The Trial Made of the Soundness of Our Graces by the Duties of Religion Which We Perform

Sect. I. — We now come, according to the method proposed, to make trial of the truth or falseness of grace, by the duties we daily perform in religion. And certainly they also have the use and efficacy of fire for discovery. “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: and hereby know we that we are in him.” This is a practical lie of which the apostle speaks here; a lie by which men deceive others for a while, and themselves for ever; a lie not spoken, but done, when a man’s course of life contradicts his profession. The life of a hypocrite is but one longer or continued lie. He says or professes that he knows God, but takes no care at all to obey him in the duties he commands. He either neglects them, or if he performs them, it is not as God requires. If he draws nigh unto him with his lips, yet his heart is far from him: “Thou art near in their mouth, but far from their reins.”

There are some who feel the influence and power of their communion with the Lord in duties, going down into their very reins; and there are others whose lips and tongues only are touched with religion. This is an age of light and much profession. Men cannot now keep up a reputation in the sober and professing world, whilst they totally neglect the duties of religion; but surely, if men would be but just to themselves, their very performance of duty would telJ them what their hearts are.

Sect. IL — There are, among others, these following particulars, that very clearly distinguish the sound from the unsound professor: —

1. The designs and real aims of men’s hearts in duty will tell them what they are.

A hypocrite aims low. “They have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me.” It is not for Christ and pardon, for mortification and holiness, but for corn and wine. Thus they make a market of religion. All their ends in duty are either carnal, natural, or legal; either to accomplish their carnal ends, or to satisfy and quiet their consciences; and so their duties are performed as a sin-offering to God.

But an upright heart has very high and pure aims in duty. The desire of their soul is to God, Isa. xxvi. 8. Their soul follows hard after God. “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to see the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” These are the true eagles that aim at the sun, and will not stoop to low and earthly objects. Alas! if the enjoyment of God be missed in a duty, it is not the greatest enlargement of gifts that will satisfy. The Christian comes back from it like a man who has taken a long journey to meet his friend upon important business, and lost his labour; his friend was not there.

2. The engagements of men’s hearts to God in duties, will tell them what they are.

Hypocrites take little heed to their hearts, Isa. xxix. 13. They are not afflicted really for the hardness, deadness, unbelief, and wanderings of their hearts in duty, as upright ones are; nor do they engage their hearts, and labour to get them up with God in duty, as his people do. “I have entreated thy favour with my whole heart,” says David. True Christians are not pleased in duty until they feel their hearts stand towards God, like a bow in its full bent. I say not that it is always so with them — what would they give that it might be so? but, surely, if their souls in duty are empty of God, they are filled with trouble and sorrow.

3. The conscience that men make of secret, as well as of public duties, will tell them what their hearts and graces are, whether true or false. A vain professor is curious in the former, and either negligent, or, at best, formal in the latter; for he finds no inducements of honour, applause, or ostentation of gifts, externally moving him to them; nor has he any experience of the sweetness and benefit of such duties internally, to allure and engage his soul to them. The hypocrite therefore is not for the closet, but the synagogue, Matt. vi. 5, 6. Not but that education, example, or the impulse of conscience, may sometimes drive him thither; but it is not his daily delight to be there, his meat and drink to retire from the clamour of the world, to enjoy God in secret. It is the observation of their duties that is the great inducement to these men to perform them; and, “verily,” says our Lord, “they have their reward;” they have it away, or they have carried off all the benefit and advantage that ever they shall have by religion. Much good may their applause and honour do them! Let them make much of that airy reward, for it is all that ever they shall have.

But now, as for a soul truly gracious, it cannot long subsist without secret prayer. It is true there is not always an equal freedom and delight, a like enlargement and comfort in its retirements, but yet it cannot be without them; it finds the want of secret in its public duties. If the Christian and his God have not met in secret, and had some communion in the morning, he sensibly finds it in the deadness and unprofitableness of his heart and life all the day after.

