The man who truly experiences this teaching, immediately comes to Christ as a sinner, and with deep humiliation and contrition seeks salvation through him alone. This our blessed Lord himself affirms ; and affirms it too with an express refer- ence to the ivords of our text : " It is written in the Prophets," says he, " They shall be all taught of God. Every man there- fore that hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto i?ieh." There is no exception under heaven: the effect of this teaching is invariable and universal. Nay more, it produces a holy energy and determination of mind to come to Christ at all events, and to disregard all the consequences that such a step can possibly involve. This may be seen in the conduct of the Apostle Paul, who says, " When it pleased God, who called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, immediately / conferred not with flesh and blood1," but proceeded to adopt such measures as I judged most calculated to advance his glory. This teaching therefore, though invisible in itself, even as the wind, is yet, like the wind, visible in its effects : and " all the children of Zion" are privileged to experience it in their souls. The weakest person in the whole creation shall enjoy it, if he will but seek it in faith and prayer. Yes : " what God has hid from the wise and prudent, he will reveal unto babes ; even so, because it seemeth good in his sight k."]
Connected with this blessing is, II. Heavenly peace —
Men, without any Divine teaching, possess what they call peace : but it is a state which does not de- serve the name of peace, seeing that it is nothing but a stupid insensibility, issuing from a forgetfulness of all their spiritual concerns. Speak to them of death, and judgment, heaven and hell, and their peace vanishes in a moment; and they are ready to desire, like Satan, that they " may not be tormented before their time1." But the peace which Christ bestows, and which he emphatically calls hism, is of a very dif- ferent kind : it is a positive sense of acceptance with God, and a rest of the soul in God. This the Be- liever experiences,
1. In the view of all his past sins —
[So far is he from being appalled by a sight of his sins, that he desires to have them set before him in all their
h John vi. 45. ' Gal. i. 15 — IT. k Matt. xi. 25.
1 Matt. viii. 29. m John xiv. 27.