees and hears what Christ does, and what he says, his treachery is twice, yes seven times treachery. Spilt and rotten wine is a worse liquor than fountain-water; some water is better than some wine.

How blessed then is that, this man and this man was born in Sion! To be born and dwell in a land where Christ dwells, speaks mercy: To be a plant of a young vine where the garden of red wine is, must be a mercy; to be a plot of ground that Christ plows; to be a branch that the Father of Christ purges that it may bring forth more fruit, is an incomparable mercy. You might have been born in China, in America, in Brasilia, where Satan dwells; but you were born in a land of vine-trees and olive-trees. To be born in the Church (though men despise it) and in covenant with God, and to be baptized, is to be born in Paradise, in the borders of heaven; for there is the Gospel and the Prince, who both can promise and give Heaven.

Some are influences for the habit, others for the act of grace. Influences for the habit, as (Isaiah 44:3): I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring. A land that rains showers of rain and milk, and rains down showers of glory and grace, must be the glory of all lands, and it must needs be an excellent and a glorious Sun that shines upon that land. There are influences for heavenly dispositions. Christ speaks and opens the Scriptures to them, and their hearts burn within them (Luke 24:32). Every word of Christ casts in a fiery coal of love: every sitting down under the apple-tree brings sweetness; he has influences by which he brings on love-sickness (Canticles 5:7, 8). Christ casts in a praying disposition on Saul, Behold he prays (Acts 8), and casts in a mourning disposition on the woman that washed his feet with tears; and a disposition of love, she loved much, so she wept over Christ's feet, and kissed them, and wiped them with the hair of her head. He cast in a hearing disposition in Mary (Luke 10), a love-sickness after Christ in the Spouse (Canticles 2), a mourning disposition on Peter, he weeps bitterly. There are influences by which Christ acts in us, and the spirit acts in us to will and to do (Philippians 2:13), and the spirit groans and prays in the Saints (Romans 8:26). Christ by his influences makes some one new work or other what he has done in you. Are you a dry eunuch, and the heath in the wilderness? And are you the dried up fig-tree, and withered up by the root, neither leaves nor fruit? God will blast brambles, and cast them over the hedge, and deny Sun and rain to them. Some there be on whom Christ never acted as Christ; they are in the shadow all their life, and never saw nor felt the Sun.

7.Divis. There be some influences proper to the head Christ, some peculiar to the members. O what rare actings upon the Son, (Psalms 45:2) "Grace is poured in your lips." v. 7. "God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness." "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. 2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Isaiah 61:1). In which words are holden forth the influences of the Lord in their fullness, the anointing of the spirit of the Lord upon the head Christ, and the influence of that anointing upon the members, to wit, on the meek, on the broken-hearted, on the captives, on those that are bound and sold. Then says the man Christ, the Spirit of the Lord has sent the strong and fountain-influences of the abounding anointing on me, and I may send the fruits of these holy influences upon the meek to preach to them glad tidings, that they may believe, and influences upon the broken hearts, that they may be bound up, and influences on the captives and prisoners, and the sold and oppressed with debt, that they may be made free. For binding up of hearts and freeing of captives and prisoners are impossible without the healing influences of Christ. Then (says he) God lets out to me and to the members; [illegible] the head receive anointing, and a full fountain, and I issue out streams and life to the members. Look then as the dry earth has a sort of connatural right of means and end to the full clouds and bottles of heaven, and the rain in the clouds, and the cold and dead earth has a sort of connatural right, by the Lord's holy appointment, to the influences of the Sun; so by a decree of free grace, the broken-hearted, the meek, the captives, the prisoners have a right of means in order to the end, to the influences of compassion and tenderness, and of real grace, that in its fullness is in the soul and heart of the Mediator Christ, toward their brokenness bondage and misery who are his. Then may the captive and prisoner claim influences from Christ, as the dry earth in its kind suits and begs that rain that is in the bosom and womb of the clouds for its refreshments. And so much the more that fullness of Christ's anointing is not only ordered by a free and gracious decree as the means for this end, to supply the emptiness of the meek and the poor captives, but 2. also which is more, the influences of the fullness of Christ's anointing is due by way of merit, and of buying and selling to those captives, as when there is a large price of blood given for to redeem the man in his vain conversation (1 Peter 1:18), from the present evil world (Galatians 1:15), from the living to sin and in sin (1 Peter 2:24), from all iniquity and the bondage and filthiness thereof (Titus 2:14). There is a due right in law, by way of bargain and payment, made to Justice upon Christ's part, that such ought not to be detained slaves, captives, and prisoners. Now the earth has no such right by buying, nor any Jus emptionis, to have rain and influences from the clouds and the sun; for the Lord may without violation of any bargain turn the earth into iron, and the heavens into brass. And so may the Lord simply and absolutely deny the fruits of Christ's anointing, binding up of wounds, and freedom to the broken-hearted, and to the captives and slaves of sin, for any deserving in them. Yet as touching the bargain and engagement of redemption from sins, and the dominion, masterdome, and law imprisonment thereof, the meek and the captives have a more noble right in the surety Christ, by way of buying and selling, to the healing influences of Christ's holy anointing, than the world can express. See also how the spirit in its fullness is given to Christ (Isaiah 11:2): "The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." "I will put my spirit on him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles" (Isaiah 42:1). These be mighty influences on him, to whom (said John the Baptist) God gave not the spirit by measure (John 3:34). 3. There is a right of promise to influences (Revelation 2:7, 17, 26; Revelation 3:12, 20, 21; John 14:18, 21; John 15:1, 2). In Christ promissio facit legale jus, Christ, as it were, owes me showers of grace; for he promised to water me. This promise is a draught of the river of life to the deadened spirit. 4. There is a mystical dueness and connatural love-right: the head by nature's law is a sort of debtor for influences of life to the members.

