dwelt the larger on it, that it may serve as an improvement of what hath been spoken. It will be a good pattern of prayer; arguments may be fetched from those topics so far as will suit us to plead with God in our case, and there is scarcely any of these considerations which have been delivered, but may be turned into an argument in prayer.

Now sum up all this. Doth Christ plead for our standing in grace, and progress in sanctification, and live for this end? Did he set Peter up as a pattern of what he would do in this case? Is the covenant kept firm by his mediation, and covenant answers procured by his intercession? Is it appointed by God for this very end, namely, the blessedness of his people? Doth he present every man's case in particular, and intercede for his grace in particular, and what truth shall make impressions on him? Is there some reason to think he is more fervent in it now, than he was upon the earth? to be sure no less. Are the arguments he uses very strong? Then the standing even of the weakest grace is sure. Before that can fall, God must change his end in giving his Son a power to ask, Christ must leave pleading, or his arguments must lose their strength. But as Ambrose said to Monica concerning Augustine, who remained in his natural condition, notwithstanding his good education, and his mother's prayers-It is impossible that a son of so many prayers should perish. So may I say of grace-It is impossible a child of so many, such fervent, such powerful intercessions in all circumstances, can ever, either totally, or finally perish.

III. The Spirit is engaged in this business. The reason why God puts his Spirit into the heart,

is to preserve us from departing from him, Jer. xxxii. 40. As Christ was true and faithful to God in the end of his coming; so will the Spirit be faithful to God in the end of his being put into the heart. It is the same Spirit which, being upon Christ, enabled him to perform his charge, Isa. xi. 2, 3, and made him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, to establish him in faithfulness and obedience to God in his mediatorial work. The same Spirit is in us to establish us in the fear of God, to keep that principle of God's fear put into our hearts, alive. And as the Spirit performed his office fully upon the human nature of Christ, so it will not be deficient in us according to our measure. Consider the Spirit every way, and this work of preserving grace will appear to be his business. What Christ doth by his proxy, may well be interpreted to be his own act.

1. His mission. If Christ was not to break the bruised reed, surely no messenger sent by him, is to do it. The Spirit is sent by the Father in his Son's name, John xiv. 26. He is sent by Christ from the Father, John xv. 26. With his Father's consent and commission. There is a conjoint authority, sent by commission from both; sent to supply Christ's place upon earth. Christ's business in part was to keep his people, and he wanted one to do it after his departure. Therefore he prays his Father to keep them in his name, John xvii. 11. In answer to this prayer the Spirit is sent. Therefore sent by the Father and Son in subserviency to this end of preserving his people, and comes himself with an intention to answer this end, and perform the covenant. If both concur in sending him, his mission must be in order to the

fulfilling what was agreed upon by the Three Persons, and more particularly by the Father and Son in the mediatorial covenant; for they would never send one that should go contrary to the covenant they were engaged in.

2. His titles. He is called, (1.) A Comforter. "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter," John xiv. 16. The Comforter. Such another comforter as I have been unto you, and in some respect better, a more spiritual comforter. It was expedient that Christ should go away, that this Comforter might come: "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you," John xvi. 7. I tell you the truth. I must deal plainly with you; I have a great desire the Comforter should come, and if I go not away, he will not come. Intimating thereby, that it was a greater blessing to have the Comforter with them, than Christ in person. What comfort could they have in this declaration, and what expediency in it, if the Spirit did not mind the same end in keeping and preserving us as Christ did? It had been no ways expedient; better a thousand times Christ had never gone, and the Comforter never come, if it were not for the same end, which Christ minded in the world. The ends of Christ were, to give the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified, Isa. lxi. 3. As this was the work of Christ, so this is the work of the Spirit as a Comforter, to make the heart grow up in fruit to the glory of God.

"That he may

(2.) An abiding Comforter. abide with you for ever," John xiv. 16; he must abide with us in the capacity wherein he is sent, that is, as a Comforter. His comfort would signify little, if it did not meet with the main trouble which pesters us; that is, the fear of miscarrying, and not continuing to the end. Oh, I am afraid that this little spark may be quenched by the floods cast out of the dragon's mouth, that this little faith may be wounded to death by some strong temptations. I doubt it will quickly gasp its last; I have but a little oil in the cruse, it will soon be wasted, and I shall die. These kind of thoughts every believer hath more or less. The chosen vessel and the greatest instrument for God that ever was, found such fears clambering up in him: "I keep under my body, lest that by any means I myself should be a castaway," 1 Cor. ix. 27. The Spirit therefore must be a Comforter to meet this grand trouble, and melt this gloomy cloud which doth so often darken the strong, as well as the weak believer. And truly every one's experience can testify, that when such thoughts do creep up, some hopes also start up with them from the Spirit, like a covenantrainbow with a shower; and one thing which, as a Comforter, he is to convince the world of (and the best part of the world too, even those that are convinced of unbelief, sinfulness, and the necessity and sufficiency of the righteousness of Christ) is, that the prince of this world is judged and condemned, his works dissolved, and that he shall never more have power over believers to ruin them, John xvi. 11. He is to abide with us to that end and purpose for which he came into our hearts; and that was to bring us to God; therefore his

abiding with us, is to keep us with God. If our first conversion were the work of the Spirit, and our standing in it our own, we should be more beholden to ourselves than to the Spirit, because a good condition stable, is a greater blessing than a good condition mutable. If the Spirit stand only as a careless spectator, to see how we would steer our course, without putting his hand to the helm, what good would his abiding with us do? If a man have a great business to do, the presence of a multitude of men doth him no good, unless he hath assistance from them. By the Spirit's abiding with us, is meant, not the remaining of his person without his operations. As when God promises to be present with us, he doth not mean his essential presence, (for that cannot but be present whether he promiseth it or not,) but his gracious presence. The Spirit abides with believers not only in moving them, for so he abides with wicked men, but efficaciously moving, not only in their first conversion, but in their growth and progress.

The Use is,

1. Matter of information. 2. Of comfort.

3. Of duty.

First Use. Information.

The doctrine of the possibility of a total and final apostasy of a regenerate man after grace infused, is not according to truth. You see upon what pillars the doctrine we have asserted, stands. Whence it follows, that the contrary doctrine of the apostasy of a regenerate man, is against the whole tenour of the covenant of grace, against the attributes of God engaged in it and about it, against the design of Christ the Mediator of it, against the