of God. The courts of our God are the places where the trees of righteousness flourish, Psal. xcii. 13. The waters of the sanctuary are the means appointed of God, to cause his people to grow as willows by the water courses. Therefore drink in, with "desire, the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby," 1 Pet. ii. 2. Come to the wells of salvation, not to look at them only, but to draw water out of them. The sacrament of the Lord's supper is, in a special manner, appointed for these ends. It is not only a solemn, public profession, and a seal of our union and communion with Christ; but it is a mean of most intimate communion with him; and strengthens our union with him, our faith, love, repentance, and other graces, 1 Cor. x. 26, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" And chap. xii. 13, "We have been all made to drink into one Spirit." Give yourselves unto prayer: open your mouths wide, and he will fill them. By these means the branches in Christ may be further nourished, grow up, and bring forth much fruit.

A seventh benefit is, the Acceptance of their fruits of holiness before the Lord. Though they be very imperfect, they are accepted, because the savour of Christ the blessed stock, which the branches grow upon; while the fruits of others are rejected of God, Gen. ii. 4, 5, "And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering: but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect." Compare Heb. xi. 3, "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." O how defective are the saints' duties, in the eye of the law! The believer himself espies many faults in his best performances; yet the Lord graciously receives them. There is no grace planted in the heart, but there is a weed of corruption hard by its side, while the saints are in this lower world. Their very sincerity is not without mixture of dissimulation or hypocrisy, Gal. ii. 13. Hence there are defects in the exercise of every grace; in the performance of every duty: depraved nature always drops something to stain their best works. There is still a mixture of darkness with their clearest light. Yet this does not mar their acceptance, Cant. vi. 10, "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning? or as the dawning?" Behold how Christ's spouse is esteemed and accepted of her Lord, even when she looks forth as the morning, whose beauty is mixed with the blackness of the night! "When the morning was looking out," as the word is, Judges xix. 26, i. e. "in the dawning of the day," as we read it. So the very dawning of grace, and good will to Christ, grace peeping out from under a mass of darkness in believers, is pleasant and ac

ceptable to him, as the break of day is to the weary traveller. Though the remains of unbelief make their hand of faith to shake and tremble, yet the Lord is so well pleased with it, that he employs it to carry away pardons and supplies of grace, from the throne of grace, and the fountain of grace. His faith was effectual, who cried out, and said with tears, "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief," Mark ix. 24. Though the remains of sensual affections make the flame of their love weak and smoky, he turns his eyes from the smoke, and beholds the flame, how fair it is, Cant. iv. 10, "How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! The smell of their under garments of inherent holiness, as imperfect as it is, like the smell of Lebanon," ver. 11, and that because they are covered with their elder brother's clothes, which make the sons of God to "smell as a field which the Lord hath blessed." Their good works are accepted: their cups of cold water given to a disciple, in the name of a disciple, shall not want a reward. Though they cannot offer for the tabernacle, gold, silver, and brass, and onyx-stones, let them come forward with what they have: if it were but goat's hair, it shall not be rejected; if it were but ram skins, they shall be kindly accepted: for they are dyed red, dipped by faith in the Mediator's blood, and so presented unto God. A very ordinary work done in faith, and from faith, if it were but the building of a wall about the holy city, is a great work, Neh. vi. 3. If it were but the bestowing of a box of ointment on Christ, it shall never be forgotten, Matth. xxvi. 13. Even "a cup of cold water only, given to one of Christ's little ones, in the name of a disciple, shall be rewarded," Matth. x.42. Nay, not a good word for Christ, shall drop from their mouths, but it shall be registered in God's book of remembrance, Mal. iii. 16. Nor shall a tear drop from their eyes for him, but he will put it in his bottle, Psal. Ivi. 8. Their will is accepted for the deed: their sorrow for the want of will, for the will itself, 2 Cor. viii. 12, “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." Their groanings, when they cannot well word their desires, are heard in heaven; the meaning of these groans is well known there, and they will be returned like the dove with an olive branch of peace in her mouth. See Rom. viii. 26, 27. Their mites are better than other men's talents. Their lisping and broken sentences are more pleasant to their Father in heaven, than the most fluent and flourishing speeches of those that are not in Christ. Their voice is sweet, even when they are ashamed it should be heard; their countenance is comely, even when they blush, and draw a veil over it, Cant.

ii. 14. The Mediator takes their petitions, blots out some parts, rectifies others, and then presents them to the Father, in consequence whereof they pass in the court of heaven.

Every true Christian is a temple of God. If ye look for sacrifices, they are not wanting there: they offer the sacrifice of praise, and they do good; with such sacrifices God is well pleased," Heb. xiii. 15, 16. Christ himself is the altar that sanctifies the gift, ver. 10. But what becomes of the skins and dung of their sacrifices? They are carried away without the camp. If we look for incense, it is there too. The graces of the Spirit are found in their hearts: and the Spirit of a crucified Christ fires them, and puts them in exercise; like as the fire was brought from the altar of burnt offering, to set the incense on flame: then they mount heavenward, like pillars of smoke, Cant. iii. 6. But the best of incense will leave ashes behind it: yes indeed; but as the priest took away the ashes of the incense in a golden dish, and threw them out, so our great High Priest takes away the ashes and refuse of all the saints' services, by his mediation in their behalf.

