in him They are both one but for order sake we speak distinctly It s true we are commanded to turn in Ezek. 18. ver ult Wherefore turn and live And in another place Make you a new heart and a new spirit Because that is our duty and the condition of the covenant of life required of us The great condition is Turn and live Believe in Christ Jesus and be sâ—ved This is clear and there is no question against it But yet we are turned before we turn Jer. 31. 18. Turn thou me and I shall be turned and I will make you a new heart and I the Lord will circumcise thy heart For God makes good to his people not only the benefits and promises of the Covenant but the graces and conditions that are required he undertakes for grace as well as for the promise which is one of the greatest points and main hinge of Divinity The design and plot of God in the Gospel being to illustrate the glory of his grace having past by the Angels that sinned and leaving them without excuse without redemption very well Now then say I there is no point that serves better to that end then the depression of mans pride and power by that impotency and disability that is in man to that which is saving God by this magnifies the freeness of his grace that takes this work to his own power So that the conclusion will be mans foolishness doth magnifie Gods wisdom our unworthiness illustrates his freedom our poverty his riches our captivity his redemption and the enmity of man to God his reconciliation So that as in travelling by sea or land the more you raise one of the poles the more you depress the other and the higher one rises to your eye the lower the other sinks to your Horison So the same degree you raise man in worthiness or ability you lay low the grace of God and take it down from its due elevation The more you illustrate the free grace of God the more you derogate from the power and ability of man And therefore you may conclude there is no point or way serves more to the illustration of Gods grace then the depression of the pride and power of man To go on I must a little make a distinction No man can deny God to be the working or productive cause of grace but must some way or other exalt himself But I know very few men nay not excepting Pelagius himself that doth or hath denied God to be the working or productive cause of grace in us But they sufficiently depress the grace of God that will allow man the share of a meritorious or procuring cause to obtain it or some way or other to procure it of God For that is as contrary to the freeness of it as any thing can be If we give to man the working or producing of grace in his own heart that takes off from the drawing power of God to which it is to be assigned it takes from grace the power of it If we give to man the worthiness that takes off from grace the freeness of it for t is not free if there be a worthiness in man And we cannot give grace her due except we leave to her her power and her freeness And therefore Pelagius our Countryman at least a Welshman that said grace was given secundum merita according to works And the Semi-Pelagians that followed him that thought he went too high and therefore would mend the matter with Facienti quod in se est c. God denies not grace to men that do what they can that to a man that doth what he can though no such man I think is found in the world that walks up to the utmost of his light to him that doth the utmost of his power God doth not deny grace in our times when men have learned to spin a finer thred but to be as absolute fastened to the same doctrines as they were of old they do assign the first reason of Gods giving grace to the honesty and probity of man as they call it these spin a finer thred one then another But this I will say of them all That which they give to man they take off from God and so much as they give to mans worthiness or power so much they derogate from the power and freeness of God and do so much pull down grace as they build man And I think it to be a good rule We must build man upon God and not God upon man I confess that our Saviour here in my Text properly speaks of the power of man not the worthiness and merit which you may clear to your selves by the opposition Except my Father draw him which signifies some kind of power But I have spoken this little of distinction in derogation to the worthiness and merit of man that I might not trouble you with it afterwards and that I might shew you that mans merit is opposite to Gods free gift and free grace and will no more stand together then mans power and Gods drawing That 's an excellent Text for this purpose Rom. 11. 35. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath first given to God and it shall be given to him again reciprocally Thus much unto the point of merit because that I quit and come to that which my Text properly leads me to viz. The power of man to self-conversion or faith in Christ And here there are three things that offer themselves for distinctness of method First the subject unto whom this power is denied is every man in the world as he is considered abstractly in his corrupt natural estate without the traction of God No man Secondly that which is denied is power and ability to bring himself to God Not meerly will or readiness of will or forwardness as if man were in fetters or sick and crazy but power he cannot which is the most offensive denial that can be made to mans reason as leaving to man no share in his own conversion nor to God as they deeâ— any justice of commanding man to turn and believe Thirdly that unto which this power of man is denied is the most absolutely necessary thing to his salvation conversion and the most clearly easiest thing as men think which is believing in Christ then which they suppose that nothing is more facile and easie you think it to be as easie for a man to believe as for a sick man to cry out for a Physician or a hungry man to call for meat whereas Christ saith without coming to me you cannot live For t is a work that requires the drawing of God and such a work as is in no mans hand First the subject No man If I open this point genuinely according to the Text I must look back ver 41. where Christ silences the murmurers and gives them a general reason that reaches all them and all men else No man can And then also it gives a comfortable
faith and repentance but God requires not the performance of the conditions by mans own power for therefore the Covenant is altered from Do this and live unto Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved they are both exprest Rom. 10. 5 9. because man fallen man could not abide such a condition of life as must rest upon his own power to performance which was before possible to him while he stood in integrity but now is impossible to him in sin this objection may be further pursued and then I confess you make a hard knot of it Obj. Still it seems the condition continues impossible for man by a natural power cannot perform personal and perfect obedience neither can he believe neither keep the law nor obey the Gospel neither perform the condition of works nor yet of Faith and what are we then the better Answ You must distinguish between a natural power and a power restored by grace as to the natural power there is no more in man to believe in Christ then to perform the law to a natural power both these conditions are impossible let me not offend you in words for to Do this and live you do not pretend to but to Believe and come to Christ that you say you can But the text saith no man can come to me Oh that you could but feel this impotency in your selves but then the power restored is a power to believe in Christ which is not restored to keep the law of works but unfeignedly to believe in and love Christ and this power is given by the drawing of God to all that do indeed come to Christ those that are not drawn do not come all that come are drawn and impowred to believe Gods drawing and mans coming are both of one latitude one measure one extent as many as the Lord works upon and draws they do come ver 45. And those that are not drawn do not come ver 44. and this I call the restored power not restored to man to keep the Law but to believe in and receive Christ Jesus And so the power to perform the condition of the Covenant is a restored power but to perform the condition of the Covenant of works there is no power restored therefore Austin saith God will not that it should pertain but only to his Grace that man should come to him that being come he should not recede from him And that God would not have the condition of this Covenant to be built on mans power of performance I prove by three Reasons Reas 1 First God is pleased that his promise or Covenant should be sure to all the seed Rom. 4. 16. Therefore it is of faith that it may be by grace to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed not to all the world but to all the seed and how unsure it had been if it had stood and bottomed on man the experience of the first man Adam doth teach who though in his integrity made shipwrack of all by defection from it much more may be said of man under sin were he not supported by the power of a better prop the Mediatour God will have it sure to all the seed And therefore will not establish it on the works of man because he betrayed it and brought shipwrack on it at first and there shall come a shipwrack on it no more Reas 2 Secondly God doth not expect that the conditions should be performed by man only calls for it as a duty that I owe but not as standing in my power But God makes promises of the very conditions which he requires not of the benefits of the Covenant only but of the graces of it that they may keep it Mark the promises of the Covenant I will put my Law into their hearts and write it in their minds and they shall all know me Heb. 8. 10 11. I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall not depart from me Jer. 32. 40. I will will put my spirit within them and cause them to walk in my statutes Ezek. 36. 27. I will take away a heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh Ezek. 11. 19. And who will say that these promises are built on any conditions in man Reas 3 Thirdly Because of this Covenant Christ is surety which in the first Covenant was not If we deal with a poor or suspected man we lie hard at him for a surety happily we will take a rich mans word Though there was no surety of the first Covenant for Adam had none yet now there is a surety given that must stand at stake and therefor it is said God hath made him a Mediator of a better Covenant Heb. 7. 22. and this surety-ship of Christ shews that man is not to be trusted but upon surety And what undertaking Christ performs may be seen in his account he makes of his sheep John 17. 8. I have manifested thy word unto them and they have received it and have known that I came out from thee And believed that thou hast sent me this is an excellent undertaker and a good Accountant for his sheep not one of them is lost they have received thy word they have believed A rare comfort for all that are Christs they are undertaken for Christ is accountable for them to God 7. Lastly Since the glory of God is thus kept intire that all things are of him through him to him Rom. 11. ult and that rectum est index sui obliqui the right line is index of it self and the oblique or Crooked Let whatsoever doctrine that makes not all to be of him through him and unto him be hence confuted by this excellent test as First That which makes man a beginner of Conversion and God a helper of those beginnings that affirms assisting but not preventing Grace that which makes grace the nurse not the mother that brings forth a crutch for the lame but not life to quicken the dead that which makes God the finisher but not the author of Faith this is not Scripture doctrine this makes not all to be of him Secondly That which affirms that though there be no merit in Justification yet there is a power in man for Sanctification because it deals unequally with a long arm and a short one allows no merit and yet assumes a power that sounds not well neither yet this is a thought that is in many a mans heart Oh that God would pardon me and for walking with God let me alone Oh that God would forgive me my sins and I le cleanse my self I le live to God you will not assume the merit of Justification but you may not set your power in the place of the spirit of God in point of sanctification no more then merit in place of the Lord Jesus for Justification for in Psal 103. he forgives all thy sin and heals all thy disease ver 3. where in one verse you may see both