4. The spirituality of our duties tries the sincerity of our graces. An unregenerate heart is carnal, whilst engaged in duties that are spiritual. Some men deceive themselves in thinking they are spiritual men, because their employments and calling is about spiritual things, Hosea ix. 7. This indeed gives them the denomination, but not the frame of spiritual men. And others judge themselves spiritual persons, because they frequently perform and attend upon spiritual duties. But, alas! the heart and state may be carnal notwithstanding all this. O my friends, it is not enough that the object of your duties is spiritual, that they respect a holy God; nor that the matter is spiritual, that you are conversant about holy things; but the frame of your heart must be spiritual; a heavenly temper of soul is necessary; and what are the most heavenly duties without it? The end and design you aim at must be spiritual, the enjoyment of God, and a growing conformity to him in holiness; else, multiply duties as the sand on the sea-shore, and they all will not amount to one evidence of your sincerity? “God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit,” says the apostle. He seems to appeal to God in this matter. I serve God in my spirit, and God knows that I do so. I dare appeal to him that it is so. He knows that my heart is with him, or would be with him, in my duties. The arms of my faith do either sensibly grasp, or are stretched out towards him in my duties. O how little favour do gracious hearts find in the most excellent duties, if God and their souls do not sensibly meet in them!

Certainly, reader, there is a time when God comes nigh to men in duty, when he deals familiarly with men, and sensibly fills their souls with unusual powers and delights. The near approaches of God to their souls are felt by them, and now are their minds abstracted and marvellously refined from all that is material and earthly, and swallowed up in spiritual excellencies and glories. These are the real prelibations or foretastes of glory, which no man can by words make another to understand, as he himself does who feels them. These seasons, I con-O 60 less, do but rarely occur to the best of Christians, nor continue long when they do. Alas! this wine is too strong for such weak bottles as we are. “Hold, Lord,” a holy man once said; “it is enough, thy poor creature is a clay vessel, and can hold no more.” This is that joy unspeakable and full of glory, which is mentioned in 1 Pet. i. 7, 8.; something that words cannot describe. These seasons are the golden spots of our lives, when we are admitted to these near and ineffable views and tastes of God.

Possibly some poor Christians can say but little to these things. Their sorrows are exercised in duties, more than their joys; they are endeavouring to mount, but the stone hangs at the heel; they essay, but cannot rise to that height that others do, who are got up by their labouring faith into the upper region, and there display their wings, and sing in the sun-beams. But though they cannot reach this height, yet have they no satisfaction in duties wherein there is no intercourse betwixt God and their souls. That which contents another, will not content a Christian. If the king be absent, men will bow to the empty chair; but if God be absent, an empty duty gives no satisfaction to a gracious spirit. The poorest Christian is found panting after God by sincere desires, and labouring to get up that dead and vain heart to God in duty; though, alas! it is many times but the rolling of the returning stone against the hill: yet he never expects advantage by that duty wherein the Spirit of God is not; nor does he expect the Spirit of God to be where his own spirit is not. 5. Assiduity and constancy in the duties of religion make a notable discovery of the soundness or rottenness of men*s hearts. The hypocrite may show some zeal and forwardness in duties for a time, but he will become weary and give out at length. “Will he delight himself in the Almighty? Will he always call upon God?” No, he will not. If his motions in religion were natural, they would be constant; but they are artificial, and he is moved by external inducements, and so must needs be off and on. He prays himself weary of praying, and hears himself weary of hearing. His heart is not delighted in his duties, and therefore his duties must needs grow stale and dry to him after a while. There are three seasons in which the zeal of a hypocrite may be inflamed in duties: —

First, When some imminent danger threatens him, some smart rod of God is shaken over him: ^’ When he slew them, then they sought him, and returned and inquired early after God.” O the goodly words they give, the fair promises they make! and yet all the while “they do but flatter him with their lips, and lie unto him with their tongues;” for let but that danger pass over and the heavens clear up again, and they will restrain prayer and return to their old course again.

Secondly, When the times countenance and favour religion. O what zeal will he then have for God! So in the stony ground, Matth. xiii. 5. the seed sprung up and flourished until the sun of persecution arose, and then it faded away, for it had no depth of earth, no deep solid inward work or principle of grace to maintain it.