Here are sweet grounds for the streams to beg from the fountain, the members dry and withering from the living head.

2. It was fit there should be another higher providence about the head, than about the members, and so more admirable and transcendent influences extended toward Christ, than toward any of the sons of men, as that a new star should be created at his birth.

That 2. God should give testimony of him from heaven immediately, "This is my beloved Son," &c.

3. That Angels, immediate messengers from heaven, should preach his birth-day and place (Luke 2), should minister to him in his agony in the garden; should watch the corpse of this King sleeping in the grave; should witness his ascension. And what mighty influences above nature must be in his raising the dead, commanding devils, &c. In his coming down from heaven to be man, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily; and that the holy body should ascend visibly through the air, and through the heavens, cleaving, yielding, and giving way to him. What influences in that the clouds are his chariots, and that the man Christ intercedes at the right hand of God, and sends influences of life all the world over to his members, rules all empires and kingdoms, the languishing and fainting believer is comforted? O how suitable is Christ's fullness and life to my death and emptiness!

3. These must be strong influences, that with the anointing (Isaiah 61:1, 2) is given a power to preach the year of vengeance, to judge and trample upon the necks of all his enemies; that the man Christ shall come visibly and locally from the highest heavens, and the heavens bow and yield to his blessed manhood, when he comes with his mighty Angels to judge all.

And he sends 4. influences of judgments through the stars which fight against his enemies (Judg. 5:20), through winds, seas and rivers, fire and sword, and evil angels that are armed against his enemies (Exod. 14:21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28; Exod. 15:10, 11, 12; Judg. 5:21; Gen. 19:23, 24, 25; Numb. 16. 31, 32, 33; Psal. 78. 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, &c.). All which teach us not to murmur at providence, government of the world. Why say we, this is sad, and yet fallen out? God might otherwise have disposed of all, and we reflect upon his providence, while as we offend at second causes, but be comforted in a new world, and in a more glorious providence of influences in ruling heaven and earth, and in carrying the chosen of God to glory, then if all were ruled to our will.

1. None shall wither or be blasted that are planted in Christ, and committed to his husbandry.

2. We could not in the other first providence, which was before sin entered into the world, have claimed to influences of glory from the fulness of the anointing that is in Christ; for Christ then was not the public good, and communicable treasure of his redeemed, he was not our God, nor our Emmanuel, nor our Goel or Kinsman-redeemer, but a reserved and estranged God to be made our God by our own earning and law-merit.

