could send to heaven for the spirit and the influences of grace The Lord comes unsent for and here is found of them who never sought him Isa 65. 1. For as touching the Lords first love-visit when he comes upon the sinner dying in his blood in the infusion of the life of Christ there is no treaty no communing betwixt the foundling dying in the open field and Christ For 1. Our consent is not sought to the first Creation nor yet to the second the Lord does not as it were parly nor ask the question at the thirsty wilderness Shall I pour water on thee and flouds of rain house of David will ye yield your consent and good will that I pour upon you the spirit of grace and of supplication For the formal infusion of a new heart is not done by moral acting in that point of dispensation 2. Our Divines on strong grounds teach that the sinner is a meer patient habet se passivè in the formal moment of the Lords infusing of a new herat as the wildeness is a patient in receiving rain Isa 44. 4 5. the dead man a patient in receiving influences of life Eph. 2. 1. And you hath be quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins John 5. 25. The man is a passive subject under a creating power 2 Cor. 4. 6. Eph. 2. 10. So Ezek. 36. 26. Ezek. 11. 19. Zech. 12. 10. Yea if adversaries of grace yield an infusion of a new grace and natural and supernatural power to believe be that a remote or farther-off power in all and every man member of the Visible Church or Indian or Brasilian 1. They must prove it by Scripture 2. They must shew some covenant and promise like to that Jer. 31. 33. Ezek. 11. 19 20. betwixt Christ and the Americans and shew whether the offer be moral or not as well as we Or 3. they must say with Pelagians the power of believing was neither broken nor hurt nor taken away by the fall But we may see and read free grace here Christ leaves no room to our fencing and digladiation He said not to the foundling Wilt thou live or wilt thou not live but I said positively unto thee when thou wast in thy blood live And to make it sure Yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood live Ezek. 16. 6. Nor said he to the dry bone◠Shall I open your graves and bring you out loving and believing John 5. 25. Send me your hand-writ and consent out of the graves else I le not enlive you Nay he did the work first and first gave us life and then sought and obtained our after-consent As a Prince who by strong hand conquers a people never treats with them whether he shall be their King or not till he first subdue them take their forts and castles disarm the inhabitants and then he offers them good conditions and gains their after-good will that he rule over them And we are translated and in Christ's bounds and have laid down arms before ever we yield a spiritual vital lively and sincere amen and closing with Christ that he and none but he onely shall reign over us And it 's admirable what branches of freedome are here As 1. No husbandman can help the clouds no art of navigators can create fair winds nor can our seeking create influences of sensible and feeling finding of him whom the soul loves Cant. 1. 2. No excellency of meanes were it an Angel and the man Christ preaching so as all bear him witness and are astonished at the gracious words that proceed out of his mouth Luke 4. 22. can create saving influences but by the contrary influences of hell fill them with wrath that they would cast Christ over the hill and break his bones Luke 4. 28 29. 3. Fectless objects fetch influences from hell as King Herod and all Jerusalem with him are quaking for fear at the birth of a weeping babe in cradle Can an infant rise out of his swadling cloaths and cut the Kings throat Matth. 2. 9. and with fire and sword destroy all Jerusalem or can a dead corps in the grave rise and slay the souldiers Mat. 28. 4. For the external calling many are called and hear 40 50 60 70. yeares and yet no influences of grace fall on them as if men ah if it were not so were the cursed ground and blasted fig-tree yea contrary to influences he blasts the roses by withdrawing sap from them burnes the earth and turns hearts into iron by forbidding the clouds to rain on them 5. In a moment he sends flowing showrs upon the thief crucified with Christ and he preacheth Christ a King on the cross 6. Who knows not the celerity and swiftness of the love-visits of Christ coming leaping over the mountaines and skipping over the hills When the man is going down to the pit the influence that a found ransome it accepted for him makes him revive so that his flesh shall be fresher then a childs Job 33. 23 24 25. and v. 26. He shall pray unto God and he will be favourable unto him saith Elihu 6. There is a great difference here betwixt Sun-influences and the influences of grace The apple on the same tree which are nearest to the Suns shining are most cordial and delicious they are rawer and sourer though upon the same stock that are long in the morning ere the Sun-influences fall on them and are soon under the afternoon-shadow but the disciples shined upon by the influences of the glory of the transfiguration near Christ and Moses and Elias spake they knew not what and that carnally Mark 9. 5 6. And who can think there is heterodox Divinity so near heaven as now the Apostles were So doth John fall dead at the feet of Christ when he is in the Spirit Revel 1. 10 13 17. The well is damned at the head of the fountain 2. Hence the second Property is clear of it self it 's of free grace we are maried here before we spiritually yield that Christ be our husband We are created of new to be his holy frame and workmanship and then hardly can we but consent nor bought we his love-influences Yea nor is the Lord obliged to give the Sun-influences for shining and moving nor the fire for casting out heat He hath interposed his Soveraignty in the contrary when he pleased Josh 10. 13. Isa 38. 8. Dan. 3. 27. to teach that Heaven and Earth have their Charters and their Writs of both being and working from the free goodness and soveraignty of God 3. For the third Consideration the Lord is the cause of his own influences Of our actings 2. The efficacious domineering insuperable cause 3. How the effects are ascribed to him principally To prove the first I need not goe back to prove the necessity of divine influences and that he works all our works in us The second is more dubious but it 's spoken to before Christ is such a
death another that deserves eternal death we cannot believe Mr. Baxter 3. It makes us children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. by nature as others are If it be temporary wrath only and Infants be free of sin that condemnes to the second death Christ bare in his body the sin of no Infants Christ died for sinners only the just for the unjust 1 Pet. 3. 18. Rom. 4. 25. Isa 53. 6 10. Infants are not sinners nor are sucking Infants laved and washed in his blood as others Rev. 1. 5. Nor are they sinners whom Christ came to save 1 Tim. 1. 15. Nor are Infants any of the many or of the all for whom Christ gave himself a ransome Mat. 20. 28. 1 Tim. 2. 6. And since the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to Infants and they are to be baptized Act. 2. 38 39. there must be some other name by which Infants must be saved then by the name of Jesus Christ contrary to Act. 4. 12. For what need is there of Christ's righteousnesse and of remission of sins and redemption in Christ's blood Rom. 3. 25. Ephes 1. 7. Col. 1. 13 14. to Infants if sin original be no sin 4. Heathens ignorant of sin original are still left by such masters to accuse Justice If Infants be free of sin why is nature called by them a step-dame which hath brought forth men in such misery when they enter in the world Why do Infants suffer death burning drowning ripping up and wounding in the wombe Why suffer they such wrath of pining sicknesse incursions of Devils if all these be free of sin Some say these are temporary evils but it proves not any sin deserving eternal burning to be in Infants The Lord needs not my lye but let any man answer me in point of holy spotlesse justice how a punishment of ten degrees can more be inflicted for that which is no sin nor any transgression of a Law then a punishment of a thousand degrees See how Mr. Baxter with Arminians and Pelagians can from Scripture teach us of whole sins and half sins whole wrath and hell and half wrath and half condemnation or half hell Q. But what Law is there that we should have the power of believing or the image of God The covenant of works doth presuppose that image to be in man otherwise he is not in a capacitie to be in covenant with God therefore it could not be injoyned and commanded in the covenant of works that Adam should have this Image of God And if so the want of it must be a meer punishment not a sin Ans The Lord in creating Adam must necessarily have a two-fold Consideration One 1. of a Creator 2. Another of a Law-giver In the first the Lord creates Being but in the latter he is such a special Creator to wit a Law-giving Creator who while he creates Being does concreate these noble Principles and write and by nature ingrave the Law of the Image of God the natural knowledge of God his holinesse justice mercie c. and of right and wrong and a natural holinesse and innate conformitie of the heart to the eternal Law of God in mans soul A Painter drawes the portraict of a living beautiful heroick King according to the living man the Painter both gives being to the painted image and such a being according to the law and art of painting he followes exactly and accurately his copie and living samplar and so gives a law to his own acts of painting And therefore God in one and the same act both creates man and gives him a being even holinesse his image and holy being and in creating of man gives and concreates and ingraves the image of GOD sound knowledge right inclinations and while the Lord creates he gives and ingraves a Law and while he gives and ingraves a Law he creates man And therefore it follows not that the covenant of works does not presuppose the image of God in man and it does not follow but the very act of God in stamping and ingraving his image in Adam is also a giving of him a Law Yea God in creating any creature of nothing does also concreate as a sort of Law-giver such a natural Law Every creature Sun Moon Heaven Earth Sea Man Angel ought to be subject as a creature to God Creator in being and operation Here is both the act of a Creator and also the act of a Law-giver Now the eternal Law of God requires that mans soul should be by creation indued with the image of God and Adam and Evah by that image said Amen to that Law for a time Eat not lest ye die They knew the Law was just and they knew it was their natural obligation to obey and how can it be denied but this knowledge was a part of the mans natural goodnesse and holinesse and so agreeable to the eternal Law of God and that the contrary of this to doubt of the truth of this as Satan induced them to doe Gen. 3. was a blacking of that fair image and contrary to the law of nature 2. The more of this image that is left in the soules of men by nature as the more knowledge natural justice and vertue remain in Aristides Regulus Seneca Tullius c. the more lovely they are and so must their souls have a more natural conformitie with the law of nature then other Heathens who kil'd their aged Fathers sacrificed their sons to Devils used wives promiscuously Then what God condemnes in us that we should condemn in our selves and therefore are to be humbled for our state we are in by nature For we are dead in sins and trespasses by nature the children of wrath as well as others Eph. 2. 1 4 We our selves were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another Psal 51. 5. Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother warm me Upon this account the Lord suffers his own to fall and lye in the dust and to know what beasts they are as the godly confesse Psal 73. 23. Prov. 30. 2. themselves to be Nothing men are more ashamed of then that they are descended of a traiterous and bloody Family that sucked the paps of the bear or the wolfe that the father and mother were dogs and swine and they born of leprous parents the house of sinful Adam that we lay claim unto is a botch-house and leper-house and worse And this is more vile then if there were none of the world that we could claim kindred unto but serpents dogs swine and wolves 2. How proud and shamelesse are we to deny this running botch of sin original and say it is no sin would it cure a man of a raging pest-boile to say it was no pest to give it another name It 's a part of original sin in our Atheism to belye the Lord and say it is soul-sicknesse but it is not sin it deserves not
