34. Marks whereby we know that we have the Spirit

Marks whereby we know that we have the Spirit

(1.) If a man have the Spirit of God, it openeth the eyes of the soul to see in the glass of the word, the face of God shining on him in Christ. If a man have the Spirit he sees God as a Father, by the Spirit of illumination.

(2.) Again, if thou hast the Spirit of God, thou hast the Spirit of love. God’s Spirit manifesteth the hidden love of God, that was hid in the breast of God, to his soul; for the Spirit of God searcheth the breast of God and the secret of God, and it searcheth my heart. Now he that hath the Spirit of God knows the love of God in Christ to him; it reveals the love of God, the height, and breadth, and depth of it to our spirits. As in the text, we see the gracious love of God in Christ, and then we love him again.

(3.) And thereupon where the Spirit is it changeth. It is not only a Spirit of illumination, but of sanctification. Where he dwells he sanctifieth the house, and makes it a temple. It is efficacious. Where the Spirit is, it will work. It is like the wind. Where it is it will stir, it will move. Where it moves not it is not at all. Where the Spirit alters not the condition from bad to good, and from good to better, suspect that it is not there; at least it will move. As the pulses will have a drawing in, and a sending out, by stirring, so there will be some operation of the Spirit that is discernible to a judicious eye; alway some stirring where the Spirit of God is. The papists slander us willingly: I think against many of their consciences that understand anything. Oh, say they, we will have Christians like Satan, to appear as angels of light, and blackamores in white garments, that have their teeth white, and nothing else. So your Christians put on the garment of Christ’s righteousness. Let them put on that, and then though they be not changed a whit, it is no matter. Who teacheth thus? We teach out of this text, that,

First of all, the Spirit of God opens our eyes. He takes off the veil, and then we see the glory of God’s mercy in Christ, pardoning our sins for the righteousness and obedience of Christ; and then that love warms our hearts, so that it changeth our hearts by the Spirit, from one degree of grace to another. There is a changing power that goes with the love of Christ, and with the mercy of God in Christ. This [is] our doctrine. The same Spirit that justifieth us by applying to us the obedience of Christ, the same Spirit sanctifieth us. Therefore their allegations and objections are to no purpose. We see here the Spirit of the Lord changeth us. And so for your common atheistical professors, that profess themselves Christians. They partake of the name, but not of the anointing of Christ. True Christians that are anointed with the Spirit of Christ, it will enforce a change. Beloved, we cannot behold the sun, but we must be enlightened; we cannot behold the Sun of righteousness, but we shall be changed and enlightened. The eye of faith, though we think not of it, though it look upon Christ for justification and forgiveness of sins, yet notwithstanding at the same time insensibly there is an alteration of the soul. If a man look up for other ends, yet at the same time there is an enlightening by the sun. So at the same time that we look upon the mercy of God in Christ, at the same time there is a glory shines upon us, and we are altered and changed, though we think not of it. At the very instant that we apprehend justification and forgiveness of sins, in the mercy of God in Christ, at the same instant there is a glory put upon the soul. We cannot have commerce with the God of glory, but we shall be glorious. Therefore, there is no man that hath anything to do with God, that hath not some glory put into his soul, whatsoever he is.

Therefore, let no man think he hath anything to do in religion till he find the work of the Spirit altering and changing him. He hath the title of Holy Spirit, from the blessed work of sanctifying and changing: he doth change us.

(4.) And when he hath changed us, he governs and guides us from glory to glory. Where the Holy Ghost is, therefore, he promotes the work of grace begun. He doth not only move us but promove; he promotes the work begun. Therefore those that have the Spirit of God, they rest in no degree of grace, but grow from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge, from faith to faith, till they come to that measure of perfection that God hath appointed them in Christ. Those, therefore, that set up their staff, and will go no further, that think all is well, they have not the Spirit of God. For the Spirit stirs up to grow from one degree of grace to another, to add grace to grace, and to enter further and further into the kingdom of grace, and to come nearer to glory still.

