Thereafter as we maintain this communion further with him, we out of love study to please him, by exact walking according to his commands ; then we shall feel increase of peace as our care increaseth ; then he wiU ' come and sup with us,' Rev. iii. 20, and be free in his refreshing of us ; then he will shew himself more and more to us, and manifest still a fur- ther degree of presence in joy and strength, until communion in grace ends in communion in glory.
But we must remember, as David doth here, to desire and delight in God himself more than in anything that is God's. It was a sign of St Paul's pure love to the Corinthians when he said, ' I seek not yours, but
* Tntius oi jucundius loquor ad meum Jesum quam ad aliquem sanctorum Dei &c. Quod ego sum, fieri dignatus est Deus, non factus est quod angeli. Ad curiam Dei sui, Dei tiii, priccessit Deus tuus, homo tuus ; tuuica tua indutus illic assidue pro nobis iutcrpcllat. — Auff[iisline].
THE soul's conflict. 287
you,' 2 Cor. xii. 14. We should seek for do blessing of God so much as for himself.
What is there in the world of equal goodness to di'aw us away fi-om our God ? If to preserve the dearest thing we have in the world, we break with God, God will take away the comfort vv'e look to have by it, and it will prove but a dead contentment, if not a torment to us. Whereas, if we care to preserve communion with God, we shall be sui*e to find in him whatsoever we deny for him, honour, riches, pleasures, friends, all ; so much the sweeter, by how much we have the more immediately from the spring-head. We shall never find God to be our God more than when, for making of him to be so, we sufier anything for his sake. We enjoy never more of him than then.
At the first we may seek to him, as rich to supply our wants, as a physician to cure our souls and bodies ; but here v/e must not rest till we come to rejoice in him as our friend, and from thence rise to an admiration of him for his own excellencies, that being so high in himself, out of his goodness would stoop low to us. And we should delight in the meditation of him, not only as good to us, but as good in himself ; because goodness of bounty springs from goodness of disposition. He doth good, because he is good.
A natural man delights more in God's gifts than in his gi-ace. K he desires grace, it is to gi-ace himself, not as grace, making him like unto God, and issuing from the fii-st gi'ace, the free favour of God ; by which means men come to have the gifts of God without God himself ; dona Dei, sine Deo. But, alas ! what are all other goods, without the chief good ? They are but as flowers, which are long in planting, in cherishing, and gi-owmg, but short in enjoying the sweetness of them. David here joys in God himself; he cares for nothing in the world but what he may have %vith his fevour ; and whatever else he desires, he desu'es only that he may have the better ground from thence to praise his God.
§ IV. The sum of all is this, the state of God's dear children in this world is to he cast into variety of conditions, wherein, they, consisting of nature, flesh, and spirit, every principle hath its own and proper working. They are sensible as flesh and blood ; they are sensible to discouragements as sinful flesh and blood ; but they recover themselves, as having a higher principle, God's Spirit, above flesh and blood in them.
In this conflicting state, every principle labouring to maintain itself, at length by help of the Spirit, backing and strengthening his ov/n vvork, gi'ace gets the better, keeping nature ■svithin bounds, and suppressing cor- ruption. And this the soul, so far as it is spmtual, doth by gathering it- self to itself, and by reasoning the case so far, till it concludes, and joins upon this issue, that the only way to attain sound peace is, when all other means fail, to trust in God. And thereupon he lays a charge upon his soul so to do, as being a com'se grounded upon the highest reason, even the imchangeable goodness of God ; who, out of the riches of his mercy, having chosen a people in this world, which should be to the glory of his mercy, will give them matter of setting forth his praise, in shewing some token of good upon them, as being those on whom he hath fixed his love, and to whom he wfll appear not only a Saviom% but salvation itself; nothing but salvation. As the sun is nothing but hght, so whatsoever pro- ceeds from him to them tends to further salvation. All his ways towards them lead to that ; which ways of his, though for a time they are secret,
288: THE soul's conflict.
and not easily found out, yet at length God will be wonderful in them, to the admiration of his enemies themselves, who shall be forced to say, God hath done great things for them ; and all from this groimd, that God is our God in covenant ; which words are a stem * that rule and guide the whole text. For why should we not be disquieted when we are disquieted ? Why should we not be cast down when we are cast down ? Why should we trust in God as a Saviour, but that he is our God, making himself so to us in his choicest favours ? doing that for us which none else can do, and which he doth to none else that are not his in a gracious manner. This blessed interest and intercourse betwixt God's Spirit and our spirits, is the hinge upon which all turns ; without this no comfort is comfortable ; with this, no trouble can be very troublesome.