delight while others, void of this power, do indeed see and behold those ways, but see 66 no beauty in them why they should desire them." Hence two sit together, and hear the same sermon; one finds a hidden, spiritual virtue in the word, by which he lives, and grows, and thrives another finds no such extraordinary virtue in it; but if it be rationally and well composed, it pleases his reason, and there is an end. And this proceeds from the want of a spiritual, perceiving heart. As for instance, whence is it that a man is so affected with music, that all the passions of his mind and blood in his body is moved at the hearing of it, and the stupid brutes not at all pleased? but because in man there is a principle of reason concurring with his sense, which discovers that sweetness and harmony in those sounds, that bare sense is not able to discern. Thus it is proportionably between mere reason, and reason joined with a spiritual discernment in respect of spiritual things. And so I have endeavoured in some measure to display the nature of "a perceiving heart and a hearing ear." But the truth is, when we have spoke the utmost concerning it that we can, yet those only can know what it is who have it: as he only knows what it is to sce, who can see. As the groans, so also the graces of the Spirit are unutterable. Grace is known by its own evidence. It is the white stone, shining to him only that does possess

it; for a man is no more able to express this work, so as to convey a full notion of it to the mind of him that has it not, than by words and discourse to convey an idea of colours to him who was born blind, or the proper relish of meats to him who has no taste:

II. Whence it is, that without this gift of a perceiving heart, the soul cannot make any improvement of the means of grace. It arises from these two reasons:

1. From its exceeding impotence and inability to apprehend these things.

2. From its contrariety to them.

1. It cannot close with the means, because of its impotence to apprehend them. Reason attended with the highest improvements of art and endowments of nature, is not able to search into the things of God; it may indeed dive into them so as to drown itself, but never so as to find and apprehend them. For if it be so posed and nouplused, in pursuing the knowledge of natural causes, that the greatest philosophers, after all their search into these things, are forced to sit down in confusion and disagreement; I say, if nature thus falter in earthly things, how will it be able to reach heavenly, between which there is a greater distance than between earth and heaven? If it be also so much to seek in the disquisition of moral truths, that few can agree in stating what is the greatest good, but one says virtue,

another pleasure; I say, how then can it be able to comprehend truth spiritual, which as far surpasses the most elevated morality, considered as such, as that transcends the gross dictates of the most swinish sensuality? Every spiritual truth, as spiritual, so far it is also mysterious. Nature is weak, and feeble, and blind, when it comes to the mysteries of faith; it never appears so weak, as when, by its own strength, it attempts the understanding of these. Nature prying into spirituals, is like Pompey, a heathen, looking into the ark of God; seeing indeed, but not understanding. There is a certain "secret of the Lord," locked up from the view of bare reason; and it is only "with them that fear him." See in what a posture of weakness the Spirit presents a natural understanding, (John, i. 5,) “ The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." Let the light shine round about him who is blind, yet the darkness, which he carries about him, hinders him from perceiving it. Sooner may a dark room enlighten itself, without the irradiation of a candle or the sun, than a natural understanding work out its own ignorance in matters of faith. The Spirit says expressly, that a man in this state" cannot know the things of God," (1 Cor. ii. 14.) There is an impotence rising into an impossibility. Again, (2 Cor. iii. 5,)" We are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing." A good thought is the lowest strain of piety, but the first step to grace; yet we see it is higher than nature can rise unto. How is a natural understanding towering, and pleasing itself in the ornaments and riches of its own notions! yet represented by the Spirit as " poor, and wretched, and blind, and naked," (Rev. iii. 17.) Come to Nicodemus with a gospelmystery, make it out to him by the most obvious similitudes in nature, yet how is that great doctor void of “a heart to perceive, and an ear to hear!" Instead of understanding and assenting to it, he will reply upon you, "How can these things be?" They seem to him absurd, irrational, impossible; and whosoever searches into the great things of the gospel by the bare strength of reason, he will find that, like Nicodemus, he comes to Christ in the dark. Wherefore, if, in the judgment of the Spirit of truth itself, the best of human knowledge, when it ventures upon the things of God, is no more than weakness, insufficiency, and wretched blindness, then for ever let it sit down in its own darkness, and deplore its impotence and inability, and not wonder that it is unable savingly to perceive, hear, or see, the great depths of the gospel. Those expressions usual amongst us,