upon their souls nor were ever brought by it to a Life of Faith to an hatred of their most secret sins to a predominant Love of God to a superlative esteem of spiritual things and to an Heavenly conversation and that must perish forever for want of that Grace yea for their contempt and hatred of it which they verbally magnified in their preaching and disputes If any subject in Divinity be practical and to be read with holy affection and resolution it is this Remember when thou readest of Grace that the Reader is one that is lost and miserable till Grace recover him and must be beholden to Grace to save him from everlasting wo. Remember that God hath therefore thus wonderfully revealed himself in Love that appearing most Lovely to us he may be most Loved by us and all the beams of his transcendent Goodness may terminate thus upon our hearts and heat them into ascendent flames of Love Read till thou thus Believest and thus Lovest and then thou hast read well And I hope thou wilt find much in these Sermons which may be bellows and fuel for this holy fire Though they are not those exact and elaborate works by which Mr. Vines should be known in his great abilities to the world but such Sermons as he ordinarily preached to his Flock yet if even here thou find not matter to encrease thy tears in the remembrance of those faithful Labourers that sin hath deprived England of thou differest from One of the afflicted servants of the Church Rich. Baxter These Books following are to be sold by Abel Roper at the Sun in Fleet-street ALl Mr. Vines Sermons published by himself collected into one Volume The Papers between his Majesty and the Divines at the Isle of Wight concerning Episcopal Government with Mr. Vines stating his Majesties Concessions Vindiciae Fâ—â—deris A Treatise of the Covenant of God entred into with mankind in the several kinds and degrees of it by Mr. Thomas Blake Minister of the Gospel The Covenant sealed or a Treatise of the Sacraments of both Covenants Polemical and Practical especially of the Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace by Mr. Thomas Blake his vindication of the Birth Priviledge or Covenant-Holiness of Believers and their issue in the time of the Gospel together with the Right of Infants to Baptism Mr. Anthony Burgess his Expository Comment Docâ—â—nal Controversal and Practical upon the whole first chapter of the second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians his Sermon at the Funeral of Mr. Blake Three Sermons of Dr. Tho. Jacombs Bucanus Common Places English A Discourse of the visible Church by Francis Fulwood Minister of the Gospel The Italian Convert or the life of Galeacius Caracciolus his admirable conversion from Popery and forsaking a rich Marquesdom for the Gospels sake St. Augustines Confessions translated into English by Dr. Watts Reynolds Celestial Amities or the souls sighing for the love of her Saviour his benefits of Afflictions his Advice against Libertinism his Eternity weighed with temporal and fading things of this world Iosephus History of the Iews fol. The works of Mr. William Perkins first Vol. fol. Dr. Fulk on the Rhemist Testament fol. The Temple of Solomon pourtrayed by light of Scripture by Samuel Lee fol. The Story of Stories in a Harmony of the four Evangelists octavo Gods Drawing AND Mans Coming to Christ JOHN 6. 44. No man cometh to me except my Father which hath sent me draw him Serm. 1 THis Text speaks plainly and fully enough to the point of mans Conversion for coming in to Christ upon his Call which is the phrase used in the Text. and Conversion unto God differ not but in sound of words which amount unto one and the same meaning The Philosopher in his Dialect would call this Conversion or this Coming unto Christ a motion not local from place to place but transitive from Term to Term for there are two Terms of every motion And the Evangelist according to Scripture expresses the terms of this motion diversly but denoting the same thing From darkness to light saith the Text Acts 26 18. And from the power of Satan unto God The Design that I have in my eye is to Treat of the point of Conversion not pretending to accurateness and curiositie anxiously inquiring after the method or manner of Gods working But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and practically to handle this point unto you For as thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit or how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with Child so thou knowest not the works of God Eccles 11. 5. nor all the particulars of the methods and wayes wherein God works in the Conversion or Creation of this New man This Conversion sometimes denotes the potent and immediate work of God renewing and converting and this is called in my Text Gods drawing of a man to Christ in these words Except my Father draw him Sometimes it denotes the action of man converting himself to God by the Faith and Repentance which he doth receive from God and this my Text calls mans Coming unto Christ when he is called in that phrase No man can come to me except In time these two can hardly be distinguisht but in order of causality they are easie to be distinguished one from another I mean Gods work converting or drawing man and mans action converting and coming unto Christ The act of man in coming to Christ that 's not first but the work of God drawing in to Christ that is first and the act of mans coming must needs follow as the Sun must of necessitie first shine upon the wall before the wall can give or reflect light or heat from it self back again Facti sumus opus Dei We are first made the works or workmanship of God there is Gods drawing Then Facimus opera Dei we do the work of God or walk in the works of God which he hath ordained that we should walk in them Ephes 2. 10. There is our coming That you may clearly look into every corner of this Text you shall observe here two things First the doctrine that is here taught by our Saviour Secondly the reason of his teaching it at this time The Doctrine here laid forth consists in these three things First the magnifying of the work of God in mans Conversion to raise up your praises thanksgivings to God by whom you are what you are for to his Power and Grace our Saviour Christ assigns the only or the principal part of it and that 's exprest in the work of Gods drawing a man to Christ Therefore this Doctrine is not spoken in a simple form he doth not say in plain words My Father draws man unto me but it s spoken in an exceptive or exclusive form of words excluding mans power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 except my Father draws no man comes to me So that without the divine traction there is not an ability or power in man to come
the knowledge of Christ Use 2 Secondly admire and magnifie Christ Jesus If Christ had opened the eye unstopped the deaf ear cut the string of the dumb tongue thou wouldest have leaped and rejoyced as they did in the Gospel These were the miracles he wrought when he was on earth but now if thou be a convert and he hath enlightned thy eye unloosed thy tongue that thou canst now speak to God in prayer and thanksgiving this is the miracle he works from Heaven exceeding those on earth upon the body and the reason is because these were wrought on them that must die if the dead were raised they died again But this miracle is wrought on thee that art not to die again thy spiritual death but always live as Austin saith And consider with thy self that among all the miraculous works of Christ that are reckoned Matth. 11. 4 5. The blind see the deaf hear the sick are raised up and walk this cure is added that the poor receive the Gospel As who should say these are the wonders I usually work and among them this may pass for a wonder too It s a pretty ingenious observation take something from it that may greaten your hearts to the admiration and magnifying the goodness of God And so I have shewn the greatness of the work Serm. 4 THe second Point is to shew the impotency and imbecillity of natural man of his own strength savingly to believe or convert himself It is said which I would have observed in John 5. 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you will not come to me that you might have life And of the very same persons and almost with the same breath in the 44. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how can you believe you will not you cannot What do you gather from these two expressions You may very well collect that this cannot is a moral impotency and a moral impotency as learned men do know differs very little from an unwillingness you cannot believe because you will not being disabled by such worldly and carnal lusts and prejudices as do forestall and take up your hearts and make it justly to be said you cannot The reason why I compare together these two verses you will not come to me and ye cannot believe is to shew what manner of impotency Christ points us to in this matter namely Not a meer and simple impotency that is without our default but a moral and culpable impotency whereby the heart is captivated by some lust or forelaid with prejudice against Christ so as we cannot because we will not come to him And of this impotency let me say this to you at the first it takes away all excuse all defence and the more impotent the worse who can excuse his blindness that hath purposely put out his eyes yea though it be resembled in Scripture to a simple impossibility yet it is moral and culpable Can the Aethiopian change his skin Jer. 13. 