call this Exposition of St. Paul's Text which I have offered carnal Reasoning and the Wisdom of the Flesh and perhaps he will finde little else to say against it there will be small hope left of doing any good upon him nor is any thing to be done with him but to turn him over to the Quakers and with them at present I leave him PART 1. An Account of what we are taught in the Holy Scriptures concerning the Operations of the Holy Spirit CHAP. I. The General Subject of the following Discourse stated § 1. THrough the Assistance of that Holy Spirit whose Operations I intend to treat of I shall endeavour the performance of these two things First to lay down as clearly and methodically as I can what I finde the Holy Scriptures have taught us concerning his Operations and as I go along to remove those erroneous and as I am yet perswaded dangerous Opinions of Dr. Owen and his Brethren concerning this matter which may seem needful to be debated in order to the present clearing of the Truth and this shall be the work of the First Part. Secondly to confute some other pernicious Doctrines of his relating to the same subject the consideration whereof may be fitly enough reserved till we have concluded what the Holy Scriptures affirm in this matter and that will be my designe in the Second Part of this Discourse I shall begin the First part with stating the general Subject of my intended Discourse as plainly as I can Amongst other significations of the word Spirit that may be met with in the Scripture it will be sufficient for my present designe to take notice of these that follow 1. It is sometimes used to signifie the Minde of man as in Joh. 4.24 to worship God in Spirit is to worship him with our Souls and in Gal. 6.18 and Col. 2.5 and in divers other places This is so plain that it needs onely to be mentioned for where the word is used in that sence the Context does easily lead a man to the right understanding of it 2. It sometimes signifies the Temper and Disposition of a man's minde Thus we are to understand that spirit of Faith mentioned by St. Paul 2 Cor. 4.13 which the Christians and God's Servants also in former times had viz. the same pious temper of Minde in bearing Afflictions for Gods sake and looking for deliverance and reward from him So likewise God hath not given us the spirit of Fear but of Power of Love c. 2 Tim. 1.7 contrary to that timorous cowardly temper of being afraid to endure Persecution for Righteousness sake Hereby saith St. John we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit And what that spirit is we see plainly by the former words Chap. 4. vers 12. If we love one another God dwelleth in us It is that spirit of Love that Benignity and charitableness of minde whereby we become like unto God 3. By the Spirit we are frequently to understand the Holy Spirit of God the third person in the blessed Trinity as in 1 Joh. 5.7 There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost or Spirit So also when St. Paul saith There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12.4 we are by Spirit to understand the Holy Ghost for vers 6. he saith it is the same God which worketh all in all which compared with vers 11. But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will makes it plain that by the Spirit here St. Paul understands God the Holy Ghost This is the sence wherein I understand the word Spirit when I speak of the operations of the Holy Spirit in us I mean the person of the Holy Ghost But we must observe 4. That the Holy Spirit is frequently used to signifie his Operations or those Effects which are wrought by his Operations Thus the pouring out of the Spirit mentioned Acts 2. plainly signifies his bestowing supernatural gifts in great measures upon the Apostles and Disciples of Christ. So Received ye the Spirit i. e. the gifts of the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith Gal. 3.2 Thus also are we to understand that promise made to the Apostles of sending the Holy Ghost Joh. 14.26 For this being the promise of the Father mentioned Acts 1.4 which was foretold in these words I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh Acts 2.16 17. must needs signifie the same thing with pouring out of the Spirit which phrase as Dr. Owen truely notes hath respect unto his Gifts and Graces So likewise the phrase of giving the Spirit Luke 11.13 is explained in Matth. by giving good things i. e. such good things as the Spirit of God is the Author of to Believers Indeed nothing can properly be said to be given to us but what is capable of becoming our own therefore when the Holy Spirit is said to be given some spiritual good or benefit is meant which accrues to us by the Operation of the Holy Spirit But the Doctor tells us that where the Spirit is given he is given absolutely and as to himself not more or less but his Gifts and Graces may be more plentifully and abundantly given at one time than at another to some persons than to others So that he makes two different things of having the Spirit of God given to us and our being partakers of his Gifts and Graces for according to him a man may have these limitedly That he must have absolutely These more or less That not so And this is a mystery which he hath found out in that expression of giving the Spirit Whatever he intends by this conceit it is plainly contrary to the use of that Phrase in the Scripture for John 3.34 it is said of our Saviour that God gave not the Spirit by measure unto him from whence it is evident that the Spirit may be given in measure Wherefore this Phrase doth not necessarily imply that the person of the Spirit is properly given as the Doctor pretends for he confesseth that as to himself he is not given more or less Nay those words of St. John Baptist imply that the Spirit was given to all other Prophets and Righteous men in measure and consequently the giving of the Spirit unto men cannot signifie the giving of his Person or the giving of him absolutely neither more nor less for he is alwaies given to them in measure i. e. in the same measure wherein his Gifts and Graces are communicated to them The same thing is otherwise exprest Matth. 