judge it fit for their humiliation and the promoting of the work of their salvation and especially for the glory of holy Soveraignty they are to believe that the Lord shall absolutely confer upon them fundamental and amply necessary influences of grace but not that he shall bestow on them absolutely non-fundamental influences Assert 4. It s not lawful to engage to run the ways of the Lords commandments leaning to the habit of grace and the stock within the Believer Peter relied on this I am ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing habitual grace and faith to go with thee to prison and to death Luke 22. 33. and John 13. 37. Peter is angry because Christ lesseneth his stock and habit of grace and strength of faith Lord why can I not follow thee now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This habit of grace is not Christ neither the Spirit and therefore the enlarging of the heart upon the supposal whereof David engageth to run the way of the Lords commandments is not the only habitual enlarging of the heart but he supposeth also that the Lord must add his actual breathings and influences of grace else he cannot run nor move at all in the way of God John 15. 5. 1. Cor. 12. 2. 2 Cor. 3. 3. Assert 5. Far less can we engage to run the way of the Lord upon our own strength For 1. The Apostle James rebukes such as say they shall go to such a City and buy and sell and say not if God will James 4. 10 11. far less can we engage to spiritual duties on our own strength 2. This is carnal presumption for men to lay wagers on their own strength and to say with Peter and the Disciples they 'l do wonders 3. Men believe not the wickedness of their own hearts nor see they to the bottome of soveraignty the depth of sin original 4. It s contrary to godly watchfulness and an hardning of the heart as Prov. 28. 14. Blessed is the man who fears always but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischiefe 5. It s atheism to suppose that influences of saving grace are as due and connatural to men now fallen in sin as influences natural are some way due to the falling of rain the rising and going down of the Sun the growing of trees the ebbing and flowing of the sea and that we have dominion of free-will over the saving breathings of the holy Ghost Whereas 6. The Gospel bids us pray and by faith rely on the Lord for influences of grace and give the glory and praise of the breathings of the Spirit to God 7. It s against that humble self-denial and godly trembling and humble despairing of our own strength that should be in us in our undertakings of obedience So an huge deal of pride 2. want of mortification to self must be lurking in our undertakings Assert 6. It s not lawful to blame the Lord for our sinful omissions for that is to father our sin upon the holy Lord nor is that Isa 63. 17. O Lord why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardened our hearts from thy fear a complaining against God It s 1. a tacit complaining of themselves that they are grosse matter and the dunghil on which the Sun with his beams stirs up a stinking smell which is not the Suns fault 2. As Gods active hardning of us is a punishment of sin the Church may lawfully complain of it to God and deprecate that and all the like sad evils of punishment yet it shall never follow that God is the author or the cause of the sins of our being passively hardned of God or of active hardening of our selves 3. It s a prayer for softning and grace not to erre return for thy servants sake v. 16. thou O Lord art our Father our Redeemer thy Name is from everlasting 2. None of the Saints yielding to temptations do blame the Lords withdrawing but blame themselves and clear the Lord. Psalm 51. Against thee thee only have I sinned thou hast taught me wisedom in the inward parts here is a clearing of the Lord. Isa 64. 6. We are all as an unclean thing v. 4. since the beginning of the world men have not perceived a God beside thee 5 8. So Lam. 3. 34. Assert 7. A Believer may undertake in the strength of God Psalm 119. 33. Cant. 14. Draw me we will run Grace and the Spirit in his sweet breathings being undertakers one may undertake for a journey when Christ engages for such a chariot the midst whereof is paved with love O be humble and lay not great wagers upon self ye know not sin original as a sin but ye know it as a meer punishment What we are sinners by nature and we can do no otherwise Pharaoh and Judas knew it so CHAP. VIII Q. 4. Is there no running except God enlarge the heart what then can we do ASsert 1. Without some enlargement of heart there is no running the negative is true none come to Christ except such as the father draws John 6. 44. John 15. 5. and the affirmative is true all that are drawn and have heard and learned of the Father do run and come apace Cant. 1. 4. John 6. 44. There is a spiritual riches in heavenly and spiritual suppositions O for more of Christ to ern his praises with a shout which might waken Angels and Men all men in this side and in the other side of the Sun and that all creatures might hear and put to their seal and cry Amen to the Psalm Assert 2. The use we are to make of our sinful weakness is not to sit still he loves death who says I cannot heal my self art and skill must only do it therefore I le seek to no Physitian if the Lord will not do it let me die The husbandman were mad who would say my plowing sowing early rising and late labouring can never make the corn to grow except God give the increase therefore I le fold my hands and take the other sleep and if another say God only creates the wind therefore I le never set my foot in a ship so is it here what can the dead and the sick sinner do if the Physitian Christ will neither quicken nor cure his influences of life are above my reach therefore I le never make out to Christ nor ask for the Gospel if Christ will not heal us we must pine away in our sins how then shall we live this is to tempt Christ and to bring him under a new miraculous way to heal and save the sinner in his dream without hearing the Gospel which is that God should bring bread and cloathing to the sleeping mans bed-side The contrary is Phil. 2. 13. work because he works Cant. 1. Draw and we will run the Spouse saith not Lord draw that we may sleep 2. Our impotency leads us to turn sinful wickedness in mournful confession and godly complaining as the Saints
a manner legal the Father made him ours by free gift the withdrawing of influences 2. The shining and smiling 3. the suspending of influences needful for the act of feeling is physical and real The Lords outward dispensations make no change of 1. Covenant-interest the Covenant is eternal the Lords absence from his own is not eternal Nor is there change in relation of interest no distance of miles no frowning or hiding of his face makes Christ leave off to be a husband a head a ransom-payer a Father 2. Faith layes hold on right and on propriety When the heirs possession is suspended and an out-lawed heir here is an heir the use of the breathings and influences is removed the mill stands and grindeth not the ground is plowed yet the same Lord and heritor of mill and land remaines Hang not your rights writs and charters upon your sense or upon the ups and downs of the Lords dispensation nor doth a believers heaven stand in the particular out-lettings of the Lords free grace or his withdrawings though the more of the Spirit any hath the more doth their spiritual life and being depend upon the operations of grace as all things that grow and have life depend upon the influences of the Sun and Heaven trees and plants and flowers and herbs suffer a sort of death by the departure of the Sun from them and they begin to live again when in the spring the Sun moves near toward them so are the out-goings and gracious influences of the Sun of righteousnesse to the renewed ones in whom is the life of Christ for Christ keeps in being his own life and cannot but keep it in being and operation Rom. 8. 10. And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness v. 11. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you See both the life of grace in this life is kept in being by the Spirit and the life of the body which shall be made spiritual in the resurrection is restored again by the Spirit of Christ 2. Deserted soules under the Lords withdrawing would neither cast away their confidence nor be too securely comforted when the Lord withdrawes to speak to the former the right in Christ is entire 2. The bargain of Redemption Christs act of buying and dying and paying a price for his own 3. The care of the trust and charge of redeemed soules committed to Christ 4. The act of Atonement made by Christ accepted by God by which justice and the law stands fully satisfied are all whole and untouched under desertion For our obedience is neither in whole nor in part neither in toto nor in tanto any penny of satisfaction to the law but payed upon another account All these 4. stand entire and the land and shore sail not and move not though the green Sailer judgeth so because he and the vessel are in sail 2. Nor is it safe to sleep and lie and be secure when the Spirit in his flowings withdraws It speaks some out-cast or out-lawry and the child should not be quiet when he knows the Father is displeased nor would Ministers heal them with all Gospel and hony and lay aside all Law for what cures help the disease and the first fever the same are good some way for the second fever and recidivation I am sick of love As Cant. 2. Greek wounded of love the Hebrew word imports weakness Judg. 16. 11. If they bind me with ropes I shall be weak as another man Hence it implies languishing pain through want of the feeling and enjoying of Christs presence Cant. 2. 5. Cant. 3. 1 2 3. Cant. 3. 6 8. 2. It implies sicknesse and weakening of the person as in Amnons love to his sister Tamar 2 Sam. 13. 1 2 3 4. It comes from apprehended wrath and the curse of the Law Psal 90. 8. Psal 32. 3 4. Psal 6. 1. Psal 38. 1 2 3 4 c. Dan. 9. 11. Rom. 7. 24. Isa 33. 24. Job 13. 24. Psal 77. 7 8. Psal 88. Psal 80. 7 19. 3. It imports the feeling of that pain The second act of sicknesse Matth. 9. 12. as to the pain through want of feeling and enjoying God 1. Two things are here 1. The want of the life though the believer be still loved chosen redeemed translated from death to life but the Lord who can put a check-lock and an iron bar on all our comforts withdrawes and lets the Spouse swoon and stayes not the heart with flagons of wine and apples that is with the effectual applying of the word of promise by which the heart is established or strengthened Jam. 5. 8. Rom. 1. 11. and by which we stay and rest our selves upon the word the Lord 2 Chron. 32. 6 7 8. Acts 14. 21 22. 2. There is here suspending and the want of the consolations of the Spirit the comforter which is the other want Now the Lord hath holy and necessary reasons why he suspends influences to the feeling and knowledge of these rich comforts 1. His holy Soveraignty Now soveraignty never acts separated from infinite wisedome when it 's most abstract from the object as in making a world or not creating any thing in ordaining of the same lump some to be vessels of honour and some of dishonour There is a reason of the object but never a reason concludent or so objectively binding and limiting the Lord but the contradicent to wit no created world no ordaining of some to honour and some to dishonour should be as good As we see in thousands and millions of possible worlds of other men other Angels and other creatures which he can create 2. Infinite wisedome judges it fitter that old Jacob weep and be not comforted that Joseph be sold into Egypt then be a rejoycing free Patriarch at home that the man Christ lie before him with tears and strong cries then that it be otherwise 3. To infinite wisedom it is clear that a creature and a sinful creature cannot so measure out sense and comfort as the only wise God as it is not so fit all the members of the house servants children strangers should be their own stewards of the bread wine and dainties of the house spices ointments myrrhe aloes and cassia as that there should be one wise and faithful servant over the family that all and every one hand over head run not to the heap Therefore is the Lord to be adored in his wisedome as much in withdrawing influences of sense and comforts as in bestowing them Judge if all the fatherless infants and pupils and minors of the earth were left to be fathers and tutors to themselves how would it be with their inheritances If all the sick on earth were their own only Physicians whether old or
infallible connexion betwixt the one and the other or by Christ's merits True it is the Gospel and effectual calling in the Gospel and faith and all spiritual blessings are bestowed on the Elect in Christ Jesus Ephes 1. 3. 2 Pet. 1. 3. 2. God works in us what is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ Heb. 13. 2. 3. Grace and peace come from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus as the meritorious cause 1 Cor. 1. Gal. 1. Frans Cumel disp 2. ar in primam 2. concl 5. pag. 244. testifies that the best of them is like a sharp briar for he with others holds that grace is given to them who lay no impediment in the way of God's effectual calling and he hath it in his power to lay no impediment because he can eschew all sins against the Law of nature and such sins are the only impediments that hinder the effectual calling of God But 1. he makes no mention of Christ his death and merit which is the only meritorious cause of effectual calling of the chosen A spiritual soul loves the strongly prevailing power of Christ's calling the more strongly that it is a work of saving grace and of the grace of Christ Rom. 3. 14. 2. The man is equally Lord of heaven and hell who hath salvation in his power by this way as men have by the Jesuits way but all men by this way have in their power this prevening grace for if they do what in them is and eschew sins against the law of nature which Cumel saith they may do for such sins are the only impediment of grace they may be saved not by merit as the Jesuits say but by free-grace as Dominicans say but as to the matter Cumel conspires with the Jesuits call it merit or give it another name it 's against the Scriptures to teach that all the Americans Brasilians and Heathen have the prevening grace of God and salvation in their power And 2. That though all men may lay an impediment to the prevening grace of God yet they may fulfil the law of nature and eschew all mortal sin which if they do infallibly the Lord bestows prevening grace upon the Americans for the Scripture saith We are dead in sins and trespasses Eph. 2. that we cannot come to Christ except the Father draw us Joh. 6. 44. that the wisedom of the flesh is neither subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Rom. 8. 7. and that we by nature cannot understand the things of God 1 Cor. 2. 13 14. Matth. 16. 16 17. nor think a good thought 2 Cor. 3. as of our selves nor speak a good word 1 Cor. 12. nor bring forth good fruit do any good more then a branch can bring forth fruit being cut off the tree John 15. 4 5. or thn men can gather wine-grapes of thorns or figs of thistles Matth. 7. 16 17 18. Luke 6. 