appeared, as a singular beauty in Moses's face, as they write of him, and as Cyrus was made king among the shepherds children with whom he was brought up, &c. so also certainly in these children of God there be some characters and evidences that they are born for Heaven by their new birth. That holiness and meekness, that patience and faith that shine in the actions and sufferings of the saints, are characters of their father's image, and shew their high original, and foretel their glory to come; such a glory as doth not only surpass the world's thoughts, but the thoughts of the children of God themselves".

-Now that the children of God may grow by the word of God, the Apostle requires these two things of them; 1. The innocency of children: 2. The appetite of children. For this, as I conceive, is relative not only to the desiring the milk of the word, but to the former verse, the putting off malice; as the Apostle Paul exhorts, as concerning malice, be ye children.

1st. The innocency of children is required, Wherefore laying aside, &c. This imports that we are naturally prepossessed with these evils, and therefore are exhorted to put them off. Our hearts are by nature no other but cages of those unclean birds, malice, envy, hypocrisy, &c. The Apostles sometimes name some of these evils, and sometimes other of them; but they are inseparable, all one garment, and all comprehended under that one word, the old man, which the Apostle there exhorts to put off: and here it is pressed as a necessary evidence of their new birth, and furtherance of their spiritual growth, that these base habits be thrown away; ragged filthy habits, unbeseeming the children of God; they are the proper marks of an unrenewed mind, the very characters of the children of satan, for they are his image. He hath his names from enmity, and envy, and slandering, and he is that P Eph. iv. 22.

1 Joh. iii. 2.

• 1 Cor. xiv. 20,

grand hypocrite and deceiver that can transform himself into an angel of light.

So on the contrary, the Spirit of God that dwells in his children is the spirit of meekness, and love, and truth. That dove-like spirit that descended on our Saviour, is from him communicated to believers. It is the grossest impudence to pretend to be christians, and yet to entertain hatred and envyings upon whatsoever occasion; for there is nothing more recommended to them by our Saviour's own doctrine, and more imprest upon their hearts by his Spirit, than love. Kania may be taken generally, but I conceive it is that which we particularly call malice.

Malice and envy are but two branches growing out of the same bitter root; self-love and evil-speakings are the fruit they bear. Malice is properly the procuring or wishing another's evil; envy the repining at their good, and these vent themselves by evil-speaking. This infernal fire within, smokes and flashes out by the tongue, which, St. James says, is set on fire of hell, iii. 6. and fires all about it; censuring the actions of those they hate or envy, aggravating their failings, and detracting from their virtues, taking all things by the left ear; for (as Epictetus says) Every thing hath two handles. The art of taking things by the better side, which charity always doth, would save much of those janglings and heart-burnings that so abound in the world. But folly and perverseness possess the hearts of the most, and therefore their discourses are usually the vent of those; For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth must speak'. The unsa, voury breaths of men argue their inward corruption. Where shall a man come, almost, in societies, but his ears shall be beaten with the unpleasant noise (sure it is so to a christian mind) of one detracting and disparaging another: and yet this is extreme baseness, and the practice only of false counterfeit goodness, to make up our own esteem out of

42 Cor. xi. 14.

Matth. xii. 34.

the ruins of the good name of others; real virtue neither needs nor can endure that dishonest shift: it can subsist of itself, and therefore ingenuously commends and acknowledges what good is in others, and loves to hear it acknowledged; and neither readily speaks nor hears evil of any, but rather, where duty and conscience require not discovery, casts a vail upon men's failings to hide them; this is the true temper of the children of God.

These evils of malice and envy, and evil-speakings, and such like, are not to be dissembled by us in ourselves, and conveyed under better appearances, but to be cast away, not to be covered, but put off; and therefore that which is the upper garment and cloak of all other evils, the Apostle here commands to cast that off too, namely, hypocrisy.

