the light thereof will imprint the very shape and image of the sun upon your eye; and, look where you will, still you retain the appearance of the sun before you: so, every sight, that a true Christian hath of the Sun of Righteousness, will make as it were another sun in his soul. But the illumination of wicked men doth only enlighten, not change them: their understandings may be irradiated with glorious discoveries of God, and of Christ, and the things of heaven; but this doth not transform them into the image and likeness of those things. The illumination of godly men and true Christians is like the light, which breaks through the air, and turns every vast body throughout the world all into light. It is with wicked, unregenerate men, as with those that lie long in the sun-shine; which, though it enlightens them, yet doth but afterwards make them more black and swarthy: so, thou mayest have as much notional knowledge of God, and Christ, and the mysteries of the gospel, as any child of God hath, and possibly much more: yet this is no true sign of grace; for this knowledge is not therefore saving because it is clear and comprehensive, but because it is influential and transforming. And, usually, we perceive, that where the light of knowledge shines into a wicked heart, it doth but tan and make the person more black and swarthy; more sinful, than before.

Thus, as to the Direct Understanding of the Judgment, a natural man may have a bright, clear, and glittering light concerning heavenly and spiritual objects.

(2) As for the Reflex Understanding of the Conscience: neither yet the peace nor the trouble of conscience, is such an attainment as a natural man cannot reach.

[1] A natural man may have a Quiet and Peaceable Conscience.' Indeed, when this peace is true, it is always an effect of grace; and therefore we thus find them coupled together, Rom. i. 7. 1 Cor. i. 3: yet there is that, which looks very like peace of conscience, though it be not such; and that is a supine presumption and a carnal stupidity and ossitancy: their consciences are never troubled at the sight of sin or the sense of wrath; but they are like those presumptuous sinners spoken of Deut. xxix. 19. And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, &c. Now this peace is founded only upon bold and confident persuasions of

God's infinite mercy and gracious disposition: and, because God will exalt his mercy above all his name, therefore they conclude, that, as God hath exalted his power in creating and sustaining them, so he will much more exalt his mercy in saving them. Thus, as madmen often fancy themselves kings or some great personages, when indeed they are but wretched and miserable spectacles; so do these spiritual madmen: and, as the Devil appropriates to himself all the glory of the earth, so these look upon heaven, and all the glory of it, and boldly call it all their own; yea, and, through their wretched security, are bold to cry out with Thomas, My Lord, and my God. To such may say, with our Saviour in another case, God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: God is not the God of such, as love and live in their sins and lusts; and that call him Father, whom yet they dishonour by a lewd and dissolute life. This is but to father one of the Devil's offspring upon the Holy God. Indeed men, by enormous and flagitious crimes, have so wounded and wasted their consciences, that now they retain not strength enough to accuse, molest, and trouble them; and this they call peace of conscience: such a peace, as Gallicus (in Tacitus) exprobrates the Romans with: when they have laid all waste, this they call peace: but this peace is rather deadness of conscience; and is far from that, which ariseth from the true grace of God. The Holy Ghost, in conviction, destroys this ill-grounded peace; and works in the soul horrors and terrors, and affrights the secure soul, when it shews it how it slept upon the top of the mast, and lay on the very brink of the infernal pit. As, therefore, we must not discourage a broken spirit, but embolden it to appropriate Christ and all the promises of the gospel to itself in particular: so we must let wicked men know, that, when they presume to call God, their God and their Father, and yet continue in their sins and wickedness, they will find, that, instead of being their Father, he will only be their Judge. Now it will appear that this peace of a carnal man is only from deep security, and the spirit of slumber that hath seized upon them because, when we come to examine the grounds of it, they plead only the goodness of their hearts, and there is nothing more familiar and frequent than this they boast of; and, though they live in a constant neglect of holy duties, and wallow in the filth of customary sins, yet still they boast of this, that they have very good hearts, upright intentions. This is a mere delusion;

for it is as utterly impossible, that the heart should be good when the life is wicked and profane, as for a good root to bring forth evil and corrupt fruit.

[2] As peace of conscience may be attained by natural men; so, many times, such may lie under the Regrets and Troubles of Conscience.

It is not trouble of conscience, that is the attainment wherein true grace doth consist. A dull and lethargic conscience, that hath long lain under the customary commission of gross sins, may at length by strong convictions be startled and awakened to a sense of sin, and be afraid at the sight of it; but yet may remain an impure and defiled conscience. God may, even in this life, kindle in their breasts some sparks of the unquenchable fire, and may give them some foretastes of that cup of trembling that they must for ever drink of: as he hath made himself a devil incarnate by his sin, so God may make his conscience a hell incarnate. By his conscience, you hear Cain, that primitive reprobate, crying out, My punishment is greater than I can bear: nor could Judas find any other way to check his conscience, but with a halter. These regrets of conscience may proceed from a preparatory work of conviction, which, because of men's wilful deserting them, often vanish away without any saving effect; and fall as far short of true grace, as the region of the air, where storms, tempests, thunderings, and lightnings are engendered, falls short of the heaven of the blessed, and that eternal calmness and serenity. And, as worms usually are the offspring of corruption and putrefaction; so this never dying worm, that must ever sting them, oftentimes in this life, is bred out of a rotten and corrupted conscience. The conscience, therefore, may be defiled, when it is not seared: it may be awakened, when it is not sanctified: a filthy puddle may be stirred, as well as a clear running stream: the conscience may work terrors and horrors, where the Spirit of God never wrought true saving grace.

