The Author of Regeneration

Which were ae not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God — Joun i. 13

From the text it appears most evident that God alone is the prime efficient cause or author of regeneration, for it will be found upon investigation that man in all his capacities is too weak to produce the work of regeneration in himself. This is not the birth of a darkened wisdom, and an enslaved will. We affect a kind of divinity, and would centre ourselves in our own strength; therefore it is good to be sensible of our own impotency, that God may have the glory of his own grace, and we the comfort of it, in a higher principle and higher power than our own. It is not the bare proposal of grace, and the leaving the will to an indifferent posture, balanced between good and evil, undetermined to the one or the other, to incline and determine itself which way seems best to it. Not one will, in the whole rank of believers, if left to themselves. The evangelist excepts not one man among them; for as many as received Christ, as many as believed, were the sons of God, who were born; which believers, who had this faith as the means, and this sonship as the privilege, were born, not of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

God challenges this work as his own, excluding the creature from any share as a cause. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, I will cleanse you, I will give you .a new heart, I will put a new spirit into you, I will take away the heart of stone, I will give you a heart of flesh, I will put my Spirit into you. Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26,27. Here J will no less than seven times. Nothing is allowed to man in the production of this work in the least;. all that is done by him, is the walking in God?s statutes by virtue of this principle. The sanctifying principle, the actual sanctification, the reception of it by the creature, the - removal of all the obstructions of it, the principle maintaining it, are not in the least here attributed to the will of man. God appropriates all to himself. He doth not say, he would be man’s assistant, as many men do, who tell us only of the assistances of the Gospel, as if God in the Gospel expected the first motions of the will of man to give him an opportunity for the acting of his grace; you see here he-gives not an inch to the creature. To ascribe the first work in any part to the will of man, is to deprive God of half his due, to make him but a partner with his creature. The least of it cannot be transferred to man, but the right of God will be diminished, and the creature go ‘shares with his Creator. What partner was the creature with God in the creation? It is the Father’s work alone, without the hand of free-will. None can come, except the Father which sent me, draw them. John vi. 44. The mission of the Mediator, and the attraction of the creature, are by the same hand. Our Saviour could not have come unless the Father had sent him, nor can man come to Christ, unless the Father draw him: what is that which is drawn? the will. The will then is not the agent, it doth not draw itself.:

The titles given to regeneration evidence it. It is

acreation; what creature can give itself a being? It is a putting ina law and anew heart; what matter can infuse a soul into itself? It is a new birth; what man did ever beget himself? It is an opening the heart; what man can do this who neither hath the key, nor is acquainted with the wards? Not a man knows the heart, it is deceitful above all things, who can know it?

Scripture represérits man.as exceedingly weak, and unable to do any thing spiritually good, “So then, they that are in the flesh, cannot please God,’”’ Rom. vill.:8. ‘He concludes it by his “so then,’ as an infallible consequence, from what he had discoursed before. If’as. being i in the flesh they cannot please God,» therefore not in that which is the highest: pleasure to God, a framing themselves to a likeness to him. The very desire and endeavour of the creature after this, is some pleasure to God, to see a creature struggling after holiness; but: they. that are in the flesh cannot please him. Can. any good thing come out of Nazateth, was said of our Saviour? So may we better say, can any good thing come out of the flesh, the enslaved, possessed will of man? If it be free since it was captivated by sin, who set it free? Nothing can, but the law of the Spirit of life, Rom. viii. 2. To be sinners, and to be without strength, is one and the same thing in the apostle’s judgment, Rom. v. 6. 8. While we were yet without strength; afterwards, while we were yet sinners. God only is almighty, and man all impotency;*God only is all-sufficient, and man all indigent. It is impossible we can have a strength of our own, since our first father was feeble, and conveyed his weakness to us; by the same reason that it is impossible we can have a righteousness of our own, since our father sinned.

This weakness is universal. Sin hath made its sickly impressions in every faculty. The mind is dark, Eph.

Ban iv. 18, he cannot know, 1 Cor. ii. 14, there is a hard- —

ness in the heart, he cannot bend, Zech. vii. 12, there —

is enmity in the will, he cannot be subject, Rom. viii. 7. As to faith, he cannot believe, John xii. 39. As to the Spirit, the worker of faith, he cannot receive; that is, of himself, John, xiv. 17. acknowledge Christ he cannot. 1 Cor. xii. 3. As to practice, he cannot bring forth fruit, John xv. 4. The unrighteousness introduced by Adam, poured a poison into every faculty, and dispossessed it of its strength, as well as of its -beauty: what else could be expected from any deadly wound, but weakness as well as defilement? The understanding conceives only such thoughts as are pleasing to the law of sin; the memory is employed in pre-Serving the dictates and decrees of it; the imagination full of fancies imprinted by it; the will wholly submitting to its authority; conscience standing with fingers in its mouth, for the most part not to speak against it; the whole man yielding itself and every member to the commands of it, and undertaking nothing but -by its motions. To evince it, there is not one regenerate man but in his first conversion is chiefly sensible of his own insufficiency. An universal consent is a great argument of the truth of a proposition; it is a ground of the belief of a deity, it being the sentiment of all nations. I do not speak of disputes about it from the pride of reason, but of the inward experience of it in any heart: what more frequent in the mouths of those that have some preparations to it by conviction, ‘than, I cannot repent, I cannot believe, I find my heart wicked and base, and unable to do any thing that is good? There have been instances of those that would elevate the power of man, and freedom of will in spiritual things, who have been confuted in their ‘reasonings, and acknowledged themselves so, when God hath come to work savingly upon them. Indeed this poverty of spirit, or sense of our own emptiness, insufficiency, and indigence, is the first gospel grace wrought in the soul, and stands in the front of all those noble qualifications in our Saviour’s sermon, as fitting men for the kingdom of God; “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven,” Matt. v. 3. And God in the whole progress of this work keeps believers sensible of their own weakness, thereby to preserve them in a continual dependence on him; and therefore sometimes withdraws his Spirit from them, and lets them fall, that they may adhere more loses to him, and less confide in themselves.

What kind of impotency or insufficiency is there in the soul, to be the cause of this work? - It is not a physical weakness for want of faculties. Understanding we have, but not a spiritual light in it to direct us; will we have, but no freedom to choose that which is spiritually good; though since the fall we have such a free-will left, which pertains to the essential nature of man, yet we have lost that liberty which belongs to the ‘perfection of human nature, which was to exercise acts spiritually good and acceptable to God. Had the faculties been lost, Adam had not been capable of a promise or command, and consequently of ever sinning after. In Adam by creation we were possessed of it; in Adam by his corruption we were stripped of it; we have not lost the physical but the moral nature of these faculties; not the faculties themselves, but the moral goodness of them. As the elementary heat is left in the carcass, which yet is unfit to exercise any animal action for want of a soul to enliven it; so though the faculties remain after this spiritual death, we are unfit to exert any spiritual actions for want of grace to quicken

them. If man wanted faculties, this want would —

excuse him in his. most extravagant actions; nay, without those faculties, he could not act as a rational creature, and so were utterly incapable of sinning. Sin hath untuned the strings, but did not unstring the soul; the faculties were still left, but in such a disorder that the wit and will of man can no more tune them than the strings of an untuned lute can dispose themselves for harmony without a musician’s hand.

Neither is it a weakness arising from the greatness of the object above the faculty. As when an object is unmeet for a man, because he hath no power in him to comply with it — as to understand the essence of God; this the highest creature in its own nature cannot do, because God dwells in inaccessible light; and it is utterly impossible for any thing but God to comprehend God. If man were required to become an angel, or to rise up and kiss the sun in the firmament; these were impossible things, because man wanted a faculty in his primitive nature for such acts: so if God had commanded Adam to fly without giving him wings, or to speak without giving him a tongue, he had not been guilty of sin in not doing it, because it was not disobedience; for disobedience is only in what a man hath a faculty to do; but to love God, praise him, depend upon him, was in the power of man’s original nature, for they were not above those faculties God endued him wath, but very correspondent and suitable to him: the objects proposed are in themselves intelligible, credible, capable to be comprehended.

Neither is ita weakness arising from the insufficiency of external revelation. The means of regeneration are clearly revealed in the Gospel, the sound is gone into all the earth, Rom. x. 18, and the word of the Lord is an apprehensible object, it is near us,

even in our mouths, Rom. x. 8.; “the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes,’’ Psal. xix. 8. If the object were hid, the weakness lay not on the part of man, but on the insufficiency of revelation; as if any thing were revealed to man in an unknown tongue, there were an insufficiency in the means of revelation.

* But, it is a moral weakness; the disability lies chiefly in the will. Carnal lusts prepossess the heart,

and make their party in the will against the things of God: so that inward propensities to embrace sin are as great as the outward temptations to allure to it, whereby the soul is carried down the stream with a wilful violence. In this respect he is called dead, though the death be not of the same nature with a natural death; for such a one hath not the natural faculty to raise himself; but this is an impotency arising from a voluntary obstinacy; yet the iniquity of a man binds him no less powerfully under this spiritual captivity, than a natural death and insensibility keep men in the grave: and those fetters of perversity they can no more knock off, than a dead man can raise himself from the grave; by reason of those bands they are called prisoners, Isa. xlii. 7, and cannot be delivered without the powerful voice of Christ commanding and enabling them to go forth. “That thou mayest say to the prisoner, go forth.” Isa. xlix. 9. The apostle lays the whole fault of men’s not receiving the truth, upon their wills. “They received not the love of the truth,’’? 2 Thes. ii. 10; they heard it, they knew it, but they loved not that which courted them. It is not seated in any defect of the will, as it is a power of the soul, for then God who created it would be charged with it, and might as well charge beasts to become men, as men to become gracious. Man as a creature had a power to believe and love God; to resist temptations, avoid sin, and live according to nature; but man as corrupted by a habit derived to him from his first parents, and increased by a custom in sin, cannot believe, cannot love God, cannot bring himself into a good frame; as a musician cannot play a lesson when he hath the gout in his fingers. When the eyes are full of adultery, when the heart is full of evil habits, it cannot cease to sin, it cannot be gracious, 2 Pet. i. 14.

Now these habits are either innate, or contracted and increased.

Innate. By nature we have a habit of corruption, fundamental of all others that grow up in us. Man made a covenant with sin, contracted a marriage “-withit; by virtue of this covenant sin had a full power over him: what the apostle speaks of the marriage between man and the law, Rom. vii. 1, 2, 3,4, is applicable to this case: sin as a husband, by way of covenant, hath a powerful dominion over the will, and binds it as long as sin lives; and the will hath no power to free itself, unless a higher power make a divorce, or by the death of the husband: this is the cause of man’s obstinacy against any return to God, the will is held in the cords of sin, Prov. v. 22.. The habit hath obtained an absolute sovereignty over it. “They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God: for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them;”’? Hos. v. 4; that is, in their hearts. This adulterous or idolatrous habit holds their wills in chains, and actuates them, as a man possessed. by the devil is actuated according to the pleasure of the devil; the devil speaks in them, moves in them, and does what he pleases by them. And which binds the will faster, this habit is not in a natural man by way of a tyranny, but a voluntary sovereignty on the part of the will; the will is pleased and tickled with it. As a woman, (to use the similitude of the Holy Ghost in that place,) is so ovez-ruled by her affections to other lovers, that she cannot think of returning to her former husband; but her unlawful love plays all its pranks, and riseth with that force against all arguments from honesty and credit, that it keeps her still in the chains of an unlawful lust. So this is not a habit which doth oppress nature, or force it against its will, but by its incorporation, and becoming one. with our nature, has quite altered it from that original rectitude and simplicity wherein God at first framed it. It is a law of. sin, which having razed out the purity of the law of nature, commands in a greater measure in the stead of it. Hence it is as natural to man, in his lapsed state, to have perverse dispositions against God, as it is essential to him to be rational. And the chariot of that weak remaining reason left us, is overturned by our distempered passions; and the nobler part of man is subject to the rule of these, which bear down the authority both of reason and God too. That one sin of the angels, howsoever complicated we know not, taking place as a habit in them, hath bound them for ever from rising to do any good, or disentangling themselves from it, and may perhaps be meant by those chains of darkness wherein they are reserved and held to the judgment of the great day, having no will to shake them off, though they have light enough to see the torment appointed for them.

New contracted and increased habits upon this foundation. Custom turns sin more into another nature, and completes the first natural disorder. An unrenewed man daily contracts a greater impotency, by adding strength to this habit, and putting power into the hands of sin to exercise its tyranny, and. increasing our headstrong natures in their unruliness. It is as impossible of ourselves to shake off the fetters of custom, as to suppress the unruliness of nature. ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? -Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil.”’ Jer. xiii. 23. The prophet speaks not here of what they were by nature, but what they were by custom; contracting thereby such a habit of evil, that like a chronic disease, could not be cured by any ordinary means. But may he not accustom himself to do good? No; it is as impossible as for an Ethiopian to change his skin. Those habits draw a man to delight in, and therefore to a necessity of sinning. ‘The pleasure of the heart joined with the sovereignty of sin, are two such strong cords as cannot be untwisted or cut by the soul itself; no, not without an overruling grace: it was a simple wound in Adam, but such as all nature could not cure, much less when we have added a world of putrefaction to it. The stronger the habit, the greater the impotency: if we: could not raze out the stamp of mere. nature upon our wills, how can we raze out the deeper impressions made by the addition of custom? If Adam, who committed but one sin, and that in a moment, did not seek to regain his lost integrity; how can any other man, who by a multitude of sinful acts has made his habit of a giant-like stature, completed many parts of wickedness, and scoffed at the rebukes of conscience?

Let us now see wherein this weakness to renew ourselves appears.

In a total moral unfitness for this work. Grace being said to make us meet for our master’s use, it implies an utter unfitness for God’s use, of ourselves, before grace. ‘There is a passive capability, a stump left in nature, but no fitness for any activity in nature, no fitness in nature for receiving grace before grace; there is nothing in us naturally which doth suit or correspond with that which is good in the sight of God; that which is natural is found more or less in all men. But the Gospel, which is the instrument of regeneration, finds nothing in the nature of man to comply with the main design of it: there is indeed some compliance of moral nature with the moral precepts in the

Gospel, upon which account it hath been commended by some heathen; but nothing to answer the main intendment of it, which is faith, the top-grace m regeneration: this hath nothing to commend itself to mere nature, nor finds an internal principle in man that is pleased with it, as other graces do, as love, meekness, patience, &c. For faith strips a man of all his own glory, brings himself from himself to live dependently upon another, and makes him act for another, not for himself; and therefore meets not with any one principle in man to show it countenance. No good thing dwells in the flesh, Rom. vii. 18, there may be some motions lighting there, as a fly upon a man’s face; but they have no settled abode, and spring not up from nature. If the apostle, who was renewed, found an unfitness in himself to do that which was good, how great is that unfitness in a mere natural will, which is wholly under the power of the flesk, and hath no principle in it correspondent to. spiritual truth to renew itself? If this regeneration had any

foundation in nature, it would be then in most men

that hear the Gospel, because there is not a general contradiction in men to those things which are natural: but since there is no good thing dwells in any flesh, how can it be fit of itself to be raised into a conformity to. God, which is the highest pitch of the creature’s excellency? The Scripture represents us not as earth, which is fit to suck in showers from heaven, but as. stones, which only are moistened in the superficies by the rain, but answers not the intendment of it. - Adamants are unfit to receive impressions; and the best natural heart is no better, like a stone, cold and hard. The soul with its faculties is like a bird with its wings, but clogged with slime and clay, unfit to fly. A barren wilderness is absolutely unfit to make a pleasant and fruitful garden. There is a contractedness of the heart till God enlarge and open it, and that in the best nature. Acts xvi. 14. Lydia, it is said, worshipped God, there was religion in her, yet the Lord opened her heart for the Gospel. Can any thing be more indisposed than a fountain that is always bubbling up poison? so is the heart of man, Gen. vi. 5. The least imagination, rising up.in the heart, is evil, and can be no better, since the heart itself is a mass of venom. If renewed natures find so much indisposition in the progress of sanctification, though their sails be filled with grace, how great must it be where corrupt nature only sits at the stern? As when Satan came to tempt our Saviour, he found nothing in him, no touchwood in his nature to take fire by a temptation: so when. the Spirit comes, he finds no tinder in man to receive readily any spark of grace. This unfitness is in the best mere nature, that seems to have but a drop of corruption; a drop of water is as unfit to ascend as a greater quantity.

There is not only an unfitness, but an unwillingness. A senseless drowsiness of soul, loath to be moved. No man doth readily hold out his arms to embrace the offers of the Gospel. What folding of the arms? yet a little more slumber, .a little more sin. Man is mere darkness, before his effectual calling: “who hath called us out of darkness.’’ 1 Pet. ii. 9. His understanding is darkened; the will cannot embrace a thing offered, unless it have powerful arguments to persuade it of the goodness of that thing which is offered; which arguments are modelled in the understanding; but that being darkened, hath wrong notions of divine things, therefore cannot represent them to the will to be pursued and followed. Adam’s running away from God to hide himself, after the loss of his original righteousness, discovers how unwilling man is to implore God’s favour. How deplorable is the condition of man by sin! since we find not one prayer put up by Adam, nor can we suppose any till the promise of recovery was made, though he was sensible of his nakedness, and haunted by his conscience: “I was afraid, because I was naked: and I hid myself,’ Gen. ili. 10.. He had no mind, :no heart to turn suppliant unto God, he runs from God; and when God finds him out, instead of begging pardon by humble prayer, he ‘stands upon his justification, accuses God to be the cause, by giving him the woman, by whose persuasion he was induced to sin. What glass will better discover the good will of nature to God, than the first motions after the fall?