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strength of parts," "force of reason," since the ruins of a broken, crippled nature, are solecisms in divinity, no where the language of the scripture. It was Adam's doom to

return to the earth, and his soul fell to the ground first. But now, that our not perceiving nor discerning the things of God, proceeds from the impotence of our own hearts, and not from any obscurity or unfitness to be understood in the things themselves, is apparent, and that from the forementioned John, i. 5, where these things are called "a light, a shining light," and therefore most easily to be seen, if it was not for our own darkness. The most refined and the sublimest beings are the most intelligible. It is God's nature to dwell in light, but it is our weakness that makes that light inaccessible; as the fruit that grows upon the top branches, the highest boughs of all, is the fairest and the sweetest, if we could but reach it.

The great disproportion between our intellect and these things, is the cause that we cannot apprehend them. Every such truth has a brightness to dim, and a largeness to exceed the understanding; as the sun is both too bright and too great for the eye. What master of reason or subtlety is able to unriddle the mysteries of the gospel? to track the mysterious workings of the Spirit in conviction and conversion? Sooner may we spy out the motions of the wind, from whence it comes and whither it goes; and view the first conception, and observe the growth of an infant in the womb, which the Spirit mentions as a thing impossible; than to comprehend these wonders things fitter to amaze, than to inform a natural understanding.

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2. The second reason why the soul cannot make any saving improvement of the means of grace, without this special gift of a perceiving heart, is because of its contrariety to these things. And there are two things in the soul, in which this contrariety chiefly

consists:

(1.) Carnal corruptions.
(2.) Carnal wisdom.

(1.) Concerning the contrariety that arises from carnal corruption, it is expressed in the scripture by the greatest that can be, namely, that contrariety which is between enemies; yea, and such an one as breaks out into an open war: "I have a law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive into the law of sin," (Rom. vii. 23.) Paul speaks this in his own person. Now if concupiscence is so strong as to captivate him at some turns, who was truly changed and sanctified, how then will it reign and rage, by a strong opposition of the things of God, in such a person as is yet unchanged and unsanctified? Concupiscence domineers in most men, and it is lively in the best. As for the seat of it, it is placed in the sensitive part of man, and therefore, according to the regular tenor and state of nature, was made to serve, and to be subject to reason: but we know that since sin entered into the world, it

has got the dominion over it; and hence, a from a ruler, we read of its laws, "the law of the members." Now there is no such tyrant as a servant, when he steps into dominion. Hereupon the sensitive appetite, with so much fury, commands the whole man to fulfil its lust; it outfaces and tramples upon all the commands of reason to the contrary. Whence we argue for the truth in hand thus: If concupiscence so much opposes the dictates of human reason, which are much inferior in purity and strictness to the spiritual injunetions of the gospel, then with how much stronger a prejudice must it resist these? For if the yoke that reason puts upon sin bo heavy, that which the gospel puts upon it is much heavier. If reason prohibits the actions of concuipscence, upon the score of inconvenience, the gospel does it upon pain of eternal damnation. As for the works of carnal concupiscence, the apostle gives us a catalogue of them in Galat. v. 19, 20, "The works of the flesh are envyings, strife, and emulation; uncleanness, drunkenness, and the like." Now let us make a particular accommodation of gospel precepts to each of these, and see what an entertainment they are like to find, in a heart that is held in captivity under such lusts. Christ in the gospel says, "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart," (Matt. xi. 29.) "Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you," (Matt. v. 44.) Can we now imagine that this can suit the humour of a wrathful, contentious person, who is so far from blessing those who curse him, that he is often ready to curse those who bless and befriend him? Again, Christ says, "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another?" (John, v. 44.) And, "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant," (Matt. xx. 26.) Is it possible for an envious, emulous man, in his heart to approve, or in his practice to follow this precept of humility? Could he by a voluntary condescension stoop to be a servant, whose continual desire and restless endeavour it is, to be great in the world? Again, Christ enjoins watching and praying" to such as are his disciples, (Matt. xxvi. 41.) For it is clear that this command is general, though delivered to particular persons, because the reason of it was general," that ye enter not into temptation," which equally concerns all. But can the unclean, sensual epicure brook the excellency of this precept? can he like the rigour of these duties? will he break his sleep, or spend any portion of the night in reading and wrestling with God in prayer, who never watches but to serve his cups and his intemperance? Every such precept proposed to concupiscence is a pearl cast before a swine: it can find no admission with such a man as is led and ruled by his corruption. It is above

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his principles, and so he cannot apprehend it. It is contrary to his appetite, and so he cannot receive it.

