DISCOURSE XII. 315 eonstraíned to believe that they were divine ; and the effects of these impressions have been holy and glorious: We should sit a guard therefore on our hearts and -our tongues, lest we cast a reproach and scandal on such iacred appearances, which the Spirit of God will hereafter acknowledge to have been his own work. 2. Let not humble christians, who walk with God according to the ordinarymethods of his grace, be discouraged, though they have never found this extraordinary witness of the Spirit, nor tasted of these peculiar favours. Value the evident marks and characters of the children of God,' wrought in your hearts, more-than ecstacies of joy and pleasure. Value mortification to sin more than raptures ; for mortification is a certain sign that the Spirit of God dwells in us, and that we are heirs of life ; Rom. viii. 13. If you by the Spirit do mortify the deed§ of the fleshyou shall live. Heaven is the placeof completejoy ; heaven is the state where sight and sense shall be exercised ; but we are hereordained to live byfaith; ; 2 Cor. v. 7. We may have the assisting presence of the Spirit of adoption, and by that Spirit may say unto God, Abba, Father, without the extraordinary witnessing of that good Spirit. 3: Dare not believe any sudden raptures to proceed front this extraordinary testimony of the Holy Spirit, unless you find some considerable measure of those sanctifying effects of them which I have described ; I have granted that in particular seasons of trial when the natural spirits sink and fail, and temptations are exceeding strong, God may give this imme- diate testimony, on purpose to bear up the soul from sinking ; yet we should not dare to trust such sort of vehement im- pressions, and pronounce them divine, if we neither find any of the plain scriptural marks of the children of God upon us, before or after these impressions. There is great danger of depending uponsuch raptures, if they leave no evident and last- ing effects of sanctification behind them. Where the Spirit shines with such a divine light, he will warm the heart with uncommon love, and the soul must be conscious of some such rational evidence of adoption, such a love to God in the heart, as will effectually prove that God has first loved us. Per- haps this is one reason why some christians fall under so many doubts and fears, because they live more upon their in- ward sensations of joy, their transports of pleasure in religion, which they call the extraordinary witness of the Spirit, than they do upon the characters of the children of God, which shouldbe written in their hearts, and by which they should en- deavour to search out and to evidence their interest in the favour of God. 4. Let every believer walk humbly before God, in all the
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