ages of persecution abounding with remarkable instances of this operation of the Holy Ghost. For whereas constant persecutions never failed to exterminate false religions from the world; witness the heathen religion and the Christian heresies, the Priscilians, Arians, and Donatists, which whilst they were tolerated or connived at did mightily increase and multiply, but under vigorous persecutions immediately shrunk, and in a little time dwindled into nothing: the true Christianity, on the contrary, bore up its head under the heaviest oppressions, and triumphed in the midst of flames; and was so far from being vanquished by all the barbarous cruelties of its persecutors, that the more they persecuted it, the more it conquered and prevailed; which doubtless is in a great measure to be attributed to this supporting influence of the Holy Spirit, which still accompanied its confessors and martyrs. For how was it possible that a company of tender virgins, delicate matrons, and aged bishops, could ever have endured those long and dolorous martyrdoms, as many times they did, when their tormentors took their turns from morning to night, and plied them with all kinds of cruelties, till they were oftentimes forced to give over, and confess that they had not heart enough to inflict the tortures which those poor sufferers had courage enough to endure! How could they have sung in the midst of flames, smiled upon racks, triumphed upon wheels and catastas, and there challenged their executioners, as they often did, to distend their limbs to the utmost stretch, to tear their flesh with ungulæ, to scorch their tender parts with fires, and rake their bowels with spikes and gaunches! How, I say, could they have endured all these miser

able harassings of their tender flesh, with the most witty and exquisite tortures, and this sometimes for sundry days together, when for one base and cowardly word they might have been released when they pleased, had they not been supported with an invisible hand, and refreshed with such strong consolations, as not only abated, but sometimes quite extinguished their pains! And the same comforts, though not perhaps in the same degree, other good men have frequently experienced: sometimes upon their undertaking some great and heroic office of piety or virtue; sometimes in their conflict with some great temptation; sometimes when they have been sorely oppressed with some mighty sorrow or affliction; and sometimes in the hour and extremities of death for it is only upon these or such like extraordinary occasions, that the Holy Spirit usually administers these great consolations to our minds. And this he also performs in the same manner as he doth the aforenamed operations, viz. by suggesting to, and vigorously impressing comfortable thoughts upon our minds; for there is no doubt but that as he can impress on us what thought soever he pleases, so he can also impress with what strength and vigour soever he pleases; and accordingly as he impresses a comfortable thought on us more or less vigorously, it must of necessity be a greater or a less consolation to us. If he think fit, and our state require it, he can imprint a comfortable thought on us with that strength and vehemence, as that it shall even ravish us from our sense, and so engross all our attention to it, as that we shall be altogether mindless and insensible of any pain or pleasure of the body. For thus it is usual for serious contemplators in their

profound musings to collect and call together all their animal spirits to attend that work, so that many times there are none, or not enough at least, remaining to supply the offices of their sense, and carry on the inferior operations of nature; and if we ourselves by intense thinking can thus alienate our minds from sense, we may easily suppose that the Holy Ghost, who hath the command of our minds, can, when he pleases, stamp a joyous thought so vigorously upon them, as that it shall instantly transport them into an ecstasy, and ravish them from all corporeal sensation. And that thus he hath done is notoriously evident in the abovenamed martyrs, whose senses were many times so entranced by the rapturous contemplations their minds were seized with, that they lay smiling, and sometimes singing, under the bloody hands of their tormentors, without any apparent sense of those long and exquisite cruelties that were practised upon them. And though the blessed Spirit seldom applies these strong and powerful cordials to pious minds, but in such great and urgent extremities, it being much more for their interest to be kept humble and lowly, than to be ravished with continued comforts; yet ordinarily he administers a standing peace and satisfaction to them, and whenever their necessities call for it, he inspires them with such degrees of joy and consolation as their case and condition requires.

Fifthly and lastly, Another of the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit on men's minds is intercession, by which he enables us to offer up our prayers to God with such ardent and devout affections as are in some measure suitable to the matter we pray for. For prayer being the immediate con

verse of our souls with God, wherein our minds are obliged to withdraw themselves from sense and sensible things, and wholly to retire themselves from those objects to which they are most endeared and familiarized into the divine and spiritual world, there is no one duty whatsoever, to the due performance of which our carnal affections are naturally more listless and averse; and therefore as herein we have most need of the Holy Spirit's assistance, so herein he more especially operates on our minds, exciting in us all those graces and affections which are proper to the several parts of our prayer, such as shame and sorrow in the confession of our sins; a sense of our need of mercy, and a hope of obtaining it in our supplications for pardon and forgiveness; resignation to God's will, and dependance on his truth and goodness, in our address for temporal mercies and deliverances; hunger and thirst after righteousness, in our petitions for his grace and assistance; and, in a word, gratitude, and love, and admiration of God, in our praises and thanksgivings for mercy and in these divine affections the life and soul of prayer consists. And accordingly in Gal. iv. 6. the apostle tells us, Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father; that is, by kindling devout and pious affections in your souls, enabling you to cry to God with all earnestness and assurance, as to a kind and merciful Father; and hence also we are said to pray in or by the Holy Ghost, Jude 20. because all the proper graces and affections of prayer are excited in us by him. And this his excitation of the graces of prayer in us is called his making intercession for us, Rom. viii. 26, 27. which

imports no more than his enabling us to offer up the matter of our prayers to God in a most devout and affectionate manner, or, as he there explains himself, with sighs and groans that are not to be uttered, that is, with such earnest and flagrant affections as are too big for words to express: and this is properly to intercede for us. For as Christ, who is our advocate in heaven, doth offer up our prayers to the Father, and enforce them with his own intercessions; so his Spirit, who is our advocate on earth, begets in us those affections which render our prayers prevalent, and wings them with fervour and ardency; the one pleads with God for us in our own hearts, by kindling such desires there as render our prayers acceptable to him, and the other pleads with him for us in heaven, by representing their desires, and soliciting their supply and acceptance. Now this intercession of the Holy Spirit is also performed, as all the foregoing operations, by suggesting to, and imprinting such thoughts upon our minds as are most apt to raise and excite our affections; which thoughts he often urges with that vehemence, and presses with that reiterated importunity, that if we do not wilfully repel them from our minds, and refuse them admittance to our hearts and affections, they cannot fail to stir up in us all the graces of prayer, and inflame our souls with a fervent devotion; and accordingly, whenever we harbour these suggestions of the Spirit, and by seriously attending to them, cherish and encourage them, we find by experience they so affect and influence our devotions, as that in every prayer our souls take wings, and, like the angel that appeared to Manoah, fly up to heaven in the flames of our sacrifice.