May 25

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?—1 Corinthians 3:16.

As to the indwelling of the Spirit, let this be premised: When we speak of any one dwelling in safety, the great question is, who keeps the house? When David fled from Jerusalem for fear of Absalom, there was no likelihood that his palace would hold out, for "he left ten women, that were concubines, to keep the house." So if we leave our concubines, our lusts and carnal desires, to keep our conscience, they will betray us to Satan to get the possession. "But who can take the city, if the Lord keep it?" How impregnable are we, if he dwell in us, and we in him, "because he hath given us of his Spirit."

All that one can say unto this, who is doubtful in faith, will be, "Show me that the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, is entered into me, and it sufficeth." I answer, I cannot show, that is, demonstrate it to another, that his eternal life is in him; but I can persuade an unapt scholar to stir up the grace that is in him, that he may show it to himself. I say, he may do it, if he give his mind to it. Else St. Paul made a question to no purpose, "know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"

I deny not but the devil hath a way to fetch it about, to make you misknow, and take no heed of that you do perceive, if he did not stagger you with delusions. This is the first lesson that he reads out of his morals, "That distrust is a high point of wisdom; and be not overreached with opinion: you are sure of that you see, and of no more." But to meet with this fallacy: Is nothing certain, or at least so certain as that which may be seen? Why, the wind will blow away this objection, the air will confute it. What can you make up so close that the air and the wind will not get into it? You see it not, you know not whence it comes, it is an invisible messenger: "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." Breath is an imperceptible expiration; therefore, Christ breathed on his apostles, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." Some gales of western winds, in the spring, make the earth glad with their gentle blast, and open the buds and flowers: so there is a breath of omnipotent virtue, which fans the heart that was hot in sin, with its coolness, which carries away the caterpillars that cut up the tender leaf of our first greenness: which widens our blossoms to make their expectation show itself openly: which perfume the evil scents of scandals that annoy us, as it is expressed to that intent in the mystical song: "Awake, thou north wind; and come, thou south; and blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out."

I bring the case again to be examined: Is no witness so competent to depose for truth, unless it be sensible, and chiefly discerned by the eye? then what ail all sects of philosophers to say, "That the sun, and all the stars above, work upon these bodies below by heat and light, and likewise by influence?" An invisible virtue that doth enter into the production of many effects; which seems to have God's approbation with his own voice, who mentions there "the sweet influences of Pleiades, and the bands of Orion." And can the constellations of the firmament drop down good upon minerals and plants, upon man and beast, and by a secret derivation? What an error, or rather what a madness, is it then, to scruple whether he that made the heavens, can dart celestial beams into a man's soul, without a sensible perception! And this is all I will say more unto it: Is not the soul of man above a material apprehension? Pliny or Galen, or whosoever unadvisedly deny the immortality of it, will yield there is a soul in our composition, that holds all the parts of the body together, and moves and acts in them; yet they can as soon take a pencil, and paint an echo, as describe the intelligible nature of a soul, by species drawn out in our sensitive fancy. Therefore it concerns us, in maintenance of the dignity of our own nature, to say, that the Spirit of God can inform our soul, as well as our soul can inform our body. I know not what temptation may rise to gainsay the truth, that the soul is known by her powers and operations, that it justifies itself to be an immaterial substance, a spark kindled in us by God from reason, and will, and memory. But what evidence is there that there is a Divine cause that worketh in, and is more than, these natural faculties? It is requisite to work close unto this question: and I answer, first, because the bounds of nature are known, beyond which, nature cannot reach forth itself: as it works in its own sphere to preserve itself in being, and in well-being, in health, in wealth, in fame and glory, in extending ourselves unto ages to come by leaving a posterity, in preserving our country where we are born, and the like. But to have our conversation in heaven, at this present in heaven, to ascend thither in our desires, and in the tendencies of all our actions, to aspire to live in blessings for ever, to long to be at rest, where there is no sin; to look for a church which hath neither spot nor wrinkle: this could not enter into us to prosecute it at all industriously, constantly, cheerfully, but by a supernatural elevation far above the vigor of a soul pressed down by a corruptible body, that is, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

"O that the Comforter would come! Nor visit as a transient guest, But fix in me his constant home, And keep possession of my breast: And make my soul his loved abode, The temple of indwelling God!"