What avails it to wear this mask? A man may indeed in the sight of men act his part handsomely under it, and pass so for a time; but know we not that there is an eye that sees through it, and a hand, that if we will not put off this mask, will pull it off to our shame, either here in the sight of men, or if we should escape all our life, and go fair off the stage under it, yet that there is a day appointed wherein all hypocrites shall be unvailed, and appear what they are indeed before men and angels? It is a poor thing to be approved and applauded by men, while God condemns, to whose sentence all men must stand or fall. Oh! seek to be approved and justified by him, and then who shall condemn? It is no matter who do. How easily may we bear the mistakes and dislikes of all the world, if he declare himself well pleased with us; It is a small thing for me to be judged of man, or man's day; he that judgeth me is the Lord, saith the Apostlet.

But these evils are here particularly to be put off, as contrary to the right and profitable receiving of the word of God; for this part of the exhortation

Rom. viii. 34.

t 1 Cor. iv. 3.

[Laying aside] looks to that which follows, [Desire] and is specially so to be considered.

There is this double task in religion. When a man enters to it, he is not only to be taught true wisdom, but he is withal, yea, first of all, to be untaught the errors and wickedness that are deep rooted in his mind, which he hath not only learned by the corrupt conversation of the world, but brought the seeds of them into the world with him. They do indeed improve and grow by the favour of that example that is round about a man; but they are originally in our nature as it is now; they are connatural to us, besides continual custom, which is another nature. There is none comes to the school of Christ suiting the philosopher's word, ut tabula rasa, as blank paper, to receive his doctrine; but, on the contrary, all scribbled and blurred with such base habits as these, malice, hypocrisy, envy, &c.

Therefore the first work is to raze out these, to cleanse and purify the heart from these blots, these foul characters, that it may receive the impression of the image of God. And because it is the word of God that both begins and advances this work, and perfects the lineaments of that divine image on the soul; therefore to the receiving this word aright, and this proper effect by it, the conforming of the soul to Jesus Christ, which is the true growth of the spiritual life, this is prerequired, that the hearts of them that hear it be purged of these and such like impurities, malice, hypocrisy, &c.

These are so opposite to the profitable receiving of the word of God, that while they possess and rule the soul, it cannot at all embrace these divine truths; while it is filled with such guests, there is no room to entertain the word.

They cannot dwell together by reason of their contrary nature, the word will not mix with these. The saving mixture of the word of God in the soul, is that the Apostle speaks of, and he gives the want of it as the cause of unprofitable hear

ing the word", not mixing of it with faith; for by that the word is concocted into the nourishment of the life of grace, united to the soul, and mixed with it, by being mixed with faith, as the Apostle's expression imports: that is the proper mixture it requires, but with these qualities here mentioned it will not mix; there is a natural antipathy betwixt them, as strong as in those things in nature, that cannot be brought by any means to agree and mingle together.

Can there be any thing more contrary than the good word of God, as the Apostle calls it, and those evil-speakings? Than the word that is of such excellent sweetness, and the bitter words of a malignant tongue? Than the word of life, and words full of deadly poison? For so slanders and defamings of our brethren are. And is not all malice and envy most opposite to the word, that is the message of peace and love? How can the gall of malice and this milk of the word agree? Hypocrisy and guile stand in direct opposition to the name of this word that is called the word of truth; and here the very words shew this contrariety, sincere milk and a double unsincere mind.

These two are necessary conditions of good nourishment; 1st, That the food be good and wholesome, 2dly, That the inward constitution of them that use it be so too. And if this fail, the other profits not. This sincere milk is the only proper nourishment of spiritual life, and there is no defect nor undue quality in it; but the greatest part of hearers are inwardly unwholesome, diseased with the evils here mentioned, and others of the like nature; and therefore, either have no kind of appetite to the word at all, but rather feed upon such trash as suits with their distemper, as some kind of diseases incline those that have them to eat coals or lime, &c. or if they be anyways desirous to hear the word, and seem to feed on it, yet the noxious humours that abound in them make it altogether unprofitable,

Heb. iv. 2.