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upon the means. We go on in a course of sin : we are not divinely per- suadecl. God hath not persuaded our hearts. He hath not enlightened us ; for if the covetous wan were persuaded, ' that neither covetous, nor extortioners, should enter into the kingdom of heaven,' 1 Cor. vi. 10, would he not leave that course ? Light and persuasion alway rule the action : for we work as we see and are persuaded in every thing.
Tlie very beasts do as they see, and as sense leads them. An ass bears burdens. You know nature hath framed and made him for it ; but can you drive the silly creature into the fire ? He knows that will consume him. So that men they are brutish : they will not be persuaded by the Spirit of God. They run into courses that, if they had light in their souls, and if they were persuaded whither it tends, they would never run into hell tire. If there w-ere a pit open before a man's eyes, would he plunge himself into that pit that were before his eyes ? A man that lives in sins against conscience, he runs into a pit. There are no manner of liars, of whoremongers, of covetous persons, of such wretches as take the name of God in vain, that shall escape unpunished. Men lead a life in a course wherein they see a pit before them, and yet they run on. Are they per- suaded ? No, no ! Certainly they are not persuaded.
And so for the means of salvation. Men that care not for hearing the word, are they persuaded it is the word of God to salvation ? They are not persuaded. We may know the truth of our persuasion by the power it hath to rule our lives and conversations. What is the reason that a simple man, a weak man, he lives Christianly, and dies in the faith he lived by, whenas a great man, in conceit in knowledge, he lives wickedly, and dies worse ? Because the one hath not this knowledge of the Spirit. The Spirit of God never opened his eyes : the Spirit of God never persuaded him. He hath it in books, and by education and the like. There are none that ever hold out but those that have the Spirit of God to be their teacher and persuader. We must see things in their own proper light. The Spirit of God hath to deal with the heart. God hath only power of that. He must deal with the heart. We must not trust therefore to edu- cation, or to outward things. If a man should ask the reason of men. Why do you leave these courses '? why do you do this good ? A Christian doth not say, I was brought up to this, or I cannot do otherwise ; but I do it from a principle of the ' new creature.' Let us desire God, that we may do things from reasons of Scripture, from reasons of pleasing God ; that we may do them from a holy sanctified afi'ection ; that we may be persuaded by the Spirit, and then it will hold out. ' Theywere persuaded of them,
' And embraced them.'
They embraced the promises, the good things promised : Christ's coming in the flesh, and Canaan, the type of heaven, and heaven itself. Though they had not these things, yet they embraced what they had, they embraced the promises. That is the nature of faith. If it have not that it looks for, as it hath not till it come to heaven, yet it makes much of that it hath ; it emliraceth the promises, and in the promises the thing itself promised.
Now these things follow one another in a most natural order ; for sight brings persuasion, sight and conviction brings strong persuasion, and per- suasion breeds embracing. For we embrace that in our affections that we are persuaded of to be good. According to the strength of conviction and persuasion is the strength of the affections. Those things that we have a vveak persuasion of we have a weak affection to. Those things that we are fully persuaded of, and are great withal, the affections cannot but stretch
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forth themselves to embrace them. When the understanding was enlight- ened to see the truth, and to be persuaded of the truth of the promises, then the will and aflections, they join and embrace those things. The will makes choice of them, and cleaves to them, the aflection of desire extends itself to them, the aflection of love embraceth them, the aflection of joy delights in them. Spiritual conviction always draws aflection. For God hath framed the soul so, that upon discovery of a good out of itself, it doth stretch out itself to embrace that object, the good thing presented. It can- not be otherwise.
We see the eye, it cannot but delight in beautiful objects, so the under- standing of itself, it delights in true things, and the will in things that are good, that are delightfully good, or spiritually and conveniently good to the person. It cannot but be so.
The author of nature, God, doth not overthrow nature, but preserves it in its own work. Therefore where he gives a light to discover and persuade, both of the truth in general and of our particular interest in those things, he gives grace likewise to the will and aflections, to that part of the soul that is carried to good things to embrace them. And upon discovery of evil, in that part of the soul that is aflected to evil, there is an aversion and loathing of things that are inconvenient and hurtful. It must needs be so in the light of reason.