3. And for any works that proceed from grace, by trusting thereunto they prove like the reed of Egypt, which not only deceives us, but hurts us with the splinters. Good works are good, but confidence in them is hurt- ful ; and there is more of our own in them, for the most part, to humble us, than of God's Spirit to embolden us so far as to tnist in them. Alas ! they have nothing from us but weakness and defilement, and therefore since the fall God would have the object of our trust to be ovit of om'selves in him, and to that purpose he useth all means to take us out of ourselves and from the creature, that he only might be our trust.
4. Yea, wo must not trust itself, but God whom it rehes on, who is therefore called our trust. All the glorious things that are spoken of trust ai'e only made good by God in Christ, who, as trusted, doth all for us.
God hath prescribed trust as the way to caiTy our souls to himself, in whom we should only rely, and not in our imperfect trust, which hath its ebbing and flowing. Neither wiU trust in God himself for the present suffice us for future strength and grace, as if trusting in God to-day would
THE scull's conflict. 221
suffice to strengthen us for to-moi'row ; but we must renew our trust for fresh supply upon every fresh occasion. So that we see God alone must be the object of our trust.
There is still left in man's nature a desire of pleasure, profit, and of whatever the creature presents as good, but the desii'e of gracious good is altogether lost, the soul being wholly infected with a contrary taste. Man hath a nature capable of excellency and desfrous of it, and the Spirit of God in and by the word reveals where true excellency is to be had ; but corrupt nature leaving God seeketh it elsewhere, and so crosseth its own desires, till the Spirit of God discovers where these things are to be had, and so nature is brought to its right frame again by turning the stream into the right current, Grace and sinful nature have the same general object of comfort, only sinful nature seeks it in broken cisterns, and gi'ace in the fountain, Jer. ii. 13. The beginning of our true happiness is from the discovery of true and fiilse objects, so as the soul may clearly see what is best and safest, and then stedfastly rely upon it.
It were an happy way to make the soul better acquainted with trust- ing in God, to labour to subdue at the first all unruly inchnations of the soul to earthly things, and to take advantage of the first tenderness of the soul to weed out that which is ill, and to plant knowledge and love of the best things in it ; otherwise, where afiections to anything below get much strength in the soul, it will by little and httle be so overgrown that there will be no place left in it either for object or act, God or trust. God cannot come to take his place in the heart by tmst, but where the powers of the soul are brought under, to regard him and those great things he brings with him above all things else in the world besides.
In these glorious times wherein so great a light shineth, whereby so great things are discovered, what a shame is it to be so narrow-hearted as to fix upon present things. Our aims and atfections should be suitable to the things themselves set before us. uur hearts should be more and more enlarged, as things are more and more revealed to us. We see in the things of this life, as wisdom and experience increaseth, so our aims and desires increase likewise. A young begumer thinks it a great matter if he have a little to begin withal, but as he grows in trading, and seeth further ways of getting, his thoughts and desires are raised higher. Children think as childi-en, but riper age puts away childishness, 1 Cor. xiii. 11, when their understandings are enlarged to see what they did not see before. We should never rest till our hearts, according to the measm-e of revelation of those excellent things which God hath for us, have answerable apprehen- sion of the same. Oh, if we had but faith to answer those glorious truths which God hath revealed, what manner of hves should we lead !
Chapter XX. — Oj the method of trusting in God ; and the trial of that trust.
13. Lastly, to add no more, our trusting in God should follow God's order in promising. The first promise is of forgiveness of sin to repentant believers ; next, 2, of healing and sanctifying gi-ace ; then, 3, the inheritance of the idngdom of heaven to them that are sanctified ; 4, and then the promises of all things needful in our way to the kingdom, &c. Now answerably, the soul being enlightened to see its danger, should look fii'st to God's mercy in Christ pardoning sin, because sin only divides betwixt God and the soul ; next to the promises of gi'ace for the leading of a Christian life, for ti-ue