23. then may you that are accustomed to do evil learn to do well it is a moral impotency the fault whereof may be charged upon you such as for which you stand culpable before God This impotency of man to convert or come to Christ I speak unto in this branch and mans unwillingness in the next And so ye shall have both the cannot and the will not There is an impotency in man and a disability to come in to Christ and act to his own conversion These are the same things but in the handling of this point I may sometimes name the one and not the other without offence Man in his integrity for truly the estate of mans created integrity hath as I conceive a mighty influence into all Divinity man in that estate had a posse velle to obey God a power to love and to keep communion with God An absolute velle was not determined but he had a power and therefore men that are under the fall as all men are must needs acknowledge they have lost somewhat by it we have lost the power to will which he had nay some say that if there were a power of believing in Christ and of conversion in lapsed man he should seem to have a greater power then Adam As the power to rise again from the dead is greater then to act life when a man is alive I hold it to be but a trifling objection which is made upon design and this is the design upon which it is made for clearly to know the reason of any thing is to know the thing it self to oblige God by vertue of his Covenant with man fallen to give forth universal grace because this faith in Christ this repentance were not lost in Adam who could not lose that which he had not neither are we to pay for that we took not up in him Therefore God is engaged to give to man a power to believe because he hath made a new Covenant with me he is bound to enable me to be responsible to the Covenant that he hath made This Objection amounts to no more but this That Adam could not exercise faith in Christ nor the grace of repentance I grant it there was no need of it nor conversion very true for that supposes a deviation and a fall If man say he could not look to the Serpent on the pole I answer true because neither had the fiery Serpent stung nor was the Serpent set upon the pole to heal them that were stung before the institution of God had taken place Adam did not exercise obedience to the fifth commandement and yet you account it one of the moral commands for he had no Parents and Superiors to honour Very true but there was a root of integrity a root of faith in God and love of God there was the image of God from whence if occasion had been grace might have budded forth But to argue from the not-exercising to the not having of grace is no argument There was a seminal in Adam of which there is none left in man the root of holiness the principles of faith these are lost Nor are there any seminals left in man out of which faith can be educed as forms are educed out of the fitness of the matter The Scripture seems to speak punctually to the point No man can come to me John 6. 44. The natural or animal man by the light of his intellectual perception cannot know the things of God 1 Cor. 2. 14. The wisdom or sense of the flesh is not subject to the Law of God nor can be Rom. 8. 7. They that are in the flesh cannot please God Rom. 8. 8. We are not sufficient that is not impowered of our selves to think any thing as of our selves 2 Cor. 2 3. And this is enough to prove this point of mans impotency and disability Which shall be handled in two members First No man can by his natural power convert and turn to God Secondly No man can come to Christ or believe
may be secundum quid or respectively impossible that is not simply so It s not simply impossible to rise from the dead for then it could never be but its impossible for a dead man to raise himself So to believe in Christ it s not impossible through grace the divine traction but to a man as he is in himself and in sin it is impossible Faith in Christ is not an impossible act but it is not possible by mans own power and therefore if Reason quarrel at God for laying the conditions of the Covenant of life upon impossibilities for not laying the condition of the Covenant in mans own power yet that Reason is without reason in it for the condition was once in mans power and the forfeiture of the Covenant the event may teach us to bless God that it is so no more that the condition of the Covenant lies no more in the power of man to forfeit it or in man only to accomplish it God hath given I do believe and doth give so much power unto man as may justifie his commanding man and condemning in case they do not observe his commands there is so much power given as may justifie God in both and so much knowledge as God doth give to any man in the world so much knowledge as any man hath or might have so much he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without excuse I think that 's a Principle and Maxime that will go far in all Divinity So much power as you have so much your excuse is taken from you so much you may believe and therefore are left inexcusable even those that have knowledge of God but by the light of Nature so much as they did know him are without excuse But certainly as it s said the purpose of Gods election stands not by our works but ex vocante of him that calleth Rom. 9. 11. so is his Covenant made good not by mans putting the condition but Gods giving of it else the covenant that he hath made with us should be a covenant of works or merits and not of grace if it did not stand upon Gods performance as it doth And therefore it s not laid upon an an impossible condition but a condition performed and made good by God himself I will put my law into their hearts and I will write it in their minds and they shall all know me that is shall believe in and love me and accept me for their God as the tenour of the covenant runs Heb. 8. 10. And the very reason why this covenant of life should not be defeated frustrated and made void therefore it s not committed to your power but reserved to the hands of the grace of God to make it good Rom. 4. 16. Therefore it is of faith that it might be of grace to the end that the Covenant might be sure to all the seed otherwise it had been as unsure as the Covenant that he made with Adam or as that which he made with Israel that God said was broken Heb. 8. 9. For in every Covenant that with Adam the promise was sure enough to the condition life was sure enough to the condition Do this if that condition had been performed it had been a sure covenant none surer What failed then the condition failed 〈◊〉 because it leaned on man and for that reason only it failed and therefore the covenant was not sure and this I have spoken all along to answer that objection that the covenant might be sure the condition doth not rest barely on the power of man But God performs the condition of the covenant that he makes with his people and I think he that gives the object of faith gives also the act of faith He that gave the serpent on the pole gives also the eye to look upon it that so Christ the object of your faith and faith that you might believe in him might be the gift of God For what avails Christ set forth to a people and no faith to lay hold on him Of what avail is the setting forth of an object where there is no eye to see it Grace I believe saving grace though I confess it is not so resented by many learned men comes from the purchase and merit of Christ as well as benefits of pardon The conditions and graces of the covenant come from the merit of Christ also without which there is no pardon since Christ is called Heb. 7. 12. the surety of a better Covenant an undertaker of the best Covenant Now all the question of the Text will be whose surety is Christ Is he Gods surety that makes it or mans surety with whom it is made Gods surety saith a learned man of latter times God and mans sure I think mans surety he is by giving satisfaction to the justice of God for the sins of man Gods surety he is by sending forth his Spirit to certifie and seal us Or thus he is surety for God that he will pardon us and sponsor or undertaker for us that we shall know God and believe in Christ and receive him for a Saviour therefore also called a Mediator of the same Covenant Now a Mediator is is not of one but of two parts in Zach. 13. 9. I will say You are my people they shall say The Lord is my God If Christ then be the surety of the Covenant Gods surety and ours for God and for us it will follow that Christ undertakes for us and that we have grace our believing our faith from his merit and his purchase Well then First I say all men are naturally unable to believe in Christ or to come unto him for though he be a fountain opened that was once a fountain sealed comparatively Zach. 13. 1. In that day a fountain shall be opened for sin and for uncleanness speaking in the dialect of the Jewes that is as in the Law there were sins and uncleanness sin to be purged by blood and uncleanness to be purified by water and there were expiations of sin and purgations of uncleanness represented in several Types So the Prophet shews that Christ shall answer them all 〈◊〉 Christ all these Types yet though he be a fountain opened as the impotent man said I have none to put me in Ioh. 5. 7. I lie lame and decrepid at the pool-side and when the water is moved have none to put me in So it may be said in this point there is a fountain opened in Christ Jesus for sin and uncleanness but none is able to come to it without a supernatural help and a divine hand go along with him The Gospel-preaching opens this fountain to you and this grace Pelagius rested upon and held that the grace of God was the preaching of the Word and opening the fountain to men For Orthodoxis verbis non abstinuit He as other Erronists that live in our times did not abstain from Orthodox words But what said Austin to them Nolumus istam gratiam
