exhortations, and admonitions to perseverance, thereby keeping up the new habit, and new heart in us, quickening it by outward means and rational ways, suited to the judgment and reason of the new creature; and thus keeping his hand upon the will, he moves it to those ends, for which he first touched it, and draws it on from one degree unto another, till it comes to perfection. Therefore we must not make use of this doctrine to neglect the means God hath appointed for the establishing and completing of grace; since God acts with us as rational creatures, we are not only passive but active subjects in this work. John assures the believers, that the unction in them should preserve them from soul-destroying errors. There is this passive perseverance : "As it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him," 1 John ii. 27. Must they therefore be careless? No; He backs it with duty on their parts. Wherefore " my little children, abide in him, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence," ver. 28; abide in him, who certainly abides in you. There is scarcely a promise in the whole book of God to encourage us, but is somewhere or other attended with a precept to quicken us. Use the following means. [1.] Look well to sincerity. This is the blood and vital spirit, which runs through the veins of every grace, without which it is not what it seems to be; faith is not faith, unless it be unfeigned, and what may seem to be love, is not so, unless it be sincere. Sincerity is that principle in the heart which complies with the quickening grace of God, as the vital spirit in a plant doth with the beams of the sun, which doth not only make it stand, but It was grow against the injuries of the weather. God's manner long ago to have a special respect to sincerity: "Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doer," Job viii. 20. He will not despise or turn away himself. If a sincere man falls, he will reach out his hand to lift him up, as the antithesis manifests; the word being in the Hebrew, he will not take the evil doer by the hand, implying, that he doth hold the other, and raise him up. It is our sincerity in withstanding the sins and temptations of the world, that the promise of perfect sanctification is made to: "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white," Rev. iii. 4, 5; they shall be clothed in white. An allusion to the Jewish custom of admitting the priests into their office, by clothing them with white, as a badge of their office, and continuance in the priesthood. Job held fast his integrity, Job ii. 3; and that was a means to preserve and recover him. Uncompounded things are least subject to putrefaction, whereas mixed bodies easily ferment and corrupt; sincerity can never be feeble, because the spirit of power always attends it: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind," 2 Tim. i. 7. The apostle couples them both together. A single respect to Christ in the midst of shaking persecution, is both an evidence of the strong touch of the heart by the Spirit, and a preservative against apostasy; as the standing right of the needle in the compass, in the midst of the winds which toss the ship, manifests its powerful touch by the loadstone, and is a means to direct it in its course, and preserve it from a wreck. [2.] Get a stock of spiritual knowledge, and actuate it often. The grave considerate christian will stand, when the hot-headed professor, like horses of the same temper, will be jaded and sink under the rider in a few miles. Men whose religion consists rather in a commotion of their passions, than a judicious and considerate determination of their wills, will quickly flag; hot beginners are not durable; violent motions, either in naturals or morals, are not perpetual; get the experience of every truth you hear. Experimental knowledge is the true ballast of the soul, when mere sound and air is a rolling and movable thing. Mere head professors are as light as a cork, dancing upon every dash of water; an experimental taste of the grace of God, namely, that grace of Christ which produceth a coming to him, is a means to be built up a spiritual house: "If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious," 1 Pet. 2-5. It must be a taste, not only the hearing of a sound; it is not enough to be sound in judgment, but spiritual in taste, Col. i. 23. Skilful musicians, who understand the delicacy of the airs in a tune, will chain their ears to the sound, when an unskilful person will listen, and stare awhile, and run away. Our esteem of God is according to the degrees of our knowledge; and our cleavings to him, according to the degrees of our estimation of him. Actuate it often; let thy knowledge sink down to thy will, and lie ready by thee, to bring forth new and old upon any exigency. The forgetting the precepts and promises of God, is the cause of fainting, Heb. xii. 5: "Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation," Isa. xxxiii. 6. As this makes the kingdom of Christ stable in the world, so it will the kingdom of grace in our souls. Get therefore, and actuate a knowledge of the tenour of the covenant, the substance of the promises, the nature and ends of Christ's mediation: Be strong in the grace that is in Christ," 2 Tim. ii. 1, 3. Have a right understanding of the covenant of grace, which is manifested in and by Christ, of the stock of grace stored up in Christ. This will make you endure hardship as the soldiers of Christ; this will make you high-spirited in the acting of your faith, and please before God, without which, both your faith and prayers will be very faint and languishing. It is [3.] Rest not in small degrees of grace. true, weak grace will keep close to Christ; Philadelphia with her little strength kept Christ's words, Rev. iii. 8; yet that pretended grace which always remains in the same posture, may well be suspected as a counterfeit. He that stands at a stay in what he supposeth to be grace, never had grace in truth. It is impossible any thing should be without its essential properties, and it is an essential property of grace to grow, it would not else be the seed of God, and an immortal principle. He that hath grace, finds such a pleasure and excellency in it, that he can have but little acquiescence in himself without exercise of it. If you do not strengthen your grace, you will make way to strengthen your doubts. Though weak grace will carry a man to heaven, it will be just as a small and weak vessel surprised by a shattering storm, which, though it may get to the shore, yet with excessive hardships and fears; such will sail through a stormy sea, and have a daily contest with stormy doubts, ready to overset their hopes; whereas, a stout ship, well rigged, will play with the waves in the midst of a tempest, and at last pass through all difficulties, without many fears, into its haven. We are not perfect here, perfection is a title peculiar to the blessed: "The spirits of just men made perfect," Heb. xii. 23. Yet we must press forward towards it, to attain the resurrection of the dead, Phil. iii. 11; that is, such a perfection of holiness as shall be the state of glorified souls. When this is our mark, we shall have a further progress in the degrees of grace, and by that means be nearer to a complete victory. Though a man cannot reach the sun in shooting, yet if he aim at it, his arrow will rise higher than if he aimed at a shrub. Well then, let our aims be at the highest degrees. He is so far from gaining strength who doth not aspire to a further conquest, that he is in danger to be beaten out of what he hath, and lose the things which he hath wrought. To take up our rest beneath it is a sign, that neither the hatred of sin our enemy, nor the love of God our Friend, were ever sincere and well rooted. Not to arrive at a complete victory, is our weakness; not to aspire to it, is our sin; for it answers not the design of Christ's coming, which was not only that we might have life spiritual and eternal, but an abounding life: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly," John x. 10. Not a decreasing life, or one that stands at a stay. [4.] Study much your exemplar and copy. That hope whereby we expect to become like to Christ in an eternally happy state, must be formed by no lower copy than that of Christ himself: "He that hath this hope," that is, to see him as he is, |