and diligent heed to keep all his Goodness and all his Perfections ever in remembrance left they should be perverted by Satan Self-love and Sensual Pleasure The Terms of the Covenant of Grace are much more fully represented in the Scripture than was the Covenant of Works The Covenant of Grace was first published to Adam and Eve after their Fall in these Words The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent Where by the Serpent is understood Satan who under the appearance of a Serpent deluded them and by the Seed of the Woman is meant the Mediator of the Covenant of Grace who is to bruise that Serpent's Head and to deliver from the Power thereof such as should obtain the Benefit of the Covenant of Grace which for my more distinct understanding I do conceive as if it had been more fully exprest and as if God after the Fall had said to our first Parents thus I made a Covenant with you for your selves and your Posterity that if you continued innocent during the time of your Trial I would have given you supernatural Grace whereby you should never sin but should be eternally Happy I gave you sufficient natural Capacity to fulfil that Covenant but you have distrusted my Kindness and have believed an Apostate Spirit and therefore have lost to your selves and your Posterity the Benefit of that Covenant without being in any necessity to break it by my Decrees or Dispensations I might justly cut you off without having any Posterity or might leave you and them to follow your own ways and I will no more make a Covenant with you for them but I will raise up a second Adam who shall take upon him your Nature and be like you in all things Sin only excepted who will be for ever Innocent and Holy and so not only perform that which by the former Covenant you might have performed but will submit himself to Sufferings for you and your Posterity of greater value than if you had all suffered eternally the just Reward of your Sins And for his Sake I do offer you and will offer to all your Posterity who shall be capable to know an offer of Mercy and Grace that I will make you new Creatures enduing you with supernatural Powers and Inclinations making you Holy and Happy and will not suffer you to continue in Sin if you be not so addicted to your Sins as to reject my Offer to make you Holy and therefore I will continue with you and your Posterity the Light and Law of Nature written in your Hearts whereby you may know Sin the Transgression of it and that you may know that there is Mercy for the Penitent and none for the malicious while obstinate Sinner whereby you may also know that if you repent and betrust your selves to my Mercy and Conduct that I will make you Holy and Happy And albeit neither you have nor will they have Ability to repent and trust yet with the Offer I will give Strength to perform these Acts if the Offer be not rejected and will bring them to the Means of Grace to follow out the same This Offer becomes a Covenant by acceptance thereof the Accepters betrusting themselves to God's Grace and Direction by his Word and Spirit trusting to obtain Pardon of all Sin and of Excitation to Repentance for obtaining of it and for obtaining eternal Happiness by infusing the Habits of Grace here and perfecting them in Glory hereafter in the beatifick Visions of God's Perfections and the shining of his Face for ever without fear of Sin or falling from that happy State I do conceive that in this Representation all the Requisites of a Covenant are comprehended For the Difference between a Covenant and any other Favour done or promised whether absolute or conditional is no Covenant albeit there may be therein mutual Prestations required but this is special in an Offer that it hath no Obligation till it be accepted whereby the Accepters become obliged to perform the mutual Prestations on their Part. God making the general Offer of Mercy and Reconciliation to Sinners if they repent and betrust themselves to him for all things necessary for their Happiness for even the natural Conscience of all Men of Discretion is capable to know and represent to them that God is Just and will punish obstinate Sinners and yet is merciful to penitent Sinners throwing themselves upon him tho without Revelation they cannot know how a just God can pardon Sin without Satisfaction to his Justice but the same is manifested by the Gospel as by the first Adam all his Posterity were capable of Happiness if they sinned not so now by the second Adam all are again capable of Happiness upon far easier Terms of Repentance and Faith and even these performed by supernatural Grace If Adam or his Posterity had the making of the Covenants of Grace they could not without Impudence make them larger for there could be no more added but that even all the obstinately Wicked and Impenitent should enjoy the Pleasure of their Lusts on Earth and thereafter the Joys of Heaven so that I do and all considering Persons might cry out with the Apostle O the Height the Breadth the Length the Depth of the Love of God! And yet his electing Love is even larger than this Offer for albeit it be inconsistent with his immaculate Holiness to make any happy whom he doth not first make holy yet some Rejecters he maketh holy and happy pulling them as Firebrands out of the Fire which maketh none of the obstinate and rejecting Sinners excusable who continue to refuse to be made holy and tho they may deceive themselves thinking they would be willing to be holy yet while they are addicted to their Sins in reality their Will is not to quit them In my most serious Thoughts I can perceive nothing in this Conception of God's Covenants with Men that is impossible inconsistent with or incongruous to any of the Divine Perfections but highly illustrating