3. The Lord Jesus was infinite God, and the fountain as large as now; but he was not our own fountain, nor the influences and waterings due to in our witherings as now.

4. Christ is made the new great Lord, Factor, and public Agent for his Church, to rule all for their good and salvation; and heaven, and earth, and the world, and life, and death, and things present, and things to come, are put over in Christ's hands; the morrow, the next year's deliverance, the believer's outgoing in death, are all made over to Christ, and then in Christ all things are ours (1 Cor. 3:21), and the watering of my witheredness, and the quickening of my deadness hic & nunc, in this same moment of time is first Christ's, and I got it seasonably from him in a better time and way then according to my time and way.

Object. Many things fall out which may be well otherwise.

Answ. Not so; one godly husbandman prayers for rain to his ground, another godly husbandman prays for drought, as more useful for his field, for he has rain enough. Now is it not good that there is a wise providence in Christ, which fits both their prayers, and does the business well? A number of believers are to fail to such a land, they pray for a North-east-wind; another number of believers are to sail to another land, they suit from the Lord a South-west-wind; is it not best that Christ in his new spiritual providence take a course to hear both their prayers, to deny both the winds they suit, and to bring both in his own way to their desired harbours.

Object. 2. It were better God should hear the prayers of his people in their straits.

Answ. The Lord neither casts off his foreknown people nor their prayers, though visible Israel externally called be rejected.

2. God hears wicked men's prayers, and grants them not in a way of promise, but in his wrath (1 Sam. 8:22; 1 Sam. 12:13; Hos. 13:11; Psal. 78. 20, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30).

3. God hears the prayers of his people in way of promise which is better then simple hearing. See the judicious Treatise of the servant of God Mr. Gee.

Obj. 3. Many wicked men are green and flourishing, that they may swallow Jacob.

Answ. Nor is it evil that the Lord's fire in Sion be hot and fierce, that he may remove the dross, though the coals that melt the gold be digged out of hell, and their flaming against his people sinful and cruel; it is not only in relation to him, who is above his laws, binding angels and men; not evil, but equally done in wisdom and righteousness; for as much may be said by carnal reason in the Lord's efficacious permission of sin, which he may hinder in the reprobate, as well as some way he hindered it in the elect angels, and in chosen heirs of glory. 1. Against the wisdom. 2. goodness. 3. sovereignty. 4. righteousness. 5. and love of God, as Jesuits, Arminians, Socinians, and others say against the holiness of God. No earthly Father but he should fail both against natural love, goodness, and wisdom, should he permit, if he could hinder, his children to commit sins, which shall procure their eternal misery and woe. Let all flesh be silent, here is holy dominion.

8. Divis. Some influences of Christ are fundamental, and simply necessary, and principally promised; some not fundamental, and less necessary.

1. The influences by which the Lord gives a circumcised (Deut. 30:6), an one and single (Ezek. 11:19, 20), a soft and a new heart and spirit (Ezek. 36:26; Zech. 12:10; Isa. 54:13; John 6:45; Isa. 44:1, 2, 3) — these are simply necessary.