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(2.) The second thing from whence this contrariety arises is carnal wisdom, which carries in it a greater opposition to the means of grace than the former; inasmuch as there is more hope of the conversion of a sensualist, than of a resolved atheist. For since the notions of carnal wisdom are more refined, and always seem to wear the face of reason, which has more to say for itself than concupiscence has or can have; hence it is, that one thus principled is more hardly convinced than another. In this chiefly are reared those strong holds and principalities which stand out against the workings of the Spirit: "The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be," (Rom. viii. 7.) The subtlety of the world loathes the simplicity of the gospel hence, in the number of those who are to be saved, we have "not many wise, not many great, not many noble," (1 Cor. i. 26.) And for the most part these are the men who are so much acted by this carnal wisdom. Such men are usually too wise and politic to be saved. "The cross of Christ is to the Greek," to the learned Athenian, "foolishness," (1 Cor. i. 23.) He cannot find any convincing reason, why a man should prefer duty before interest; despise the splendour of worldly enjoyments, to assume a cross. Policy, the great idol of a carnal reason, is that which insensibly works the soul to a despisal of religion. We have an exact account of that temper of mind, that indifference in things spiritual, that it usually begets in the minds of its worldly-wise followers, in Acts, xviii. When a controversy about religion was brought before Gallio, a Roman deputy, it is said in the 17th verse, "But Gallio cared for none of these things." Now that in which carnal wisdom and religion stand at an eternal distance is this, that the design of religion is continually to urge a denial of self; but all the maxims of carnal wisdom tend to and terminate in the advancement of self. It is this alone that is more amiable than either the practice or the rewards of holiness. Purity must here give place to profit: love of present possessions outweighs the hope of future felicity. From this principle also proceed those hideous maxims, that religion is only a politic invention, a lackey to government; that the appearance of it is advantageous, but the substance hurts. Hence are these expressions of a known author in his heathenish politics, that good men, advanced to government, must of necessity defend themselves, and those they govern, by deceit and violence; that a Christian, living under a heathen magistrate, may deny Christ in word, so he does acknowledge him in his heart; the nature

of faith being internal, and lodged in the mind, and not at all depending on outward professions. These pestilent sayings, issuing from the fountain of carnal wisdom, sufficiently shew what a cursed abhorrence it has to a submission to spiritual gospel truths. Now this principle is more or less in all men; every man is naturally wise to catch hold of any present enjoyment, rather than venture his happiness upon expectation. There is none that will forsake father or mother, the least piece of the world, the most inconsiderable profit or pleasure, that he may secure an interest in Christ, and in the great things of the gospel, if he should be ruled by the guidance of his carnal wisdom. From hence it is clear, that there is such a fixed antipathy in nature against the spirituality of the ways of God, that unless it be wrought out by the Spirit's giving us a new heart to perceive, and eyes to see," there is no possibility of ever reconciling these together.

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III. I proceed to the third thing, which is to shew, that although, upon God's denial of "a perceiving heart," the soul does inevitably remain unprofitable under the means of grace, so as "not to hear nor perceive;" yet this hardness, or unprofitableness, cannot at all be ascribed to God as the author of it. In order to the clearing of this, we must know, that God's not giving "a heart to perceive" may admit of a double acceptation.

(1.) As it implies only a bare denial of grace. (2.) As it does also include a positive act of induration.

(1.) Now as for the first, God cannot be said to cause our rejection of the means of grace that ensues upon the denial of "a perceiving heart;" because this denial is not the cause of that rejection, but the immediate sinfulness of the heart that resists grace. This rejection, this "not hearing," follows indeed upon the denial of grace, certainly, and of necessity; but then it follows only by way of certain consequence, and not of casual influence. As when a thing is falling, if nobody reaches forth, and stands to catch it, and stop the motion, it must of necessity fall to the ground; yet the not reaching out of the hand, is not the cause of its falling; it adds no impulse to it, but the inherent gravity of the thing is the only cause of the motion, which, if not hindered, will certainly carry it so far. In short, God's denial of grace gives the same necessity to our "not hearing, not perceiving" the word of God, that the divine prescience, or foreknowledge, gives to free actions; that is, a necessity in respect of the event and future existence of the action, not in respect of the power producing it. That is, there is a certain connection between God's denial of "a heart to perceive," and our "not perceiving" if he gives us not such a heart, the event and issue will certainly be, that we shall