them all and becoming the Majesty and Glory of God as the King and Ruler of his rational Creatures as to their eternal State Thereby he shews himself to be the most excellent King not only in a just Distribution of Rewards and Punishments but in great Goodness providing all things requisite that might have made them all happy without making any one miserable but by their own particular Fault Thereby also his great Wisdom is manifested designing or doing nothing in vain but ever choosing fit Means for the best Ends whereby his Mercy doth eminently appear that even against Merit he gives Grace and Glory to those Creatures of whom he had no need and who had willingly and ungratefully offended and injured him that he hath left nothing undone that could consist with his Domion his Wisdom his Purity and Holiness to extend his Goodness to his rational Creatures He doth not only govern the Elect towards their Happiness after their Conversion
repent of Sin and trust in God for Mercy through the Merits of Christ. And when they were told that Adam was once free and was the common Root of Mankind covenanting with God in their Name and therefore as they would have obtained Happiness if he had stood so they must be content with Misery seeing he fell He that takes the benefit of a Bargain must take it with the hazard of the Loss The Sins of an habitual Sinner are more atrocious than his first Sins of that kind and yet less free It was hard to convince them thus that they were in the case of Freedom as to Repentance for while Adam did represent Mankind he could not repent which behoved to presuppose Sin and after Adam had sinned that Covenant was lost and no other Sin of Adam reached all his Posterity but if they had considered that Christ the second Adam had supplied and exceeded the first Adam whereby no Man should be lost but he that refused the Covenant of Grace in the first Motions of it whereby his natural Conscience at least did witness to him that he was a Sinner and thereby deserved to be excluded from God's Favour and yet that God was merciful and gracious to a repenting Sinner but that it could not consist with his Holiness and Purity to reconcile with a Sinner cleaving to his Sin and that God would never suffer him to perish who upon such Motions did not cleave to his Sin It did not thence follow that this Man by the Power of Nature could repent but it was sufficient to convince the Peldgian that God would give him a new supernatural Power to repent and believe All that the Pelagian could reply was that there was no need of a supernatural Power and therefore the Wisdom of God would not choose a superfluous way but would make use of the Powers of Nature Yet the Scripture saith expresly and inculcateth That the Natural Man cannot understand Spiritual Things that are by the Covenant of Grace for which God gave no Capacity to the first Man by his Creation and so none of his Posterity can pretend it by those Powers communicated to Mankind by Creation and Propagation Pelagians did as highly speak of Grace as others but they meant by it only the Powers of Nature 2. There is a new Mistake like to that of the Pelagians taken up by some of the Protestant Church in France and taketh with others which if it be followed will end in Pelagianism but they should not be yet so treated They do not suppose Repentance and Faith to be in the Power of Man but that they are given by God at the time of Conversion yet not by any inward Habit or Power created by God and infused into the Will or Soul of Man but by the Word and other Means of God's Prowidence as when God by Correction lays low a Man's Passions and Lusts which hindered him to give due Attention to the Word of God and then by managing the Word of God and bringing such parts of it to his Thought as is fitted for his Capacity and Circumstances so that he cannot resist it for the Word of God is called the Sword of the Spirit and that it converts the Soul and that the various Expressions in Scripture Line upon Line and Precept upon Precept is contrived to take with several Capacities and Inclinations and that Man being a Rational Creature is always acted by God rationally but infused Habits would be a brute way The Wisdom of God would take the most adapted way the holiest Acts are done by Acts of Reason and Will infused Grace would lead to Enthusiasm and make the Word unnecessary but when the Word prevails it is said to be the ingrafted Word This they think not to be the moral Swasion of the Arminians wherewith Man could prevail but no Angel could so manage the Word it must be the Hand of God alone and seeing Conversion can be that way it were superfluous to add to it other inward Operations of the Spirit In all this there is nothing but the Powers of Nature more subtily managed The whole couse of Scripture is always inculcating the Difference of Grace from Nature If the Pelagians said not the same thing certainly they might have said it but the Scripture saith expresly That the Natural Man cannot know the Things of God because they are spiritually discerned Therefore Man by Nature wants that Sense to discern with Grace is the new Creature and Regeneration the new Birth therefore in Regeneration God must give a new Sense By Nature he hath given five Senses and fitted the Objects with sensible Qualities suted to them all These were not essential to Man God might have given fewer or added more and fitted Qualities for them May he not then give a new Sense for spiritual Things his Word sheweth he doth so which derogates nothing from the Word wherein are the Qualities fitted for that Sense it does not derogate from the Excellency of the natural Light that it cannot work upon a blind Man or that it does require the Sense of Sight