12.18 I will put my Spirit upon him which being spoken concerning our Saviour Christ is parallel to Gods giving the Spirit to him mentioned John 3.34 Indeed there is little difference in the expressions if it be observed that the passage in St Matthew is cited out of
way clearly contradicts what the Scripture saith concerning the state of Regeneration which is the thing I am concerned to prove for the Scripture makes the state of Regeneration to consist in having the Heart of stone taken away as well as the Heart of flesh given in putting off the Old man as well as in putting on the New and when St. Paul saith He that is in Christ is a new creature we are not to understand that he is the old creature too for he tells us all old things are pass'd away and all things are become new Now thus I argue If these expressions are to be understood literally then it is literally true that the old man the old creature is put off c. as well as the new man put on and therefore it is contrary to Scripture to affirm Regeneration to consist in the addition of a new creature literally understood to the old Lastly since the Scripture doth express the state of Regeneration by phrases which literally and properly taken do some of them signifie the addition of a new Nature to the old and others the removal of the old Nature with a substitution of the new it is impossible that the literal and proper sence should be intended Thus I have proved the literal sence of these expressions to be inconsistent with the Scriptures and having before proved the absurd consequences which understanding them in this manner is chargeable with I hope it is sufficiently proved that they are not so to be understood which was the first thing to be done The consequence of what hath been said is clear that if they are not to be understood literally and properly then are they to be understood figuratively and metaphorically and nothing can be reasonably desired for the farther clearing of this point but to answer our Author's arguments against it which was the second thing proposed SECT 3. All that he saith to the contrary which can pretend to 〈◊〉 arguing we have Sect. 7. where his Arguments against the Metaphorical use of these expressions are two though they are there jumbled together by him without any distinction whereof one lies against affirming Regeneration to be a metaphorical expression or rather such an expression of what he saith his Adversaries understand by it the other lies against the supposition of any metaphorical expressions whatsoever whereby the Scripture is said to represent the work of God's Spirit upon the Souls of men The former Argument is to this purpose If Regeneration be no more than a metaphorical expression of amendment of Life according to the rules of the Scripture then our Saviour proposed unto Nicodemus a thing which he knew perfectly well before onely under a new name and notion which he had never heard of before so to take an advantage of charging him of being ignorant of what indeed he full well knew and understood But this he saith is a blasphemous imagination therefore Regeneration is no metaphorical expression of c. The latter Argument if you will be so civil as to call it an Argument is designed against the opinion that the Scripture useth any Metaphors at all in this matter For thus he concludes Some judge the things of the Gospel to be deep and mysterious the words and expressions of it to be plain and proper Others think the words and expressions of it to be mystical and figurative but the things intended to be ordinary and obvious to the Natural Reason of every man Now that which he thinks is that the things are mysterious and the words proper His Argument to prove this is contained in these passages If there be not a secret mysterious work of the Spirit of God upon the Souls of men intended in the Writings of the New Testament they must be granted to be obscure beyond those of any other Writers whatsoever If they are the Word of God the things intended in them are clearly and properly expressed The difficulties which seem to be in them arising from the mysterious nature of the things themselves contained in them and the weakness of our minds in apprehending such things and not from any obscurity or intricacy in the declaration of them Therefore some do well to judge the things of the Gospel to be deep and mysterious and the words of it to be plain and proper If there be any coherence in this Arguing I think it would be this If there be a mysterious Work of the Spirit upon the Souls of men