Obs. Those that look to be happy, must first look to be holy.
This point I mean to touch very briefly. I am loath to pass it by, though it be not the principal thing I aim at, because it may serve for a kind of trial, whether a, man have any right to heaven or no.
It is the ordinary presumptuous error of common Christians, to think to go to heaven out of unclean courses, with ' Lord, have mercy upon us ; ' but miserable wretches are they that have not this ' earnest ' of the Spirit in them, an earnest of heaven beforehand, in grace, and peace, and joy. We must all read our happiness in our holiness ; and therefore it is that
* Cf. Stafford Brown's ' Truth on both Sides : or, Can the Believer Finally Fall.' 1848. 12mo.— G.
470 COMMENTARY ON
happiness in heaven and holiness hero, which is happiness inchoate, have both one title, to shew that wo cannot have the one without the other. We must enter into heaven here in this life.
The stones, you know, they were hewed before they were brought to the building of the temple, they were all made and fitted beforehand ; and so all that shall be stones in heaven, they must be hewed, and prepared, and fitted here ; thei'e must be no knocking and fitting of them there.
So then you see these three things touched, that the Holy Spirit, to- gether with the graces and comforts of it, are called an ' earnest,' and there- fore that it is a part of the whole, an assurance of the whole, and that it shall never be taken away.
Now^ for the fourth, that an 'earnest' is little in regard of the whole ; (and indeed the holy apostle aims at this partly as well as at any other thing else) an earnest is little, perhaps we have but a shilling to secure us of many pounds. So then the point is this, that — •
Ohs. Hnir.stiever ice maij he assured of our estate in grace, and likewise that we shall Jiold out, yet the (/round of this assurance is not from any great measure of grace, but tliougli it he little in quantity, it may he great in assur- ance and security.
As we value an earnest not for the worth that is in itself, but because it assures us of a gi'eat bargain ; we have an eye more to the consummation of the bargain, than to the quantity of the earnest : so it is here, grace is but an earnest ; yet notwithstanding though it be little as an earnest is, yet it is great in assurance of validity, answerable to the relation of that it hath to assure us.
There is nothing less than a * grain of mustard- seed,' but there is nothing in the world so little in proportion, in a manner, that comes at length to be so great, as the graces of God, and the work of the Spirit is. The crocodile, a huge creature, comes of an egg, and the oak, it riseth to that greatness from an acorn. But what are these to the wondrous work of the new creature, to be the ' heir of heaven,' rising from so little, despised beginnings, from a little light in the understanding, from a Httle heat in the aliections, from a little strength in the will, compared for the littleness thereof to a grain of mustard-seed !
Indeed, gi-ace grows, a man knows not how. As Christ saith of the seed sown in the earth, it grows up first ' to a blade, and then to a stalk, and then to an ear, and then to be corn,' Max'k iv. 28, but a man cannot tell how ; so it is with the work of grace and the comforts of the Spirit : when the Spirit together with the word works upon the soul, there is a blade, a httle, and then a stalk, and then corn.
First a babe in Christ, little at the first ; and as it is little, so it is much opposed. As we see the sun w hen it is weak in the rising in the morning : there gather a great many vapours to besiege the sun, as it were, as if they would put out the light of it, till it comes to fuller strength, and then it spends them all, and gloriously shines in heaven. So it is with the work of the Spirit of grace. When it first ariseth in the soul, there gather about it a great many doubts and discomforts ; the flesh riseth and casteth up all the dirt and mud it can, to trouble the blessed waters of grace, till it have gotten fuller and fuller strength to spend them all, as it is when a man comes to be a strong Christian. But yet as little as it is, seeing it is an ' earnest,' and ' the first fruits,' as the apostle saith, which were but little in regard of the whole harvest, yet it is of the nature of the whole, and thereupon it comes to secure. A spark of fire is but little, yet it is
2 CORINTHIAJ^S CHAP. I, VER. 22. 471