XV. Fifteenthly, Consider in jud(/lnfj of yourselves and i/our spiH- tual estates and conditions, you must ahvays have an eye to yonr natural tempers, complexions, constitviions, and inclinations, and the
' Eccles. ix. 1-3 ; Isa. i. 25, xxvii. 9; Ileb. xii. 10, 11 ; Jamo3 v. 10, 11.
Chap. I.] a cabinet of jewels. SOI
sins and temptations that these do lay you most open to, and remember that as in some tempers a little grace makes a very great shoiu, so in other tempers a great deal of grace makes hut a very little shovj. A little water in a long narrow-mouthed glass seems to be a great deal, when ten times, yea, twenty times as much in a large cistern is hardly discernible ; the application is easy.' A little sugar will serve well enough for sweet wines, but much more is requisite to sweeten that wine that is sharp and harsh. A little grace will make a very glorious show in such men and women whose very natural tempers are sweet, soft, gentle, meek, affable, courteous ; when a great deal of grace is hardly discernible in those men and women whose very natural tempers are cross, crooked, choleric, fierce, passionate, rough, and unhewn. As a good man said of an eminent light now in heaven, ' That he had grace enough for ten men, but scarce enough for himself,' his natural temper was so bad, which he would him- self often lament and bewail, saying to his friends, ' That he bad such a cross, crooked nature, that if God had not given him grace, none would have been able to have lived one day quietly with him.' A sincere Chris- tian may have more roughness of nature, and more sturdiness of passions, than is in many a moral man. He that hath more Christianity may have less morahty, as there is more perfection of animal and sensitive faculties in some brutes than in some men. It is an old experienced truth, that those sins are with the greatest pains, labour, travail, and difficulty subdued and mortified, which our natural tempers, complexions, and constitutions do most strongly incline and dispose us to, and were but those lusts subdued and brought under, it would be no difficult thing to bring all other things to an under. When Goliath was slain, the Philistines fled, 1 Sam. xvii. 51, 52; when a general in an army ftills, the common soldiers are quickly routed. So it is here ; get but the sins of your natural tempers, complexions, and constitutions under your feet, and you will quickly ride in a holy triumph over the rest. When justice is effectually done upon your constitution-sins, other sins will not be long lived ; thrust but a dart through the heart of Absolom, and a complete conquest will follow, 2 Sam. xviii. 14, seq. Now before T close up this particular, let me advise you frequently to consider, that you can never make a true, a right, a serious judgment of yourselves, or of your spiritual estates and conditions, without a prudent eye upon your natural tempers, complexions, and constitutions, granting to your- selves such indulgence and grains of allowance upon the account of your natural tempers, as will stand with sincerity and the covenant of grace. But,
The sixteenth maxim or considercdion.
XVI. Sixteenthly, Consider, if you cannot, if you dare not say tlvout you have grace, yet do not say that you have no grace, for the being of grace in the soul is one thing, and the seeing of grace in the soul is another thing. Mark iv. 26-28 : A man may have grace, and yet not know that he has grace ; he may have a seed of God in him, and yet not see it. 1 John v. 1 3, He may believe, and yet not believe that he does believe ; the child lives before it knows that it lives. If you can- not say that your graces are true, yet do not say they are counterfeit,
* A little gold ring upon an alabaster hand makes a more glorious show than a very great riug upon a leprous hand ; the a^jplication is easy.
302 A CABINET OF JEWELS. [ChAP. I.