intended in the Scripture then the words and expressions of the Gospel concerning it are plain and proper and such a mysterious work there is otherwise the Scriptures are obscure beyond all other Writings because the words of the Gospel are proper expressions of such a mysterious work I begin with this latter Argument First of all let us consider the Doctor 's Conclusion that we may afterwards see whether it is to be found in the Premises If he concludes any thing against his Adversaries he concludes that the Scripture hath used no Metaphorical expressions at all of the things of the Gospel For he saith Herein indeed consists the main controversie whereunto things with the most are reduced viz. that he and his friends judge the things of the Gospel to be mysterious and the words and expressions proper that is ALL the words and expressions of it For if he concludes only that some or the greater part of them are proper and not figurative expressions he concludes what none of his Adversaries deny and unless he concludes universally he proves nothing Now by the way I shall convince our Author that he hath concluded amiss for himself by putting him in minde that he elsewhere acknowledgeth that very thing of the Gospel which is the subject of our Debate to be in the Scripture Metaphorically exprest The work of the Spirit is exprest there by Quickning from Death to Life it is also exprest by Turning from Darkness to Light Now as to the latter our Authors words are these The term of Darkness in this case is Metaphorical and borrowed from that which is Natural As to the former these There in is men a spiritual Death called so Metaphorically from the Analogie and proportion that it bears to Death Natural Let us see whether the Doctor 's Argument will not Vnmetaphor these expressions again If there be a secret mysterious work of the Spirit intended in these expressions then they are not Metaphorical if no such work be intended by them then are the Scriptures obscure beyond all other Writers If he can Answer his Argument for himself he can Answer it for us too and then Regeneration in particular will prove a Metaphorical expression for if Death be so then Life is so too and being Born into that Life will unavoidably be so likewise Some of the expressions of the Gospel concerning these matters the Doctor allows to be Metaphorical so that the controversie we have with him one would think should
but according to a candid construction very true But this I think may at least be inferred from them That without Revelation we could not have known that the Spirit operates in the mindes of men in order to their Regeneration And consequently that his Operations are imperceptible by us now for if we were sensible that the Holy Spirit moves us we might argue from our own sense as well as from Revelation that the Spirit is given to us Wherefore the best rule we can have to know when we are moved by the Holy Spirit must be taken from the Nature and End of his Operations When we finde our selves inclined to that which is good when we are bent upon the doing of God's Will when we perform our Duty and govern our Actions by the Word of God then we may conclude that we are acted by a divine Spirit and that therefore we have occasion given us of humble and thankful Praises But if we forsake the steady rules of our duty written upon our Hearts in our Creation or in the Bible by the inspired Messengers of God and take every violent impulse that we feel within us for a suggestion of the Holy Spirit we may easily mistake a brutish Inclination or a suggestion of the Devil for divine direction since no sort of men are acted with a more sensible and impetuous zeal than they that are strongly led by the Devil and their own corrupt affections Therefore unless we will expose our selves to Fanatical and Diabolical delusions we must keep close to Reason and Scripture and try the nature of all the impulses and motions of our mindes by them We must not pretend that the Spirit inciteth us to such an action and therefore 't is warranted by the Scripture for the motions of the Spirit are in themselves imperceptible But we must first see what the Scripture would have us do and then if we have a minde to that we may conclude that the Spirit hath moved us to it for the Spirit inclineth us onely to what is good and the Scripture is a steady and unalterable rule of that These are very plain and evident truths and yet we can hardly say too much to possess the mindes of men with the apprehension of them since we can remember what infinite dishonours have been done to God in the late times by men professing Godliness and pretending to the special Guidance of the Spirit how they asked counsel of God whether they should commit Murder and Treason Rebellion and Sacriledge how they thought to justifie the most execrable Parricide as the Doctor knows who did that was ever heard of in these parts of the World and how blasphemously they pretended that the Lord had put these things into their Hearts God does not now give the Spirit to justifie the actions of men but to assist them in those that are good and he hath shewn us what is good partly by the light of Nature which is common to all men and compleatly by the publick revelation of his Will contained in the Scriptures Wherefore since the Operations of the Spirit are imperceptible by