, There is not only an unfitness and unwillingness, — but an affection to something contrary to the Gospel. The nature of outward objects is such, that they attract the sensitive appetite, corrupted by sin, to prefer them before that. which is more excellent: the heart is forestalled by an inordinate love of the world, and a pleasure in unrighteousness, “they believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness,’’ 2. Thess. xii. 12, a. singular pleasure. Where the heart and the Devil agree so well, what liking can there be to God or his will? Where the amity between sin and the soul is so great, that sin is self, and self is sin, how can so delightful a friend be discarded, to receive one he thinks his enemy? This weakness ariseth from a love to something different or contrary to what is proposed. When a man is so tied to that. object which he loves, that he minds not that contrary object which is revealed by-a fit light: as a man that hath his eyes or his heart fixed upon a fair picture, cannot observe many things that occur about him; or if he doth consider it, he is taken so much with the things he loves, that he seems to hate the other; that though he doth count it good, yet compared with what he loved before, he apprehends it as evil, and judges it evil, merely by the error of his mind, a practical, affected and voluntary ignorance. So, though a man. may sometimes judge that there isa goodness in the Gospel, and the things proposed, yet his affection to other pleasures, which he prefers before the Gospel, causes him to shake off any thoughts of compliance with it. Now all natural men in the irons of sin, are not weary, but in love with their fetters, and prize their slavery as if it were the most glorious liberty.

There is not only unfitness, and unwillingness, and a contrary affection to the Gospel, but according to the degrees of this affection to other things, there is a strong aversion and enmity to the tenders of the Gospel. This enmity is more or less in the heart of every unrenewed man, though in some it is more restrained and kept down by education, yet it will appear more or less upon the approaches of grace, which is contrary to nature: as a spark as well as a flame will burn, though one hath less heat than the other; there is the same nature, the same seminal principles in all.’

The carnal mind, let it be ever so well polished by*

education, is enmity to God, and therefore unable; because unwilling to be subject to his law, Rom. viii. 7. By nature he is of the devil’s party, and hath no mind the castle of his heart should ever come into the hands of the right owner. It is in every faculty. Not one part of the soul will make a mutiny within against sin, or take part with God, when he comes to lay siege to it; when he stretches out his hands, he meets with a rebellious and gainsaying people, Rom. x. 21. It can converse with any thing but God; look with delight upon any thing but that which is the only true object of delight. It can have no desire to have that law written in his heart, whose characters he hates. All the expressions in the Scripture, denoting the work of grace, import man’s distaste of it: it is to deny himself, crucify the flesh; what man has not an aversion to deny what is dearest to him, his self; to crucify what is incorporated with him, his Isaac, his flesh? 18* %

The bent of a natural heart, and the design of the Gospel, which is to lay man as low as the dust, can never agree. A corrupt heart, and the propositions of grace, meet together as fire and water, with hissing. The language of man, at the proposals of the Gospel,

is much like that of the devil’s, “what have we to do

with thee? Art thou come to destroy us?”’ Luke iv. 34.

This aversion proceeds on to a resistance. No rebels were ever stouter against their prince, than an unrenewed soul against the Spirit of God, not a moment without arms in his hand: he acts in defence of his sin, and resistance of grace, and combats with the Spirit, as his deadly enemy; “You always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.”’ Acts vii. 51. The animosity runs in the whole blood of nature. Neither the breathings of love, nor the thunders of threatening, are listened to. All natural men are hewed out of one quarry of stone. The highest rock, and the hardest adamant may be dissolved with less pains than the heart of man; they all, like a stone, resist the force of the hammer, and fly back upon it. All the faculties are full of this resistance: the mind with stout reasoning gives a repulse to grace; the imagination harbours foolish conceits of it: in the heart, hardness and refusing to hear; in the affections, disgust and displeasure with God’s ways, disaffection to his interests, the heart is locked, and will not of itself shoot one bolt to let the king of glory enter: what party is like to be made for God, by bare nature thus possessed? Nature indeed does what it can, though it cannot do what it would; for though it resist the outward means, and inward motions, yet it cannot efficaciously resist the determined grace of God, any more than the matter of the creation could

resist the all-powerful voice of God, commanding it

to receive this or that form; or Lazarus resist the

receiving that life Christ conveyed to him by his

ap

OF REGENERATION. 207 mighty word; God finds a contradiction in our wills; and we are not regenerate, because our will hath consented to the persuasions of grace, for that it doth not do of itself; but the grace of God disarms our will of all that is capable of making resistance, and determines it to accept and rejoice in what is offered. Nature of itself is of an unyielding temper, and removes not one scale from the eye, nor any splinter from the stone in the heart; for how can we be the authors of that which we most resist and labour to destroy. iti?

Add to all this, the power of Satan in every natural, man, whose interest lies in enfeebling the creature. The devil, since his first impression upon Adam, hath had the universal possession of nature,-unless any natural man free himself from the rank of the children of disobedience. “The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience;””? Eph. 11. 2; where the same word is used for the acting of Satan, and likewise for the acting of sin, in Rom. vil. 5, as it is for the acting. of the Spirit, Phil. 1. 13. In whom he works as a spirit, as powerfully according to his created strength, as the Holy Ghost works in the children of disobedience. As the Spirit fills the soul with gracious habits to move freely in God’s ways, so Satan fills the soul (as much as in him lies) with sinful habits, as so many chains to keep it under his own dominion. He cannot indeed work immediately upon the will, but he uses all the skill and ’ power that he hath to keep men captive for the performance of his own pleasure, “who are taken captive by him at his will,’ 2 Tim. ii. 26, or for his will; it is in that place a dreadful judgment which God gives some men up to, for opposing the Gospel, taking away his restraints, both from the devil and their own hearts; but more or less he works in every one that opposes the Gospel, which every unrenewed man under the preaching of the Gospel does: he is the strong man that keeps the palace, Luke xi. 21. Can the will of man make a surrender of it, at God’s demand, in spite of its governor? What power have we to throw off the shackles he loads us with? We are as weak in his hand as birds in a fowler’s; what will have we, since we are his willing slaves? ©The darkness of nature is never likely by its own free motion to disagree with the prince of darkness, without an over-powering grace, able to contest with the lord as well as the slave: for by the fall he is become prince.of the lower creation, and holds it in chains too strong for weakness to break. How great then is man’s inability! How unreasonable it is-to think, that the will of man, possessed with such unfitness, unwillingness, affection to other things, aversion to the Gospel, resistance of it, and in the devil’s net, can of itself do any thing towards its recovery, from that it counts no disease, or to turn to that which it accounts its burden? If unspotted and sound nature did not preserve Adam in innocence, how can filthy and crazy nature recover us from corruption? If it did not keep him alive when he was living, how can it convey life to us when we have not a spark of spiritual life in us? Man was planted a noble vine, but turned himself into a degenerate plant: nothing that hath decayed, can by its own strength recover itself, because it hath lost that strength whereby it could only preserve itself.

Man by the help of instituted privileges doth not produce this work of regeneration in himself without a supernatural grace attending them. Ordinances cannot renew a man, but the arm of God which doth manage them, renders them effectual: as the arm that wields the sword, gives the blow. Means are the showers of Heaven, but they can no more make the heart fruitful, till some gracious principle be put in, than the beams of the sun, the dews of Heaven, and the water pots of the clouds, can make a barren ground bring forth flowers without a change of the soil, and new roots planted in it. All the spectacles in the world cannot cure a man’s eyes, he must have a visive faculty to make use of them; our faculty must be cured, before we can exercise it about objects, or use means proper to that faculty, all persuasions will not prevail with a dead man: the fairest discourses, the most undeniable arguments, the most moving rhetoric, will not stir or affect him, till God take away the stone from the grave and raise him to life. The report of the prophets will do no good without the revelation of God’s arm, Isa. lili. 1, because all those things do not work in a physical way, as medicines, which attain their end without any active concurrence of the patient; but in a moral way, the will and nature must first be changed before those can do any good. You can never by all your teaching teach a sheep to provide for winter, as an ant does, because it has no such instinct in its nature. If any thing were likely to work upon a man, the most stupendous miracles were most likely to produce such an effect upon the reasons of men: yet those supernatural demonstrations without a man only, cannot make him believe a truth. Miracles are a demonstration to the eye, as well as preaching to the ear: though they be confessed to be above the strength of nature, yet all the spectators of them are not believers, “But though he had. done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not:” John xii. 37; many of those that saw our Saviour’s works did not believe his doctrine; nay, they irrationally ascribed them to the devil, when they could’ find no reason in the nature of them to charge them upon such a score. The raising Lazarus from the dead, was as high a miracle as ever was wrought; yet though many of them believed, yet others did not, but accused him to the Pharisees, who thereupon more vigorously took counsel to put him to death, John il. 45,46, 47, 53. they acknowledged that he did many miracles; they had reason as well as others; the miracles were undeniable, as being performed before many witnesses: the natural force of them upon all reasons was equal, the considerations arising from them unanswerable; and yet they did not: believe. There were evil habits in the will not removed by grace, which. resisted the unanswerable reason of the miracles. What made the difference between them and those that believed? Why did not the wills of the enemies follow the undeniable reason, as well as the wills of others? Miracles may astonish men, but cannot convert them, without a divine touch upon the heart, 2 Kings xvii. 39. The people were astonished by that wonderful miracle of fire falling from heaven, and consuming the sacrifice, and licking up the water in the trench; and some reverential resolutions were produced in them, they fell upon their faces and said, the Lord he is God; they showed their zeal in taking Baal’s prophets, and helping, or at least suffering Elijah to slay them; yet those people revolted to idolatry, and continued so till their captivity. The easiness of faith upon the appearance and instruction of one risen from the dead, was the opinion of one of the damned, “If one went to them from the dead, they wiil repent;’? Luke xvi. 30; but this

opinion was contradicted by Abraham, ver. 31, who positively asserts, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded though one rose from the dead.’’ If their wills were obstinate against the means God had appointed for their conversion, the same wills so corrupted would be as obstinate against the highest sort of miracles. If that then which is above the hand of nature to perform, and bears the characters of omnipotence upon the breasts. of it, does not work upon men’s hearts and wills of themselves, surely nature itself cannot turn the heart to God.:

The two great dispensations of God are Law and Gospel, neither of these can of themselves work this.

The law will instruct, not heal.. It acquaints us with our duty, not our remedy; it irritates sin, not allays it; it exasperates our venom, but does not tame it; though it shows man his miserable condition, yet a man by it does not gain one drop of repentance. It tells us what we should do, but corrects not the enmity of our nature whereby we may doit. The apostle takes notice of the enmity of man to the law, Rom. v. 6, 7, yet enemies, yet sinners. That yet, may refer to what he had spoken of the law in the chapter before. Though men had had so much time from the fall to recover themselves, and had so many advantages by the law and the ceremonies of it, yet all those years spent from the foundation of the world, had produced no other effect than the weakening of them: as creatures that are wounded, by their strugglings waste their own strength. Ye¢ sinners, till this time sinners, whereby the load of sin which lay upon the world, was made more heavy by the continual addition made to those heaps. The offence did rather abound by the law, than diminish. “The law was given, that sin might abound:’”? Rom. v. 20. though it made a clear discovery of the will of God, yet it rather aggravated sin; it added no power to perform that will. The motions of ‘sin were exasperated by it, and brought forth fruit unto death: all the means by the law for the repression of sin, did rather inflame it; sin could not be overcome by it, because the law was weak through the flesh, that is, had not so much power as sin had; it was like a little water put upon fire, which did rather enrage than quell it. Rom. vii. 8,9. Sin revived when the law came, it sels Pate oe had a new life; and the apostle found himself utterly unable to overpower it. There were motions of sin, not only a power in sin, but an enraged power, which adds to the strength of a person; sin slew him; taking occasion by the commandment, and a dead man is wholly at the disposing of his conquerors.. The law was holy, it had an impression of God’s holiness upon it, Rom. vil. 12, 13, 14,.there was also equity and conveniency in it, it was just and good: and though these were considerations enough to spur men on to rid themselves of this tyrant sin, yet they could not, they had not strength enough to do it: though it was holy, just, and good, yet it was not strong enough to rescue them; and the reason of it, the apostle lays upon the difference in the nature of both. “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin;”’ there was an enmity in his nature to it, and therefore he must lie under the power of it, till a mighty deliverer stepped in to conquer it. Do we find any better effect of the ceremonial law, which was the Gospel in a mask, and which was the instrument of all the regenerations among the Jews? How few do we find. renewed among them under that means which they enjoyed solely, and no other nation in the world partners with them in it? How frequent were their revolts, and rebellions, and idolatries, inconsistent with regeneration, we may read in Joshua and Judges. The inefficacy of means appears evidently in that nation which had greater advantages than any in the world besides: the covenants, sacrifices, oracles of God, warnings by prophets, yet so frequently overgrown with idolatry from the time of their coming out of Egypt to the Babylonish captivity, and ten tribes wholly cashiered for it.

The Gospel cannot effect this change of heart. Though the veil of ceremonies be taken off from it, and it appears open faced; yet till the veil be taken off the understandings of men, it will produce little fruit among them, 2 Cor. ni. 14. The Gospel is plain, but only to him that understands, Prov. viii. 9. As the sun is clear, but only to him that hath an eye to see it. «The Gospel itself cannot remove the blindness from the mind. The proposal of the object works no alteration in the faculty, without some acting on the faculty itself. The beams of the sun shining upon a blind man, make no alteration in him. The Jews, to whom the Gospel was preached by our Saviour himself, could not believe, because God blinded their eyes, &c. John xii. 39,40. There must be a supernatural power besides the proposal of the object, to take away this blindness and hardness which is the obstruction to the work of the Gospel: though the Son of God is come, and the Gospel be preached, yet the understanding whereby we know, is given us by him. “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true:’”? 1 John v. 20. The light of the Gospel shines upon all, but all have not an eye given them to see it, and a will given them to embrace it. The mere doctrine of it doth not regenerate any man; some have tasted of the heavenly gift, that is, have had some understanding of Christ, who is the heavenly gift, and are partakers

of some common illumination of the Holy Ghost, yet 3

are not regenerate. Was not the Gospel preached to the Jews, even by the mouth of our Saviour, whom they crucified? And was it not preached to the Gentiles by the mouths of those apostles whom they persecuted? Were there not proposals that suited the natural desires of men for happiness? yet did ‘not many that seemed to receive it, receive it not in the love of it? If God himself should appear to us in the likeness of a man, and preach to us as he did to Adam, if he did not overpower our hearts with an inward

wip

Ft
’ +
a,

Q14 THE AUTHOR

yee s

“prace, he would do us no good at all by his declarations. We do not read of any work immediately upon — Adam, at the promulgation of the Gospel by God himself; though it appears, that afterwards there was, by his instructing his sons to. sacrifice, and his expectations of a Messiah. But we certainly know that our Saviour, God manifested in the flesh, declared the Gospel in his own person, and found no success, but where he touched the heart inwardly by the grace of his Spirit. All mere outward declarations are but suasions, and mere suasion cannot change and cure a disease or habit in nature... You may exhort an Ethiopian, to turn himself white, or a lame man.to go: but the most pathetical exhortations cannot procure such an effect, without a greater. power than that of the tongue to cure nature: you may as well think to raise a dead man by blowing in his mouth with a pair of bellows. Judas had enjoyed the best means that ever were, yet went out of the world unrenewed: and the thief upon the cross, who never perhaps was in any good company in his life till he came to the cross, nor ever heard Christ speak before, was renewed by the grace of God in the last hour. Neither can a man renew himself, by all his moral works, before faith. Our calling is not according to

our works but “according to God’s own purpose and srace,’’ 2 Tim.i.9. Paul, before his conversion, was —

‘¢ blameless as to the righteousness of the law,”? Phil. iii. 6, yet this was loss; a bar rather to regeneration, than a-means to further it. For all this legal comeliness, he ranks himself. before his conversion, in the number of the dead. “When we were dead in sins,’’ Eph. ii. 5; not you, but we; putting himself into the register of the dead. Whatsoever works a man can morally do before faith, cannot be the cause of spiritual life; they are not vital operations; if they were, they were then the effects of life; not the cause: the

<= & Scripture makes them the effects of grace; created’ to good works,” Eph. il. 10. What is an effect -eannot be the cause. The best works before grace are but a refined sensuality, they arise from self-love, centre in self-satisfaction, are therefore works of a different strain from those of grace, which are referred to a higher end, and to God’s well pleasing. In all works before grace, there is no resignation of the soul to God in obedience; no self-denial of what stands in opposition to God in the heart; no clear view of the evil of sin; no sound humiliation under the corruption of nature; no inward purification of the heart, but only a diligence in an external polishing. All those acts cannot produce an habit of a different kind from them. Let a man be stilted up with the highest natural excellency; let him be taller by the head and shoulders, than all his neighbours in morality, those no more confer life upon him, than the setting a statue upon a high pinnacle, near the beams of the sun, inspireth it with a principle of motion.

The increasing the perfection of one species, can

never mount the thing so increased, to the perfection of another species. If you could vastly increase the heat of fire, you could never make it ascend to the perfection of a star. If you could increase mere - moral works to the highest pitch they are capable of, they can never make you gracious, because grace is another species; and the nature of them must be changed to make them of another kind. All the moral actions in the world, will never make our hearts of themselves, of another kind than moral. Works make not the heart good, but a good heart makes the works good. It is not our walking in God’s statutes materially, which procures us a new heart; but a new heart is in order before walking in God’s statutes, Ezek. xxxvi. 27. Our regeneration is no more wrought by works of our own, than our justification. The rule of the apostle will hold good in this as well as in the other. If it be of grace it is not of works; otherwise grace is no more grace, Rom. xi. 6.; and faith is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, Ephes. 11. 9. And the apostle, Titus iii. 5., opposes the renewing of the Holy Ghost to works of righteousness. He excludes works from being the cause of salvation: and would they not be the cause of salvation, if they were the cause of the necessary condition of salvation?

