6. Without particular application, we can neither entertain the love of God, nor return love again, by which means we lose all the comfort God intends us in his word, which of purpose was written for our solace and refreshment. Take away pai'ticular faith, and we let out aU the spirits of cheerful and thankful obedience.
This possessive particle, mi/, hath place in all the golden chain of our salvation. The first spring of all God's claim to us as his, is in his elec- tion of us. We were by grace his, before we were. Those that are his from that eternal love, he gives to Christ. This is hid in the breast of God, till he calls us out of the rest of the world into communion with Christ.
THE soul's conflict. 265
xn answering of whicli call, by faith, we become one with Christ, and so one with him. Afterwards, in jiisti/ication, we feel G-od experimentally to be reconciled unto us, whence arises joy and inward peace. And then, upon further sanctijication, God delights in us as his, bearing his own image, and we fi'om a likeness to God delight in him as ours in his Christ, and so this mutual interest betwixt God and us continues, until at last God becomes all in all unto us.
Obj. But how can a man that is not yet in the state of grace say with any comfort. My God ?
Ans. Whilst a man ' regards iniquity in his heart,' Ps. lx\i. 18, without any remorse or dislike of the same, if he saith. My God, his heart 'udll give his tongue the lie, however in an outward profession and opinion of others he may bear himself as if God were his, upon false grounds. For there can be no more in a conclusion, than it hath from the principle and pre- mises out of which it is drawn. The principle here is, that God is the God of all that trust in him. Now if we can make it good, that we truly trust in God, we may safely conclude of comfort from him ; for the more certain clearing of which, tiy yourselves by the signs of trust delivered.*
It is no easy matter to say in truth of heart. Mi/ God ; the flesh will still labour for supremacy. God should be all in all unto us ; but this will not be till these bodies of flesh, together with the body of sin, be laid aside. He that says, God is my God, and doth not yield up himself unto God, raiseth a building without a foundation, layeth a claim without a title, and claimeth a title without an evidence, reckoning upon a bargain, without consent of the party with whom he would contract.
But if a man shall, out of the sight and sense of sin, tliirst after mercy in Christ, and call unto God for pardon, then God, who is a God ' hearing prayer,' Ps. Ixv. 2, and delighteth to be known by the name of merciful, will be ready to close and meet with the desire of such a soul, so far as to give it leave to rely upon him for mercj', and that ^rithout presumption, until he further discovers himself graciously unto it ; upon sense of which grace the soul may be encom-aged to lay a further claim unto God, haAing further acquaintance with him. Hence are those exhortations so oft in the pro- phets, to ' turn unto the Lord our God,' Zech. i. 3, because upon our first resolution to turn unto God, we shall find him always ready to answer those desires that he stirs up by his own Spirit in us.
We are not therefore to stay our turning unto God, till v/e feel him saying to our hearts, ' I am thy God,' Isa. xli. 10; but when he prevents us by his grace, enabling us to desire grace, let us follow the work begun in the strength of what gi'ace we have, and then God will further manifest himself in mercy to us.
Yet God, before we can make anything towards him, lets into our hearts some few beams of mercy, thereby di-awing us unto him, and reaching us out a hint to lay hold upon.
And as sin causeth a distance betwixt God and us, so the guilt of sin in the conscience, causeth further strangeness, insomuch that we dare not look up to heaven, till God open a little crevice to let in a little light of comfort at least into our souls, whereby we are by little and little dra^vn nearer to him. But this light at the first is so little, that in regard of the greater sense of sin, and a larger desu-e of grace, the soul reckons the same as no light at all, in comparison of what it desires and seeks after. Yet the comfort is, that this dawning light will at length clear up to a perfect day. * See chap, xviii. pp. 212-218.
266 THE soul's conflict.
Thus We see how this cLaim of God to be our God, is still in growth until full assurance, and that there is a great distance betwixt the first act of faith in cleaving to God, offering himself in Christ to be ours, and between the last fruit, of faith the clear and comfortable feeling, that God is our God indeed. We first by faith apply ourselves to God, and then apply God to us, to be ours ; the first is the conflicting exercise of faith, the last is the triumph of faith ; therefore faith properly is not assurance. And to com- fort us the more, the promises are specially made to the act of faith ; fuller assurance is the reward of faith.