us and merely an object of our Faith we have no other way of assuring our selves that we follow the guidance of the Spirit but by following the rule of God's Word To this purpose it is observable that the word Spirit does sometimes signifie the Gospel as several Divines have proved and particularly when St. Paul does oppose the Spirit to the Flesh as in Gal. 3.3 We are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh i. e. we are the true Children of Abraham who worship God according to the Gospel placing no confidence in the observation of Moses's Law And in Gal. 5.16 Walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh i. e. walk according to that Law of Love vers 14. which the Gospel so strictly prescribes and do not yield to inclinations of Revenge Hatred Variance c. vers 20. But at least in these and the like places 't is indifferent whether by the word Spirit you understand the Gospel or the Holy Ghost because it is in effect the same thing to be led by the Spirit and to obey the Gospel Thus when the Apostle Rom. 8. so often notes the difference between those that walk after the Flesh and those that walk after the Spirit we may easily see that walking after the Spirit may indifferently be interpreted either by living according to the rules of the Gospel or by following the perswasion of a well-instructed Minde or Conscience or by obeying the motions of the Holy Spirit of God For to do one of these things is to do them all since they are the Precepts of the Gospel which the Conscience ought to be directed by and 't is the obedience of the Gospel to which the Holy Spirit doth move and incite us We may observe also that in this Chapter these following expressions are equivalent viz. To walk after the Spirit v. 1. To be freed from the law of sin v. 2. To minde the things of the Spirit v. 5. To be spiritually minded v. 6. To be subject to the law of God v. 7. To please God v. 8. To have the Spirit of Christ v. 9. Christ being in us v. 10. The Spirit of God dwelling in us v. 11. Mortifying the deeds of the body by the Spirit v. 13. And being led by the Spirit v. 14. These several Phrases I say do all express the same state viz. our being the true Disciples of Christ onely they conspire to express the same thing under different respects That of being subject to the Law of God respecting the rule of our Lives as that of minding the things of the Spirit regards that serious consideration of the Doctrines of the Gospel which disposeth us to walk according to that Rule To be freed from the Law of sin notes the same thing with respect to our former condition Not to be carnally but spiritually minded not to live after the flesh but to mortifie the deeds of the body the Spirit are expressions that principally regard the prevalency of our Conscience over our sensual Appetites The Spirit of God dwelling in us is an expression of that constant readiness in good men to do the Will of God which is cherished in them by the Holy Spirit as our having 〈◊〉 the Spirit of Christ seems principally to regard that likeness to him which we gain by becoming such persons Finally to walk after the Spirit or to be led by the Spirit are Phrases which seem to take in all these respects indifferently Now because it is really one and the same state and disposition that is signified by these Phrases there can be no dangerous mistake incurred if a man should understand any one of them under a respect which perhaps was not principally intended as for instance if by the Spirit of God dwelling in us he should
does not say in plain terms that he is infallible yet in that Book which I have taken the pains to consider he lays claim as you will see to such an Illumination of minde by the Holy Spirit as differs very little from that kinde of Inspiration which the Apostles had But this will not hinder you from trying the Doctor 's Spirit and way of Teaching if you consider what he very well observed in the fore-mentioned Book viz. that the Bereans were highly extoll'd for searching whether the Doctrine concerning our Saviour preached by St. Paul were so or no For he must not desire to be believed more hastily than St. Paul did who we are sure spake by an infallible Spirit The more highly any man pretends to the divine Spirit the better Testimonies he had need to produce for the truth of his pretence No wise man will lightly take up that belief of another which if he once gives way to he must believe him in all things else The brighter those Illuminations are which any Teacher boasts of the less reason you have to take his bare word for it and if he be not willing that you should examine his Doctrines he gives you great cause of suspition that they will not abide the Tryal Besides the Doctor takes notice that what was praised in the Bereans is commended in the Scripture Beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God because many false spirits are gone out into the world 1 Joh. 4.1 Prophets then as he goes on must be tried before they be trusted now the reason of this holds still there are many false Teachers abroad in the world wherefore try every one try his spirit his spiritual gift of Teaching and that by the Word of God I will onely adde that the reason holds more strongly now for if false Teachers pretended to an infallible Spirit even whilst the Apostles were alive to contradict them and