(5.) For this end the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and guides us, as it is, Romans 8:26. He is a tutor to us. Where the Holy Ghost is in any body, it is as a counsellor. ’Guide me by thy counsel, till thou bring me to glory,’ Psalms 31:3, et alibi. It is a tutor. As noblemen’s children they have their tutors, so God’s children are nobly born. They have their tutor and counsellor, as well as angels to attend them. They have the Spirit of God to tell them, This do, and that do, and here you have done ill. They have a voice behind them, to teach them in particular wherein they have done amiss. They that have the Spirit, find such a sweet operation of the Spirit, the Spirit is a teacher and a counsellor to them. They that are acquainted with the government of God’s Spirit, they find it checking them presently when they do ill. It grieves them when they grieve the Spirit, so it teacheth them in particular businesses, Do this, do not that. Thus may we know if we have the Spirit, if it guide and govern us from glory to glory, till we come to perfection, where the Spirit is all in all in heaven.

(6.) Another evidence is this, the Spirit where it is it rests and abides; because it doth not only change us at the first, but it leads us from glory to glory. As St Augustine saith, ’Wicked men have the Spirit of God knocking, and he would fain enter’ (o); as the wickedest man, when he hears holy truths discovered, the Spirit of God knocks at his heart, and he finds sweet motions in his poisonful rebellious nature, but this is but the Spirit knocking, that would have entrance. But God’s children have the Spirit entering, and dwelling and resting there. The Spirit of God resteth on Christ, and it rests on Christ’s members. How can it change them, and having done so, guide and govern them from glory to glory; but he must rest there, he must take up his lodging and residence. A Christian is not an ordinary house, but a temple; he is not an ordinary man, but a king; he is not an ordinary stone, but a pearl; he is not an ordinary tree, but a cedar; he is an excellent person. And therefore the Spirit of God delights to dwell in him. As the excellency of the body is from the soul, so the excellency of the soul is from the Spirit dwelling in him. However, in particular operations, the Spirit suspends his acts of comforting and guiding, to humble them for their presumption, alway the Holy Ghost is in the heart, though he be hid in a corner of the heart. ’I will send you the Comforter, and he shall abide with you for ever,’ saith Christ, John 14:16. Thus we may see how we may try ourselves, whether we have the Spirit of the Lord or no. If we have not the Spirit, we are none of his, we are none of Christ’s, Romans 8:13-14. And then whose are we, if we be none of Christ’s? Do but think of that. Therefore if we would not be men not having the Spirit, that is, men dead, led with a worse spirit than our own, let us labour to know whether we have the Spirit of Christ or no. Let us see what change there is to the likeness of Christ. For,

(7.) The Spirit, as it comes from the Lord, so it makes us like the Lord, and we are changed by reasons from the Lord; by reasons and considerations from Christ, and from the love of God in Christ; because the Spirit takes from Christ whatsoever he hath: ’He shall take of mine,’ &c., John 16:13. That is the comfort he comforts the soul with; he fetches them from his death and bloodshed, and the love of God in him. That he takes of Christ. So there is a change wrought in us by reasons fetched from the love of God in Christ, those conforming reasons. God hath given his Son, and Christ hath given himself, and we feel the love of God by the Spirit. If the Spirit work any grace or comfort by considerations fetched from Christ, this is the true Spirit. The change and alteration that it works in us is according to the image of Christ, that we may be like Christ. So Christ is the beginning and the end, and Christ is all. He works from Christ and to Christ. Let us examine therefore if we have the Spirit of Christ, whether it change us; and examine if we have the Spirit, from what reasons and grounds it changes us; and then we may upon some comfortable grounds say we have the Spirit indeed.