. As man cannot prepare himself to this work, nor produce it, so he cannot. co-operate with God in the first production of it. We are no more co-workers with God in the first regeneration, than we were joint purchasers with Christ in redemption. The conversion of the will to God is a voluntary act; but the regeneration of the will, or the planting new habits in the will, whereby it is enabled to turn to God, is without any concurrence of the will, Some say, the habit of faith:is never created separate from an act; as the trees at the creation of the world were created with ripe fruit on them; but the tree, with the power of bearing fruit, and the fruit. itself, were created at one and the same time by God. Yet though the habit be not separate at first from the act, yet there is no co-operation of the creature to the infusion of that habit, but there is to the act imme- diately flowing from that habit: for either that act of

grace is voluntary or involuntary: if involuntary it is not a gracious act; if voluntary, as it must needs be, since the tone of the will is changed, then the creature concurs in that act: for the act of believing and repenting is the act of the creature: it is not God that repents and believes in us; but we repent and believe by virtue of that power which God hath given us. In the first act therefore, there is a concurrence of the creature; otherwise the creature could not be said to repent and believe, but something in the creature, without or against the will of the creature. But in the first power of believing and repenting, God is the sole agent. Jesus Christ is the sun that heals our natures, Mal. iv. 2; the rain that moistens our hearts. “He shall come down like rain upon the: mown grass,” Psal. lxxii. 6. What co-operation is there in the earth with the sun, to the production of flowers, but by the softness it hath’received from the rain? It would else be parched up, and its fruits wither. The Holy Ghost doth by his own power make us good trees; but we afterwards, by virtue of that power, work together with him, in’ bringing forth good fruit. Yet this is also a subordinate, not a co-ordinate working; rather a sub- steht Oe, than a co-operation.

The state wherein man is at his~first fone wer excludes any co-working with God. The description the apostle gives of a state of nature, excludes all co-operation of the creaturé in the first renewal. “For we ourselves were sometimes “foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.”’ Fit ni3)-) And.“Among whom we all had ‘our conversations in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind.’’ Ephes. i. 2, 3. Every man is naturally taken up in the fulfilling the desires of the flesh; not only the Gentiles, to whom Paul writes, but himself, for he puts himself, and the rest of the Jews, in the number. In the second verse it was ye walked, in ver. 3, it is we all, and in Tit. ni. 3, we ourselves. We who had the oracles of God, that had greater privileges than others, were carried out with as strong an impetus naturally, till grace stopped the tide, and after stopping, turned it against nature. When the mind was thus prepossessed, and the will made the lusts of the flesh its oun THE AUTHOR

work and trade, there was no likelihood of any co-operation with God, in fulfilling his desires, till the bent

of the heart was changed from the flesh and its principles. The heart is stone before grace. No stone can

co-operate with any that would turn it into flesh, since

it has no seed, causes, or principles of any fleshly *

nature in it. Since we are overwhelmed by the rubbish of our corrupted estate, we can no more co-operate to the removal of it, than a man buried under the ruins of a fallen house, can contribute to the removal of that great weight that lies upon him. Neither would a man in that state help such a work, because

his lusts are pleasures; he serves his lusts which are

pleasures as well as lusts, and therefore served with delight.. There is naturally in man a greater resistance against the work of grace, than there is in the

naturalcoldness of water against the heat of fire, which. yet penetrates into all parts of the water.

But the impotence of man does not excuse him, because the commands of the Gospel are not difficult in themselves to be believed and obeyed. If we were commanded things that were impossible in their own nature, as to shoot an arrow as high as the sun, or leap up to the top of the highest mountain at one start; the very command carries its excuse with it, in the impossibility of the thing enjoined: but the precept of regeneration, and restoring to righteousness, is easy to be comprehended, it is backed with clear and manifest reason, and proposed with a promise of happiness, which is very suitable to the natural appetite of our souls. To command a thing simply impossible, is not congruous to the wisdom, “holiness, and righteousness of God: it would not be justice but cruelty: no wise man will invite another by any promises to do that which is simply impossible; no just judge will punish a man for not observing such a precept; no righteous and merciful person would impose such a command. But these commands of the Gospel are not impossible in their own nature, but in regard of our perversity and contumacy. The command of righteousness was possible when first given, and impossible since, by our own folly; impossible in our voluntarily corrupted nature, and by reason of our voluntarily cherished corruption: the change is not in ‘the nature of the law, but in the nature of the creature; and what is impossible to nature, is possible to grace; and grace may be sought for the performance of them.

Because we have a foundation in our natures for -

such commands, therefore man’s weakness does not excuse him. It had been unjust for God to have commanded Adam in innocence to fly, and give him no wings: this had been above Adam’s natural power, he could not have done it, though he would fain have obeyed God, because his nature was destitute of all force for sich a command. It would be strange if God should invite the trees or beasts to repent, because they have no foundation in their nature to entertain commands and invitations to obedience and repentance; for trees have no sense, and beasts have no reason to discern the difference between good and evil. If God commanded a man that never had eyes, to contemplate the sun, man might wonder, since such a man never had organs for such.an action. But God addresses himself to men that have senses open to objects, and understandings to know, and wills to move, affections to embrace objects. These understandings are open to any thing but that which God commands;

their wills can will any thing but that which God proposes. The command is proportioned to the natural faculty, and the natural faculty proportioned to the excellency of the command. We have affections, as love and desire. In the command of loving God, and loving our neighbour, there is only a change of the ie object of our affections required. The faculties are not weak by nature, but by the viciousness of nature which is of our own introduction. It is strange therefore, that we should excuse ourselves, and pretend we are not to be blamed, because God’s command is impossible to be observed, when the defect lies not in the want of a natural foundation, but in our own giving up ourselves to the flesh, and the love of it, and in a wilful refusal to apply our faculties to their proper objects, when we can employ those faculties with all vehemence about those things which have no commerce with the, Gospel.

Because the means God gives, are not simply insufficient in themselves. God doth afford men beams of light: he makes clear discoveries, as it is, Rom. i. 19, he “hath showed it to them;’’ “it is manifest in them.’’ Hedisplays in their hearts some motions of his Spirit, produces some faint desires. The standing of the world under the cries of so many hideous sins, is a daily sermon of God’s kindness and patience, in bearing up the pillars of it, and is a standing exhortation to repentance. The forbearance, long-suffering, and goodness of God, lead to repentance. The object is intelligible: the ‘word i is near us, in our mouths, in our hearts: it is apprehensible in itself. The revelation is as plain as the surface of the Heavens. That men are not renewed, and turned to God, is not for want of a sufficient external revelation, but from the hardness of the heart; not from any insufficiency of the means, but the depravity and wickedness of the soul, to whom those means are offered. The commands and means of the Gospel, are no more weak in themselves, than the law. was; but weak through the flesh, by reason of the inherent corruption man hath fastened in himself. Would not the hundredth part of any revelation of some worldly object, agreeable to man’s corrupt heart, be sufficient in itself to put him upon motion to it, and embraces of it? The insufficiency does not lie in the external means: for the Gospel is an act of mercy and grace; the call is an act of kindness: it is clear to man, that God offers; it is clear that God will accept, if man will embrace his counsel; and shall this be said to be insufficient, because man will reject it?

Because this impotence in man, is rather a wilfulness than a simple weakness, therefore man’s pretended weakness doth not excuse him from the command. It is not a weakness arising from a necessity of nature, but an enmity of will, whereby some other apparent good is beloved above God, and some creature preferred before him. The deeper the habit of obstinacy, the more inexcusable the person. What a ridiculous excuse would this be, to say to God, that I ought not to be obliged to restore myself to righteousness, and obey the command of the Gospel, because I am of so perverse a disposition that I will not obey, and will not be restored: or that God is bound to restore to him that will to obey and renew himself; otherwise he is guilty of no crime. The first would be ridiculous, and both impious. What hinders any man from being regenerate under the call of the Gospel, but a moral weakness, which consists In an imperious inclination to evil, and a rooted indisposition in corrupt reason and will, to believe and repent? And here the Scripture lays it, upon the hardness of the heart, Rom. il. 5; and a rebellious walking after our own thoughts. “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts,”’ Isa. xv. 2. We are impotent and cannot, because we are rebellious and will not. This weakness does not excuse from obedience to this command, because God denies no man strength to perform what he commands, if he seek it at his ae |. THE AUTHOR

hands. No man can plead, that he would have been regenerate, and turned to God, and could not; for though we have not power to renew ourselves, yet God is ready to confer power upon us, if we seek it. ‘Where did God ever deny any man sufficient strength, that waited upon him in serious and humble supplications, and conscientiously used the means to procure it. A man cannot indeed merit grace, or dis- pose himself for it:lso that it must by a natural necessity come into his soul, as a form doth into matter upon dispositions to it. But if a man will put no obstacle to grace, by a course of sin, would not God out of his infinite bounty to-his creatures, and out of that general love whereby he would have all men saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, give him special grace? Has not our Saviour made a promise in his first sermon to the multitude, that God: will “sive good things to them that ask him,’ with a — “much more” than men give good gifts to their children, Mat. vii. 11. They were not only his disciples that he preached that sermon to, but the multitude; compare it with Mat. v. 1, and Mat. vii. 28. Has not God declared, that he delights not in the death of a sinner, Ezek. xxxiii. 11, and does he not out of his infinite goodness, condescend to beseech us to be reconciled to him? Will not the same infinite goodness bow itself down to forma new image in them that use the means to be reconciled and conformed to him? Has not our blessed Saviour already given a testimony of his affection to such endeavours, in loving the young man for his outward observation of the law, Mark x. 21, who wanted but one thing only to pass him into a gracious state, the refusal whereof barred him of it? And shall not he have a choicer affection to those that strive to observe the rules he has left in his Gospel? Will he not be pleased with such motions in his creatures towards their own happiness?

Will he not further that wherein he delights? Think not therefore to justify yourselves at the bar of God for your sloth, because you are too weak to renew yourselves. It will not help you then. The question will then be asked, did you ever seriously beg it, as for your lives? Did God ever desert you when you would fight against sin, when you set yourselves seriously and dependently on him for grace? God gives us talents, but by our sloth we-embezzle them. It is upon that score Christ lays it, “Thou wicked and slothful servant,’’ Mat. xxv. 26; God has not promised to furnish you with more talents, when you improve not the talents you have already; non-improvement of them cuts off all pleas men may make against God upon the account of their impotence. As there never was a renewed man, but acknowledged his regeneration as a fruit of God’s grace: so there was never any man that can say, he did use his greatest industry in trading with the talents God intrusted him with, and God refused him the supply of his special grace. If you have not a new heart and a heart of flesh, ask your own hearts, whether you ever did seriously inquire of God to do it for you? God never fails them that diligently seek him.

Use the means fervently. With as much ardour as you set upon any thing of worldly concern: do it with all your might, since the eternal blessedness of your soul depends upon it; “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,” Eccles. ix. 10; stir up your souls to hear and meditate, as David does to bless, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” Psal. cil. 1, 2. Employ all your faculties in this useful work; bring your hearts as near to the word as you can, spur up your affections to what you meditate upon, check your hearts when they begin to rove. Consider your own particular case in any thing you hear; and let the word

4 i be asa delightful picture in the view of your minds continually; let every evangelical object excite your inbred affections.

Use the means dependently.. Objective proposals are not useless, because God has ordained them, though they are not always successful, unless God influences them. The means do not work naturally, as a plaister cures a wound or a hatchet cleaves wood; nor necessarily as fire burns; for then they should produce the same effects in all, as fire doth in combustible matter; but as God pleases to accompany them with his grace, and edge them with efficacy, they must be used with an eye to God: building with one hand, and wrestling with God with the other: men speed best in ordinances as they strive in prayer. There are promises to plead before you come to hear. “In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and bless thee,’’ Exod. xx. 24. The promise was made to the whole nation of Israel, the visible church, therefore may be pleaded by every one of them; and fix it upon your hearts, that as the death of Christ only takes away the guilt of sin, so the grace of Christ only takes away the life of sin, and the death of nature.

Pray earnestly. Intreat God to send his grace; beg of him to issue out a divine force and a quickening power, to enlighten your minds and incline your wills. Lie at his feet, groan, wait till this work be wrought in your soul: how do you know, but while you are looking up to God, God may come down to you? Can a-man be wounded and not cry for a healing remedy? Can he be shipwrecked and not ery out for some vessel to relieve him? Let such a voice frequently issue from you, “What shall I do to be saved?’ Is there no balm for a wounded soul, no hope for a distressed sinner? No city of refuge for one pursued by wrath and vengeance? Do you pray for daily bread? Why do you not for special grace? Are there no rational pleas you can urge? Is there not a fulness of arguments in the word? Why do you not then use those arguments God hath put into your hands? Why do you not spread his own word before him? Put him in mind how his thoughts were busy about the work of redemption, and that the regeneration you desire of him, was the great end of that, and a thing pleasing to him? Why do you not reason with God? To what purpose he. sent his Spirit into the world, but to do this work in the hearts of men, which you are now soliciting him for; and that you come not to beg any alms of him, but what he freely offers himself? You may daily read such arguments in the word, where a revelation is made of them; you may daily plead them: if you do not, it is not. your cannot, but your will not. Cry out of the blind eyes you cannot unscale; the iron sinew you cannot ‘bend; the false heart that will not go right; and the fallen nature which cannot reach so high as a holy thought. God gives the Spirit to them that ask him, not to the idle, lazy, and peevish resister of him and his grace. If you have power to regenerate yourselves, why do you not do it? If you have not, why do you not seek it? Is the way,of heaven shut to you; or rather, do you not shut your own hearts against it? have you sought it earnestly, and can you say God denies it to you? No man can say so; there is a promise for it. ‘Draw near to God and he will draw near to you,”’ James iv. 8; he speaks it. to sinners, as it follows: “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners.” You can pray for other mercies, why not principally for this particular determination of your wills to God, above all other things? Lord give me to will and to do. Never leave off praying till God hath crowned your petitions with success: and be encouraged to seek to him, whose great business in the world was

to destroy the works of the devil, whose principal work was the spiritual death of man. If you have such earnest desires in your souls that you would rather have it than the whole world, and esteem it above all worldly wealth or honours; be of good comfort, some of the rubbish of nature is removed: the steam of such desires shall be welcome to God; ‘and the Spirit’s commission shall be renewed to

breathe further upon your souls. Desire as vehement

as hunger and thirst shall be satisfied, if -our blessed Saviour’s promise be true, who ‘never deceived any, or broke his word. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled,” Matt. v. 6; a fulness attends a sense of emptiness, accompanied with hungering desires. But lam afraid few people put up their petitions to God for it; that I may say, as Daniel of his nation: All this ava of unrighteousness and sin is come upon us by our depraved natures, yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our-iniquities, and understand thy: truth, Dan. ix. 13. Nourish every motion and desire you find in your hearts towards it. Have you not sometimes motions to go to the throne of grace, and beg renewing grace of God? Do you not find such drawings in your consciences? Is there not something within you spurs you on? Kick not against it, nor resist it, no, nor smother any spark of an honest desire in your hearts; be constant observers of lessons, your natural consciences, or whatever any other principle sets you: “natural notions are not so blotted, but they remain legible, would men be more inward with themselves, than abroad with the objects of sense, which draw their minds from pondering that decalogue writ in their souls. There is not the wickedest man under the Gospel, but hath sometimes more bright irradiations in his conscience than at other times, but they

4 s ‘ — Ld ’. aie; % are damped by a nolsome sensuality: -he hath some strugglings against the solicitations of unrighteousness, some assents upon the presenting of virtue; for as grace is not always so powerful in a good man as to stifle temptation, so neither is corruption so powerful ina wicked man as always to beat back those motions to good, which rise up in his soul, whether he will or no: as the law of the mind is not always SO sovereign in a gracious man, but that it is affronted by the law of the members: so neither is the law of the members so absolute ina wicked man, but that it is somewhat checked by the law of nature in the mind. Are there not upon hearing the word, or reflecting upon yourselves, some wishings, some inward desires which partake of reason, and the nature of that faculty which represent the necessity of it to you? As there is some kind of weak knowledge left in us since the fall, there is also something of a weak desire; cannot these desires be improved and repre- ’ sented to God? Why is not the grace of God fulfilled in you? Because you persevere not in these desires, you quench the sparks of the Spirit, and willingly give admission to Satan to chase them out. Shut not your eyes then against any light, either without or within you, which may provoke God to withdraw this grace from you. How do you know but upon using the means, praying earnestly, observing inward. motions, God may give you an actual regeneration? The neglect of these is a just reason for God to refuse you any further gift; and may take off all things which you may think to bring against him in your own defence. The use of them has been beneficial to many, and no example can ever be brought, that God hath condemned any that conscientiously used the means of salvation. Therefore I say again, if any man uses the means, prays earnestly for this srace, observes the motions of the Spirit in him; he r

— — will not want a superadded grace from an infinitely good, tender, and merciful God.

From the foregoing considerations, it is fully proved that man in all his capacities, is too weak to produce in himself the work of regeneration; therefore God alone is the prime efficient cause of this glorious work.

It is subjectively in the creature, efficiently from God. Ezekiel’s dry bones met not together of their own accord, or by chance, but were gathered by God, and inspired with life; and not only the last act of life, but the whole formation of them in every part, he particularly owns as the act-of his own power; and doing every part of it by degrees, they should know by that admirable work upon them, that he was God. “I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. And JI will lay sinews upon you, and will bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that Iam the Lord.”? Ezek. xxxvii. 5,6. This work as much discovers the glory of his deity, and speaks him God in a more illustrious manner than the creation of the world. We know him to be the Lord Jehovah by his creation of the world; but a clearer knowledge of him in his power is added by his regeneration of the soul. The sinews, flesh, skin, all the preparations to grace are from God, as all the preparations of that mass of. clay, for the breath of life in Adam, were from the power of God, as well as the living soul itself. Most understand it of the recovery of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon: but certainly it has a higher import, and respects the time of the Gospel, and the renewing of life in the soul of all the Israel of God.