43 44. and therefore far less can Heathens earn by their sweating and labouring effectual calling and salvation Sure then salvation and prevening grace of God should be in him that wills and runs and not in God that shews mercy and it is but an oyling of Arminians and Pelagians to tell that salvation is not in him that runs by way of merit yet it is in him and shall infallibly be given to the runner and willer who by free-will may purchase both and all Americans have in them to run and will Dominicans therefore in this darken free-grace as much as Jesuits when they tell us men are saved not by the merit of free-will yet it is in the power of the free-will of Heathens to purchase influences of saving grace to put Heathens and Indians and all men safe at heavens gates what is this but to say The King hath made no covenant that all his Courtiers shall be made Kings yet he hath passed his royal word that if they bring him a flowr in May which they may easily do they shall vere truly receive a Kingdom this is as great an advancing of free will and an abusing of free grace as Pelagians ever dreamed of For Prosper said the same of the Massilienses Vniversis hominibus propitiationem quae est in sanguine Christi esse propositam ut quicunque ad fidem ad Baptismum accedere voluerint salvi esse possunt 16. Pro universo autem dictitant Massilienses humano genere mortuum esse Dom. Nostrum Jesum Christum neminem prorsus à Redemptione sanguinis ipsius exceptum etiamsi omnem hanc vitam alienissimâ ab eo mente pertranseat quia ad homines pertineat divinae misericordiae sacramentum Baptismus nempe ut recte Cornelius Jansenius Tom. 1. de haeres pelag lib. 8. c. 3. c. itaque quantum ad Deum pertinet omnibus paratam vitam aeternam Et Faustus lib. 1. de gra lib. ar cap. 16. Dominum Nostrum Jesum Christum aiunt diceret si vixisset nostris temporibus Calvinistae sed contrarium Jesuitae Dominicani Arminiani Pelagiani Sociniani humanam carnem non pro omnibus sumpsisse nec pro omnibus mortuum esse See Cornelius Jansenius ib. to whose writings Jesuits and Dominicans shall never answer The Massilienses cared not as Corn. Janse tom 1. de haeres pelag l. 8. c. 17. for the word of merit if mans will went before God's grace Epist Prosper Hilar. Vt ideo quis adjuvetur quia voluit non ideo quia adjuvatur velit And Cassianus denied all merit of condignity and said that the labour of our fasting watching c. was not worthy of the grace of conversion and of salvation and yet he held the merit of congruity to be as needful to go before our conversion So Hilarius saith that Cassianus taught that by seeking or praying and searching and knocking we came to the grace of conversion so that the Massilienses and Augustine while he followed their error thought faith not to be the gift of God but that a merit of impetration and of knocking praying went before conversion and that men obtained conversion justification by prayer and faith so that faith is not a gift of God as Augustine thought when he did yet stick in the errors of the Massilienses hence under the name of an occasion or colour they hide merit for as Jansenius saith God hath by the good works and holy dispositions that go before grace aliquam occasionem sive colorem cur non irrationabiliter some occasion or colour by which not without reason and in no blind way by a fatal decree without consulting mans will he gives grace to one rather then to another and this is the Jesuits and Arminians way God shall not be a wise and rational agent but act blindly saith Cassianus and unjustly say our Arminians if he give not saving grace and influences of grace upon the dominion and disposing of mans free-will now add to this that the Massilienses said
feet He saw a throne set in heaven and one sate on the throne and he that sate was to look upon like a Jasper and a Sardine-stone and there was a rainbow round about the throne and four and twenty seats round about the throne and four and twenty Elders who cast down their crowns before him that sate upon the throne c. 4. and the armies in heaven in earth and under the earth praising him He saw in the visions of God the seven Angels which poured the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth He saw Babylons fall the vision of the last Judgment the Bride the Lambs wife adorned with the glory of God He saw the new Jerusalem the golden structure of it the street of gold the twelve ports the wall the foundation of precious stones the river of water of life the tree of life Moses never saw such glory 3. Hence see we that there may be a sinful incapacity on our part and that the pure in spirit see God Mat. 5. and that grace keeps the soul like a calm sea without storm and wind and that if we would be near God we would keep the heart clean and pure We are to beware of grudging and act these three duties 1. Trust in the Lord. 2. Delight in the Lord. 3. Hope patiently for him Psalm 37. 1 2 3 4. There may be an earthquake in the zeal of a meekned Elias there was no godly men on earth left but himself as his angry zeal said to him and the Lord knew 7000. besides him The Lords way of appearing to Elias 1 Kin. 19. taught him some other thing for the Lord was neither in the strong wind that brake in pieces mountaines and rocks nor in the earthquake nor in the fire but in the still small voice v. 11 12. The Spirit was not of God which would call for fire from heaven in the disciples to burn villages and men women and children quick because they refuse lodging to Christ and his disciples for therefore meekly saith Christ and gravely Luke 9. 55. Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of 56. For the Son of man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them You know not that these flamings of the fleshes wild-fire came not from heaven for they smell not of the meek Son of man nor savour they of his saving message No doubt the disciples thought their sparks were kindled at a fire from heaven but that fire came not from God seldom does the Lords Spirit dwell and act in his saving influences in an angry fiery spirit grace meekens hell and hellish passions in the renewed Saints There are no passions in the glorified and perfectly meekned ones who stand before the throne but such as are pure and unmixed fire for the everlasting praises of God Hence showres of influences eternally rain on them night and day without ceasing Isa 6. 2 3 4 Rev. 4. 8. The 6th impediment of heavenly influences is from fear 2 Tim. 1. 7. We are to stir up the grace of God in us and his gifts not from a legal fear For God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power of love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. Then we take up the Spirit of law-bondage and law-fear of our own will that spirit of fear is not of Gods giving or choosing but it is of our choosing Rom. 8. Such as are led by the spirit of God are willing followers v. 15. For we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father It 's like the devils are uncapable of influences of grace because of the horrour and slavish trembling fear that is upon their conscience they be ever under the law of works never under grace no not so much as in offer Matth. 8. 29. Jam. 2. 19. Faith and the spirit of adoption to pray to believe influences of grace is the remedy of this So are we to believe perseverance and that God shall give influences of grace to the end Psalm 23. We shall have waterings and the believers well shall never run dry Psal 104. 33. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live Psal 104. 33. Psal 146. 1. Psal 52. 8 9. Then he knew of a stock and a new furniture in heaven suppose his own well should go dry CHAP. V. Some properties of Influences of grace 1. That they are invincible and irresistible 2. Of free grace 3. Done by the Lord with a principality of causality 4. Immediately both by the immediation of vertue and of the Lords own presence Influences are considered 1. In the first moment of conversion 2. In perseverance 2. God seeks not our consent to our first conversion 3. We are maried to Christ before we consent to the mariage 4. How the Lord determines free-wil without offering violence to free wil. 5. Gods dominion is equally over free-wil and all natural causes 6. God acts in all both by the immediate influence of his power and also of his person 7. The Lord most particularly leads his own 8. What is the right missing of Influences 9. We are more our own by the Law and less our own by the Gospel 10. Christs care and the members care IT is easier here to know what is not to be said as touching the irresistibility and strength of gracious influences above our free-will then what to say But Influences are considered two wayes 1. Moral'y 2. Physically 1. As they are common to all who hear the word in the visible Church 2. As influences are peculiar to the elect in the business of conversion Assert 1. Common moral influences that goes along with the word preached may be resisted for the Jewes alwayes resisted the holy Ghost speaking in the Prophets Acts 7. 51 52. Zech. 7. 11. But they refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder and stopped the ear that they should not hear 12. Yea they made their hearts as an adamant-stone lest they should hear the Law and-the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his Spirit to the former Prophets Then the reprobate may and doe resist the immediately inspiring spirit in the men of God writing and speaking that word 1 Pet. 1. 20 21. and the assisting spirit also in the Pastors It 's dreadful in the lower actings of God in the word to despise the Spirit and to give him battel in his first approaches I called and ye refused Prov. 1. 24. Isa 65. 1 2 3. A contradicting of and a warring against the Spirit at the first face is much to be feared O tremble to speak against or to counter-work the Spirit at all 2. Influences proper to the Elect are so also to be looked on 1. In the first moment of conversion 2. In the work of perseverance In the first moment of conversion the sinner prevents not Christ none dead in sins and trespasses ever sent or
mildly p. 1 c. 12. p. 101 Whether by prayer or any other way we may wrestle out from under Gods desertions p. 1. c. 12. p. 109 Influences are given of God to various temptation p. 1 c. 12. p. 110 It s a gracious temper to weep when the Lord is absent or angry p. 1. c. 13. p. 113 Christs absence is sometimes as good as his presence p. 1 c. 13. p. 118 Sâ—metimes we may pray again the degree of God but it s not lawfull to resist his commanding will p. 1. c. 13. p. 120 We may weep over our own dry hearts when we want Influences but we cannot weep against the Lord because he gives not those Influences p 1. c. 13. p. 121 We are to meet all conditions of life with cloasing with Gods holy dispensations p. 2. c. 1. p. 123 The word is the rule of doing the spirit the real efficient cause p. 2. c. 1. p. 127. How the Lord can lay by a command supernatural duties on men impotent and dead in sin p. 2. c. 2. p 129. God in creating man is both a Creator and also a law giver p. 2 c 2. p. 138 We are to be humbled for sin original p. 2. c. 2. p. 140 How to fetch Influences p. 2. c. 3. p. 142 The fetching of Influences is by supernatural actings by the word and spirit idem How the Lord brings himself under a sort of necessity of conferring gracious Influences p. 1. c. 2. p. 147 A considerable difference betwixt the Lords promise of grace and his practise of grace p. 2. c. 3. p. 148 Civil professors are nearer to conversion and to Christ then the openly profane and flagitious p. 2. c. 3. p. 149 It requires of the dead that they live and that we must not cease from running when the Lord ceases from drawing p. 2. c. 3. p. 152 It s a sinful shift to put away duties because of indisposition p. 2. c. 3. p. 154 We are to pray away indisposition as a great affliction p. 2. c. 3. p. 155 Influence of grace are due to the saints by promise p. 156 The Lord hath given Influences by necessity of a promise idem The three persons the Father the Son and Spirit give Influences p. 2. c. 5. p. 159 The fulnesse of Influences on the man Christ ib. fluences p. 2. c. 5. 159 Christ hath the dispensing of prederminating Influences by office and covenant p. 2. c. 5. p. 161 The Influences in the Son are all for our use and good p. 2. c. 5. p. 163 The Influences of the spirit are mainely to be eyed if any have the spirit he cannot want the Influences of God p. 2. c. 6. p. 164 The glorious things which the spirit of God shews p. 2. c. 6. p. 165 The Spirit prevents nature nature prevents not the Spirit p. 2. c. 6. p. 169 We are to pray for Influences p. 2. c. 6. p. 170 Obedience is to be yeilded to the Spirit as to the Father and the Son p 2. c. 7. p. 173 Much renewal will is a note of a spiritual disposition idem There is four expressions in Scripture of wrongs we do to the Spirit 1 Vexing 2. Quenching 3 Tempting 4. Resisting p. 2. c. 7. p. 176 How to improve spiritual feelings p. 2. c. 7. p. 183 Watching is a spiritual condition and near to receive gracious Influences p. 2. c. 7. p. 184 To converse with the Saints is a mark of a spiritual condition p. 2. c. 7. p. 186 Spiritual conference frequently used speaks a spiritual condition p. 2. c. 7. p. 189 The Contents of the third part SOme influences are from God some from Satan Part 3. Ch. 1. Pag. 189 Satan keeps correspondence with the heart p. 191 It s not lawful to dispute with Satan yet with his instrument we may p. 192 Christ sought neither the temptation nor the tempter p. 193 Difference betwixt Satans instruments and these of the Lord p. 194 Christ under a necessitie of giving sanctifying influences ib. Moral and physical influences 195 Moral influences that are only moral are weak ib. Ordinary and extraordinary influences 296 Prophetical influences ib. It is dangerous to resist strong light and the influences thereof p. 197 Private and publick Church-influences ib. Strong influences under the Messiah in the New Testament p. 199 Gospel-influences are strong p. 200 Some influences are for the habit some for the actings of grace some for both p. 201 Influences proper to the head Christ and influences on the members p. 202 Mediatory influences are some way due to the broken in heart and what sort they of right have thereto A four-fold right to influences is considerable p. 203 Strong and mighty influences in Christ p. 204 Gospel-providence how far above the Law-providence of Adam p. 205 Mr Gee treats of prayer Sect. 4. p. 187 188 195. p. 207 Influences of Christ fundamental and not fundamental ib. The comfortable necessity that lies on Christ to confer influences of grace p. 208 Influences not fundamental not simply necessary p. 209 Influences of grace for the habit of saving grace and influences for a gift p. 210 How we may know when we act pray or hear c. from a gift and when we act from a grace p. 210 Some pray from a meer gift when they mistakingly imagine they pray from the saving habit of grace the mistake is habitual in hypocrites only actual hic nunc to sound believers p. 211 Grace sanctifies the gift used in all due and spiritual circumstances but the gift can never sanctifie the grace p. 213 The same word but not the same influences act upon all within the visible Church p. 214 We are not to rest upon the actings from a gift but watchfully to try when we act from a gift and when from a grace ib. Differences from the influences of grace and these of glory p. 221 The habit of grace is a permanent disposition ch 2. p. 222 The habit of grace is given through the merit and grace of Christ p. 223 From the habit of grace we perform suitable actings p. 224 Vital actions flow from supernatural habits p. 225 The difference of the habit of grace from other habits p. 226 We are to follow holy resolutions with prayer 2 godly trembling 3 faith 227 The falshood of â—owes ib. A strong habit of grace produces easie and connatural and strong actings of grace p. 229 Actions supernatural and influences suitable are some way due to the habit of grace cap. 3. p. 232 Sometimes the habit of grace is qualified with heavenly dispositions p. 233 We should pursue the dispositions of grace when they are added to the habit with spiritual actings p. 234 We are to stir up the habit of grace though deadned ib. The Lord by infusing the habit of grace comes under some necessitie to give suitable influences thereunto cap. 4. p. 235 Divers necessities under which the Lord is to confer influences of grace p. 236 Christ advocates