2. These influences are also fundamental, in which the Lord promises and does put in act the habit of grace for the persevering of believers (Ezekiel 36:27; Isaiah 54:10; Isaiah 59:21; Psalm 1:3, 4; Psalm 89:28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35; John 10:27, 28, 29; John 15:1, 2). If Christ plant, his planting lays on him some necessity, so far to give watering-influences, as not to suffer his planted trees to dry up by the roots, and to wither root and branch; and Christ so builds on a rock his people and believers, never to be prevailed against by the ports of hell; as he must watch the city that it be not surprised, nor the living stones hammered to nothing, and removed off the rock and the foundation Christ. Christ so buys with a price his own, that he carries them on to the purchased glory, and brings them actually to the fruition of life eternal; for Christ is an established high Priest to intercede for his own, and the intercession of Christ is nothing but a continual showering down upon the redeemed ones new vigorous influences as the head, so long as it lives, night and day, sleeping and waking, sends down influences of life to the members: ever-living and ever-interceding Christ is the fountain, running along through the roots of the Lord's planting, so that they are ever green, ever blooming and budding, and in old age bring forth fruit (John 14:19; Isaiah 27:3). Christ interceding is that live fire on the Altar (Isaiah 6), ever sending forth live flamings, and heat of life through his live coals to all his (John 14:19). "Because I live, you shall live also." Now there is no interruption of Christ's living by sickness, sleeping, or death, and so he lives always. Just as the sunbeams and rays of light and heat are kept in their being by the presence of the body of the Sun, casting out these influences, and the darting out of heat, and warmness, and light, and the flamings are kept in being by the presence of the fire, which by new fuel is continued still in the act of flaming; so are the Saints kept still in a spiritual living, being by Christ issuing out his influences upon them. So sweet is the union of dependency daily and momently upon Christ that blessed root of Jesse. Ah, if we knew what it were to live in Christ, to breath in Christ, pray in him, love in him, rejoice in him, suffer and triumph in him, praise in him, wait in him for the Lord; but our actings, separated from Christ and his influences of life, not known to be such, through our unwatchfulness are dreadful. Now there be some single influences hic & nunc, that the Saints may want and be saved; as the influence necessary for Peter's confessing of Christ when he denied him; the influence by which David should have been guarded against the temptation to adultery and murder, the Lord may withdraw such influences, that the fallen Saints may know that they stand by grace; and therefore from the Lord's withdrawings hic & nunc, let us not conclude we are out of Christ, yet we are not to be slack, but in trembling and godly fear to keep near to Christ, and censure not the Lord for withdrawing of his influences, since he stands obliged by his holy covenant not to deny the substantial and fundamental influences by which we shall be saved, and persevere to the end.

9. Divis. There be some influences in which the Lord concurs with the actings of saving grace; as of faith, love, hope, and other influences, in which the Lord concurs with the actings of a mere gift, or other principles, possibly the flesh, custom, &c. and it were good to know the difference between the one and the other.

Psalm 57:8. "Awake my glory, awake psaltery and harp;" and so he speaks to the gift of music to awake and be concurrent in the praising of God, and stirs up the grace of God in himself to praise, when he says I myself will awake early, he teaches that gift and grace should concur and be stirred up in spiritual duties of praying and praising: hence how we may know when we act from a gift, and when we act from saving grace these Assertions following.

Assert. 1. Some sinful sleepiness of the flesh may concur in both the acting of the gift and of the grace; for David bidding both his harp, and so the gift of music awake, and himself awake, teaches some sinful dulness was upon both one and the other. So when David excites his soul and all that is within him to bless the Lord (Psalm 103:1), he insinuates that in praising of God fleshly dulness may come upon all that is within him, both the powers of the soul, and the habit of grace and gift, and the skill of singing: it's much to get the fountain made clean in our actings.

2. How condescending is his mercy, who denies not his influences of grace to us, though the flesh be acting often, and retarding the spirit in our actings?

Assert. 2. We are to take heed that we knock not at the wrong door: we may pray and preach from a gift of praying and human eloquence, and a civilized and well-skilled fancy, and a literal mind versed in the letter of the Scripture, when we think that we are praying from the spirit of adoption, and the gracious habit of praying. So the like may be said of preaching, and singing praises; how many prophesied and cast out devils from a mere gift, and die in that deluded condition, and are possessed with that habitual mistake (which is never tried) that they prophesied and cast out devils from a sanctified principle? Read Matthew 7:22, 23, 24; Luke 13:25; Matthew 25:11, 12.

If any say, May not sound believers also blow at the wrong hearthstone and think the like?

Answ. There may be a particular mistake in this or that act, but not an habitual deluded condition all their life; as sometimes the believer may pray from mere custom, when there is little stirring of the spirit.

