And so much for this Point That it is not in the natural power of man to believe Serm. 6 IF you please to keep in mind the order and method of handling this Point No man can come to me you may remember I propounded to handle these two things the impotency of natural and corrupt man and the repugnancy and opposition of him The impotency or disability of man was first in general to his own conversion in particular to his coming in to Christ which is the particular in the Text And having done with the Impotency or Adunamy of man which is a privative thing I now come to that which is positive and hath more of ths will in it though as I shewed it was a moral impotency The opposition to this work which will shew you that corrupt man is by his own will oppositely carried towards God And this point as the former speaks generally to the opposition that there is in man to God or to the holiness of God in two things First his contrariety Secondly his enmity to the holiness of God or his Law And it speaks particularly to the opposition that corrupt man doth make to Christ or the grace of Christ that is offered in the Gospel And that also in two things First his averseness to come and Secondly his resistance of grace when it s offered to him In which four steps this opposition may be handled and manifestly seen shewing you thereby what a miserable thing a natural man is being in statu belli in a state of war and hostility against the great God his Law his Grace and consequently an enemy and opposite to his own happiness And this point shall be opened to you to this end to vilifie and depress the pretended pride or worthiness of man and to exalt the freeness and power of Gods grace in the salvation of man For there are two eminent things in that Doctrine that you call the free grace of God Freeness and power First the contrariety of man in the state of corruption unto the nature of God is palpable and may be felt and so indeed had need to be rather then only taught And it is this Contrariety to God that renders the natural condition of man most deplorable and is a very good argument as there is any to prove that David in that confession of his in the 51 Psal did intend the confession of his own sin and not the sin of his Mother I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my Mother warm me For he went backward from his own trasient and actual sins to the original and root of his malady and aggravated his sin by this contrariety to God which saith no more then that expression of Paul Rom. 7. Sin that dwells in me or haply that in Isa 48. 8. Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb And concerning this contrariety of man to God so deplored I shew you these three things in general First this Contrariety to God is not acquired or gotten by iteration of acts and actual sins but is innate and bred in nature As the strings of an instrument are out of tune before you play upon them and they sound harshly to you so is the heart of man the faculties there are vitiated but not quite blotted out but all the strings are out of tune before they come to be actuated For they have a good saying in the Schools and t is true First the person viz. Adam infected mans nature but now the nature infects the person so that there is this contrariety of man to God by nature For Secondly the Image of God in man was before this contrariety in corrupted nature but this contrariety to God is now before the Image of God restored to man therefore it s said Ephes 5. 8. Ye were sometimes darkness but now are light And Ye were dead in sins but now are quickened Ephes 2. 1. Ye were the servants of sin but now ye are made free from sin Rom. 6. 17. that look as life and death servitude and freedom light and darkness are contraries one to another So are exprest the state of Nature and the state of Grace Thirdly there are in sin say the Schools two parts the first mans aversion or turning from God the second mans conversion or turning to himself or the creature The one of these hath more of sensuality and self the other bewrays more Contrariety to God But to come more particularly to the point This contrariety shews it self in this that an unregenerate man cannot by any principle that is in nature love God above all things or above himself which thing if well minded may let you in to see spiritual wickedness and not only carnal and sensual self may love God as a benefactor or as a servant to his own ends whom he may make use of to gain by and live upon Call this love of God if you will but such a man doth uti Deo ut fruatur mundâ— uses God that he may enjoy the world A Merchant may traffique and commerce with an enemy whom he hates so you may converse with God whom you hate in your hearts meerly to get by him and for matter of advantage This love of God is not amor amicitiae a love of friendship but concupiscentiae a love of lust to gain by God a love of parasytism and flattery and self-love of God Concerning which self-love I say particularly thus much First that every man by nature is brim-ful of inordinate self-love I call it inordinate self-love for there is a subordinate self-love which neither can nor ought to be put off God having linked together his own glory and mans happiness in himself For the chief end of man is to please God and enjoy him Moses in denying of himself to please God had an eye to the recompence of reward But that 's inordinate self love when a man seeks God in order to his own ends and neglecting his holiness which it is impossible a corrupt man should love only serves himself upon God and makes use of him in prayer or otherwise for his private interest either ut prosit or ne noceat that God may profit him and keep him in health or wealth or that God may not hurt him and lay judgements torments and plagues upon him as the love of a whore is for hire This is that inordinate self-love that a man hath to himself because he sets himself above God as making himself the end and God the means to attain that end Secondly this Self-love with the branches of it which are very many self-seeking self-pleasing self-ayming c. is the root and mother of all sin And therefore when the Apostle makes you a catalogue of sin he sets this in the front in 2 Tim. 3. 3. Men shall be lovers of their own selves And then they shall be filled with all politick sins and all sins of private interests and above all this and more then
Wherein there are three things to be taken up First That it is the Father of Christ that draws all the saved unto Christ He draws all the appointed Members that are fore-given to his Son by him The Father hath given them and the Father that hath given them draws them Every one that is the Fathers gift to Christ is the Fathers workmanship drawn to and created in Christ Jesus For the gift of God which is by Election is made good by the drawing of God which is by his calling or his operation according thereunto now because they are the gift of God by election therefore they shall surely come to him by the Fathers traction All that the Father gives to me shall come to me ver 37. Why because my Father will draw them and if my Father will draw they shall come And therefore God in Joh. 15. 1 2. is compared to a husbandman that sets in the graff Christ is the stock or body of the tree that bears and feeds it and the Believer is the graff that is set in by the husbandman Here is a distinct operation God sets Christ sustains and maintains it and he that is called and converted is the graff planted into this Tree and saved by Christ Jesus Object But doth not Christ say in Joh. 12. 32. that he draws I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men to me How is it then said Except my Father draw him Answ Though I shall not exclude and shut out Christ himself and the Spirit of God from their agency in this work in bringing men to Christ yet we may thus distinguish upon this objection That Christ being crucified and lifted up draws all men to him objectively as a healing Serpent set on the pole to be looked upon by the eye of Faith But God the Father draws to Christ effectively and powerfully working that power and life in them whereby they may come begetting a new nature and giving a heart propending unto Christ and closing with him And therefore if God should send Christ and leave man to himself as most think they can believe and be converted by themselves this great inconveniency thereof would follow that the Election of God would be defeated and made frustrate but those he gives he makes to come to him to whom they are given and so becomes both Christs Father and theirs The second Branch of this fourth Observation is this By those words Except my Father draw there is no meanâ—â—g to shut out Christ or the Spirit from this drawing work for the work of the Trinity in converting man is undivided But shall I tell you by the relative name of Father is as often in other places meant except man be drawn by a Divine hand an omnipotent power and operation of God for that 's the thing that Christ intends that no man can come and be a believer in him except it be by a Divine power and operation wrought in him above man himself so that it is not any way intended to divide the Three Persons or separate any of them from this work but to divide the work of God from man and this is the reason that some men do affirm omnipotentissâ—mam potestatem a most almighty power to go forth from God that works the conversion of man because it 's said Except my Father draw him and truly I know not why that expression should be quarrelled at if we do but consider the impotency of man to believe in Christ and be converted if we consider next that it 's called a Creation created in Christ Jesus and a resurrection from the dead and if also we consider what the Apostle saith of it Ephes 1. 18. where there is weight of words the exceeding greatness of Gods power according to that which God put forth in raising Christ from the dead we need not be ashamed to say that God puts forth an almighty power in making man believe nor to look upon it as an uncouth expression Thirdly I observe from this Point How impotent and unable man is to that which is his greatest concernment I know we are weak in other things but to be weak in that which is the main concernment of salvation is sad This I would have you to observe that in that wherein your life lies and the way to life in that very thing you are weak as water and no more able to believe than to keep the Law and yet you will say by rote I think many times that it is impossible to keep the Law of God but will not grant but that you can believe and yet let it be observed here that God hereby signifies that you are as impotent to this that is the great concernment of man as to any thing else And There might be a fourth thing observable God that thus imploys his power doth it in his drawing man to Christ See the method whereby God will save you he will not go to bring you to the Father himself the Father to the Father immediately as to an absolute Judge as Luther saith What have I to do with an absolute God he will damn me and not abate me a farthing of the righteousness of the Law which I cannot keep It 's true he could have made man able to keep his Law and have made man perfect but God will keep his own way and save man in and by his Son Why may some say this is about why doth he bring men to Christ Surely God is so strict in keeping the way that he hath set for saving man because that is his Covenant and therefore brings to his Son Christ that he may save them and as the husbandman will graft you into him And let this that is Gods way be your way if you could find another do not look after it By this you shall know the power of God whether it be in you by this which is the work of it It sets you not to other ways but draws to Christ The Use of this fourth Observation may be three-fold Use 1 First Learn hence That a regenerate man is twice Gods Creature I may safely call him so once as he is a man in his natural estate made up of Soul and Body next as a regenerate man created in Christ and if men consider it well that a believer is called a new man a new Creature why should there be lesse power why should we think it lesse work to make a new man then to make a man to be Lay your heads to consider this point and you will find it very difficult why it should be more the hand of God in this then to make man to be man hath a natural life what is that to the purpose for natural life is but a death in comparison and therefore it s said them that are dead in Trespasses and Sins hath he quickned and whereas there was in the matter of our first creation no propension to become a man more
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-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
