Ask some, whether evei' such a day or time of God's power came over their heads, to humble them for siu, drive them out of themselves, and draw them effectually unto Christ ; and they may answer you as those did Petei', when he asked whether they had received the Holy Ghost since they believed ; they said unto him, ' We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost,' Acts xix. 2. So these might say, We know not whether there be any such power required to the working of faith or no.
But to descend into a more particular consideration of this powerful work of the Spirit upon the soul for the production of faith; to which it will be necessary to consider what posture the Spirit of Christ finds the soul in before he begins this great work ; and then how he makes his addresses to the soul, and what acts he puts forth upon the soul for the working faith. First, For the posture of the soul. The Spirit finds the creature in such a state, as it neither can nor will contribute the least help to the work. As the prince of the world, when he came to tempt Christ, found nothing in him to befriend and further his tempting design ; so when the Spirit of Christ comes, he finds as little encou- ragement from the sinner; no party within the castle of the soul to side with him, when he comes first to set dov.n before it, and lay siege to it ; but all the powers of the whole man in arms against him. Hence it is that so many scorn- ful answers are sent out to the sinnmons that are given sinners to yield. ' He came unto his own, and his own received him not,' John i. 11. Never was any garrison more resolved to stand out against both the treaties and batteries of an assailing enemy, than the carnal heart is against all means that God useth to reduce it into his obedience. The noblest operations of the soul are ' earthly, sensual, devilish,' James iii. 15. So that, except heaven and earth can meet ; sensual and spiritual please one palate ; God and the devil agree ; there is no hope that a sinner of himself should like the motion Christ makes, or that with any argument he should be won over to like it, so long as the ground of dislike remains in his earthly, sensual, and devilish natiu-e. Secondly, We proceed to shew how the Spirit makes his addresses to the soul, and what acts he puts forth upon it for the working faith. Now the Spirit's address is suited to the several faculties of the soul; the principal of which are these three : understanding, conscience, and will ; these are like three forts, one within the_ other, which must all be reduced before the town be taken : the sinner, I mean, subdued to the obedience of faith. And to these the Spirit makes his jiarticular addresses, putting forth an act of almighfy power upon every one of them, and that in this order. First, The Spirit makes his approach to the understanding, and on it he puts forth an act of ilhnnination. The Spirit will not work in a dark shop ; the first thing he doth in order to faith, is to beat out a window in the soul, and let in some light from heaven into it. Hence believers are said to be ' renewed in the spirit of their minds,' Eph. iv. 23 ; which the same apostle calleth, being renewed in knowledge, Col. iii. 10. By nature we know little of God, and nothing of Christ, cfr the way of salvation by him. The eye of the creature therefore must be opened to see the way of life, before he can by faith get into it. God doth not use to waft souls to heaven like passengers in a ship, who are shut under the hatches, and see nothing all the way they are sailing to their port ; if so, that prayer might have been spared which the psalmist, inspired of God, breathes forth in the behalf of the blind Gentiles, Psa. Ixvii. 2: ' That thy way may be known upon earth, and thy saving health among all nations.' As faith is not a naked assent, without affiance and innitency on Christ ; so neither is it a blind assent, without some knowledge. If therefore thou continuest still in thy brutish ignorance, and knowest not so much as who Christ is, and what he hath done for the salvation of poor sinners, and what thou must do to get interest in him, thou art far enough from believing. If the day be not broke in thy sold, much less is the Sun of righteousness arisen by faith in thy soul.
Again, Secondly, When the Spirit of God hath sprung wii'i a divine light into the understanding, then he makes his address to the conscience, and the act which passeth upon that is an act of conviction, John xvi. 8 : ' He shall convince the world,' &c. Now this conviction is nothing but a reflec- tion of the light that is in the understanding upon the conscience, whereby the creature feels the weight and force of those truths he knows, so as to be
ACOVE ALL, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH. 4.45