OR HOSEA XIV. -VERSE 9. 285 Tit. i. 4.) are so perspicuously set down in the holy scriptures, that every one who bath the Spirit of Christ, hath therewithal a judgment to discern so much of God's will as shall suffice to make him be- lieve in Christ for righteousness, and by worship and obedience to serve him unto salvation. The way of holiness is so plain, that simple men are made wise enough to find it out, and way - faring men, though fools, do not err therein, Psa. xix. 7. Isa. xxxii. 4. xxxv. 8. Matt. xi. 25. From all which we learn : (1.) To take heed of picking quarrels at any word of God, or presuming to pass any bold and carnal censure of ours upon his righteous ways. When God Both set his word in the power and workings of it upon the spirit of any wicked man, ,making his con- science to hear it as the voice of God, it usually worketh one of these two effects : either it subdues the soul to the obedience of it by convincing, judg- ing, and manifesting the secrets of his heart, so that he falleth down on his face and worshippeth God, 1 Cor. xiv. 25. or else it Both by accident excite and enrage the natural love which is in every man to his lusts, stirring up all the proud arts and reasonings which the forge of a corrupt heart can shape in de- fence of those lusts against the sword of the Spirit which would cut them off; as that which hindereth the course of a river, doth accidentally enrage the force of it, and cause it to swell and overrun the banks ; and from hence ariseth gain - saying and con- tradiction against the word of grace, and the ways of God as unequal and unreasonable, too strict, too severe, too hard to be observed, Ezek. xviii. 25. snuffing at it, Mal. i. 13. gathering odious conse- quences from it, Rom. iii. S. replying against it,
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