the ingredients that make up this inward man â— all his graces are but extracts out of Christ It is the knowledge of Jesus Christ that alters the properties of moral virtues and turns them into Evangelical graces fruits of the Spirit as the reasonable soul makes the sensitive operations which otherwayes are in bruits to be the act of a man I know a Christian may have more roughness of nature and more sturdiness of passions then is in many a moral man he that hath more Christianity may have less morality as there is more perfection of animal and sensitive faculties in some bruits then in some men I had rather fight against sin by a little of Christ in me then beat lusts and passions quite out of the field by the strength meerly of moral virtue because fighting against passions by the faith and love of Christ argues a Gospel inward life which is better then a freedom from vice by a company of dead virtues Thirdly This inward man is distinguished from all those common gifts and workings which may be in an outward Christian for there may be a large knowledge a kind of dogmatical faith a mercenary love of God a worldly sorrow for sin a desire of salvation and grace as a bridge to heaven but there is great difference between gifts and grace there is no grace but hath a counterfeit that goes under that same name and that is it which deceives men for likeness is the mother of error and it 's that makes examination so hard knowledge faith love repentance are to be distinguished for there are that bear the name of these but are not therefore this light oare is to be distinguished from true metal the Spirit works many things in those whom it unites not to the head and many have large gifts by dispensation from Christ that have no grace by virtue of their union with him as heat from the body into the clothes one weares but they do not argue union with the head Now there is a peculiar knowledg of God which is by his teaching which a man may rather feel than discribe there is a love of Christ himself not only of his benefits there is a repentance that rises out of love and not out of slavish fear and there are desires of grace for service and not only for a bridg to heaven this is the mark of true grace as distinguished from common it casts out self-love and as it comes from union so it drawes the soul into union and acquaintance with Christ himself the most intimate corruptions of men are pâ—ide and self which are not mortified by outward and common graces nor doth common grace draw into union with Christ but is wholly upon benefits and reward to seek God for God or love Christ for himself is above the power of all common shining glorious parts or 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 proper and peculiar to this inward man Fourthly A Christian inwardly is distinguished from the outwardly formed who in the form of Godliness is as well drest as the true Christian frequents ordinances complies in ritual and formal duties hath greater parts and abilities than this Christian inwardly we speak of but yet the inner Christian differs from the outward 1. In the principle that carries him which is regenerating grace a well of waâ—er that springs up in him to everlasting life 2. In the motive that impels and constrains him the love of Christ the sweet peculiar relishes of that love 3. In the manner which is with delight in God in his law and the commandments are not grievous 4. In the ends he aimes at which are not the base respects of self-love but the walking with God in communion and the enjoyment of God his God but as for the Christian outwardly he hath no principle no root in himself Matth. 13. 21. his motives are forrain springs and plummets as your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his manner of performance is but artificial and unsavoury his ends are like Jehu's that is his own and so his faith that he brags of is but want of temptation his assurance is but confidence in the flesh his quietness is but want of examination of his bottom his joy is the blaze of thorns his desiâ—es are but the eructations of self-love I have thus shewn you him that is a Christian inwardly and now for the use Use 1 First I would speak to the Jew but I can find neither Jew outwardly nor Jew inwardly as the text describes both for the Jew outwardly is not found because his outward ordinances which denominated him so are dead and gone the fall of the temple to which most of them was affixed broke most of them down and crusht them to death irrecoverably Those that now they hold as Circumcision sabbath difference of meats rules of marriage c. They are the ruines of the ruines of their state and though they were the ordinances of God are now become their own superstitions of no more use then heathen Ceremonies and observations unless to teach them that whiles they hold them Christ shall profit them nothing And for the Jew inwardly he is not nor can be for their Ordinances as now cannot work or convey renewing grace no more than heathen Rites Indeed salvation was of the Jews as Christ saith and there was a spirit sparingly conferred on some but now to expect any Regeneration any kernel in the husks now left any new creature should be in them that receive not but call Christ Anathema or consequently should have the spirit or any saving grace is as much as to say that a statue of stone may beget a living man And therefore that Doctrine of the Rabbins That one calls Pestilent whosoever professes Judaism howsoever he live shall have part in the world to come which Justin Martyr thus expresses that all Abrahams seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Use 2 Christians be not you deceived with outwards and externals I mean deceived in your selves gross sins may be lest ways reformed Ordinances partaken in duties done and yet this inward work be wanting the heart enlightned broken quickned the will and affections sanctified are the things that must be sought after When a man white-washes or paints an old house it 's a sign he means not to pull it down You can conform to times and customs of Religion and begin to varnish over a rotten heart but that is a sign you mean not to pull all down and build new Is it some ends that you have set up that makes you cry up Religion This is but outward vvork this makes you but a Jew outwardly this is but to thaw on the sunnie side of the house and to freeze on the other Learn vvhat the inward part of godliness is A soul taken vvith Christ himself savouring the thingâ— of the Spirit his graces his vvays enquire after inward experiences and vvhat difference there is between the Word preached and the Word engroâ—â—ed between Baptism of
GODS Drawing AND MANS Coming TO CHRIST Discovered in 32 SERMONS On John 6. 44. With the difference between a true inward Christian and the outward Formalist in three SERMONS On Rom. 2. 28 29. By Mr. RICHARD VINES late Minister of the Gospel at St. Laurence-Jury in London LONDON Printed for Abel Roper at the Sun against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1662. Good Reader THe great duty of Christianity is Coming to Christ and Christians are described to be those that come to God by him Heb. 7. 25. Now this work is not easily done Nature is averse from it Partly because Believing or Coming to Christ is a mystical duty not evident by natural light but instituted in the Gospel And we usually bid better welcome to our acquaintance than a meer stranger Moralities which are in part engraven upon mans heart go down sooner with us then matters of Faith Partly because Nature affecting a self-sufficiency is loth to be beholding to another and therefore doth not easily submit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 10. 3. to fetch all from Christ As a proud man will rather choose to wear a russet coat of his own than a silken garment of anothers Partly because it is a long time ere we can get men to be serious and to wind soul-affairs and if it be so hard a matter to bring them and themselves together What is it to bring them and Christ together Partly because Christ and the main of his Blessings lie in another in an invisible world and man that is so inchanted with the pleasures of sense and â—iassed with fleshly lusts which are importunate to be pleased with what is visible and present is not easily moved with unseen hopes and induced to deny himself and lay all his affections and interests at the feet of Christ and intirely to consecrate himself to the use and service of God For these and many other reasons man hangs off from Christ and nothing but a divine power can cure this aversness The work of reducing man from his strayings and bringing him to seek his happiness in God through Christ is carryed oâ— among the Divine Persons between the Father Son and Holy Ghost God the Father as a Judge by the spirit of bondage driveth us to Christ as Mediatour and Christ as Mediatour by the spirit of 〈◊〉 bringeth us back again to God as a Father Through him saith the Apostle Eph. 2. 13. we have access by one spirit unto the Father This mysterie is notably unfolded in the present Treatise and if either the weight and importance of the matter being one of the chiefest points in the Christian Religion or the known worth of the Author Mr. Richard Vines a man sufficiently eminent for the graces of the spirit for sound Learning and well-tempered moderation or the accuracy of discussion these Sermons being not the suddain issues of a light spirit but the fruit of grave and mature studies I say if these or any of these be any allective to thee thou wilt find them all in this Treatise that is now put into thy hands And because many pretend to Christ that are none of his there is added another Tract of the difference between a true inward Christian and an outward Formalist necessary to be subjoyned to the former that we may build surely on a sure foundation and not content our selves with a name that we live in Christ when indeed we are dead in sin I commend both to thy serious perusal and the Blessing of the Lords Grace in whom I am Thine in all Christian service Tho. Manton Errata PAge 6. line 22. for derisons read divisions p. 25. l. 10. for to r. no p. 4 â— 9. for as r. not p. 90. l. 28. for gripes r. gropes p. 138. l. 23. for Roâ— r. Luke p. 160. l. 30 blot out alwayes p. 214. l. 9. for mean r. meer p. 23â— l. 21. for volentem r. violentum p. 293. l. 22. r. While he is p. 313. l. 5. foâ— Sodom r. Scdem p. 320. l. 8. blot out to p. 326. l. 17. for is r. in p. 32â— l. 30. after Its add true p. 328. l. 22. r. a man may be full c. Reader THe Name and Memory of the judicious and Learned Author of these Sermons is so precious to me for his great worth and eminent abilities that I cannot but heartily rejoyce in the publication of any of his Labours that are proper and genuine And that these Sermons are such I am confidently assured If thou question the truth of this Come and see do but peruse them their features will shew who was their Father Sic oculos sic ille manus sic or a ferebat I commend them therefore to thy reading and thy self in all thy Christian endeavours to Gods blessing Tho. Jacomb D.D. Reader THough I may suppose that the precious name of Mr. R. Vines will do much in procuring thy estimation and acceptance of this Book yet if it had not a greater excellency I should not commend or tender it to thy perusal Though I have not so exactly read it as to give my judgement of every sentence yet by the general survey which I have made I am able to tell thee that the Doctrine of Conversion is plainly and judiciously here unfolded the necessity and victory of effectual Grace is solidly asserted and the opposition of corrupted nature discovered and in all thou art taught that greatest duty to know God as he is revealed in his infinite Goodness and incomprehensible Mercy to miserable man in and by his Blessed Son our Redeemer and to give him the Glory of his Love and Grace If thou have the Grace thou readest of it must needs be sweet to thee to read of so sweet a thing as the treasures of restoring saving Grace so copiously and clearly opened and to be employed in so high and sweet a work as to labour with all the Saints to comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge to be filled with all the fulness of God The happiness of those that study Christ by the conduct of Christ and are strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man that Christ may even dwell in their hearts by Faith and they may be rooted and grounded in Love Eph. 3. 16 17 18 19. But if thou read of Grace with a graceless heart the Learning of the Writer and the clear decision of the several controversies may possibly be acceptable to thee but as for the sweetness of the excellent subject no wonder if thou be a stranger to it It is a pittiful thing to hear some men Learnedly discourse of the Nature and Necessity of Grace and disputing of its Universality and Speciality its sufficiency and efficacy the way of its operations whether Moral or Physical c. that yet never felt the illuminating changing renewing resolving mortifying strengthening or elevating works of Grace
