(3.) What power have yon, to help you against temptations ? What power have you against temptations from the word and divine truth ? What power have you to bear crosses, and afflictions, to comfort you in sickness, losses, and crosses in the world ? Can you fetch comfort from truths heard and read out of this book of God's word? It is a sign then that the Spirit of God, with the word, hath wrought a blessed change in your hearts. Can you use the world moderately ? Can you perform duties in a spiritual manner ? Undoubtedly, you may comfort yourselves, though with much conflicts and oppositions, both without and within.
If on trial we find these things not so, I beseech you own •'.= not your- selves one minute of an hour, for that minute may be the minute of our destruction, and may cut off the thread of our lives. Eest not one minute, for howsoever we may bless ourselves, as all proud hearts do against God, and the ordinances of God, and godly ways, in a scorn, as if they had a heart distinct from God and the word, and needed not to be beholding to God for direction.! They can go home, and there they have means and friends, and they can do well enough. God sets himself to laugh at the destruction of such ; and that word that they cast behind them, and would have nothing to do withal, now that will stick by them to the hour of death, and they shall carry it with them in their own consciences to hell, and theii
* That is, do not regard yourselves as Christians. — Ed.
t The sentence is left thus unfinished. Cf. ' To the Eeader,' Vol. I. p. 38. — G.
2 COEINTHIANS CHAP. IV, VER. 7. 3G5
consciences shall say, God told these truths to thee, and I told them to thee ; I heard this from God's word, and thou regardedst me not. And therefore when your consciences be awakened with divine truths, know, that conscience shall be one day revived, and you shall hear it. What you now slight, you shall regard. You regard now no command, no duty, but you shall think of them when it is too late. Therefore seeing this is the time, labour to find the power of God in the heart, rest not.
But how shall we carry ourselves, so that the word may be effectual to us ?
[1.] LciLoiir to have humble, teachable souh, attending on God's divine dispensation in his ordinances meekly. You know what David saith, Ps. XXV. 9, * The humble he will teach.' Come with teachable hearts, and God will reveal mysteries to us. He will teach secrets, so that we shall say, I never thought there had been such light, such sweetness in the word. Come with humble souls, and you shall find him opening the secrets of heaven, especially if you desire the Lord to give the Spirit of revelation, and to take off this veil of darkness and corruption, that he would back his Spirit with his own ordinance,* and make it effectual, that as things are in themselves holy, and heavenly, and excellent, and as they are to God's children, so they may be to us. God's word is a word of power to all elect children. Oh that I might find it a word of power to me ! that I might get myself to be God's elected child.
[2. J Join irith the means a spirit of prayer, as God shall enable you, and * to him that hath shall be given,' Mat. xiii. 12. Labour to wait for this. If God speak not at first, the good hour is not yet come ; wait till the waters be stirred, as it was in the pool of Bethesda, John v. 3. Wait till he give the Spirit of revelation, and at length we shall find such a change as Isaiah speaks of, ' The lion and the lamb shall dwell together, and the leopard and the kid, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,' xi. 6. The knowledge of the Lord maketh lions lambs, and leopards kids, makes them fit to live together, though their dispositions be never so cross. If we have grace to wait God's leisure, we shall find a transforming, changing power in the word to alter us perfectly, and to mould us to a holy frame of spirit.
The apostle, as we heard heretofore, laboureth in the former chapter, as likewise in this, to set out the dignity of the ministry of the gospel above the ministry of the law, and answereth, as we have heard, all objections ; and lest he should seem to savour of too high a spirit, as Saint Paul to attribute so much to his ministry, in the sixth verse, he giveth all to God ; ' God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts.' So that whatsoever light is conveyed by the ministry, is con- veyed by God, and by an almighty power in God, even by the same that was used in the creation, and in some sort above it. Now the end of the knowledge kindled in the heart especially of the ministers is, * that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God may be seen in the face of Jesus Christ.' God shineth on the ministers, not only upon their understand- ings, but upon their hearts ; and to what end ? Not to shine in om-selves only, but to reflect the light, whereby God shineth upon us, to others. Then he shews the end of the ministry is especially to set out God in Christ, and the glorious mercy and goodness and bounty of God in Christ Jesus.