posed toward the perfections and majesty of God, that thou canst find an entire satisfaction of thy soul in his favour presence, and love, and count the loss of every other thing but little, if this may be allowed thee? Dost thou not find thyself secretly declining the offer; that thou canst not for thy life bring thy heart up to it? Hast thou not many reserves to make, many pleasing endearments of life, which interpose and leave God but the second in thy choice? When God demands thy whole heart of thee, hast thou no oxen to prove; no ground that thou wouldst go and see; no wife that thou hast married, that thou canst not come to him yet? Doth not experience show thee, thou art better pleased with one. thing and another in the world; seduced by which, -thou art content to forget God, and art but holden of constraint when thou approachest to worship him?

But the new creature hath no reserves: he goes over to God through Christ with the full bent of his will; nor thinks he hath done any great matter, that he rejects every other thing in respect of him. He can see happiness no where else: let him have God, and he cares for nothing beside. He can find no substantial happiness here, but in the nearness of God with him; and he acquiesces with full content in the expectation of that blessedness, which the presence of God shall minister hereafter. Jealous he is over himself, lest God in all things should not be preferred, watching with a sacred jealousy that his heart be not seduced, and casting out with indignation that lust, which would be setting up an interest within him against his heavenly Father. In a word, he

hath so evident a conviction of the justice of God's claim in him; and from experience, as well as promise, so clearly discovers, that happiness directs him this way, as without gainsaying of heart, to prefer spiritual to sensual gratifications, an eternal God to a perishing and wicked world. Could you look into his soul, you might read such determinations as these strongly graven there:-" Away from me, ye trifles of life and time, ye kingdoms of the world, and all the pomp which belongs to you! Wealth and magnificence, airy grandeur and reputation, gilded vanity and naughty pleasure, I will none of you all. God is my portion. God unchangeable and eternal, ye fading joys, ye phantoms which seem to be what ye are not, is my inheritance. Here will I rest, in

God the chief, the only good.

God in Christ is all

I can need, and infinitely more: let me have him, and I am satisfied; I can have no more. And without thee, thou fountain of life and bliss, all beside were nothing worth."

2. So again, of the two different courses, obedience to God and pleasing ourselves, he refuses his own pleasure, and determines for God's will. This the natural man doth not; the determinations of his choice are all on the side of his own pleasure; he wills after the flesh. He hath exactly the wrong bent, leans always to the part of indulgence, and starts aside from submission. Nor in this matter is there the least difference between the formal and the careless; only that bears not such evidence of a perverted choice as the other, and therefore must be under greater likelihood of continuing to be de

ceived.

A man of an unconverted heart may, by his own reflections, or by the instruction of others, be brought to see the fitness of choosing God's will, and refusing his own pleasure in comparison therewith. Perhaps, being convinced that he ought so to be determined, he is ready to persuade himself, that he actually is now come to so just a choice; seeing he finds himself fully purposed about the matter for the future: but the heart being unchanged, the fit soon goes off, the purpose dies away, and the man remains just as he was before. Outsides here are nothing to the purpose, where the inquiry is, whether a man rejects sin, with the free and constant dislike of his heart, and as freely and constantly cleaves to God's will. No man chooses sin for the sake of sinning, in downright and avowed opposition to God: this were too horrid, perhaps, for any thing but Satan. And therefore no one may cheat himself by conceiving that he rejects sin, merely because directly looking upon it he cannot but disapprove it. The matter is, whether there be a steady and determinate denial in the heart of all such things as, being contrary to God's will, are sinful. This the natural man doth not, nor can do; he constantly inclines to them, and as constantly declines from all those things wherein obedience to God doth consist: and this perverted choice manifests itself in him every hour and moment of his life. Search out your spirit, I pray you. Do you find upon the trial, that you regard sin as a greater evil than suffering, or reproach, or loss of reputation; that the main inquiry you make about every thing you do is, whether it

be sinful, or leads to sin; that you choose to do your duty, though you are sure you shall smart for it somehow or other, resolutely opposing all the suggestions of flesh and blood? This is the way of a renewed will: but it is not your way. Your determinations are irresolute; your heart goes not in with them, freely and fully; you find a secret and prevailing drawing back within you, when you would enforce yourself to close with God's will in opposition to that of yourself and others, of your interests, reputation and pleasure. The new creature chooses God's will with an hearty consent; would not do the least thing which is contrary to it, nor keep, if he could help it, any thing within him, which in the lowest degree should thwart or control it. He has a watch upon the evil tempers of his heart, and labours ever to oppose them. He would bring "every thought to the obedience of Christ." He finds himself secretly constrained to look all difficulties in the face, in the way of his duty; makes no known reservations, nor comes short at any time, without acting revenge against sin and himself; he can appeal to God, "Lord, thou knowest my heart thou seest what is in me: thou seest that I would not willingly offend thee in any the least point, or leave undone the smallest thing thou wouldst have me do. Yea, thou knowest, I desire with all simplicity and sincerity to be pure and holy in thy sight."

In these two particulars the choice of the renewed will doth consist. And these, as leading determinations, do continually draw the choice after them in every lower particular. Choice of God and of obe

dience, like the course of a river, gives all other determinations of the will a like direction: insomuch, that just as we choose or refuse, with regard to these two, the general bent of our choice is in all other points. Let us instance in the case of the means of grace, for the better illustrating the renewed will.

His

The man of an unrenewed heart doth not choose worship and the ministration of the word. heart seems detained from them; and he cannot approach them with complacency, or, at best, seeks not in them the end of their destination and use-im

provement and growth in grace. He is a secret enemy to such employments; wishes he might be excused; and will have as little of them as possible. He hath a very ready choice of all such means as may lead him to his favourite gratifications in life: but as to these means of grace, having no heart to God, and to obedience to his will, he doth not like them. Whereas the new creature chooses these needful means, both that he may meet God in them, and exercise and strengthen his soul in grace, by the use of them. He is determined upon them, and will have as much of them as he can. He will be in them, though the flesh be ever so unready; and industriously doth he chide and rouse his sluggish affections. Willing to be set free from the bondage of corruption, he cries, "Ah, my God! that I were fashioned after thy likeness; that thy will were perfectly stamped upon my soul; that no remaining adversary might oppose thee in my heart; that the constant, universal submission of all that is within me, were yielded unto thee! Then should I be