Christ appropriates the work to God, and acknowledges it to depend only upon his will. Had any other cause been in conjunction with God, our Saviour would not have deprived it of its due praise, nor with so much thankfulness and amazement admired the gracious pleasure of his Father, as he did, “At that time Jesus answered, and said, I thank thee, O father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and-prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.’? Matt. xi. 25. At that time, after he had been discoursing of the judgments upon them for their refusal of the Gospel, worse than upon Sodom and Gomorrah. It was God’s pleasure not to reveal it to them; and God’s justice to punish them for refusal, because they wilfully refused it; the outward teaching was to all in the ministry of Christ; the inward revelation only to few, according to the good pleasure of God: Christ was the outward teacher, but God the inward inspirer; that others are not renewed by him is not because he cannot, for he is Lord of heaven and earth; but because he will renew some and not others: our Saviour refers it here only to the good pleasure of God: he had erred much in ascribing it to God, if he had had the assistance of any other cause. Why this part of the clay he had created was formed into the body of Adam and not another, had no other cause but his pleasure: why this part of corrupted Adam is formed into a temple, a divine image, and not another, can be ascribed to no other but the same cause. He that formed Adam in the earthly paradise, forms évery believer in the church, the spiritual paradise, and neither hath a co-worker nor motive without himself.

y» The Scripture every where appropriates the work to God. They are therefore called his Saints, Psal. XXXiiil. 9, as being sanctified by him, as well as belonging to him; his people, “the branch of my planting, the work of my hands,’’ peculiarly his, as being created for his glory, “That I may be glorified,’’ Isa.

BA Ge lx. 21. Their fitness by grace for glory is the work -of his hands. The vessels of wrath are fitted for destruction, not by God, but by themselves, Rom. ix. 22. But the vessels of mercy are prepared by him, verse 23. “He had before prepared unto glory.”” Adam lost himself, but whosoever of his posterity are recovered, are wrought by. God for glory, 1 Cor. v. 5. It is observable that the Apostle ascribes this in the whole frame of it to God, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,’ &c. 1 Cor. i. 30, because he would remove all cause of boasting in the creature. Union with Christ, engrafting in him a new creation, putting into another state, are all purely the work of God. He hath no sharer in it. As Christ trod the wine press alone, in the work of redemption: so God engrafts men alone into this vine. As Christ was the sole worker of redemption, so is God the sole worker of regeneration; in him we are created, but solely by God’s skill; Christ the vine, and believers the branches; the one planted, and the other engrafted by the same husbandman. It is by his own will, not any other, that he begat us, Jamesi.18. Of his’own will; his own good pleasure was the motive, his own strength the efficient cause: hence he is called the father of spirits, Heb. xii. 9, not so much (as some interpret it, and that most probably) as he is the Father of souls by creation, as by regeneration, which adds a greater strength ‘to the Apostle’s argument for submission to him, and patience under his strokes.

And the Scripture affirms that,

All preparations to this work, as well as the work itself, are of God. The removing indispositions, and the putting in good inclinations, is the work of the same hand: the taking away the heart of stone, as well as the giving a heart of flesh. He removes the rubbish, as well as rears the building; razeth out the old stamp, and imprints a new; destroys sin, which is called the, old man, and. restores the new by the quickening of the Spirit. The preparations of the dust of the ground - to become a human body, had the same author, as the divine soul wherewith he was inspired.

All the parts of the new creature are of God. Faith which is the principal part of it, is “the faith of the operation of God,’ Col. ii. 12, not but that love and other graces are wrought by God; but in this grace which is a constitutive part of the new creature, God comes in with a greater irradiation upon the soul, because it hath not one fragment or point in nature to stand upon, carnal reason and mere moral righteousness being enemies to it: where all other graces are but the rectifying the passions, and setting them upon right objects. Our knowledge of God 1s a light growing from his knowledge of us; we know God because we are known of him, Gal. iv. 9. The elective act of - our wills is but a fruit of his choice of us, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you;”? John xv. 16; our willing of him, isa birth of his willing us; our love, a spark kindled by his love to us. God first calls us my people, before any of us call him, my God, Hos. ii. 23. The moon shines not upon the sun, till it be first illuminated by it. God first shines upon us, before we can reflect upon him: he calls us, before we can speak to him in his own dialect: our coming is an effect of his drawing; and our power of coming, an effect of his quickening. Every member in Adam was a fruit of his power as well as the whole body; every line drawn in the new creature, is done by his pencil, as well as the whole frame.

The acts of the new creature are of God. God doth not only give us the habit of faith, but the act of faith, — «“Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe, but also to suffer for his sake:’’ Phil. i. 29; by believing, is meant the act of believing; as. by suffering is meant not only the power of suffering, but actual suffering: as the fruits upon the trees, at the first creation, were created, as well as the trees which had a power to bear. The very attention of Lydia - to the Gospel preached by Paul, was wrought by God,

as well as the opening of her heart, Acts xvi. 14. Our

walking in his statutes is a fruit of his:grace, as well

as the putting in his Spirit to enable as thereunto: the

very act of motion is made by the head and heart: if there be a failing of spirits there, if any obstruction

that they cannot reach the indigent part, the motion

ceaseth.» David acknowledged God his continual

strength in his holy pursuits, ““my soul follows hard

after thee,’ Psal. lxi. 8, but what was the cause?

“thy right hand upholds me;’’ his life and power

issued out from the right hand of God. The graces of God’s people stand in need of the irradiations of God,

like the Urim and Thummim, before any counsel

could be given by them.

,, God is the author of this work if we regard the - “subject simply considered; the heart of man. None can work upon it but God, or have any influence to cause it to exercise its vital acts. Angels, though of vast power, cannot work immediately upon the heart’ and will of any other creature, to incline and change it by an immediate touch. All that, they can do

towards moving the will, is by presenting some external objects, or stirring up the inward sensitive appe-. tite to some passion, as anger, desire; whereby the will is inclined to will something. But the stirring up those natural affections in an unregenerate man, can never incline his will to good; for being the affections of the flesh, they are to be crucified. - Angels also may enlighten the understanding, not immediately, but by presenting similitudes of sensible things, and conforming them in the fancy: but to remove one ill habit from the will, or incline it to any good, is not in their power. God gave an angel power to purge the prophet’s lips with a coal from the altar, Isa. vi. 6,7; but that was done in a vision; and a symbol or sign only that his uncleanness was removed. A coal could have no virtue in it to purge spiritual pollutions from the spirit of a man. Neither can man change the will; men by allurements or threats, may change, or rather suspend the action of another; asa father that threatens to disinherit his son; or a magistrate, that threatens to punish a subject for his debauchery, may cause a change in the actions of such persons; but the heart stands still to the same sinful point, and may be vicious under a fair disguise. He only that made the will, can incline and “turn it as the rivers of waters; the heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord,’ Prov. xxi. 1; and so is every man’s heart kept in the hands of him that created it, both cabinet and key. No man knows the heart; the heart itself knows not every thing which is in it. God knows all the wards in the heart, and knows how to move it. If a man could turn the heart of another, it could only be in one or two points; it cannot be conceived how he should alter the whole frame of it, make it quite another than it was before. The spirit of man being the candle of the Lord, Prov. xx. 27; not to give light to him but lighted by him, can only when it is out, be relighted, and when it burns dim, be renewed by the same hand. — Or, suppose for the present, he could do this, it must be with much pains and labour, many exhortations and wise management of him upon several occasions.: But to do this by a word, in a trice, to put a law into the heart in a moment; and give the hidden man of the heart possession of the will, that a man knows not himself how he came to be changed: this whole work bears the mark and stamp of God in the forehead of it. Men may propose arguments to another, and he may understand them if he hath a capacity: but no man can ever make another have a capacity who is naturally incapable; it is God alone can. make the heart capable of understanding, he alone can put a hew instinct into it, and make it of another bent: it is he that renews the spirit of the mind to enable it to understand what he proposes, and elevates the faculty to.apprehend the reason of it.

The end of regeneration manifests it to be the work of God. It is to display his goodness. Since this was the end of God in the first creation, it is much more his end in the second. What creature can display God’s goodness. for him, or give him the glory of it, without first receiving it? Goodness must first

be communicated to us before it can be displayed or

reflected by us. The light that is reflected back upon the sun by any earthly body, beams first from the sun itself. Both the subject and the end are put together: “The beasts of the field shall honour me; the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, to give ‘drink to my people, my chosen; this people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise,’’ Isa. xliil. 20, 21.. The Gentiles shall have the Gospel, who are beasts of the field for wildness, dragons for the poison of their nature, owls for their blindness and darkness. ‘The waters of the Gospel shall flow to them, to give drink to their souls. This people have I formed for myself. Even beasts, dragons, owls, if formed for himself, they could not be formed but by himself, who only understands what is fit for his own praise. How can such incapable subjects be formed for such high ends, without a supernatural power? “The branch of my planting the work of my hands, that I may be glorified,” Isa. lx. 21. Planted by God, that God might be glorified by them. As God only i is the proper judge of what may glorify him; so he is the sole author of what is fitted to glorify him. Nothing lower than the goodness of God can instil into us such a goodness, as to be made meet to praise, serve, and love him; such a holiness as may fit us to be partakers.of the inheritance of the saints in light, and enjoy him for ever. As infinite wisdom formed us in Adam, and moulded us with his own hand to bea model of his perfection; so are we no less his workmanship in Christ by a second creation to good works; which as they are ordained by the will of God, so they are wrought in us by the skill and power of God; what is ordained positively by him and for him, is wrought by him.

Now since the ends of this work are so high as to fit us for his praise, his delight, and a fruition of him; since it is to bring the interest of God into the soul, set him up highest in the heart, who before was — trampled under our feet: enthrone him as king in the’ soul, cause us to oppose all that opposes him, cherish every thing that is agreeable to him, this must be his work or the work of none. 3

The weakness of the means manifests it to be the work of God. How could it be possible that such * weak means that were used at the first plantation of the Gospel, should have that transcendent success in the hearts of men, without a divine power? That a doctrine attended with the cross, resisted by devils with all their subtlety, by the flesh with all its lusts, — the world with all its flatteries, the wise with all their. craft, the mighty with all their power, should be im- — printed upon the hearts of men; a doctrine preached by mean men, without any worldly help, without learning, eloquence, craft, or human prudence; without the force, favour, or friendship of men, should get ’ place in men’s hearts, without a divine inspiration, cannot well be imagined. If it be said there were miracles attending it, which wrought upon the minds of men. It is true; but what little force they had in our Saviour’s time, the Scripture informs us, when they were ascribed to Beelzebub the prince of devils: though miracles did attend it after the ascension of our Saviour; yet the apostle ascribes not so much to them as the means, as he does to the foolishness of preaching; it was that which was the power of God, 1 Cor. i. 18; it was that whereby God saved them that believe, 1 Cor. 1. 21. But the greatest change that ever was wrought at one time, was at the first descent of the Spirit, by a plain discourse of Peter’s, Actsii; extolling a crucified God before those that had lately taken away his life, those that had seen him die, a doctrine which would find no footing in their reasons, filled with prejudice against him, and had expectations of a temporal kingdom by him: must not this change be ascribed to a higher hand, which removed: their rooted prejudices and vain hopes, and brought so many as three thousand over at once? If there be “diversities of operations, it is the same God that works all in all,’’? 1 Cor..xii. 6. He conveys this “treasure in earthen vessels, that the power might appear to be of God, and not of men,’’ 2 Cor. iv. 7. Such weak means as earthen vessels, cannot work such miraculous changes. Therefore perhaps it was that the preaching of Christ in his humiliation had so littie success attending it, that nothing should be ascribed to the word itself, but to the power of God in it; to evidence that success depended on the.good pleasure of God, who would not make his preaching in person so successful as that in his Spirit; which appears by Christ’s thanksgiving to his Father for revealing these things to babes, and not to the wise; ‘even so Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight,’? Luke x. 21. Have you never heard of changes wrought in the spirits of men against their worldly interest, when they have been made the scorn of their friends, and a reproach to their neighbours? Can the weakness of means write a law so deep in the heart, that neither sly allurements, nor blustering temptations can raze out? That a law of a day’s standing in the heart, should be able to match the powers of hell, the cavils of the flesh, and discouragements from the world, when there are no unanswerable miracles now to seal the Gospel, and second the proposals of it with amazement in the minds of men? The weakness of the means, and the greatness of the difficulties, speak it not only to be the finger but the arm of God, which causes the triumphs of the foolishness of preaching. When the proposal crosses the interest of the flesh, restrains the beloved pleasure, teaches a man the necessity of the contempt of the world, and that men should exchange their pride for humility, the pleasure of sin for a life of holiness; for a man not only to cease to love his vice, but extremely to hate it; to have divine flights, when before he could not have a divine thought; to put off earthly affections for heavenly; and all -this by the foolishness of preaching; it is an argument of a divine power, rather than any inherent strength in the means themselves.

The differences in the changes of men, evidence this

to be the work of God, and that it is from some power superior to the means which are used. As God puts a difference between men in regard of their understandings, revealing that to one man which he doth not to another; so he puts a difference between men in regard of their wills, working upon some that have known less, and not working upon some that have known more; some embracing it, and others rejecting it. We may see

The difference of this change in men under the same means. One is struck at a sermon, when multitudes return unshaken; why is not the case equal in all,if it were from the power of the word? How successful is Peter’s discourse, closely accusing the Jews of the murdering of their Lord and Saviour, which is the occasion of pricking three thousand hearts? Yet Stephen using the same method, and close application of the same doctrine, Acts vil. 52, had not one convert upon record. While Peter’s hearers were pricked in their hearts, these gnashed with their teeth. The corruption of the former was drawn out by the pricking of their souls; the malice of the latter exasperated by the cut of their hearts. What reason can be rendered of so different an event from one and the same means in several hands, but the over-ruling pleasure of God! The reasons were the same, set off with the same human power; the hearers were many of the same nation, brought up in the reading of the prophets, full of the expectations of a Messiah; they had both reasons and natural desires for happiness, as well as the other; yet the one are turned lambs, and the others worse lions than before; the bloody fury of the one is calmed, and the mad rage of the other is increased. The grace of God wrought powerfully in the one, and lighted not upon the other. Two are grinding at the same mill of ordinances, one is taken, and another left. Man breathes into the ears, and God into what heart he pleases.. The differences in the changes of men under less means. One is changed by weaker means; another remains in his unregeneracy under means in themselves more powerful and likely; some are wrought upon by whispers, when others are stiff under thunders: the Ninevites by one single sermon from a prophet are moved to repentance; the inhabitants of Capernaum, by many admonitions from a greater than all the prophets, seconded with miracles, are not persuaded; some remain refractory under great blasts, while others bend at lighter breathings. One man may be more acute than another, of a more apprehensive reason: yet this man remains obstinate, while another becomes pliable. Whence does this difference arise, but from the will of God drawing the one, and leaving the other to the conduct of his own will, since both will acknowledge what they are advised to, to be their interest, to be true in itself, necessary for their good, yet their affections and entertainment are not the same? Some of those Jews who had heard the doctrine of Christ, seen the purity of his life, and the power of his miracles, admired his wisdom, yet. crucified his person; they expected a Messiah, yet contemned him when he came; when the poor thief, who perhaps had never seen one miracle nor heard one sermon of our Saviour, believes in him, acknowledges him to be the Son of God, whom he saw condemned to the same death with himself, and dies a regenerate man under great disadvantages. A figure, says one, of all the elect, who shall only be saved by grace, and a clear testimony of an outstreched arm of grace. Those that our blessed Saviour admonished only as a doctor and teacher, were unmoved, none stirred but those he wrought upon as a Creator. Difference of the success of the same means in different places. How various was the success of the apostles in several parts of their circuits? Paul finds a great door of faith opened at Corinth, and in Macedonia, and his nets empty at Athens; multitudes flocking in at one place, and few at another. He is entertained at Corinth, stoned at Lystra, in danger of his life at Jerusalem; while the Galatians were so affected with the Gospel, that they could have pulled out their eyes for him. The apostle was the same person in all places; the Gospel was the same, and had a like

power in itself; men had the same reasons, they were all fragments from the lump of Adam; the difference must be then from the influence of the divine Spirit, who rained down his grace in one place too and not in another; on one heart, and not on another; who left darkness in Egypt, while he diffused light in Goshen.

Difference in the same person. What is the reason that a man believes at one time under the proposal of weak arguments, and not at another under stronger? Perhaps God hath stricken a man’s conscience before, and he hath undergone that work, shaken off those convictions: he hath contended with his Maker, and mustered up the power of nature against the alarms of conscience; struggled like a wild bull in a net, and broke it, and blunted those darts which stuck in his soul; he hath .afterwards been screwed up again, and the arrow shot so deep, that with all his pulling he could not draw it out: but what a divine hand holds it in, in spite of all the former triumphs of nature? How come convictions at last to be fixed upon men, which many a time before did but flutter about the soul, and were soon chasedaway? And God by such a method keeps up the honour of his grace in men after regeneration, and teaches them the constant acknowledgment of his power in the whole management. Do we not daily find, that the same reasonings and considerations which quicken us at one time in the ways: of God, stir us not at another, no more than a child can a mill-stone? That we are quickened by the same word at one time, under which we were dull and stupid at another? And the same truth is deliciously swallowed by us, which seemed unsavoury at another, because God edgeth it with a secret virtue at one time more than another? Hereby God would mind us to own him as the author of all our grace, the second grace as well as the first. Upon all these considerations this can be no other than the work of God. Can a corrupt creature elevate himself from a state of being hated by God, to a state of being delighted in by him? Satan’s work

a none can judge it to be; the destroyer of mankind would never be the restorer; the most malicious enemy to God would never contribute to the rearing a temple to God in the soul, who hath usurped God’s worship in all parts of the world. Good angels could never do it, they wonder at it; the wisdom of God in thus creating all things in Jesus Christ, is made known to them by it. Eph. iii. 9,10. They never ascribed it to themselves; if they did, they could never have been good, their goodness consisting in praising God, and giving him his due. Good men never did it; the first planters of the Gospel, (whereby it is wrought,) always gave God the praise of it, and acknowledged both their own action, and the success, to be the effect of the grace of God, and upon every occasion admired it. “It was the hand of the Lord, and the grace of God.”? Acts xi. 21, 23.

We now proceed to inquire from what principles in God regeneration flows, or what perfections of God are eminent in this work of regeneration.