If we have not the Spirit, how shall we come to have the Spirit? What means must we use to get it? In a word, this chapter excellently sets out that, for,

[1.] The gospel is called the ministry of the Spirit; for the opening of the love of God in Christ, which is the gospel, is the ministry of the Spirit. Why? Because God hath joined the Spirit with the publishing and opening of these mysteries. Therefore study the gospel, and hear unfolded divine evangelical truths. The more we hear of the sweet love of God in Christ, the more the Spirit flows into the soul together with it. The Spirit goes together with the doctrine of the gospel; which is called the ministry of the Spirit. Therefore let us delight in hearing evangelical points, the love of God opened in Christ. A civil moral man, Oh he is taken mightily, if he hear a moral witty politic discourse that toucheth him; and he is in his element then. What is this to the gospel? This hath its use. Oh but the Spirit goes with the opening of the gospel, with evangelical points; and if our hearts were ever seasoned with the love of God, these points of Christ, and the benefits and privileges by Christ, they will affect us more than any other thing in the world. That is one means to study the gospel, and to hear the truths of the gospel opened where the Sprit works.

[2.] Again, the Spirit of the Lord it is given to us usually in holy community. The Holy Ghost fell upon them in the Acts when they were gathered together, Acts 4:31; and surely we never find sweeter motions of the Spirit than now, when we are gathered at such times, about holy business, as this day. We never find the Spirit more effectual to alter and change our souls, than at such times. ’Where two or three are gathered together, I will be in the midst of you,’ Matthew 18:20, but by the Spirit, saith Christ, warming, and altering, and changing the soul. For God infuseth all grace in communion, as we are members of the body mystical. Those that have sullen spirits, a spirit of separation, that scorn all meetings, they are carried with the spirit of the devil, and of the world. They know not what belongs to the things of God. It is the meek spirit that subjects itself to the ordinance of God. The Holy Ghost falls usually upon men when they are in holy communion.

[3.] And in Luke 11:13, there God will give the Holy Ghost to all that beg him. Pray for the Holy Ghost, as the most excellent thing in the world. He shall be given to them that beg him, as if he should say, there is nothing greater than that, and God will give him to them that ask him. Therefore, come to God, and in any thing we have to do, empty ourselves and beg the Spirit; for the more a man empties him of his own confidence, in regard of holy performance of duties, the more we will desire to be filled with the fulness of the Spirit; and this sense of our own emptiness will force prayer.

Therefore, know that of ourselves we can do nothing holily, that may further our reckoning, but by the Spirit. Do all things therefore in a sense of our own emptiness, and beg the Spirit. As likewise when we are framed by the Spirit to obedience. Those that obey the motions of the Spirit, the Spirit joins more and more closely with their souls. God gives his Spirit to them that obey him. Those that obey the first motions of the Spirit, they have further degrees. What is the reason that men have no more Spirit in the ordinances? The Holy Ghost knocks at their hearts, and would fain have entrance, and they resist it, as Stephen saith, Acts 7:51. Now the Holy Ghost is willing to enter upon the soul, but he is resisted. Therefore if you will have him more and more, let us open our souls, that the King of glory may come in. The Spirit is willing to enter, especially in holy assemblies. Saith St John, Revelation 1:10, ’I was on the Lord’s day, I was in the Spirit,’ that is, as if he were drowned in the Spirit on the Lord’s day. When we are about holy exercises we are never more in the Spirit than then. Let us open our souls to the Spirit, and then we shall find the Spirit joining with our souls. The Spirit is more willing to save us, and to sanctify us, than we are to entertain him. Oh that we were willing to entertain the sweet motions of the Spirit! Our natures would not be so defiled, and we so uncomfortable as we are. There are none of us all, but we find comfortable motions in holy exercises. Thus we may get the Spirit of the Lord, that doth all, that illuminates, and sanctifieth, and ruleth, and rests in us.