fear that Christ shall be wanting in bestowing influences so do many weak ones is a broken half faith looking upon Christ as half a Saviour what he that died to purchase the spirit shall he not carry on the work of redemption by applying it and carrying on of what he hath begun Indeed among men he who made the Ship by art hath neither art nor power to command wind and tide for sailing for they are done by diverse powers the one by a created the other by an uncreated power but here the same merit of bloud which purchased grace habitual did also make due and connatural in its own kind actual influences of saving grace to carry on the work hence a case of Christian and supernatural prudence it is so to fear our own sinful weaknesse and to be humbled and cast down for our propension to fall away as to believe that constant and everlasting love shall work to will and to do to the end Then 1. tormenting Popish fear Ah I shall I may fall away 2. And the weak practical doubting of this it may be I shall perish I cannot stand out And 3. the law spirit of bondage I cannot be saved who am so sinfully weak and wicked have all three this in commune an undervaluing of the power of the free love and an overvaluing of the strength of corruption as if wickednesse and he that in the world were greater then he that is in these who are born of God 1 John 4. 4. and stronger then grace for its natural to be of that opinion that grace worketh not irresistibly prevailingly and with all might according to his glorious power Collos 1. 11. and according to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exceeding great power by which he raised Christ from the dead Ephes 1 18 19. and so while legally we distrust and fear our own weaknesse we do unbelievingly doubt of the mighty power of grace though we see it not for to see unbelief it is so spiritual a sin is almost to overcome it among all sins it is most invisible and best seen with the light of the Spirit faith sees well unbelief but unbelief can neither see faith nor it self 2. There is required of believers the exercise of faith in laying hold on the promises of actual influences from Christ the Mediator John 15. 2. Every branch that leareth fruit in me for that must be repeated the Father purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit Ephes 1. 3. Blessed be God who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Chriâ—t but to cause us will and do is a spiritual blessing Ephes 2. 13. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made neer not by Redemption only but actual believing in the bloud of Christ. 2. Ephes 6. 18. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit By the influences of that spirit whom Christ sent in his own name John 14. 26. 3. If the spirit glorifie Christ by receiving of Christ and shewing it to Christs own Disciples John 16. 14. then all the influences of the spirit in acts gracious when the spirit teacheth and bringeth to remembrance all things John 14. 26. convinceth of sin John 16. 8. guideth and leadeth John 16. 13. Rom. 8. 14. mortifieth Rom. 8. 13. quickneth Rom. 8. 10 11. comforteth and sealeth and confirmeth John 14. 16. Ephes 4. 30. 2 Cor. 1. 22. must be done by influences of the spirit received from Christ For saith Christ He shall receive of mine Heb. 13. 13. By Christ therefore let us offer to God the sacrifice of praise continually 4. Also what we suit from God in the name of Christ that we suit from Christs merits and death But we ask all which we ask in Christs name John 14. 14. John 15. 17. And therefore do obtain from God for Christs sake and the merits of his death the inclining of the heart to his testimonies to be led in his way not to be led into temptations to persevere to the end to be taught his way and if there were any grace such as all gracious influences are which comes not from Christ in whom it is and from whose fulnesse it is it must be referred to another cause then to Christ 5. All the promises are yea and amen in Christ 2 Cor. 1. and so must the promise of perseverance be Jer. 31. 39 40. Isa 54. 10. Isa 59. 21. and so the promise of influences of grace to persevere 6. Christs undertaking as High Priest Advocate and Intercessor is to carry on and perfect as Mediator all that are given to him of the Father and to lose none but to raise them up at the last day and to give them life eternal John 17. 1 2. 11. 12. John 6. 37 38 39 40. 1 Cor. 1. 7 8. 1 John 2. 1 2. Heb. 7. 22 23 24 25. Heb. 9. 13 14 15 16 17 24 25 26 27 28. Heb. 10. 10. John 14. 16. Luke 22. 31 32. Rev. 8. 3 4 5. 7. Christ as head by the influence of life and saving grace acts upon all the members by quickening them to will and to doe Ephes 4. 16. Eph. 2. 21 22. Eph. 1. 21. 22. Eph. 2. 1 2 3 4 5. 8. Christ as King gives repentance and remission Acts 5. 31 32. Then must he by that power royal give influences to acts of repentance and of faith 9. As Prophet he opens the heart to understand the Scriptures Luke 24. 45. Act. 9. 17. and so must give influences for that effect Hence are we to look for the watering of the garden of red wine every moment from Christ the fountain of life and to know that we should wither from the root if Christ withdraw his influence and so grace puts us under a necessity of grace to carry on the work of salvation 2. Yea it is to believe Christ is but an imperfect and half a Saviour and wanting in his Office if we doubt he shall give influences to perfect to the end what he hath begun then branches out of Christ and cut off from him must wither 1. Make sure union with the Vine-tree if you would be sure of growing to the end 2. Know the way to the well of life be much with Christ and lie and be neer to the well if you would have influences every moment 3. The most glorious and shining Professors that are not in Christ shall turn Apostates a plant above the earth with borrowed earth on the top of an house may grow for a short space but shall wither 4. Heathen influences from a Creator without Christ shall not bear you out the vertues of Tully of Seneca Regulus are of that nature that they may dry up 5. Yea weak Believers doubting that Christ shall give influences to work in you to will and to doe is 1. To question whether Christ shall
faithfully acquit himself in the duty of his Office for by office he conferrs influences 2. It s to question his nature whether the Head shall inlive its members CHAP. IV. The necessity of influences of Grace Of the Soveraignty of God in dispensing influences IT is easie to determine that there is a sort of necessity of the Lords bestowing influences upon all natural causes of this before In so far as willing and nilling are acts of second causes in the same sphere with natural causes there seems to be no more reason for denying influences to nilling and willing simply yea or for literal hearing and praying then for plowing and sowing except that here God acts in a dreadful way of Justice toward Pharaoh and other reprobates in leaving them to the actings of their own heart only it may be said that God finding his child under deadness and acting in a dead and literal way as he hath bowels of compassion toward his chosen under the evil of sin that are ready to be drowned he joynes his help of influences seeing his own goe about duties with wrestling and pain since he knows some one way or other they must be over the water and helped otherwise they cannot stir 2. As there are some saving graces from the Mediator so must there be some mediatory influences bestowed covenant wayes upon the chosen of God But 1. Free goodness and not natural necessity made the world and that same freedome intervenes in continuing being and acting in creatures which act by nature Fire casteth heat the Sun light and influences the Sea ebeth and floweth by nature yet there must also be a free new commission sealed from eternity to every acting of nature he commandeth the Sun and it riseth not forbideth the fire to cast out heat and it obeyeth Job 9. 7. Heb. 11. 34. Dan. 3. 27. and it is an obliging and an indearing of the heart to God to come dayly under new debt and multiplied free gifts and it renews acts of love in us as fresh actings of salvation flow whether it be new deliverances Psal 18. 1 2 6 7. Psal 116. 1 2 3 4. or new acts of keeping faith from drying up in the fire 1 Pet. 1. 3 4. so as you being tried as gold verse 8. y◠love having not seen him 2. It extracts acts of praying sense of spiritual slownesse seems to pray Cant. 1. 4. Draw me we will run and sense of spiritual dulnesse Psal 119. 33. Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes 3. Hence comes humble relying upon God when faith is put to believe that at every stirring of the members and at every lifting of the foot for a new step the head must stir in heaven and let down new influences of life and the bottles of Heaven and well of life must let down new flowings of rain every moment upon the withered garden if as much rain fell in one day as would suffice the earth for seven years and a man might eat so much at one meal as he should neither be hungry nor thirsty for five years there should not be such dayly dependance upon new influences for rain and dew dayly and for our dayly bread this day We can but 4. hence but believe the infinite wisedome of the Lord who well knows how to husband and steward his showres for in the man Christ they are continual John 8. 29. He that sent me is with me the Father hath not left me alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor dismissed me for I do always 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the thing that please him When ever we do what is displeasing to God the Father of Christ leaves us out of the depth of his soveraignty of dispensing influences Christ was never so morally deserted 1. As the Lord would have a falling law Adam to whom he denied influences that nature might be nature so he also would have a standing and never sinning-Adam that grace might appear to be grace 2. Upon supposition that the second Adam is God man it was impossible but the man Christ in all his actions moral should want influences or ever sin or be left alone of the Father but he must always do the thing that pleaseth the Father nor is there any murmuring to be against the dispensation of deepest wisdom why we have not at our pleasure influences of grace that we should never sin as the man Christ never sinned 3. Say we could see no reason the thing is notire the Lord acts in the first elect Angels that they never sin he denied in the first fall influences to the reprobate Angels and since the Lord hath condemned them and tied them with chains of darknesse that their whole actions except the acts of intellectual being and living and the acts of knowing believing desiring fearing c. in the substance of the act should be only moral and only sin in all the substantial circumstances John 8. 44. Satan was a man-slayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and stood not in the truth being created in the first truth adhering to God 1 John 3. 8. the Divel sinned from the beginning hence he is called 1 Peter 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the contrary party in law and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goes about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may drink over So that though there be in men actions of the phansie as to claw the head rub the beard actions of the vegetative life to grow to age to decline in old age senescere pubescere adolescere that are under no Law and so no sins yet all Satans actions are moral these excepted of which we spoke and influences to moral actions granted to reprobate men as to gives alms to go and hear the word visit the sick and imprisoned are denied to Satan Some men are also 2. Reprobate to good works Tit. 1. 16. and cannot believe and here is soveraignty that God works in some vessels of mercy to will and to do not in others 3. As touching the measure of grace and the degrees of saving influences the Lord walketh in a latitude of freedome all men have not alike measure of saving grace and faith 4. His freedome shines in the work of conversion John Baptist is filled with the holy Ghost from the womb Luke 1. 15. but 2. the woman of Samaria Matthew Zachaeus Magdalen Abraham Saul go on in a wretched state of nature for some considerable tract of years and then are visited with influences of life and 3. the Thief that was crucified with Christ upon the Cross in his outgoing is converted and not till then except the soveraign liberty of God silence us no other reason can occur of these things to mans understanding 4. In the Saints this liberty is clear fewer falls in Joseph then in David and so he must be nearer to dayly influences to the one then the other So the Lord left Hezekiah to try him that he might know all that