Assert. 3. It's not enough to do the same that heathens do; for if you love them that love you, what reward have you? And if you salute your brethren only (not your enemies also) what do you more than others? So Christ (Matthew 5) to the multitude, and to the disciples (Matthew 5:1, 46). Believers then should not stint themselves to only publicans and heathens duties. Samuel speaks as a man, as Samuel when he calls Eliah the Lord's anointed (1 Samuel 16), and supposes that he speaks as a Prophet; so does Nathan (1 Samuel 16:6, 7; 2 Samuel 7:3). There is a vast difference between (thus says the Prophet by the Lord) and (thus says the man) and therefore where are we when our righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees? The devils believe there is one God, and they do well (James 2:19), and we fools say in our hearts there is no God (Psalm 14:1), and do we well in so saying? The devils do tremble when they believe there is one God: ah, Satan believes in sad earnest when he believes! We sport, yes do not we laugh and mock at a Godhead, or at the word of a hell? The faith conveyed with godly trembling were good: ah, that we know not the influences of God conjoined with the out-lettings of a gift, and of a temporary faith, and the influences that go along with the out-letting of saving grace, as touching the matter!

Assert. 4. Hardly can the use of a gift ascend above itself to intend God and his glory; for the glory of God is grace's end, not gift's end. Zechariah 7:5: When you fasted, did you at all fast to me? 6. And when you did eat, and when you did drink, did you not eat for yourselves? And did not you drink for yourselves? That is, did not you yourselves eat as carnal men? Did you not eat, and drink, and feast, and fast? He means the spirit of grace in them did not keep these religious fasts and feasts, but their own spirit, and custom, and self; and did you fast for me at all? And he doubles the word, that so he may the more convince them, even for me? So the Lord might say to the Pharisees who prayed in the streets, Did you at all pray to me, even to me? Or did the gift and vain-glory in you, or the spirit in you? So he may say to us, Do you preach, hear, swear a covenant for me at all? Saving grace must sanctify the gift in its use and end, that it be for God; but a gift can never sanctify saving grace in its use and end. As grace which is above nature sanctifies nature, and heightens nature in its actings, principles, and end; but nature, that is below grace, can never sanctify and heighten grace in its actings, principles, and ends.

Assert. 5. The same sun, the same air and heaven, send the same influences on the true and natural olive, and on the wild olive; the same clouds and rain act upon the vine-tree and the thorn-tree, upon the rose, and the briar, and the nettle; and so the same word comes to the ears of both elect and reprobate, but not the same quickening influences of grace upon both. Saul governs, and leads the armies of the Lord by a gift; and David governs, feeds, and leads the armies of the Lord by the grace of God, and the same word of command lays an obligation upon both; false Apostles preach Christ from a gift, and labor by a gift, but Paul labors not as Paul, but the grace of God in him. The virgins are drawn and run (Canticles 1), and John is drawn and runs; but the same lively influences act not upon the one and other. It is a deluding conclusion, we have eaten and drunk where Christ was present, and his saints present, therefore the Lord should open to us; and Christ has preached and his faithful Prophets in our hearing, in our streets, therefore should we be admitted into the Bridegroom's chamber (Luke 13:25). What can then be built on this? I was at the Lord's Supper, where undoubtedly Christ was in his influences of life; I did swear a covenant to God, I preached the Gospel, I heard ordinarily such a Preacher in whom undeniably the Spirit of God spoke, and was intimately acquainted with him, and loved him dearly, and shall that man be saved, and I thrust in hell? The great error is, men try not their ways, principles, motives, and ends.

Now as touching influences of grace, it is not as when the same hand smites upon the string of the harp well tuned, and on another string of the harp that is mistuned; it's the same word that sounds in the ears of these in the visible Church, but not the same spirit of grace in the same saving influences that act upon the heart. Yes, the spirit leaves the heart of some to its own deadness, and acts upon others to bring them to wonder, to be amazed and astonished, and leaves them there; and acts upon a third sort, to leave a strong conviction and a work of humiliation upon them; but it does no good, it's nothing above a law-work mixed with some letter of the Gospel. And the Spirit works in some a lively sound work of saving grace; and the same word is the common instrument in all. So our Savior's enumeration of four sorts of hearers takes in all (Matthew 13). How many wonder, and despise, and persecute (Luke 4; Mark 7; Mark 9; Matthew 12; John 11; Acts 3; Acts 4, &c.)?