matter co-eternal with God which I should not do God requires not in his call that the matter be sitted to his hand he creates us of nothing For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus 2 Eph. 10. And that you may see there is nothing in the work of man that gives any being and rise to Conversion and Regeneration you may note that it is so wrought in us as it is compared to that which was brought forth at first out of nothing in 2 Cor. 4. 6. Whereas in the first Creation there was darkness and then light was called out of darkness by the word of Gods command So saith the Apostle God commands light to shine out of darkness in every one that is converted to him he brings him into a state of light and knowledge out of just nothing as the light was at first commanded to shine out of darkness having no pre-existency in the darkness as any seed of light I know this is quotidianum argumentum an every days argument and therefore I will go on to the next Which signifies the greatness of this work a Resurrection or Resuscitation on mans part and passively a resurrection on Gods part and actively a raising of them that are dead in trespasses and sins Ephes 2. 1. called a quickening of men together with Christ that were dead before which clearly resembles it to a miraculous work For such is the raising of the dead Were not they miracles whereby Christ raised the dead And though I confess the similitude between natural and spiritual death is not to be squeezed into impertinencies yet I say that those that shall make natural man to be as it were sick and wounded and only in fetters and not stark dead in spirituals they wrong the grace of God whereby man is converted and as the saying is that which gains in one part loses in another so look where man gains in this point God loses They take from God the eminency of his power so much as they give to man and so enrich man by robbery of God himself and so make it a less work then indeed it is it being a less work and wonder to heal a sick then to raise a dead man That word Regeneration or second Birth doth also denote the gracious act of Gods great power whereby he brings man into a new estate for generation even in nature if it be but of a chicken out of an egg it is full of admiration and worthy to be the object of the enquiry of the learnedst men And therefore what shall we think of Regeneration of this second Birth as it s called which Nicodemus in John 3 wondred and marvelled what it should be why should not we think this to be a great work which is said not to be of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God 1 John 13. And our Saviour shews me thinks a natural reason That which is born of the flesh is flesh like it self for the flesh can beget nothing to the spirit And that which is born of the spirit is spirit the spirit begets not to the flesh nor the flesh unto the spirit but every thing begets unto its like John 3. 6. And therefore if this be so Regeneration must be a great work That 's my first Argument from the titles that are given unto it Secondly the greatness of the work is manifested by the greatness of the change wrought in them that are converted Lay your hearts unto the marks and note for every man converted is changed from contrary to contrary from death to life from darkness to light from the remotest terms that can be self and God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For man exalts self and hates and opposes God Now this man shall be changed from self to God Be ye met amorphosed saith the Text be ye changed in the spirit of your minds Rom. 12. 2. Now look by way of comparison for we may well compare Scripture things with Scripture As the resurrection of the body is attended with a change of that body that rises into a spiritual and incorruptible body He shall change our vile bodies that it shall be like unto his glorious body 1 Cor. 15. So the resurrection of the soul is accompanied with a mighty change of natural disposition and of those habitual principles of lust and corruption which had first taken root and haply by time custome and education more fixt in you Rooted they are naturally and therefore when you come to be changed in these do not you think as great a change follows in this resurrection as on the resurrectection of the body Nothing makes so great a change as this converting grace whereby God draws man to Christ Jesus The moral Philosopher teaches vertue excellently to appalliate the nature of man for indeed he can teach no further that is he can teach amendment of vice by vertue but they know not the meaning of those Scripture-words Creation Resurrection Regeneration these they are very great strangers unto emendation of life is all they speak of Justin Martyr in his second Apology shews what a wonderful change was wrought in them that were religious in them that were called In his time the people did observe it the libidinous are chaste the drunkards made sober the worldlings that had great estates and were tenacious hard enough sell their estates and communicate to them that were converted with them and so goes on to shew as the Scripture speaks the professors of Magical Arts and such ungodly Impostures sold and made away their books and Paul that had destroyed the faith preacht it We preach men not only out of sin but out of vertue for Conversion is a change extended thus far as bringing man into grace and unto Christ Our Saviour called the young Ruler beyond the vertue that he professed Follow me saith he Oh beloved to come to Christ Jesus and to be converted by spiritual grace is beyond all the vertue that you profess And therefore we preach men not only out of vice but vertue Nothing lies nearer our self-love then our lands and houses right hands right eyes and the like yet Christ calls men to the loss of these and he calls to no more then grace enables easily to perform The greatest conquest of spiritual grace in any man is over self-love and self-seeking and therefore for a man to deny himself in any case that is for the excellency of Christ is the greatest change that can be wrought in any man For a man to deny himself upon a force is nothing but to do it out of sympathy is much As we find this change described in Isa 11. 6. where you must allow to the Prophet such expressions The wolf and the lamb shall dwell together the leopard and the kid the calf and the lyon You must not think this is to be understood of wilde beasts but of wilde men whose dispositions being
quite contrary they shall be reconciled to agree And the reason is given verse 9. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. This knowledge of Christ whereby men are turned to God is the great thing that changes natures alters properties even as that is altered between the kid and the leopard That 's the second Argument Thirdly the greatness of the power that works unto faith in Christ that magnifies the work When Christ cast out Devils and healed all manner of diseases among the people while he lived upon the earth did he not put the world into admiration and astonishment yet this work of Conversion to bring sinful souls to God to pull them out of darkness and the damnable state wherein they lay this Christ makes a greater work in John 14. 12. where he saith He that believeth in me shall do the miracles and the works that I do and greater works then these shall be do when I go to the Father When I go to send the Holy Ghost from the Father unto the world what greater works can there be It cannot be otherwise explained then the Ancients downard from Origen The conversion of the world of the Gentil world from Heathenism and Idolatry and Devillism and vanity to Christ because they work such great conversions to turn men from darkness and Idolatry these are greater works then Christ himself did because he did not convert so many as they This is the Hyperbole of Gods power towards them that believe this is the working of his mighty power There is never a verse expresses it in so full words as that Ephes 1. 19. speaking of the power that he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead This power wrought in you when you believed Read this verse and consider it well I think you will never hereafter look upon it as an easie thing to believe the exceeding greatness of power Learned Divines observe there is an aggravation the raising power whereby Christ rose was a great power he lay under all the sins of mankind the greatest stone lay upon his grave that ever man had every man lay dead to his his own sins Christ lay under all the sins of mankind in their full weight That which went to raise Christ and to roll away the stone was a mighty power indeed and the same is put out in you whereby you are called out of darkness into light and from a natural state to believe in Christ Fourthly this is compared to such works as seem to us and are to mans power impossible to be done As to the Aethiopian his changing of his skin the leopard putting off his spots The Blackmoor cannet change his skin nor the leopard put off his spots Jer. 13. 23. When they can do so then may you that are wicked and accustomed to sin change and turn to God There is another instance in Luke 18. 25. Can a Camel go through the eye of a needle no more can a man that trusts in riches a worldly man believe or repent which are expressions of so great a height that we may well conclude the greatness of the work Fifthly this is a work to which Christ is required and wherein he must appear both satisfying and sanctifying for unless he appear in both there can be no conversion wrought on any man he must come by water and by blood 1 John 5. 6. The satisfaction of Christ that 's the taking away sin by his blood And therefore in John 12. 32. If I be lifted up I will draw all men to me here is another drawing There is Gods drawing by power and Christs drawing by his being lifted up by his meritorious â—ppearing to satisfie justice In the creation of the world there was no need of a satisfying and sanctifying Christ to appear It s true indeed Christ as God and the Son of God did appear for by him the worlds were made but as Mediator there was no appearance of Christ But now if he will convert a sinner and bring one of you home to God out of darkness into light here must Christ as Mediator appear Oh that men would admire the greatness of this work The Use of this part shall be twofold Use 1 The greatness of this work shews the reason of those sayings of Divines which were used by the Fathers of the Church in former times That the Church of God hath still her miracles and is not deprived of that gift Men may say that miracles are put down and ceased but the Church of God hath running and abiding in it the gift of miracles Why so Because God by the Ministry of the Word works after a wonderful and miraculous manner in the hearts of men to bring them out of Idolatry and self-vanity The raising of the Widows son from death to life that we read of in the Gospel and the raising of Lazarus that was four dayes dead in the grave these were great works But if you compare the conversion of sinners with them it is a greater work When Christ raised Lazarus it s said that he groaned in spirit that put him to his groans But when he came to redeem man that put him to his bloodshed And therefore on the sudden to change the heart of man from hating God as every natural man doth to love God from persecuting the truth to die for it from being inwardly possest by Satan to follow the Lord Jesus Christ I would have men to consider it that they may come with thanksgiving to the Table of the Lord. And what faith a reverend Divine that is now with God Conversion is the greatest Miracle that ever God â—â—ought And it is to be compared to the Creation of the world saith another and gives this reason The Spirit of God seems to make it a greater work To the creation of the world nothing was required but the word of God but to the conversion of a sinner the arm of the Lord alluding to Luke 2. the arm of the Lord and to Isa 53. 1. To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed And certainly there appears the most grace in it and a power above any creatures It is the assiduity and commonness of the work not the â—lightness and facility saith Austin that takes off the wonder of it The commonness of the Suns light makes it not so much regarded because it is day those men that have felt the power of God in their own spirits they know it is a wonder In the Gospel it was a Miracle to turn water into wine and is it nothing to change a filthy swine into a sheep and darkness into light The creatures at first were made by the Word of God but this Conversion is caused by the arm of God saith one It hath been Hyperbolically spoken of by the Ancients that lived in this Church of England as a very great work to turn the Gentil world and Heathens from their vanity to
