assistance to make a large return of love and where there is the most of this love between God and man, there is most communion, and most of heaven, that can be had on earth. hearers so that it is God himself that a serious is here that we have the loudest call, and best Christian is principally employed with, in the hearing of his heavenly, transforming word: therefore he is affected with reverence and holy fear, with some taste of heavenly delight, with obedient subjection and resignation of himself to God. The word of God is powerful, not only in pulling down all high exalting thoughts, that rise up against God, but also in lifting up depressed souls, that are unable to rise unto heavenly knowledge, or communion with God. If some Christians could but always find as much of God upon their hearts at other times, as they find sometimes under a spiritual powerful ministry, they would not so complain that they seem forsaken, and strangers to all communion with God, as many of them do. While God, by his messengers and Spirit, is speaking, and man is hearing him; while God is treating with man about his reconciliation and everlasting happiness, and man is seriously attending to the treaty and motions of his Lord, surely this is a very considerable part of our walking and converse with God. But it much concerns the members of Christ, that they deprive not themselves of this communion with God in this holy sacrament through their miscarriage; which is too frequently done by one of these extremes, either by rushing upon holy things with a presumptuous careless common frame of heart, as if they knew not that they go to feast with Christ, and discerned not his body: or else by an excess of fear, drawing back, and questioning the good will of God, and thinking diminutively of his love and mercy: by this means satan deprives many of the comfortable part of their communion with God, both in this sacrament, and in other ways of grace; and makes them avoid him as an enemy, and be loth to come into his special presence; and even to be afraid to think of him, to pray to him, or to have any holy converse with him: when the just belief and observation of his love would stablish them, and revive their souls with joy, and give them experience of the sweet delights which are opened to them in the gospel, and which believers find in the love of God, and the foretaste of the everlasting pleasures. 4. In holy, faithful, fervent, prayer, a christian hath very much of his converse with God. For prayer is our approach to God, and calling to mind his presence and his attributes, and exercising all his graces in a holy motion towards him, and an exciting all the powers of our souls to seek him, attend him, and reverently to worship him: it is our treating with him about the most important businesses in all the world: a begging of the greatest mercies, and a deprecating his most grievous judgments; and all this with the nearest familiarity that man in flesh can have with God. In prayer, the Spirit of God is working up our hearts unto him, with desires expressed in sighs and groans: it is a work of God as well as of man he blows the fire, though it be our hearts that burn and boil. In prayer we lay hold on Jesus Christ, and plead his merits and interces 3. Also in the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, we are called to a familiar converse with God: he there appears to us by a wonderful condescension in the representing, communicating signs of the flesh and blood of his Son, in which he hath most conspicuously revealed his love and goodness to believers: there Christ himself with his covenant-gifts, are all de livered to us by these signs of his own institution. No where is God so near to man as in Jesus Christ and no where is Christ so familiarly represented to us, as in this holy sacrament. Here we are called to sit with him at his table, as his invited welcome guests; to commemorate his sacrifice, to feed upon his very flesh and blood; that is, with our mouths upon his representative flesh and blood, and with our applying faith upon his real flesh and blood, by such a feeding as belongs to faith. The marriage covenant betwixt God incarnate, and his espoused ones, is there publicly sealed, celebrated, and solemnized. There we are entertained by God as friends, and not as servants only, and that at the most precious costly feast. If ever a believersion with the Father: he takes us as it were by may on earth expect his kindest entertainment, and near access, and a humble intimacy with his Lord, it is in the participation of this feast, which is called, the communion,' because it is appointed as well for our special communion with Christ as with one another. It is here that we have the fullest intimation, expression, and communication of the wondrous love of God; and therefore it the hand, leads us unto God, hides our sins, procures our acceptance, and presents us amiable to his Father, having justified and sanctified us, and cleansed us from those pollutions, which rendered us lothsome and abominable. To speak to God in serious