The Word of God doth not only excite and promote Grace after Conversion but is a chief Mean to prepare the way for Conversion containing not only supernatural Light by Revelation but reviving and perfecting natural Light manifesting the Divine Perfections the Celestial Glory the way to attain to it the Beauty of Holiness the Deformity of Sin and the dreadful Consequences thereof and so looseth the Mind from that cleaving to Sin that makes the Offer of Grace and Mercy to be despised and rejected But it is not sufficient to turn the Soul to God by Conversion A vertuous Heathen by the Light of Nature may see the Deformity of and may hate gross Vice and may turn from it to that which is comely and convenient for Mankind but can never turn to God to make him the last End The Scripture may much more easily convince but not convert by it self but as it hath the Qualities sutable to make Impressions upon that supernatural Sense and Relish of spiritual Things It discovers not only the Pollutions of the World but those more subtile Sins that Heathens never perceive such as fetting the common Interest of Mankind above the Interest of God the want of the Love and Delight in God and of the Dependance upon him and attributing all good things to him So the ingrafted Word must be in its proper Stock in its own spiritual Sense No Man can refuse that God hath frequently insused Habits in the Soul of Man without the use of any Sense or any Principle in Reason Did not God give the knowledg of Words to Adam and Eve whereby he spoke to them and they to one another yet there was no natural Connection between the Sounds of the first Language and the Thoughts and Things they signified He gave also the Knowledg of many several Languages after Christ's Resurrection not only to the
Apostles but to others Was either Reason or Will made use of in the producing of these or was it a brute Way unbeseeming God Are not the Principles of reasoning inbred in Nature and freely given of God Is therefore Man's reasoning a brute Way Nothing can be more express against this Opinion than that of Ezekiel A new Heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony Heart out of your Flesh and give you a Heart of Flesh and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and you shall keep my Judgments and do them 3. There is a great Inclination in Man to put Works upon Man's Part of the Covenant of Grace and that as deserving by Justice the Performance of God's Part. The Semi-Pelagians after the Pelagians were baffled and exploded that they durst no more profess the Powers of Nature to be sufficient for Salvation said there behoved to be supernatural Grace given of God at Conversion yet there were preparatory Works such as the Sense of Sin and of its deserving the Spirit of Bondage the use of Ordinances which they thought deserved Grace which God in Justice could not but give these were also exploded and were called Semi-Pelagians All the Apostle Paul's Arguments against Righteousness by the Law strike as fully against these as against any Merits or Works on Man's Part in the Covenant of Grace and he is accurately positive That by Faith only we are sav'd without any thing on our part in which we might glory or attribute our Salvation to our selves in whole or in part 4. There is of late an Opinion vented in England that tho the Covenant of Works is now become impossible which required perfect Obedience yet God in his Goodness hath entered into the new Covenant or Covenant of Grace in which Man's Part is not a legal and full Obedience but through Christ's Mediation he hath accepted an Evangelical Obedience being a sincere Endeavour to fulfil all God's Commandments and a Course of Life without continuing in any kind of known Sin Their main Ground is that it cannot be thought that God entering with Men in the Covenant of Grace would not have Men as a Part of their Engagement to resolve and promise to have respect to all God's Commandments and to endeavour so far as humane Frailty could allow to fulfil them all if it were not so that Holiness were Man's Part of the Covenant we behoved to take the Antinomian's Interpretation that we were no more under the Law but under Grace that the Law had no more Obligation on Believers therefore the new Obedience must be Man's Part. This Opinion hath been held by some Pious and otherwise Orthodox Divines and therefore it ought rather to be cleared as a Mistake than prosecuted as a stated Profession It must therefore be adverted that God's Moral Law is indispensable and behoved to be binding tho there had never been a Covenant as hath been shown before God's Dispensation might have been without taking Man's Consent by way of Covenant but by the Law written in his Heart obliging him to Obedience under the just and proportioned Punishment of eternal exclusion from God's Favour the breach or loss of no Covenant could take away that it became indeed Man's Part of the Covenant of Works but that Covenant is broken yet the Obligation of the Law which was anterior to that Covenant stands In theCovenaut of Works there was partly Merit partly Favour but the Covenant of Grace excludes all Merit and Man's Part is by Faith only so that Faith is not considered in its moral Goodness for in that Consideration Love is a far more excellent and disinterested Vertue than Faith but Holiness is on God's Part of the Covenant of Grace as in the former Conception is expressed he infuses the Habits of all the Christian Vertues in Conversion Man's Engagement to endeavour to keep God's Law were of no Import unless he did keep it and so God's Part should not be at the time of Conversion but at the time of Death after the Course of Man's Life did appear The Scripture makes no mention or moment of