cordial to them that do believe that they may know that they are drawn of God or else they should even be in the same condition with unbelievers And you may observe it that in Scripture the universal misery and impotency of mankind doth render the cordial and comfort more sweet to them that shall find that they have tasted that the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2. 3. Or as I may give it by this comparison When Aegypt is stricken throughout in every house one dead the deliverance of Israel was the more admirable in whose houses there was not one stricken but all free So when you see the impotency of man and man lying under it and to find himself recovered and reduced by the power and free grace of God to Christ Jesus how should it serve to magnifie the power of the free grace of God! But somewhat more closer to speak to this point If Christ would have spoken tenderly of mans impotency to believe he might have given these murmurers some other reason why they did not come to him viz. their prejudices against him you know my Father and Mother as you say that I am of mean race and extract and that 's the reason why you believe not and so needed not to have said any thing of the universal impotency of man But you see he makes a universal negative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No man can Therefore there is not such a tenderness unto mans power to believe as some pretend If Christ would have pretended tenderness of his Fathers credit as our men do that they assert not something in man to emproud man but to lay the fault at mans door and vindicate the justice and impartiality of God that requires all men to believe for he boldly and clearly lays the fault at mans door and yet clearly gives the reason of mans unbelief too Christ boldly and confidently denies to man he cannot No man can come to me except the Father draw him And more peremptorily ver 65. he saith the same thing No man can come to me except it were given him of my Father And he saith it again John 10. 26. You do not believe because you are not of my sheep No God hath not given you to me you are not of my sheep by election therefore you believe not So that Christ fears not any discredit that may redound to God as if God could not answer your pleadings against him for God can make good his justice and impartiality against all mans reason but to shew a secret reason for the comfort of Gods elect though others may stumble And if it shall be as it is objected that it is God that gives the power indeed but that 's universal to all The act the will is put by man himself who hath not power but of God This is the curiosity this is the hinge of all God gives a power or sufficiency to one man as well as another but the will the acting of this power is by the will of man and that little string they have to hold by And truly I have this to answer against it Our Saviour in this place gives such a reason as makes a difference between man and man such a drawing such a gift of faith such an election of sheep as makes a difference and works the effect or else it made no difference between them that come and them that come not therefore it s said He works to will and to do giving saith to some and not to others is a differencing work and if it be a differencing reason there can be no universality in it for things that make a difference make no universality Therefore he saith not only you cannot believe except this power be given but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 10. 26. ye do not believe because you are not of my sheep Shewing that this is a differencing thing he speaks of and overthrows quite the universality of power that men assert No man whether he be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Carnal man or animal man you shall find ground for such a distinction 1 Cor. 2. 14. and in 1 Cor. 3. 3. But what do you mean may some say by carnal man He is one that is forelaid with grosser lusts that is transported and carried away with byassing lusts that walks after fleshly interests or fleshly principles And what is the natural man then He is one that hath what this corrupt nature can give understanding and wisdom and is embelished with the highest parts of that Sphere All that can possibly stand with corrupt nature that cannot be charged with such lusts Now of the natural man and of the best of them too it s said he doth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 receive or learn for it is the common word for learning because he cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know the things of God he cannot learn Christ not the best man in the world by an animal or natural light can discern the things of God And the reason given is because they are spiritually discerned For in that place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the natural and spiritual man are distinguished the spiritual man goes by the guidance of Gods Spirit the natural man by the guidance and light of reason And as I shall shew no man by the meer light of natural reason and natural wisdom I speak of a moral impotency can believe in Christ and receive him as a Saviour and a Lord which if you consider the opposition of the words you will easily grant The second thing is No man can That is no man can convert or come in to Christ such is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or impotency of natural man And this the Apostle would convince all the world of before he treats of the point of justification by faith His method is admirable in the Epistle to the Romans till he had convinc'd Jew and Gentil every man in the whole world to be guilty before God he saith Rom. 3. 9. that every mouth may be stopped and all the world be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 19. obnoxious to God that is liable to the judgement of God brings man into a lost estate and then preaches salvation to him And the reasons of this impotency of man may be taken if you consider man what he is and Conversion what it is and the Gospel-reasons that it gives and what is this faith and coming unto Christ that is denied to man For I will not give four reasons but four heads of reasons that may be given of these points First Consider man in his natural estate and look on him two wayes Privatively or Positively Privatively as under the privation of that rectitude which he was created in and so is called darkness and not light said to be dead in trespasses and sins not alive for darkness and death are both privations Oh miserable man that is without light and
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
we rest not upon that grace meerly of having the Gospel preached and the Fountain declared to be opened unto us but there must be a divine hand to enable the will of man to come to this pool when it is moved Of any Text in Scripture this is most clear to prove the miserable impotency of sinful man to this point of salvation he cannot comply with this of himself No man can c. And if this do not suffice we will argue the point a little further Isa 53. 1. Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arme of the Lord revealed Here is Isaiah the Prophets report but there is an arm must be revealed both which must go together the report revealed by the Ministry and the arm of the Lord revealed must go together for else though they saw so many miracles the means of believing yet they believed not saith our Saviour quoting this Text John 12. 39. And whereas every one taught and drawn of God doth come and no man can come except so drawn it manifestly proves that as the coming is mans act and the free act of man for I think man is never more willing then when he is convinc'd indeed and enabled to come to Christ yet the drawing is Gods power that must first be and the drawing of God that is first in time for man doth not come that he may be drawn but because he is drawn therefore he comes And therefore this drawing of man to faith in Christ sounds like a work of Almighty power or a work of omnipotence Ephes 1. 19. The exceeding greatness of his power towards us that believe according to the working of his mighty power whereby he raised Christ from the dead and lifted him to glory The exceeding greatness of his power The Hyperbole of it here is a thrusting and crowding of words together a power that is compared to the raising of Christ Christ I say who bore our sins in his body on the tree though he lay under our sins for the death of Christ must be considered a little further no such load could depress him the Lord would have the stone rolled from his grave for him to rise again This was a work of mighty power and yet according to this God puts forth his hand in drawing of man to Christ so that as I conceive it cannot but argue that the free grace of God giving and the great power of God drawing makes faith to be above man and takes it from mans merit and mans power And truly it could not else be rightly said in Ephes 2. 8. Through faith not of your selves if this faith were of our selves The Root of this impotency shall be shewn you in five particulars First there are some footsteps of the Law of God remaining that were written in the heart of man In Rom. 2. 15. they shew the work of the Law written in their hearts that as by the rubbish that you see you conjecture what building there was before and by the defaced lines you may guess at the picture so you may by the common Notions left in mens minds judge of right and wrong and the differences between justice and injury without which no society could be of any men in the world but would be herds of wilde beasts rather then men but of Christ there appears nothing written naturally in the heart of man nothing at all concerning a Saviour and a Mediatour but an utter darkness and silence of Christ and consequently of Faith in Christ Secondly therefore man when his conscience is angry having something of the Law in it and accuses as it doth for sins against Nature common Law and common Light and when it accuses and troubles him being altogether ignorant of the righteousness of God by faith in Christ and how he should be saved and justifieed knows not till it be revealed by the Gospel for therein is the righteousness of God revealed Rom. 1. 7. For who can so much as guess by the pregnancy of natural light that God in his Covenant of Salvation should pitch on such a way as Christ a Sponsor or Surety the Mediator between God and man that he should make expiation for sin truly no more then Moses or an Israelite could have so much as found out the way of healing the biting of the fiery Serpents by a figure set upon a pole to be looked unto no man could imagine no mans reason could have found it out had they wandred in the wilderness never so many years and yet this was Gods way and a Type of Christ signifying what man could never have found out to conceive of compensation for sin by a Mediator which was a thing impossible and had not been known therefore man being ignorant of this must of necessity fly to his own plaisters and fig-leaves for if by nature he may be convinc'd of sin yet by the dictates of natural conscience he can never find out any righteousness and satisfaction to Gods justice then it must follow that he must fly to making a medicine of his own righteousness which is of works for that only comes by man to be found out as being next to hand in this case that I say or nothing as being his only hope and this bulrush the drowning man takes hold of and holds it fast as for life and so comes of necessity to settle on his own righteousness being ignorant of the righteousness of God which is by faith in Christ And this the Apostle tells you Rom. 10. 3. For they being ignorant of the righteousness of God went about to establish their own righteousness and so submitted not to the righteousness of God where you see the righteousness that is our own maintains our pride in that word submitted not and rising from ignorance of that of Gods righteousness to which we must submit by way of humiliation which is a cause that men believe not And then Thirdly and pray mark there is a double Revelation of Christ the one is a revealing of him by Gospel-doctrine the other is a revealing of him by spiritual light The revealing of Christ by Gospel-doctrine to the natural knowledge of mans corrupt understanding cannot procure or produce any other then literal knowledge of Christ The Scripture calls it knowledge in the letter as to know the Gospel as a History may be known to be true whereof a man hath a dogmatical knowledge you have many believers and these by knowing the Gospel by a natural light are differenced from Heathens But this doth not nor never will produce a saving faith most men have a literal knowledge we see in ordinary experience all men have some knowledge and Scholars a great deal yet being seen by natural light though revealed in the Gospel will not reach so far as to beget faith saving faith in Christ But the other revealing of Christ by the light of the Spirit of God conveying the knowledge of him into the mind and heart