God puts in a mighty hand and an absolute will I will put my Law c. in the other he guides by his Spirit and a grace is given not so infallibly to bring the effect which is good not simply necessary to salvation because if you sin by not doing your duty yet your estate is not in danger and here let me suggest a meditation or two to such as are fit to make use of them First Let the regenerate consider that whereas they have resisted grace and the motions of it a thousand tmes and since their Conversion have grieved the Spirit by indulgence of their lusts against the motions of the Spirit and the dictates of their own consciences if God had permitted them unto themselves and let them have done so in the act of Conversion they had for ever perisht and their resistance at other times shews they might or would have done so then if God that may let his child slip and take a knock did not yet keep a hand upon them that they fall not into the fire Secondly Let them learn to understand God a right and to take comfort that though in other acts he please to suffer them often and very grievously to fall shewing thereby the perverseness of their spirits yet remaining so as that they may fear they may lose all and fall so as never to arise more yet be comforted that in such things as salvation lyes in he will be sure and an infallible God to his Elect to support and raise them up again and let them also remember that God so makes good the condition of his Covenant in things essential unto salvation to work them infallibly I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall not depart from me Jer. 32. 40. or as it is said Psal 37. 23 24. The Lord or dereth a good mans steps and he delighteth in his way though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand though he fall in the Covenant he shall not fall from it Reas 4 Fourthly and lastly Converting grace in the act of it cannot be resisted and defeated because it is given to that end to subdue and overcome the resistance of flesh and blood now that which is given to take away resistance no resistance can stand against it therefore in the work of Conversion it will leave in the heart no actual rebellion that shall perk up to defeat the work A nullo duro corde râ—spuitur it is not resisted by the heart that 's hard because it takes away the hardness and gives a heart of flesh Ezek. 36. 27. I will take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh take away the heart untractable and give a heart that 's tractable I will take away the heart that 's hard as stone to resist and give them a tender heart to feel their own misery I may give it by this comparison In a room if the windows be not shut the darkness cannot resist the light because it s given to that purpose to expell the darkness And when God gives any thing to take away an opposition that opposite cannot stand in its place so this Divine grace is refused by no hard heart of man when it comes with the meaning and purpose of God to carry it on because then it comes with commission and authority to remove obstacles and pull away bars that it may overcome And this much be spoken of Conversion as it denotes the act of God drawing or Converting and the deportment of mans heart under it The second consideration is as Conversion denotes the action of man Converting to God upon and by vertue of this drawing of God And what is the deportment of the heart when it is toucht by this loadstone and drawn by this grace freedome say I and willingness there follows thereupon a coming nay a running after God in Cant. 1. 4. For the power of God and willingness of man do consist together thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power Psal 110. 3. Now therefore I will say that man cannot be supposed in this act of Conversion as it is his to resist or be unwilling because he is made willing and the resistance for this act is overcome and subdued And therefore it is said as God draws so man comes and his coming is an act not of force but of freedom being both powerfully and sweetly drawn by the cords of man by the bonds of love Hos 11. 3. And therefore as mans resistance of Gods work and his free coming in to God cannot stand together in the same act there is reason in nature for that a man may as well move East and West at the same time as resist and be willing to come all at one time for there is a contradiction in the terms to say though a man doth believe yet he will not believe for man will not resist being made willing to comply with God and this is the miracle of Gods power and grace in mans Conversion that the heart so prone and apt to run into sin so headlong and uncontrouled should upon the touch of this loadstone of grace be made so free and delightful to come to God and by this marriage consent to joyn hands with God loathing in comparison of God the thoughts of those lusts and pleasures which he so doated on in the dayes of his captivity to sin and saying as they said to their Idols Fie upon you get you hence and therefore there can be no resistance remaining in this coming so that its clear that neither in the act of Gods drawing or in mans act of turning will there be found a victorious resistance an habitual corruption there will remain but that it is bridled at any time let it magnifie for ever Gods mercy and grace we can do nothing against the truth but for the truth saith the Apostle But though this may well be spoken to magnifie the grace of Conversion to set you to pray for it and to teach that God is able to carry man out of himself in despight of his teeth as I may say as Iron toucht with the loadftone cannot but move to the North yet withall to let you see to humble you the abomination that is in your hearts what enemies you are to Conversion and faith in Christ and consequently to your own salvation Serm. 11 NOw having said this concerning the grace put forth and exercised in the act of Conversion and shewn thaâ— Converting grace flowing from the purpose of God is in the act of Conversion victorious over the resistance of the corrupt heart and though it do not suddenly extirpate all the degrees of habitual perverseness and rebellion yet it binds up the actual resistance at that time as that it is imprevalent to divert the work of so powerful grace I come to the point wherein the resistance offered to the grace of God doth lie and
affection and yet the proud and self-righteous people were gainsaying and contradicting thi◠was their resistance as long as Gods patience and do not you find this in your own hearts how often have you gainsaid and contradicted the God of heaven Fifthly The counsels invitations and reproofs of Wisdom i.e. of Christ are not regarded in Prov. 1. 24. a terrible place I have called and ye refused stretched out my hands and no man regarded ye have despised all my counsel and set at nought all my reproof or hated my reproof and the◠he proceeds to tell them how bitterly he will go out against them here is calling stretching out of hands counsel reproof and they all refused not regarded despised hated I think this amounts to the point of resistance Sixthly The Holy Ghost is resisted in Acts 7. 51. ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised ye do alwayes resist the Holy Ghost but how doth this stand with the former point that the Spirit of God in the point of Conversion cannot be resisted I answer The clear meaning of this phrase is the Holy Ghost speaking in the Prophets you have resisted the Holy Ghost speaking and testifying to you in the Prophets as if he had said the Holy Ghost speaking in the ministry and calling by the Word of the Gospel that 's it you have resisted for it s not meant of the renewing Spirit in the heart but of the Spirit testifying in the Prophets ye uncircumcised and stiff-necked like a Bullock of a hard neck that will take no yoke and uncircumcised that is hard and obstinate against God you do alway resist the Holy Ghost this was their resistance from whence you learn that there is a natural hardness of heart an obstinate neck that is the cause of mans resistance of the Holy Ghost both speaking in the Word and knocking at the door and exciting with motions the heart to believe all is in vain for it is but as knocking at a dead mans door or at a guilty persons door that will put more bars when one knocks so when God knocks and layes siege to mans heart there is made the greater opposition Seventhly Men that refuse to submit to the way of Salvation by God appointed are said to reject the counsel of God against themselves 〈◊〉 7. 30. speaking of some that came not in to the Baptism of John some read it Towards themselves the counsel of God towards them for their good or the counsel of God against themselves that is to their own hurt and prejudice in that they would not be baptized by Johns Ministry to the profession of the Lord Jesus people that will not come in to the Ordinances of God they reject the counsel of God against themselves to their own hurt this is through resistance Lastly Take a full measure of the height or this opposition there can be no higher expressions then those in Heb. 10. 29. to tread under foot the Son of God to account the blood of the Covenant an unholy or common thing and do despight to the Spirit of grace but who doth this are there such monsters in the world such miscreants as do this yes saith he that there is and who are they such as have been sanctified that is called into Christianity that 's the plain meaning and the word in the text reaches no farther separate from heathenish Idolatry and pollution to come to and profess the name of Christ and so have been sanctified and I take those in Heb. 6. 4. 5. to be the same men with these there it s said they were enlightned and tasted they were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and yet they fell here you find men sanctified to tread under foot the Son of God there is a double apostacy a simple apostacy called a stealing or a shrinking away from the profession of Religion And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a venome apostacy falling away with despight against Religion or Christ that in Heb. 6. speaks of the former this in Heb. 10. of the latter and what doth God construe their action to be a treading of the Son of God under foot and offering despight to the Spirit In all these particulars I have held my self to the New Testament and the words of Christ in it and now as I said that we have particularly pondred the words of Scripture in this point let us sum them up together here is hating opposing ones self slighting refusing resisting the holy Spirit rejecting the counsel of God and treding under foot the Son of God which fully amount to a resistance of the offers of grace Serm. 13 I Know it is a hard thing to convince any man of this therefore I have used Scripture words Gods language that we may not flatter our selves and that men may see there is more poyson in their hearts then they are aware of or will own I know what it is that usually blinds men that they will not own these expressions of Scripture to belong to them for who will call himself an opposer of grace offered a resister of the Holy Ghost and that is because you confess your selves to be glad of the tydings of the Gospel of remission of sin and deliverance from hell and you delight to hear of Salvation as it is generally conceived to be a state of happiness not as it is a state of holiness and communion with God and in any extremity agony and death into which you fall you pretend to have some desires of grace as a bridge unto Salvation or at least seem to magnifie it much in words these things seem to be an argument to you that you are not resisters and neglecters of this saving grace but you may well remember that the foolish Virgins knocked at the door and cryed Lord Lord open unto us and the stony ground heard and believed the Word of the Gospel with a kind of joy And there is not the veryest coward in the world but will take hold of a swords point to save his life and to pluck him out of the water the Gospel as it is interpreted and looked upon by the eye of self-love seems very attractive of the desire of man towards it so long as he may serve himself and his own advantage upon it namely to live in sin and to his sin and yet be saved at last when he can sin no more so long there is no carnal heart will resist and make opposition but all this may stand with hate of Christ and Grace for till a mans heart be thus moulded and tempered by God as to affect Grace for reconciliation and for conversion that so you may be Gods as well as have him yours so as to live to him as well as have Christ dye for you till then there is little but fallacy and falshood in you the man that thrust in at the marriage feast who came to fill his belly with good chear not for the honour of the bridegroom was cast out speechless