(3) As to the Affections: there may be affections and sweet motions of the heart, which are oftentimes relied on as certain evidences of true grace, yet also may be in a carnal and natural

man.

Mat. xiii. 20. Some received the word with joy, &c. so, John v. 35. Christ tells the Jews, that they did for a season rejoice in the doctrine and preaching of John the Baptist: thus Herod is said to hear John gladly. So that you see the affections in holy

duties and ordinances may be with joy, even in those, that have no true grace at all in them. As there may be these affections of joy and delight, so likewise of sorrow for sin: so we have it, Mat. xxvii. 3. it is said of Judas, he repented himself; and Ahab's humiliation was so great, that God took special notice of him, 1 Kings xxi. 29. Behold, how Ahab humbleth himself, &c.

Now all these affections are but temporary and vanishing; and may be excited, even in carnal men, from several advan tages, that things have to commend themselves, to their judg ments and to their hearts.

[1] Sometimes, the very novelty and strangeness of them may affect us.

Novelty usually breeds delight, which longer custom and acquaintance doth abate. And this may be given as a reason, why, soon after conversion, the new converts' affections are drawn forth more strongly in the ways of God, than, afterwards, when they grow settled and stable Christians: the reason is, because of the very novelty of that course and way into which they have now entered, which affects them with delight: besides the real desirableness, which is in those ways themselves, the very novelty doth affect them. And this too may satisfy us, that, though many are turned aside from the truth as it is in Jesus Christ and from the way of worship which God hath appointed us, who have boasted, that they have found more comfort and more sweet affections than ever, in those new ways after which they have gone; yet it is not because those ways have any thing in them that might yield them more comfort and delight, but only because they are new ways, and all new things will for the present stir up the affections: but, after some continuance in those ways, they find their joy and delight to flag: then they seek out other new ways, and commend them as much and no wonder; for new ways will stir up new affections. That may be one reason, why affections may be stirred up, even in unregenerate and mere carnal men, as to the things of God, even from the mere novelty of them.

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[2] Good affections may be stirred up in men, from the very affecting nature of spiritual objects themselves.

For spiritual objects may affect us in this natural way. Who can read the history of Christ's Passion, without being affected with sorrow for all the sorrow that he underwent? He hath a heart harder than rocks, that can hear of the agonies, and scourges, and cruel indignities offered to so innocent and ex

cellent a person as Christ was, that suffered even for sinners, and not be moved thereby to grief and compassion. And yet, possibly, these affections may be no other than such as would be excited from us, at the reading of some tragedy in a romance or feigned story.

[3] Affections may be moved by the artificial rhetoric of others; by the great abilities of the ministers, whom we hear. God tells the prophet Ezekiel, chap. xxxiii. 32. Thou art unto them as a very lovely song. They may sometimes have their judgments pleased with the learning shewn in a sermon; and their affections excited by the oratory, and powerful utterance of it but these, though they are very good helps to excite our affections, yet are not true tests of spiritual affections in us. [4] Pride and self-seeking may, in the performance of duties, excite our affections.

Men may be much deceived in this particular. For instance, in prayer, they may think they are affected with the things they pray for: when, possibly, their affections may be moved only with the words themselves spoken; with the copious, free, and admirable inventive way that they pray in: whereas the contrite broken spirit, who is only moved with truly spiritual affections, may not be so large and so copious in his expressions of them: a true Christian may groan out a prayer, who cannot compose and make a prayer, that hath a sententious coherence one part with another. As the ground, that is fullest of precious mines, hath least grass growing upon it; so, sometimes, in holy duties, when the heart is most full of grace, there may be least flourishing of expressions.

You cannot gather the truth of saving grace from strong workings of the affections; which may, sometimes, upon these accounts, be deceitful. And wicked and unregenerate men may have affections stirred up in them, upon these grounds: but, then, they are always vanishing and fleeting; and are only permanent, while the violence of some external cause doth excite them. And they are always unfruitful: though their affections may stir within them, yet they are not efficacious to put them upon a holy life and conversation.

(4) Every change, that is wrought upon the Will, is no certain evidence of the truth of grace.

A man may fall short of true saving grace, when there is yet a great change wrought upon the will. It is true, it is the thorough