An eighth benefit flowing from union with Christ, is Establishment. The Christian cannot fall away, but must persevere unto the end, John x. 28, "They never shall perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." Indeed if a branch do not knit with the stock, it will fall away when shaking winds arise: but the branch knit to the stock stands fast, whatever wind blows. Sometimes a stormy wind of temptation blows from hell, and tosseth the branches in Christ the true Vine; but their union with him is their security; moved they may be, but removed they never can be. The Lord "will with the temptation also make a way to escape," 1 Cor. x. 13. Calms are never of any continuance; there is almost always some wind blowing: and therefore branches are rarely altogether at rest. But sometimes violent winds arise, which threaten to rend them from off their stock. Even so it is with saints; they are daily put to it, to keep their ground against temptation: but sometimes the wind from hell riseth so high, and bloweth so furiously, that it makes even top branches to sweep the ground; yet being knit to Christ their stock, they get up again, in spite of the most violent efforts of the prince of the power of the air, Psal. xciv. 18, "When I said my foot slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord held me up." But the Christian improves by this trial; and is so far from being damaged, that he is benefited by it, in so far as it discovers what hold the soul has of Christ, and what hold Christ has of the soul. And, as the wind in the bellows, which would blow out the candle, blows up the fire; even

so it often comes to pass, that such temptations do enliven the true Christain, awakening the graces of the Spirit in him, and, by that means, discover both the reality, and the strength of grace in him. And hence, as Luther, that great man of God, saith, "One Christain who hath had experience of temptation, is worth a thousand others."

Sometimes a stormy wind of trouble and persecution from the men of the world, blows upon the vine, i.e. mystical Christ: but union with the stock is a sufficient security to the branches. In a time of the church's peace and outward prosperity, while the angels hold the winds that they blow not, there are a great many branches taken up and put into the stock, which never knit with it, nor live by it, though they be bound up with it, by the bonds of external ordinances. Now, these may stand a while on the stock, and stand with great ease, while the calm lasts. But when once the storms arise, and the winds blow, they will begin to fall off, one after another: and the higher the wind riseth, the greater will the number be that falls. Yea, some strong boughs of that sort, when they fall, will, by their weight, carry others of their own kind, quite down to the earth with them; and will bruise and press down some true branches in such a manner, that they would also fall off, were it not for their being knit to the stock; in virtue whereof they get up their heads again, and cannot fall off, because of the fast hold the stock has of them. Then it is that many branches, sometime high and eminent, are found lying on the earth withered, and fit to be gathered up and cast into the fire, Matth. xiii. 6, "And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away." John xv. 6, “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." But however violently the winds blow, none of the truly ingrafted branches, that are knit with the stock, are found missing, when the storm is changed into a calm, John xvii. 12, "Those that thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost." The least twig growing in Christ, shall stand it out, and subsist; when the tallest cedars, growing on their own root, shall be laid flat on the ground, Rom. vii. 35, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ?" see ver. 36, 37, 38, 39. However severely Israel be sifted, yet shall not the least grain, (or, as it is in the original language, a little stone) fall upon the earth," Amos ix. 9. It is an allusion to the sifting of fine pebble stones from among heaps of dust and sand: though the sand and dust fall to the

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ground, be blown away with the wind, and trampled under foot; yet there shall not fall on the earth, so much as a little stone, such is the exactness of the sieve, and care of the sifter. There is nothing more ready to fall on the earth, than a stone: yet, if professors of religion be lively stones, built on Christ the chief corner stone; although they be little stones, they shall not fall to the earth, whatever storm beat upon them. See 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5, 6. All the good grain in the Church of Christ is of this kind; they are stones in respect of solidity; and lively stones, in respect of activity. If men be solid substantial Christains, they will not be like chaff tossed to and fro with every wind, having so much of the liveliness that they have nothing of the stone: and if they be lively Christains, whose spirit will stir in them, as Paul's did, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry, Acts xvii. 16, they will not lie like stones, to be turned over, hither and thither, cut and carved, according to the lusts of men; having so much of the stone, as leaves nothing of liveliness in them.

Our God's house is a great house, wherein are not only vessels of gold, but also of earth, 2 Tim. ii. 20. Both these are apt to contract filthiness; and therefore when God brings trouble upon the church, he hath an eye to both. As for the vessels of gold, they are not destroyed, but purged by a fiery trial in the furnace of affliction, as goldsmith's purge their gold, Isa. i. 25, "And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross." But destruction is to the vessels of earth: "they shall be broken in shivers, as a potter's vessel,' ver. 28. "And the destruction (or breaking) of the transgressors, and of the sinners, shall be together." It seems to be an allusion to that law, for breaking the vessel of earth, when unclean; while vessels of wood, and consequently vessels of gold, were only to be rinsed, Lev. xv. 12.

A ninth benefit is Support. If thou be a branch ingrafted in Christ, the root beareth thee. The believer leans on Christ; as a weak woman in a journey, leaning upon her beloved husband, Cant. viii. 5. He stays himself upon him, as a feeble old man stays himself on his staff, Isa. 1. 10. He rolls himself on him, as one rolls a burden he is not able to walk under, off his own back upon another who is able to bear it, Psal. xxii. 8. Marg. There are many weights to bang upon, and press down the branches in Christ, the true Vine. ye know, whatever weights hang on branches, the stock bears all; it bears the branch and the weight that is upon it too. First, Christ supports believers in him, under a weight of outward troubles. That is a large promise, Isa. xliii. 2, "When

But