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which is wrought without me, for the justification of my person, but likewise as to what is wrought within me, for the sanctification of my nature. As I cannot have a sin pardoned without Christ, so neither can I have a sin subdued without Him; neither the fire of God's wrath can be quenched, nor yet the filth of my sins washed away, but by the blood of Christ. So that I wonder as much at the doctrine that some men have advanced concerning free-will, as I do at that which others have broached in favour of good works and it is a mystery to me how any that ever had experience of God's method in working out sin, and planting grace in our hearts, should think they can do it by themselves, or any thing in order to it. Not that I do in the least question but that every man may be saved that will (for this I believe is a real truth); but I do not believe that any man of himself can will to be saved. Wheresoever God enables a soul effectually to will Salvation, He will certainly give Salvation to that soul: but I believe it is as impossible. for any soul to will Salvation of himself, as to enjoy Salvation without God. And this my faith is not grounded upon a roving fancy, but the most solid reasons: forasmuch as of ourselves we are not able in our understandings to discern the evil from the good; much less then are we able in our wills to prefer the good before the evil; the will never settling upon any thing but what the judgment discovers to it. But now that my natural judgment is unable to apprehend and represent to my will the true and only good under its proper notion, my own too sad experience would sufficiently persuade me, though I had neither Scripture nor reason for it. And yet the Scripture also is so clear in this point, that I could not have denied it, though I should never have had any experience of it; the Most High expressly telling me, 1 Cor. 2. 14. that the “natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." "Neither can he know them," i. e. there is an absolute impossibility in it, that any one remaining in his natural principles, without the assistance of God, should apprehend or conceive the excellency of spiritual objects; so that a man may as soon read the letter of the Scripture without eyes, as under

stand the mysteries of the Gospel without grace. And this is not at all to be wondered at, especially if we consider the vast and infinite disproportion betwixt the object and the faculty; the object to be apprehended being nothing less than the best of beings, God, and the faculty whereby we apprehend it, nothing more than the power of a finite creature, polluted with the worst of evils, sin. So that I believe it is a thousand times easier for a worm, a fly, or any other despicable insect whatsoever, to understand the affairs of men, than for the best of men, in a natural state to apprehend the things of God. No, there is none can know God, nor by consequence any thing that is really good, but only so far as they are partakers of the Divine nature. We must, in some measure, be like to God, before we can have any true conceptions of Him, or be really delighted with Him. We must have a spiritual sight, before we can behold spiritual things; which every natural man being destitute of, he can see no comeliness in Christ, why He should be desired; nor any amiableness in religion, why it should be embraced. And hence it is, that I believe the first work which God puts forth upon the soul, in order to its conversion, is to raise up a spiritual light within it, to clear up its apprehensions about spiritual matters, so as to enable the soul to look upon God as the chiefest good, and the enjoyment of Him as the greatest bliss; whereby the soul may clearly discern betwixt good and evil, and evidently perceive that nothing is good but so far as it is like to God, and nothing evil but so far as it resembles sin.

But this is not all the work that God hath to do upon a sinful soul, to bring it to Himself; for though I must confess, that in natural things the will always follows the ultimate dictates of the understanding, so as to choose and embrace what the understanding represents to it, under the comely dress of good and amiable, and to refuse and abhor whatever, under the same representation, appears to be evil and dangerous; I say, though I must confess it is so in natural, yet I believe it is not so in spiritual matters. For though the understanding may have never such clear apprehensions of spiritual good, yet the will is not at all affected with it, without the joint operations of the grace of God

sage occurs

in Ovid, Metam. lib.

