[1.] It introduceth a suitableness between our minds and the duties we are to perform. By it is the law written in our hearts; that is, there is an answerableness in them unto all that the law of God requires. In the state of nature, the great things of the law of God are a strange thing unto us, Hos. viii. 1 2 ; there is an enmity in our minds against them, Rom. viii. 7; there is no suitableness be- tween our minds and them ; — but this is taken away by the principle of grace. Thereby do the mind and duty answer one another, as the eye and a lightsome body. Hence the " commands of Christ are not grievous" unto them in whom it is, 1 John v. 8. They do not appear to contain any tiling uncouth, unreasonable, burdensome, or any way unsuited to that new nature whereby the soul is influenced and acted. Hence " all the ways of wisdom are" unto believers, as they are in themselves, " pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," Prov. iii. 17.
The great notion of some in these days is about the suitableness of Christian religion unto reason; and to make good their asser- tion in the principal mysteries of it, because reason will not come to them, they bring them by violence unto their reason. But it is with respect unto this renewed principle that there is a suitableness in any of the things of God unto our minds and affections.
[2.] It keeps up the heart or whole person unto a frequency of
CHAP. VI.j IN THE SANCTIFICATION OF BELIEVERS. 409
all lioly acts and duties; and frequency gives facility in every kind. It puts the soul upon reiterated actings of faith and love, or renewed holy thoughts and meditations. It is a spring that is continually bubbling up in them, on the frequent repetition of the daily duties of prayer, reading, holy discourse ; as on closing with all opportunities and occasions of mercy, benignity, charity, and bounty amongst inen. Hereby is the heart so accustomed unto the yoke of the Lord, and made so conversant in his ways, that it is natural and easy to it to bear them and to be engaged in them. And it will be found by experience that the more intermissions of duties of any sort we fall under, the more difficulty we shall find in the performance of them.
[3.] It engageth the assistance of Christ and his Spirit. It is the divine nature, the new creature, which the Lord Christ careth for; in and by its actings in all duties of obedience doth its life con- sist; therein, also, is it strengthened and improved. For this cause doth the Lord Christ continually come in by the supplies of his Spirit unto its assistance. And when the strength of Christ is en- gaged, then and there is his yoke easy and his burden light.
Some, perhaps, will say that they find not this facility or easiness in the course of obedience and in the duties of it. They meet with secret unwillingnesses in themselves, and great oppositions on other accounts ; whence they are apt to be faint and weary, yea, are almost ready to give over. It is hard to them to pray continually, and not to faint ; to stand in their watch night and day against the inroads of their spiritual adversaries; to keep themselves from the insinuations of the world, and up unto those sacrifices of charity and bounty that are so well-pleasing to God. Many weights and burdens are ujDon them in their course, many difficulties press them, and they are ready to be beset round about every moment. Wherefore they think that the principle of grace and holiness doth not give the facility and easiness mentioned, or that they were never made partakers of it.
I answer, — 1st. Let these persons examine themselves, and duly consider whence those obstructions and difficulties they complain of do arise. If they are from the inward inclinations of their souls, and unwillingness to bear the yoke of Christ, only they are kept up unto it by their convictions, which they cannot cast off, then is their condition to be bewailed. But if themselves are sensible and con- vinced that they arise from principles which, as far as they are within them, they hate and abhor, and long to be freed from, and, as they are from without, are such as they look on as enemies unto them, and do watch against them, then what they complain of is no more but what, in one degree or other, all that believe have experience of And if their impediments do arise from what they know them- selves to be opposite unto them, and [to] that principle whereby they
500 THE POSITIVE WORK OF THE SPIRIT [BOOK IV.
are acted, then, notwithstanding this objection, it may be in the na- ture of the principle of holiness to give facility in all the duties of it.
2c?/?/. Let inquiry be made whether they have been constant and assiduous in the performance of all those duties which they now complain that they find so much difficulty in. The principle of grace and holiness gives facility in all duties of obedience, but in the proper way and order. It first gives constancy and assiduity, and then easiness. If men comply not with its guidance and inclination in the former, it is in vain for them to expect the latter. If we are not constant in all acts of obedience, none of them will ever be easy unto us. Let not those who can omit proper and due seasons of me- ditation, prayer, hearing, charity, moderation in all things, patience, meekness, and the like, at their pleasure, on the least occasions, ex- cuses, or diversions, ever think or hope to have the ways of obedience smooth, its paths pleasant, or its duties easy. Let him never think to attain any readiness, delight, or facility in any art or science, who is always beginning at it, touching upon it sometimes. As this is the way in all sorts of things, natural and spiritual, to be always learning, and never to come to the knowledge of the truth ; so, in the practice of holy obedience, if men are, as it were, always beginning, one while performing, another intermitting the duties of it, fearing or being unwilling to engage into a constant, equal, assiduous discharge of them, they will be always striving, but never come unto any readi- ness or facility in them.