'2SO ORDINARY WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT. [nisc. xr. need of divine assistance in this work of self-examina- tion. And therefore it is, that though we are commanded to search ourselves, yet we have the examples of saints in the scripture, that desire the Spirit of God to search them too. With what zeal and fervency Both holy David intreat that God would search him. See Ps. cxxxix. 3, 24. when he had been examining his own heart in the two former verses, he concludes, Search me, O Lord, and try me. As we cannot work grace in our own hearts, so, in an hour of darkness, we cannot clearly dis- cover that grace that is there, to the full satisfaction of our consciences, unless the same Spirit that wrought it, is pleased to reveal it to us by his assisting influences: It is by observations and assistances borrowed from the sun, that hour-lines are drawn on a sun -dial, and they abide there in the dark ; but we cannot find what hour of the day it is, unless the sun shines upon those hour!- lines : So grace in the heart is wrought by the Holy Spi= rit, and it abides still even in the darkest night of tempta- tion, when once the Spirit of God has wrought it there, it shall never be -quite lost; for the seedof God remains. But the soul cannot discern it clearly, so as to take com- fort from it, in an hour of darkness ; unless the Spirit, like the sun, dart his beams of light into the soul, and discover his own work. Therefore, a great writer of practical divinity, Mr. R. Allein, expresses it, " As the Spirit seals us, by being the mark of the Lord upon us, so he witnesses, by being the light of the Lord within us, whereby we come to discern the mark of the Lord upon us." As lIagar in the wilderness did net see the foun- tain ofwater, though it was near her, till " God opened her eyes ;" Gen. xxi. 19. so the springs of divine life and holiness, which the Spirit of God has raised within our -souls are sometimes, as it were, hidden from the soul itself till the Spirit shew it to the believer, by assisting his enquiring faculties, and sheddingdown a divine light. this leads me to The second thing proposed : And that is, to shew the method by which the Spirit generally works in this assist-' inr testimony. 1. He Both it by stirring up the soul to a most diligent search, and making it unwearied in this toil and labour of self-examination. I call it labour and toil, for by 3
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