The necessity, usefulness, and excellency of gospel obedience shall be afterward declared. It is marvellous to see how hard it is to keep some professors to any faithfulness with Christ in this thing; how many disputes have been managed, how many distinctions invented, how many shifts and evasions studied, to keep up something in some place or other, to some purpose or other, that they may dally withal. Those that love him indeed, are otherwise minded. Herein then of all things, do the saints endeavour to keep their affections chaste and loyal to Jesus Christ. He is made unto them of God righteousness,' and they will own nothing else to that purpose; yea, sometimes they know not whether they have any interest in him or no; he absents and withdraws himself, they still continue solitary in a state of widowhood, refusing to be comforted, though many things offer themselves to that purpose, because he is not. When Christ is at any time absent from the soul, when it cannot see that it hath any interest in him, many lovers offer themselves to it, many woo its affections to get it to rest on this or that thing for relief and succour; but though it go mourning never so long, it will have nothing but Christ to lean upon. Whenever the soul is in the wilderness, in the saddest condition, there it will stay until Christ come for to take it up; until it can come forth leaning upon him; Cant. viii. 5. The many instances of this that the book of Canticles affords us, we have in part spoken of before. This doth he who hath communion with Christ; he watcheth diligently over his own heart, that nothing creep into its affections to give it any peace or establishment before God, but Christ only. Whenever that question is to be answered, 'Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and appear before the high God?' he doth not gather up, this or that I will do, or here and there I will watch and amend my ways; but instantly he cries, 'In the Lord Jesus, have I' righteousness; all my desire is to be found in him, not having on my own righteousness.' (2.) In cherishing that Spirit, that holy Comforter which Christ sends to us, to abide with us in his room and stead; he tells us that he sends him to that purpose, John xvi. 7. fPerfice hoc precibus, pretio, ut hæream in parte aliqua tandem, &c. he gives him to us, 'Vicariam navare operam,' saith Tertullian, to abide with us for ever, for all those ends and purposes which he hath to fulfil towards us, and upon us; he gives him to dwell in us, to keep us, and preserve us blameless for himself; his name is in him, and with him; and it is upon his account that whatever is done to any of Christ's, is done to him, because it is done to them in whom he is and dwells by his Spirit. Now herein do the saints preserve their conjugal affections entire to Christ, that they labour by all means not to grieve his Holy Spirit, which he hath sent in his stead to abide with them. This the apostle puts them in mind of, Eph. iv. 30. Grieve not the Holy Spirit.' There be two main ends for which Christ sends his Spirit to believers. [1.] For their sanctification. [2.] For their consolation; to which two all the particular acts of purging, teaching, anointing, and the rest that are ascribed to him may be referred. So there be two ways whereby we may grieve him. 1st. In respect of sanctification. 2dly. In respect of consolation. 1st. In respect of sanctification; he is the Spirit of holiness; holy in himself, and the author of holiness in us, he works it in us; Tit. iii. 5. and he persuades us to it, by those motions of his which are not to be" quenched. Now this in the first place grieves the Spirit, when he is carrying on in us, and for us, a work so infinitely for our advantage, and without which we cannot see God, that we should run cross to him in ways of unholiness, pollution, and defilement. So the connexion of the words in the place before-mentioned manifests; Eph. iv. 28-31. and thence doth Paul bottom his powerful and most effectual persuasion unto holiness, even from the abode and indwelling of this Holy Spirit with us; 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17. Indeed, what can grieve a loving and tender friend more than to oppose him and slight him, when he is most intent about our good; and that a good of the greatest consequence to us? In this then believers make it their business to keep their hearts loyal and their affections chaste to Jesus Christ. They labour instantly not to grieve h 2 Thess. v. 19. the Holy Spirit by loose and foolish, by careless and negligent walking, which he hath sent to dwell and abide with them. Therefore, shall no anger, wrath, malice, envy, dwell in their hearts, because they are contrary to the holy meek Spirit of Christ which he hath given to dwell with them. They attend to his motions, make use of his assistance, improve his gifts, and nothing lies more upon their spirits than that they may walk worthy of the presence of this holy substitute of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2dly. As to consolation; this is the second great end for which Christ gives and sends his Spirit to us, who from thence by the way of eminency is called the Comforter; to this end he seals us, anoints us, establishes us, and give us peace and joy; of all which I shall afterward speak at large. Now there be two ways, whereby he may be grieved as to this end of his mission, and our chastity to Jesus Christ thereby violated. (1st.) By placing our comforts and joys in other things, and not being filled with joy in the Holy Ghost. When we make creatures or creature comforts, any thing whatever, but what we receive by the Spirit of Christ, to be our joy and our delight, we