prayer, is a work so high, and of so great moment, that it calls off our minds from all things else, and gives no creature room or leave to look into the soul, or once to be ob- | in our prayers, and not pretend the sufficiency served the mind is so taken up with God, and of the Spirit for the patronage of our negligence employed with him, that creatures are forgotten, or sloth; for the Spirit makes use of our underand we take no notice of them, unless when standings for the actuating of our wills and affec through the diversions of the flesh, our prayers tions; yet withal it cannot be denied, but that it are interrupted and corrupted, and so far de- was upon a special reason that the Spirit that is generated, and are no prayer; so far, I say, as we promised to believers is called a spirit of grace thus turn away from God. So that the soul that and supplication. That it is given us to help is most and best at prayer, is most and best at our infirmities, even the infirmities of our underwalking with God, and hath most communion standing, when we know not what to pray for with him in the Spirit: to withdraw from prayer, as we ought;' and that the Spirit itself is said is to withdraw from God: to be unwilling to to make intercession for us, with groanings pray, is to be unwilling to draw near to God; which cannot be uttered.' It is not the spirit meditation or contemplation is a duty in which without that is here meant: such intercession is God is much enjoyed: but prayer hath medita- no where ascribed to that. How then is the tion in it, and much more. prayer of the spirit within us distinguished from our prayer? Not as different effects of different causes: as different prayers by these different parties. But as the same prayer proceeding from different causes, having a special force, (for quality and degree,) as from one cause, (the spirit,) which it hath not from the other cause, (from ourselves,) except as received from the spirit. All that is upon the mind in meditation, is upon the mind in prayer, and that with great advantage, as being presented before God, and pleaded with him, and so animated by the apprehensions of his observing presence, and actuated by the desires and pleadings of the soul. When we are commanded to pray, it includes a command to repent, to believe, to fear the Lord, and desire his grace. For faith and repentance, fear, and desire, are altogether in action in a serious prayer: and, as it were, naturally each one takes his place, and there is a holy order in the acting of these graces in a Christian's prayers, and a harmony which he doth seldom himself observe. He that in meditation knows not how to be regular and methodical, when he is studiously contriving and endeavouring it; yet in prayer before he is aware, hath repentance, faith, fear, and desire, and every grace falling in its proper place and order, and contributing its part to the performance of the work. The new nature of a Christian is more immediately and vigorously operative in prayer, than in many other duties: therefore every infant in the family of God can pray, with groaning desires, and ordered graces, if not with well ordered words: when Paul began to live to Christ, he began aright to pray: behold he prayeth,' saith God to Ananias. Because they are sons, God sends the Spirit of his Son into the hearts of his elect, even the Spirit of adoption, by which they cry, Abba, Father,' as children naturally cry to their parents for relief. Nature is more regular in its works than art or human contrivance is. Necessity teaches many a beggar to pray better for relief to men, than many learned men, who feel not their necessities, can pray to God. The Spirit of God is a better methodist than we are. And though I know that we are bound to use our utmost care and skill for the orderly actuating of each holy affection The spirit is a new nature, or fixed inclination, in the saints: for their very self-love and will to good, is sanctified in them, which works so readily, though voluntarily, as that it is in a sort by the way of nature, though not excluding reason and will; and not as the motion of the brutish appetite. That God is their felicity, and the only help and comfort of their souls, and so the principal good to be desired by them, is become to them a truth so certain, and beyond all doubt, that their understandings are convinced, that to love good, and to love God, are words that have almost the same signification; and therefore here is no room for deliberation and choice, where there is nothing but unquestionable good. A Christian, so far as he is such, cannot choose but desire the favour and fruition of God in immortality, even as he cannot choose, because he is a man, but desire his own felicity in general: and as he cannot, as a man, but be unwilling of destruction, and cannot but fear apparent misery, and that which brings it; so, as a Christian, he cannot choose but be unwilling of damnation, and of the wrath of God, and of sin as sin, and fear the apparent danger of his soul, so that his new nature will presently cast