nously that he is overlooked and but little regarded; he is prepared to be in low place; he readily honours his superiors; he takes reproofs quietly; he readily honours others as above him; he easily yields to be taught, and does not claim much to his understanding and judgment; he is not over nice or humoursome, and has his spirit subdued to hard things; he is not assuming, nor apt to take much upon him; but it is natural for him to be subject to others. Thus it is with the humble Christian. Humility is (as the great Mastricht expresses it) a kind of holy pusillanimity.

A man that is very poor is a beggar; so is he that is poor in spirit. This is a great difference between those affections that are gracious, and those that are false: under the former, the person continues still a poor beggar at God's gates, exceeding empty and needy; but the latter make men appear to themselves rich, and increased with goods, and not very necessitous; they have a great stock in their own imagination for their subsistence *.

A poor man is modest in his speech and behaviour; so, and much more, and more certainly and universally, is one that is poor in spirit; he is humble and modest in his behaviour amongst men. It is in vain for any to pretend that they are humble, and as little children before God, when they are haughty, assuming, and impudent in their beha viour amongst men. The apostle informs us, that the design of the gospel is to cut off all glorying, not only before

"This spirit ever keeps a man poor and vile in his own eyes, and empty. When the man hath got some knowledge, and can discourse pretty well, and hath some taste of the heavenly gift, some sweet illapses of grace, and so his conscience is pretty well quieted: and if he hath got some answer to his prayers, and hath sweet affections, he grows full: and having ease to his conscience, casts off sense, and daily groaning under sin. And hence the spirit of prayer dies: he loses his esteem of God's ordinances; feels not such need of them; or gets no good, feels no life or power by them.This is the woful condition of some; but yet they know it not. But now he that is filled with the Spirit, the Lord empties him; and the more, the longer he lives. So that though others think he needs not much grace, yet he accounts himself the poorest." Shepard's Parable of the Ten Virgins, Part II. p. 132.

"After all fillings, be ever empty, hungry, and feeling need, and praying for more."

66

Ibid. p. 151.

Truly, brethren, when I see the curse of God upon many Christians, that are now grown full of their parts, gifts, peace, comforts, abilities, duties, I stand adoring the riches of the Lord's mercy, to a little handful of poor Devers; not only in making them empty, but in keeping them so all their Shepard's Sound Believer, the late edition in Beston, p. 158, 159.

God, but also before men, Rom. iv. 1, 2. Some pretend to great humiliation, that are very haughty, audacious, and assuming in their external appearance and behaviour: but they ought to consider those scriptures, Psal. cxxxi. 1. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Prov. vi. 16, 17. These six things doth the Lord hate; yea seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, &c.-Chap. xxi. 4. An high look, and a proud heart are sin. Psal. xviii. 27. Thou wilt bring down high looks. And Psal. ci. 5. Him that hath an high look, and a proud heart, I will not suffer. 1 Cor. xiii. 4. Charity vaunteth not itself, doth not behave itself unseemly. There is a certain amiable modesty and fear that belongs to a Christian behaviour among men, arising from humility, that the scripture often speaks of; 1 Pet. iii. 15. Be ready togive an answer to every man that asketh you, with meekness and fear. Rom. xiii. 7. Fear, to whom fear. 2 Cor. vii. 15. Whilst he remembereth the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling you received him. Eph. vi. 5. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling. 1 Pet. ii. 18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear. 1 Pet. iii. 2. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. 1 Tim. ii. 9. That women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety. In this respect a Christian is like a little child; a little child is modest before men, and his heart is apt to be possessed with fear and awe amongst them.

The same spirit will dispose a Christian to honour all men; 1 Pet. ii. 17. Honour all men. A humble Christian is not only disposed to honour the saints in his behaviour; but others also, in all those ways that do not imply a visible approbation of their sins. Thus Abraham, the great pattern of believers, honoured the children of Heth; Gen. xxiii. 11, 12. Abraham stood up, and bored himself to the people of the land. This was a remarkable instance of a humble beha-viour towards them that were out of Christ, and that Abraham knew to be accursed: and therefore would by not means suffer his servant to take a wife to his son, from among them; and Esau's wives, being of these children of Heth, were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah. So Paul honoured Festus, Acts xxvi. 25. 1 am not mad, most noble Festus. Not only will Christian humility dispose per

sons to honour those wicked men that are out of the visible church, but also false brethren and persecutors. As Jacob, when he was in an excellent frame, having just been wrestling all night with God, and received the blessing, honoured Esau, his false and persecuting brother; Gen. xxxiii. 3. Jacob borved himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother Esau. So he called him lord; and commanded all his family to honour him in like manner.

Thus I have endeavoured to describe the heart and behaviour of one that is governed by a truly gracious humility, as exactly agreeable to the scripture as I am able.

