DIRECTIONS TO UNBELIEVERS for attaining faith 2/2

 Here thou bearest false witness against God himself, and tellest a lie, not to the Holy Ghost, as Ananias did, but a lie of the Holy Ghost; as if not a word were true he saith in the promises of the gospel.  If ‘he that believeth setteth to his seal that God is true,’ judge you whether the unbe­liever makes him not a liar?  Hast thou been a mur­derer, yea, had thy hand in the blood of saints—the best of men?  This is a dreadful sin, I confess.  But by thy unbelief, thou art a more bloody murderer by how much the blood of God is more precious than the blood of mere men.  Thou killest Christ over again by thy unbelief, and treadest his blood under thy feet, yea, throwest it under Satan's feet to be trampled on by him.

           Question.  But how can unbelief be so great a sin, when it is not in the sinner’s power to believe?

           Answer.  By this reason the unregenerate person might wipe off any other sin and shake off the guilt of it with but saying, ‘It is not my fault that I do not keep this commandment or that, for I have no power of myself to do them.’  This is true; he cannot per­form one holy action holily and acceptably. ‘They that are in the flesh cannot please God,’ Rom. 8:8. But, it is a false inference, that therefore he doth not sin because he can do no other.

1. Because his inability is not created by God, but con­tracted by the creature himself.  ‘God hath made man up­right; but they have sought out many in­ventions,’ Ecc. 7:29.  Man had not his lame hand from God.  No, he was made a creature fit and able for any service his Maker would please to employ him in. But man crippled himself.  And man’s fault cannot preju­dice God’s right.  Though he hath lost his ability to obey, yet God hath not lost his power to command. Who, among ourselves, thinks his debtor discharged, by wasting that estate whereby he was able to have paid us?  It is confessed, had man stood, he should not, indeed could not, have believed on Christ for salvation, as now he is held forth in the gospel; but this was not from any disability in man, but from the unmeetness of such an object to Adam’s holy state. If it had been a duty meet for God to command, there was ability in man to have obeyed.
2. Man’s present impotency to yield obedience to the commands of God, and in particular to this of believing—where it is promulgated—doth afford him no excuse; because it is not a single inability, but complicated with an inward enmity against the com­mand. It is true man can not believe.  But it is as true man will not believe.  ‘Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,’ John 5:40.  It is possible, yea, ordinary, that a man may, through some feebleness and deficiency of strength, be disabled to do that which he is very willing to do; and this draws out our pity.  Such a one was the poor cripple, who lay so long at ‘the pool,’ John 5:5.  He was willing enough to have stepped down if he could have but crept thither; or that any other should have helped him in, if they would have been so kind.  But, what would you think of such a cripple that can neither go himself into the pool for healing, nor is willing any should help him in; but flees in the face of him that would do him this friendly office?  Every unbeliever is this cripple.  He is not only impotent himself, but a resister of the Holy Ghost that comes to woo and draw him unto Christ.  Indeed, every one that believes believes will­ingly.  But he is beholden, not to nature, but to grace, for this willingness.  None are willing till ‘the day of power’ comes, Ps. 110:3, in which the Spirit of God   ov­ershadows the soul, and by his incubation, as once upon the waters, new‑forms and moulds the will into a sweet compliance with the call of God in the gospel.

DIRECTIONS TO UNBELIEVERS for attaining faith 1/2

But possibly thou wilt ask now, how thou mayest get this precious grace of faith?  The answer to this question, take in these following directions.  First. Labour to get thy heart convinced of, and affect­ed with, thy unbelief.  Second. Take heed of resisting or opposing his help to the Spirit of God, when he offers his help to the work.  Third. Lift up thy cry aloud in prayer to God for faith.  Fourth. Converse much with the promises, and be fre­quently pondering them in thy musing thoughts.  Fifth. Press and urge thy soul home with that strong obligation that lies on thee, a poor humbled sinner, to believe. The unbeliever must get his heart convinced of its unbelief 

