Use 4. To direct us how we should behave ourselves with reference to this matter.
1. If God giveth sustentation and support, we must be contented, though we feel no sweetness and sensible consolation. For —
[1.] God is not a debtor, and may do with his own what he pleaseth in dispensations of comfort, as well as dispensations of grace : Phil. ii. 13, 'For it is God that w^orketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.' And —
[2.] We may want it without sin ; it is a preferment, and we must tarry till the master of the feast do bid us sit higher. We sin if they be despised : Job xv. 11, ' Are the consolations of God small with thee ? ' not if they be enjoyed ; it is not the want of comfort, but the contempt of it that is culpable. Such things as are mere dispensations and proposed as rewards are different from duties. To want grace, though it be God's gift, is a sin, because the creature is under an obli- ;G:ation ; but not to want comfort, because that is merely given, not required.
2. When God speaketh comfort, you must hear ; you grieve the Spirit by resisting his witness, as well as his work. It is the duty of the crea- ture to listen : Ps. Ixxxv. 8, ' I will hear what God the Lord will speak; for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints ; ' it is irreve- rence and contempt when God speaketh, and w^e will not hear. A friend would take himself to be affronted at such a carriage ; if we are to wait, certainly we are to hearken. Now because persons of much fancy and great affection are wont to be full of scruples, and to underrate their own spiritual estate, and to suspect all that maketh for their comfort, let me tell you when comfort ought not to be suspected.
[1.] If it come in God's way, in duty, and upon the raised operations of grace, which note will distinguish it from delusions. Comforts and ravishments in the neglect of ordinances, as in fanatical persons, are always deceitful. God hath promised to talk with his people at the sanctu- ary door, and to meet them that remember him in his ways : Isa. Ixiv. 5, " Thou meetest him that rejoiceth, and worketh righteousness, those
22 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XX.
that remember thee in thy ways. And so it is also distinguished from that confidence that is in ignorant persons, which is nothing but a blind presumption, which would vanish if it did come to the light: John iii. 20, ' For evei-y one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh he to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.' If in prayer or deep meditation God giveth in strong consolation, never suspect it.
[2.] If it lead us to God. Carnal security and presumption never urgeth to thankfulness, nor to a rejoicing in God ; they do not taste the sweetness of grace, and therefore have no reverence, no wonder at it : 1 Peter ii. 9, 'But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.' Fana- tical joys put men upon pride, and a contempt of ordinances ; but in solid joys the soul is filled with reverence as well as sweetness : Ps. cxvi. 12, ' What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me?'
SERMON XX.
By ivliich he obtained loitness that he icas righteous, God testifying of his gifts. — Heb. xi. 4.
Doct. 3. That only the works of persons who are righteous are accepted with God.
It is clear from the apostle's argument — He obtained witness that he icas righteous. Why? God testified of his gifts. If God accept of his gift, he was a righteous person ; for God accepts the services of none l)ut those that are righteous. First God accepts the person, and then the performance ; so Gen. iv. 4, 'God had respect to Abel, and to his offering ; ' first to Abel, and then to his offering. The person pleased him in Christ, and then his sacrifice. It is said, Judges xiii. 23, by Manoah's wife to him, ' If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering, nor a meat-offering at our hands.' She builds the acceptance of the person upon the acceptance of the service ; for God accepts the gifts and offerings of none but those whose persons please him in Christ. So the Lord himself says, Mai. i. 10, 'I have no pleasure in you,' no delight in their persons ; then it follows presently, ' I will not accept of an offering at your hand.' Before the person pleaseth God, the work cannot, for these reasons —
1. Because this is the method of the covenant of grace, not to accept the person for the work's sake, but to accept of the work for the person's sake. God doth not accept us for our prayers and good duties ; that was the tenor of the first covenant, whereby our justification depended upon the worth and value of our works. It is not now, Do and live, but, Believe and live ; it is not according to the work that we are accepted, but according to our interest in Christ, Eph. i. 6, ' He hath made ua accepted in the beloved.' Alas ! when a man is out of Christ, it is not