The excellency of a gracious spirit Delivered in a treatise upon the 14. of…The excellency of a gracious spirit Deliuered in a treatise upon the 14. of…

I remember, I have read in one of the Epistles written to Oecolampadius, of a notable expression, of one Baldassar a Minister in Germany writing to him; Let the word of the Lord ¹come, let it come, saith he, and we will submit to it, if we had many hundred necks to put under: This is a degree further then the other; for there are many who dare not go against known truths, for then conscience would fly in their faces; but there are some truths which they are afraid to know, which they are secretly willing to put off, lest they should come to know them, which is an argument that their hearts are not fully after the Lord: when men are not convinced of many truths, not because there is not light enough to convince them, but because they are ⟨p. 278⟩not willing to be convinced, they strive to keep out the power of the truth from their hearts; they are not willing, that such truths that are not for their turns, should come into their judgements; they seek to shift them off: when the truth stands and pleads for entrance, they seek one shift or other to put it off withal, Heb. 12. 25. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: The words are, See that ye shift not him off that speaketh. In the propriety of that word as it is in the Original, we have thus much signified to us: Christ in his truths ²comes to ask entrance, and we must •ake heed that we do not put him off. And if the truth have got into our judgement, we must take heed, we do not strive to get conscience off from it; and if conscience hath closed with it, take heed we strive nor to get it out of conscience again, and then think it a sufficient plea, to satisfy our selves and others in the actions we do, that now our judgements are better informed; whereas ⟨p. 279⟩the truth indeed is, our lusts are more satisfied, the corruptions of our hearts are more increased. Oh take heed for ever of labouring to blind our understandings, of withholding the truth in unrighteousness, of imprisoning it, to keep it from working with power upon our hearts. This distemper of heart, is exceedingly opposite to the following of the Lord fully.