           First Direction. Labour to get thy heart con­vinced of, and affected with, thy unbelief.  Till this be done, thou wilt be but sluggish and slighty in thy en­deavours for faith.  A man may be convinced of other sins and never think of coming to Christ.  Convince a drunkard of his drunkenness, and upon leaving his drunken trade his mind is pacified; yea, he blesseth himself in his reformation, because all the quarrel his conscience had with him was for that particular sin. But, when the Spirit of God convinceth the creature of his unbelief, he gets between him and those bur­rows in which he did use to earth and hide himself. He hath no ease in his spirit from those plasters now, which formerly had relieved him, and so kept him from coming over to Christ.  Before, it served the turn to bring his conscience to sleep when it accused him for such a sin, that he had left the practice of it; and, for the neglect of a duty, that now he had taken it up without an inquiry into his state, whether good or bad, pardoned or unpardoned. Thus many make a shift to daub and patch up the peace of their con­sciences, even as some do to keep up an old rotten house, by stopping in, here a tile and there a stone, till a loud wind comes and blows the whole house down.  But, when once the creature hath the load of its unbelief laid upon his spirit, then it is little ease to him to think he is no drunkard as he was, no atheist in his family—without the worship of God—as he was.  ‘Thy present state,’ saith the Spirit of God, ‘is as damning, in that thou art an unbeliever, as if thou wert these still.’  Yea, what thou wert, thou art; and wilt be found at the great day, to be the drunkard and atheist, for all thy seeming reformation, except by an intervening faith thou gainest a new name.  What though thou beest drunk no more? yet the guilt re­mains upon thee till faith strikes it off with the blood of Christ.  God will be paid his debt; by thee, or Christ for thee; and Christ pays no reckoning for unbelievers.

           Again, as the guilt remains, so the power of those lusts remains, so long as thou art an unbeliever —however they may disappear in the outward act. Thy heart is not emptied of one sin, but the vent stopped by restraining grace.  A bottle full of wine, close stopped, shows no more what it hath in it than one that is empty.  And that is thy case.  How is it possible thou shouldst truly mortify any one lust, that hast no faith, which is the only victory of the world? In a word, if under the convincement of thy unbelief thou wilt find—how little a sin soever now it is thought by thee—that there is more malignity in it than in all thy other sins.  Hast thou been a liar? That is a grievous sin indeed.  Hell gapes for every one that loveth and telleth a lie, Rev. 22:15.  But know, poor wretch, the loudest lie which ever thou toldest is that which by thy unbelief thou tellest.

Exhortation to unbelievers, to obtain ‘the shield of faith

Exhortation to unbelievers, to obtain ‘the shield of faith

           Is faith so precious a grace?  Let it provoke you, who want it, to get it.  Can you hear of this pearl and  not wish it were yours?  Wherefore hath the Spirit spoken such great and glorious things of faith in the Word but to make it the more desirable in your eye? Is there any way to get Christ, but by getting faith? or dost not thou think that thou needest Christ as much as any other?  There is a generation of men in the world would almost make one think this was their judgment, who, because their corruptions have not, by breaking out into plague-sores of profaneness, left such a brand of ignominy upon their name as some others lie under, but their conversations have been strewed with some flowers of morality, whereby their names have kept sweet among their neighbours; and, therefore, they do not at all listen to the offers of Christ, neither do their consciences check them for this neglect.  And why so?  Surely it is not because they are more willing to go to hell than others; but because the way they think they are in will bring them in good time to heaven, without any more ado. Poor deluded creatures!  Is Christ then sent to help only some more debauched sinners to heaven, such as drunkards, swearers, and of that rank?  And are civil, moral men, left to walk thither on their own legs?  I am sure, if the word may be believed, we have the case resolved clear enough.  That tells of but one way to heaven for all that mean to come there.  As there is but ‘one God,’ so but ‘one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,’ I Tim. 2:5.  And if there is but one bridge over the gulf, judge what is like to become of the civil, righteous man, for all his sweet-scented life, if he miss this one bridge, and goes on in the road he hath set out in for heaven?  O remember, proud man, who thou art, and cease thy vain attempt.  Art thou not of Adam’s seed?  Hast thou not traitor’s blood in thy veins?  If ‘every mouth be stopped,’ Rom. 3:19, 20, how darest thou open thine?  If ‘all the world become guilty before God,’ that ‘by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified in his sight,’ where then shalt thou stand to plead thy innocency before him who sees thy black skin under thy white feathers, thy foul heart through thy fair carriage? It is faith on Christ that alone can purify thy heart.  Without it thy washed face and hands—exter­nal righteousness I mean—will never commend thee to God.  And therefore thou art under a horrible de­lusion if thou dost not think that thou needest Christ and a faith to interest thee in him, as much as the bloodiest murderer or filthiest Sodomite in the world. If a company of men and children in a journey were to wade through some brook, not beyond a man’s depth, the men would have the advantage of the chil­dren.  But if to cross the seas, the men would need a ship to waft them over, as well as the children.  And they might well pass for madmen, if they should think to wade through, without the help of a ship, that is offered them as well as the other, because they are a little taller than the rest are.  Such a foolish, desper­ate adventure wouldst thou give for thy soul, if thou shouldst think to make thy way through the justice of God to heaven, without shipping thyself by faith in Christ, because thou art not so bad in thy external conversation as others.  Let me therefore again and again beseech all that are yet destitute of faith, to endeavour for it, and that speedily.  There is nothing deserves the precedency in your thoughts before this.  David resolved not to ‘give sleep to his eyes, or slum­ber to his eyelids, till he find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob,’ Ps. 132:4, 5.  The habitation which pleaseth God most is thy heart; but it must be a believing heart, ‘That Christ may dwell in your heart by faith,’ Eph. 3:17.  O how dare yo sleep a night in that house where God doth not dwell? and he dwells not in thee, if thou carriest an unbelieving heart in thy bosom. There is never a gospel sermon thou hearest, but he stands at thy door to be let in.  Take heed of multiplying unkindnesses in denying him entertainment.  How knowest thou but God may, finding thy heart shut so oft by unbelief against his knocks, suddenly seal thee up under final unbelief?

