saints their duty; and teaches them in a higher manner than ever Balaam, or Saul, or Judas were taught, or any natural man is capable of while such. The Spirit of God enlightens them with respect to their duty, by making their eye single and pure, whereby the whole body is full of light. The sanctifying influence of the Spirit of God rectifies the taste of the soul, whereby it savors those things that are of God, and naturally relishes and delights in those things that are holy and agreeable to God's mind, and like one of a distinguishing taste, chooses those things that are good and wholesome, and rejects those things that are evil; for the sanctified ear tries words, and the sanctified heart tries actions, as the mouth tastes meat. And thus the Spirit of God leads and guides the meek in his way, agreeable to his promises; he enables them to understand the commands and counsels of his word, and rightly to apply them. Christ blames the Pharisees that they had not this holy distinguishing taste, to discern and distinguish what was right and wrong. Luke xii. 57. "Yea, and why, even of your own selves, judge ye not what is right?"

The leading of the Spirit which God gives his children, which is peculiar to them, is that teaching them his statutes, and causing them to understand the way of his precepts, which the psalmist so very often prays for, especially in the 119th psalm; and not in giving of them new statutes, and new precepts: he graciously gives them eyes to see, and ears to hear, and hearts to understand; he causes them to understand the fear of the Lord, and so brings the blind by a way they knew not, and leads them in paths that they had not known, and makes darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.

So the assistance of the Spirit in praying and preaching, seems by some to have been greatly misunderstood, and they have sought after a miraculous assistance of inspiration, by immediate suggesting of words to them, by such gifts and influences of the Spirit, in praying and teaching, as the

apostle speaks of, 1 Cor. xiv. 14, 26. (which many natural men had in those days), instead of a gracious holy assistance of the Spirit of God, which is the far more excellent way (as 1 Cor. xii. 31., and xiii. 1). The gracious and most excellent kind assistance of the Spirit of God in praying and preaching, is not by immediate suggesting of words to the apprehension, which may be with a cold, dead heart, but by warming the heart, and filling it with a great sense of those things that are to be spoken of, and with holy affections, that that sense and those affections may suggest words. Thus indeed the Spirit of God may be said indirectly and mediately to suggest words to us, to indite our petitions for us, and to teach the preacher what to say; he fills the heart, and that fills the mouth; as we know that when men are greatly affected in any matter, and their hearts are very full, it fills them with matter for speech, and makes them eloquent upon that subject; and much more have spiritual affections this tendency, for many reasons that might be given. When a person is in a holy and lively frame in secret prayer, it will wonderfully supply him with matter, and with expressions, as every true Christian knows; and so it will fill his mouth in Christian conversation, and it has the like tendency to enable a person in public prayer and preaching. And if he has these holy influences of the Spirit on his heart in a high degree, nothing in the world will have so great a tendency to make both the matter and manner of his public performances excellent and profitable. But since there is no immediate suggesting of words from the Spirit of God to be expected or desired, they who neglect and despise study and premeditation, in order to a preparation for the pulpit, in such an expectation, are guilty of presumption; though doubtless it may be lawful for some persons, in some cases, (and they may be called to it) to preach with very little study; and the Spirit of God, by the heavenly frame of heart that he gives them, may enable them to do it to excellent purpose.

Besides this most excellent way of the Spirit of God, in assisting ministers in public performances, which (considered as the preacher's privilege) far excels inspiration, there is a common assistance which natural men may have in these days, and which the godly may have intermingled with a gracious assistance, which is also very different from inspiration, and that is his assisting natural principles; as his assisting the natural apprehension, reason, memory, conscience, and natural affection.