of man This is that which is lumen fidel and shews him as he is so as to draw unto him and is called the teaching of God whereby every man that hath it doth believe and receive Christ Joh. 6. 47. Who is seen in his own light as the Sun in its own for by torch-light or candles we cannot see the Sun so the natural man cannot know him because he is spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. And so it s said Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee but my Father Mat. 16. 17. The truth of the History of the Gospel that you read may be revealed to flesh and blood but the revelation of which faith is begotten is from my Father And in 1 John 5. 20. He hath given to us an understanding that we may know him and we are in him Such a knowledge to know him by faith is a knowledge of union and brings us to him Therefore this light of the sweetness excellency comfortableness and necessity of Christ Jesus appearing to your minds and hearts by Gods teaching is that which throws down your reasonings pulls down your strong holds and brings every thought in you into captivity to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 5. And doubtless that is the light which is necessary to the production of true faith in Christ which yet few have Therefore let not men wonder that have a great deal of natural knowledge that yet they have not a proportionable light that is commensurable to spiritual things no more then the Moon-light is to judge of colours you have not the light that produces faith and because you have it not in a natural estate therefore the natural man is not able to believe Fourthly the act of mans coming is an effect of Gods drawing for man doth not come that he may be drawn but because he is drawn first Faith is an act of a vital principle faith is not the act of a dead man there must be life before there be sight we do not first see and then live no but all seeing in nature is an act of life and from life it must come A dead man seeth not and therefore it is no more easie for a man to believe in Christ then to make himself to live for your reason will teach you there must be potentia before there be actus he that will believe in Christ if he will not have an act without power must first make himself alive raise himself from being dead in trespasses and sins that he may put forth lively acts from a vital principle therefore I conclude from that demonstration that no man is able of himself to believe in Christ Fifthly no man can believe aright that undervalues God or Christ to his own lusts or any of them If any man undervalues God or Christ to any worldly earthly interest true in judgement you may not but in practice you do and every natural man hath some lust that he values somewhat of the flesh or the world that is predominant and prevalent in him which he values even above God that man sets up himself before God in his choise or election and so cannot believe in Christ Christ said in John 5. 40. How can ye believe that receive honour one of another that have a humour of doing honour and receiving honour from men and do not content your selves with the honour that comes from God only As the least chap in the joynt between the graft and the stock will hinder coalition so that man that hath either one lust or other for the same reason holds of all if he be ambitious of honour that he prefers and holds fast rather then leave and come to Christ From all that hath been said the hardness and difficulty of faith must be considered what it is and then reason will convince you that no man can come to or believe in Christ except the Father draw him The Use of this point is five-fold First to humble the pride of man that is so much unale as to contribute one act of saving faith to his salvation able to do little in a thing on which depends his eternal happiness 〈◊〉 believing in Christ A dead hand or a full hand neither of them can receive or hold fast any thing Now every man in the world hath a dead hand or a full dead without life or full of himself his own righteousness and obedience and therefore it humbles the pride of man that so confidently can believe and receive Christ they can do nothing if they cannot do that Truly you can do nothing indeed there must be a moulding a drawing a teaching of God whereby there must be a new life put into you and your hand must be emptyed Secondly it shews the folly of those that undertake to believe and repent at their own pleasure and their own time That are like Israel All that the Lord commands us we will do or as a Mariner that is to go to sea truants his time away as if he had the wind in a bag or in his fist Sin is a deceitful thing and men are hardened through the deceitfulness of it Heb. 3. 13. Take heed you that are so great undertakers I will assure you you shall be little or small performers of this point For Thirdly it is not an easie thing to believe as is pretended as I have shewn They seem to me to have but little faith or little proof of it that say so or have not found it a hard thing to believe In time of peace when nothing troubles the conscience no temptation no sin no discouragement its easie to pretend believing But is it easie when temptation comes when a man sees the vast compass of his sins and sees the frowning face of God no ability nor power to help himself is it easie then I believe you will find it a hard thing and our Saviours words will be found true No man can Fourth Use of this Point Be not deluded with a conceit of a common interest in Christ or hope thereof because of his general salvation because he hath redeemed you and common and general men are deluded by it I will tell you I have known many that have made this to be their comfort this may be an encouragement to men to believe but can be no comfort to men until they do believe This is an encouragement inviting men to believe but that 's not sure or strong consolation You must indeed come to him but the power whereby you come will be found not to be at your command But God vouchsafes it unto those he will draw and those only Lastly learn hence that God hath laid the condition of salvation upon that which he himself works God hath laid it upon our coming to Christ which doth require the very grace of God to perform our coming to Gods drawing that so in every mans salvation the power and freedome of the grace of God may be acknowledged
grace published in the Word and left to the management of man convictively shews what even his Elect are that without his powerful hand to strike the stroke the work will not be done for the Elect of God as well as others being only morally moved and perswaded to Conversion do use the same shifts and Tergiversations make as much resistance and shew the same unwillingness as other men do and therefore take this for a rule and find it in your selves that God commonly convinces a man before he converts convinces man of his own impotency and opposition before he put forth his own arm and therefore leaves him to his own recusancy and resistance to â—ry his own strength and a long time lets him alone to his own purposes which will savour of pride enough untill God shew him the difference between the report of the word and the arm of the Lord revealed for although the word of God the Gospel that we preach unto you is the fittest means in the world of an external instrument to convert the heart of man and is furnisht with all requisites to work on the heart yet it s but like a key very suitable to the springs of a lock and put into it that will not shut the bolt and open the door without a hand to turn the key as well as put it in so if the Word preacht be never so fit to meet with the springs in mans heart yet if there be not a strong hand to turn the key the heart will not be opened so that when God convinces by the offer of grace and leaves you to your own acceptance little good will be done without the putting forth of his own arm to the work Secondly With these offers made in the Word God in Conversion goes out with his arm and so Conversion is wrought in those he purposes to call by the instrument morally by perswasion by Gods hand supernaturally so with the word that faith Lazarus come forth there goes a work of power to effect it this power goes forth with the Word as the hand with the ax with the instrument with the key for the honour of the ordinance And therefore it s told you while Peter spoke Acts 10. 44. the Holy Ghost fell upon the hearers meaning that there went out with the Word the power of the Holy Ghost to convert them that God calls according to his purpose he takes hold of their hearts with his powerful arm and brings them in yet not without means as if they were converted by Enthusiasms but in an ordinary way as I may clear it by a comparison frictions rubbings used sometimes to a people in a swound are very profitable to recall life where there was life before but if used to a dead carkass out of which life is gone doth nothing to beget or recall life so are the tenders of grace offered with exhortations and counsels motions and knocking 's if there be life of grace in the heart they are profitable to revive to call in to refresh grace but if used to a natural man to a man dead in sins of themselves they work nothing they leave him as dead as they found him untill there be a new life of grace put into him which is the work that I contend for to be of God Thirdly By these offers of grace and exhortations God takes from man all excuse all the light that God gives to man doth tend to render man unexcusable though it be but natural light for so far as it directs Rom. 1. 20. that they might be without excuse for what for not believing in Christ no that light went not so far no light leaves a man without excuse farther then it goes Gospel-light goes farther then natural light and convinces in a farther degree and proportion as the light is greater and as far as it convinces so far it will leave without excuse and therefore there is no man that hath Christ offered that is enlightned convinc't hath tenders made unto him but is left without excuse and though men in wantonness of disputes may weave a web of excuses and muster them up against God yet no man in agony of conscience upon his death-bed or at Gods Tribunal shall- be able to make any excuse for the neglect and resistance of the grace of God but shall be like him in Mat. 22. speechless he might have said somewhat for himself as to them that called him to the feast but there was no excuse to be made to the King There are two cases wherein all excuses are taken from man First In case of voluntary impotency by a mans own default as if he imbezel the stock committed to his hand and would make an excuse for non-payment of a debt though he may say he have it not that serves not his turn for you had it and the stock by you is imbezelled Or secondly if he be opposite and resist as if a man that will not or cannot see because he shuts the window and will not let the light in it s no excuse for him to say I do not see because its a voluntary act of his own to shut out the light in both cases he is without excuse But especially I lay weight on the latter the resistance of man and his opposition for there is no man living that rests in a simple impotency but resists and shuts his eyes and makes opposition to the grace of God tendred to him light is come into the world and men love darkness rather then light this is the condemnation Fourthly God in the Gospel seldom or never offers grace to a man but he affords and furnishes him with some degree of light and power to do more then he doth to go farther then he doth for in Rom. 1. 17. the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against those that hold the truth of God in unrighteousness that is for not living up to their light nor doing so much as they may or can no man in the world untill God work upon his heart savingly liveâ— up to his own rule neither doth facere quod in se est do so much as he might and hath power to do and therefore God is no way bound to give converting grace if a man will not imploy one talent so far as he may go with one what reason hath God to give that man five or ten talents None at all when the power and grace of God given is resisted and opposed and neglected What reason is there that men should cavil against the Lord and say I had not so many talents whereas he did not use the one he had no man is without a talent every man hath somewhat whereby he may trade for God and because he doth not do it certainly the Lord is free and clear if he do not give him more if he do not give him converting grace God will I say be clear when he is quarrelled at by man Answ 2.