True faith is UNIFORM

 

Third Property. True faith is uniform.  As sin­cere obedience doth not pick and choose—take this commandment, and leave that—but hath respect to all the precepts of God; so, faith unfeigned hath re­spect to all the truths of God.  It believes one promise as well as another.  As the true Christian must not have ‘the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ James 2:1, so, not with respect to truths.  To pretend to believe one promise, and to give no credit to another, this is to be partial in the promises, as the priests are charged to be in the duties of the law, Mal. 2:9.  The honour of God is as deeply engaged to perform one promise as another.  Indeed, as the breach of but one command­ment would put us under the guilt of the whole; so God's failing in one promise—which is blasphemy to think—would be the breaking of his whole covenant. Promises are copulative as well as commands; and therefore, neither can God keep one, except he per­form all; nor we believe one, except we believe all. God hath spoken all these words of promises, as he did those of precepts; his seal is to all, and he looks that we should compass all within the embraces of our faith. David bears witness to the whole truth of God, ‘Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever,’ Ps. 119:160.  Try now thy faith here.  Possibly, thou pre­tendest to believe the promise for pardon, and art oft pleasing thyself with the thoughts of it; but, what faith hast thou on the promise, for sanctifying thy nature and subduing thy corruptions?  May be thou mindest not these, improvest not these.  This fruit may hang long enough on the branches of the promises before thou gatherest it.  The other is for thy tooth, not these; whereas true faith would like one as well as the other.  See how David heartily prays for the perform­ance of this promise, ‘Be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name.  Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have do­minion over me,’ Ps. 119:132, 133.  David would not lose any privilege that God hath by promise settled on his children.  ‘Do with me,’ saith he, ‘as thou usest to do.’  this is no more than family fare—what thou promisest to do for all that love thee; and let me not go worse clad than the rest of my brethren.  May be thou fanciest thou hast a faith for the eternal salva­tion of thy soul. But, hast thou faith to rely on God for the things of this life? A strange believer, is he not, that lives by faith for heaven, and by his wits and sin­ful policy for the world?  Christ proves that they, John 5:44, did not believe on him, because they durst not trust him with their names and credits.  If we cannot trust him with the less, how can we in the greater?

