^- That is = ' in a state of nature.' — G.
AND HOLY CONTEMPLATIONS. 197
refuses others. This should therefore teach us sound humility, consider- ing that God must open or else we are eternally shut.
116. Seeing grace is not of our own getting, therefore Una should teach us patience towards those that are under us, waiting if God at any time will give them repentance. Though God work not the first time, nor the second time, yet we must wait, as the man that lay at the pool of Bethesda for the moving of the water.
117. He that attends to the word of God, doth not only know the words, which are but the shell, hut he knows the things. He hath spiri- tual light, to know what faith and repentance is. There is at that time a spiritual echo in the soul, — as Ps. xxvii. 8, * When thou saidst. Seek ye my face; my heart answered, Thy face. Lord, will I seek,' — and therefore must men judge of their profiting by the word; not by their carrying of it in their memories, but by how much they are made able by it to bear a cross, and how they are made able to resist temptation, &c.
118. There should not be intimate familiarity but where we judge men faithful; and those whom upon good grounds we judge faithful, we must be gentle towards them, and easy to be entreated; and we wrong them if we shew ourselves strange unto them.
119. True faith works love, and then it works by Jove. When it hath wrought that holy afiection, it works by it ; as when the plant is engrafted and takes, it grows presently, and shews the growth in the fruits.
120. The word of God is ancienter than the Scripture; for the first word of the Scripture was the promise, ' The seed of the woman should break the head of the serpent,' Gen. iii. 15. The Scripture is but that modtis, that manner of convej'iug the word of God. This Scripture is the rule whereby we must walk, and the judge also of all controversies of reli- gion; and in spite of the Church of Kome, it will judge them. St Augus- tine hath an excellent discourse : ' When there is contention betwixt brethren, witnesses are brought; but in the end, the words, the will of the dead man is brought forth, and these words determine. Now, shall the words of a dead man be of force, and shall not the word of Christ deter- mine ? Therefore look to the Scripture' («).
121. All idolaters shall be ashamed that worship images, that trust to ' broken cisterns.' Let those be ashamed that trust to their wits and policies. All those shall be ashamed that bear themselves big upon any earthly thing, for these crutches will be taken away, and then they fall. These false reports shall make them all ashamed.
122. The way to bring faith into the heart is, first, there must be a judicious,'"' convincing knowledge of the vanity of all things within us and without us that seems to yield any support to the soul, and then the soul is carried to lay hold on Christ ; as David saith, ' I have seen an end of all perfection,' Ps. cxix. 96. Secondly, the soul must be convinced of an excellency in religion above all things in the world, or else it will not rest, for the heart of man would choose the best; and when it is per- suaded that the gain in religion is above the world, then it yields. And, thirdly, a consideration of the firmness of the ground whereupon the pro- mise is built. Put God to it, therefore, either to make his promise good, or to disappoint us ; and he will be sure to make it good in our forgiveness of sin, proceeding in grace and strength, against temptations in time of trouble.
123. Man is naturally of a shortf spirit; so that if he have not what he would, and when he would, he gives up, and shakes off all. There is not
* Qu. ' judicial ' ?— G. t This is, ' hasty.'— G.
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DIVINE MEDITATIONS
a greater difference between a child of God and one that wants faith, than to be hasty. Such men, though they may be civil, yet they are of this mind. They will labour to be sure of something here ; they must have present pleasures and present profits. If God will save them in that way, so ; if not, they will put it to a venture.
124. There be many things to hinder this grace of waiting. There is a great deal of tedious time, and many crosses we meet with ; as the scorn and reproach of this world, and many other trials. God seems also to do nothing less tlian to perform his promise ; but let us comfort ourselves with this, that he waits to do them good that wait on him.
125. "We should labour to agree mutuidly in love, for that wherein any Christian differs from another is but in petty things. Grace knows no difference; the worms know no difference; the day of judgment knows no difference. In the worst things we are all alike base, and in the best things we are all alike happy. Only in this world God will have distinctions, for order's sake ; but else there is no difference.