Man's Resolution which is as the early Cloud or Morning Dew which quickly passeth away Neither would the Terms of the Covenant of Grace be equal to all the Endeavour of some would go much further than the Endeavour of others 5. Some Divines in England have made Man's Part of the Covenant to be Faith as it is a good Work because it is said Abraham believed in God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness That is it was held sufficient as if all Righteousness had been performed But this had been still a Covenant of Works accepting one Work in place of entire Obedience but Abraham's believing in that Place was not the Act of Faith as it is Man's Part of the Covenant for it relates to a former Place of Scriptnre as the Scripture saith Abraham believed which was concerning his Son Isaac who was promised to him in his Old Age and therefore he staggered not at the Promise of God through Unbelief which was a particular Act of Belief of that Promise and was properly an Act of Holiness and was so imputed or reputed as an Act of Righteousness but the Act of Faith in which Abraham entered in the Covenant of Grace was believing in God through the Messiah to be justified sanctified and glorified 6. Some Reformed Divines in France and England bring good Works on Man's Part of the Covenant of Grace as perfecting and compleating Faith for only a lively Faith working by Love is saving for there is a Faith that worketh not by Love The Devils believe and tremble and Faith without Works is dead Abraham was justified by Works when he offered Isaac Seest thou how Faith wrought with his Works And Abraham believed and it was imputed to him for Righteousness by Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only Yet Paul's reasoning is much more full and accurate discussing the Point of Justification by Faith only without the Works of the Law which could not consist if James spoke of Faith as Justifying whereas James takes off an Error of those that thought they might be saved by believing the Gospel without Holiness which he redargues as a wrong Consequence from Paul and shews that not to be true Faith but such a Faith as the Devils have which cannot be that Act of Faith whereby Man entereth in the Covenant of Grace which is not believing the Truth of the Gospel but relying on God for Salvation through Christ according to the Gospel and on the contrary Abraham's Faith is brought in as true Faith which yet was not the justifying Act nor is the Justification there meant the Justification in Conversion which maketh a Man just but that which manifests his Justification to himself and other Men For Paul saith If Abraham were justified by
Covenanters by their Choice and Consent both as to the Matter and Manner There be Covenants where the Performances are of equivalent Value deserving each other but it were Arrogance enough for Adam to have thought the Covenant of Works were such and it were Insolence to imagine the Covenant of Grace to be such As in the Covenant of Works there were two Branches a Covenant between God and Adam for himself and his Posterity and if he had stood there behoved to have been a Covenant between God and each of his Elect Posterity particularly for himself The Word makes it appear to be so in the Covenant of Grace the Father did covenant with the Son foreknowing Adam's Fall to become the second Adam to restore and exceed that which was known the first would lose by assuming the Nature of the first Adam and with it not only performing that in which Adam failed by not continuing in Integrity performing the whole Will of God and thereby putting all Mankind in a nearer Capacity to Blessedness than Adam had done tho he had stood for there is no ground to think his Posterity would have been confirmed without their own Trial more than he but the second Adam put not only all Mankind out of the Necessity of Misery but it became effectual unto all so far as it was congruous to the Divine Perfections which could not admit of Reconciliation with Sinners cleaving to their Sin or of those who partaking of Divine Illumination and of the Tastes of the Powers of the World to come should despightfully hate the Spirit the Worker of these All the rest of Mankind as the Father foreknew them and predestinated them to be conformed to the Son so the Son undertook effectually to redeem them and glorify them and the Holy Ghost to call them sanctify and preserve them The second Adam did undertake yet much more than the First to satisfy the Justice and manifest the Purity of God more than if all Mankind had perished This Branch of the Covenant of Grace is compleat as to the Elect that could not through Incapacity covenant for themselves but those that could were to have the Offer of the Covenant of Grace made to them by their Vocation tho not to all in equal Fulness and Clearness It was not sutable to the Wisdom of God that those who rejected the first Operations of the Spirit intimating to them that they were Sinners deserving Exclusion from God's Favour and yet that God was merciful to Penitents and would make them Holy and Happy if they did not obstinately cleave to their Sins and reject that Motion but in the rest and even in some of these Rejecters God carrieth on the Work of Sanctification and Salvation in his own Way bringing such to the Light of the Gospel or the Light of the Gospel to them and opening their Eyes to see the Wonders of his Law and to discern spiritual Things and giving them the Inclination to accept of the Offer of the Covenant of Grace and to enter in it for themselves by that saving Act of Faith which is all their Part in the Covenant of Grace Of this we have two eminent Examples in Scripture the one Personal the other National by Miracles manifested