(Is^.) For the perception or discerning of truth from falsehood ; for there are such impressions of the holiness, righteousness, and goodness of God left upon their hearts, that nothing can be offered unto them but whereof they may be competent judges by means of those disposi- tions stamped upon their hearts by the Holy Ghost : 2 Cor. iii. 3, ' Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God ; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.' They can better taste doctrines, being freed from the distempers and delusions of the flesh, and may more easily scent an error ; for there is something in holy, believing souls which is of kin to anything of truth represented without, or carrieth a repugnancy to it if it be error : Heb. viii. 10, ' I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts/
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98 ' SERMON UPON 1 JOHN 11. 20.
besides the light of nature, doctrine of your deliverance and redemp- tion by the Son of God, and your future glorification according to his promises. Therefore they have an advantage above other men : Ps. xi. 3, ' The Spirit of the Lord shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.' He shall scent, or smell, or breathe of nothing but what is pious and religious ; and therefore is more acute in dis- cerning of matters of godliness, and what is agreeable or disagreeable thereunto.
(2cZ.) For retention, or holding fast the truth of christian doctrine. A man in his corrupt estate is more apt to believe Satan than he is to believe God ; and the scale will more easily be turned against the truth when the flesh holdeth the balance ; especially where men among professors of the truth are, as birds in a cage, still seeking to get out. Therefore if the understanding be not cleared, and the will inclined to Christ, and to God the Father by him, we shall easily fall off when the temptation cometh with any considerable strength. Certainly a man is held faster by the heart than by the head alone. Conviction may breed an awe upon the conscience, but conversion suiteth the heart to it. Love maketh us quick of discerning, and firm of retaining truth ; and for retaining there is something in a renewed man that taketh part with Christ, and strongly biasseth and incliueth him to him : 2 Thes. ii. 10, ' They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.' Truth looketh to be entertained as truth, and preferred before any carnal interest. Divines, when they open the nature of faith, dis- tinguish of certitudo evidenticB, and certitudo adJicerentice. There may be more evidence in matters of sense than in matters of faith, but not more adherence ; the one ariseth from the clear sight of the thing, the other from the weight and worth of it. I have not such evidence of the world to come as I have of the things before my eyes ; but I have such a persuasion of the certainty, which draweth me off from things I see with my eyes, and so leave all that I see and have for that glory which I never saw, but expect on God's promise.
(3.) Consolation. This oil is not only the ' oil of grace,' but the ' oil of gladness;' and the Spirit is a comforter as well as a sanctifier. Now when we have not only been enlightened and converted, but comforted, found benefit by it, surely this will be a means to establish and settle us in the truth ; for then there is a spiritual sense, or taste and savour- ing the things of God : Phil. i. 9, ' That your love may abound more and more in all knowledge, and in all judgment,' ev aladTJaec, sense. And what use is there of it ? ' That ye may approve the things that are excellent ; ' or hoKLfjid^ev to. Bca<pepovra, try the things that differ, 1 Peter ii. 3. Optima demonstratio est a seiisibus — the best demonstra- tion is by the senses ; to know honey by description and by taste, or a country by a map and travel. Others have but the notion of things contained in the gospel ; these feel the sweetness and power of them in their own souls, Col. i. 6. Now when a man must be persuaded, not only against his knowledge, and against his love and his sense, desires, hopes, against his very heart and his nature, and all his experience, his new nature, and all the inclinations and notions of it, surely he will not be so easily won as one that hath no experience ; there is some- thing within that checketh the temptation. Arguments have little
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force against the inclmation of nature and constant experience. There is communis sensus fidelium. Well, then, this anointing is the gracious operation of the Holy Ghost, whereby we are enlightened, regenerated, comforted.
Secondly, The author or fountain of the gift, ' The Holy One ; ' whereby is meant Christ, often so called : Luke i. 35, ' That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God ; ' Eev. ii. 7, ' These things saith he that is holy ; ' Acts iii. 14, ' But ye denied the Holy One.' He was the first anointed, and hath the fulness of all grace in himself, therefore called Messiah : Dan. ix. 24, ' To anoint the Most Holy.' And from him this anointing is derived to his people, Ps. cxxxiii. 2, like the oil on Aaron's head, that descended to the beard and the skirts of his clothing. So that this holy oil is from Christ, and from him freely and abundantly dispensed unto his people. First Christ purchased it for us ; secondly conveyeth it to us ; for he shed his blood for us, and then his Spirit on us : Titus iii. 6, ' Which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.