Therefore let us often think. Is my faith good ? is it well built ? Let us oft put this query to our souls, I believe the religion I profess, but upon what grounds ? I believe the truths in the word of God, but upon what grounds ? Have I a clear understanding of them, because they are divine ? Doth the Spirit of God open them, and shew a light in the Scripture that is divine ? Doth the Spirit of God give me a relish of the Scriptm-es above all the pleasures in the world ? Do I find God speaking to my heart in the word ? Do I find the Spirit of God with his ordinance ? Then my knowledge and my faith will hold out, I can stand by that faith in the word that is wrought by the Spirit, and fastened upon the word with the Spirit. But if I believe the religion I profess only because the State doth so ; and if the king and State should do otherwise, I would change my religion ; or if it be because my parents were so, or my friends and patron is of that religion, whom I depend upon ; or because I see greater seeming reason for this than for the other ; I can hold argument for this, and n )t for the other. Alas ! this will not hold. But labour to know the trulh of the word of God by experience as much as we can, and by the Spirit of God giving evidence to our souls, from the inward grounds of Scripture, that it is the word. ' I know whom I have trusted,' 2 Tim, i. 12, I know the promises are good ; I have felt them in my soul ; the Spirit hath reported them to my soul ; they are sweeter than all the things in the world. It is a sure word ; I bottom upon it ; I have found the comfort of it before, therefore I will build upon it.
"\Ye can never stand, unless we can make our knowledge spiritual. It is but acquisite-" knowledge else.
We fall in three things vilely, [unless] we labour that our knowledge of * That is, ' acquisitive' = acquired. — G.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 24. 527
religion be spiritual, and fetched divinely out of the word of God, together with the Spirit.
1. We tall into sin from this very ground ; for why do men fall into'sin ? Because at that time they stand not upon the word of God, revealed by conscience to be the word of God. Ask them why they swear ? if they did believe the truth, the word saith, ' I will not hold them guiltless that take my name in vain,' Exod. xx. 7. But I am not convinced by the Spirit assuring my soul that it is the word of God. If men did believe it, would men bring a curse upon themselves ?
And so whoremongers. The word of God saith, ' "WTioremongers and adulterers God will judge,' Heb. xiii. 4. Would men, if they did believe this truth, live in these sins ? But they have only an opinion of these things, I hear that these things ai'e divine, perhaps they are not so, and the know- ledge that we have is not divine ; faith is not mingled with the Spirit.
2. Then again, from sin, we fall into despair for sin at last. Why ? Because our knowledge of divine truths is not spiritual, nor from inward grounds of Scripture felt by experience, the Spirit sealing the Scripture to my heart by some spiritual experience ; and thereupon men fall into despair for sin at length. For Satan plies them with temptations from their own guilty conscience. The grounds of their fears are present, and the grounds of their terrors are present to their souls ; for they are there, as it were, sealed, and branded in their very souls ; but their comforts are overly,* the promises are overly, the word is not rooted in their hearts by faith, it is not sealed there by the Spirit of God, the sanctifying Spirit never brought the word and their souls together. Hereupon they fall into desperation, w'heu their terrors are present, and their comforts are overly.
If a man had never so sound a foundation, if he stand not, but float upon it, he may fall, and sink. If a man be never so weak, if he lie on a rock, the strength of the rock is his. So in our temptations, if we have a strong foundation, if we do not rest on it, the foundation will not uphold us. Now how can those rest on it that stagger in it ? that were never convinced by the Spirit that these things are so '? and that have had no spiritual experi- ence ? Satan draws thousands of souls to perdition, because their terrors are present, and their comforts are overly. They are not built upon divine truth by the Spirit of God.
3. Again, for apostasy, in the times of the alteration of religion ; why do men alter as the State alters "? They are ready to have every month a new faith, if the times, and government alter. Why ? Because they were never convinced by the Spirit of God of divine truths. They had it from foreign arguments. The former state of things countenanced this way, now another state countenanced another opinion, therefore I will be of the safest. This is because the soul was .never convinced of the truth.