6 The Life of Faith. grooms which cannot he expreffd; and as God knoweth the meaning of the Spirit, fb the Spirit knows the mind of God, Rom. 8. 37. a Cor. 2. t 1. 3 ^ And she work of Faith is much promoted by the fpiri- tual experiences of Believers. When they find a conliderable part of the holy Scriptures verified on then-del ves,it much-con- tiirmtth their Faith as to the whole. They arc really po; ;fed of that heavenly difpofi :ion, called, The DivineNature, and have felt the power of the Word upon their hearts, renewing them to the Image of God, mortifying their moti dear and ftrong corruptions, th wing them a greater beauty and deli. rablenefs in the Objecîs of Faith, than is to be found in fen - fible things : They have found many of the EPromill s made good upon thernfelvcs, in the anfwers ofprayers, and ingreat deliverances, which firongly perfwadeth them to believe the refI that are yet to beaccomplifhed. And experience is a very pAwerful and fatiefyi rg way of convic4ion. He that feeleth, as it were, the tìrll fruits, the earned, and the beginningsofHea- ven already in his foul, will more eafily and affuredlybelieve that there is a Heaven hereafter. [We knew that the Son of God is come, and bath given us an xnderftanding, that we maykm) ,a, him that is trite, and we are in him that is true, even in hie. Son Jefits Chrif : This is the true Godand eternal life,] t Job. 5.20. [He that believeth on the Sonbath the witnefs in bimfelf, Vet( io.] There is fo great a likenefi of the holy and heavenly nature in the Saints, to the heavenly life that God hath promi- fed, that makes it the more catilybelieved. 4. And it exceedingly helpcth our Belief ofthe life that's yet unfeen, to find that Nature affordeth us undeniable Argu- ments to prove a future Happincfs and Mifcry, Reward and Pundfhment, in the general; yea and in fpecial, that the Love and Fruition ofGod is this Reward ; and that the effè s of his difpleafitre are this Punifhment : Nothing more clear and certain than that there is a God, (He mutt be a fool indeed that daredeny it, Pfal. 14. a.) as alto that this God is the Creatour ofthe rational nature,and bath the abfolute right ofSoveraign Government: and therefore that the rational Creature oweth him the moil full and abfolute obedience, and deferveth pu- rifhFnent ifhe difobey. And it's tnoft clear that infinite ' od- nefs
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