Thirdly, When self-ends and designs are accommodated and promoted by these things. This was o 2 the case of Jehu: “Come, see my zeal:” for what? For a base self-mterest, not for God. How fervently will some men pray, preach, and profess, whilst they sensibly feel the advantages and profits of these duties to their flesh, whilst they are admired and applauded! These external incentives will put a hypocrite into a hot fit of zeal; but then, as it is with a man whose colours are raised by the heat of the fire and not by the healthfulness of good constitution, it soon fades and fails again.

But, blessed be God, it is not so with all. The man whose heart is upright with his God, will “keep judgment and do righteousness at all times.” Whether dangers threaten or not, whether the times favour religion or not, whether his earthly interest be promoted by it or not, he will be holy still. He will not part with his duties when they are stripped naked of external advantages. As the addition of these things to religion did not at first engage him, so the subtraction of them cannot disencao-e him. If his duty become his reproach, yet Moses will not forsake it, Heb. xi. 26. If he loses his company and is left alone, yet Paul will not flinch from his duty, 2 Tim. iv. 16. If hazard surrounds duty on every side, yet Daniel will not quit it, Dan. vi. 10. They considered these things at first, and counted the cost; and the servants of God still find that religion is rich enough to pay the cost of all that they can lose or sufier for its sake; yea, and that with a hundred-fold reward now in this life. They never had any other design in engaging in religious duties, but to help them to heaven; and if they recover heaven at last, whether the way to it prove better or worse, they have their design and end; and therefore they ^vilI be steadfast, “always abounding in the work of the Lord, as knowing that their labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

6. The humility and self-denial of our hearts in duties, will try what they are as to their integrity and sincerity towards God.

Does a man boast in his own excellencies in prayer, as the Pharisee did? “God, I thank thee, I am not as other men:” which he speaks not in an humble acknowledgment of the grace of God which distinguishes man from man, but in a proud ostentation of his own excellencies. Does a man make his duties his saviours, and trust to them in a vain confidence of their worth and dignity? Surely “his heart, which is thus lifted up within him, is not upright.” But if the heart be upright indeed, it will express its humility as in all other things, so especially in its duties wherein it approaches the great and holy God.

1st, It will manifest its humility in those awful and reverential apprehensions it has of God, as Abraham did: “And now, I, that am but dust and ashes,” says he, “have taken upon me to speak unto God.” The humility of Abraham’s spirit is, in some measure, to be found in all Abraham’s children.

2d, In those low arid vile thoughts which they have of themselves and their religious performances. Thus that poor penitent in Luke vii. 38. stood behind Christ weeping. “Yet the dogs eat the crumbs,” said another. “I am more brutish than any man,” said a third. “I abhor myself in dust and ashes,” said a fourth. And as little esteem have they for their performances: “All our righteous-; nesses are as filthy rags.” I deny not but that there is pride and vanity in the most upright ones; but what place soever it finds in their converse with men, it finds little room in their converse with God, or, if it does, they loathe it, and themselves on account of it.

3d, But their humility in duty is especially discovered in renouncing all their duties in point of dependence, and relying entirely upon Christ for righteousness and acceptance. They have special regard to duties in point of obedience, but none at all in point of reliance.

7. The communion and intercourse which is betwixt God and men in duties, discovers what their persons and graces are. And it must needs do so, because what communion soever the hypocrite has with duties, or with saints in duties, he has surely none with God.