           I deny not, but he that hath a true faith, yea, a strong faith for heaven, may be put to a plunge and his faith foiled about a temporal promise; but we must not from an hour of temptation, wherein God leaves his most eminent saints to humble them, judge of the constant ordinary frame of the believer’s heart. Though Abraham dissembled once to save his life, which he thought in some danger for his wife's beauty; yet he did, at other times, give eminent testimony that he trusted God for his temporal life, as well as for his eternal salvation. I do not therefore bid thee question the truth of thy faith for every fainting fit that comes over it, as to the good things of the promise of this life.  A man may, in a time of war, have some of his estate lie under the enemy’s power for a time, and he, so long, have no profits from it; but still he reckons it as his estate, is troubled for his present great loss, and endeavours, as soon as he can, to re­cover it again out of his enemy’s hand.  So, in the hurry of a temptation, when Satan—the soul’s great enemy—is abroad, and God withdraws his assistance, the believer may have little support from some partic­ular promise; but he ever counts that as his portion as well as any other, mourns he can act his faith no more upon it, and labours to reinforce his faith with new strength from heaven when he can, that he may be able to live upon it, and improve it more to his com­fort.  So that still it holds true, if we believe not God for this life, neither do we for the other.  In a word, may be thou pretendest for a faith for thy temporals, and seemest to trust God for things of this life; but art a mere stranger to those prime acts of faith, whereby the believing soul closeth with Christ, and receiveth him as his Lord and Saviour, and so seals to the cov­enant that in the gospel is tendered to poor sinners. Canst thou so far fight against thy own reason, as to think that any temporal promise belongs to thee with­out these?  What gives the woman the right to her jointure^[6] but her marriage covenant?  And what gives the creature a true claim to these promises, or any other in the covenant of grace, but its union to Christ, and accepting of him as he is offered?  The first act of God's love to the creature is that whereby he chooseth such a one to be his, and sets him apart, in his un­changeable purpose, to be an object of his special love in Christ, and therefore called ‘the foundation,’ as that on which God lays the superstructure of all other mercies: ‘The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his,’ II Tim. 2:19.  First, God chooseth a person to be his, and on this foundation he builds, and bestows all his further cost of mercy upon the creature, as one that is his.  So on the creature's part, fist, faith closeth with Christ, severs him in his thoughts from all others, and chooseth him to be his Saviour, in whom alone he will trust, and whom alone he will serve; which done, then it trades with this promise and that, as the portion which falls to him by marriage with Christ.  And therefore see how preposterous thy course is, who snatchest these promises to thyself, before there hath passed any good-will from thee to Christ.

Three acts by which faith discovers itself in reference to prayer 3/3

3. Act.Faith hath a supporting act after prayer.

           (1.) It supports the soul to expect a gracious an­swer. ‘I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up,’ Ps. 5:3.  Or, ‘I will look’ for what, but for a return?  An unbelieving heart shoots at random, and never minds where his arrow lights, or what comes of his praying; but faith fill the soul with expectation.  As a merchant, when he casts up his estate, counts what he hath sent beyond sea, as well as what he hath in hand; so doth faith reckon upon what he hath sent to heaven in prayer and not received, as well as those mercies which he hath received, and are in hand at present.  Now this expectation which faith raiseth in the soul after prayer, appears in the power that it hath to quiet and compose the soul in the interim between the sending forth, as I may say, the ship of prayer, and its return home with its rich lading it goes for. And it is more or less, according as faith’s strength is. Sometimes faith comes from prayer in triumph, and cries victoria—victory.  It gives such a being and exis­tence to the mercy prayed for in the Christian’s soul, before any likelihood of it appears to sense and reason, that the Christian can silence all his troubled thoughts with the expectation of its coming.  So Hannah prayed, and ‘was no more sad,’ I Sam. 1:18. Yea, it will make the Christian disburse his praises for the mercy long before it is received.  Thus high faith wrought in David, ‘What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee;’ and in the next words, ‘In God I will praise his word,’ Ps. 56:3, 4; that is, he would praise God for his promise, before there were any performance of it to him, when it had no existence but in God’s faithfulness and David's faith.  This holy man had such a piercing eye of faith, as he could see the promise, when he was at lowest ebb of misery, so certain and unquestionable in the power and truth of God, that he could then praise God, as if the promised mercy had actually been fulfilled to him. But I would not have thee, Christian, try the truth of thy faith by this heroic high strain it mounts to in some eminent believers. Thou mayest be a faithful soldier to Christ, though thou attainest not to the degree of a few worthies in his army, more honourable in this respect than the rest of their brethren.

