4. And that we may do it, let us add some meditations to these jnactices. Consider first of all whose word it is. It is the word of the great God, and the word of God for my good. It is the good word of God, and the word of God that bi'ings me much good, eternal salvation, if I obey it. It is the word of God that brings eternal damnation, if I obey it not.
It is the word of the great King, a proclamation, a law ^Yhereby I shall be judged, and perhaps that word that I shall not hear another time. Perhaps the Spirit may work more now than at another time. Therefore I will be wise, and give way to the Spirit of God, and not beat it back. Perhaps I shall never have such a gale of the Spirit offered again. It may be the last sermon I shall hear while I live. AVe should have such medi- tations, we that speak, as if it were the last time we should speak ; and you * Spelled ' sience.' — G.
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that hear, as if they should be the last things that ever you should hear. For how do we know but it may be so ? It is another manner of matter to hear than we take it. * Take heed how ye hear,' saith our blessed Saviour, Luke viii. 18. We hear nothing but it sets us forward in the way of grace to heaven, or forward to hell. We are helped by it to heaven, or else hardened by it further to hell. We had need to take heed how we hear. We must be judged by that we hear ; and that that we hear now negligently and carelessly, God will make good at the day of judgment. We maj' shake ofi", as profane spirits do, the minister's exhortations ; but will you shake ofi' ' Depart, ye cursed,' at the latter day ? Matt. xxv. 41. Will you shake off that sentence, ' You would not hear me, and I will not hear you' ? Oh no. Therefore shake not that off now that will be made good then. If thou entertain the gospel now, God will make it good then ; if thou receive mercy now, he will shew that thou art acquitted then before devils, and angels, and men. Let us regard this, and let it make us hear the word with attention, as this good woman here. God opened her heart, ' and she attended to the things that were spoken of Paul.'
Quest. But you will ask. How shall I know a man whose heart is opened, and attends better than another man doth ?
Ans. 1. I will give two or three brief rules of discerning. He that by the Spirit of God attends to the good word of God to purpose with an opened understanding, he not only knows the words, and the shell in preaching the word of God, hut the things. He knows not only what faith and repentance is in the words, but he hath a spiritual light to know what the things are, what repentance is, and faith, and love, and hope, and patience ; he knows the things. And likewise he that hath attended to purpose, he can do the things. He not only knows what he should do, but by the grace of the Spirit, and attending upon the word of God, he knows how to do them. Grace teacheth him not only that he should deny him- self and ' live soberly, and righteously, and godly,' Titus ii. 12, but it teacheth him how to live soberly, and righteously, and godly. Grace, when we attend upon the word as we should, teacheth us to do the things, not only that we should repent and pray, &c., but to do them. It opens the things, and gives ability to do them.
And in the next place, those that attend as they should do, there is a spiritual echo in their souls to everything that is tauf/ht ; that is, when they are exhorted to believe, they answer. Lord, I will believe ; Lord, I wiU hear, I will repent, and I will take heed of such sins by thy grace. When God saith, * Seek my face,' ' Lord, thy face will I seek,' Ps. xxvii. 8. This is the answer of a good conscience, this echo. Where there is atten- tion to the word of God by the Spirit, there is an echo to that the Spirit speaks. Lord, it is good, and it is good for me if I yield to this ; if I do not, it is naught- for me to put off repentance till another day ; I desire to yield now, and Oh that my heart were directed ! If it be rebellious, and not yielding, there is a desire that the heart may be brought into subjection to every truth revealed, there is a gracious echo in them that attend to purpose.
3. Then again, those that do attend from a sanctifying grace, they see things by another light, by a spirit of their own, by a heavenly light, by a species in their own kind, spiritual things with a spiritual light. Many come and hear sermons, and can discourse, and wrangle, and maintain janglings of their own, and all this out of natural parts, and out of pride * That is, ' naught),' = wicked. — G.