his fear, repentance, and desires into their proper course and order, and set them on work on their several ob.. jects, about the main unquestionable things, however they may err, or need more deliberation about things doubtful: the new creature is not as a lifeless engine, as a clock, or watch, or ship, where every part must be set in order by the art and hand of man, and so kept and used: but it is like to the frame of our own nature, even like man who is a living engine, when every part is set in its place and order by the Creator, and hath in itself a living and harmonious principle, which disposes it to action, and to regular action, and is so to be kept in order and daily exercise, by ourselves, as yet to be principally ordered and actuated by the Spirit, which is the principal cause. By all which you may understand how the Holy Ghost is in us a Spirit of supplication, and helps our infirmities, teaches us to pray, and intercedes in us; and also that prayer is to the new man so natural a motion of the soul towards God, that much of our walking with God is exercised in this holy duty and that it is to the new life as breathing to our natural life; and therefore no wonder that we are commanded to pray continually, as we must breathe continually, or as nature which needs a daily.supply of food for nourishment, hath a daily appetite to the food which it needs, so hath the spiritual nature to its necessary food, and nothing but sickness doth take it off. Thus I have showed you how our walking with God contains a holy use of his appointed means. 11. To walk with God includes our dependence on him for our mercies, and taking them as from his hand. To live as upon his love and bounty; as children with their father, that can look for nothing but from him. As the eye of a servant is upon his master's face and hand, so must our eye be on the Lord, for the gracious supply of all our wants. If men give us any thing, we take them but as the messengers of God, by whom he sends it to us: we will not be | unthankful unto men; but we thank them but for bringing us our Father's gifts. Indeed man is so much more than a mere messenger, as that his own charity also is exercised in the gift. A mere messenger is to do no more but obediently to deliver what is sent us, and he need not exercise any charity of his own; and we owe him thanks only for his fidelity and labour, but only to his master for the gift: but God will so far honour man, as that he shall be called also to use his charity, and distribute his master's gifts with some self-denial; and we owe him thanks, as under God he partakes in the charity of the gift; and as one child owes thanks to another who both in obedience to the Father, and love to his brother, doth give some part of that which his Father had given him before. But still it is from our Father's bounty, as the principal cause that all proceeds. Thus Jacob speaks of God: 'God before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads,' &c. When he had mentioned his father Abraham and Isaac's walking with God, he describes his own by his dependence upon God, and receiving from him, acknowledging him the God that had fed him, and delivered him all his life. Carnal men that live by sense, depend upon inferior sensible causes; and though they are taught to pray to God, and thank him with their tongues, it is indeed their own contrivances and industry, or their visible benefactors, which their hearts depend upon and thank. It were a shame to them to be so plain as Pharaoh, and to say, the Lord? or to speak as openly as Nebuchadnezzar, and say, 'Is not this great Babylon that I have built, by the might of my power,' &c. Yet the same atheism and self-idolizing is in their hearts, though it be more modestly and cunningly expressed. Hence it is that they that walk with God, have all their gifts sanctified to them, and have in all a divine and spiritual sweetness, which those that take them but as from creatures never feel or understand. Who is 12. Lastly, it is contained in our walking with God, that the greatest business of our lives be with him, and for him. It is not a walk for complement or recreation only, that is here meant; but it is a life of nearness, converse, and employment, as a servant or child that dwells with his master or father in the house. God should be always so regarded, that man should stand by as nothing, and be scarcely observed in comparison of him. We should begin the day with God, and entertain him in the first and sweetest of our thoughts: we should walk abroad and do our work as in his sight we must resolve to do no work but his, no, not in our trades and ordinary callings: we must be able to say, It is the work which my master set me to do, and I do it to obey and please his will. At night we must take an account of ourselves, and spread open that account before him, desiring his acceptance of what was well, and his pardon for what we did amiss, that we may thus be ready for our last account. In a word, though men be our fellow-labourers and companions, yet the principal business of