sad and serious meditation he found no place for repentance I confess learned men with whom sometime I have gone in the exposition of this place say he found no place for the repentance of his Father he could not find means to make his Father repent for bestowing his blessing on his younger son yet truly it may well and conveniently be expounded He found no place for his own repentance though he sought it very carefully the Gift is gone from thee thou hast lost thy time And though thou Blubberest and Cryest to me with doleful tears I cannot help thee And therefore the Best counsel I can give any man in this point is this Work out your Salvation while God works make hay while Sun shines Somewhat like to that Phil. 2. 12. Work out your Salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that workes in you both to will and to do Giving the Reason from Gods working that we should work lest God that offers his Grace and stretches out his hand should pull it in again after his long suffering and waiting and offer no more And learn to know your day before it be lapsed for the lapse of this day is Fatal I may some say that 's worth the knowing Object But how shall I do that Answ First do ye find a prizing of and an Appetite to the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby that 's a sign that you are new-born babes the Child that cryes to suck is not dead look for this thirsting appetite Secondly If the spirit of God strive with you still Convincing and reproving are your hearts often Convict of secret sins if unfaithful in your calling you find no quiet it s a sign God hath not done with you for while the spirit strives its a day of Grace My spirit shall not alway strive with man Gen. 6. 3. Thirdly Do you find God making a thorny hedge about you ways and doth it stand and is not pulled up is there a restraint that a man cannot run out but his Conscience pricks him And when ever he sins in commissions or omissions the thorny hedge is still goreing and pricking him Hosea 2. 6. I will make a thorny hedge that thou shalt not find thy path not find Content in sin an Evident sign the door of grace is yet open Lastly Do you find pulsations beatings knocking 's doth any body rap at the door still as they have done behold saith God I stand at the door and knock Rev. 3. 20. if any man will open I will come in and sup this is an admirable sign the invitation of God holds out still motion upon motion beseeching upon beseeching the knocker at the door is seldome quiet by these you may know your day of Grace and therefore I say Call for the bellows while there is fire Blow the sparks which lie in the Embers and not all dead blow them up For if the sparks die if God call in his spirit from striving with you you shall blow among the dead ashes in vain Oh the miserie of man that doth not know his time especially the time of his visitation as Jerusalem For whereas the swallow and the stork do know their time yet in the 9. or 12. ver man knoweth not his time and therefore they are snared in an evil time and Chap. 8. 6. because to every purpose there is time and judgement if man hit the time well and Good but mark saith he because man doth not know his time take the nick therefore the misery of man is great upon him Second proposition which is a doleful one that In this day of grace when a man may take Heaven and Salvation by the Fore-lock as we use to say many times the things belonging to his eternal peace are hidden from his eyes which is by the Apostle made the marke of a lost man In 2 Cor. 4. 3. if our Gospel be hid that a man sees no beauty in it finds no power it s hid to them that are lost in whom the god of this world hath blinded their minds that the light should not shine into them And it was the observation of Christ that in Jerusalems day the things of her peace were now hid from her eyes Luk. 19. 42. never could blindness have fallen upon her or any man else in a worse time in the day of his visitation when the things of his peace are offered to him Now is the day in which as God opens the door widest so now the devil is most conversant about the eye least faith the Apostle the light of the glorious Gospel should shine into them the devils aim is to pick out the eyes of men this he most frequently aims in this day Thirdly Those that either refuse the grace that is offered to them or fall quite off from those initials and beginnings thereof which they had Received as I shewed when I handled the point of Apostacy they might do they bring themselves by both into a worse condition then such as remain in their natural estate blind and without all light then such as never had such offers made unto them And without all question you who either stand out against those offers to refuse them or desert relinquish those beginnings of grace that you have received no heathen man in the world is in a worse condition then you for this Christ also taught Matth. 10. 14 15. Whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorah in the day of judgement then for them Matth. 11. 21. we to thee Chorazin and Bethsaida Cities of Galilee where Christ walked It shall be easier for Tyre and Sidon Heathen Cities shall escape easier then such where the mighty works of Christ have been shewed forth Oh that men can hear these things with dull and drowsie ears doth nothing of this sit upon you It is a sign that your eyes are hidden in this your day if the mighty works had been shewn in them which have been shewn in you they would have repented And they have been shewn in you and you repent not And as this is said of the recusancy of Grace the greatest and most vulgar crime among us so it may be said of those under the Apostacie of it in 2 Pet. 2. 21. It had been better they had never known the way of righteousness then having known it to turn away from the holy Commandment given unto them Let this bound your wandring fancies and afright you from your Apostacy from God For as the Iron of the Stethee is the harder for the often knocking upon it so the heart of man that 's naturally hard by the often knocking and pressing the word of God upon it is made the harder And if the salt that seasons other things be in it self infatuate its good for nothing what shall season salt they that are in this case heavier judgement waits on them and
always as the day of your lives Understand me right It may be but is not necessarily so Its true he that is joyned to the living of him there is hope we that know not Gods dispensations may hope the Best and its probable that where God continues his Gospel there is something yet to do there all are not come in while he sends his servant to Bid his guests yet your hearts may be hardened through unbelief and thy eyes may be sealed And though men may hope till the eleventh hour yet thou maist be under the irreversible oath of God and though he may send his servants to invite others yet those that were invited and did not come he will invite them no more Matth. 22. this many times comes to pass To make a general rule is hard and I will not venture on that but this I say it may be sun-rise with others when sun-set with thee and therefore I pray embrace the day of your visitation least it prove not so long as you expect Mot. 2 Secondly When thou wouldest after this day of grace is past thou shalt not God will laugh at your calamity they shall cry and I will not hear them Prov. 1. 26. when Esau would have inherited the Blessing he did it not Heb. 12. when the master hath shut the door if thou knock it is in vain No man can come to me except drawn what do you think these things to be only skar-crows they will be found one day to have some meaning in them therefore take the wind while it blows say Lord I bless thee yet I feel sense and have thirst hear thee knock yet I have taste and appetite Oh let not these sparks die in me let me take thy offer before thou past in thy hand and hold it out no more It s true while there remains these knocking 's God is not gone from the door But alas it s a very sad thing to think that men should conceive they have power to come and take the offer when they please Why may some say Object Will not God be found always when man seeks Answ Yes verily for so Hezekiah speaking to as lost a people as could be 2 Chron. 30. 9. God is gracieus and â—â—rciful and will not turn his face from you if you return to him But qui dat poenitenti veniam non dat peccanti poenitentiam he that gives pardon to the penitent when he doth repent he doth not always give repentance to the sinner And there if you well observe it lies the knot Heb. 6. 4. It s impossible saith he to renew such a man again by repentance he speaks nothings of pardon that will follow but speaks to the grace of repentance and have you power in your own hands It s impossible to renew them again such men may knock at the door may seek the Blessing may cry in calamity for every man may desire to be out of hell and to be happy when alas he hath not so much grace as sincâ—â—ly to desire Grace But then may some say to me Object Help us to some means to retrive the day of grace I have lost it I have outstood my time the day of grace is shut against me Answ There are means for a man that hath some spiritual life in him that is fallen into desertion to recal the spirit and blow up the motions to recover him as it were out of a swound to life again for rubbing of a man that hath life in him wil recall life to the outward parts But if you rub a dead man all day long you find no life a poor dejected soul that hath some sparks of grace in him may have life blown out of the embers but if it be dead at heart quite gone and extinct that 's another case If a man have through the natural resistency of his heart stood against Grace forty years together for they have grieved me saith God Forty years yet notwithstanding there may be possibility of the conversion and life of this man else Gods Elect should not be saved who frequently resist which is but a resistance natural that 's made by the obdurate hardness of their own hearts and they are not under the seal of the Irreversible oath of God But after that the oath of God is gone out against a man and the deadly seal is stamped on a soul that hath so often and so long and with such provocations resisted the arm the woâ—k and offer of grace to prescribe means to help up such a man again is to presâ—â—be Physick for a dead man or to call back the day after sun-set wihch I cannot do and they say how properly they speak I will not inquire that Christ himself did not die for the sin of final Impenitency for that sounds like a contradiction And therefore Beloved in the Lord carry but this from this sermon a preventive fear and trembling thats a preservative from the danger from which there appears to me no restorative If you look for restoratives after God hath sealed up the eyes for grieving of his patience it is in vain But if you will have a preventive or preservative from the danger why then to day while it is called to day come in lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin and so I have handled the three things Premised Serm. 15 BEing desirous to raise the thoughts of man concerning Gods free grace as high as may be and to lay his thoughts concerning himself as low I will therefore proceed one step further upon these words No man can And that shall be for the inquiry Whether the Elect of God whom he hath appointed and purposed to bring to Salvation be naturally of the same disposition and have in them the same spirit of opposition to grace offered as others have In handling of which I shall briefly lay down five Propositions as that which shall make an end of this point Prop. 1 First The motions incitements the knocking 's at the door afforded by God in the ministry of the word are neglected and resisted for the present by the elect of God as well as others I mean the elect in their present natural estate for their hearts are as hard and stony even digd out of the same quarry as any others And God we know doth not chuse any because they were but that they might or should be holy In Ephes 1. 4. which shews that holiness is not the cause but the fruit of Gods election Neither doth the purpose of God though it be for everlasting salvation while it is in his own breast make any change in the Elect as saith the rule of School Praedestinatio nihil ponit in Praedestinato Gods ordaining for life makes no alteration for present in those that are ordained until it come to calling according to purpose as notwithstanding our Saviours purpose to raise Lazarus unto life yet Lazarus for the present lay as dead as other