is consequent upon such an action. Now this general and native hardness upon all men's hearts is the immediate product of the sin of Adam, which was most free and voluntary; and every man is as really guilty of this sin, as he was really represented in Adam. So that although at present he be naturally under a necessity of rejecting the means, yet this necessity is in effect voluntary, and therefore sin, inasmuch as it follows upon that which was properly so. If Jephthah by a rash vow bring himself under a necessity of one of these two sins, either to break his vow or kill his daughter; yet, inasmuch as he himself procured this necessity by his own voluntary vow, it is virtually, and by consequence, no less voluntary. He that freely brings upon himself a disability of embracing the means of grace, is liable to that reprehension and punishment which is due to a voluntary rejection of them. And thus much concerning the fourth thing.

Application. Use 1. This doctrine speaks refutation to that opinion, that states a sufficiency of grace in the bare proposal of things to be believed and practised, without a new, powerful work of the Spirit upon the heart, that may determine and enable it to believe and accept of these things. The assertors of this opinion hold, that the mind of God clearly revealed, and urged with due persuasions, is a suitable object to a rational understanding, which has power enough to close with every object agreeable to it. If this were true, why does the Spirit here give this as a reason of their "not hearing nor perceiving," because God has denied them " a heart to perceive, and an ear to hear." Certain it is, that the Israelites had the same abilities of a natural understanding and a will that others had; and if this had been able to do the business, they could not have been said to have wanted "a heart to perceive." How hardly is proud nature convinced of its own weakness! Assuredly, if those Scriptures, that so frequently inculcate the total blindness and darkness of a natural understanding, and the impotence of the will in things spiritual, be true, then this opinion must be false. Whatsoever in these things is attributed to mere nature, so much is derogated 'from God. Those who espouse the defence of nature in this particular, present their opinions, as to the manner of expression, variously; but the thing they drive at is still the same.

(1.) Some say, that nature of itself indeed is not able to apprehend or close in with these things; but there is a universal grace, that does generally repair and make up the breaches of nature, and enlightens every man that comes into the world, as they misapply that scripture. So that as Adam's sin brought upon his posterity a total disability to appre

hend the things of God, so Christ's death, which was of an equal latitude, purchased that general assistance of the Spirit that should take off that utter disability, and recruit nature so as again to put it in a capacity of apprehending the things of God when discovered to it; of which things also there is a general discovery made in the sun, moon, and stars, preaching the gospel. But this opinion also directly contradicts the text: for if there was such a universal ability in men to conceive aright of things spiritual, why does the Spirit here say, that God had not yet given these men "a heart to perceive?" Therefore there was either no such universal

grace bestowed upon all men, or the children of Israel were exempt from this general corporation of mankind. But that such men, when they use the word grace, intend not the thing, is clear, as from all their writings, so more particularly from late author, who, in this case, expresses his mind to this effect: that when he says, reason is able to comprehend and comply with the things of God, reason is not to be understood as abstracted and separate from the concurrence of God, but as seconded and assisted by it as the sun is said to know the time of its rising and going down; not that the sun abstracted from God's concurrence can do this, but as directed by it. And he adds, that as this assistance never fails to direct the sun in his course, unless by a miracle, so neither does God ever fail to vouchsafe that assistance to reason, whereby it may be enabled to apprehend things spiritual. From hence it is clear, that the word grace is here used to express nature, as Pelagius used it, "ad frangendam invidiam;" that an opinion equally venomous might appear the less odious. For according to this assertion, it is no more supernatural for a soul to believe, than for the sun to rise and set in his appointed time.

(2.) There are others who say, indeed, that it is not in the power of man's will to believe; but they explain their meaning thus, that it is not in man's power to believe when he will; that is, a man engaged and hardened in a way of sin, cannot immediately in that condition advance into such a spiritual act as believing, till he has gradually disposed himself to it. So that they hold, that a man, in the most sinful condition, may dispose himself to be better, and from thence arise to be yet better; and so lay such a series or train of good dispositions, that shall at length end in belief. And I think it is apparent to any ordinary reason, that, to assert this, is to strike in with the known enemies of God's grace, who, by pretending to enlarge it, do indeed really subvert it.

But now, beside the conviction that these men might meet with in the clear current of the scriptures, certainly their own experience