as they stood, though my trial be drawn out, like theirs, through a dull and unpromising length of years. Be thou with me, and all shall be well, whether I bear or do. If I am to be silent or passive, support me, for I cannot remain thus by myself: if I am called to act, “work in me to will and to do of thy good pleasure;" for all thy truth, and my own experience prove, that, in the business of spiritual life especially," without thee I can do nothing.”

CHAPTER XXXVII.

It is through Grace that all Ordinances are rightly used and become beneficial.

As there is a talent of speaking with grace the things that are true and profitable, so there is a talent of hearing with grace, that those things may be received with edification. We may too often see and bewail a customary slight mode of hearing, which, instead of enlivening, deadens; instead of warming, fixes the cold; instead of promoting the life of God within, only confirms the life of the flesh throughout. This is sharply reprehended in Ezek. xxxiii. 30-32.

Some are for hearing a variety of preachers, others a multitude of sermons; not for profit but for pleasure, not to digest and turn the discourses into spiritual nourishment, but to satisfy the hurry and bustle of nature, which doth not love patient reflection nor the meditating labour of the soul.

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hear only and commend this, and that, and the other preacher, however excellent and gracious, is poor employment indeed, which requires very little sense, and less grace, to perform. To set up men and forget God, to be extolling one man above another, and to be ready to quarrel and abuse for the sake of one poor worm against another; is all of it nothing more than the vileness of the carnal nature perversely crept into religious profession, and all of it equally wretched, impertinent, and vain. If this were the whole that is to be found in religion, it would not be a bad wish, that one's "life might rather be spent with philosophers."

To hear for amusement or criticism, to be de-. lighted with flowery language, to be charmed with action, person, manner, and voice, may be well enough in the theatre or senate; but to attend upon God, to hear his word as for one's life, to be filled with the solid importance of divine things, and to carry them home into the heart for comfort and strength in the experience; this is quite another kind of business, which doth not so much engage the carnal mind or ear, as employ the most fervent exertions and the holiest affections of the soul. The one is rank abuse of a sacred institution, and perverted to lull the soul to sleep in carnal security, under the notion of a religious engagement; the other is finding, in the true and gracious use of the means, the advantage which the Lord intended by them.

It is better likewise to hear one sermon, and then to recollect it, to feed and ponder upon it, and to turn the matter of it into prayer, than to be present

at four, five, or six in a day, as some have been, and not be able at last to give a tolerable account of any one of them. The divine life of a Christian doth not consist in mere hearing, any more than his natural life in always eating; but in digesting and in bringing what he hears, as so much nourishment, into the very frame and strength of his soul.

Faith must be mixed with this and with all ordinances and sacraments, otherwise the outward man alone acts, while the inner man is asleep or dead; and so that "which should have been for welfare only, becomes an occasion of falling."

"How have I heard? not how much?" is the best inquiry. Our Lord directs us to consider it well, where he says, "Take heed how ye hear." And if we reflect, that God's word is a 66

savour of life unto life, or of death unto death," in them that do hear it; surely in so solemn an affair, we ought to pray before we hear, to watch unto prayer in hearing, and to mix faith and prayer with what we have heard, that it may turn to our good, and not to our sorrow. 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

On the profitable hearing of the Word.

THIS subject is of so much importance, as to de-
It is a trite observa-

mand some farther reflections.

tion, that we have two ears, and but one tongue.

The natural inference, however, becomes the more important, when authorized by the Holy Ghost: "Let every man be swift to hear, and slow to speak."

But though swiftness of hearing be right, it is only so upon just principles, and for a proper end. A person may be swift to hear evil, through the corruption of nature, for no other purpose than to practise it. In such a case, slowness, or deafness itself, is comparatively a blessing.

It appears then, that there are two sorts of hearing, or faculties, the spiritual and the carnal, the right and the wrong. The one formed and empowered by grace; the other left, as it came into the world, under the perverseness and depravity of nature. We will consider both of these as briefly as possible.

When man fell from God, he not only lost the right use of the natural faculties, which consisted in raising spiritual and divine ideas from the outward objects; but the faculties themselves were diminished, and, instead of serving the Creator, and showing forth his glory in the knowledge and happiness of a perfect creature, were corrupted to obey a fallen spirit in every ministration of sin, whether in filthiness, baseness, pride, or malignity. The ear, amongst these, became the organ of a depraved understanding, and is often put, by a figure, for the depraved understanding itself. And because men in their state of nature are so besotted and blinded by sin, as to have no understanding (or what is worse than none) in spiritual things, they are said to have no ears in those things. On the other hand, our Lord fre

quently addresses himself to those," who have ears to hear;" manifestly implying, that the faithful only can hear to purpose, and that all others are, in a certain sense, without ears, that is, incapable of understanding what they outwardly do hear. This corrupted faculty cannot therefore receive the truth; but, through gross misapprehension, can only pervert it, turning good into bad, and the bad into worse and worse.

The true faculty is indeed a new creation, and consequently the operation and gift of God. The Lord makes "the hearing ear and the seeing eye," said the wise man; or, as Elihu expresses it to the same purpose, "God openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction." In vain might men speak, as Ezekiel would have spoken to that emblem of sinners spiritually dead, "the dry bones," unless the Lord of power vouchsafe to bless, and to impart the truth and strength of a right understanding to the mind.

But where this new faculty is given, the believer should remember, with anxious concern, that even there also remaineth the old. They both exist at once in the same person, and often produce, if care be not taken, and a better care than his own, a sort of neutral exercise of faculties, employing them upon the very best things to no purpose at all, and sometimes to purposes which, it might be thought, no gracious person could allow or endure. The fact is, professors hear the truth too much in their old man ; they do not mix faith with what they hear; and so they become triflers in divine things, and grow in-.