letter which is common to Seneca and other humane Writers and the Prophets though even the style liveliness majesty and divinity that may be seen in the letter of the Scripture are eminently above the like in other Writers The Spirit immediately inspiring and the Spirit quickning in the Word are both the same Spirit that Christ promised to send John 16. of which Christ ver 14. He shall glorifie me he shall receive of mine a word most mysterious and shall shew it unto you and believers are afraid that their hearts receive some other quickning between the sound of the Word and the actings of the Lord upon their hearts which causeth them to pray for no quickning but according to the Word The like may 3. be said of the salvation of the Lord Psal 91. 16. I will shew him my salvation Isa 12. 2. For the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song he also is become my salvation Psal 119. 170. Let my supplication come before thee deliver me according to thy word for we are apt to seek strange and whorish influences the like whereof the Lord bestows not upon his people Psal 119. 132. Look thou upon me and be merciful unto me as thou uses to doe to those that love thy name Psal 106. 4. Remember me O Lord with the favour that thou bearest to thy people O visit me with thy salvation V. 5. That I may see the good of thy chosen that I may rejoyce in the gladness of thy Nation that I may glory with thine inheritance It s cold comfort we reap without the word its true his omnipotency was eternal before there was a Word or Promise made to us but now the Lord will have the Word or Promise to be the officina the work-house of his Spirit and of the quickning influences thereof 5. As also there is a salvation and escape out of prison by keys of our own making and by putting out the hand to iniquity Psal 125. and the heart is much for the bulk of a deliverance from Hell and for the body and lump of a mercy were it Heaven and Baalam's paradise or the end of the righteous whether it be purchased by the ransome of Christ's bloud or no and faith laying hold thereon or no. 6. And we love to have the remission and the righteousness of Christ in his bloud the separated from holiness and sanctification but the Scripture conjoyneth them 1 Cor. 1. 30. Gal. 1. 4. 1 Cor. 6. 11. Heb. 10. 10. Heb. 13. 12 13. 1 Pet. 2. 24. yea is a holy justification to speak so is the cleanly kindly sure absolution of the sinner for Christ loves noâ— and washes not in his bloud but such as he makes Kings and Priests unto God Rev. 1. 5. in so saying I honour good works more then Mr. Baxter doth who makes them as good as Christ's bloud even the price of pardon Ephes 1. 7. Col. 1. 14. Yea and 7. We could be satisfied with dumb and scrupulous influences and inspirations contrary unto and separated from the Word as Evah Gen. 3. 4 5 6. 1 Kings 13. 18. Matth. 4. 3 6 8 9. 8. What could the powerful influences of God Creator separated from Christ the treasure-house of love and mercy doe to us and if Omnipotency were separated from the promises of the Gospel could it save us in the Lord's way through the bloud of Christ for power in God cannot to speak so save men but by the Name of Jesus Christ the only saving Name under Heaven Acts 4. 12. nor can Omnipotency work a redemption now in this Gospel-dispensation but that which is by bloud Ephes 1. 7. Col. 1. 13. And that which is to declare the righteousness of God for the remission of sins Power acts by way of compleat satisfaction as the exceeding greatness of God's power to us-ward who believe is of the same size with the mighty power which raised Christ from the dead and set him on the right-hand of God in heavenly places Ephes 1. 14 20. The power of translating a sinner from Satans Kingdome to the Kingdom of the Son of his love works as acted as it were and set on work to act righteously to translate no man but the person for whom a ransome of bloud is given to justice as the Princes right power is only for the good of free and legal subjects Col. 1. 11 12 13. and that all power in Heaven and Earth to save Matth. 28. 18. John 17. 2. Matth. 11. 27. and that Kingly and Royal power to give repetance to Israel and forgiveness of sins Acts 5. 31. to forgive sins Matth. 9. 6. to raise and quicken the dead John 5. 26 28 29. is a power in a way purchased by the bloud of attonement Rom. 14. 9. For to this end Christ both dyed and rose that he might be Lord both of the dead and living And by the way it s a righteous power over all flesh and in Heaven and Earth though he died not for all flesh and for all the Angels in Heaven and all the men on Earth it were strange to say Christ died for the reprobate and not for their sins and final unbelief and rejecting of Christ to obtain a power to pardon some of their sins and not all and to give them repentance from some dead works and not from all dead works and to purge them from some but not from all their sins 3. It s most unjust to lay the blame of our sinful omissions upon holy Soveraignty because he withdraws influences For 1. That is to reproach God this is like the malecontentedness of Satan and of Hell for the damned complain that ever they were born and that they cannot be annihilated and that hils and mountains cover them not quick in soul and body yea they storm and rage because God gives them a being capable of eternal woe 2. The wakened consciences of men out of Christ often fall upon this recrimination the gnawing of conscience of Judas is I have sinned and of the young man Prov. 5. 12. How have I hated instruction and my heart dispised reproof Yet it is a more commendable complaining and more hopeful to complain of sinful neglect of means then of divine permissive providence of sin upon the Lord 's withdrawing of gracious influences but conscience in its kindly acting is the tormenting worm that eats self No Divel alledges this its true Satan bites at providence God hedges about a hypocrite Job and God commends him says he Christ torments us before the time Satan trembles and frets at the existence of God and that God is above him Joh 1. 9 10. Matth. 8. 29. Jam. 2. 19. and so all his words to Christ speak a barking at providence Matth. 4. its wrong that the Son of God should want bread it is an useless providence that the man Christ go down stairs for God saith he should save him though he throw himself down headlong Satan is a better
that be said by Isa 40. 13. Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord or being his counsellour hath taught him Ver. 14. With whom took he counsell who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgement and taught him knowledge and shewed him the way of understanding Or what needs that Job 21. 22. Shall any teach God knowledge seeing he judgeth things that are high What a God is an unknowing God who needs a lesson from the creature or from some higher God and then who taught that other God who is supposed to be higher then the most high what a carnal mind is this that chaseth the Almighty God out of the world 4. What doe they who curse the day the stars the twilight the birth as Job chap. 3. A gracious heart saith let the Lord be the Lord and closes with all the attributes of God and with all the influences of Omnipotency wisedome goodness and justice on men and of love mercy grace bounty forbearance to the Saints and to their own soul this is to sing mercy and to sing judgement whereas its a note of Atheisme to wish and vote out of the world God his attributes and all the acting and influences of mercy justice truth grace soveraignty and to say It s not the Lord the Lord can neither doe good neither can be doe evil Zeph. 1. 8. So would we beware to fight with the Lord's dispensations of grace he is Lord and Soveraign disposer of his own comforts whether we look upon comforts as duties commanded 2 Thes 5. 17. Jer. 31. 15. or as a reward of duties from the Lord Rom. 15. 4. Psal 27. 14. 2 Thes 2. 16. Isa 66. 13 14. he is the Lord of all influences to work in us to will and to doe and Master of his own rewards The Lord is Master of his own love-visits and is neither debtor to the man Christ nor to the elect Angels yea the Lord 's saving influences go along with his free decree of Election and look as the Lord of nature preserves the speces of Roses of Vine-trees though this or that individual rose or vine-tree may wither and be blasted so he holds on the work of believing praying of hoping and persevering to the end though there may be a miscarrying in this or that particular act of faith and some deadness in praying hic nunc And as in a great work of a water-mill some one of the wheels may be broken and yet the Mill is kept a going and the Ship still under sayl though some instrument or other be wanting and laid aside for a while So when there is a withdrawing of feeling of a presence in praying as Cantic 5. 6. I called him but he answered me not yet influences flow in another duty of praising ver 10. My Beloved is white and ruddy and the chief among ten thousand And when there are withdraw-drawings of God as touching vigourousness of believing Why art thou disquieted O my soul c. yet are there very large outlettings of God in love-sickness and strong desires after the Lord Psal 42. 2. My soul thirsteth for God for the living God So is it that some River which floweth a far other way in a new cutted out Channel the former being dried up So the bloud runs in another vein and still furnisheth strength to the body nor is there cause to complain as if all strength were gone for when the afflicted man eats ashes for bread and drinks tears the heart is withered as grass and the mans bones are burnt as an hearth Psal 102. the flood breaks out in another corner Ver. 12. But thou O Lord shalt endure for ever and thy remembrance unto all generations V. 19. He looks down from Heaven 20. To hear the groaning of the Prisoner to loose them that are appointed for death There is some spiritual compensation in the Lord 's forbidding the wind to blow in one earth when it strongly blows in another Some deadned deserted ones are much meekned and made to speak out of the dust and fed and fatned also with hunger yea if it were but lying at the gate of Christ and knocking though no answer at all be returned it hath much of Christ in it in other considerations deadness may be on and want of holy vigorous acting of faith and yet spiritual complainings yea and with the complainings fervent praying Psal 119. 25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust quicken thou me according to thy word Ver. 28. My soul melteth for heaviness strengthen me according to thy word Ye would judge righteously of the Lord and see whether or no ye complain without cause for though there be fainting yet there is hoping Psal 119. 81. My soul fainteth for thy salvation but I hope in thy word Some children are always malecontent and still weeping nothing in the house can please them it s the fault of some greedy wretches who have abundance and yet still complain of want It were good to turn our censuring of the Lord's providence into complaining of our own evil hearts it follows humble and diligent obedience that hath sweetness of submission Psal 119. 165. Great peace have they that keep thy Law and nothing shall offend or as the word is stumble their feet There is a heart-covenanting with God when the man saith God shall doe nothing that shall stumble me his killing of me his casting me out of his presence into hell shall not offend me Job 1. 22. 2 Sam. 16. 10. The man Christ could be broken or offended at nothing whether the traytor sell him or the disciples forsake him or the Jews apprehend him or the souldiers spit on his face or Pilate condemn him or the people nod the head shoot out the lip and mock him there is nothing can break Christ but the Scriptures must be fulfilled in Christ's sufferings If the Lord slay Aaron's sons Aaron holds his peace Let me be rained upon with showres of influences from Heaven or let my fleece be dry and let me be a bottle in the smoke yet there is no unrighteousness with God and in him is no darkness Ah I am dead but the Lord guides well ah he is a Lion to me and a Leopard but the Lord is good to the soul that waits for him The man that stumbles least at the sins of others and their falls is the man nearest to God's heart Psal 18. 18. They prevented me in the day of my calamity They wronged me ver 25. But I kept my self from my iniquity and what can ye say against his withdrawings will ye make it a quarrel that he hides his face there is a deep of soveraignty between the Lord 's withdrawing from Hezekiah and Hezekiah's pride God hardens Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh hardens his own heart Joshua 11. 19 20. Isaiah 57. 17. Psalm 81. 11 12. Qu. But what shall be done under deadness Ans 1. If there be any life life helps life the one
