Remains of that reverend and learned divine, John Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplain in…Remaines of that reverend and learned divine, Iohn Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplaine in…

The second reason wherefore you should desire to be strong in the Inward man is this, because it ¹brings most comfort and cheerfulness into the soul. (1) Because it makes us do all that we do with facility and easiness, so that that which we ²do is easy unto us; as for example, a man that is weak in Judgement and weak in understanding, any high point of religion is weariness unto him, because he wants a capacity to conceive: now that which is not rightly conceived or understood, we have little or no comfort or delight in it, but it is irksomeness and weariness unto our nature: whereas the same things unto a man that is of a larger capacity are easy unto him and he delights in them (2.) The more strength a man hath in the Inward man, the more health he hath in his ³soul, for as it is in the body, the more natural strength, the more health; so in the soul, the more strength in the inward man, the more healthful ⟨p. 74⟩in grace (3.) It brings the more cheerfulness into the heart, because it brings Christ and God ⁴thither, who is the God of all comfort and consolation, as the Apostle calls him there. For that must needs be the best thing in the world to be strong in the inward man; and the joyfullest heart, that hath his inhabiting with God, and Christ. (4.) Because it brings sufficiency and plenty of all good into the soul, and we say, that if a man hath ⁵a good outward estate, he is like to hold out if a famine should come; so it is with a Christian if he be strong in the inward man, though a famine should come, he is likely to hold out and keep that which he hath: but on the contrary, when a man is poor in the inward man (as it is with a body that is weak) every thing that it hath is ready to be taken away. But as a bowl that hath a bias, the strength of the arm takes away the bias, so strength in the Inward man takes away the bias of shame and reproach, which otherwise would draw us to despair, and makes us to go on stoutly and to bear afflictions strongly; babes you know cannot bear that which a strong man can, neither are they able to hold out in any thing as a strong man is able. Therefore that you may hold out, labour to be strong in the Inward man, (5.)