Mercy and goodness are the principal perfections of God manifested in this work. Born not of the will of man, but of God; of the will of his mercy. Plato thought that heroes were born of the love of God; divine love brings forth an heroic Christian into the world; all outward mercies are streams of God’s goodness; but those are but trifles if compared with this. There is as much of God in imparting the holiness of his nature, as in imputing the righteousness of his Son. We are justified by Christ, quickened by grace, saved by grace; grace is the womb of every spiritual blessing. ‘To be delivered from places and company wherein we have occasions and temptations to sin, is an act which God owns as the fruit of his mercy: “I brought thee out of the land of Ur of the Chaldees,’’ Gen. xv. 7, an idolatrous place; it isa greater fruit of his goodness to be delivered from a

Oh” it nature which is the seed-plot of sin. He heals our.

back slidden nature, because he loves us freely. It is therefore called grace, which is not only goodness and mercy, but goodness with a more beautiful var- - nish and: ornamental dress.

Therefore, in this take notice of the peculiarity of mercy. - Such a goodness that not one fallen angel ever had, or ever shall have a mite of: neither did -mercy excite one good thought in God of new polishing any of those rebellious creatures; mercy cast no eye upon them, but justice left them to their malicious obstinacy.

That singular love which chose Christ for the head, chose some men in him to be his members; “chosen us in him.”? Eph.i. 4. And the anointing which is upon the head, is poured out by such a peculiarity of love upon the members, not only by an act of his power as God, but by an act of appropriated goodness, “thy God.”? Heb. i. 9. God anoints his fellows with that holy gracious unction, as their God, not only as God; for anointing him as the head, under that particular consideration, he anoints also his fellows, his members, under the same consideration because he is as well their God, the God of the members, as well as the God of the head, for they are his fellows: in that unction: the difference lies in the greater portion of grace given to the human nature of Christ, And the apostle Peter, 1 Pet. i. 3, intimates in his thanksgiving to God, that God begat us as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; the paternal affection he bears to Christ, being the ground of the regeneration of his people. Indeed it is a peculiar, fatherly affection. In his mercy to the world he acts as a rector, or governor; in that relation he proposes laws, makes offers of peace, urges them in his word, strives with men by his Spirit, enduing them with reason, and deals with them as rational creatures; he uses afflictions and mercies, which might soften their hearts, did they not wilfully indulge themselves in their hardness. This is his rectoral mercy, or his mercy as a governor, and as much as his relation of a governor can oblige him to. If men will not change their lives, is God bound as a governor to force them to it, or not rather to punish them for it? But in regeneration there is a choicer affection, whereby besides the relation of a governor, he puts on that of a Father, and makes an inward and thorough change in some which he hath chosen into the relation of children: as a father, who cannot persuade his son lying under a mortal distemper, to take that physic which is necessary for saving his life, will compel him to it, open his mouth, and pour it in; but as he is a governor of his servant, he will provide it for him, and propose it to him; to do thus is kindness to his servant, though he doth not manifest so peculiar an affection as he doth to his son. God governs men as he is the Author of Nature; he renews men as he is the Author of Grace: he is the lawgiver and governor; it doth not follow that where he is so, he should be the New Creator too; this is a peculiar indulgence.

As there is a peculiarity of mercy, so there is the largeness of his mercy and goodness in this work. It was his goodness to create us, but a full sea of goodness made us new creatures, “Who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope.’’ 1 Pet. i. 3. His own mercy, without any other motive; much mercy, without any parsimony; not an act of ordinary goodness, but the deepest bowels of kindness, an everlasting spring of goodness, an exuberance of goodness. The choice love he bears to them in election, cannot be without some real act; it is a vain love that doth not operate: one great part of affection is to imitate the party beloved: but since that

Sore?

is unworthy of God to imitate a corrupt creature, he performs the other act of love, which is to assimilate us to himself, and: bring us into a state of imitation of him, endowing us with principles of resemblance to him. It is abundant mercy to love them; it is much more goodness to render them worthy of his love, and inspire them with those qualities, as effects of his love of benevolence, which may be an occasion of his love of complacency.

All the grace and goodness God has are employed init. In the creation you cannot say, All the goodness of God was displayed, as not all his power, nor all his wisdom: for as to his power, he might have made millions of worlds inconceivably more beautiful and more wisely contrived; for though there be no defect of wisdom and power, yet neither of those attributes were exerted to that height that they might have been: so for his goodness, he might have made. millions more angels and men than he did create, with more illustrious natures; for a man may conceive something more than God has displayed in the creation, as to the extensiveness of his perfections at least. But in this God has displayed, as it may seem, the utmost of his grace: for no man or angel can conceive a higher grace than what God shows in this, of beginning in man a likeness to himself, and perfecting it hereafter to as high a pitch as a creature is capable of. Therefore called “unsearchable riches of Christ,’? Eph. i. 7. A further good cannot be imagined or found out than what is there displayed. Therefore the apostle Peter speaks of God, as effectually calling us into his eternal glory by Christ, under the title of “the God of all grace,’’ 1 Pet. v. 10, which calling includes all preparation for glory. All grace doth not less fit us for it, than call us to it; there is more grace in fitting us for it than barely in calling us to it; and the call itself hath more of grace in it, than the giving the possession of that inheritance you are called unto. It is not so high a favour in a prince, actually to set his royal bride in the throne with him, as to call her to, and prepare her for so high a dignity. To prepare a soul for it by regeneration, is an act of pure grace; to give it after a preparation for it, is an act of truth

as well as grace; nothing obliged him to the first, his promise binds him to the latter.

The freeness of his mercy is manifested init. It is as free as election, “who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings (of which regeneration is none of the meanest) according as he hath chosen us in him.’ Eph. i. 3,4. It is as free in the stream as it is in the fountain. Jesus Christ is as freely formed in us, as we were freely chosen in him. It is his own mercy not moved by any other; as we do many things by the will of others when our own are not free, in which are mixed acts. It is in regard of this freeness called grace. Supposing God would create man, and for such an end as to enjoy blessedness, he could not create him otherwise than with an universal rectitude; because had God created him with a temper contrary to his law, he had been the author of his sin. But there was no necessity upon God to bestow new creating grace, after he had stripped himself of the righteousness of his first creation. And also supposing God will restore man to that end from which he fell, and refit him for that blessedness; he cannot fit. him otherwise than by restoring him to that righteousness, as a means of obtaining that blessedness. Yet both these are free, because the original foundation of both is free. God might choose whether he would create man when he was nothing, and choose whether he would restore man when he was fallen. Yet there is more freedom in this latter than in the former, in regard of the measures of the new created righteousness, and in regard of the immutability of it; in regard also of demerit. Adam’s dust, before creation, as it could merit nothing, so it had an advantage above us, that it could not lie under demerit. But we after the fall are in a state of damnation, children of wrath: so that regeneration is not a creating us from nothing, but recovering us from a state worse than nothing. In regard that man was miserable, he was capable of mercy; but, as he was a criminal, he was an object ef severity; that is free mercy to renew any man by grace, when he might have damned him by justice; to work him for glory, when he had wrought himself for damnation: the apostle therefore excludes.all works whatsoever from any meritoriousness in this case, “Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and pane ng) of the Holy Ghost.”” Tit, iii. 5.

As mercy and goodness, so the sovereignty of God is illustrious in this work. The covenant runs Im a royal style: I will put my Spirit into them; I will give a heart of flesh, of my own free motion, and good pleasure, like the patents of.princes. God reserves this in his own power, to give to whom he pleases. God renews when he pléases; “The wind blows where it listeth,’? John iii. 8. To some he affords means, to others not: he deals not with every nation as he dealt with Israel. In some he works by means; to others he gives only the means without any inward work; it is his pleasure that he works upon any one to will; his good pleasure that he gives to any one to do. Some hear the word; others the Spirit in the word: some feel the striking of the air upon their ear; others the stamp of the Spirit upon their hearts; Who chose this rough stone to hew and polish, and let others lie in the quarry? Who frames this for a statue, a representation of himself, and leaves another upon the pavement? What does all this result from, but from his sovereign pleasure?

No ultimate reason can be rendered for this distinction, but God’s sovereignty. We can render an immediate reason of some actions of God; why the heavens are round, because it is the most capacious figure, and fittest for motion: why the sun is the centre of the world, as some think, because it may at a convenient distance, enlighten the stars above, and quicken the things below: why our hearts are in the midst of our bodies, because they may more commodiously afford heat to all the members: so also, why God loved Adam, because he saw his own image in him: why he sends judgments upon the world, because of sin: why he saves believers, and condemns unbelievers, because they receive the grace of Christ, those reject it. We have not recourse immediately to God’s will for a reason; the nature of the things themselves affords us one, obvious to us. But no reason can be rendered of other actions of God but his good pleasure: why he chose Abraham above other men, and delivered him from Ur of. the Chaldees; why Israel above other nations; since all other men and nations descended from Adam and Noah, and they were in their natures equally corrupt with others; they were not in themselves better than others; nor other nations worse than they. So in Esau and Jacob, why the elder should serve the younger, since they both issued from the same parents, were equally depraved in their nature, had original sin equally conveyed to them by their parents; no reason can be rendered, but the will of God. So if it be asked, why men are condemned? Because they do not believe. Why do they not believe? Because they will not. God hath given them means and faculties. If you ask, why God did not give them grace to believe and turn their wills? No other answer can be given, but because he will not. It is his free will to choose some and not others. Election is put upon his pleasure, “predestinated according to the good pleasure of his will,”’ Eljph. 1. 5, and the making known the mystery of his will is put upon his pleasure, “Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure:’”? Eph. i. 9, as God regards us absolutely, it is rather mercy than his good pleasure. Why hath he changed our wills? Because he loved us, and bare good will to us in his everlasting purpose, to which he was incited by his own mercy: but if we compare ourselves with others, and ask why he renews this man and not that?) Then it is rather an act of the sovereign liberty of his will; for there cannot be the result of any reason from any thing else: he extends his compassions to whom he pleases. The apostle joins mercy and this sovereignty of his will together, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion:’? Rom. ix. 15, he is so absolute a sovereign that he will give no account of these matters, but his own good pleasure.: Why he renews any man, is merely voluntary; why he saves renewed men, is jt st; why he justifies those that believe, is justice to’ Christ, and mercy to them; but why he bestows faith on any, is merely the good pleasure of his will. The Pharisees believed not, because they were not of Christ’s sheep, John x. 26, that is, they were not given to Christ by the Father, as is intimated, verse 29. And the prosperity of those-which are given to Christ is resolved wholly into the pleasure of God; “the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand, Tsa. liii. 10. In all our searches into the cause of this, we must rest in his sovereign pleasure; our Saviour himself renders this only as a reason of his distinguishing mercy, wherein himself doth, and therefore we must acquiesce. Even so, O Father, for so it pleaseth thee. Matth. xi. 27.. He may well do so, because he is no debtor to any

“man in the way of grace. ihereh is; nothing. due to man but death, that is his wages; the other is a gift, Rom. vi. 23. “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to them it is not given,’ Matt. xiii.11. Who shall control him in the disposal of his own goods? Who shall say unto him, what dost thou? Grace is his own treasure; if he gives the riches of it to any, it is his pleasure: if he will not bestow a mite on any man, it is no wrong. If any man hath given to him, it shall be recompensed to him again, Rom. xi. 35. It is. not unjust with God to deny every man grace; it is not then unjust to deny a great part of men this grace: Who hath enjoined him his way? saith Job; or, who can say, thou hast wrought iniquity? Job xxvi. 23. He is not to be taught by man how to govern the world: neither can any man justly blame him, if they judge aright of his actions.. Though every man is bound to endeavour the conversion of others; and every good man hath so much charity, that he would turn all to righteousness if he could; and though the love of God is infinitely greater than man’s, it cannot be argued from thence that, therefore, God should renew every man. This charity i in man is a debt he owes to his neighbour by communion of blood, upon which the law of charity is founded, which obliges him to endeavour the happiness and welfare of his neighbour: but God is free from the engagements of any law, but the liberty of his own will; he is under no government — but his own; he has no superior, none equal with him, to enjoin him his way, and to prescribe him rules and methods... If he gives any. favour to man it is his pleasure; if man improves it well, God is not indebted to him, and obliged to give him more; no more than a father is bound to give his son a new stock, because he has improved well RZ the first he has intrusted him with; it depends only upon his pleasure. ° God’s proceedings in this case do wholly declare it. In the first gift of his people to Christ he acted like a God greater than all in a way of supereminent sovereignty; “My father which gave them me, is greater than all,’”’? John x. 29.. He acts as a potter with his clay: he softens one heart and leaves another to its natural hardness. He converts Paul a persecutor;. but none of the other Pharisees who spurred him on in that fury, and commissioned him to it; he snatches some from the embraces of lust, while he suffers others to run their race to hell. David, by grace, is made a man after God’s own

heart; and Saul left to be a man after his own will:

some he changes in the heat of their pursuit of sinful pleasures; others he wounds to death by his judgments: the reason of the latter is: deserved justice; the reason of the other is undeserved pleasure. He chooses the mean things of the world to be the highest in his favour, and passes over those that the world esteems most excellent. Not many wise, not many mighty, is his sovereign method. The amiable endowments esteemed by the men of the world, ave no influence upon him. He acts in this way with his own people: he gives sometimes to will, when he doth not give presently to do: he distributes greater

measures of grace to one than to another: he sometimes excites them by his grace, sometimes lets them lie as logs before him, that he may be owned by them to bea free agent. And further, it must needs be thus,

because God does not work in regeneration as a natural agent,and put forth his strength to the utmost: as the sun shines, and the fire burns, unless a cloud interpose to hinder the one, or water quench the other: but as an arbitrary agent, who exerts his power according to his own will, and withholds it ‘acty * cording to his pleasure. For there are two acts of his sovereign will, one whereby he commands men to do their duty, promises rewards, and threatens punishment; but the subject is to be disposed to do God’s will of precept. Here comes in another act of his sovereignty, whereby he wills the disposing such and such hearts to the accepting of his grace, and does not will to give others that grace, but leave them to. themselves; this we see practised by God almost in every day’s experience.

The truth of God is apparent in this work. Truth to his own purpose. “Who hath called us with a holy calling, according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Jesus Christ before the world began,” 1 Tim. i. 9. Sovereignty first singles this or that man out; and truth to that firm and immutable counsel, and that resolve in his own mind, steps in to excite his holiness, wisdom, and power, to make — every such person conformed to the image of his Son. It was not from any truth respecting any condition annexed to any promise he had made, which he might find in the creature; for the apostle plainly excludes it, “not according to our work:’ for what motion can our work in a state of nature cause in God, but that of - anger and aversion arising from truth to this threatening, the condition whereof is fulfilled by us: but not one mite of good fruit that could

asa condition challenge this great work at the hands of the truth of God by virtue of his promise. His truth to his threatening, would have raised up thoughts of destroying men; his truth to his promise carried on

his design of effectually calling them. It is not an engagement of truth to his creature, but of truth to.

himself. So that if you ask why he hath called Peter, Paul, and others, since many better conditioned than they have rejected the Gospel, the answer is, because he had so. purposed: in himself; and he is faithful and cannot deny his own counsel, for that were to deny himself, and that eternal idea in his own mind. “He is faithful. and cannot deny himself,’ 2 Tim. ii.

13; in regard to his purpose, in regard of his absolute promise. Truth to his promise; his promise to his

son, for so Tit. 1. 2, is principally to be understood, “In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began:’’ there was a donation of some, made to Christ, and a donation of grace to Christ for them, deposited in his hands as a treasure to be dispensed to every one of them in their proper time.

The wisdom of God appears in this work. The secrets of wisdom shine forth in the great concerns of the soul in Christ, who is made wisdom principally to us in our sanctification, as well as righteousness and redemption. Wisdom in the imputation of righteousness, in the draught of sanctification, and in the

perfection of it in a complete redemption, wisdom,

like a thread, runs through every part of the web. The new birth is the great wisdom of the creature; by this he becomes wise, since the Scripture entitles all fools without it. The inspiration of this wisdom can own no other but divine wisdom for the author. It is his own wisdom; for “Who hath been his coun-

-sellor??? Rom. xi. 34. He works all things according

to the counsel of his own will, freely, wisely; a work of his will, a work of his understanding, “Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will,’’ Eph. i. 11, ‘That we should be to the praise of his glory,”? ver. 12, that the glory of the father may shine. out in us. If ‘all things are thus wrought with the choicest counsel; much more the rarest work of God in the world. If all things are wrought with counsel, because he will have a praise from them much more that from whence he expects to gather the greatest crop of glory. The bringing us to trust in

pape

eet

Christ, is for the praise of his glory; a glory redounds to him, because there is nothing of our own in it, but all his; a further glory redounds to him, because it is in the wisest manner. It is to the praise and glory of his goodness in the act of his will: to the praise of the glory of his wisdom in the act of his counsel. ‘There was a mystery of wisdom in the first selection and singling out this or that person; a revelation of wisdom in the preparations to it, and formation of i ite If there be much of his counsel in the minute passages of his providence, in the lowest creatures, -which are the subjects of that providence, much more must there be in the framing the soul to be a living monument of his glory. It is not a new moulding the outward case of the body, but the inward jewel wrapped up from the view of men: the spirit of the mind, which being more excellent, requires more of skill for the new forming of it.

The nature of the new birth declares it to be an effect of his wisdom. It is a building, a divine temple, a spiritual tabernacle, for his own residence; “ye are God’s building,” 1 Cor. iii. 9. Strength will not build a house without art to contrive and proportion the materials; skill is the chief requisite of an architect. The highest pieces of art, come from the most excellent idea in the creature. The beautiful fabric of grace is modelled by the wisest idea in God: that which is glorious in the erection, supposes excellent skill in the contrivance. Every renewed man is a lively stone, polished and carved by the wise Creator for an everlasting statue; it is that he hath “wrought us up to the self same thing,” 2 Cor. v. 5, polished us and curiously wrought us, who were rough stones, covered with the rubbish of sin. As a wise builder, he lays the foundation in sound habits, whereon to raise a superstructure of gracious actions. The counter part in the heart is no less a fruit of his wisdom, than the

22*:

Z 2h rt “e Poe 7a Ng 2. ‘es 4 - -e tle 4 es:: a Pf ‘ ews 4 law in the tables of stones; wisdom in the first framing 4 of the law, wisdom also in the deep imprinting of it. That which enlightens the eyes, and makes wise to salvation, can be entitled to no other original cause

than divine wisdom. The soul is a rational work of God. Surely then that which is the soul of. the soul, the glory of the creature, the preparation for happiness, more pleasing to God than the brightest nature, than the natural frame of the highest soul, that which is the pleasure and delight, must be the fruit too of infinite wisdom. Bare effects of power are not the immediate. objects of God’s special delight. )

‘The means of it declare it to be a fruit of his wisdom. Christ, the exemplar, has the treasures of wisdom; grace copied from it, is part of those treasures. The Gospel, the instrument, is the “wisdom of God,’’ as well as the “power of God,’ 1 Cor. ii. 7. Divine skill framed the model, reared the building; what did partake of wisdom in ‘the contrivance, progress, all the parts and methods of..it, partakes of the same in the inward operations of it upon the soul.