not so decry the will of man in his conversion that I will deny it to be freer in that act then it is in any action of this life then it is to eat and drink c. but whence comes that freedom who hath unshackled nay who hath revived this will that is God The will of man is not so to be cryed down as to make him a brute nor yet so to be advanced as to make him more then a Servant They who make man who is dead in sin to be like the man in the parable half-dead Luk. 10. 30. which to answer that place by the way was enough to shew who was his neighbour It was enough for the scope of our Saviours Parable to suppose the man left half-half-dead do unawares wrong the quickening vertue of Christ You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins he that makes a man less then dead makes the quickening power that converts him less then a resurrection he that makes the captivity and bondage of a man less doth thereby make his freedom less too because these do follow one upon another bondage and freedom captivity and liberty as those Papists that free the virgin Mary from all sin do also remove Christ from being her Saviour his name shall be called Jesus because he saves his people from their sins if there be no sin from whence is the salvation if there be no salvation from whence is he called a Saviour as therefore I would not set works in the place of Justification which is Christs place so neither will I remove them from a necessary place in sanctification and salvation for they have a necessary place but not a place to work it for we must be Gods workmanship before we can do Gods work the Apostle makes that plain when he gives that as a reason nor in the place of Justification for that as I said is Christs place nor as a motive to move God to justifie a sinner for that is free grace nor as the condition and instrument for that is the place of faith yet they have a place in sanctification afterwards as the fruit of the tree though not as the root for a cypher that in the first place of a figure is nothing may in the second place add a value so that which in point of merit and causality is nothing yet if there be first grace a work of regeneration and sanctification wrought in the heart then I say there is something to be said of this obedience and as I will not give to man the working of the will and the deed so neither will I deny the working out of Salvation to be mans act and therefore those that say Christ repents for me and Christ believes for me as if so be it were not man that believes and the sinner that repents they speak a kind of non-sence the text I am upon teaches the contrary where he tells them the drawing is Gods the coming is mans act and duty and therefore it s not to be said Christ believes and repents for me for I must repent and believe or I am lost and lie in my lost estate The duty and act of faith and repentance are yours But the grace and power whereby these are wrought in you are God's and therefore the rule here is that the power and Grace of God be not degraded by the extenuation of mans natural sin and corruption but that rather the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the much more as it is said Rom. 5. 17. be given to the abundance of Grace for if you consider and compare together mans duty and Gods power mans act and the power of God that works the will and the deed rather give the more to God then sin if sin be abounding I would rather say Grace over-abounds because that is the favourable side and gives unto the grace of God more then peradventure some think to be due to him that where as abounding may be said of sin let super abounding be said of Grace Rom. 5. 20. Serm. 17 FOurthly Nor will that doctrine abide the due or true test that under the pretence of this sole power of God exerted in mans Conversion doth clamorously cry down all instruments and means Gospel and Gospel Ministry under this pretence that the sole power of mans new creation and conversion is of God and therefore hold that as God made this world without tools and instruments so God shall and will convert men by his converting grace without means instruments ministry and the like And what danger is it to snatch up a piece of a sentence for they have heard this doctrine from the orthodox that man cannot he is disabled to believe in Christ that the power is of God and have run away with it and thence have hatcht this fancie that therefore we need not look after these means shewing to us that preach that we had need to use due Correctives in our preaching for good medicines without apt Correctives sometimes breed wind or disease rather then cure it so this orthodox doctrine not rightly Corrected breeds this fancy that there is no need of instruments to work that whereof God hath the sole power These men I can say no less of them will teach God to convert man Let them teach themselves to stand in the way and rode of Christ where he walks and doth miracles Let them stand in the way of his ordinances For though I confess God can convert without ordinances and means yet to say that he doth so is as if because he did sometime make a man at full stature as Adam therefore he doth so always And so abolish mariage which he hath instituted for the propagation of mankind and so because God can convert man and bring him to a full autumne and state of grace at first that therefore God must abolish his own ordinances instituted for bringing his people to him Is it not enough that God hath tyed us to the use of Ordinances where Salvation is to be had but we must tie God according to our fancie either to or from the use of Ordinances what if God did extraordinarily without the plough maintain Israel in the wilderness by Manna bread from heaven is therefore God tyed to do the same by such extraordinary means when they come to their setled Land where they mow and sowe and reap Corn for themselves this doth not follow Where there are no ordinances to be had there God may work extraordinarily But God is not therefore bound to do it neither can we conclude he will do it let Naaman the Syrian be an extraordinary example of a man healed by miracle and those that Christ converted and healed what is this to our purpose God by his meer free will hath chosen this way of Gospel-ministry and ordained it to be the Power of God to Salvation Rom. 1 16. God puts forth a power when he converts a soul and he
or both truly I think he should answer best that saith faith is actus totius hominis the act of the whole man the mind to know the will to Consent and Embrace the affections to rejoyce in and desire as the Scripture saith faith is seated in the heart all the heart Faith must be a work brought into the heart by the hand of God for if faith should come in by its own forcible entry by opposition man would fight against it at every door or room and therefore it remains that it must come into the heart voluntarily the heart must be made willing and when it is so it sets open every door that it will not fight against any entry It is God that makes the whole soul willing to the entrance of faith into it Reas 7 Seventhly Saving faith always flows or proceeds from a vital principle a dead man performs no act of life and if faith be an act of life then this faith cannot be performed by a man that is dead that is by a natural man dead in sin and therefore he that makes a man to believe in Christ must first out a life into him see the Reason how it hangs together a spiritual dead man can no more put life into himself then a natural dead man this argument proves that Gods drawing a man to Christ is as it were the raising of him from the dead that mans believing in Christ is as much as a resurrection from the dead and proves that Gods drawing must goe before mans coming or believing the passive work of Conversion preceds that which is called active Conversion the one is Gods the act of raising the other is mans the act of turning to God I know not what can be said against it Reas 8 Eightly The greatest opposition that is made to the plantation of grace yet in the heart of man is made to faith temptations are soarest oppositions are strongest against faith because the soul and salvation lies at stake upon it the hinge that salvation hangs on being in this point therefore it hath more opposition by sin and the devil then any other grace I have prayed saith Christ to Peter that thy faith fail not Why not that thy love or thy fear or thy patience fail not because the greatest batteries of the devil are against faith and the taking of that fort would take all and therefore all those considerations that give such weight to faith in order to Salvation do also give weight to the reason I am now upon that a supernatural hand is that which must work and create faith in us Reas 9 Lastly I should as easily and willingly ascribe the whole work of mans conversion and regeneration his new birth and justification all to the power of man dead in sin as I would ascribe thereto faith in or coming unto Christ and so let God sit by as a looker on and behold what a fine thred the will of man spins throughout the whole webb of conversion regeneration and believing and let sinful man be suae fortunae faber the workman of his own fortune as they use to say and where then shall be the commendation and praise of Glorious grace sure there will be the commendation of the will of man and not of the will of God and so all things will come at last result to this which the Serpent said to our first parents ye shall be as Gods if faith and coming to Christ be in the power of man you will be as God for not he that supplies the object of faith but he that supplies the power and act of faith the will and deed to believe sits highest in Glory the Reason is that notwithstanding the object of Faith revealed man might perish but he that gives me the act of believing and makes good that cannot perish but must be saved Let the evidence of these Reasons quiet and settle you upon this point And Serm. 21 Use 1 FIrst Make those men jealous and suspicious of their Faith that find an easie quiet and undisturbed faith that have believed time out of mind as they say ever since they could remember and never had â—â—sence and feeling of this drawing work of God without which faith cannot be wrought It is true I believe that regenerating grace steals into many a one even in their inâ—â—ncy before they can reflect upon themselves for this faith is not known without reflection and before they know who it is that calls Samuel Samuel and they have cause of praise afterward that God marked them for his sheep while they were but Lambs this may be and therefore I will not say that this point ties these men to know or to find out the time of the first working and plantation of faith in them But ordinarily those that are of age do hear the noise or voice of this wind when it blows though it be a secret work and thou knowest not whence it comes nor whither it goes yet they feel a work whereby they are drawn to believe in Christ and in every man ordinarily there are inward bickerings temptations troubles for sin fears all which do make faith hard and thereby as Israel coming out of Aegypt we have more sensible experiments of Gods goodness and power so in the first plantation and further growth of our faith there will be very much all along to teach us this lesson that iâ— is a very hard thing to believe either in God for matters of providence or in Christ for pardon of sin yea and many times after the shaken heart is come to a center the earth-quake may return again especially if we take hold of rotten refuges for it s we that make it hard to believe otherwise they that have a faith dogmatical some righteousness and works of their own to trust to it is to them in their thinking a very easie thing to believe in Christ but its guilt that abates confidence if we our selves did but know our secret guilt it must needs make it hard to us to believe in Christ and yet all that do believe have this guilt staring them in the face but the Goodness truth and freeness of the promise overcomes it Use 2 Secondly If God have drawn thee to Christ and made thee a believer then return and acknowledge to him the Glory Let it ravish thy heart with the love of God for his finger hath been in thy heart whether thou be sensible of it no and to whet and sharpen thy praise let the open sight of thy former unfitness to believe equal to the unfitness of other men and thy equal impotency and opposition to thy own happiness raise the tune of thy praise for a Christian must never lose the sence of his former sins I was a persecuter and injurious and then it follows in 1 Tim. 1. 13. and the grace of the Lord was exceeding abundant to me with faith and love and therefore thou hast reason to kiss that hand
the Scripture But yet we must come to some Original to some first mover that moves all the rest and is not it self moved by any whether we go forward or backward Whom he Elected them he called and whom he Called he Justified and whom he Justified them he Glorified and so from step to step but somewhere we must begin now go Retrogade in the same line Whom he Glorified he Justified and whom he Justified he Called whom he Called he Elected or Predestinated You must come at last to the first Original whereof there cannot be given any higher cause or reason so then the reason of the difference is not Orginally in Man himself somewhere we must begin from whence we cannot rise higher Now the free Grace of of God is the first round in the Ladder of our Salvation not any thing in Man or the will or work of Man Here are three things coucht under this head First There is a difference made between every Man that is saved and every man that is not for all that is saving is difference making whereby a man is taken out of the heap and common lump of mankind A vessel of honour is made indeed of the same lump but differs much from a vessel of dishonour there belongs a difference and a separation to every man that is saved a separation not such as they call local from the wicked of the world but moral whereby his spiritual Condition is separated from all the not saved Though all grace that is discriminant and differencing is not saying that I grant yet all that is saving is discriminant And therefore you that will prove your selves to be in state of salvation are bound to prove the difference that is between you and others that are not saved nor can be Secondly God is the maker of this saving difference between the saved and others In every step of your salvation there is some difference made in Election there are Elect and others Reus 11. 7. In calling there is an actual difference between the called and others c. That God is the maker is implied in the 1 Cor. 14. 7. Who makes thee to differ from another some body made thee to differ and therefore he that calls himself converts himself is like him that begets himself or raises himself from the dead It s a meâ—â—â— imaginary thing and if these two be true then Thirdly It will follow that the reason of this difference made by God is not originally in man himself the reason of comparative praeterition is not sin for then all might be rejected because all men are under sin The reason of Comparative election is not good works holiness or worthiness of man for by that reason he should alwayes take the best of men and leave the worst but we find the contrary that God hath taken the worst Publicans and harlots go into Heaven before you and therefore there is a famous place Rom. 9. 11. That the purpose of God might stand it is not made good by the works of man himself not of works but of him that calleth is the purpose of God according to election made good They consult the Glory of Grace but ill that pitch the reason of Gods electing or calling upon some Paritie or Probitie or fit temper of man himself so our men lisp now adayes towards a quarter-Pelagianisme for I will not say it is semi-Pelagianisme they say God calls man and indues him with saving Grace for that littleness or probitie in man But is this littleness or honesty they talk of of God or man is it a work of nature or Grace if it be a work of Grace it is of God and is no otherwise a reason of Conversion then as one step may be in order to another grace in order to grace All this while there is no offence But if it be a moral temper and of man himself then it is so much worse they make God to build on man and to take a moral humane Foundation to a supernatural gracious Act to build supernatural grace upon the ground of common probity and honesty this doth disparage the Grace of God for as God in Creating of the world did not work 〈◊〉 matter praeexistent so we say it is in the Act of Grace 't is the Creation of a new Creature which brings him out of nothing and not works him out of any praeexistent matter It is true I confess that the best disposition that can be in man to come to the Lord Jesus and believe in him is that which is called an Infant-like temper of meekness and softness and tenderness for our Saviour gives that rule Except a man be like a little Child he cannot enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Peradventure he doth not mean the Glory of everlasting Life but the Church state he cannot be a true Member of the Visible Church unless he be made tractable teachable meek and soft But this is not a meer Moral or Natural temper as if Nature should lead on Grace but 't is a subaction a moulding the heart by Word and Spirit to a willingness to be brought to nothing for Christ for there is something in the work of mans Conversion that 's like a preparatory to the main work Point 21 Secondly If we be true advocates of grace we will disclaim all worthiness of man to be the first mover and all power of man as to be the first worker of Conversion God is both the first mover and the first worker in the Conversion and bringing man unto Salvation A man would think that a man may rather merit Heaven and Eternal Life by the acting of grace then he can merit grace by the acting of nature yet we say neither The one of them the Papists hold That there may be merit of eternal life by a mans own acting of Grace But workes of Grace died in the blood of Christ for that 's the best of their opinion But that a man-should merit Grace the first Grace by the works of Nature or by any good works done by Nature that 's a thing beyond the understanding and imagination both of us and them for Heaven as the reward of gracious works we have a promise if we walk with God in holiness but for the first grace as the reward of works of Nature we have no promise that for performance of what lies in us by the power of Nature God should give us grace therefore we are and that justly more offended at the Doctrine of merit of Grace then at the Doctrine of merit of salvation the reason is because Grace is more unproportionable to works of Nature then Heaven is to works of Grace and the Kingdome of Heaven more proportionable to works proceeding from grace then Grace it self is to those works that proceed from Nature and therefore it s too high to conceive of merit of Grace which is a merit of beginnings and first things and that 's not usual but