(8.) And let us learn, I beseech you, hence to give the third glorious person, the Holy Ghost, his due. Since we have all by the Spirit, let us learn to give the Spirit his due, and learn how to make use of the work of the Spirit. There are several works of the Spirit. You see here what the Spirit doth, ’We all.’ The Spirit unites us together. It is a Spirit of union. It knits all together by one faith to God. All meet in God the Father reconciled; and we all are joined together by love, wrought by the Spirit, ’with open face.’ Who takes away the veil? We are all veiled by nature. The Spirit takes away the veil from our eyes, and from the truth. What is the reason the gospel is so obscure? The Spirit takes not away the veil, it teacheth not by the ministry; or else it takes not away the veil from the eyes. The Spirit takes away the scales from our eyes, and the Spirit in the ministry takes away the obscurity of the Scriptures. All those that we call graces, the free gifts, the ministerial gifts, they are the gifts and the graces of the Spirit; and they are for the graces of the Spirit. Skill in tongues and in the Scriptures, and in other learning, are given to men that they may take away the veil from the Scriptures, that they may be lightsome; and then when the Spirit is given, he takes away the veil from the soul by his own work; and then with open face ’we behold the glory of the Lord.’ What doth open our eyes to see, when the veil is taken off? The Spirit. We have no inward light nor sight, but by the illumination of the Spirit. All light in the things, and all sight in us, it is by the illumination of the Spirit. And then the change according to the image of Christ, this is altogether by the Spirit of Christ, it is altogether from the Holy Ghost. Christ baptizeth ’with the Holy Ghost, and with fire,’ Matthew 3:11, and Christ came ’by blood, and by water,’ 1 John 5:6; by blood, to die for us; and by water, by his Spirit to change us and purge and cleanse us. All is by the Spirit. Christ came as well by the Spirit as by blood. This change, and the gradual change from glory to glory, all is by the Spirit. Therefore we should not think altogether of Christ, or God the Father, when we go to God in prayer; but think of the work of the Spirit, that the Holy Ghost may have his due.

Lord, without thy Spirit, my body is as a thing without a soul, a dead, loathsome, stiff, unapt carcase, that cannot stir a whit; and so my soul without the operation of thy Holy Spirit, it is a stiff, dead, unmoveable thing; and therefore by thy Spirit breathe upon me. As thy Holy Spirit in the creation did lie upon the waters, and brood as it were all things there; lying upon the waters it fashioned this goodly creature, heaven and earth, this mundus. So the Spirit of God lying upon the waters of the soul, it fashions all graces and comforts, whatsoever they are; all is wrought by the Spirit in the new creature, as all in this glorious fabric of the world was by the Spirit of God. Let the Spirit of God therefore have due acknowledgment in all things whatsoever. And what are we to look to mainly now? The knowledge of God the Father, and his love to us shining in Christ, all is in Christ; and if we would have anything wrought in us, any alteration of our natures, let us beg the Spirit, that we may have the discovery of the love of God in Christ, and the Spirit attending upon the gospel. And because we have all these abundantly in these latter times of the church, in the second spring of the gospel, in the reformation of religion, after our recovery out of popery, there is a second spring of the gospel. Oh, beloved, how much are we beholding to God! Never since the beginning of the world was there such glorious times as we enjoy. We see how the holy apostle doth prefer these times before former times, when the veil was upon their eyes, and when all was hid in ceremonies, and types, and such things among the Jews. ’Now,’ saith he, ’we behold the glory of God, and are changed by the Spirit from glory to glory.’ To conclude all. Therefore consider that the glory of the times, and the glory of places and persons, all is from the revelation of Christ by the Spirit, which hath the Spirit accompanying it. The more God in Christ is laid open, the more the times, and places, and persons are excellent. What made the second temple beyond the former? Christ came at the second temple. Therefore though it were baser in itself, yet the second temple was more glorious than the first. What made Bethlehem, that little city, glorious? Christ was born there. What makes the heart where Christ is born more glorious than other folk? Christ is born there. Christ makes persons and places glorious. What makes the times now more glorious than they were before Christ? What made the least in the kingdom of heaven greater than John Baptist? He was greater than all that were before him; and all that are after him are greater than he. Because his head was cut off, he saw not the death and resurrection of Christ, and the giving of the Holy Ghost. He saw not so much of Christ. So that the revelation of Christ and the love of God in Christ, it is that that makes times, and persons, and places glorious, all glorious, because the veil is taken away from our eyes. We see Christ the King of glory in the gospel flourishing, and the love of God manifested, and by the Spirit of God the veil is taken away inwardly as well as outwardly. Now for a fuller discovery of Christ than in former times, comes the glory of the times. Now there are more converted than in former times, because the Spirit goes together with the manifestation of Christ. What is the reason that this kingdom is more glorious than any place beyond the seas? Because Christ is here revealed more fully than there. The veil is taken off, and here ’we see the glory of God with open face,’ which changeth many thousands from glory to glory by the Spirit of God that accompanies the revelation of the gospel. Is there any outward thing that advanceth our kingdom before Turkey, or Spain, &c.? Nothing. Their government. and riches, and outward things are as much as ours, if not more. The glory of places and times are from the revelation of Christ, that hath the Spirit accompanying of it. That Spirit changeth us ’from glory to glory.’ Our times are more glorious than they were a hundred years or two before. Why? Because we have a double revelation of Christ, and of antichrist. We see Christ revealed, and the gospel opened, and the veil taken off. We see antichrist revealed, that hath masked under the name of head of the church, and hath seduced the world.