our care and diligence, must be our Master's service in the world. Therefore we must look about us, and discern the opportunities of serving him, and of the best improvement of his talents; and must make it our daily study and business, to do him the greatest ser vice in the world. Therefore we must look about us, and discern the opportunities of serving him, and of the best improvement of his talents; and must make it our daily study and business to do him the greatest service we are able, whatever it may cost us through the malice of the enemies, being sure our labour shall not be in vain, and that we cannot serve him at too dear a rate. It is not as idle companions, but as servants, as soldiers, as those that put forth all their strength, to do his work and reach the crown, that we are called to walk with God. All this is done, though not in the same degree by all, yet according to the measure of their holiness by every one that lives by faith. Having told you what it is to walk with God, as to the matter of it, I shall more briefly tell you as to the manner: the nature of God, of man, and of the work, will tell it you. Though by sin we are enemies and strangers to God, and stand afar off, yet in Christ we are reconciled to him, and brought near. For he is our peace, who hath taken down the partition, and abolished the enmity, and reconciled Jew and Gentile unto God.'-'And through him we have all an access to the Father by one spirit.'We are now no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God.'-' In him we have boldness and access with confidence by the belief of him.' Though of ourselves we are unworthy to be called his children, and may well stand afar off with the publican, and not dare to lift up our faces towards heaven, but smite our breasts, and say, O Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.'-' Yet have we boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh and having an HighPriest over the house of God, we may draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith?' Therefore whensoever we are afraid at the sight of sin and justice, let us remember that we have a great High-Priest that is passed uuto the heavens, even Jesus the Son of God: therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace. that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.' He that allows us to walk with him, doth allow us such humble familiarity as beseems those that walk together with him. 1. That our walk with God must be with the greatest reverence: were we ever so much assured of his special love to us, and ever so full of faith and joy, our reverence must be never the less for this. Though love cast out that guilty fear which discourages the sinner from hoping and seeking for the mercy which would save him, and which disposes him to hate and fly from God, yet doth it not cast out that reverence of God, which we owe him as his creatures, so infinitely below him as we are. It cannot be that God should be known and remembered as God, without some admiring and awful apprehensions 3. Our walking with God must be a work of of him. Infinitude, omnipotency, and inaccessible holy pleasure and delight. We may unwillingly majesty and glory, must needs affect the soul be dragged into the presence of an enemy, and that knows them, with reverence and self-abase- serve as drudges upon mere necessity or fear. ment. Though we receive a kingdom that cannot But walking together is the loving and delightful be moved; yet if we will serve God acceptably, converse of friends. When we take sweet counwe must serve him with reverence and godly sel of the Lord, and set him always at our right fear, as knowing that as he is our God, so he is hand, and are glad to hear from him, glad to also a consuming fire. We must so worship him speak to him, and glad to withdraw our thoughts. as those that remember that we are worms and from all the things and persons in the world, guilty sinners, and that he is most high and holy, that we may solace ourselves in the contemplaand will be sanctified in them that come nigh tions of his excellency, and the admirations of him, and before all the people he will be glori- his love and glory, this is indeed to walk with fied.' Irreverence shows a kind of atheistical God. You converse with him as with a stranger, contempt of God, or else a sleepiness and inconan enemy, or your destroyer, and not as with siderateness of the soul. The sense of the good- God, while you had rather be far from him, ness and love of God, must consist with the sense and only tremble in his presence, and are glad of his holiness and omnipotency. It is presump- when you have done and are got away, but have tion, pride, or stupidity, which excludes reve- no delight or pleasure in him. rence; which faith doth cause, and not oppose. If we can take delight in our walking with a friend, a friend 2. Our walking with God must be a work of that is truly loving and constant, a friend that is humble boldness and familiarity. The reverence learned, wise and holy; if their wise and heavenly of his holiness and greatness, must not overcome discourse be better to us, than our recreations, or exclude the sense of his goodness and com- meat, or drinks, or clothes; what delight then passion, nor the full assurance of faith and hope. I should we find in our secret converse with the 5 N most high, most wise and gracious God! glad should we be to find him willing and ready to entertain us? How glad should we be that we may employ our thoughts on so high and excellent an object? What cause have we to say, 'my meditation of him shall be sweet, and I will be glad in the Lord.'