The manner of it speaks ‘it to be so. In regard of the enemies he has to deal with, there must be prudence to countermine the deep and unsearchable plots of the powers of darkness. As there is the strength of sin within, the might of Satan without, as fit subjects, for his power; so there are the stratagems of Satan, the subtleties and deceits of the flesh, as a fit occasion for his Almighty skill against hellish policy.

In regard also of his working upon the soul; he works upon those that are so contrary to his design, without imposing upon their faculties; he moves them according to their physical nature, though contrary to their moral nature: he makes us do willingly what we would not: he so tunes the strings, that they speak out willingly, what naturally they are most unfit for. The Spirit acts wisely in the revealoP eae OF REGENERATION, - 255

wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him;??

Eph. i. 17; which may note the manner of his acting i

in the revelation, which is the first work in the soul, as well as the effect it produces, though I suppose the effect is principally meant. Some question the wisdom of God in acting so upon the will, as not to leave it to its own indifference in this change. What reason is there to question his wisdom? Do not angels

2 ane to us the knowledge of Christ. “The spirit of ‘

- in heaven admire God’s wisdom as well as his grace, who hath immutably fixed them to that which is good? Do they question the wisdom of God for so —

happy a confirmation of them against that indifference which destroyed some of their fellows by creation? But is there not an evident art in this work, to make the will willing, that had no affection to this change? To fit the key so to all the wards, that not one is disordered? ‘To move us contrary to our corrupt reason, yet bring us.to that pass to acknowledge we had reason to be so moved? To move our faculties one by another as wheels in a watch? To present spiritual things with such an evident light, as engages our understandings to believe -that which they would not believe before, and our wills to embrace that which our affections gainsay? It must, therefore, be a fruit of divine skill, since it isa fruit of divine teaching. John vi. 45.

There is a greater wisdom in it, than in the creation of the world. The higher the work rises, the more skill appears. It isa divine art to make man live the life of plants in his growth; the life of beasts in his sense; the life of angels in his mind: more it is then to make him live the life of God in his grace. Man in his body, partakes of earth; in his soul, of heaven; in his grace, of the heaven of heavens, of the God of heaven; the grace in the new birth is nearer the likeness ‘of. God, than the figure of men

tz.

: Pate.
es” ee

4S

eT THE AUTHOR

in. the first birth; God therefore more observes the

numbers and measures in the second creation than he did in the first. Man was the most excellent piece in

the lower creation; therefore more of art in the framing of him, than in the whole celestial and elementary world; the glorious bodies of sun, moon, and stars, had not such marks upon them; the nearer resemblance any thing hath to God, the more of wisdom, as well as power, is signified in the make of it, The holiness of God is seen in this work. The day of God’s power breaks not upon us in the change of our wills, without his appearance in the beauties of holiness. The Spirit is called a Spirit of holiness, not only as he is the efficient, but as he is the pattern, and like fire transforms into his own nature; for that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit. The law in the tables of stone was an image; the law in the heart is an extract of God’s holiness. Our first creation in a mutable state, was according to his own image, Gen. i. 26. Our second creation is more exactly like him in a gracious immutability. The holiness of Christ’s human nature was an efiect of the holiness of God; the holiness we have then in resemblance to Christ, must be a fruit of the same perfection. If we are renewed according to his image, it must be according to his holiness. To be merciful and just, is to have a moral image; to be holy, isto have a divine; the apostle intimates this in his exhortation, we must be holy in serving him, because he was ‘holy. in calling us, As he which hath called youis holy, so be ye holy,” &c. 1 Pet. 1.15. In this respect, God calls himself, not only a holy‘one, but the holy one of Israel. “I am the Lord your holy one,. the Creator of Israel, your king.”? Isa. xlii. 15... He is not only holy in himself, but displays his holiness in them, by an act of a new creation. By Creator, is not meant, his being the Creator of them, as he is of all, even of wicked men, and devils; but implies a peculiar relation to them, as distinguished from others. He is the Creator of devils, holy in his actions towards devils, but not their holy one by any inward renovation, or consecrating them to himself, as he is the holy one of Israel. Ashé is a God in covenant, he is our God,

therefore our God, as he is a holy God, as well as he is a powerful God, communicating the one as well as the other in a covenant-way: therefore the prophet Habakkuk joins them both together: “@Q Lord, my God, my holy one.”? Hab. i. 12. His holiness is no less necessary for the felicity of his people, than his mercy and power. What happiness could his mercy move, his wisdom contrive, or his power effect, without the communication of his holiness? Mercy could not of itself fit a man for it, nor power give a man possession of it, without holiness, attiring him with all those graces which prepare him for it. God, as sovereign, chose us; as merciful, pardons us; as wise, guides us; as powerful, protects us; as ‘true, makes good his promises to us; but as holy, cleanseth us from our old habits, makes us vessels of honour, filled with the savoury and delicious fruits of his Spirit, his pleasant things. The implantation of grace in the heart, is no less an effect of his holiness, than the preservation of it is; which our Saviour intimates, when, in his petition for it, he gives his Father rather the title of holy, than of any other attribute. “Holy Father, keep through thy own name.”” John xvii. 11. ~The power of God appears in this work. “Since the world begun was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind,” John ix.

32., neither was it ever heard that any man could open the understanding of one that was born dark. Every thing that pertains to life and godliness, of which regeneration is not the meanest, is the work of Divine power, “According as his divine power hath given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who hath called us to glory and virtue,’ 2 Pet. 1.3; glory and virtue, that isa glorious virtue: and the apostle adds, that this calling. was an effect of a glorious power. When God hardens a man, he only withdraws his grace. But a divine virtue is necessary for the cure of our hereditary disease. There is no great force required to cut a dead man; but to raise him, requires an extraordinary power. We may as well deny this work to be a new creation, a resurrection, as deny it to be an act of divine power. There is a word that calls; there is also. a power. to work, “Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy ~Ghost,’”?. 1 Thes. i. 5; that is, the power of the Holy Ghost. There was not only grace in the word, to invite, but the power of the Holy Ghost in it, to overcome the heart. There is not only an act of an almighty Spirit, but an act of his almighty power. The hand of the Lord created the world, “the heavens are the work of his fingers,’ Psalm viii. 3. but grace is the work of his arms, Isa. liii. 1. It may be said of ‘the first grace in the new birth, as it was of Reuben, Thou art my might, the beginning of my strength, and the excellency of power,’’? Gen. xlix. 3. Though ministerial gifts were as excellent as Paul’s, whose preaching was with demonstration and power, and who knew the readiest way to men’s hearts, ifa man ever did; yet the “excellency of the power was of God:” and when he brandished his spiritual weapons, they were only “mighty through God,’’ 2 Cor. x, 4. Though the declaration was his, yet the working was Christ’s, Rom. xv. 18. none of his people are willing, till the day of his power, Psalm ex. 3. It is as great, yea, greater power, than that put forth in creation.. It is as great; it is the introduction of another form, not ina way of any action or fashion, but in such a manner as was in the creation; that is,

by the mighty operation of God; otherwise it could not

be called a new creature, though it might be called a new thing. You call not that which is made by the art or power of man, as a watch,’a clock, a house, a new creature; for there is nothing of creation in them, but art and industry, setting the pieces of matter, created to their hands, together in such a form or figure. But this is called a new creature, not so much in regard of the newness of the thing, but in regard of the power that wroughtit, and the manner of working it, being the same with that of creation. And being termed so, it implies the exerting an efficacious power; for creation is not wrought’ by a cessation of action but the employment of an active virtue: God does not hold his hand in his bosom, but spreads it open, and applies it to an efficacious action; since it is a new creation, it implies a creator, and a creative power; creation cannot be without both. It isa greater power expended in regeneration, than in creation; more power morally in this, than physically in that: one word created the world; many words are combined for the new preparation of the heart. It is easier to make a thousand glasses, than to set together one that is dashed to pieces. It is easier with God to

make a world, (as to our conception, for all things

are alike easy to God), and create thousands of men with his image, as bright as Adam’s, than to bring that into form which is so miserably defaced.

First, in regard of the subject. Sin hath turned man into a beast; and Omnipotence can alone turn a bestial man into angelical and divine. There isa less distance between the least dust and the glorious

God than there is between the Holy God and an

impure sinner; sin and grace are more contrary to

one another, than something and nothing. A straw.

may with less power be made a star than a corrupted sinner be made a saint. In creation God was only to put in nature, here he is to put off one that is strong, and to bring in another altogether strange and new; it is hard to bring a man from off his old stock, and as hard to make him nakedly to trust Christ: it is more difficult to make a man leave his sin, than to change his opinion, since men are more in love with habitual. wickedness, than with any opinion whatsoever. In regard of the indisposedness of the soul. There is some foundation for a natural religion, there being general notions of God and his attributes, which would administer some conclusions that he was to be feared and reverenced; and according to these notions many checks of conscience, which would induce men to some moral behaviour towards God: but in the setting our hearts right to God, and creating them in a Mediator, there was not the least dust in nature to build upon. In the creating of Adam,”s body, there was. some pre-existent matter; the dust of the ground, whereof his body was by a divine power made and organized; but we meet with no pre-existent — matter for the formation of the soul, which made him a rational creature; that indeed was the breath of God, not engendered by any concurring ‘cause in nature: there is no pre-existent matter in the creature, of which this image is formed, though there be a pre-existent subject to receive the impression of it; it is not the rearing any thing upon the foundation of nature; but introducing a nature wholly new, which speaks almighty power. In regard of the contradiction in the subject. The stream of man’s natural reason, the principles of self, whereby he is guided, run counter to it; there is a pride of reason which will not stoop to the Gospel, which in man’s wisdom is counted foolishness. ‘Man i is an untamed heifer, a wild ass that snuffs up the wind, full of hatred to the ways of God, guided by gigantic lusts, which make

7”
‘ ‘ — 3 7

‘? as great a resistance as a mountain of brass; stoutness of heart, strong prejudices against the law of God; fierceness of affection, drinking iniquity like water; universal madness, resisting the Spirit; wild imaginations; frowardness in the will, forwardness to evil, perversity against good: can any thing less than an almighty power make an universal cure? It is more easy to make men stoop to some victorious prince, and become his vassals, than to bring men to a submission to God and his laws, which they entertain with contempt and scorn. Nothing obeyed God’s word in the creation; though it contributed not to his design, yet it could not oppose him; it could not swell against him, because it was nothing. But every sinner is rebellious, disputes God’s commands, fortifies himself against his entrance, gives not up himself without a contest. This pride is hereditary, it bore sway in the heart ever since Adam’s fall, and hath prescription of as long a standing as the world, to plead for possession. What, but infinite power, can fling down this pride at the foot of the cross, make the heart strike its swelling sail to Christ, and become nothing in itself, that Christ may be all life in him, and all righteousness to him? It is only possible to God to make a camel with this bunch on its back, pass through a needle’s eye: no less than divine power can bring down these armies of opposite imaginations, which have both multitude and strength, (and no man knows either their number or strength,) and the whole frame of contradiction against the grace of Christ. Our Saviour intimates this creative power in that thanksgiving to his Father. “TI thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,’’? &c., Matt. xi. 25. Christ, in all his addresses to his Father, used attributes and titles suitable to the business he insisted on. The revelation of divine knowledge to babes, the moulding their hearts to receive it, was an 23

he Be,
ve

; 4 re act of God as he is Lord of heaven and earth, putting forth an infinite power in the forming of it. If God were the author of grace in the hearts of those babes, persons better disposed, and nearer the kingdom of heaven, as he was Lord of heaven and earth; then there must be some greater power than that of the creation of the world, put forth to conquer the wise and prudent, whose wisdom and prudence stand armed in the breaches of nature to beat off the assaults of the Gospel.

In regard to the opposition of the present possessors. The chasing out an armed devil that hath kept the palace in peace so long, must be by a power superior to his own, Luke xi. 21, 22. This great Goliah has his armour about him, has had long possession and dearest affections: the impulses of natural concupiscence take his part: he has his alluring baits, his pleasing proposals: the world and the flesh are linked with him in a league, to hinder the restoration of the soul to Christ, and the restoration of God’s image to the soul. A threefold cord is not easily broken. It must be a power superior to those three great powers in conjunction, that must bind the strong man: and casting him out, and spoiling his goods, are acts of power, Matth. xii. 29. Satan is too strong to be easily cast out, and the flesh loves him too dearly to be easily divorced from him; he is never likely to lay down his arms by persuasions; though all the angels in heaven should intreat him, he would not give up one foot of his empire. Nay, though what God proposes has a greater weight of goodness, pleasure and profit in itself, than what those three great impostors can offer, yet since reason is weak and mightily corrupted under the conduct of sense, which has an alliance with Satan’s proposals, and first sucks them in, it is not likely to meet with any entertainment, as being against the interest of the flesh; and the will being backed with two such powerful seconds as Satan and the world, to assist in its refusals. Indeed, if he that is in the regenerate, were not greater and more powerful than he that is in the world, they would not be able to resist his allurements and subtleties, 1 John iv. 4. The triumphs of Christ at his ascension declare his power in his acquisition; with.a strong hand he broke the chain of sinners, and led captivity captive before he gave gifts to men, Psalm xlviii. 18. He does the like in giving grace to the heart: he rides upon his white horse in the power of Almighty grace, when he conquers the enmity in the soul, as well as when he overcomes the enemies of his church, Rev. vi. 2.

It is a power as great as that which wrought in the resurrection of Christ. It is remarkable how loftily the apostle sets it out, “And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power: which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places,”? Eph. i. 19, 20. Exceeding greatness of his power, with an hyperbole, according to the working or efficacy of his mighty power, noting the infusion of faith in the soul by a powerful impression. According to the working of the might or strength; one word was not enough to signify the great power working: it is‘strength with a greater edge upon it, as when a man would fetch a mighty blow, he stirs up all his strength, sets his teeth on edge to summon all his spirits to assist his arm. The power of God in the creation of nature is never in the whole Scripture set forth so magnificently as his power in the creation of grace is in this place. The apostle picks not out any examples of God’s power in his ordinary works, or that power in less miracles which exceeded the power of nature, to illustrate this power by. He doth not say, it is that power whereby we work miracles, or speak with tongues: no; neither is it that power whereby our Saviour wrought such miracles when he was in the world. It is a more illustrious power than the giving sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, yea, or life to a putrified carcass; this is an extraordinary power; but yet this gracious power is higher than all this; for it is as great as that which wrought the two greatest miracles that ever were acted in the creation; as great as the raising Jesus Christ, perfectly dead in the grave, and having the weight of the sin of the world upon him; and as great as that power, which after the raising of him, set him in his human nature at his right hand, above principalities and powers, above the whole angelic state: as much as to say, as great as all that power which wrought the whole scene of the redemption, from the foundation-stone to the top stone. It is such an unconquerable power, whereby God brings about all his decrees which terminated in Christ. Some say, this power is not exercised in the begetting faith, but in the faithful after faith is begun. It is very strange that a less power is necessary to beget, than to preserve a thing after it is brought into being. And the same power is requisite to raise the heart of the most moral man under heaven out of the grave of corrupted nature, as well as those that are furthest in their dispositions from God. Had not our Saviour the weight of the sins of men upon him, had he been dead but an hour or two, lain in the grave with a little loose earth, or light sand cast upon him, it would have required infinite power to have restored him to life. The apostle mentions this in other places, though not so highly as in this, “That like as Christ was raised up by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life.”? Rom. vi. 4. It must be understood thus: even so we, being raised up from sin by the glory of the Father, should walk in newness of life. And it may be partly the meaning of the apostle Peter, “Who hath begotten us again to a lively hope by (or through) the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,’’ 1 Pet. i. 3, not only as the foundation of our hopes, but by a power conformable to that which raised Christ from the dead. I would only, by the way, note, that this infers a higher operation than merely an exhortation and suasion; for would any one say of a philosopher that had taught him morality, that he had displayed in: him the exceeding greatness of his power, only upon the account of advising and counselling him to

reform his manners, and live more soberly and honestly in the world! Our Saviour esteemed this one thing greater than all the other miracles he wrought, and declared himself to be the Christ more by this than by any other. When John sent to know who he was, he returns no other account than the list of his miracles, “The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached,”? Luke vil. 20. That which brings up the rear, as the greatest, is the poor are evangelized; it is not to be taken actively of the preaching of the Gospel, but passively, that they were wrought upon by the Gospel, and became a renewed people, transformed into the mould of it, else it would bear no analogy to the other miracles; the deaf hear, and the dead were raised; they had not exhortations to hear and live, but the effects were wrought in them; so those words import not only the preaching of the Gospel to them, but the powerful operation of the Gospel in them. This greatest miracle in the catalogue is the only miracle our Saviour has left in the world since the cessation of all the rest.

I have insisted the longer upon these perfections of God apparent in this work: J

To stir up every renewed person to a thankful frame toward God; that he should engage his choicest attributes for the good of a poor creature. To what purpose did the apostle so long and so highly speak of the power of God in raising them from a spiritual death, but that they should acknowledge it, and admire God for it? It cannot but raise high admiration and adoration of God, to consider how mercy moved for them, sovereignty called them out, wisdom modelled them, holiness cleansed them, and power framed them.

