Chapter 1

CHAP. I.

Of the impediments of heavenly influences upon the soul in general, and of their cure. 2. There be much using of means and no influences. 3. Means would be used in much humility. 4. We may marre influences of grace.

IT is not to be thought that influences, being acts of omnipotency, can properly be hindered; but by way of promise and judicial threatning, he has revealed in his word that he will give grace to the humble, and resist the proud (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5), and that he will guide and teach the meek and lowly (Psalm 25:9). He certainly promiseth influence of grace to the meek. Hence

1. Quest. Whether God gives ordinarily and always influences of grace, at or in the using of means?

2. Whether men can hinder the holy influences of God?

3. What are the impediments in the soul in general, and their cures with them.

4. What are the impediments in special, and their cures.

As to the first of these four, the following conclusions may be considered.

1. Concl. Often God reveals himself. 1. To Moses waiting on his herding (Exodus 3), he appears to him in the bush: he reveals Christ to the Disciples while they are mending their nets: the Angels declare to the shepheards the birth of Christ while they attend their flocks, yet is there no necessary connexion between the one and the other. But could we in conscience, and in reference to God, while we are yet in the state of unrenewed nature attend our callings, we might lie neerer to the Son of righteousness and his influences of grace: a sluggard spirituall may fear spiritual and judicial want of grace.

Ass. 2. There is sometime much seeking of Christ, and no finding (Canticles 3:1, 2), for a time: Magdalen is early up in the morning, and finds for the present, in lieu of Christ, an empty grave, and grave-cloaths only. There is much crying to God, and for the time no hearing (Psalm 22:2; Psalm 69:1, 2, 3). It's here as in other means, early up, much labouring, no bread, and the runner getteth not the garland.

The Lord will have 1. free grace to shine above our sweating. 2. He will have us not to sacrifice to the creature, and created diligence, and to painful seeking, and will have us to learn our folly, who place our mercy and will have our Heaven to stand in running and willing and not in his free compassion. Esau runs and hunts, and obtains not the blessing; Jacob stirs less and is blessed: I speak it not to cry down means, but to cry up Christ and free grace. The Lord seems to forbid Jacob to pray, Let me go, for the day dawneth: but he rather encourageth him to pray; but he teacheth that God's hearing and blessing is more than my tears and wrestling.

3. The Lord would have us to examine, whether it be a humble and believing using of means that we go about, or not. The repenting Thief, in three hours upon the Cross runs, and the same day gets Paradise; and many have a fair wind and sail seventy years in a profession, yes, hear much, and believe not, and the ship is broken, and the man perishes. For (Matthew 8:11) many shall come from the East, and the West, and sit down at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: and the children of the kingdom (who were first called, and in before them) shall be cast into utter darkness. Do not some sail much and promove nothing to the harbour? Read Romans 9:31, 32. Ah, tremble to see a man believed to have many thousands, and a great stock in four, in seven ships, and yet the man goes a begging.

Ass. 3. Some means are cursed of God, and God sends judicial influences upon them; Divels believe, and horrour take hold on them; Felix hears, and trembles, and shifts influences of believing.

Concl. 4. Where common influences are not entertained, they produce loathing of, and stumbling at the word in Capernaum: the day of grace in the Gospel to Capernaum is the year of vengeance; despise not, if you wonder, O dreadful, yes, wonder, and despise and hate.

Concl. 5. The more spiritual the actings of God are, such as are Gospel-influences leading to, 1. illumination and clear light; 2. to astonishment and to wondering; 3. to strong conviction, they must be more spiritual, especially above law-influences, upon Barbarians, and the more direful effects they work: when the excellent element, air or water is made contagious, it is the more pestilentious and corrupt; how do diseases, and pests rage? Were the element of water, which is so excellent and useful, turned into blood, how unpleasant would it be to drink of it? Who knows what influences of wrath follow the Pharisees hearing and hating of Christ and the Gospel? The disposition of children new born were good in hearing, and James his word (chapter 1:21) is very useful, that we receive the engrafted word [in non-Latin alphabet] in meeknesse; otherwise ill soyl marrs the seed, and renders it unprofitable, and the good seed makes the soyl worse.

Concl. 6. We are so to use means, in godly trembling, in humility, in faith, as to look that the Lord will send showrs upon his own husbandry; and malicious hearers are to be affraid, that rain, dew, summer showrs shall cause the bad earth cast up more abundantly briars, nettles, and the like.

As to the 2. Though the procuring of influences be above our reach, except in the way spoken of, yet a small touch of an unskild man may marre the work of an Horologue, that it cannot act; but much art is required to temper it: it's in the power of a child, with little strength to put a small stone in the wards of a lock, so it can neither open nor shut. We can marre our own comfort, and the work of salvation, and then complain of God to God, as (Matthew 25:25), and the damned in Hell complain that God gives not sufficient means, who denyes to send Preachers from the dead to them, and gives them a dry and dead book of Moses and the Prophets to give them warning (Luke 16:29, 30). No husband-man can hinder the rain to fall, the corn to grow, nor the Sun to send down beams and influences of heat and life upon the earth: nor can Saul in the rage of his persecution hinder Christ to shoot his arrowes at him (Acts 9). Such as complain most of God, are really most naughty, and may sooner meet with the Lord's wrathful rebuke, than with his softening and pitying mercy.