sometimes cold and sometimes hot lively or dead as the Lord is pleased to visit Q. May we not then say that dispositions are the affections heavenly disposed Answ Not so neither the affections are not the compleat and adequate subject of heavenly dispositions because there is often a heavenly disposition in the mind to know spiritual truths so Elihu Job 34. 32. That which I see not teach thou me An heavenly propension in the mind to be taught of God Psal 119. 18 26. There is a heavenly disposition of the spiritual mind to believe the Scriptures and in place of that there is a slowness to believe divine truths rebuked by our Saviour Luke 24. 25. 3. There is a spiritual disposition in the conscience of the Centurion Luke 23. 47. in Thomas John 20. 27. in Peter 5. 8. The contrary whereof was in the Pharisees and Rulers wrestling against the manifest light of God Matth. 12. 22 23 24. Matth. 21. 33 34. 45 46. Matth. 28. 11 12 13. John 9. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19. 34 35. John 42. 47 48. Acts 4. 13 14 15. Acts 13. 44 45. As also there is a heavenly disposition in the memory to retain the word Psal 119. 11. forbidden Heb. 2. 1. And gracious dispositions goe through the whole soul in order to all gracious actings in mind conscience will memory affections of love faith hope desire fear anger and order to all the spiritual duties that can be performed by men as sinful dispositions may be in all the powers of the soul if so the heart being so ticklesome a piece so ill to be guided it is of great concernment to see with what dispositions the heart is seasoned and who they be that lodge here as heat and cold come in the water by turnes as the summer is hot and the winter cold so the soule even of the child of God hath ebbings and flowings of dead and lively dispositions as the frequent triumphing and rejoycing and the ordinary and much repeated complaints of the Saints doe abundantly evidence Psal 22. Psal 31. Psal 77. Psal 89. Lam. 3. Jer. 20. There is a sinful disposition 2. The children of God may act spiritually under sinful dispositions 3. What acts they then put forth 4. The obedience performed under greatest indispositions upon the sole motive of the word is the most spiritual obedience 5. Sometimes the lesse sense the more spiritual is the obedience That there be sinful and gracious dispositions in men can hardly be denied 1. In all men by nature there is the habit of natural and original sin Hence an indisposition and a reluctancy to believe in Christ to love desire fear God 2. There is an acquired wicked disposition in Doeg he loves to lye a disposition satanical and and hellish in Saul when the evil spirit troubles him he is disposed to kill David But the special ill disposition here is the dead untowardness of the children of God to pray or praise or confess Christ c. Hence these considerations of this indisposition 1. That it may befal the children of God 2. That they may act under this indisposition 3. What acts they may and ought to performe under it As to the first it needs not much probation 1. A doubting disposition comes on the disciples Matth. 8. when the ship is a drowning and they in hazard of sinking Christ reproves not the act not so much as the root and disposition v. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why are ye fearful He sayes not why fear ye and he rebukes both in Peter Matth. 14. 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for what end shouldst thou doubt and both are clearly reproved when they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 affrighted 37 38. why are ye troubled jumbled or put out of order or why doe dialogues or bounded or racketted thoughts ascend in your hearts 2. Job David and Jeremiah sadly complaining and challenging God as an enemy as fiery and a God burning with hoâ— displeasure and as lying waters and that sayes that hardly could they but be under a disposition and fretting impatience 3. Elâ—sha is so jumbled that the soul is made like muddy water with indignation at Jehoram that he is in no spiritual disposition or capacity to see the visions of God 2 Kings 13. 14 15. and Jonah is distempered at tender mercy in the Lord towards great Ninive and old and young in it a straw the withering of a gourd the renewed soul may be hammered and knocked to pieces like a broken crystal glass while the Lord be pleased to soldar the broken pieces of the soul together again As to the second under such dispositions there may be some stirring of the habit of grace and of the new creation the soul either under swooning or sleeping is still acting as the soul one way or other it 's not to be supposed that the life of God in a believer can more intermit all sort of lively and vital actings then the soul can live of breathing or to communicate vital heat to the body the unbroken and intense habit of sin in the unrenewed is the mother-indisposition that hinders influences of grace as cast sparkles of fire on cold iron it makes no flaming because of the density and coldness of the object the Lord does not bestow every the same Sun-influences on the thistle or nettle and on the vintry nor is it supposed that God more bestowes actual influence of saving grace upon a man dead in sinne until there be a new heart and the life of God first infused in him then the Lord bestowes moral or rational influences on a horse or a mule that hath no understanding Now cast sparkles of fire upon flax or tow though the sparkles be small and there is presently flaming if the Lord but blow upon the smallest measure of the spiritual life of God though under many ashes and a huge deal of indisposition and there is some work flaming which will beger more fire There is much deadnesse and dulnesse of life in the affections to act in duties when there is life and some quickness of spiritual light the life and warmness retiring in to the heart the fountain of life when there is palenesse and coldnesse in the external members and as fire within creates fire in the nearest dry fewel there is an act of renewed light consenting Rom. 7. to the good to be done and yet deadnesse in the affections to perform and lively light in the half sleeping Spouse discerning the knock voice and words of the beloved and assenting that it were just to open to Christ and give him lodging in his own house and yet a prevailing drowsâ—esse in the affections refusing to let him in As to the Third under indispositions there may be divers lively actings As 1. Terrors and distractions and all the waves of Gods displeasure Heman Psal 88. 1. O Lord God of my salvation I cry day and night before thee v.
should tread in my Courts in the way and manner that you do So Christ rebukes the Pharisees praying and alms-giving with the blowing of a trumpet in so doing and shews them they have no reward for such works Matth. 6. 1 2 3. therefore there was no reward promised to such works 3. Hypocrites as touching the manner of their doing do counterwork their own work as touching the substance of the duty commanded vain-glory hypocrisie-like poison and death in the pot pollutes the action as Ink and mire vitiates a cup of wine being mixed therewith better it is comparative to do something of the bulk of the duty then wholly to omit it and do nothing less or more 2. Ass Both all the good action and every part of it totae actio totum actionis falls under the command of God he who commands us to hear in faith and read with believing commands us also to walk and journey to the place of hearing and commands us to encline our bodily ears to give attention of mind to the word as we hear a moral oration without wandring of heart though in these hear the word of God consider hear diligently encline your ears lay to your heart what is spoken God laies the obligation of a divine command on us to the physical act of walking to the place of liberal hearing as to the substance of the act and a tie to far more even to do the act with all the spiritual circumstances he who commands his servant to go to such a City fourty miles distant he commands him to go ten miles of these fourty miles also and while the servant is moving ten miles towards the City he gives obedience in part pro tanto and in so far to his masters command hence it must follow that giving of alms in the substance of the act is neerer in nature to the giving of alms in a spiritual Gospel-way then not giving of alms at all but a closing of both bowels and hand to the starving and famishing of the poor To the other question it may be enquired 1. Whether grace be above the desire of nature Answ Nature hath no power of getting supernatural gifts by the strength of nature but nature hath a capacity not such an actual desire which supposeth use of reason and discourse to supernatural happiness a capacity is an inclination to that which may perfect it so man intends or enclines toward God and is unquiet while he find him but it 's to abuse all Grammer to call a natural capacity an inbred appetite and natural desire 2. Whether grace be above the disposition of nature Answ This receives the same answer almost the habit of sin by which a man is dead in sin Eph. 2. cannot consist with a sweet disposition of nature to get grace the same wine cannot be both sweet and sour nor is there any sweetness in sour and bitter or unrenewed nature 3. Whether the grace of God be above the impetration purchase and prayers of nature Answ The Scripture teacheth us of no prayers by natures help but by the Spirit interceeding in the Saints Rom. 8. nor of any purchase of grace that nature can make grace prevenes nature but nature prevenes not grace 4. Whether grace be above natures merit Answ It were strange to say that nature can of condignity merit grace so as God should be unjust if he deny grace to nature where is that written and does not this make man and nature to make God a debtor as for the other merit of congruity if grace were not above this merit we should teach that nature may so far act as to make God a debtor to the mans acting as God should fail against decency good manners courtesie if he should deny saving grace to Seneca Cicero Aristides and such 5. Whether to the man who prepares himself by the works of nature to receive grace any supernatural grace is necessarily due Martinez de Ripaldo saith this opinion cannot be defended sine scrupulo without some scruple of conscience but an opinion may be true and yet by some weak conscience cannot be defended without some scruple of conscience but it is the bottom and marrow of Pelagianism as any versed in the doctrine of grace and in Augustine Hieronymus Fulgentius their works know 6. Whether the Lord does infallibly tie grace to works done by the strength of nature not as to a disposition or merit but as to a condition by the law of God saith Martinez or by the law of grace and covenant of grace and pur-chase of the merit of Christ as Alvarez lib. Respons ascribes to divers School-men and Jesuits which condition is conjoyned with the gift of helping grace This hath no shadow of ground in Scripture 6. Whether Gabr. Vasquez 1. part disp 91. q. 1. 14. doth upon good grounds defend that rotten opinion of the School-men Whether God doth confer such an help of grace which is necessarium ad fidem justificationem necessary and sufficient to saith and justification to the man who doth what he can ex viribus gratiae naturalis by the help of natural grace this also destroys it self Q. 7. Whether or not God useth to give sufficient grace or not to deny sufficient grace and other more abundant helps of grace to him who does what he can by the strength of grace intrinsecally supernatural This is not better then the rest for it supposeth that free-will disposeth absolutely of and determines this grace and earns by its endeavours faith and justification no man ever yet did what he can Q. 8. Whether Martinez de Ripalda Tom. 1. de Ente supernaturali lib. 1. disp 20. sect 3. sect 4. sect 5. saith right that God doth so ever confer helps of supernatural grace to all men as he stands and knocks at the door Rev. 3. 20. and it s in mens free-will be they Jews Christians or Pagans to open and believe but grace ex lege providentiae supernaturalis est necessaria is necessary to excite and stir up free-will Hence these Assertions 1. Assert This rotten principle of the School-men that to the man in nature who does what he can either by the strength of nature or by the strength of some grace which is sufficient universal and common to all men but yet determines not the will but leaves it to its own indifferency to will or nill God denies not saving grace for conversion is not to be holden 1. Because the places which speak of our natural inability prove the contrary Now if the natural man cannot know nor discern the things of God but judges them foolishness 1 Cor. 2. 13 14. If his wisedome be enmity against God and is neither subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Rom. 8. 7. If there be a necessity of the Spirit of revelation that the eyes of the understanding being inlightned he may know what is the hope of his
but a mock to say that God's speciall grace doth make men willing for Americans and Brasilians are Lords having in their power both general and special grace except Mr. Baxter yield to us a grace which doth predetermine or indecâ—inably bow fix and set the free will the way the Lord decrees and that the Lord must infuse a new supernatural power and it is above us to have special saving grace and that the Lord bestows on his chosen because he hath freely chosen them and then the matter is not in their may have or may not have 7. Mr. Baxter would have done well to have put one Scripture at least to this For neither in that John 7. 37 38. nor Rev. 22. 7. cries the Lord to Brasilians and Indians Whosoever will let him come and drink of the water of life for that promise is made only to those within the visible Church who are the called of God and doe and may hear it But the Brasiilians and millions of that kind are not the called of God 8. A remedying Law we acknowledge in the new Covenant but it is remedying to clear the justice of God and to make these within the visible Church the refusers of the Gospel more inexcusable then Sodome Matth. 10. 15. then Tyrus and Sidon Matth. 11. 23 21 22 23 24 then a people of an unknown language Ezech. 3. 5 6 7. But 1. It should be proved from Scripture by Mr. Baxter before he had asierted with Mos Amyrald and other Universalists his new remedying Law as remedying the justly deserved misery of Americans and Brasilians For sure if Christ died for them and hath stricken with all the savages on earth â—ews and Gentiles for whom he died and with all generations of men a new Gospel-covenant of the greatest love among men in Christ's dying for them and yet this Covenant is never revealed to them by either revelation made by preachers nor by the works of Creation and Providence nor by the Law of the Gospel written in the hearts of these men There is 1. little Remedy for clearing the glory of divine justice to make their furnace hotter in Hell for a Chymerical and imaginary sin of which their conscience cannot accuse them for how can they be guilty in rejecting a Christ they never heard of and by no superable providence could hear in that the Gospel came neither by Angels nor by Men gifted with tongues nor by inspiration to their knowledge and this darkens the glory of God's justice It s true Abimelech and Pharaoh and others may be plagued for sins they actually know not but light of conscience teacheth that Adultery and Oppression of innocent strangers deserve judgement But read we ever that Brasilians Indians or the wisest of Heathen Socrates Plato Cicero and the most tender of them die with any such challenge ah we sinned against the blood of the Son of God shed for us What and shall the Lord write and speak to Israel in their hearing I brought you ouâ— of Egypt and yet he will not tell the millions of the Heathen Christ dyed for them and saved them from the guilt of sin and everlasting wrath as touching their everlasting destruction which love yet he expressed not to them 2. Though it ill becomes us to censure the wisedom of God if the Lord rebuke those within the visible Church for refusing offered mercy as Jer. 3. John 5. 