that you believe not few men that believe the one will believe the other they will not believe but that they can believe as if it were an easier matter to believe in Christ then to keep the law that is as if it were easier to obey the Gospel then t is to obey the law and that therefore such an omnipotent power as this divine drawing imports is not necessary to make a sinner believe Now I beseech you consider the Law hath something in you for being once written in the heart of man there do remain some fragments or rubbish if I may use that word in allusion to a building form but of the Gospel there is not a line in the heart of man by nature because it is wholly revealed and therefore it is as impossible by a saving faith to believe in Christ unto salvation as it is for a man to keep the law it 's as easy for a man to love God above self which the law requires as to believe in Christ Jesus with self denial for in both self goeth down to love with all the heart which the law requires is as impossible as to believe with all the heart as the Gospel requires and commands and therefore men are mistaken that think faith is in their power and confesse that obedience to the command is not Obj. But you will say the law requires perfection the Gospel only sincerity therefore the Gospel is easier of the two Answ It s true integrity is required in the law of God for you must not misse a hair if you will be saved that way Cursed is he that continues not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3. 9. But now the Gospel requires only a sincere heart It 's true God in the Gospel is content and pleased with sincerity and mark what the Apostle saith concerning the law It 's a burden intollerable which neither they nor their fathers wâ—re able to bear Act. 15. 10. But Christ saith that his yoke is easy and his burden is light Matth. 11. 30. Here is the difference but to rise out of this estate into which we are plunged now for we must speak of a recovery and rising again this is as hard and difficult as it is for us to keep the law all is one Suppose a man dead lying in the grave bound in the grave-clothes as Lazarus was and a man dead not bound at all but perfectly loose from such impediments is it not all on to put life into either of these two so though there be not a full integrity of the duties required of necessity in the Gospel yeâ— man being dead and to rise recover and come again to a state of salvation and Gods Image it 's all one power that is put forth to raise a man by faith in Christ which is recovering Gospel grace as to set a man in the state of perfection which is the life of Gods Image but indeed this is made possible as I said through grace to believe but to keep the law perfectly is not made possible to us in this life no not by grace God left it under an impossibility called the impossibility of the law Rom. 8. and therefore as the Apostle speaks of that faith that is wrought in those that shall be saved it is wrought by an exceeding hyperbole of power 1 Epes 18. 19. â—he uses such a weight of words the exceeding greatness of his mighty power in them that do believe according to the power that was exercised in Christ when God raised him from the dead now Christ was perfectly dead and lay under the weight of the sinnes of all believers and therefore the power that raised him up was omnipotent and is not this power exemplified in raising you to faith which is a recovering grace except men be pleased to deny that man is not so dead as Christ was that he hath some degree of spiritual life though Christ had no degree of natural life for then he had not been dead as neither we if it be so and I know not why they should deny the same omnipotent power to raise them from being dead in sinnes to come to Christ for to deny the greatness of the power is to deny the degree of the death and therefore I think it to be a good reason for the conclusion of this digression from the privation oâ— defect that is in man to believe and the power that is necessary to relieve that defect and heal that privation to argue the impossibility of faith to a natural man And For that which is said if others of lower form lesse in parts do believe why not Iâ—â— why should not I think my self a believer as well as he or another I reply that in Scripture especially our Saviours doctrine the reason of believing and not believing seems to lie very high and out of sight as they say of the head of Nilus mark and take no offence but let your Reason stoop to God and his Word you believe not because you are not of my sheep John 10. 26. as many as were ordained to eternal life believed as if ordination to eternal life were the original or cause of believing Acts 13. 48. But we shall look only into man himself in whom there is reason enough for his unbelief how can you believe that receive honour one of another John 5. 40. there are so many reasons for unbelief as there are master sins for every master sin as it brings the soul under great guilt so it hinders the soul from coming to Christ Jesus but then what reason in man can there be given for his faith in Christ We see many simple men the Scripture calls them babes believe learned men do not We have read of a thousand converted at the first Sermon they heard as at Peters Sermon And again many hear a thousand Sermons and yet are not believers In short though nature and art in their works require the subject they work upon to be disposed and fitted with capacity else the work is hindred therefore the sun hardens and softens according to the temper of the subject on which it works but God that works this faith if he do not find a subject prepared as indeed he doth not he can make or create faith in most indisposed subjects for Creation requires not so much as matter to work on but works out of nothing as we know which nature cannot do When God works faith in yâ—â— he finds no propension to faith but opposition he finds nothing lesse then nothing in man but he works it I say there is no cause can be given in man why one believes and not another because it is the hand of free and powerful grace that works it in man without finding any propension unto it Reason The reason why these Gospel-graces do require a supernatural strength is this in general Christs dominion in man is begun and carried on first
though it be it self never so little a spark and unseen if you have such a kind of faith without all question you have been drawn of God for there is a double change that faith makes that shewes the truth of it First relative when mans relation to God is changed by it as having stood in the relation of a stranger unaquainted at a distance he is now made a son a friend as it s said of Abraham he believed and was called the friend of God James 2 23. And then Secondly There is a real change of heart of course of life as if the stream did run in a new channel with as great strength as before in the old heavenly things are set up Christ is prized and valued and this life and all the things of this life have an eclipse put upon them so that as he said I am not I that 's the fifth mark Sixtly God hath powerfully drawn thee to Christ if the knowledg of Christ do draw thee from all competitioning things besides Christ doth not woo in person but by his word his Spirit his virtue hast thou no favourite lust that can overdraw him that dares to stand in competition with thy service and the conduct of the Lord Jesus Is the promise of Christ more powerful with thy heart than the performance of the world his absent glory above the present inducements Art thou willing to be paid for thy service in spirituals and if God will to forbear temporals An admirable temper in a Christian The Apostle observes of Abraham and his seed that came out of their own country and found themselves not to be in the possession of the Land of Canaan saith he they might have returned if they would Heb. 11. 15. but that they would not do they embraced the promises that they saw afar off they took Gods pay as he would pay it though he would pay them nothing in this world they would take out the earthly Country in a heavenly and then it follows in ver 16. God was not ashamed to be called their God not ashamed of such a people as stick to him This is to live upon his word as Elshaddi though he be not known to them by his Name Jehovah I did not perform my promises in being to Abraham but he lived upon me as God Almighty as it 's explained in Rom 4. It 's never known what value and price a man sets upon Christ by saying nay to some slight lust or thing which he can easily part with but by that which is peccatum in deliciis our favourite sin our delight be it friend or worldly content or whatsoever else it 's known to be as the usual old saying is The Rabbits skin sticks at the head it cases off from the rest of the body easily but when it comes to the head there it sticks when God and his favour and our own sin stand in competition it sticks not till it is come to that to which he is married to his favourite When Christ tryed the young man that had spoken great things he doth not instance to bid him do this or that for these things saith he I have done but he demandeth the sale of his possessions Go sell all thou hast and come and follow me there his heart was sorrowful for the Text saith He had great possessions that was his master sin and from that I observe that God will try his people let us hang loose to that for in that we shall be soonest tryed Seventhly It seems to me that we are drawn when the withdrawments of Christ or of the Spirit or the light of Gods countenance do draw us more to seeking and pursuit this is a drawing by withdrawment it s the case of many a soul many times Christ withdraws stands behind the door Gods countenance is hidden well mark the effect and use of this withdrawing doth it draw you more eagerly out in pursuance doth this draw you to a more sharp and vehement seeking that shews some touch of the Load stone hath been that you have tasted some of this graciousness of God if so be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2 3. as an Angler will sometimes pull away the bait to quicken the fish to follow it such are these withdrawments of God from his own people you see an example of it verified in the Church Cant. 5. 6. My beloved had withdrawn himself I sought him She runs out presently after him 8. Lastly When the Name of Christ and the Grace from him and by him received is the strong Argument against sin the strongest motive of duty and obedience the Law of God is a strong obligation but the grace and Mercy of God is the sweetest obligation Stablish me saith David with thy free Spirit Psal 51. with the Spirit of a child so the Apostle gives a notable Argument against sin in 1 Cor. 6. 15. speaking about Fornication Shall I take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot God forbid What 's the genius and strength of the Apostles Argument that a man that is in Christ must consider that himself his body and all the members of his body are the members of Christ shall I prostitute the members of Christ to an harlot God forbid that I should do so so that the possession and title that Christ hath of us is the strongest Argument that can be against sin with a godlyman A Christian hath more Arguments against sin more Motives to obedience than any other man because he is all Christs and all his members as that Text saith are members of Christ he is not his own but the price of anothers blood and therefore let him carry the Name of Christ always in his mind as an excellent Argument against sin So much for the Point Whosoever comes to Christ believing in him doth come by the drawing of God which point would have some Use made of it though the matter all along be useful and practical And first Use 1 How certain those that are elected are of their believing and coming unto Christ by reason of this drawing of God this is a resurrection so it 's called and truly as certain as the resurrection of the body and ordinarily we hold it it certain that there shall be a resurrection of the body it 's as certain that there shall be a resurrection of those that God hath chosen unto Christ though they be for present dead and as the Apostle saith far off nay 't is as certain as the resurrection of Christ when he was dead in the grave and lay under the sins of mankind a terrible great stone to ly under yet he was certain to rise again the third day and the power toward the raising of those that believe is according to the working of the mighty power that wrought in Christ Ephes 1. 18 now it 's said that God loosed the cords of Christs death because it was