But to return to the head of impressions and immediate revelations; many lay themselves open to a delusion, by expecting direction from heaven in this way, and waiting for it in such a case it is easy for persons to imagine that they have it. They are perhaps at a loss concerning something, undetermined what they shall do, or what course they should take in some affair, and they pray to God to direct them, and make known to them his mind and will; and then, instead of expecting to be directed, by being assisted in consideration of the rules of God's word, and their circumstances, and God's providence, and enabled to look on things in a true light, and justly to weigh them, they are waiting for some secret immediate influence on their minds, unaccountably swaying their minds, and turning their thoughts or inclinations that way that God would have them go, and are observing their own minds, to see what arises there, whether some texts of scripture do not come into the mind, or whether some ideas, or inward motions and dispositions do not arise in something of an unaccountable manner, that they may call a divine direction. Hereby they are exposed to two things. First, they lay themselves open to the devil, and give him a fair opportunity to lead them where he pleases; for they stand ready to follow the first extraordinary impulse that they shall have, groundlessly concluding it is from God. And secondly, they are greatly exposed to be deceived by their own imaginations; for such an expectation awakens and quickens the imagination; and that often

times is called an uncommon impression, that is no such thing; and they ascribe that to the agency of some invisible being, that is owing only to themselves.

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Again, another way that many have been deceived, is by drawing false conclusions from true premises. Many true and eminent saints have been led into mistakes and snares, by arguing too much from that, that they have prayed in faith; and that oftentimes when the premises are true, they have indeed been greatly assisted in prayer for such a particular mercy, and have had the true spirit of prayer in exercise, in their asking it of God; but they have concluded more from these premises than is a just consequence from then that they have thus prayed is a sure sign that their prayer is accepted and heard, and that God will give a gracious answer, according to his own wisdom, and that the particular thing that was asked shall be given, or that which is equivalent; this is a just consequence from it; but it is not inferred by any new revelation now made, but by the revelation that is made in God's word, the promises made to the prayer of faith in the holy scriptures: but that God will answer them in that individual thing that they ask, if it be not a thing promised in God's word, or they do not certainly know that it is that which will be most for the good of God's church, and the advancement of Christ's kingdom and glory, nor whether it will be best for them, is more than can be justly concluded from it. If God remarkably meets with one of his children while he is praying for a particular mercy of great importance, for himself, or some other person, or any society of men, and does by the influences of his Spirit greatly humble him, and empty him of himself in his prayer, and manifests himself remarkably in his excellency, sovereignty, and his all-sufficient power and grace in Jesus Christ, and does in a remarkable manner enable the person to come to him for that mercy, poor in spirit, and with humble resignation to God, and with a great degree of faith in the divine sufficiency, and the sufficiency of Christ's mediation, that

person has indeed a great deal the more reason to hope that God will grant that mercy, than otherwise he would have; the greater probability is justly inferred from that, agreeably to the promises of the holy scripture, that the prayer is accepted and heard; and it is much more probable that a prayer that is heard will be returned with the particular mercy that is asked, than one that is not heard. And there is no reason at all to doubt, but that God does sometimes especially enable to the exercises of faith, when the minds of his saints are engaged in thoughts of and prayer for some particular blessing they greatly desire; i. e. God is pleased especially to give them a believing frame, a sense of his fullness, and a spirit of humble dependence on him, at such times as when they are thinking of and praying for that mercy, more than for other mercies; he gives them a particular sense of his ability to do that thing, and of the sufficiency of his power to overcome such and such obstacles, and the sufficiency of his mercy, and of the blood of Christ, for the removal of the guilt that is in the way of the bestowment of such a mercy in particular. When this is the case, it makes the probability still much greater, that God intends to bestow the particular mercy sought, in his own time, and his own way. But here is nothing of the nature of a revelation in the case, but only a drawing rational conclusions from the particular manner and circumstances of the ordinary gracious influences of God's Spirit. And as God is pleased sometimes to give his saints particular exercises of faith in his sufficiency, with regard to particular mercies they seek, so he is sometimes pleased to make use of his word in order to it, and helps the actings of faith with respect to such a mercy, by texts of scripture that do especially exhibit the sufficiency of God's power or mercy, in such a like case, or speak of such a manner of the exercise of God's strength and grace. The strengthening of their faith in God's sufficiency in this case is therefore a just improvement of such scriptures; it is no more than what those scriptures, as they