upon us; all of us too sadly experiencing what St. Paul long Rom. 7. 15. ago bewailed in himself, that "what we do we allow not," that though our judgments condemn what we do, yet we cannot choose but do it; though our understandings clearly discover to us the excellency of grace and glory, yet our wills, overpowered with their own corruptions, are strangely hurried into sin and misery. I must confess, it is a truth which I should scarcely have ever believed, if I had not such daily experience of it: but, alas! there is scarce an hour in a day, but I may go about lamenting with Medea, [The pas- in Seneca, Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor, 'though I see what is good, yea, and judge it to be the better, yet I vii. v. 20. Very often choose the worse.' And the reason of it is, because as by our fall from God the whole soul was desperately corrupted, so it is not the rectifying of one faculty which can make the whole straight; but as the whole was changed from holiness to sin, so must the whole be changed again from sin to holiness, before it can be inserted into. a state of grace, or so much as an act of grace be exerted by it. Now, therefore, the understanding and will being two distinct faculties, or at least two distinct acts in the soul, it is possible for the understanding to be so enlightened as to prefer the good before the evil, and yet for the will to remain so corrupt as to choose the evil before the good. And hence it is, that where God intends to work over a soul to Himself, He doth not only pass an enlightening act upon the understanding and its apprehensions, but likewise a sanctifying act upon the will and its affections, that when the soul perceives the glory of God and the beauty of holiness, it may presently close with, and entertain it with the choicest of its affections. And without God's thus drawing it, the understanding could never allure the soul to good. And therefore it is, that for all the clear discoveries which the understanding may make to itself concerning the glories of the invisible world, yet God assures us it is Himself alone that affects the soul with them, by inclining its will to them; for Phil. 2. 13. it is “God Which worketh in us both to will and to do of His Own good pleasure." So that though God offer Heaven to all that will accept of it in His Holy Scripture, yet none can accept of it but such whom Himself stirs up by His

Holy Spirit to endeavour after it. And thus we find it was in Israel's return from Babylon to Jerusalem, though King Cyrus made a proclamation, that whosoever would might go up to worship at the holy city, yet there was none that Ezra 1. 3. accepted of the offer "but those whose spirit God had raised ver. 5. to go up." So here, though God doth, as it were, proclaim to all the world, that whosoever will come to Christ shall certainly be saved, yet it doth not follow that all shall receive Salvation from Him, because it is certain all will not come; or rather none can will to come, unless God enables them.

I am sure, to say none shall be saved, but those that will of themselves, would be sad news for me, whose will is naturally so backward to every thing that is good. But this is my comfort, I am as certain my Salvation is of God, as I am certain it cannot be of myself. It is Christ Who vouchsafed to die for me, Who hath likewise promised to live within me; it is He that will work all my works both for me and in me too. In a word, it is to Him I am beholden, not only for my spiritual blessings and enjoyments, but even for my temporal ones too, which, in and through His Name, I daily put up my petitions for. So that I have not so much as a morsel of bread, in mercy, from God, but only upon the account of Christ; not a drop of drink, but what flows unto me in His blood. It is He that is the very blessing of all my blessings, without Whom my very mercies would prove but curses, and my prosperity would but work my ruin.

Whither, therefore, should I go, my dear and blessed Saviour, but unto Thee? "Thou hast the words of eternal [John 6. 68.] life," and how shall I come but by Thee? Thou hast the treasures of all grace. O Thou that hast wrought out my Salvation for me, be pleased, likewise, to work this Salvation in me. Give me, I beseech Thee, such a measure of Thy grace, as to believe in Thee here upon earth, and then give me such degrees of glory as fully to enjoy Thee for ever in Heaven.

ARTICLE IX.

I believe God entered into a double covenant with man, the covenant of works made with the first, and the covenant of grace made in the second, Adam.

THAT the Most High God should take a piece of earth, work it up into the frame and fashion of a man, and [Gen. 2. 7.]"breathe into his nostrils the breath of life," and then [Lev.18.5.] should enter into a covenant with it, and should say, “ Do this, and live," when man was bound to do it whether he could live by it or no, was without doubt a great and amazing act of love and condescension; but that when this covenant was unhappily broken by the first, God should instantly vouchsafe to renew it in the second Adam; and that too upon better terms, and more easy conditions, than the former, was yet a more surprising mercy for the same day that Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, did God Gen. 3. 15. make him this promise, that "the seed of the woman should break the serpent's head." And this promise He afterwards explained and confirmed by the mouth of His Prophet Jer. 31. 33. Jeremiah, saying, "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days; I will put My Law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people." And again by St. Paul, under the New Testament, almost in the self-same words, Heb. viii. 10. A covenant so gracious and condescending, that it seems to be made up of nothing else but promises. The first was, properly speaking, a covenant of works, requiring on man's part a perfect and unsinning obedience, without any extraordinary grace or assistance from God to enable him to perform it; but here in the second, God undertakes both for Himself and for man too, having digested the conditions to be performed by us into promises to be fulfilled by Himself, viz. that He will not only pardon our sins, if we do repent, but that He will give us repentance, that so we may deserve His pardon; that He

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