to the two great Apostles Peter and Paul That of Peter was from Cornelius who neither was a Jew nor a Proselyte but was come the Length of natural Religion to worship only the one God to whom an Angel was sent from God to show him how he should worship the true God aright The other was by a Vision to the Apostle Paul of a Man of Macedonia beseeching him to go to that People to help them who for ought doth appear were then Heathens It doth not suffice to a distinct Knowledg of the Covenant of Grace to know that by Faith we are saved but those who have Capacity ought to enquire what that Faith is whether it be the Habit of Faith or an Act of Faith whether it be a special Act of Faith and what that is whether it be one single Act only or if to be renewed and whether it be saving by any thing in itself and if we may perceive any Consideration why God made that Act of Faith Man's Part of the Covenant rather than any other As to the first Point to have Faith and to believe are used as equivalent Terms both in common Use and in the Scripture but in a great Latitude for to believe doth oftentimes signify a Judgment of the Truth of any Proposition Men do believe that is they think likely or probable whatever the Ground of their Opinion be but more strictly Belief is taken for a Judgment which hath for its Motive the Perfections of some Person expressing it endued with such Perfections as may warrant an Assent without any other Reason That Person must be a vertuous Person from whose Actings it appears that he doth own the Principles of Morality and hath no Tentation to fail in the Application of them in that Point so not only a Liar but a vitious Person or one in Necessity or biassed by Favour or Hatred in Prudence is not a credible Person or if the Matter be that which is not the particular Object of that Sense which he hath in Vigour it is but a Matter of Opinion Faith upon account of credibility is to be attributed to God alone absolutely who can neither be ignorant err be biassed mistaken or deceived and is Infinite in moral Perfection Creatures may also be trusted in defferent Degrees according to the Moment of the Matter But no Man ought to trust any Creature as to the Necessaries of his Salvation but God alone immediately or by Mediation of those that have his evident Credentials This kind of Faith is a Prerequisite to the Covenant of Grace but no Part of it For the Devils do thus believe and tremble they know God to be certainly true and that all he expresseth is true whatever improbability might arise against it There is yet a stricter Sense of Believing or Faith whereby one expects good from another when it is sutable to him to give or do it and to the other to receive it In this Sense we do not say one believeth another but he believeth in him he trusteth to him he leans relies and rests upon him The Object of this Faith is Faithfulness It doth not arise alone upon the Veracity or Truth of the Person trusted but requires many other Perfections that he be Benign and Gracious that he be Powerful and Plentiful as to that wherein he is trusted It does not require his Promise which would make the thing expected an Act of Justice but the Excellency of his Nature so Creatures may and do trust to Creatures according to their Perfections A Secret may be trusted to a faithful Person tho neither Powerful nor Rich and if Experience hath shown him to be trusty it will be a Confidence without all doubt he is
plentiful in Capacity to forbear to reveal a Secret he loses nothing by keeping it To another a Man may trust his Money without Writ or Witness if he know him to be Vertuous tho he were Poor much more if he be Rich and so under no Tentation to abuse his Trust. And it were but a Folly to require a Promise to restore for there being no Means of Proof he might as safely violate his Promise as his Faithfulness and would think himself less trusted or obliged It is Indiscretion first to relate a Matter and then to say it is a Secret or to require Secrecy because he that accepts the Trust should do it freely his Promise may oblige him to keep it close but not his Faithfulness unless it be first told him that there is to be revealed a Secret to him which he may lawfully keep close that he may forbid the discovery if he will not lie under that Obligation of trust He that is pursued or searched after for his Life if he be not able to defend himself tho he have no Relation or Confident near him he will run for shelter to the most vertuous and fit Person that without Fault may cover him In all these there is Trust but without any Promise or Paction There are some things which no Man with prudence can believe in any Creature because no Creature can have Power to give all things that another may need God alone is absolutely Faithful for he is Alsufficient he is boundlesly Benign he cannot have any thing less by whatever he can give yet his Faithfulness doth not require that he should give or do any thing to any but what is congruous for him to give and them to receive It were very incongruous for him to give Grace or Glory to one who knowing him or tasting of his heavenly Power did hate him with Despite He doth much Good by his Bounty respecting nothing in the Object but its Capacity to receive much more by his Mercy and Compassion upon the Miserable but most of all to those that trust in him and expect from him This is by his Faithfulness the others are by his Mercy and Benignity The Weakness of Creatures hath made him not only Promise but Swear yet it is Indiscretion to urge him upon his Oath or even upon his Promise where his Faithfulness were sufficient No other can give Grace or Glory but he and those may be trusted for by all that did not hate him or did cleave to their