2. Influences of the spirit saving and lively are called by the names of the Father's drawing, of the Bridegroom's drawing (John 6:44; Canticles 1:4), the Spirit's leading (Romans 8:14), the Lord's teaching (Isaiah 54:13; John 6:45), the blowing and breathing of the wind upon the garden (Canticles 4:16), the Lord's quickening in his way (Psalm 119:37), the Lord's circumcising of the heart (Deuteronomy 30:6), the Lord's opening of the heart (Acts 16:14), the Lord's instructing and speaking to men with a strong hand (Isaiah 8:11), the Lord's power in believers, not inferior to that by which he raised his Son from the dead, and quickens the dead that are in the graves (Ephesians 1:18, 19, 20; John 5:25). But no such showers of influences go along with a mere gift; which is eminent in many, and exercised to the full, to the good of the Church, and yet such builders of the ark for saving of others perish themselves in the waters.

If we consider the Lord's intention, this is clear; did ever the Lord decree or promise to bring any to heaven by the gift of prophecy, of wisdom, of learning and arts, whether the men believe or not? Or does the husbandman so labor the ground for the growing of the bramble, as for the growing and flourishing of the vine-tree, or for the thistle and the briar as for the wheat? What can Christ make out of a preaching Judas never given to him of the Father? Nothing, he never believing, but to send him to his place.

Assert. 6. In one and the same spiritual acting of praying and believing the spirit and the flesh may concur, not as formal principles, for the flesh and corrupt nature is no formal principle of praying in the spirit, and of believing; the holy Ghost uses no such tools, but the flesh concurs by way of retarding and weakening of the acts of praying; for it is of the flesh only that our praying is not with that deepness of humble sense of want, with that strong desire with that fervor of believing that becomes.

So corruption concurs in the work as the broken thigh or leg in the halting horse, as half a tooth in eating, not as a formal principle of motion. Hence the influences of grace must be accommodated to our gracious actings, that are mixed: he is a meek Spirit, who is willing to sigh in a Saint, beside the body of sin which casts in something of our sinful corruption to retard the work.

In the same prayer the spirit and the flesh speak at once or by turns (Jeremiah 15:15): prays in the spirit, O Lord you know me, remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in your long-suffering; know that for your sake I have suffered rebuke. Your words were found, and I did eat them: and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. But in the same prayer the spirit in his suspended influences, as it were resting, lies by, and the flesh mixes in itself, v. 18. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you be altogether to me as a liar, and as waters that fail? Calvin says we must distinguish between the doctrine, yes I add the prayer that is from the spirit, and the sinful complaint in the prayer from the flesh. So Job complains spiritually (ch. 10), he acknowledges and adores the power of God, which poured him out as milk, and curdled him like cheese, clothed him with skin and flesh, and fenced him with bones and sinews, and gave him life and favor (v. 9, 10, 11, 12). Yet the flesh almost casts all down, and makes him to lose his thanks (v. 18). Therefore have you (says he) brought me forth out of the womb? O that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! Compare Job's sad complaint with his triumphing faith, in looking through so many hundred years to his living Redeemer and Kinsman, who shall stand the last man upon the earth (v. 25, 26). Then are we taught to difference between influences from our sinful flesh and his holy Spirit, and to beware of mixing our clay with the Lord's pure fountain actings of his Spirit, and not to adulterate and vitiate his wine with our rotten water. It looked like the zeal of God in the disciples to desire to call for fire from heaven to burn the Samaritans old and young; it was a cruel and merciless thing to refuse Christ and his disciples lodging. But says Christ, rebuking them (Luke 9:55), you know not what manner of spirit you are of. Pray that God would rebuke the flesh while you pray; and try your own spirit, and take heed to it.

Rest not on a gift, nor upon the literal stirring and bastard heat that comes from a gift, or upon literal tears that often flow from a weakened fancy in prayer. Esau both runs and was hot in his hunting for the blessing, and sought the blessing with tears; but there were here no influences of the spirit of grace. Esau (Hebrews 12) was a profane man.

Assert. 7. It may be a child of God may be deluded in a particular, thinking his actings from a gift to be actings from grace; but

An habitual delusion, such as was in the five foolish virgins, all their life, and until the market of buying oil was spent and over, cannot fall into a regenerate man; for the Lord reveals his state to him.