           (2.) There is a lower act of faith, which, if thou canst find, may certify thee of its truth: that, I mean, which, though it doth not presently, upon praying, disburden the soul of all its anxious disquieting thoughts, yet keeps the soul's head above their waves and gives a check to them, that they abate, though by little and little, as the stream in a channel doth at a falling tide.  When God took the deluge from the earth, he did not do it in a moment.  It is said, ‘The waters returned from off the earth continually,’ Gen. 8:3; that is, it was falling water from day to day, till all was gone.  Canst thou not find, Christian, that some of thy tumultuous disquieting thoughts are let out at the sluice of prayer, and that it is some ease to thy encumbered spirit, that thou hast the bosom of a gra­cious God to empty thy sorrowful heart into? and, though praying doth not drain away all thy fears, yet it keeps thee, doth it not, from being overflown with them, which thou couldst not avoid without faith?  A soul wholly void of faith, prays, and leaves none of its burden with God, but carries all back with it that it brought, and more too.  Calling on God gives no more relief to him, than throwing out an anchor that hath no hooks to take hold on the firm earth, doth the sinking ship.  If, therefore, poor soul, thou find­est, upon throwing thy anchor of faith in prayer, that it takes such hold on Christ in the promise as to stay thee from being driven by the fury of Satan’s affright­ing temptations, or thy own despairing thoughts, bless God for it.  The ship that rides at anchor is safe —though it may be a little tossed to and fro—so long as the anchor keeps its hold.  And so art thou, poor soul.  That faith will save from hell, that will not wholly free the soul here from fears

Three acts by which faith discovers itself in reference to prayer 2/3

2. Act. Faith puts forth an assisting act in prayer.  To instance only in two particulars.

           (1.) It assists the soul with importunity.  Faith is the wrestling grace.  It comes up close to God; takes hold of God, and will not easily take a denial.  It in­fires all the affections, and sets them on work.  This is the soul's eye, by which it sees the filth, the hell, that is in every sin.  And seeing affects the heart, and puts it into a passion of sorrow when the soul spreads its abominations before the Lord.  The creature now needs no onion to make it weep.  Tears come alone freely, as water from a flowing spring.  It makes a discovery of Christ to the soul in the excellencies of his person, love, and graces, from the glass of the promise, at the sight of which it is even sick with longing after them, and such pangs of love come upon it, as make it send forth strong cries and supplications for that it so impatiently desires.  Yea, further, faith doth not barely set the creature’s teeth on edge by displaying the excellency of Christ and his grace; but it supplies him with arguments, and helps the soul to wield and use them both valiantly and victoriously upon the Almighty.  Never could he tell what to do with a promise in prayer, till now that faith teacheth him to press God with it, humbly, yet boldly.  ‘What wilt thou do unto thy great name?’ Joshua 7:9.  As if he had said, ‘Thou art so fast bound to thy people by promise and oath, that thou canst not leave them to perish, but thy name will suffer with them.’  Faith melts promises into arguments, as the soldier doth lead into bullets, and then helps the Christian to send them with a force to heaven in a fervent prayer; whereas a promise in an unbeliever’s mouth is like a shot in a gun's mouth without any fire to put to it.  O how cold and dead doth a promise drop from him in prayer!  He speaks promises, but cannot pray prom­ises or press promises.  And therefore, try thyself not by naked praying, but by importunity in prayer; and that, not by the agitation of thy bodily spirits, but the inward working of thy soul and spirit, whether carried out to plead the promise and urge it upon God with an humble importunity, or not.

           (2.) Faith enables the soul to persevere in the work.  False faith may show some mettle at hand, but it will jade at length.  Will the hypocrite pray always? Job 27:10.  No; as the wheel wears with turning, till it breaks at last; so doth the hypocrite.  He prays himself weary of praying.  Something or other will in time make him quarrel with that duty which he never inwardly liked; whereas the sincere believer hath that in him which makes it impossible he should quite give over praying, except he should also cease believing. Prayer, it is the very breath of faith.  Stop a man’s breath, and where is he then? It is true the believer through his own negligence may find some more dif­ficulty of fetching his prayer-breath at one time than at another—as a man in a cold doth for his natural breath. Alas! who is so careful of his soul’s health that needs not to bewail this?  But for faith to live, and this breath of prayer to be quite cut off, is impossible. We see David did but hold his breath a little longer than ordinary, and what a distemper it put him into, till he gave himself ease again by venting his soul in prayer.  ‘I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.  My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue, Lord, make me to know mine end,’ Ps. 39:2.  Dost thou, O man, find thyself under a necessity of praying?  As the little babe who cannot choose but cry when it ails or wants anything—because it hath no other way to help itself than by crying to hasten its mother or nurse to its help—[so] the Chris­tian’s wants, sins, and temptations continuing to return upon him, he cannot but continue also to pray against them.  ‘From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee,’ saith David, Ps. 61:2.  Wherever I am I will find thee out.  Prison me, banish me, or do with me what thou wilt, thou shalt never be rid of me, ‘I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever,’ ver. 4.  But how could David do that when banished from it?  Surely he means by prayer.  The praying Christian carries a ‘tabernacle’ with him.  As long as David can come at the tabernacle he will not neglect it; and when he cannot through sickness, banishment, &c., then he will look towards it, and as devoutly worship God in the open fields as if he were in it.  ‘Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice,’ Ps. 141:2.  He speaks of such a time when he could not come to of­fer sacrifice at the tabernacle