Now, it is out of such a heart as this, that all truly holy affections do flow. Christian affections are like Mary's precious ointment that she poured on Christ's head, that filled the whole house with a sweet odour. That was poured out of an alabaster box; so gracious affections flow out to Christ out of a pure heart. That was poured out of a broken box ; until the box was broken, the ointment could not flow, nor diffuse its odour: so gracious affections flow out of a broken heart. Gracious affections are also like those of Mary Magdalene (Luke vii. at the latter end), who also pours precious ointment on Christ, out of an alabaster broken box, anointing therewith the feet of Jesus, when she had washed them with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head. All gracious affections, that are a sweet odour to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with an heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are broken-hearted affections. Á truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is an humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is a humble broken-hearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to an universal lowliness of behaviour.

VII. Another thing, wherein gracious affections are distinguished from others, is, that they are attended with a change of nature.

All gracious affections do arise from a spiritual understanding, in which the soul has the excellency and glory of divine things discovered to it, as was shewn before. But al spiritual discoveries are transforming; and not only make

an alteration of the present exercise, sensation, and frame of the soul; but such power and efficacy have they, that they make an alteration in the very nature of the soul; 2 Cor. iii. 18. But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Such power as this is properly divine power, and is peculiar to the Spirit of the Lord : other power may make a great alteration in men's present frames and feelings: but it is the power of a Creator only that can change the nature, or give a new nature. And no

discoveries or illuminations, but those that are divine and supernatural, will have this supernatural effect. But this effect all those discoveries have, that are truly divine. The soul is deeply affected by these discoveries, and so affected as to be transformed.

Thus it is with those affections that the soul is the subjects of in its conversion. The scripture representations of conversion do strongly imply and signify a change of nature: such as being born again; becoming new creatures; rising from the dead; being renewed in the spirit of the mind; dying to sin, and living to righteousness; putting off the old man, and putting on the new man; a being ingrafted into a new stock; a having a divine seed implanted in the heart; a being made partakers of the divine nature, &c.

Therefore if there be no great and remarkable abiding change in persons, that think they have experienced a work of conversion, vain are all their imaginations and pretences, however they have been affected *. Conversion (if we may give any credit to the scripture) is a great and universal change of the man, turning him from sin to God. A man may be restrained from sin, before he is converted; but when he is converted, he is not only restrained from sin, his very heart and nature is turned from it unto holiness: so that thenceforward he becomes a holy person, and an enemy to sin. If therefore, after a person's high affections, at his supposed first conversion, it comes to that in a little time, that there is no very sensible, or remarkable alteration in him, as to those bad qualities, and evil habits, which before

"I would not judge of the whole soul's coming to Christ, so much by sudden pangs, as by inward bent. For the whole soul, in affectionate expressions and actions, may be carried to Christ; but being without thi bent, and change of affections, is unsound.” Shepard's Parable, Part I. p. 2€

were visible in him, and he is ordinarily under the prevalence of the same kind of dispositions that he used to be, and the same things seem to belong to his character; he ap pears as selfish, carnal, as stupid, and perverse, as unchristian and unsavoury as ever; it is greater evidence against him, than the brightest story of experiences that ever was told, is for him. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision, neither high profession, nor low profession, neither a fair story, nor a broken one, avails any thing; but a new creature.

If there be a very great alteration visible in a person for a while; if it be not abiding, but he afterwards returns, in a stated manner, to be much as he used to be; it appears to be no change of nature; for nature is an abiding thing. A swine that is of a filthy nature may be washed, but the swinish nature remains; and a dove that is of a cleanly nature may be defiled, but its cleanly nature remains *.

Indeed allowances must be made for the natural temper; conversion does not entirely root out the natural temper; those sins which a man by his natural constitution was most inclined to before his conversion, he may be most apt to fall into still. But yet conversion will make a great alteration even with respect to these sins. Though grace, while imperfect, does not root out an evil natural temper, yet it is of great power and efficacy with respect to it, to correct it. The change that is wrought in conversion, is an universal change; grace changes a man with respect to whatever is sinful in him; the old man is put off, and the new man put on; he is sanctified throughout; and the man becomes a new creature, old things are passed away, and all things are become new; all sin is mortified, constitution sins, as well as others. If a man before his conversion, was by his natural constitution especially inclined to lasciviousness, or drunkenness, or maliciousness; converting grace will make a great alteration in him, with respect to these evil dispositions; so that however he may be still most in danger of these sins,

"It is with the soul, as with water; all the cold may be gone, but the native principle of cold remains still. You may remove the burning of lusts, not the blackness of nature. Where the power of sin lies, change of conscience from security to terror, change of life from profaneness to civility, and fashions of the world, to escape the pollutions thereof, change of lusts, nay quenching them for a time: but the nature is never changed, in the best hypocrite that ever was.' Shepard's Parable, Part I. p. 194.