A child of God may all his life not put a distinct difference between the gift of preaching in Judas and the grace of preaching; for there is no certainty of faith, of the saving grace of others as touching particular men.

There is in the Saints a spiritual sense of discerning Christ's voice; and here two things are to be distinguished.

The actings of sense.

The objects of sense, and spiritual discerning the acts of sense in order to others, are not infallible either in the habit or the act; the eleven may all their life mistake Judas. But as touching the object, the saving influences and actings of God have them in some singular and peculiar thing by which actu primo, and in themselves they may be discerned. As Christ's preaching had such grace in it, never man spake like him. Paul's preaching in the evidence, and demonstration, and power of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2) had something that a spiritual discerning might take up: the garden flower and the wild flower that grows in the mountains are like other, yet the senses of seeing and smelling find a difference. It's dreadful when Christ's preaching, and the Apostles speaking and praying in the holy Ghost, brings forth mocking and persecution, and the miracles of Christ that were done by the power of God are fathered upon the Prince of devils; it's hard to persuade men of the naughtiness of their own heart. What comes from self, comes from grace: the heart, because it is the man's own, is good to God; the prayers are the man's own and good; the lamps they are our own, and they shine, and therefore the shining is from the oil of grace within, and yet the lamp is empty.

As to others, hardly see we what condition they are in; and because the smell of dead bones comes not through marble-stones in the Tomb, therefore the paintry of a profession satisfies us. Yet it was not want of charity that made (Micah 7:2) say, The good man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men; they lie in wait for blood. As now it's called morosity, rash judgment, to say that the generality of Ministers, and too many time-covenanters know little of any work of the Spirit on their hearts.

There are influences proper to the way to the Country, and influences proper to the end and to the Country; or influences of grace, and influences of glory. Influences for the way, though they come from Christ our life, yet for the most part they come by some meanes, the word, the seals, prayer, faith in the promises: what influences they have who never heard the Gospel, but have the law of nature within, and book of creation and of providence without, by which they may read and spell a Godhead, and duties they owe to God Creator, is harder to determine. But they shall be witnesses to judge us, and shall justifie Sodom (Matthew 10:15). But did we read more, meditate more the covenant of grace, we should have more of the influences of grace: the influences of glory are the immediate and eternal out-lettings of God without word, or faith, or praying. The tree of life has growing on it apples of life all the moments of the year; that is, a long summer, and a long year; the tree is ever green, ever blossoming, eternally bearing fruit, and the inhabitants eternally feasting on the fruit. The river of life runnes for ever and ever, flowes eternally and never ebbs: they eternally drink in life and joy from him which sits upon the Throne, and the Lamb. So many millions of glorified ones as there are, so many eternal and immediate dependencies and living beames of glory united to the Son of righteousness: because Christ is our life (Colossians 3:4), therefore must heaven be a life of immediate influences of grace in the first glorious conserving power of God in preserving bodies of clay in a being of 1. Incorruption and immortality, beyond sickness, cold, pain, old age, and death. 2. In a state of glory, free of shame. 3. In a state of bodily strength, power, and activity free of weakness. 4. In a state of spirituality, free of a necessity of earthly helps, eating, drinking, sleeping (1 Corinthians 15:42, 43, 44).

It must be an immediate out-letting of God in the fourth life of eternal blessedness and glory above the life of nature.

The life intellectual of reason.

The life of grace, in the vision of the face of God (1 John 3:2; Revelation 22:4; Job 19:26), knowing him.

In the influences of fulness of joy and delights, or pleasures, and that so long as Christ-God shall live for evermore.

Now these three. 1. Fruition of God, as the last end and satisfaction in him only, seeking no other lover but God in Christ.

Loving and adhering to God, there being no room for faith and hope (1 Corinthians 13:13), from where comes filling of the concupiscible part, desire, delight.

Praising him eternally and the Lamb.

These three (I say) have both the consideration of duties, and of a reward; in both considerations the Lord lets out his immediate influences on that blessed company in all these. 1. We are sick of love after our prison here, rather than for our choisest life. 2. We seek not the earnest and first fruits of this life.