Sins and refuse to become Holy and there is no Foundation of Distinction of one Man from another In this Case he needs not enquire whether he be elected and contained in the Covenant between the Persons of the Trinity It were impossible for him to know that immediately but only by consequence from a true and lively Faith working by Love purifying the Heart tho then Considence and Assurance that it was true and saving Faith not Presumption may be inferred from a Holy Life Faith in this Sense is the Christian Vertue next in Excellency to Love and as Love makes the Pleasure and Glory of God the last End so Faith gives the Resolution for pursuing all the Means towards that End and towards the next subordinate End the Tranquillity of the Mind trusting in God for Direction in all the Means towards these Ends that as the natural Man trusts to and rests on natural Means for obtaining his Ends so the spiritual Man trusts to and depends upon the Conduct of the Holy Ghost by supernatural Means especially Therefore the Apostle Paul saith and gives warrant to all who walk Christianly to say The Life that I now live is by the Faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me The second Point proposed is whether that Faith which is Man's Part in the Covenant of Grace be the Habit of Faith or any one or more Acts of that Habit In which I conceive it is very clear that a Covenant cannot be entered and continued by an Habit but it doth necessarily require an Act of the Will tho it is true that the Habit of Faith is more universally necessary to Salvation than that Act of Faith by which Men come into the Covenant of Grace For Infants come into that Covenant by Regeneration when the Habits of Grace are infused in their Souls as they and all the Elect were undertaken for in that Branch of the Covenant of Grace which from Eternity was among the Persons of the Blessed Trinity Yet they could not be said to be actually in the Covenant till they were not only made Creatures but also new Creatures by Regeneration and Sanctification of the Spirit It is a needless Curiosity to enquire whether they exert any Acts of that Habit in this Life It is said that at the Salutation of the Blessed Virgin to Elizabeth the Child in her Womb did spring for Joy but whether the Springing of the Child was from his or her Joy is not necessary to determine I doubt not but the Soul of an Infant is capable to act its imbred Principles if it could perceive the Objects thereof but it is so delighted in that tender Case to which it is wedded that it can think of nothing else as Experience shews of all Men when in extream Passions their Souls can think of nothing but of the Object of these Passions Nor do I doubt but God may so far manifest himself to an Infant 's Soul as to give it great Joy but as there is no Necessity so there is no Probability that such Souls should enter in Covenant tho it be most congruous to the Divine Perfections and to the Way God hath chosen that all that are capable should actually enter into a Covenant with God at their Conversion When it is said Without Faith it is impossible to please God I do rather think that by Faith Acts are meant rather than the Habit albeit the new Creature by the Habit be pleasant to God yet not as an Act but as a Quality whereas to please signifies an Act pleasing and so it must relate to those that are capable to covenant with God in relation to whom all Directions and Instructions in the World are to be understood I am not moved by this Objection that if the Covenant of Grace be entered by an Act of Faith Children and Idiots must either be excluded from the Covenant of Grace or there must be a different Way of saving Children and Men of Discretion and a different Covenant of Grace for Children For it is beyond question that God's Way with Children and Idiots is different from his Way with others and that the Rules and Directions revealed in Scripture relate only to those of Discretion capable of them So the Apostle in determining Man's Part of the Covenant of Grace opposeth the hearing of Faith unto Works and saith likewise How can they believe unless they hear Which neither relateth to nor is exclusive
of Children from the Covenant of Grace yet the Covenant of Grace is one for all the Son having covenanted from Eternity for all the Elect to bring them into the Covenant of Grace by Regeneration exerted according to their Capacity by actual believing of those who are capable so to act which also is an Evidence that the Act of Faith is not saving by any thing absolutely necessary in it self but by the free Choice and Institution of God The third Point proposed is what Act of Faith that is by which Men enter into the Covenant of Grace and which is their Part of the Covenant Many hold it to be a Perswasion of the covenanting Person that Christ died for him whereby it must be an Act of the Understanding but I see not how that can hold for covenanting must be by an Act of the Will promising or otherwise performing the Covenanter's Part which is oftentimes in the one Party no more than an Acceptance as in a Trust or Commission the one Party gives the Trust or Commission which doth make no Covenant but an Offer but when the other Party accepts then the Contract is compleat and the Accepter is thereby bound to follow the Trust and Commission and make an Account and the Giver is obliged to refund the Expences Albeit Contracts be by mutual Consent and that Consent signifies to have the same Thought yet Agreement in one Mind makes no more a Covenant than when two are of one Opinion in Contemplation but a Covenant is ever somewhat practicable and therefore tho Acts of Understanding precede the Covenant it self is by Acts of the Will The Description of saving Faith