To stir up deep humility. It is a plain declaration of our miserable estate by nature, and the difficulty of emerging out of it; impossible for any creature to effect.. Had not God been infinitely merciful, wise, holy, true, and omnipotent, and put forth his power to free men from a slavery to sin, not a man had been able to escape out of it; and these two, admiration of God, and humiliation of self, are the two great acts of a Christian, which set all other graces to work. Mercy speaks us very miserable, wisdom declares us fools, holiness unclean, and power extremely weak.

How mightily will it give a ground to the exercise of faith? He that is deeply sensible of this work of holiness and power in him, cannot but trust God upon his deed, as well as before he did upon his word. As you go to the promises without you, consider also the counterpart of the promise within you, and the efficacy of that power which wrought it; you have a ground of faith within you: the power extends to every one wherein this work is wrought: “What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe;’’ this the apostle speaks to all the believing Ephesians.

Therefore look much into yourselves by way of examination, to observe the actings of God’s wisdom, holiness, and power, within you. The want of this makes many gracious persons live disconsolate. Paul was certainly diligent in his observation, since he speaks so feelingly and experimentally of it. It is the way to answer satan’s objections, silence unbelieving thoughts, when you can trace the steps and operations of them in you: it would make you strive for an increase of this work of regeneration, that you may feel in yourselves more evidences of the holiness and power of God.

Those that want it, may well despair of attaining it by themselves and their own strength. Divine wisdom and power are exerted in this work; and men may as well think themselves able to raise a dead man, yea, Christ from the grave, and set him at the right hand of God,.as do this by their own strength: if we want an eye ora hand, all the creation cannot furnish us with either. How can any power but that which is infinite, give us an eye to look to Christ within the vail, and a hand to clasp him in heaven?

It directs men where to seek it, and to seek it earnestly. At the hands of God; since infinite wisdom, holiness and power, are necessary for the production of it.. With earnestness, because it is so transcendent a work, has so many perfections of God shining in it, that creature-strength and wisdom are utterly unable to frame and raise it; and with hopes too, if they earnestly seek it, since God has hereby declared himself infinitely loving in the combination of so many attributes for effecting it. Plead therefore the glory of God in these his attributes; and if God give you a heart to seek it; it is a probable argument he will give you that grace, which he has given you a heart to desire,

How does God do this?

This work is secret, and therefore difficult to be described. The effects are as obvious to a spiritual sense, as the methods of it are obscure to our understandings, secret as the origin of winds, sensible as the sound and bluster of them, John i. 8. Ifa dead man were raised, he would not know the manner how oe “i his soul returned into the body, how it took its former place, and made up a new union; he would know that he lives and moves. A gracious soul knows that he was carnal, and now spiritual; blind, and that he now sees; he ‘finds strength instead of weakness; inclinations to good, instead of opposition; sweetness in the ways of God, instead of bitterness. The methods of grace are obscure, as those of nature, “Who knows the way of the Spirit, or how the bones grow in the womb of her that is with child? even so thou knowest not the works of God who makes all.’’ Eecles. xi. 5. The manner of the formation of Christ in

the soul, is as undiscernible as the formation of a child, or the manner of Christ’s conception in the womb of the virgin; both which are fearful and wonderful, as it is said of the first. ““Who can declare his generation?”’ Isa. ii. 8; that is, the generation of Christ, either in his person, or in his people. We cannot give

a satisfactory account of the natural motions of. our

souls, how one faculty commands another, how the soul governs the several parts of the body; what the nature of the action of our mind is in contemplation

and reflection; how our wills move the spirits in the body whereby the members are influenced in their motion,and the functions of life performed: muchmore undiscernible are the supernatural methods of the Spirit of God. We know ourselves heirs to the corruption of the first Adam, by the inbeing of it; the light of the grace of the second Adam discovers itself in the soul; but the manner of the descent of either is not easily to be determined. The loadstone attracting iron is the best representation of this work; the soul, like that, moves sensibly, cleaves strongly to God; but wherein this virtue consists, how communicated both in that of nature, and this of spirit, dazzles the eye of reason.

Yet this is evident, that it is rational; that is, congruous to the essential nature of man. God does not deal with us as beasts, or as creatures destitute. of sense, but as creatures of an intelligent order. Who is there that believes in Christ in such a manner, as heavy things fall to the earth, or light things fly up to the air, or as beasts run at the beck of their sensual appetite, without rule or reason? If the Spirit of God wrought so upon man, this were to lay our faculties asleep, not to influence them, but to act only upon them; this were to invert the natural order by creation, to raze out the foundations of virtue, and deny the creature the pleasure of his condition, who according to such a manner of operation could not understand his own state, no more than a brute can the harmony of music, or the pleasing variety of colours: but grace perfects our souls, possesses them with new principles, moves one faculty by another, like the motions of the wheels in a clock or watch; like the common course of providence, wherein he orders all affairs according to the dependence of them one upon another by creation, without making any inroad upon the natural rights of any creature; but preserving them entire, unless in some miraculous action. He diffuses a supernatural virtue into the soul, not to thwart it in that course of working he appointed it in the creation, but to move it agreeably to its nature as a rational being. As the sun conveys a celestial virtue upon the plants, drawing them forth by its influence according to their several natures; so the Holy Ghost introduces a supernatural principle into men, whereby they act as reasonable creatures in a higher strain. What methods our Saviour used in the first declaration of the Gospel, he uses in the propagation of it in the hearts of men. The same reason that is used in writing the indenture, is used in writing the counterpart. He might by his omniscient wisdom have found the way to the most secret corner of every man’s heart, and by his power have set up what standard he pleas in every part of the castle, without proposing the Gospel i in the way of miracles and arguments; but he transacts all that affair in such a manner, that men might be moved in a rational way to their own happiness. He required a rational belief, as he gave rational evidences. “If Ido not the works of my Father, believe me not,”’ John x. 37, that. is, the works that none but one empowered by God could do. God that requires of us a reasonable service, would work upon us by a reasonable operation. God therefore works by way of a — spiritual illumination of the understanding, in propounding the creature’s happiness by arguments and reasons, and in a way of a spiritual impression upon the will, moving it sweetly to embrace that happiness, and the means to it which he proposes and indeed without this work preceding, the motion of the will I could never be regular. ‘

God does this by a double work: upon the under-: standing, and upon the will.

Upon the understanding. The opening the eyes precedes the conversion from darkness to light, in God’s operation, as well as in the apostle’s commission, Acts xxvi. 18. The first appearance of life when God raises the soul, is in the clearness and distinctness of its knowledge of God, Hos. vi. 2, 3. And the apostle in his exhortation to the Romans, tells them, the way for the transformation of their souls, was by the renewing of their minds; “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds,” Rom. xii. 2.. The light of the sun is seen breaking out at the dawning of the day, before the heat of the sun is felt. As the action of our sense is to sensible objects, so is that of our soul to spiritual; our eye first sees an object, before our hearts desire it, or our members move to it; so there is an apprehension of the goodness of the ‘thing proposed, before there is any motion

OF REGENERATION. 271 of our wills to it. So God begins his work in our minds, and terminates it in our wills. In regard of — this, as a state of nature is set forth under the term of darkness, so a state of grace is often termed light, that being the first work in the new creation, as it was the first word of command in the old; “Let there be light,’? 2 Cor. iv. 6; Col. iii. 10; and is therefore called a renewing in knowledge. If you consider the Scripture, you will find most of the terms whereby this is set forth to us, have relation to the understanding. The Gospel itself is called knowledge, Luke i. 77; wisdom, 1 Cor. i. 30. What faculty in man is appointed for the apprehending of a science to gain wisdom but the understanding? That whereby we receive the Gospel, is called the spirit of the mind, the eyes of the understanding and sight, which is put before believing. “Every one which sees the Son and believes on him,”? John vi. 40. The work of grace is called Revelation, Gal.1.16. -Illumination, Hphes. i. 18. Translation from darkness to light; opening the heart. The action of our minds being enlightened, is called comprehending, Eph. iii: 18; and knowledge, 2 Pet. i. 2. All respect the understanding, as the original wheel which God primarily sets in order, from whence he influences secondarily all the other faculties which depend upon its guidance, God preserving hereby the order which he instituted in nature: therefore when the understanding savingly apprehends the deformity of sin, the will must hate it: when it apprehends the mercy of God, and the beauty of holiness, the will must love him; and the higher the degrees of this saving illumination are in the mind, the stronger and firmer are the habits and acts.of grace in the will. This illuminative act of the Spirit is before the other: of inclining the will: for the understanding is first exercised about the word as true, before the will is concerned in it as good. The understanding takes in the light of the Gospel, which by the working of the Spirit is reflected upon the will, whereby it is changed into the image of Christ whose Gospel it is. ‘“Beholding as in a glass the Glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image,”’ 2 Cor. ii..18. The first act is of the mind, which is the eye of the soul; where the apostle intimates, that the whole progress as well as the first change, is wrought in this manner.

This is wrought,

By removing the indisposition and prejudices kieele naturally are in the mind. Asa wise physician which orders his medicines for the removing of the principal humour. Chains of darkness must be broken, films upon the eye must be removed, which hinder the act of vision; for what the eye is to the body, that the understanding is to the soul. The darkness of ignorance is promised in the covenant to be scattered. “They shall all.know me from the least to the greatest of them.” Jer. xxxi. 34. This being. a law in the inward parts, the eye must be cleared to read it, as well as the heart cleansed to obey it. The object being spiritual, requires a spiritual disposition in the faculty for the reception of it. This is called in Seripture a giving eyes to see, and ears to hear, Deut. Xxix. 4, and the revealing things not only by the word, but by the Spirit, 1 Cor. ii. 10, which in regard of rectifying the reasons and judgments of men, is called a spirit of judgment; “and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning;’’ Isa. iv. 4; a spirit of judgment, as it is light in the understanding, removing the darkness; a spirit of burning, as it is heat in the heart, thawing the hardness. It reduces the mind into a right order, and teaches it to judge between truth and falsehood, between good and evil; the want of which is the cause of sin,” 4 er: oo ak ie whence sins are called, Heb. ix. 7, errors, as arising from error in judgment. Since the mind is filled with. fogs, and incapable of perceiving the splendour of divine truths, God acts upon the mind by an inward virtue, causing the word proposed to be mixed with an act of faith, which he begets in the soul, whereby it apprehends the excellency of that state presented to it in the Gospel. As there is a manifestation of his name in the word, so there is an operation of his grace; an internal teaching by God, as well as an external by the Gospel; the proposal of the word by man, the opening and fitting the heart by God. “Every man that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.’? John vi. 45. Christ taught all by his ministry, the Father only some by his Spirit. Learning of God goes before coming to Christ: and those two acts are plainly distinguished; “‘ hear, and not understand;” Isa. vi. 9,10. The lock of their minds was to be opened, as well as that of their ears; the prophet’s voice could unlock the one, the Spirit alone had the key of the other. Men may enlighten as moral causes, God only as the efficient cause, to root out the inward indisposition. The Spirit also removes the prejudices against Christ as undesirable, against holiness as troublesome; takes down the strength of corrupt reasonings, pulls down those idols of the mind, and false notions of happiness; out-reasons men out of their inward thoughts of a happiness in sensual pleasures, pride of life, mammon of honour or wealth, which are the root of our spiritual disease, and first to be cured. In this there is a manifest difference between the working of Satan, and the operation of God; he sets his battery against the affections, because the entry is there easiest; God breaks in upon the understanding, which being the chief fort, will quickly be a means to reduce the less citadels. And when the work begins in removing the blindness, it is the way to a true conversion; when it begins only in the affections, it is a prognostic of a quick starting aside. In an outward exhortation, God acts suitably to our nature, since we are endued with understanding and will; but in acting upon us within, he remedies the vice of our nature, since our reason and will are corrupted.

It is wrought by bringing the mind and the object close together. Sight is produced in a blind man by drawing off the scales from his eyes, and the recourse of spirits to the eye necessary for sight; besides this, there must be outward light, and objects coloured by that light; and from the eye so disposed within, and the thing discovered without, ariseth the action of sight: so from the preparation of the understanding, and the application of the object, arises this action of Spiritual vision. ‘There is a double opening, one of the Gospel, the other of the understanding; our Saviour did both, he “opened the Scriptures,’’ Luke iv. 32, and opened their understandings, ver. 45, that there might be a mutual entrance, that the word might dwell in their hearts, and their hearts have admission into the word. The Spirit shows the great things of the Gospel to the soul. “He shall receive ay mine, and show it unto you;”? John xvi. 14; not

nee but bring them near to them, to make

hem view, “and know the things that are freely ite to them of God,”’ 1 Cor. ii. 12, the benefits of the death and resurrection of Christ; he repeats them again and again, that there may be an evidence in the mind that they are the royal gifts of God. There is a knowledge before this work of the Spirit, but as of things at a distance; many know the things proposed in the Gospel, but they know it not as a glorious Gospel, nor see the wonders in this law, till the Spirit brings that and the faculty close together. As a man may discern a statue or picture at a distance, but till the eye and the objects meet closer together, it cannot discern the beautiful workmanship upon them, with any affection to them. Not that a man knew nothing, or knows new reasons of those things which he knew before; but there is a nearer, and therefore clearer representation of them, which is a manifest demonstration, whereby he knows them in another manner than he did before. As a man may know the promises before, but they were not brought so near to him as to taste them; taste being an addition to knowledge, whereby a man knows that sensibly, which before he only knew notionally. It is one thing to know a mechanical instrument, and another to know it in the operation of it, when it is applied to its proper use. It is ike a man that has his understanding more cleared by seeing mathematical demonstrations, and lines drawn, than by all the rules of art in his head.

By fixing the mind upon the object so closely presented. The Spirit settles that light and the object ‘so in the mind, that it can no more blow it out than

puff out the sparklings of a diamond, or than an artist endued with the habit of some art, can divest himself

of his skill. Many men have some convictions of truth, but flashy and uncertain, and which slip from

their minds: but when the Spirit opens the heart, it holds the object to the mind, and the mind to the object; starts one holy thought after another about the truth it had darted in, makes the mind think about it, and take notice of every lineament of that truth that we see, and those thoughts lie down, rise up, and walk with us. When Lydia’s heart was opened, she attended to the things spoken by Paul, Acts xvi. 14; her whole heart cleaved to them. In this respect the Spirit is a remembrancer, making the soul ponder, and beat over again with all intenseness of mind, the goodness and truth of those things in the

Gospel which are brought unto it; that the heart is, as Paul was, bound in spirit to Jerusalem, Acts xx. 22. The thoughts of that journey so haunted him and followed him, as the shadow does the body, that no arguments of friends, nor fear of danger, coyld divert him; the soul is: bound by them, one consideration overtaking another, and all at work beating upon the mind. Hence consideration is put before conversion, “because he considers, and turns away from all his transgressions,’”’ Ezek. xviii. 28. And it is called the — ingrafted word, fastened to the soul as a graft to the stock; when the heart is opened by the Spirit, the word is inserted in and bound to it, and at last the heart becomes one with the word, and grows up with it.

By bringing the soul to an actual reasoning and discourse upon the sight of the evidence. God convinces the judgment with reasons proper to evidence the truth and goodness of what he proposes, and that with pregnant and prevailing demonstrations, which give a competent satisfaction; therefore called the “demonstration of the Spirit and power,” 1 Cor. il. 4; that is, a spiritual and powerful demonstration. When the eye is opened, and the revelation made, and held close and fast to the soul with a divine demonstration, that this is the only means to elevate him to a high condition, and at last bring him toa blessed immortality; the understanding is moved to compare the force of those arguments, and consequently judge that true which before it counted false and foolishness: and comes by the help of this spiritual light to reason spiritually, and spiritually to discern the proposition made to it. It compares its natural state with the happy state offered to it; its own ignorance with that light, its own misery with that mercy. God will not have man, who is so far above a beast, do any thing without reason; for this would be to do it brutishly, though the thing done were ever so good: when men act as men, they follow the judgment of the best reason they can; and shall man that was created a rational creature, be renewed without reason, when the very work is to advance him to the true state of a reasonable creature, and his reason is enlightened by the Spirit, that it may rightly judge of the demonstrative arguments it offers to him? Is there not as much reason for the guidance of the will in the highest concern, as for the conduct of it in affairs of a lower sphere? Man was first endued with reason, that he might rationally serve God; and his depraved reason is reformed, that he may rationally return to God. If, therefore, he act like a man in other things, he does not surely act like a brute in this; but the Spirit excites the reason he has enlightened, to judge of those excellent things he proposes and the strength of the arguments he backs them with, which are so clear and undeniable, that they cannot be refused by a mind divested of those indispositions which drew out before a con- — tempt of them. The change in the will being an election and choice, cannot be made without convincing and satisfying reasons which induce it to that choice, and justify the election it has made; that can hardly be called faith, when a man believes that which he does not think upon the highest reason was his duty to believe. And indeed what man is there that cannot allege some reason why he is induced to this or that act? God moves men by presenting things to the understanding, under the notion of good, honest, profitable; and when the understanding is enlightened to judge of things in some measure under the same notion that God proposes them, a man’s own reason cannot but upon a view of them assent unto them; and that assent is followed with a change, according to the degrees of that illumination, if it be 24”

o78 Ue ‘THE AUTHOR

a saving one. Upon this account that our own reason is excited to judge of the proposal, our faith can no more be said to be a human faith, or the work to proceed from our own power, than it can be said to be sensitive, because it comes by hearing: for though faith depends upon hearing and reasoning, as upon

natural powers; yet the light whereby the faculties

are actuated, is wholly pupegig ural, and from the fie of God. Hence follows a full conviction of the soul. Both

‘he knowledge of its own misery, and the amiableness

of the Gospel offer, whence issues a weariness under the one, and desires for the other. By this enlightening, the soul sees sin in its empire, God in his wrath, Satan in his tyranny, and the hardness of the stone within him: he sees the law accusing, sin triumphing, heaven shut, and hell open, God ready to judge him, ‘and his soul everv way deplorable. He sees also in

the Gospel how Christ has expiated sin, answered the.

demands of the law, stills the clamours of conscience, satisfied the justice of God by bearing his wrath; hereupon the soul closes with Christ, and is born again. Here are heaps of sin that cannot be numbered; on the other side are riches of mercy that cannot be reckoned; there is sin to damn, here is a Christ to save; heaven and hell, sin and Christ, damnation and salvation, are presented i in their proper colours, and pressed upon the understanding, which beholds all by a clear light. And thus by the illuminative virtue of the Spirit, the soul is laid at God’s feet in a sense of its misery, and then drawn into Christ’s arms by a sense of his grace. This is wrought by a convictive persuasion, for so the word signifies, John xvi. 8, which causes both a sight of sin, and a sense of righteousness, and produces a full assent in the understanding.

