3. It is not a hypocritical will ; or, as one called it, a copulative will. We would, but with such or such a condition. I would, if it did not cost me so dear ; if I were not to mortify lusts, to deny friends, interests, relations. They would come to the supper, Mat. xxii., but one had married a wife, another had a yoke of oxen to prove, another had found merchandise ; this is no full and perfect will. No doubt but the chapman would have the wares, but he will not come to the price ; a Christian should say, I will whatever it cost me, I will what- ever come of it : Ps. xxvii. 4, ' One thing I have desired of the Lord, and this I will seek after.'
Secondly, Positively. Then is the heart inclined : —
1. When the judgment determineth for God, and comes to a full decree about obedience to him. Acts xi. 23, Paul exhorted them, * That with full purpose of heart they would cleave to the Lord ; ' that is the fruit of conversion ; not a little liking or hovering or faint resolution, but a full purpose, an absolute positive decree in the will, to own God and his ways Avhatever it cost us, a full consent to the duty of the covenant.
2. When the will is poised and swayed with love and delight, and the heart is made suitable to obedience : ' Thy law is in my heart, and I delight to do thy will, 0 God,' Ps. xl. 8. Many times the law of God is written in the mind ; many have good apprehensions, but the will is not swayed, bent this way. Amor meus est j'^ondus meum, eo feror quocunque feror ; when there is a natural inclination.
3. When this bent of the will is seconded with constant endeavours to attain what we resolve upon, and there is a continual striving to make good the articles of our perfect resignation or first surrender of ourselves to God : Phil. iii. 12, ' I follow after that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ.' God taketh hold of us by his grace, and we carry on this grace in the way of diligent pursuit or constant obedience. It is not one endeavour or two, but such as hath its constant force ; hath not its pangs of devotion, but to OekeLv irapaKeirai, 'to will is present with me,' Eom. vii. 18. It is a daily habitual constant will ; not a volatile devotion, that cometh upon us now and then, but such a will as is present as constant as evil is, Eom. vii. 21 : KaKov irapuKeirai. Wherever you go, or whatever you are about, you carry a sinning nature about with you ; it is urging the heart to vanity, folly, and lust. So this will is present, urging the heart to good, and stirring up to holy motions.
152 SERMONS uroN PSALM cxix. [Ser. CXXIII.
Secondly, Let me now show you the necessity of this inclined heart, that we may yield to God cheerful, miiform, and constant obedience.
1. That we may yield to God cheerful ()l)edience in all our services. God lookelh for a ready mind. God, that accepts the will for the deed, never accepts the deed without the will. The dre<js of thini;;s come out with squeezing and wringing ; duty is best done when, like live honey, it droppeth of its own accord ; cheerful and hearty service only pleaseth the Lord. Now, that is cheerful service which cometh not from the influence of by-ends and foreign motives, or the com- pulsion of a natural conscience or legal fears, but from the native inclination and bent of the heart : 1 John v. 3, ' This is love, to keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous.' The work is not grievous, but pleasant, because suitable to the principles that are in us ; it is not done against the hair : Cain offered sacrifice, but with a grudging mind. It is somewhere said, ' They offered to the Lord whose hearts made them willing.' When the heart is in it, it is not constrained, forced service, but natnral and genuine ; not like water out of a still, but like water out of a fountain.
2. For uniform obedience, to serve God in the whole tenor of our lives, that needs a heart inclined, that may be as a constant spring of holiness. A man may force himself now and then to actions dis- pleasing to himself, but his constant course is according to his natural bent and inclination. Haman could refrain himself from murder, but his heart still boiled with rancour and malice. When men look only to the refraining of outward actions, or the resti'aining the outward man, it will never hold ; the bent of the heart will discover itself, and so they will be off and on with God. The compulsion of conscience will sometimes urge them to God, but the inclination of the heart will draw them to evil ; therefore God wislieth that his people had ' a heart to serve him,' Deut. v. 29.
3. Constant obedience; that can never be till the heart be inclined. Judas was a disci])le for a while, but ' Satan entered into ' his heart, Luke xxii. 3. Ananias joined himself to the peo})le of God, but ' Satan filled his heart.' Simon Magus was baptized, but ' his heart was not right with God,' Acts viii. 22. Here is the great defect. But now, when God gets possession of the heart, there he dwelleth, Eph. iii. 17, there he abideth, as in his strong citadel, and fi'om thence com- mandeth all the faculties of the soul and the members of the body.