are false with Christ. So was it with Demas, who loved the present world. When the ways of the Spirit of God are grievous and burdensome to us, when we say when will the sabbath be past that we may exact all our labours? when our delight and refreshment lies in earthly things, we are unsuitable to Christ. May not his Spirit say, Why do I still abide with these poor souls? I provide them joys unspeakable and glorious, but they refuse them for perishing things; I provide them spiritual, eternal, abiding consolations, and it is all rejected for a thing of nought. This Christ cannot bear; wherefore believers are exceeding careful in this, not to place their joy and consolation in any thing but what is administered by the Spirit. Their daily work is to get their hearts crucified to the world and the things of it, and the world to their hearts, that they may not have living affections to dying things; they would fain look on the world, as a crucified dead thing, that hath neither form nor beauty; and if at any times they have been entangled with creatures and inferior contentment, and have i 2 Tim. iv. 10. lost their better joys, they cry out to Christ, O restore to us the joys of thy Spirit! 2dly. He is grieved when through darkness and unbelief we will not, do not receive those consolations which he tenders to us, and which he is abundantly willing that we should receive; but of this I shall have occasion to speak afterward in handling our communion with the Holy Ghost. (3.) In his institutions, or matter and manner of his worship, Christ marrying his church to himself, taking it to that relation, still expresseth the main of their chaste and choice affections to him, to lie in their keeping his institutions and his worship according to his appointment. The breach of this he calls ‘adultery' every where, and 'whoredom ;' he is a jealous God, and he gives himself that title only in respect of his institutions. And the whole apostacy of the Christian church unto false worship is called fornication,' and the church that leads the others to false worship, the 'mother of harlots.' On this account, those believers who really attend to communion with Jesus Christ, do labour to keep their hearts chaste to him in his ordinances, institutions, and worship, and that two ways. [1.] They will receive nothing, practice nothing, own nothing in his worship, but what is of his appointment. They know that from the foundation of the world he never did allow, nor ever will, that in any thing the will of the creatures should be the measure of his honour, or the principle of his worship, either as to matter or manner. It was a witty and true sense that one gave of the second commandment; Non imago, non simulachrum prohibetur; sed non facies tibi :' it is a making to ourselves, an inventing, a finding out ways of worship or means of honouring God, not by him appointed, that is so severely forbidden. Believers know what entertainment all will worship finds with God: Who hath required these things at your hands?? and, 'In vain do you worship me, teaching for doctrines the traditions of men,' is the best it meets with. I shall take leave to say what is upon my heart, and what (the Lord assisting) I shall willingly endeavour to make good against all the world; namely, that that principle, that the church hath power to institute and appoint any thing or ceremony k Rev. xvii. 5. belonging to the worship of God, either as to matter or to manner, beyond the orderly observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted, lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry, of all the confusion, blood, persecution, and wars, that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world; and that it is the design of a great part of the revelation, to make a discovery of this truth. And I doubt not but that the great controversy which God hath had with this nation for so many years, and which he hath pursued with so much anger and indignation, was upon this account; that, contrary to that glorious light of the gospel which shone among us, the wills and fancies of men, under the name of order, decency, and the authority of the church (a chimera that none knew what it was, nor wherein the power of it did consist, nor in whom reside), were imposed on men; in the ways and worship of God. Neither was all that pretence of glory, beauty, comeliness, and conformity, that then was pleaded, any thing more or less, than what God doth so describe in the church of Israel, Ezek. xvi. 25. and forwards. Hence was the Spirit of God in prayer derided, hence was the powerful preaching of the gospel despised, hence was the sabbath decried, hence was holiness stigmatized and persecuted; to what end? that Jesus Christ might be deposed from the sole privilege and power of law-making in his church; that the true husband might be thrust aside, and adulterers of his spouse embraced; that taskmasters might be appointed in and over his house, which he never gave to his church; Eph. iv. 12. that a ceremonious, pompous, outward shew worship, drawn from pagan, judaical, and antichristian observations might be introduced; of all which there is not one word, tittle, or iota, in the whole book of God; this then, they who hold communion with Christ are careful of, they will admit of nothing, practice nothing in the worship of God, private or public, but what they have his warrant for; unless it comes in his name, with Thus saith the Lord Jesus,' they will not hear an angel from heaven. They know the apostles themselves were to teach the saints only what Christ commanded them; Matt. xxviii. 20. You know how many in this very nation, in the days not long since passed, yea, how many |