man that hath life and sense in him should tremble Heb. 3. 11. So I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest that as there is an oath of God made to the heirs of promise to shew the immutability of his counsel Heb. 6. 17. marke it so this Oath is made a Barr against the Salvation of the resisters of his Grace as it is applyed and doth also signifie the immutability of his wrath that its like the law of the Medes and Persians that alters not and therefore fear to outstand the day of grace For be you assured that as sun-set to one may be and is sun-rise to another so the day of grace may arise to another and yet set to thee Oh that you would know and tremble at it fearing lest you should be at or past the sun-set of this day of grace and so I have finisht the three premises First That God offers Gospel Grace to men seriously and in good earnest Secondly It is natural to corrupt man to entertain this Grace offered with neglect and resistance Thirdly That therefore he is plunged into a sad and miserable Condition The second of which that its natural to man to entertain this grace offered with resistance is that which I am to shew the reason of The First and the Third that God offers that Grace which being resisted plunges men into worse condition then ever affords matter of use to us But for the reasons of this resistance though all reason is for mans acceptance thereof yet such is the frame of the heart that it opposeth it self against it and therefore cannot come to Jesus Christ the Reasons though they are manifold I need not long insist of having said so much on the point already I shall therefore only name a sixfold reason Reas 1 First from the natural temper of the heart of every man which is hard and impenitent and therefore called a heart that cannot Repent Rom. 2. 7. a heart of stone Ezekiel 36. 27. that is untractable to God and resisting as an adamant that resists and dulls the tool that should cut it the very sun that softens wax hardens clay the means of Grace harden therefore pray Oh Lord take away this heart of stone according to thy Covenant for a Broken and a tender heart is the Gift of God Reas 2 Secondly The contrariety of the disposition and inclination of the heart of man to Grace shews it for Grace offered and the heart to which its offered are as Contrary as light and darkness flesh and spirit and we know in nature that contraries cannot be reconciled overcome they they may be and many times one is by the victorious opposite fire may be extinguished by water but to make fire and water agree cannot be so may Grace overcome But the filth of the heart is unreconcileable having a contrary center to move unto and rest in Reas 3 Thirdly Grace disturbs the peace of a Corrupt heart and therefore is resisted It takes away the contentment which it finds in lusts and fins as the stronger man coming in Breaks the peace of the strong man armed and spoils his goods Matth. 12. 29. when the strong man the Devil keeps the house lust is in peace But when Christ comes he disturbs the peace and spoils the goods and that must needs cause dislike in the heart of man For men would not be awakened and disturbed Let me alone let me enjoy my peace you shall seldom see any conversion wrought without a great breach of peace when a mans peace is broken in which he slept upon the Cushion of the devil all his days it s a great sign that there is power of grace gone forth to make offers to convince and bring that sinner in this is the cause that in defence of its own peace the heart makes such resistance A Reas 4 Fourth cause of this resistance is the servitude of the will in Bondage unto sin which is not like other Bondages A Bondman is not content in his condition he would quit himself if he could and would be glad to hear news of his redemption But this is a voluntary Bondage and pleases better then a gracious freedom it s the bondage of the will and nothing can be more free and willing then that Titus 3. 3. serving divers lusts and pleasures is the character that the Apostles gives of a natural state the man is in bondage under servitude to lusts and pleasures and though a bondman usually desires freedom yet this bondage hath no such desires because it is not a painful irksome bondage It s like that of a fish that struggles against being pulled out of the water because it is his Element A bondage whereby the will of man whatever the School-men say is like a Roman Prisoner tied by both arms to two of his fellow prisoners so is the will bound by a corrupt Understanding on one hand and corrupt affections on the other so that alas how should this man willingly come to Christ no more then a prisoner in bondage can possibly break from his keepers and come to you Reas 5 Fifthly The heart is filled with Ignorant prejudices against Religion and Grace which it looks upon as an enemy that comes to strip it of all contentment and to bring it into captivity he thinks of Religion and all the pâ—rts of it otherwise then indeed it is that it is a morose way and will take away his delight or one thing or other he casts in his mind through the foulness of his fancy all the imaginations of the heart being evil only evil and that continually Gen. 6. 5. Reas 6 Lastly A prepossession or a further possession For corruption is the first inhabitant Every mans head is first taken up with ignorance and hate of God and as the first man that is possessour of a Castle will keep it against every Invader so man being first engaged in a party by the king of this world and put into the command of the Castle of his heart when Grace comes and in the name of God demands a surrendry into the right owners hands it s lookt upon as an invader And therefore he sets himself to keep it out because he will hold to his party so that grace cannot get admittance till it bring an ejectionem firmam to throw out the enemy in possession For these and such like Reasons man strives with God and by the withdrawment of grace God seems to be out-striven with by man Oh Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when will it once be Jer. 13. ult A phrase of speech that testifies there is a long patience in it The uses of the serious offers of Grace and the misery of those that resist those offers are these two Use 1 First in General England London thou hast had a long day of Grace where the Lord hath visited thee by tendring the things that belong unto thy peace Christ Jesus to be
must be buds before there be ripe fruit in the tree let there be day-break before there be Sun rise but when may it be said now the soul quickens now it lives 't is when God actually puts a principle of life into the Soul and changes it by habitual grace puts in the New creature the Divine nature and gives it power to believe And in this work there are two things that God doth to be considered first his taking away the heart of stone the vicious quality stocking up those roots of gall and wormwood sinne and delight in sinne and turning the heart into a softnesse and wearinesse of sinne and this he cals a taking away of the heart of stone Ezek. 36. 26. And then the second work that joines with and followes upon it is the planting of a new principle in its place as the heart of flesh is given to come in the place of the heart of stone whereby it shall be inclined to the work of faith and love and this shall be as Christ said a well of water springing up to everlasting life John the 7th and this is a work above the power of all means used in themselves till God use this Pen to write by but every tendent and previous act is not regeneration but that which gives a spiritual being and a vital principle for until there be a spiritual being begun there is no new Creature Thirdly There goes to this divine drawing a further work and truely that will not be acknowledged by many great men that out of the heart thus changed and prepared by habitual grace there is drawn out by the hand of God himself the very act of believing in Christ It is a hard thing to conceive how that should be but it is no otherwise then this that as when the wheel is made you put on your hand to turn it so when this habit of grace and new nature is put into the heart of man God puts forth this eximious act doth as it were lay his hand on the wheel turns the heart to draw out this act of Faith and this Christ speaks of heer coming is an act a motion a man cannot come till he move and so in Phil. 2. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Philip. 1. 19. to you is given to believe not to you is given the power to believe but God works the act the will not only the habitual change of the will when he hath habitually changed the heart then he drawes the act out the reason is if God had given the power and put a new principle into mans heart to turne and come to Christ and then leave him he had done no more for his Elect then he did for Adam when he was in his integrity God gave him a power to obey but he did not give him the act of obedience because there was a habit and a power given him and a sufficient power that he might have used if he would and have stood by it for if God had not only given him a power but this act then certainly he had stood but now the Conversion of man is certain not on a peradventure God puts a habit which he doth not leave to the will of man to act alone if he should I know not how it would succeed he doth not only habitually but graciously perform these great effects in his Elect and this is that which you may pray and look for and though you were possessors of the grace whereby you might be someway inclined yet look for this drawing of God whereby you may be dravvn to believing in Christ Serm. 27 The first part of this text vvhich concerns the impotency of man to come to Christ hath had much of the latter part intervvoven Gods dravving and therefore because I vvill not Tautologize I shall but as they say tie a knot upon the long thred that hath already run out in the handling of these vvords and shall make this point That they that come to Christ do come by the traction of God vvhich point I vvill open briefly in a few particulars First There is a sort of people in the world in whom God will magnifie his great power in drawing them into a state of salvation by bringing them in to Christ Jesus and they are described by a Character that is before hand unknown to us a great secret that they are a people known to him 2 Tim. 2. 19. The Lord knoweth them that are his and by this that they are given to Christ by the Father Joh. 6. 37. 39. they are called the chosen of God unto salvation 2 Thes 2. 13. they are the people of his inward and secret Covenant Secondly For these people that are thus set forth unto you God is the undertaker he undertakes for them to make them a new heart and a new spirit Ezek. 36. 27. to write his law in their minds and put it in their hearts Heb. 8. 10. Thirdly These all and every one shall be drawn to Christ they shall be all taught of God John 6. 