by Perswasion is but by a Consequent which ought to be endeavoured by all yet is not attained by all for many are in the Covenant of Grace that come not the Length of Perswasion that Christ died effectually for them and that thereby they are reconciled to God and shall be saved for tho they were perswaded that Christ died for all and every Man that would import nothing to saving Faith for it were much more evident that the Effect of Christ's Death for all Men were not the same seeing so many trample under Foot the Blood of the Covenant and so few are saved Therefore no Man hath just Ground to be perswaded that Christ died effectually for him or with Intention to make him holy and happy or any further than to put him in a Condition to be holy and happy if he himself did not hinder it Therefore tho believing in Christ were not only proposed to all but imposed on all as a Duty yet it is only a Duty in the Order God hath imposed it to wit that all Men should consider their sinful natural Estate and that the just Reward of Sin would be eternal Death without Repentance which none could escape who cleaved to any kind of Sin and hated to be reformed and that therefore they should be willing and endeavour to be reformed and use the Means appointed by God for that End and should throw themselves upon God's Mercy through Christ's Merit if thereby they found that the delighting in Sin in those Kinds especially which did most easily beset them did cease and that the Love to and Delight in God did in some measure take Place But to think to reach the highest Step of the Scale per Saltum were altogether without warrant unless it were extraordinary as in Paul's Conversion Paul to the Romans gives the true Warrants of that Perswasion As many as are led by the Spirit are the Sons of God The Spirit it self beareth Witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and Joint-Heirs with Christ. Hence it is evident how little Moment is in that Arminian Quibble so much magnified by them that Christ must have died for all Men because all Men are bound to believe he died for them We must therefore yet enquire the particular Convenanting Act of Faith which being so necessary is many Ways expressed and set forth in Scripture that it may be reached by several Capacities it is called a Looking to Christ for Salvation Look unto me all ye Ends of the Earth and be saved A turning to God Turn ye turn ye for why will you die O House of Israel A coming to Christ Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy ladened and I will give you rest to your Souls And to the Refractory it is said Ye will not come to me that ye may have Life A drawing near to God Draw near unto God and he will draw near unto you An answering of God's Call Thou saidst Seek ye my Face my Heart answered Thy Face Lord will I seek hide not thy Face from me A receiving of Christ He came to his own but his own received him not but to all that did receive him he gave Power to become the Sons of God So then the saving Act of Faith must imply all these not that he who entereth in the Covenant must have expresly all these Acts but that the Act he must have must imply and import them all and be virtually as much as they all The Spirit of God in this Branch of the Covenant of Grace does not proceed in one way with all the Elect As the Wind moveth whither it listeth and no Man knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is the Spirit of God Some are chased in by the Thundrings and Terrors of the Law running as a pursued Man to a Rock a Fortress a Tower or a Strength or as in the hazard of Shipwrack running into an Harbour As those who by Peter's Sermon convincing the Jews that they had denied the Holy One and the Just and had killed the Prince of Life Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this they were pricked in their Hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and Brethren what shall we do And God opened their Ears and their Hearts to receive Instruction But God gaineth others by the sweet and still Voice of the Gospel alluring their Hearts to trust in his Mercy and Faithfulness as being so gracious that he delights not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that they should repent and live that he will not disappoint those who becomingly trust in him He sometimes begins with the Light of Nature to lead in the revealed Light of the Gospel as Paul dealt with the Athenians and saith to Timothy God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of Power and of Love and of a sound Mind With some the Spirit proceeds by degrees giving a Spirit of Bondage to fear before the Spirit of Adoption as Paul saith We have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear but we received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba
Father These are the ordinary ways of the Spirit in which the saving Act of Faith is always in the order of Nature anterior to God's part of this particular Covenant of Grace whereby he regenerates Believers begetting in their Souls the Habits of Grace and Holiness which is a new Creation which these and they that receive them are called new Creatures and ordinarily both parts of the Covenant go together Believing and Regeneration yet some are sanctified from the Womb who come afterwards actually to believe The ordinary Procedure of the Spirit held forth in the Scripture hath some Operations of the Spirit anterior to the entering into the Covenant of Grace which are called Preparatory Works And first the Spirit convinceth every Man that cometh to have the use of Reason that he is a Sinner by comparing his Life with the Light and Law of Nature written in his Heart that he hath broken that Law that thereby he deserveth Punishment tho his