None can come nigh to God in duty, but those that are made nigh by reconciliation. All special communion with God is founded in real union with Christ; but “the wicked are estranged from the womb.” But now there is real communion betwixt God and his people in duties: “Truly our fellowship, our communion, is with the Father and his Son.” God pours forth of his Spirit upon them, and they pour forth their hearts to God. It is sensibly manifested to them when the Lord comes nigh to their souls in duty, and as sensible are they of his retreats and withdrawments from their souls. Cant, iii. 1, 4. They find their hearts open and shut according to the accesses and recesses of the Divine presence. They who never felt any thing of this nature may call it a fancy, but the Lord’s people are abundantly satisfied of the reality thereof. Their very countenance is altered by it, 1 Sam. i. 18.; the sad and cloudy countenance of Hannah cleared up, there was fair weather in her face, as soon as she knew that she had audience and acceptance with her God. I know that all communion with God does not consist in joys and comforts. There is a real communion with God in the mortifying and humbling influences of his Spirit upon men, as well as in the cheering and refreshing influences thereof. I know also that there is a great diversity in the degrees and measures thereof. It is not alike in all Christians, nor with the same Christain at all times. But that real Christians have true and real communion with God in their duties, is a truth as manifest in the spiritual sense and experience of the saints, as their communion is one with another.

8. Growth and improvement of grace in duties distinguishes the sound from the unsound heart.

All the duties in the world will never make a hypocrite more holy, humble, or heavenly than he is; but will, as the watering of a dry stick, sooner rot it, than make it flourishincp and fruitful. What was Judas the better for all those heavenly sermons, prayers, and discourses of Christ, which he heard? And what will thy soul be the better for all the duties thou performest weekly and daily, if thy heart be unsound? It is plain from Job xxv. 4. that there must be an implantation into Christ, before there can be an improvement in fruitful obedience. And it is as plain from 1 John ii. 14. that the virtues of ordinances must remain, the efficacy and power that we sometimes feel under them must abide and remain in the heart afterwards, or we cannot grow and be made fruitful by them. But the false professor is neither rooted in Christ by union with him, nor does or can retain the virtue of ordinances within him; but, like one that views his face in a glass, quickly forgets what manner of man he was. His head indeed may grow, his knowledge may increase, but he has a dead and withered heart. But as the saints have real communion with God in duties, so they make improvements answerable thereunto. There is most certainly a ripening of their graces, a changing or gradual transformation from glory to glory, a springing up to that full stature of the man in Christ: “They that are planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of our God.” There is pure and sincere milk in the breasts of ordinances. They grow thereby; they grow more and more judicious, experienced, humble, mortified, and heavenly, by conversing with the Lord so frequently in his appointments.

There is, I confess, a more discernible growth and ripening in some Christians than in others. The faith of some groweth exceedingly, 2 Thess. i. 3.; of others, more slowly, Heb. v. 12.; but yet there are improvements of grace in all upright ones. Habits are more deeply radicated, or fruits of obedience more increased.

Obj. If any upright soul be stumbled at this, as not being able to discern the increase of his graces after all his duties,

Sol, Let such consider that the growth of grace is discerned as the growth of plants is; we perceive them rather to have grown, than to grow. Compare time past and present, and you may see a growth; but usually our eager desires after more, make us overlook what we have as nothing.

9. The assistance and influences of the Spirit in duties show us what we are.

No vital sanctifying influences can fall upon carnal hearts in duties. The Spirit helps not their infirmities, nor makes intercession for them with groaniugs which cannot be uttered, as he does for his own people. They have his assistances in the way of common gifts, but not in the way of special grace. He may enable them to preach judiciously, not experimentally; to pray orderly and neatly, not feelingly, believingly, and broken-heartedly; “for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” He never so assists but where he has first sanctified. Carnal men furnish the materials of their duties out of the strength of their parts: a strong memory, a good invention, are the fountains whence they draw. But it is otherwise with souls truly gracious. They have ordinarily a threefold assistance from the Spirit in reference to their duties.

First, Before duties, exciting them to it, making them feel their need of it, like the call of an empty stomach: “Thou saidst, seek my face;” my heart answered, “Thy face. Lord, will I seek.”

Secondly, In their duties, furnishing both matter and affection, as in that text lately cited, Rom. viii. 26. guiding them not only what to ask, but how to ask.

Thirdly, After their duties, helping them not only to suppress the pride and vanity of their spirits, but o 3 also to wait on God for the accomplishment of their desires.

Now, though all these things, wherein the sincerity of our hearts is tried in duties, are found in great variety, as to degrees among saints; yet they are mysteries unknown by experience to other men.