he expects you should give him this, as the undovibted prerogative of liis place; and therefore to seek protection from any other, is, as it were, to set up another king: Judg. xix. 15, ' If indeed you anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust imder my shadow.' Tlieref'ore, when a soul puts his trust in any thing beside God, he sets up a prince, a king, an idol, to which he gives God's glory away. Now it doth not make the sin less, that it is the grace of God we crown, than if it were a lust we crowned. It is idolatry to worship a holy angel, as well as a cursed devil ; to make our grace our god, as well as our belly our god ; nay, rather, it adds to it, because that is now used to rob him of his glory which should have brought him in the greatest revenue of glory : certainly the more treasure you put into j'our servant's hands, the greater wrong to you for him to run away with it. I doubt not but David could have borne it better to have seen a Philistine di'ive him from his throne, than a son, an Absalom. But how can or may a saint be said to trust in his grace ?
First, By trusting to the strength of his grace.
Secondly, By trusting on the worth of his grace. Indeed a professed ti-iist in grace, I conceive cannot stand with grace ; but there is an oblique kind of trust, or that which by interpretation may savour of it. Satan is sly in his assaults.
Section I. — First, of the first : To trust in the strength of grace is to be proud of grace. This is opposed to that poverty of spirit so commended by our Saviour, Matt, v., by which a man lives in the continual sense of his spiritual beggary and nothingness, and so hath his recourse to Christ, as the poor to the rich man's door, knowing he hath nothing at home to maintain him. Such a one was Paul, not able to do anything of himself; he is not ashamed to let the world know that Christ carries his purse for him. ' Our sufficiency is of God ;' vea, after many years' trading, this holy man sees nothing he hath got, Phil. iii. 13 : 'I count not myself to have apprehended;' he is still pressing forward. Ask him how he lives, he will tell you who keeps house for him : ' I live, yet not I,' Gal. ii. 20 : as ask a beggar where he hath his meat, clothes, &c., he will say, ' I thank my good master.' Now Satan chiefly labours to puff the soul up with an overweening conceit of his own ability, as the readiest means to bring him into his snare : Satan knows it is God's method to give his children into his hands, when once they grow proud and self-confident : Hezekiah was left to a temptation, 2 Chron. xxxii. 31, ' to ti-y him.' Why, God had tried him to purpose a little before in affliction : what needs this? O ! Hezekiah's heart was lifted up after his affliction. It was time for God to let the tempter alone a little to foil him : probably now Hezekiah had high thoughts of his grace ; O ! he would never do as he had done before, and God will let him see what a weak creature he is. Peter makes a whip for his own back in that bravado, ' Though all should forsake thee, yet will not I.' Christ now, in mere mercy, must set Satan on him, to lay him on his back, that, seeing the weakness of his faith, he might be dismounted from the height of his pride. All that I shall say from this is, to entreat thee. Christian, to have a care of this kind of pride. You know what Joab said to David, when he perceived his heart lift up with the strength of his kingdom, and therefore would have the people numbered : ' The Lord God add unto thy people, how many soever they be, a hundredfold ; but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing?' 2 Sam. xxiv. 3. The Lord add to the strength of thy grace a hundredfold, but why delightest thou in this? Why shouldst thou be lii't up ? Is it not grace ? Shall the groom be proud because he rides on his master's horse ? or the mud wall because the sun shines on it? Mayest thou not say of every dram of grace, as the young man of his hatchet, ' Alas! master, it is borrowed;' nay, not only borrowed, but thou canst not use it without his skill and strength that lends it thee. O beware of this ; let not those vain thoughts lodge in thee, lest thou enter into temptation. It is a breach a whole troop of sins may enter at, yea will, except speedily filled up.
First, It will make thee soon grow loose and negligent in thy duty. It is a sense of insufflciency that keeps a soul at work, to pray and hear, as want in the house and hutch holds up the market ; no man comes thither to buy what he hath at home. ' Up,' saith Jacob, ' go down to Egypt for corn, that we live and not die.' Thus saith the needy Christian, Up, soul, to thy God; th}' faith
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