Therefore let us every day be setting ourselves in some good way ; for comfort is in comfortable courses, and not in ill courses. In God's ways we shall have God's comforts. In those ways let us exercise the spiritual strength we have ; let us pray to God, and perform the exercise of religion with strength, shew some zeal in it ; let us shew some zeal against sin, if occasion be, if it be in God's work, in God's way. Let a man set him- self upon a good work, especially when it is in opposition ; for the honour of God, and the peace of his conscience. Presently there is comfort ujDon it.
[7.] And that we may not be discouraged with the imperfection of onr performances, one way of daily comfort is, to consider the condition of the covenant of fjrace between God and ns. In the covenant of grace, our per- formances, if they be sincere, they are accepted ; and it is the perfection of the gospel, sincerity. Sincerity will look God in the face with comfort, because he is with the upright. So much truth in all our dealings, bo much comfort.
[8.] And with sincerity labour for rfvouih, to grow better and better. God in the gospel means to bring us to perfection in heaven by little and Httle. In the law there was present perfection required ; but in the gospel God requires that we should come to perfection by little and little, as Christ by little and little satisfied for our sins, and not all at once. In the condi- tion of the covenant of grace, we must live and grow by grace, by little and little, and not all at once. The condition of the covenant of grace is not to him that hath strength of grace in perfection. But if we believe and labour to walk with God, if there be truth of grace, truth goes for perfection in the covenant of grace. We should labour for sound knowledge of the covenant of grace, that now we are freed from the rigour, as well as from the curse of the law ; that though we have imperfections, yet God will be our Father, and in this condition of imperfection he will be a pardoning Father, and looks on our obedience, though it be feeble, and weak, and imperfect, yet, being the obedience of children in the covenant of grace, and he accepts of what is his own, and pardons what is ours.
62 COMMENTARY ON
[9.] And every day labour to preserve the comforts of the Spirit that we have, not to grieve the Spirit ; for comfort comes with the Spirit of God, as heat accompanies the fire. As wheresoever fii'e is, there is heat ; so wheresoever the Spirit of God is, there is comfort ; because the Spirit of God is God, and God is with comfort. Wheresoever comfort is, God is ; and wheresoever God is, there is comfort. If we wouhl have comfort con- tinually every day, let us carefully watch that we give way to the Spirit of God, by good actions, and meditations, and exercises.
And by no means grieve the Spirit, or resist the Spirit, for then we resist comfort. If we speak any thing that is ill, we lose our comfort for that time. Conscience will check us. We have grieved the Spirit. If we hear any thing with applause, and are not touched with it, we lose our comfort ; conscience will tell us we are dead-hearted, and not affected as we should be. There is a great deal of flesh and corruption that is affected with such rotten discourse. And so if we venture upon occasions, we shall grieve the Spirit, either if we speak somewhat to satisfy others that are nought,- or if we hear somewhat that is ill from others. Want of wisdom in this kind, doth make us go without comfort many times : want of wisdom to single out our company, or else [if we be with such, to do that that may please them, and grieve the Spirit, and hinder our own comfort.
[10.] These and such like directions, if we would observe, we might walk in a course of comfort. The God of comfort hath prescribed this in the hook of comfort. These are the courses for God's children, to walk in a comfortable way, till they come to heaven. More especially, if we would at any time take a more full measure of comfort, then take the book of God into your hand. Those are comforts that refresh the soul. Single out some special portion of Scripture, and there you shall have a world of com- fort, as, for example, let a man single out the Epistle to the Romans. If a man be in any grievance whatsoever, what a world of comfort is there, fitting for every malady ! There is a method how to come to comfort.
There St Paul, in the beginning, first strips all men of confidence of any thing in themselves, and tells them that no man can be saved by works, Jews nor Gentiles, but all by the righteousness of God in Christ. ' All are deprived of the glory of God,' Rom. iii. 19, Jews, and Gentiles, every- body. And when we are brought to Christ, he tells us, in the latter end of the third chapter, that by Christ we have the forgiveness of all our former sins whatsoever. ' He is the propitiation for our sins.' In the fourth chapter he comforts us by the example of Abraham and David, that they were justified without works by faith, not by works of their own, but by laying hold of the promises of comfort and salvation merely by Christ. And all that St Paul saith is ' written for us,' 1 Cor. x. 11. But in the first chapter especially, because all the miseries of this life come from the ' first Adam.' Because we are children of the ' fii'st Adam,' death and misery comes from that. He opposeth the comfort in the ' second Adam,' and he shews that there is more comfort by the second Adam, than there is dis- comfort by the first. Righteousness in the second Adam ' reigns to hfe everlasting,' Rom. v. 17, and glory. Sin and misery came by the first, but there is the pardon of all sin by the second Adam. He doth excellently oppose them in the latter end of that chapter. In the beginning of the fifth chapter he shews there the method, and descent of joy, ' Being justified by faith, in Christy, we have peace with God,' Rom. v. 1. Considering that by the righteousness of Christ we are freed from sin, ' We have peace with « Qu. 'naught?'— Ed.