Transgression were never so secret which neeessarily imports that there is an invisible Judg that can inflict it and who certainly knoweth it and will not pardon it while it is approved and the same Light of Nature shews that there is hope of Pardon to those that do not approve their Transgressions and are grieved for them I doubt not but all this is wrought upon the most barbarous and ignorant Savage for tho by Prepossession and Custom many of the Laws of Nature are never adverted yet ever so much ariseth in the Mind as maketh the Natural Conscience perceive the Transgression of them and a Difference between those who continue and delight in the Transgressions of them and those who grieve for them upon account of Punishment tho they have no distinct Perceptions of that invisible Power from which they fear Punishment or tho their mistaken Interest and the Opinion of their Neighbours seduce them to believe that that fear of Punishment of secret Transgressions is but from a groundless Fancy such as they have in the Darkness and not in the Light That which perswadeth me of this general Operation of the Spirit of God is that otherwise tho greater part of the World were in inevitable necessity of eternal Misery and could never accuse themselves even when awakened in Hell and made clearly to know that through their own fault they were in that Misery which they might escaped if they had followed these Motions by their Natural Conscience to repent I have before cleared my Mind that the blessed and benign Conception of God doth import so much that he condemneth none to eternal Torment but for that Sin which they might have escaped as to the Punishment of it Tho there be no necessity that the Spirit should further follow those who hate to be reformed yet to magnify the Justice and Benignity of God the Spirit proceeds frequently further even with Rejecters clearing up in them the Light of Nature bringing them to know the Word of God in which not only the Light of Nature is revived but much revealed that hath no Foundation in the Light of Nature whence there arises a Perswasion of the Truth of that Word and all revealed in it He gives also frequently the Perception of the hazard and horror of Sin the forbearing of the outward Acts of some Sins and the inward Inclination to some others a natural Pleasure in some Vertues and thence oft-times follows an unwarrantable Perswasion of having obtained Grace and Right to Glory If these or some of them were not the Reprobate would become without all hope of Mercy and as malicious as the Devils yet these are given not for their own sakes but for the common good of Mankind and the special good of the Elect but by none of these is the Covenant of Grace entered The Act of Faith by which Men enter into the Covenant of Grace is not in their own Power nor can they exert it at any time they please even when they hear or meditate upon the Word of God or when they hear read and meditate upon the most convincing and perswading Preaching or when they do most earnestly pray to be pardoned and accepted All these are but the Ordinances of God with which he doth ordinarily confer Regeneration and which are therefore Mens Duty to use them and it were to tempt God to desire or expect Convorsion in another way Neither are these meer Formalities or Solemnities but have their proper Effects especially in loosning the Soul from its Addictedness to Sin for it is said expresly By Grace ye are saved through Faith and not of your selves it is the Gift of God There must therefore be a present inward Vocation Motion or Excitation of the Spirit offering to the Soul to turn it from cleaving to Sin unto God and to give Pardon Reconciliation Holiness and Happiness but not conferring these until the Soul be willing to accept them There will be little difficulty to embrace that Offer as to the Pardon of Sin nor to have the general Notion of Happiness tho if the particular way of Happiness were explicated to be the Delight in God and Spiritual Things and not in Carnal Delights The prepossessed Soul by sensible Pleasures might readily loath that as light Food yet the greatest Difficulty would be in being willing to be made holy that is consecrated and devoted to the Love of and to the Delight in God above all things with an Opposition to all known Sin This therefore must be the Gift of God freely given at the time of that Motion of the Spirit to such only as are elected whether they be such as are not positively resolved to cleave to Sin or reject such Motions or such whom God even against that Reluctancy will overcome and maketh willing to embrace and accept the Offer and Motion of the Spirit This is that inward Call which is one of the Links of the Golden Chain of Salvation for whom he predestinated them he also called justified and glorified and which therefore is called effectual Calling to which there is never made effectual Resistance it being ever stronger than any Resistance yet not so that the Soul could not possibly resist but that God had made the Call so strong that though it was willingly imbraced not necessarily but freely yet always effectually Albeit God might give such an Inclination to accept Holiness as he gives to desire Happiness yet there is no ground to think that he doth so for such Acts which are absolutely necessary deserve not so much as Praise being but as the Instincts of Brutes It is a great Mistake to think that God's inward Call cannot be effectual unless it gave as strong an Inclination as is the desire of Happiness For he knows certainly the Effect of every Condition by Nature or Grace and by his Wisdom he does no more than what is requisite for his Purposes They highly derogate from the Glory of God that imagine his Call to the Elect is