44 45. Fourthly This undertaking work is succesful and effectual to these two things To the bringing of them in unto it To the keeping them in that state First To the bringing of them in for all that the Father hath given to me shall come to me vers 37. they shall all know me Jer. 31. 34. they shall all be taught of God v. 45 Secondly to the keeping of them in they shall not depart from me Jerem. 32. 40. they shall not withdraw of these the Apostle speaks Heb. 10. last vers we are not of them which withdraw to perdition And our Saviour Joh. 6. 37. them that come to me I will in no wise cast out And this is promised peremptorily of all that are Confederate or Covenanted persons they shall all come to Christ they shall all know me and I will give them a new heart and a new spirit every one of them shall be taught of God I will saith God and they shall And this Covenant of God thus made with his Chosen before the world began is irreversible not to be frustrated for 't is a purposed grace 2 Tim. 1. 9. There is not one of these in whom this undertaking grace shall not be operative working and succesful this is as the waters of Noah to me Isaiah 54. 9. God compares his Covenant with his people to the Covenant he made in Noahs floud and explains it thus as I have sworn that the flood shall return no more so that my Covenant concerning the waters cannot be reverst so neither shall the Covenant which I have made with thee be frustrate for it is a sealed Foundation the foundation of God stands sure and hath this Seal Tim. 2. 19. And concerning this know First That it is not built upon any contingent condition by us to be performed which man can defeat no more then there is required any such condition that the waters
do not return Secondly There are no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or marks set on this people aforehand to know them by distinctively from the rest of the world until he that owns the sheep doth set his brand upon them in their calling according to his Elective purpose and these be they of better or worser mould be they near or far off in what regard soever they shall come and if they cannot or will not no more then the rest of men they shall be all drawn they shall every one be taught of God in their times by such uncontrollable power as they shall not resist but since this company hath no mark before hand wherby it may be known who shall come to Christ and be drawn therefore learn Infer 1 First All are called by the Word promiscuously for there is a promiscuous calling besides this secret inward call according to elective purpose all sinners are called to repentance to faith and to Christ for in the tenour of the Gospel there is no exception it being given to every creature the condition of the Gospel-covenant is that every one that believes shall not perish but have eternal life Joh. 3. 15 16. Though this be made with all that are outwardly called yet this is not the inward covenant which is pursued and followed by the drawing of God that I have explained I may set it forth by this comparison A King or Soveraign Prince hath a company of Rebels in prison and being minded to pardon some of them he sends and proclaims to them this word if any of them bring and shew him his Privy Signet they shall be pardoned none can but he sends it to some whom he pleases whereby they are inabled to bring it these now are certainly pardoned but yet the Proclamation is to all that can though the King be not bound to send it to all Here is the case the major of the Syllogisme is whosoever believeth shall be saved the minor this but you and you that are in my secret purpose shall believe and therefore you shall be saved here is the outward part of the Covenant proclaimed to all and here is the inward part whereby he drawes some that are known to him whereby they are certainly saved the Covenant is but one though there be two propositions or parts in it Infer 2 Secondly Take heed of that madnesse so I may call it if there be any in this wild age of branding out the sheep of God or marking out the elect before they have calling grace for it is a secret not revealed to men after that it may be said as the Apostle in the 1 Thes 1 4. Knowing brethren beloved your election of God But first he had given those marks whereby he did know them for the Apostle did not know the elect of God by revelation but when the sun is risen that is by marks he saw upon them Inference 3 Thirdly Let it work upon that desperate crew that hang all the care upon this pin God undertakes God will perform therefore sleep securely till he call for there is no intention of the end but with destination of means which we are bound to wait on as much as if there was no election to salvation at all I say as much for the election of man to the end nothing impairs or abates the use of means as appears by Gods calling upon them so that there is no chusing nor election of God but there is also a purpose as powerful to bring the Elect by means to Christ God hath chosen you to salvation that 's the end 2 Thess 2. 13. but this is through the sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth as the means both of them appertaining to one election Ephes 14. Chosen us in Christ that we should be holy holiness is the means for without it no man shall see the Lord and the end is salvation to which we are said to be chosen And therefore let no man hang upon so loose a point the salvation of his soul upon Gods election which he knoweth not but on Gods chusing man unto the end because he chuseth him also to the means and the truth is the means are as much to be used as if there were no election of man unto salvation which I speak now to confirm men in a necessity of the use of means which are to be used as if our salvation did hang upon it as being only to be wrought out by us Inference 4 Fourthly Set your selves with your all and utmost to wait on the saving means of salvation for the gaining of Faith and the coming in to Christ Jesus for they are first in execution God first brings men to them and they must first be made good in you And let me tell you You need not trouble your selves about any thing of salvation but the means that tend unto it for the means is that about which you are to be employed the end follows naturally of it self there is no new thing to be done after the use of means for the accomplishment of the end there needs no further seeking of heaven than that we seek faith in Christ and holiness all your work and imployment is about means to be used and for salvation it self let it follow it will without any new imployment of yours Now for the further handling of this point thus laid down I shall in this method proceed in which I shall be as brief as I can First To remove those rubs at which the Reason of man doth stumble in the conception of this Point Secondly shew the nature properties of this drawing Thirdly How we may know that we are drawn of God or how a Believer that is already brought home to Christ may know that he is drawn of God For those rubs that lye in the way of Reason they are three First That mans act is not assigned to man himself but God as mans coming to Christ is assigned to Gods drawing which is easily resolved For mans act is assigned to man Rom. 10. 10. With the heart man believeth It 's not God it 's not Christ that believeth for us as some fondly speak but mans act is performed by Gods power Ille facit ut creâ—amus For faith God I will cause you to walk in my statutes Ezek. 36. 27. so the hand turns the wheel but it self turns not the hand throws the bowl but it self runs not So it is here God makes man to believe therefore it 's plain the glory of our believing is not ours whose the act is but Gods whose the power is though the act belong to us yet neither the glory nor the power not the power and therefore not the glory Secondly This power of drawing forces the liberty of mans heart and will I Answer There is a constraint of love which is not of force for the Apostle saith The love of Christ constraineth me 2 Cor. 5 14. God draws by the cords of
a man that is sweetly the drawing is not against the will because it makes the will willing it doth not move the wheel against the wheel or the natural motion of it but with it and then the heavier the plummet the faster the clock goes If the power of God go with the willâ— of man it moves more freely as the stream doth with the wind and tide then the more power God puts forth the more willing you come Thy people shall be willing shall be voluntiers in the day of thy Power Psal 110. 3. as if the power of God in that day wherein it s put forth should make a man a voluntier in coming to Christ Jesus It 's true God moves contrary to the natural stream as the tide carries up the River but when the Lord puts a new Principle a new bias into the bowl and that natural heart of sin is taken away then this coming though it be with drawing is so sweet that the soul prays Lord draw me and I will run Cant. 1. 3. Thirdly It is wondred at that God should command what he works or gives for if he mean to give it why doth he command and if he command how doth he give if it be a duty how is it Gods work and if it be Gods work how can it be my duty I Answer That God gives the grace he commands the duty bidden is also given and except it be given it is not the bidding will serve the turn 1 Joh. 3. 23. This is his command that we should believe in his Son So then our believing in Christ is a commandment of God And in Acts 17 30. God commands all men every where to repent Here you see that faith and repentance both of them are commanded of God and it s the command that makes them to be your duty Well yet for all this both these are given by God Phil. 1. 29. To you li's given to believe 2 Tim. 2. 25. If God peradventure shall give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth here you find that both are given Again Circumcisc your selves to the Lord and be no more stifnecked Jer. 44. Oh Lord may some say doth God put this impossible work upon me Ezek. 18. 31. Make you a new heart and a new spirit here these two are commanded Make you and Circumcise you and yet both these are promised and given Deut. 36. 6. I the Lord thy God will Circumcise thy heart and Ezek. 36. 26. I will make you a new heart and a new spirit Can any thing be plainer then this he commands and works that which he doth command he commands to convince us of our debt what is due and of our impotency that we cannot pay that we may fall down at the feet of this God and yet he gives too for the magnifying and honouring of his free grace to unworthy man and his power to impotent man that is unable and therefore we distinguish between Legal commands and Evangelical those of the law require the dutie but afford no strength but the Gospel which commands faith and repentance that are Gospel-graces carry the grace and power with them not unto all that shall oppose and shut the door but unto the Elect of God and the people of his inward Covenant So that for a man to say it 's a Gospel command is to say that 't is possible through grace that is there goes grace and power with it which the Lord will convey by the command for the commands of the Gospel are vehicula spiritus carriers and conveyers that carry along the Spirit with them John 6. 