Now this double revelation challengeth acknowledgment of these blessed times. What should all this do but stir us up to know the time of our visitation, and to thankfulness; to bless God that hath reserved us for these places and countries that we live in, to cast our times to be in this glorious light of the gospel to be born in. What if we had been born in those dark Egyptian times of popery? Our lives had not been so comfortable. Now we live under the gospel, wherein ’with open face’ we see the glory of the mercy of God in Christ, the ’unsearchable riches’ of Christ opened and discovered to us. And together with the gospel, the ministry of the Spirit, goeth the Spirit; and those that belong to God, thousands by the blessing of God are changed from glory to glory.

Certainly if we share in the good of the times we will have hearts to thank God, and to walk answerably, that as we have the glorious gospel, so we will walk gloriously, that we do not by a base and fruitless life dishonour so glorious a gospel. I beseech you let us think of the times, else if we be not the better for the glorious times, if the veil be not taken away, we are under a fearful judgment. ’The god of this world hath blinded our eyes,’ 2 Corinthians 4:4. Do we live under the glorious light, and yet are dark, that we see no glory in Christ? We see nothing in religion, but are as ready to entertain popery as true religion. Is this the fruit of the long preaching of the gospel, and the veil being taken off so long? Certainly the god of this world hath cast the dust of the world into our eyes, that we can see nothing but earthly things. We are under the seal of God’s judgment. He hath sealed us up to a dark state, from darkness of judgment to the darkness of hell without repentance. Therefore let us take heed how we live in a dull and dead condition, under the glorious gospel, or else how cursed shall we be! The more we are exalted and lifted up above other people in the blessings of God this way, the more we shall be cast down. ’Woe be to Chorazin,’ &c., Matthew 11:21; and Hebrews 2:3, ’How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?’

I beseech you let us take heed how we trifle away our time, these precious times and blessed opportunities; for if we labour not to get out of the state of nature into the state of grace, and so to be changed from glory to glory, God in justice will curse the means we have, that in hearing we shall not hear, and seeing we shall not see, and he will secretly and insensibly harden our hearts. It is the curse of all curses, when we are under plenty of means, to grow worse and duller. Oh take heed of spiritual judgments above all others, tremble at them. They belong to reprobates and castaways. Let us labour for hearts sensible of the mercies of God in Christ, and labour to be transformed and moulded into this gospel every day more and more. That that hath been spoken shall be sufficient for this time, and for this whole text.

-----