The next faculty wrought upon, is the will. The

will i is dniclined as well as the understanding enlight- v at ah ened, whereby spiritual things are approved with a spiritual affection; the same hand that darts light into the mind, puts heat into the will. After the act of understanding hath preceded in a serious consideration, and thorough conviction, the act of the will by ‘virtue of the same Spirit, follows in a delightful motion to the object proposed to it; it is conducted by light, and spirited by love; the understanding hands the object to the will as necessary to be embraced; and the arms of the will are opened to receive it, as the eyes of the mind are to behold it. For the understanding of this, take these propositions.

There seems to me to be an immediate supernatural work upon the will, as well as upon the understanding; not that the understanding is only enlightened, and the will follows the dictate of that, without any further touch of the Spirit upon it; but the will as it is the will, and therefore cannot be forced, there is need ofa moral cause which may determine it according to its nature, and draw it by the cords of a man. When a master instructs a youth in his trade, he does it by arguments, morally; when he holds his hand with the instrument in it, and directs the motion, he acts physically; so does the Spirit exhort us to spiritual motion, telling us inwardly which is the way, that we may walk in it, and take our wills by the hand, as it were, and lead them in. the way they are to go. A nurse’s tongue and exhortation is not enough to make a child to go, because of the weakness of its limbs; nor the light in the understanding sufficient to move the will, wherein there is an habitual weakness and contradiction. How did God work up the wills of the Egyptians to lend their jewels to the Israelites, but by some immediate touch. Their reason might have furnished them with many more arguments against it, than it could for it: they knew the Israelites had been

= highly injured, and that very lately too; that they could not but have a deep sense of their oppression, and intentions of revenge, as far as their power extended. They knew that the Israelites prepared for flight, and might more than conjecture that they intended never to return or send their jewels to them; for what need had they of so many goods barely to sacrifice in the wilderness? How were their wills thus bended against so many arguments against this action, and without any strong reasons to move them to consent to such a desire of the Israelites? How must this be, but by the efficacious power of God, not forcing their wills, but taming their fierceness, softening them by a secret influence, and exciting them to grant the Israelites’ request. The apostle says, God gives us to will. If there were not a particular act upon the will, it had better been said, God gives us to understand and know, and man to will and do. After the evidence set up in the understanding, there is a

secret touch upon the will, opening and enlarging it.

to run the way that is proposed in an excellent and charming manner. As the power of God raises every part of Christ, so the same power raises every faculty of the soul; it was also a supernatural power, since mere exhortation would never have effected it.

The Scripture intimates this in the terms whereby it signifies this work to us; as creation, resurrection, regeneration, new birth, all which denote some supernatural operation distinct in each faculty in the new creation, as there was in the first; not only the law in the mind to direct, but the heart of flesh to comply, is God’s act. The fleshy heart is wrought by him, as well as the knowledge of the mind lighted by him. In regeneration there is an eradication of corrupt habits, and an implantation of gracious ones. It is called a giving a heart, a circumcision of the heart to love God. Deut. xxx. 6. Love is an act of the will, though it supposes a knowledge of the amiable object in the understanding. If faith be principally in the will, as 1 think it is, as to consent: and the words leaning, resting, coming, rather denote an act of the will, than an act of the understanding; there is then an operation of God upon the subject, viz. the will in the implanting of it.

The will is corrupted as felt as the understanding. The works of the flesh issue from both; if the corruption were only in the understanding, then that being removed, the will would be regenerated. As in a watch, if the fault be only in one wheel, that being mended, the whole frame -is rectified; but if there be a flaw in all, the mending of one, though the principal one, which moves the rest, will not set every wheel right, without a particular application of art to restore them to their due frame. Was not original righteousness subjectively in the will, as well as in the mind? Did not a stoutness in the will succeed in the place of that righteousness, as well as darkness in the place of light? Must there not then be a habit of mollifying grace bestowed upon the — one, as well as a habit of enlightening truth set up in the other; an inclination to good in the will, and an aversion from evil, as well as the knowledge of both? The corrupt proneness in the will, is the cause that it is easily excited to evil by the persuasion of the devil and the world; and is there not need of an inward rectitude in the will to bias it to a free embracing and close adherence to the good proposed to it by God, that his grace may be efficacious in every part? This work is the quickening of a man under an universal spiritual death; the will was dead, as well as the mind dark, which must have life instead of its darkness, as the other has light instead of its deadness: and if they be two distinct faculties, then there are two distinct acts of the Spirit, though they

MS ogauer THE AUTHOR

depend one upon another. There is no less power requisite to make us spiritually willing, than to make us spiritually knowing; since the corrupt habits in our wills: are rather stronger than the prejudices in our understandings: therefore there seems to be a distinct act in removing the resistance from the one, as well as expelling the darkness from the other. As the Spirit takes away the wisdom that was sensual, earthly, and devilish, so it divests the will of that disposition whereby it was enamoured of that devilish wisdom of the flesh, and makes it willing to cut off the right hand, to pluck out the right eye, to deny sin, which is the very self, and engage in an irreconcilable quarrel against all that engrossed its choicest affections.

If the understanding has such power, by virtue of its illumination, without an act also of the Spirit upon the will, and a particular application of the understanding to the will, and the will to the understanding, why did not Adam,“s will follow his understanding? His understanding was clear, without darkness; his affections first made the rebellion; sense was the leader and the will the follower. Eve’s understanding was not silent under the temptation of Satan; her knowledge was evinced in that speech, God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die, Gen. iii. 3: she cites the word, her understanding must needs concur with it, unless it were corrupted and darkened before the fall. Where then lay the resistance? in the affections, and the will which sided with them. Why may not the will possessed with those evil habits, resist the understanding imperfectly restored to its primitive light, as well as Adam,”s will did where there was no scale or film upon the eye of his soul? And likely his affections had kept their due order, if the will had preserved its due dependence upon reason, and its sovereignty

OF REGENERATION. 6 8283 over the sensitive part. Do we not find that our wills are oftener in contradiction to the true sentiments of our understanding, and in conjunction with the affections, than in.a due subordination to the one, and command over the other? Is it not frequently seen, that men of much light, knowledge, and gifts of reason, answer not the end of that illumination, and are without a will to turn to God? Besides, since corruption came in by the affections, when the understanding was clear; how can regeneration of the will come in by the illumination of the understanding, without a particular operation upon the will and affections? If it be said, the will follows the dictate of the understanding, why did it not so in Adam? If we were perfectly restored, as Adam was in innocence, without the grace of God in our wills, as well as light in our understandings, we were not likely to keep up in due order.

If there were nota supernatural operation and habits in the will, what would become of infants, who cannot in that state be renewed without such a kind of working? They are not susceptible of moral exhortations; we cannot conceive any other way the Spirit hath to work upon them, but by such an operation, putting habits into their wills, whereby they are renewed and sanctified; they are capable of the habit, though not of the act. We never find our Saviour spending any exhortations upon infants, but he took them in his arms and blessed them; and told us, that of such is the kingdom of heaven; and if the kingdom of heaven be of such, there is some operation

upon them different from this method of working only

upon their understanding.

If there were not some operations of the Spirit upon

our wills, regeneration and conversion would be more our work than God’s. If the Spirit terminates his working only upon the understanding, and the will 4 be moved by the understanding alone, without any conjunction of the Spirit in the work upon the will, then the Spirit does not immediately concur in the chief part of regeneration, but as it illuminates the mind; for the chief part of renewing grace is in the will. It was in a less affair than this, wherein David blessed God for the people’s willingness, offering so freely; acknowledging it indeed the people’s act, but by God’s Syerruing their wills, 1 Chronicles xxix. 13, 14.

God is all in all in glory. When Christ shall have delivered the kingdom to his Father, God then shall be all in all; 1 Cor. xv. 28, all in their understandings, all in their wills; he shall be the immediate cause of all things, and govern and dispose all things by himself, and for himself; binding the souls of all the glorified by everlasting ligatures to himself: all in all to the glorified, all light in their understanding, all love and delight in their will, objectively, efficiently. What efficacy he has in glory, shall we deny him in grace in every particular faculty?

Yet this work, though immediate, is not compulsive and. by force. It is a contradiction for the will to be moved unwillingly: any force upon it destroys the nature of it; if it be forced, it ceases to be will. It is not forced, because it is according to reason, and the natural motion of the creature; the understanding proposing, and the will moved to an embracing: the understanding going before with light, the will following after with love. The liberty of the will consists in following the guidance of reason; to have a liberty to go against it, is the greatest misery of the creature: that is properly constraint, when we are compelled to work contrary to the natural way of working: there is no constraint by force, but there is a kind of a constraint by love, because the Spirit accompanies this operation with so much efficacy, ve — ey that instead of that sadness we should have in a thing we were forced to, there is an unspeakable joy and content in the soul; it not being possible to taste so much of the love of God, to be delivered from so fearful a condemnation, to be brought to so glorious a hope, without being seized with much pleasure and delight. God changes the inclination of the will, but does not force it against its inclination: the will, being a rational faculty, cannot be wrought upon except rationally. Since the main work consists in faith and love, it is impossible there can be any force: no man can be forced to believe against his reason, or love against his will, or desire against his inclinations. Belief is wrought by persuasion; no man can be persuaded by force. It cannot be conceived, that the will should will against the will. No man can be happy against his will, all happiness consisting in a suitableness of the object to the faculty: those things that in themselves are the greatest pleasures of the world, if they please not a man, cannot confer any happiness upon him. The Spirit never works thus; because “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,”’ 2 Cor. iii. 17, he destroys not the liberty, but reduces it to will more nobly than before. Besides, the liberty of the will doth not stand in indifference to this or that thing, for then the will would loose its liberty every time it determined itself to any one thing, because after the determination it would be no longer indifferent to the other. But the liberty of the will consists in being carried out according to the dictate of the practical judgment, and not by a blind instinct. God doth not deal with us as stones, and logs, or slaves, whom the whip makes to do that which they hate in their hearts: but conducts us in ways agreeable to our nature: he calls, saying, “Seek ye my face;’? and inclines the will to answer, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek,”? Ps. xxvii. 8. That God who knows how toa make a will with a principle of freedom, knows how to work upon the will, without intrenching upon, or altering the essential privilege he bestowed upon it: he that formed us, as a potter does his vessel, knows very well the handles whereby he may take hold of us, without making any breach in our nature.

It is free and gentle. A constraint, not by force, but love, which is not an extrinsic force, but intrinsic and pleasant to the will; he bends the creature so, that at the very instant wherein the will is savingly wrought upon, it delightfully consents to its own happiness: he draws by the cords of a man, and by a secret touch upon the will, makes it willing to be drawn, and moves it upon its own hinges. It is sweet and alluring; the Spirit of grace is called, the “oil of gladness;’’ it is a delightful and ready motion which. it causes in the will; it is a sweet efficacy, and an efficacious sweetness. At what time God savingly works upon the will, to draw the soul from sin and the world, to himself, it does with the greatest willingness, freedom, and delight, follow after God, turn to him, close with him, and cleave to him, with all the heart,and with purpose never to depart from him, “Draw me, and we will run after thee;’’ Cant. i. 4; drawing signifies the efficacious power of grace; runnin g signifies the delightful motion of grace: the will is drawn, as if it would not come; it comes as if it were not his creature, nor doth prejudice his absolute power. As God moves necessary causes, necessarily; contingent causes, concontingently; so he moves free agents freely, without offering violence to their natures. The Spirit glides into the heart by the sweet illapses of grace, and victoriously assures the soul, “I will allure her, and speak to her heart;’’ Hos. ii. 14; not by crossing, but changing the inclination, by the all conquering and alluring charms of love; as a man doth that person whom he intends for his spouse; for to that he alludes; because

& in the latter part of the chapter, he speaks of the consummation of his marriage with the church, “In that day thou shalt call me Ishi;”’ verse 16; in what day? In the day that he should allure her, and speak to her heart. God puts on the deportment of a lover in changing the frame of the will. The Spirit is as one that leads the way into truth. “The Spirit shall guide you into all truth,’ John xvi. 13. Not drags; he opens the heart, not by a forcible entry, but as a key that fits every ward in the lock. The attraction of the will, is much like that of iron by the loadstone, which had no motion of itself, till the powerful emissions of the loadstone’s virtue reached it, and then it seems to move with a kind of voluntariness: there is no force used, but a delicious virtue emitted, which doth, as it were, both persuade and enable it to join itself to its beloved attractor. There is a secret virtue communicated by God, which, as soon as it touches the soul, puts life and delightful motion into it, which before lay like a log. It embraces Christ as its portion, and passes a decree, that it will keep his words, “Thou art my portion, O Lord: I have said, that I will keep thy words.’’ Psal. exix. 57.

It is insuperably victorious... What the mouth of God speaks, what his will proposes, his hand fulfils, 1 Kings vill. 24. It is not a faint and languishing impression, but a reviving, sprightly, and victorious touch. As the demonstration of the Spirit is clear and undeniable; so the power of the Spirit is sweet and irresistible; both are joined, 1 Cor. il. 4. An inexpressible sweetness allures the soul, and an unconquerable power draws the soul; there are clear demonstrations, charming persuasions, and invincible efficacy combined together in the work. He leaves not the will in indifference. If God were the author of faith only by putting the will into an indifference, though it be determined by its own proper liberty,

ve why may not he also be said to be the outho’ vie

unbelief, if by the same liberty of this indifference it be determined to reject the Gospel? For in the same manner God is author of one motion of the will as well as of the other, if he doth no more than leave the will in an equilibrium. This irresistibleness takes not away the liberty of the will. Our Saviour’s obedience was free and voluntary, yet necessary and irresistible. He could not sin in regard of the hypostatical union, yet he had a greater aversion to sin than all the angels in heaven. Is not God freely and voluntarily good, yet necessarily so? He cannot be otherwise than good, he will not be otherwise than good. So the will is irresistibly drawn, and yet freely comes to its own happiness. The soul is brought over to God, and adheres to him, not by a necessity of compulsion, but of immutability? As the angels necessarily obey God, not by compulsion, but from an immutable love. A sinner is necessarily a. servant to sin; a regenerate man necessarily a servant to God; both by a kind of necessity of nature. Our main business then is to see what new enlightenings there are in our minds by the Spirit in the Gospel; what tastes and relishes we have of divine truths; how our wills are allured to a sincere and close compliance with the proposals of God in the Gospel;

what vigour is in them. This is God’s method, to — 4

work first upon the understanding, then upon’ ‘the will. That work which begins first in the affections, without light dawning and breaking in upon the mind, and growing up by consideration and inquiries into the Gospel, is to be suspected, and is not likely to be durable.

This is the Scripture method, and every regenerate person may find it more or less i in himself. ». Inferences. — If God be the efficient cause of rege-

neration, then there is a necessity for the influence of

* t
md
te
God in all the progress of grace. It is yet imperfect;

the same hand that planted it, must also water and dress it. There is a tough sinew left in man’s will,

which makes him halt, after he hath the new name of Israel put upon him; a weakness of faith, a coldness of love, a faintness of zeal. What God is the Creator of, is nursed by his providence; what he is the new Creator of, is fostered by a succession of grace: the Scripture, therefore, appropriates all to him; he is the God that calls us, the God that anoints us, the God that carries us, the God that establishes us, the God that keeps us, and the God that perfects us. He is the author of grace in its first issue, its fruitful sproutings, its delicious ripenings; it depends upon him in creation, preservation, augmentation, as well as natural things depend upon him in all their progressive motions, from one degree to another, as the author of nature. When nature was most unspotted, grace was necessary to preserve and fix it in that state. Adam needed the assistance of grace with the embellishments of nature. The same power that i inspires us with life, inspires us with a perpetual continuation of it. If the tide that turns the stream of the river, desert it, and return to its own channel, the river will return to its natural current. Our hearts will decline, our life languish, unless fed by that supernatural efficacy which did first produce it. The plants cannot grow merely from their ‘own internal form; nor trees bring forth their pleasant fruits without the influence of rain and sun — drawing them out to make a show of themselves in flowers and fruits; and when they are brought. forth, they stand in need of the same rain to fill ‘them, the same sun to ripen them. “ge;

If God be the efficient cause. in regeneration, then we see where we are to have recourse in all the exigencies of the new cae to whom, but to the aua be

“~ “© thor of those beginnings of eternal life? God is all,

in all.parts of this glorious work; “The God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory, make. you perfect, strengthen, stablish, settle you,” &c. 1 Pet. v. 10.. There is need of preserving, strengthening, increasing, quickening, and perfecting grace.

These you need, and these must be sought, and will be had, from the same goodness and power by which you were new born.

God only can give such graces. There is a necessity for it: as God rears it, so.he only can keep it from pining away. Plants will wither, if the rain do not descend; the flame will be extinguished, if fuel be not added. There is as much necessity for a constant influence to keep up this new nature, as there is of the sun to preserve the horizon from that darkness which would invade it upon the turning its face to other parts of the world. The perpetual duration of renewing grace, is not essential to grace; for then Adam and the angels would have stood by virtue of their grace, for nothing ever loses its essential property; but it is by additional grace, distinct from the first grace, wherein our regeneration consists; as the preservation of the creatures in their natural beings is by an act of God, distinct from his creative:act. The first grace God gives now, is a bounty to his creature, but it is further an obligation upon himself, not as it is grace, or as it is his own work, for Adam’s grace which failed, was wrought by his fingers, inspired by his breath; but as it is a new covenant grace which alters the condition of it. God’s finger wrote the law in the heart, and his breath can alone blow the dust off; that would fill the engraved letters.