36. The words that I speak they are spirit and life being like the commands given to the dead Arise come forth It is a vain thing to speak commandingly to the dead true had they not ministred that which was commanded it had not prevailed and such are the Gospel-commands of repentance faith and making the new-heart or else how should the Gospel-word be called as it is the ministry of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3. 8. The ministery of the Spirit is Glorious So much for the removing of these â—ubs out of the way of Reason Serm. 28 Obj. We shall propound a question for the further handling of this point why should these Gospel-graces and especially faith that bring us to Christ require super-natural strength and drawing for their production And truly there lies some emphasis in this word Gospel-grace for may some say what do you mean by that I mean that grace which serves to the recovery of man to the Image of God which he had and hath lost for in this state of the Image of God which we had before we fell there was life but in this Gospel grace by that there is a resurrection unto that or a better life then we lost before for God intended to restore his Image unto man in Christ who is his Image and this Image is restored by the begetting of this Gospel grace that brings us to close with Christ so that this faith or coming to Christ is a grace of recovery or resurrection through and by which the Image we lost is again repaired now for these graces they do require a supernatural strength Answ It seems to me that a man that is able out of his own experience to make this objection is on the borders of believing for when as the difficulty of faith once appeares and man comes to be sensible and distrusts his own opposition then he begins to draw near or to be on the threshold of faith he that is at a losse is near his way the water being troubled there is no question but there is cure I but saith the cripple the Angel moves the water but I have no bodie to put me in so the promise invites the Word calls but I cannot close with Christ there held forth I am a cripple and no need but of a hand to help me and whereas in Isa 53. 1. there seems to be a double expression concerning this point of faith Lord who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed A man may say I heard the report and believe it to be true but the baring of the Lords arme must go to the making of man believe when we teach that men naturally cannot believe men wonder and say within themselves why should not I believe as well as another man I am as learned and knowing in the Scriptures and as pregnant as others and why should a man of a lesser measure and altitude of parts go before me in believing when we teach that men cannot keep the law of works there is never a one but will consent to it truly I cannot keep the Law I cannot love the Lord with all my heart and might and strength men yield they cannot but when we preach that faith is above your power you cannot believe and come to Christ though we report the report of Christ to you
by the almighty power of God Secondly By the conquest of Christ himself for we must be partakers of that before we can believe And thirdly by the energie and operation of the Spirit so that we may say as it 's said Zachariah 4. 6. Not by strength he means humane not by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts But to speak particularly to the point Faith in Christ as it is a duty in respect of the command of God so it is a principle of new life in order to the recovery of the state of Gods Image Now let the consideration of faith as 't is a duty passe and consider it as 't is a principle seed and root of spiritual life whereby we live unto or with God and then tell me in a sober judgment whether nature can plant a supernatural principle For plantation of principles the strength must be supernatural whether a supernatural principle is likely to be planted by the power of nature I think there are but few that will affirm it Formes naturally begotten by generation are educed as Philosophers say out of the power of the matter But can a supernatural principle be educed by the power of the matter No they rise meerly out of nothing I do not discuss now whether every duty of faith and repentance require a supernatural strength proceeding from the principles already planted as fruit from the â—ooâ— but whether the principles themselves the habitual graces be of Gods plantation yea or no which no man will deny that thinks the new creature to be Gods work as well as natural man is For and it is but reasonable for me to speak it shall we by our natural being confessedly be the creatures of God and deny our selves as new creatures in regard of our spiritual being to be of God there are but two places of Scripture whereby I prove all this that I have recited John 1. 13. all believers are born viaâ— by regeneration not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God a plain denial of the will of man to be a concurrent agent or cause in the work of regeneration he denies three things that natural generation hath dependance on and affirms one not of blood as natural generation nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God This spiritual birth is left to be of God and his will and mark it is denied to be of the darling mans will Deut. 29 4. you have seen great signes and wonders that one would think should have brought faith out of a rock of stone for the space of forty years ever since you were in Egypt and came along through the wilderness and yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear to this day Objects they had that one would have thought should have wrought faith in the heart of man But the reason why they had not a jot of faith wrought in them for so long a time was because God had not given them eyes to see so that the natural light of man is not that wherein faith is seated man may see and not see see and wonder but not see and believe a clear attestation that he must see by Gods light and perceive by a sense given to the heart by God And so I have done with that question and shall now open the properties of this drawing of God which are four First It 's victorious over all incounters and opposition Secondly It makes the person drawn a volunteir Thirdly It s a drawing by teaching vers 45. Fourthly It is such as is peculiar and proper to the elect of God First It is a victorious drawing prevalent over all resistance that can be made against it there is a contrariety in the heart of natural man to grace especially to faith and no grace is so much opposed tempted beleaguered and fought against by the Devil as a mans faith and none that the contrariety of nature makes head and fights against and resists by reason of the innate enmity which is in it as Faith it makes resistance but how As a drop of water falling into a great fire makes resistance to the fire as a drop can do but cannot make a victorious resistance to quench the fire but is swallowed up by it so the resistance that is made against the power of God cannot be victorious but that the power of God overcomes all resistance and withdrawment My meaning is when God engages purposely and intentionally according to his elective purpose to draw men to Christ then this power of God becomes and appears to be victorious then let Onesimus run from his Master to Rome God will find him in a prison there and convert him let Naaman be in Syria let the widdow of Sarepta be in a City of Sidon that is as Christ means out of all high ways to conversion the power and grace of God will find them out I say when God intends the work For as Israel is prevailed over and kept in slavery until God saith I have seen I have seen the affliction of my people and am come down to deliver them then you know the deliverance is wrought in despight of Pharaoh then there was no longer keeping them under slavery So till the time be that God hath appointed to draw his Children of purpose to his Son by an actual call a sinful lustful person lies in slavery to every sinful lust every cord holds him and then he shall find a door open and the resistance removed and suspended for that time When Moses was in Egypt and an Egyptian fought against an Israelite he slew the Egyptian in rescue of an Israelite it was a preludium or presage that he should deliver Israel out of Egypt the whole body of them and therefore when the body came to be delivered forty years after this he did it with a mighty hand So God victoriously brings out of the state of sin single souls and slays their corruptions as victoriously as the whole Church shall be delivered at last from the greatest Pharaohs death divel and sin and therefore observe the stile used in the Covenant is very peremptory I will give I will put and on mans part They shall come They shall know They shall not depart away from me The reason of the victorious power of grace is that the world moves by carnal and sensual objects and so the Devil and Flesh they move objectively their motion whereby they move from God is but objective propounding pleasing or fearful objects to the mind of man either drawing or alluring or affrighting a man from faith in Christ now if Gods moving and drawing should not be more powerful and strong then the devils the worlds or mans own withdrawing there neither would nor could be conversion wrought if the drawing of man to Christ were not more powerful than mans withdrawment