Three acts by which faith discovers itself in reference to prayer 1/3

1. Act.Faith puts forth an exciting act, whereby it provokes the Christian and strongly presseth him to pray. And this it doth,

           (1.) By discovering to the creature his own beggary and want, as also the fulness that is to be had from God in Christ for his supply—both which faith useth as powerful motives to quicken the soul up to pray.  As the lepers said to one another, ‘Why sit we here until we die?  If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: come, and let us fall into the host of the Syrians,’ II Kings 7:3, 4.  Thus faith rouseth up the soul to prayer.  If thou stayest at thy own door, O my soul, thou art sure to starve and die. What seest thou in thyself but hunger and famine?  No bread there; no money to buy any in thy own purse.  Up therefore, haste thee to thy God, and thy soul shall live.  O sirs, are you pressed with this inward feeling of your own wants?  Press to the throne of grace as the only way left for your supply.  You may hope it is faith that sends you.  Faith is the principle of our new life.  ‘I live,’ said Paul, ‘by the faith of the Son of God,’ Gal. 2:20.  This life being weak, is craving and crying for nourishment, and that naturally, as the new-born babe doth for the milk.  If therefore you find this inward sense prompting and provoking of you to cry to God, it shows this prin­ciple of life—faith I mean —is in thee.

           Objection.  But, may not an unbeliever pray in the sense of his wants, and be inwardly pinched with them, which may make him pray very feelingly?

           Answer. We must distinguish of wants.  They are either spiritual or carnal.  It cannot be denied, but an unbeliever may be very sensible of outward carnal wants, and knock loud at heaven-gate for supply.  We find them ‘howling on their beds, and assembling themselves for corn and wine,’ Hosea 7:14.  There is the cry of the creature, and the cry of the new crea­ture.  Every creature hath a natural cry for that which suits their nature.  Hence, ‘The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God,’ Ps. 104:21. But, give the lion flesh, and he will not roar for want of grass; give the ox grass, and you shall not hear him lowing for flesh; so give the faithless, graceless person his fill of his carnal food—sensual enjoyments—and you shall have little complaint of spiritual wants from him.  They are therefore spiritual wants you must try your faith by.  If thou canst heartily pray for love to Christ, faith on him, or any other grace—feeling the want of them, as a hungry man doth of his food —thou mayest conclude safely there is this principle of new life, which, like the veins at the bottom of the stomach, by its sucking, puts thee to pain till it be heard and satisfied; for these graces being proper to the new creature, can be truly desired of none but one that is a new creature.

           (2.) Faith excites to prayer from an inward de­light it hath in communion with God.  ‘It is good for me,’ saith the psalmist, ‘to draw near to God.’  Now mark the next words, ‘I have put my trust in the Lord,’ Ps. 73:28.  We take delight to be often looking where we have laid up our treasures. This holy man had laid up his soul, and all he had, in God, by faith, to be kept safely for him; and now he delights oft to be with God.  He hath that which invites him into his presence with sweet content.  By faith the soul is contracted to Christ.  Now, being espoused to Christ, there is no wonder at all that it should desire com­munion with him.  And prayer, being the place of meeting where Christ and the soul can come the near­est on this side of heaven, therefore the believer is seen so oft walking that way.  Canst thou say, poor soul, that this is thy errand when praying—to see the face of God?  Can nothing less, and needest thou nothing more to satisfy, and recreate thy soul in prayer, than communion with God?  Certainly God hath thy faith, or else thou couldst not so freely bestow thy love on him and take delight in him.