40. John 8. 21. how doth he not reprove the Brasilians for rejecting a promise of so much love 3. As no reprobate can be guilty of love of Election to glory from eternity suppone such a love had been in the heart of God towards them because it was never revealed to them So if there be such a law of grace and Covenant-promise the Law-giver the Mediator God-man was never revealed to the Brasilians 2. Where is this wide promise and Covenant to be found in Scripture who are the parties 3. What is the nature of the Covenant whether is it a Covenant of works do this and live or a Covenant of grace believe this and you have the reward of the Gospel preached to wit the restored image of God and where is this in Scripture 4. A remedying Law must bring a remedy to men the remedy is either real and so some real help must be conferred upon fallen man shew if there be one Brasilian healed and saved thereby a real power of believing in Christ and laying hold on the Gospel-promise remote or nearer cannot be given to all in Christ for any thing we read in Scripture since the Brasilians are heirs of wrath cannot receive the things of God 1 Cor. 2. 14. cannot believe or come to Christ John 6. 44. cannot submit their wisedom to the Law of God Rom. 8. 7. cannot bring forth good fruit more then thistles or thornes can bring forth figs or wine grapes Luke 6. 43 44. Matth. 7. 16 17. being dead in sins Ephes 2. 2 5. Walking in the vanity of their mind having their underâ—tanding darkned being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness that is in their hearts Ephes 4. 17. 18. Enemies in their minds by wicked works Colos 1. 21. Foolish disobedient deceived serving divers hearts Tit. 1. 3. having an heart of stone Ezek. 36. 26. uncircumcised Deut 30. 6. Jer. 9. 26. deceitful above all things desperately wicked Jer. 17. 9. every imagination of mans heart only evill every day Gen. 6. 5. from his youth Gen. 8. 21. So that a Brasilian must be born over again or he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God John 3. 3. Nor can flesh and blood but the Father of Christ only cause us believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God Matth. 16. 16. Now this is but a moral work to Mr. Baxter to cause a dead man live and if there were no intrinsecal wound impotency and deadness in the soul but only moral dimness of mind so as the literal clear external and objective proposal of the Gospel which wakens the stupid will as Pelagians and Arminians say perfects the whole work of the new-birth and grace is nothing but the letter of the Gospel and the strongest operation of this grace is onely moral swasion and counsel as if by Rhetorick and good words the mid-wife could bring forth the birth and this remedy that Christ brings to Brasilians is at best the raising of man dead and rotten in the grave by blowing a Trumpet beside him and by making a perswasive oration over his dead corps if so the man so raised was never dead Nor is the remedying Law so much for a preaching of the Gospel comes never to the ears of millions with whom this remedying Covenant is made and it were a strong inducement as any can be to move Brasilians Americans those of China and Turkey to receive the Gospel to shew them Christ by the blood of his Crosse hath made
peace between God and you ye are all of you old and young bought with a price ransomed by the blood of God ye are not your own Christ hath taken away your sins and does now begin upon a new score God hath exprest the greatest love imaginable he hath redeemed you his enemies this in the Old or New Testament is never told them for then the Ministers of the Gospel should find all the Pagans a Church bought with the blood of Christ and the reality of a Church should be in all societies of the earth But such glad news are preached to the chosen in the visible Church only never to Brasilians Paul preaches at Athens Acts 17. Creation not one word of Redemption as also Aristotle Plato and others should beget over again to God Creator all their disciples whom they find rude and ignorant and infuse by moral swasion and teaching a new life of learning and all rude and ignorant men before they be taught Methaphysick Mathematicks should be dead in ignorance enemies in their heart to knowledge and Philosophy and the same ground should make Ministers suppose there were no learning and teaching of the Father in drawing of men to Christ by that Omnipotency which raised Christ from the dead and created the world John 6. 44 45. Ephes 1. 17 18. 19. 2 Cor. 4. 4. as true real Fathers of the new-birth by only the letter of the Gospel as Aristotle and Plato are fathers to beget Philosophy in men Now for any remedying Gospel-promise that is made to Brasilians to purchase by way of merit we shall believe it when Mr. Baxter shall prove that to Indians and Brasilians who lived and dyed without the sound of the least notice or rumour of the Gospel Christ hath purchased and merited grace to believe the Gospel 2. That Christ by the blood of his Crosse hath made peace betwixt God and the Brasilians who so lived and dyed without the Gospel that Christ hath satisfied upon the Crosse for their sins against the Law and born their fins in his own body on the tree that Brasilians being dead to sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes Brasilians are healed 1 Pet. 2. 24. that Christ suffered for Brasilians to bring them to God 1 Pet. 3. 18. that Christ bought Brasilians from their vain conversation with his blood 1 Pet. 1. 18. that Christ gave himself for wild Indians that he might redeem them from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2. 14. And who so tell us of a general dubious and conditional intention in the Father giving his Son to death and of the Son's giving himself to death for all these poor savages to whom he would never send the air of a rumour that he so loved them and of a special intention going along with the free decree of Election to glory that so many only should live unto righteousnesse be redeemed from all iniquity are holden to prove two such redemptions two such loves of Christ dying two such intentions and decrees two such providences one special redemption one special greatest love one special intention one fatherly providence indeed toward the elect we find John 10. 10 11. John 3. 16. John 11. 51 52. 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. Rev. 1. 5 6. Rev. 5. 9 10. 1 Pet. 2. 24. 1 Pet. 3. 18. 1 Pet. 1. 18. Tit. 1. 14. Gal. 1. 4. John 15. 13. Rom. 8. 32 33. Isa 53. 4 5 6. Rev. 14. 4. all which places make the redeemed to be loved with the greatest love sanctified bought from their vain conversation redeemed from among men made Kings and Priests to God delivered from this present evil world redeemed from all iniquity c. we leave the other General dubious love intention and reconciliation of Brasilians to our Adversaries to be made out by Scripture And Q. What is the grace of Christ's meritorious blood if it be shed for all and every one if it put the nature and free will of all and every one in a better condition and if his merit restore not the image of God into a more firm and excellent condition then we had in the first Adam and what healing of nature and the restoring of the image of God is made to the savages who eat men as we do beevs kill their aged fathers use wives promiscuously and never heard one word of the Gospel CHAP. XIIII The Law discovereth the disease but heals it not 2. How nature begins and the spirit acts 3. We not God in withdrawing his grace must be the culpable cause of non conversion 4. Some truth we must first physically hear and consider before we believe KNowledge or the commanding Law strengthens the wicked desire by forbidding it A strong stream runs with more strength that a dike of stone and clay stands in its way I know not saith Augustine epist contra Hilarium 89 c. de spir lit 4. how that which is desired becomes more pleasant because it is forbidden Nescio quo enim modo hoc ipsum quod concupiscitur fit jucundius dum vetatur the letter of the Law or bare knowledge meets with unrenewed nature and then a severe master and a froward servant make no work betwixt them the Law came in that sin might abound Rom. 5. Jubet Lex magis quam juvat docet morbum esse non sanat imo ab eo quod non sanatur augetur ut attentius sollicitius gratiae medicina quaeratur The Law commands but it helps not it teacheth the disease to be there but heals it not There are two extremities here we love on the one hand the barbarous opus operatum the literal deed done in praying the charm of the external work is by hand if God sell not the blessing yet I have blown words of praying up to Heaven and told down the price It 's heavenly wisedom to go about praying and other means not as acts of trading for our nighest ends but as acts of serving and glorifying of God though no thing should redound to us but we use praying and hearing as a man doth his horse or his ship all for self-use and self-ends Ah can the man charm the blessing of the Holy Ghost with bare words when scarce the literal attention goes along and here our Idolatrry saith I buy and God will not sell I plow and God binds up the clouds the Lord pays not the reward of a rich harvest to the merit of plowing on the other hand let ordinances reading praying and hearing of the Bible sleep until the spirit blow and we forget it is not the Spirit of the Father which works without the word and the testimonies the tools of the Father is this God's Spirit or a delusion plow not sow not until it be first harvest blow not at the fire until it first flame boldly pray not until the Spirit breath strongly but first give words I pray you to be a
affirmatio sit causa affirmationis etiam negatio erit causa negationis Sic Servator ipse Qui ex Deo est Vocem audit Dei vos autem propterea non auditis quia ex Deo non estis Joan. 8. 37. The objection of many if God would give me influences of grace as he did to David Moses c. I would be as holy as any discussed The non-sense of this had I more grace I should be more gracious If the â—bâ—ecto of this had I more grace I would 〈◊〉 gracious were a humble â—â—vert the objection should be more savoury yet not sounder O if I had more grace I would labour and run more is a contradictory speech in the sluggard One spece desires not to be turned into another nor does a natural man desire to be a convert Luke 14. 16 17 18 19. Natural men wish physical influences of God but they hate moral holiness Natural men love independency and hate to be under the Lord 's governing influences He that uses not a less power or gift of two degrees for God would not use a power of ten degrees for God as is cleared in instances of 1. Wisedom 2. Power of Magistracy 3. Of old age 4. Riches 5. Habit of grace c. Riches cannot add mercifulâ—ess to men The Objection opened If I had had the grace of David I would not have acted the wickedness which David acted The Objection had I more grace I would be more gracious may be retorted Faith and Grace doe not depend upon extraordinary means and teachers sent from hell and we are much deceived thinking Had we more grace we should be more gracious If free will be weak in the improving a natural power it will be so in the improving of supernatural grace Mr. Fenner's Wilful impenitency pag. 80. There is an extolling of nature in this had I more grace I would be more holy for I and self is separated from Christ The carnal Objection If God gave stronger influences I should be more holy is a sinful complaining against Soveraignty 2. Against infinite wisedom what a depth is here 3. The Objection is against the freedom of grace The Objection chargeth the holy Lord with envy The objection chargeth the holy Lord with unrighteousness It chargeth God with male-government It strives with holy providence in the point of original sin How we wish to be from under sin original and how not God ties us to his own way of removing of sin not to our empty wishing that it were removed What sort of influences we are to seek from God The using of means is an approved way of God How reformation of life goes not before remission as Mr. Baxter saith Some violently bâ—ought in to know Christ some more mildly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John not under the same dispensation with Peter Jonah strong in his passions Eliah's temper The Old Testament dispensations and the New are compared together and their differences 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Various kinds of desertions Various kinds of desertions on the Lord 's redeemed Whether by prayer or any other way we may wrestle out from under God's desertions To deprecate the anger of God how laudable how not Influences are given of God to various temptations It is a gracious temper to weep when the Lord is absent or angry A soveraignty in the Lord 's hearing or not hearing Strive not with soveraignty Divers kinds of striving with soveraignty Deadness and desertion may be on one way and much of God in other actings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impegit offendit pede Christs absence is sometimes as good as his presence We are not to strive with the Law Sometime we may pray against the decree of God but it s never lawful to resist his commanding will It s good to answer every impression of his word 1 Pet. 1. 23. The new-birth We may weep over our own dry hearts when we want influences but we cannot weep against the Lord because he gives not these influences We are to meet all conditions of life with closing with his holy dispensation Luke 21. 12 17. Now we cannot prevent God The Lord strongly bows free will We are to pray for our own prayers There is no warrant for us not to act because God is Lord of our actings How we are to doe though God only work in us to doe The Word is the rule of doing the Spirit the real efficient cause How the Lord can lay by a command supernatural duties on men impotent and dead in sin We may use the loco-motive faculty in hearing and God convert men beyond their intention Gospel-commands stand well with divine justice Pelagius to heighten this said if our inability to obey be a punishment it s not a sin and if a sin it s no punishment for punishment cures sin Augustin de natura gratia cap. 29. Quid amplius dicam inquit Pelagius non ipse Augustinus ut pessime Jesuitae nisi quia potest credi quod ignes ignibus extinquuntur si credi potest quod peccata peccatis curentur Now we may believe said the Pelagians that fire may be extinguished by fire if sin be cured by sin and if God command both obedience and our impotency to obey be both a sin and a punishment so Julianus a disciple grosser then the master August lib. 5. contra Julian c. 4. So Pelagians taught that the godly before Moses Law were saved by the law of nature Epist ad Demetrium Hac lege naturae verba Pelagii sunt usi sunt omnes quos inter Adamum atque Mosem sancte vixisse atque placuisse Deo Scriptura commemorat August l. 2. imperfect operis cont Julianum Quid timetis magnum populum Christi Judicium magnum non timetis aperte dicite justificari natura justificari lege possumus gratis mortuus est Christus lib. 2. cont Juli c. 8. Epistol 95. Serm. 36. de verbis Domini Non solum ad facienda verumetiam ad perficienda mandata divina per liberum arbitrium humana sufficit natura Tu nos fecisti homines justos autem ipsi nos fecimus Aug. l. de Gestis Pelag. c. 14. Lib. 4. ad Bonefac c. 11. l. 2. imperf operis l. de spiritu litera c. 1. Pelagius l. 2. de lib. arb apud August l. de grat Christi c. 4. Nos sic tria ista distinguimus certum velut in ordinem digesta partimur priâ—o loco posse Cornel Jansen tom 1. de haeresi Pelag. l. 4. c. 13. p. 87. esse sine peccato statuimus secundo velle tertio esse primum illud id est posse ad Deum proprie pertinet qui illud creaturae suae contulit Duo vero reliqua hoc est velle esse ad hominem referenda sunt quia de arbitrii fonte descendunt Q What power of believing we want In what sense the Lord may charge men to believe who now in Adam have losed power of believing