—' In the multitude of my thoughts within me,' (my sorrowful, troublesome, weary thoughts) 'thy comforts do delight my soul.' Let others take pleasure in childish vanity or sensuality, but say thou as David, 'I have rejoiced in the ways of thy command-not only to step and speak with him, or cry to ments, as much as in all riches: I will meditate him for mercy in some great extremity, or to go in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways: to church for company or custom, or think or I will delight myself in thy statutes, and will not talk of him sometimes heartlessly on the by, as a forget thy word.'—' I will delight myself in thy man will talk of news, or matters that are done commandments which I have loved.'-'Let scorn-in a foreign land, or of persons that we have little ers delight in scorning, and fools hate know-to do with: but it is to be always with him, 'to ledge, but make me to go in the path of thy commandments, for therein do I delight.' If thou wouldst experimentally know the safety and glory of a holy life, 'delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desire of thine heart.' Especially when we draw near him in his solemn worship, and when we separate ourselves on his holy days from all our common worldly thoughts, to be conversant, as in heaven, with the blessed God; then may we with the holy apostles be in the Spirit on the Lord's day.'-' And if we turn away our foot from the sabbath, from doing our pleasure on that holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shall honour him, not doing our own ways, nor finding our own pleasure, nor speaking our own words, then shall we delight ourselves in the Lord,' and understand how great a privilege it is to have the liberty of those holy days and duties for our sweet and heavenly converse with God. How diligent heed to do the commandment and law, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul.' 5. Our walking with God is a matter of some constancy: it signifies our course of life, and not some accidental action on the by; a man may walk with a stranger for a visit, or in compliment, or upon some unusual occasion: but this walk with God, is the act of those that dwell with him in his family, and do his work. It is 4. Our walking with God must be a matter of industry and diligence: it is not an occasional idle converse, but a life of obedience, and employment, that this phrase importeth. The sluggish idle wishes of the hypocrite, whose hands refuse to labour, are not this walking with God: nor the sacrifice of fools, who are hasty to utter the overflowings of their foolish hearts before the Lord, while they keep not their foot, nor hearken to the law, nor consider they do evil. 'He that cometh to God (and will walk with him) must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. God is with you while you are with him; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.'-' Up and be doing, and the Lord will be with you.' If you would meet with God in the way of mercy, take seek first his kingdom and righteousness.”—‘Not to labour (comparatively) for the food that perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life.'-' To delight in the law of the Lord, and meditate on it day and night.' That 'his words be in our hearts, and that we teach them diligently to our children, and talk of them sitting in the house, and walking by the way, lying down, and rising up.' That we pray continually, and in all things give thanks.' But will the hypocrite delight himself in the Almighty, or will he always call upon God?'-' His goodness is as the morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. So much of the description of this walking with God. CHAP. II. THE PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF THE DOCTRINE We are next to consider how far this doctrine doth concern ourselves, and what use we have to make of it upon our hearts and lives. First, It acquainteth us with the abundance of atheism that is in the world, even among those that profess the knowledge of God. It is atheism not only to say there is no God, but to say so in the heart, while the heart is no more affected towards him, observant of him, or confident in him, or submissive to him, than if indeed there were no God: when there is nothing of God upon the heart, no love, no fear, no trust, no subjection; this is heart-atheism. When men that have some kind of 'knowledge of God, yet glorify him not as God, nor are thankful to him, but become vain in their imaginations, and their |