God is therefore to be delighted in, through this delectable gracious communication intervening, by which he now frames the soul according to his own image, and gives a heart after his own heart, that is, such as is suitable to him, and as he would have it be. This is the only way, in which it is possible for one to delight in God, namely, by having a good frame of spirit communicated to him, and inwrought. Then is a man in a happy state, when God has by his own spirit made him, what by his word he requires him to be. Now is he composed to delights and blessedness, being by the same workmanship created in Christ Jesus both to good works and to the best of enjoyments. How happy is that soul, in which the true matter of delight is become an implanted thing, whose temper is now in some sort become to it both a law and a reward! Surely this is one great part of what an enlightened soul would most earnestly desire. O that I were more like God, more perfectly framed according to his holy will!

But yet this natural consequence is little understood. And the common ignorance of this has made it necessary to insist the more largely on this part of the delectable communication, wherein God offers himself to his people's enjoyment. For from the not knowing or not considering this way of enjoying him, a two-fold mistake, the one of very dangerous the other of uncomfortable tendency, has arisen.

1. Some have thought that they have enjoyed God, when they have not; having only had their

imaginations gratified by certain false or ineffectual notions of him, in which they have rested, and placed the sum of their religion and happiness; and never aiming to have their spirits reformed according to that pure and holy image and model, which he has represented in the gospel of his Son, the impression whereof is Christ formed in us.

2. Others have thought that they have not enjoyed God, when they have; supposing, there was no enjoyment of him, but what consisted in the rapturous transporting apprehension and persuasion of his particular love to them; or overlooking all that work which he has wrought in their souls, as if it were to be accounted nothing; or not allowing themselves to reflect on any thing in themselves, but what was still amiss; or not applying themselves to improve the principles already implanted, which are of a nature to yield fruits of most pleasant relish.

CHAPTER V.

Manifestation by God to the Soul. Manifestation of his Love. Manifestation by the Holy Spirit.

THIS divine communication is delectable, as it includes in it the manifestation of God's love to the soul in particular.

We do not hereby intend an enthusiastical assurance, or such a manifestation of the love of God to the soul as excludes any reference to his external revelation and the exercise of our own enlightened reason thereupon. But as, in the other parts of the divine communication, his external revelation has the place of an instrument, whereby he effects the work inwardly done upon the mind and heart, so we are to account it is as to this part of it also, that is, he inwardly manifests the same thing which is virtually contained in his gospel-revelation, considered in that reference which it has on the present state of the soul. For that outward revelation must needs be understood to signify diversely to particular persons, as their state may be diverse; as, when it says, "The things that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, God hath prepared for them that love him." To a person, who does indeed truly love God, it virtually says, all these things are prepared for thee; to one who does not love God, it can only be understood to say, all these things may be thine, i. e. if thou shalt love him: but, inasmuch as a conditional promise, when the condition is performed, is equivalent to an absolute, these words do as truly import this sense to one who loves God, as if they were directed to him in particular; as truly I say, supposing the person do truly love God, but not so clearly, or with the same evidence: for this truth (supposing

a 1 Cor. ii. 9.

it a truth) "I do sincerely love God," is not so evident as the other, "That such preparation is made for them that love:" this is expressly contained in the word of God, the other is not so, but to be collected only by self-inspection, and observation of the bent and tenor of my spirit and way toward God.

We speak not here of what God can do, but what he doth. Who can doubt but as God can, if he please, imprint on the mind the whole system of necessary truth, and on the heart the entire frame of holiness, without the help of an external revelation, so he can imprint this particular persuasion also without any outward means? Nor do we speak of what he more rarely does, but of what he does ordinarily, or what his more usual course and way of procedure is, in dealing with the spirits of men. The supreme power binds not its own hands. We may be sure, the inward testimony of the Spirit never is opposite to the outward testimony of his gospel (which is the Spirit's testimony also); and therefore it never says to an unholy man, an enemy to God, "thou art in a reconciled and pardoned state." But we cannot be sure, he never speaks or suggests things to the spirits of men but by the external testimony, so as to make use of that as the means of informing them of what he has to impart; nay, we know he sometimes has imparted things (as to prophets and the sacred penmen) without any external means, and excited suitable affections in them, to the import of the things imparted and made known.

I do not believe it can ever be proved, that he never immediately testifies his own special love to holy souls, without the intervention of some part of his external word, made use of as a present instrument to that purpose, or that he always does it in the way of methodical reasoning therefrom. Nor do I think that the experience of Christians can signify much to the deciding of the matter. For,-besides that this or that or a third person's experience cannot conclude any thing against a fourth's, and it is likely that few can distinctly tell, how it has been with them in this matter, that is, what way or method has been taken with them in begetting a present persuasion, at this or that time, of God's peculiar love to them,-his dealings with persons, even the same persons at different times, may be so various, his illapses at some times may have been so sudden and surprising, the motions of thoughts are so quick, the observation which persons usually have of what is transacted in their own spirits is so indistinct, and they may be so much taken up with the thing itself as less to mind the way and order of doing it, that we may suppose little is to be gathered thence, towards the settling of a stated rule in this case. Nor is the matter of such moment, that we need either be curious in enquiring, or positive in determining about it,-it being once understood and settled as a principle, that God never says any thing, in this matter, by his Spirit to the hearts of men, repugnant to what the same Spirit has said in his word, that is, that he never tes