lodging to the spirit to breath in Let nature stir first in the using of means First bow the knee stretch out the hands should the Spirit from above first bow the knee and first physically act upon the hands to lift them up nay nature begins in its order before the heat and fire of the spirit come flaming goes not before smoking but contrarily smoking leads the way to flaming the flaming of faith of love of paining desires in their spiritual vigour go not before stirring of the lips and lifting of the eyes to Heaven to pray that is no more true then refreshing and cooling of the heart go before eating and drinking will ye say I will not pray while first the spirit flame I will not hear while first I believe and I will not lay up the promises in the heart while first the heart burns in heat of love with the promises You then say I will not throw about the key until the door be first opened I will not hear the word until the Lord give me faith whereas the way of God is that faith as the end comes by hearing as the means leading to the end Rom. 10. and Gal. 3. Ye received the Spirit by the hearing of faith then of necessity our hearing and lending attention to Christ by the outer entry the ear must go before faith as the mean before the end whereas faith comes by hearing as vital heat is stirred up by running so it is true some inward burnings and flamings of spirit begin like smoking before flaming Psal 39. 1. Psal 45. 1. Acts 17. and then follows spiritual acting of praising preaching praying in which case there is as it were in the soul a fever and an inward boyling of a pot that must run over or new wine that must break the vessel and force vent so that silence or no acting must torment and pain the poor man but that is not ordinary for the set way is that we set to acting and the spirit strikes in as he thinks fit and the believer is to blow and stir the fire under the ashes as if he were seeking the wind and must stir and dig some fire and warmnesse out of the letter and let the spirit blow and flame as he will If any say a preparing of the heart goes well before acting that is true also if any say God commands not simple hearing but hearing mixt with faith what ever truth were in that as hearing without faith is sinful formality yet he commands in a divine order that we should hear to the end we may believe and the Lord commands not that we may believe that we may hear as nature ordains not growing and nourishing that the living creature may eat and sleep but by the contrary nature appointeth eating and sleeping that we may grow and be nourished If any say the Lord commands not hearing as to the substance of the act but saving spiritual and humble trembling at the Word and hearing in faith and this he commands to be done in believing and trembling at the Word in the same act in which he commands hearing It shall be denyed that in the order of begetting faith this is necessary that they ever be on and the same act the Lord preached to Adam Gen. 3. 15. the seed of the woman shall break the head of the serpent Adam by the Law of God of nature was first to hear and consider this first Gospel-truth and then to believe it and receive it in faith he was a rational and moral agent in believing and was not obliged in one and the same to hear and believe but as a rational agent he was first to hear and then to believe after consideration of the Gospel now heard and received in the ear and mind And the like may be said of Pagans at the first hearing of the Gospel they must hear and literally consider the letter of the Gospel before they believe As for the Lord 's commanding to believe to pray to read to praise sure we are to begin our duty of natural stirring in these acts though in another kind of cause God must first act us thereunto nor is the Lord 's stirâ—ing of us by omnipotent grace enjoyned to us but we are commanded to doe our duty and to pray for his drawing that we may run but yet by order of nature we are to doe our parts first in our physical way before we feel the stirring of divine influences Obj. He cannot pray he cannot believe and yet God commands him to believe Answ But his cannot as Mr. Fenner saith does not hinder If a wicked mans cannot only did hinder him he might excuse himself before the tribunal of Christ Lord thou knowest I did my best I would have been ruled by thy Word but I could not I would have been humbled and reformed better then I was but I could not For the culpable only hindering cause is Prov. 1. 29. They hated knowledge the fear of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they chused not They would none of my counsel they despised all my rebuke These four acts of wicked will are set down as the only faulty cause of their non-conversion and their not hearkning to wisedoms cry But if God had given efficacious grace which he out of his absolute liberty denyed certainly they would have been converted true and who denyes that All that have heard and learned of the Father come to me John 6. 45. If all such come and none miscarry then thou would have come also to Christ Surely after I was turned I repented Jer. 31. 19. but that is the cause of non-conversion physical and leaves not the blame on the holy Lord for the wicked will not yet remains and the conscience lays not the blame there but loves to have a physical bar of non-conversion to block up the way of moral non-conversion and four times subscribeth and consenteth to the absence and want of the Lord 's saving influence therefore except the unbeliever could say I had a desire hic nunc to abandon my lusts and to believe only this hinders God refâ—sed the sowing of a gracious power in me to believe pray repent and as an austere master he reaps and exacts believing and praying from a man who doth his best and all that in reason and justice can be craved of a man lays upon me threatnings commandments punishments who am only fettered against my will from obeying Hence faithful Mr. Fenner pag. 8. the moral and faulty reason why the wicked do not repent and come out of their sins is not because they cannot though they cannot but because they will not His reasons are 1. The wicked think they have power and yet they will not doe according to their thoughts what is the reason they hope to repent on their dead beds but because they think they have power or at least they are able to beg power of Jesus Christ Now by their
own thoughts God will convince them that they do not give over their sins 2. Thou dost not so much as try whether thou canst doe or not when a Master bids a Servant carry a sack of corn to the Mill I cannot says he but cannot you try says his master cannot you go about it no he will not try why then he is wilfull if his master should see him sweating and striving to carry it it were something then he will say he stuck at a cannot but when he will not be at the pains to try he sticks at a will not pag. 10. God offers the good motions of power I will help thee and I will enable thee and thou wilt not be helped Jer. 6. 17. Hearken to the sound of the trumpet but they said they will not hearken O saist thou I do hear the word and I cannot hear it better I do pray dayly and I cannot pray better thus thou retortest upon God as the unprofitable servant Lo here thou hast what is thine lo here is the best faith thy spirit helps me to here is the best obedience that thy power enabled me to doe c. lo there thou hast that is thine thou helpest me with no more 3. God gives thee a talent a new power hath God given thee eyes thou hast more power to glorifie him then he that hath none give account for thy wit Lord I have contrived businesses and bargains with it I have jested quirped been merry with it but why wouldst thou not be witty for God and for the good of thy soul 4. The more power thou hast to repent the more thy will is against it the more your righteousness should encrease it goes the more away like the dew the more the Sun riseth the more it vanisheth away like many the more preaching the farther off 5. Thy cannot is a voluntary cannot I cannot give to the poor saist thou yea thou hadst once Lands and Means and comings in but thou hast spent all at the Ale-house 6. Thou art contented with thy cannot thou canst not be holy and thou art contented not to be thou canst not crucifie thy lust and thou art contented with this cannot nay thou wouldst not be able my people love to have it so Jer. 5. 31 c. A man can doe more good then then he does though not in a gracious manner yea and there be degrees more or lesse in both matter and manner yea and this cannot is the natural cannot of a broken will Lot preached to Sodome and they repent not Jonas preached to Nineveh and they repent though not soundly Christ a greater then Jonah preacheth to the Pharisees and they repent neither soundly nor any other way Sure more might be done in using of means though not without some common grace but so long as wicked will hath a nearest influence in all sinful omissions and transgressions there is no place left to this O God give me no power nor habits nor influences but would ye have done all required to be done with power habits and influences by your poor wicked wills Nay there is a wicked will not which is a pull-back and a sinful obstruction to gracious actings But to say nothing of this more may not believers so far command influences of grace as that they have in their power far off or near hand in potentiâ proximâ vel remotâ sufficient grace to believe and be saved See Cornelius Jansenius tom 3. de grat Chr. Salv. lib. 3. c. who citeth Vasquez 1 part disp 97. Suarez lib. 4. de praedest c. 3. num 19 20. But it is required that the party non ponat obicem lay not a block in the way of the Lord calling him and if he doe not God shall undoubtedly convert him say these men For if God should deny sufficient help of grace especially to Infants upon an intention to damn them saith Theo. Smizing tom 2. tract 3. disp 6. de provid num 179. such a denyal should be against the Covenant that the Father hath made with the Son that he hath accepted the death of the Son for the reconciliation of all mankind and their redemption none excepted And therefore he should 1. Doe a wrong to Christ And 2. to all mankind and sin against the justice of his fidelity if he should deny sufficient help of grace upon an intention of damning them for original sin 3. Such a sufficient grace is due to us not of our selves but in Christ yea but by this Christ hath merited sufficient grace to all and why not pardon of original sin to all and life eternal to all should it not be a wrong to all and a wrong to Jesus Christ and a wrong to free will if such a meritorious purchase of grace be made to all why are they called by nature the heirs of wrath for by this all the Pagans and Heathens by grace are also the reconciled heirs of glory the ransomed of the Lord. 2. Why doe not the Apostles first reveal the drawing and heart-breaking motive of obedience Christ hath dyed for you all and reconciled you to God from the womb 3. What news are these you all are in that blessed Covenant passed betwixt the Father and the Son and Christ hath given a dear ransome of blood to purchase grace to carry you either to Heaven or Hell but he hath purchased for you no glory except by the sweating of free will you make it your actual purchase 4. The Scripture tells us no where that Jesus Christ dyed to break the Decrees of Election and Reprobation and that Christ hath obtained that no man should be damned for Original sin as many as die in Adam Rom. 5. as many are justified and live in Christ both the life of grace and of glory 5. This is the far more wide and broad covenant of grace that the Gospel if men use the light of nature well who are and ever hath been in all ages since the creation the greatest part of mankind shall be sent to them and all shall be put in such a capacity to be saved by Christ and justified in him as Adam was in to be justified and saved by the works of the Law 6. Why doth sin original brook the name of sin of iniquity transgression and a sin for which all die as Psal 51. 5. Rom. 5. Rom. 7. Rom. 8. Heb. 12. c. which indeed it s no sin but pardoned taken away in all mankind and which brings damnation to no man for in justice none can be condemned to death temporal more then to death eternal for that which is no sin at all and such is sin original say they 7. It is without all authority of Scripture that the natural actings of Pagans are so washed in the blood of Christ that they never heard of that they are in their actings meriting the Gospel either of congruity or decency or of common justice or of free promise or by some