not possible that he should be holden of it Acts 2. 24. so shall the cords of thy spiritual death be loosed also if you belong to the election on of grace though you be as dead and inanimate as Christ himself was this will set you free knock off the fetters of bondage from you and all because there is a drawing of God whereby you shall be made able to come for all that the Father giveth me shall come to me Joh. 6. 37. and Christ professes that he hath the power given him that he should give eternal life to as many as God hath given him John 17. 2. And that this is no bolster for desperate security to flatter it self and hang all on that string If I shall be saved I shall appears by the certain means that are used whereby this end shall be effected whereby all that are within this chain shall come and believe Joh. 17. 6. I have manifested thy Name to them that thou gavest me so then say not You shall be saved you know not how for the Name of Christ shall be manifested to you and then he shews that the means used are effectual in and unto such ver 8. I have given them that thou gavest me thy word and they have received it and beleived in me that thou hast sent me them that thou hast given me shall live unto them I have manifested the means and to them they have been effectual these are the persons that are saved and called in time according to a purpose and grace given them in Christ before the world began 2 Tim. 1. 9. And therefore it is certainly effected Use 2 Secondly The people of God do receive grace from God even before they believe in Christ First in order to nature but I speak not of the minute of time What grace may some say before Faith what grace is that I Answer It is a grace to believe a grace drawing them and calling them unto Faith this is the first work this is the motion whereby Faith is begotten in the heart a motion which Faith doth not go before but follow Man doth not begin the work of his own grace for then he should be the first give but who hath given to him first saith the Text Rom. 11. 5. For as learned men observe Faith is given to unbelievers as 't is said God justifies the ungodly Rom 4. 5. true when he is justified he is ungodly therefore it 's said Ephes 2. 5. Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins he quickens us When we lay in our blood Ezek. 16. 6. he passed by and said Live When did he speak the word When we were unbelievers he drew us to come unto and believe in Christ as our Saviour saith When we were under the fig-tree as I may say he saw us So when you were far distant this eye and countenance of God was upon you for good and therefore as Austin saith The will of man doth forego many good works of man for God begins at the will but not all Why which is it that the will of man rectified doth not go before Not it self it doth not begin its own willing for that is first and that is made of God So I may say Faith goes not before all the workings of God because there is a drawing of God that works it as the putting of life into Lazarus was when he was dead in the grave so the first grace that 's given to man is while is in unbelief that grace is to be expected and lookt for with intention and bent of mind from this good and gracious God and therefore as it would have been a disparagement to the Miracle to have said that Lazarus stirred or breathed before Christ said Come forth so all they do extenuate and lessen the drawing and free grace of God that put something some seed of faith into man before God work first For man doth not first come to Christ and then God draw him that 's like the mothers jest with her child that 's down Come to me and I 'le help thee up for then it must up before so 't is as if we jested Rise stir move your selves then I 'le put life into you but God draws and then man comes as the Text saith But then there is a great question that hath not yet been handled for some may object Object There may be some reason given why God gives the second grace after the first as remission of sin to a believer but what is the ground or reason why God gives the first grace This is the great quaere the hard knot to answer to the satisfaction of men Answ I remember St. Austine saith Noli quaerere si non vis errare Do not search for the reason if you will not erre and be mistaken search not for the reason of this which hath no reason but the will and pleasure and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God God made the Creatures of nothing he made the world so well you acknowledg it Doth God make temporal creatures the bodies of men of nothing And is not the new creature made of as little as the old is But to free you from all quarrels and self-reasoning in this point if you will have a reason I l'e give you an old one I 'le assure you that it is elder than your selves by some thousands of years It was saith the Text 2 Tim. 1. 9. his purpose and grace given you in Christ before the world began and therefore you are called and saved This shews that no man can begin the first grace he may pretend to come unto Christ Jesus himself but he must receive this drawing first that he may be saved there is no mark upon any man that lies in the state of spiritual death by which he can know himself to be one that shall receive the first grace but it 's reserved as a secret in the bosome of God but when the first grace is given and man is drawn to Christ then he may know that he shall be saved true there is means to be used but not a mark to be known by But shall I tell you the bottom of the point there may indeed be a ground for the first grace in that secret-secret-covenant that is between God and Christ for doubtless such a one there is that all the members of Christ those whom God hath given him shall have this grace this new heart and spirit shall be all drawn and learn of God this in the general all that the father hath given to Christ shall come in if I be inclosed within that gracious covenant that God the Father made with the Son I shall certainly be drawn but for any marks of the first grace who these are and how to be known they have none until they be made the children of God for they are by nature children of wrath even as others the Lord only knowes who are his there are means
it himself and is pleased with that with which he was displeased before when the heart is thus overcome then it submits he stands faire in his own eyes no more his own face pleases him no longer he rebels no more but submits to the righteousness of God Ro. 10. 3. and so receives Christ as the greatest treasure in the world therefore free grace is a great obligation it binds strongly by the constraint of love Fourthly I close all with a motive to examination whether you be partakers of this drawing now before the Sacrament you are called the Lord invites you to his table he invites his friends his children these he calls by the word every ordinance breathes unto you little else but Christ Jesus for all sanctifying strengthning and corroborating grace from whence come they surely in Hosea 14 8. from me is thy fruit found all your strength arises from the greater and further reception of Christ Jesus therefore examine whether this work of God hath been on you to draw you to Christ Jesus faith is not a vulgar grace it is not an easie thing it comes from divine omnipotency and power as we say of the resurrection whereby a dead man rises from the grave it is a work of the power of God and therefore Christ confuting the Sadduces that denied it said you erre not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God I am saith Christ the resurrection and the life No man is alive till he take hold of and believe in the Lord Jesus now can a dead man be raised from the dead and not be sensible do you think faith is not a sensible work yes as 't is a powerful work so 't is sensible to man yet I confess men may be deceived as women are by false tumors and swellings so there are many delusions whereby a man may take himself to be in a state of grace when he is not because there is a false faith as well as a true it is the point of examination pressed by St Paul in 2 Cor. 13. 5. because of such moment examine your selves whether you be in the faith whether Christ be in you many think of a Christ without them you are all glad to know that Christ gave himself for you that he gave himself to be the blood of atonement but is he yours by the blood of sprinkling the Scripture puts this to the trial by words that intimate Christ within men Galath 4. 19. my little children of whom I travel in pain till Christ be formed in you and Ephes 3. 17. Christ dwels in our hearts by faith Gal. 2. 20 Christ liveth in me these phrases do difference the Jew outwardly from the Jew inwardly and teach in like proportion that he is not a Jew that hath the outward character and not the circumcision of the Spirit Ro 2 28. and let that obligation sit on you in the 2 Tim. 2. 19. Let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity for else it s not the sacraments will serve turne in 1 Cor. 10. 4 5. they eat of the same spiritual meat with us But God was not well pleased with them they were wicked and therefore examine your selves what work of God you have found upon your hearts whether you are renewed by the Holy-Ghost in Tit. 3. 5. God is said to save man by the washing of regeneration v. 6. that being justified by his grace you might be made heirs of eternal life To move you consider Motive 2 First The graces that have connexion with or do accompany salvation are inward things there is an inward seal a white stone with a name in it known to them that have it Sacraments seal the outward part the conditional compact that whosoever believes shall not perish but it is the Spirit that witnesses to ours that we are sons of God Motive 2 Secondly That unto and by those inward graces God drawes his people thus he undertakes to create a new heart to put his law into their mind this is that which is called the teaching of God Gods drawing so that its the inward work that gives thee comfort of this business But Object Doth not the manducation of Christs body and blood in the Sacrament tend unto this inward and spiritual inhabitation of Christ in us Answer Yes And so did the outward ordinances of the Jewes they tended to spiritual things there circumcision signified an inward circumcision as our baptisme an inward washing and our eating and drinking sets forth our communion of his body and blood our union and communion which are spiritual are here exhibited unto us as meat and drink of life as John 6. 37. He that eats me shall live by me this in this chapter so much spoken of is not sacramental but it is spiritual eating for it was spoken before the institution of the supper but it speaks of the kernel of it the eating of Christ his body by faith And so much for this text THE DIFFERENCE Between a True Inward Christian And the Outward Formalist DISCOVERED In three Sermons on Rom. 2. 28 29. By M r RICHARD VINES Late Preacher of Gods Word at S t Laurence Jury LONDON LONDON Printed for Abel Roper 1662. THE DIFFERENCE Between a True Inward Christian And the Outward Formalist Rom. 2. 28 29. For he is not a Jew that is one outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the flesh But he is a Jew that is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter whose praise is not of men but of God THe Apostle before he makes entrance upon the Doctrine of Justification which is one of the Cardinal Points of the Christian Religion doth convince and conclude that both Jews and Gentiles and so consequently all mankind are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under sin Rom. 3. 9. draws up the conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have shewn cause before or charged all men to be under sin teaching all Masters of conviction the necessity of that method to cut off the branch which is to be ingraffed from the tree where it had its first birth before it can be fit for coalition with a new stock and for participation of the root and fatness of the Olive Tree first make a man a sinner my meaning is make him miserable and when the strugling fish that is stricken with the hook is tired or choaked you may more easily draw him to the shore The great Rule to be observed in the conviction of gainsayers is to disarm them of their Armour those inward reasonings and strong holds wherein they trust then it is an eaâ—ier thing to bring them in when that wherein they trusted is 〈◊〉 down about their ears Think not saith S. John to say within your selves We have Abraham to our Father think it not speaking to the inward reasonings of the Jews at that 〈◊〉 The Apostle imitating this course â—oth as concerning the heathen