190 FIFTH SERMON grace of his Spirit, by quiet, small, and, as it were, by insensible means : " The kingdom of God came not with observation," Luke xvii. 20, 21. that is, with any visible, notable splendour, or external pomp, (as the Jews expected the Messiah to come,) but it came with spiritual efficacy, and with internal power upon the consciences of men, and spread itself over the world by the ministry of a very few despised instru- ments ; with respect unto which manner of working the Spirit is compared unto wind, which we hear and feel, but " know not whence it comes, nor whi- ther it goes," John iii. S. The operations of grace are secret and silent upon the conscience ; you shall find mighty changes wrought, and shall not tell how they were wrought. The same man coming into the church, one hour a sow, a dog, a lion, and going out the next hour in all visible respects the same, but in- visibly changed into a lamb. (5.) It is of a soft and benign nature, which gently insinuateth and worketh itself in the ground, and by degrees moisteneth and mollifieth it, that it may be fitted unto the seed which is cast into it. III like manner, the Spirit, the grace, the word of God is of a searching, insinuating, softening, quality ; it sinks into the heart, and works itself into the conscience, and from thence makes way for itself into the whole man, mind, thoughts, affections, words, actions, fitting them all unto the holy seed that is put into them ; as the earth being softened and mingled with the dew is the more easily drawn up into those varieties of herbs and fruits that are fed by it. (6.) It is of a vegetating and quickening nature, it causeth things to grow and revive again ; therefore the prophet calls it the dew of herbs, Isa. xxvi. 19. which are thereby refreshed, and recover life and
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