a tasting of temporary believers spoke of. Their highest sense of spiritual things (and it will be in some far higher than we easily think) yet is but a taste, and is called so in comparison of the truer fuller sense that true believers have of the grace and goodness of God, which compared with temporary taste, is more than tasting. The former is tasting, rather an imaginary taste than real; but this is a true feeding on the graciousness of God, yet called but a taste in respect of the fulness to come, though it is more than a taste, as you distinguish it from the hypocrite's sense, yet it is no more but a taste, compared with the great marriage feast we look for.

Jesus Christ being all in all unto the soul, faith apprehending him, is all the spiritual senses; it is the eye that beholds his matchless beauty, and so kindles love in the soul, and can speak of him as having seen him, and taken particular notice of him. It is the ear that discerns his voice. It is faith that smells his name poured forth as an ointment, faith that touches him, and draws virtue from him, and faith that tastes him, and here, If ye have tasted,

&c.

There must be, 1. A firm believing the truth of the promises, wherein the free grace of God is exprest and exhibited to us. 2. A particular application or attraction of that grace to ourselves, which is as the drawing those breasts of consolation", namely, the promises contained in the Old and New Testament. 3. There is a sense of the sweetness of that grace, being applied or drawn into the soul, and that is properly this taste. No unrenewed man hath any of these in truth, not the highest kind of temporary believer, he cannot have so much as a real lively assent to the general truth of the promises; for had he that, the rest would follow; but as he cannot have the least of these in truth, he may have the counterfeit of them all, not only of assent but application, yea, and a false spiritual joy arising d Heb. vi. 4. e Cant. v. 9. f Cant. ii. S.

on it; and all these so drawn to the life, that they may resemble much the truth of them: and to give clear characters of difference, is not so easy as most imagine; but doubtless the true living faith of a christian, hath in itself such a particular stamp, as brings with it its own evidence, when the soul is clear, and the light of God's face shines upon it: indeed, in the dark, we cannot read, nor distinguish one mark from another, but when a christian hath light, to look upon the work of God in his own soul, although he cannot make another sensible of that by which he knows it, yet he himself is ascertained, and can say confidently in himself, This I know, that this faith and taste of God I have is true; the seal of the Spirit of God is upon it; and this is the reading of that new name in the white stone, that no man knows but he that hath it. There is in a true believer such a constant love to God, for himself, and continual desire after him, simply for his own excellency and goodness, that no other can have. On the other side, would an hypocrite deal truly and impartially by himself, he would readily find out something that would discover him more or less to himself; but the truth is, men are willing to deceive themselves, and thence arises the difficulty.

One man cannot make another sensible of the sweetness of divine grace; he may speak to him of it very excellently, but all he says in that kind is an unknown language to a natural man, he heareth many good words, but he cannot tell what they mean. The natural man tastes not the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned.

A spiritual man himself doth not fully conceive this sweetness that he tastes of; it is an infinite goodness, and he hath but a taste of it; the peace of God is a main fruit of this his goodness; it passeth all understanding, says the Apostle', not only all natural understanding, as some modify it; but all understanding, even the supernatural understanding of those that enjoy it; and as the godly man cannot ! Philip. iv. 7.

i Revel. ii, 17.

k1 Cor. ii. 14.

conceive it all, so that which he conceives he cannot express it all, and that which he doth express, the carnal mind cannot conceive of it by his expression.

But he that hath indeed tasted of this goodness, O how tasteless arc those things to him, that the world calls sweet! as when you have tasted somewhat that is very sweet, it disrelishes other things after it. Therefore can a christian so easily either want, or use with disregard the delights of this earth. His heart is not upon them: for the delight that he finds in God, carrieth it unspeakably away from all the rest, and makes them in comparison seem sapless to his taste.

Solomon tasted of all the delicacies, the choicest dishes that are in such esteem amongst men, and not only tasted, but eat largely of them; and yet see how he goes over them, to let us know what they are, and passes from one dish to another, This also is vanity, and of the next this also is vanity, and so through all, and of all in general, all is vanity and vexation of spirit, or feeding on the wind, as the word may be rendered.

3. We come in the third place to the inference, If we have tasted, &c. Then lay aside all malice and guile, and hypocrisies and envies, and all evil speakings, v. 1. For it looks back to the whole exhortation; sure if you have tasted of that kindness and sweetness of God in Christ, it will compose your spirits, and conform them to him; it will diffuse such a sweetness through your soul, that there will be no place for malice and guile. There will be nothing but love and meekness, and singleness of heart; therefore they that have bitter malicious spirits, evidence they have not tasted of the love of God, as the Lord is good, so they that taste it are made like him". Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Again, if ye have tasted, and then desire more, Eph. iv. 32.

m

this is the truest sign of it; he that is in a continual hunger and thirst after this graciousness of God, has surely tasted of it. My soul thirsteth for God, (saith David) he had tasted before, v. 4. he remembers, that he went to the house of God with the voice of joy.

This is that happy circle wherein the soul moves; the more they love it, the more they shall taste of this goodness; and the more they taste, the more they shall still love and desire it.

But observe, if ye have tasted that the Lord is. gracious, then desire the milk of the word. This is the sweetness of the word, that it hath in it the Lord's graciousness, gives us the knowledge of his love; this they find in it, that have spiritual life and senses, and those senses exercised to discern good and evil; and this engages a christian to further desire of the word: they are fantastical deluding tastes, that draw men from the written word, and make them expect other revelations. This graciousness is first conveyed to us by the word; there we taste it, and therefore there still we are to seek it, to hang upon those breasts that cannot be drawn dry; there the love of God in Christ streams forth in the several promises; the heart that cleaves to the word of God, and delights in it, cannot but find in it daily new tastes of his goodness; there it reads his love, and by that stirs up its own to him, and so grows, and loves every day more than the former, and thus is tending from tastes to fulness. It is but little we can receive here, some drops of joy that enter into us; but there we shall enter into joy, as vessels put into a sea of happiness.

Ver. 4. To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious.

5. Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

THE spring of all the dignities of a christian, and therefore the great motive of all his duties, is,

his near relation to Jesus Christ. Thence it is that the Apostle makes that the great subject of his doctrine, both to represent to his distressed brethren their dignity in that, and to press by it the necessary duties he exhorts unto. Having spoke of their spiritual life, and growth in him, under the resemblance of natural life, he prosecutes it here, by another comparison very frequent in the scriptures, and therefore makes use in it of some passages of those scriptures, that were prophetical of Christ and his church. Though there be here two different similitudes, yet they have so near relation one to another, and meet so well in the same subject, that he joins them together, and then illustrates them severally in the following verses; a temple, and a priesthood, comparing the saints to both. The former in these words of this verse.

We have in it, 1. The nature of the building; 2. The materials of it; 3. The structure or way of building it.

1st, The nature is a spiritual building. Time and place, we know, received their being from God, and he was eternally before both, and is therefore stiled by the prophet the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity", but having made the world, he fills it, though not as contained in it, and so the whole frame of it is his palace or temple; but after a more special manner, the higher and statelier part of it, the highest heaven; therefore it is called his holy place, and the habitation of his holiness and glory: and on earth, the houses of his public worship are called his houses; especially the Jewish temple in its time, having in it such a relative typical holiness, which others have not. But besides all these, and beyond them all in excellency, he hath a house wherein he dwells more peculiarly than in any of the rest, even more than in Heaven, taken for the place only, and that is this spiritual building. And this is most suitable to the nature of God, as our Saviour says of the necessary conformi* Isa, lvii. 15.