discover them much more likely are they to do so now when they think they may do it more securely and therefore we had need to use the more diligence in trying those Teachers that pretend loftily by that Word of God which the Apostles have left us in their Writings Now if the Doctor would have you to shut your own Eyes and then trust to that New saving Light by which he pretends to explain Gospel-Truths this were enough to make you suspect that the Light that is in him is Darkness Or if he meant to except himself from being tried when he bad you try the Spirits for that reason he is least of all to be excepted I have obeyed the Apostles advice and tried him as you may see in the following Book which I was willing to make publick because those Reasons which satisfie me that he is very much out of the way in discoursing upon spiritual things after this manner may possibly seem as clear to you as they do to my self If there be any Sophistry in them or carnal Reasoning or perverting of Holy Writ 't is more than I know and I shall thank the Doctor for making the discovery which I think he is bound to do if he can not onely for your sake but for mine too For so far as I understand my self I am not less desirous to retract any errour of my own than I am to convince you of his And therefore if he be as willing as I am I shall in all probability hear further from him In the mean time I desire you to believe neither of us but to try us both If the Doctor 's friends should be troubled to find him charg'd with Nonsence in the following Book the Author has this to say for himself that he knew no other name so fit as Nonsence to call Nonsence by And he believes that he has not onely said but prov'd also that the Doctor is guilty of Nonsence where he has charged him with it He hopes also that they will not be offended with him for taking occasion sometimes to rebuke this man for those rude Words and unjust Reproaches which he has poured forth for whole Pages together upon his Adversaries of the Church of England For if it be possible he should be taught at last to manage controversies in Religion in a more Christian manner than he has done hitherto And now the Author will onely say in behalf of himself that his designe in this Book was to clear the Truth of that Question which he has undertaken to every ordinary understanding and thereby to promote the power of Godliness And the best thing he can say of the Book it self is that it hath been thought by men of far better judgement than he can pretend to not to be altogether improper for that end And if they are not mistaken may the All-wise and good God prosper the designe of it with his Blessing The CONTENTS Of the Introduction SECT I. THat the promise of the Holy Spirit is according to the Scriptures a great motive to diligence in Religion Page 1. That according to Dr. Owen's principles it seems to be none at all p. 3. The Author's designe p. 4. SECT II. The advantage which the Doctor makes by pretending that onely the Regenerate understand spiritual things spiritually p. 5. while he proves himself to be regenerate by his spiritual understanding of spiritual things p. 6. This Artifice of his discovered in some instances p. 7. That he allows onely himself and his party to be competent Judges of his Doctrine concerning the Operations of the Holy Spirit p. 11. SECT III. His interpretation of 1 Cor. 2.14 explained p. 15. SECT IV. That his meaning of the natural man is groundless p. 20. Of his not receiving the things of the Spirit absurd p. 21. And of their being foolishness to him blasphemous p. 25. The odde account he gives of the reasonableness of the Gospel in his Preface p. 27. Other reflections upon his sence of the fore-mentioned Text p. 30. That the Doctor 's pretended Gospel-mysteries need his interpretation of that Text but the real mysteries of the Gospel need it not p. 31. The pernicious consequence of his interpretation p. 32. SECT V. Another sence of the Text offered according to St. Chrysostome whose Authority the Doctor pretends in favour of his own p. 33. The scope of the Apostle in that and the former Chapter largely shewn p. 34. From whence it plainly appears what he meant by the natural man p. 40. The Scriptural notion of the state of nature p. 42. What is meant by the things of the Spirit of God and their being spiritually discerned p. 43. and by the spiritual man p. 45. The incoherence of the Doctor 's sence with the Context p. 46. Dr. Hammond's Paraphrase upon the Text vindicated from the exceptions of Dr. Owen p. 47. And shewn to agree with those passages of St. Chrysostome which Dr. Owen himself produceth p. 51. That the following Book is not to be
rejected on pretence that the Author is but a natural man which concludes the Introduction p. 53. Of the Book PART 1. CHAP. 1. What significations of the Word Spirit are needful to be noted p. 56. The difference made by Dr. Owen between giving of the Spirit and giving his Graces p. 58. And what more he understands by putting on the Spirit p. 59. The subject of the discourse stated p. 61. That Dr. Owen confounds the promise of the Spirit made to the Apostles and the first Disciples onely with that which is made to Christians in all ages p. 64. And argues inconsequently from the former in favour of his own mistakes concerning the latter p. 65. That by this way of arguing he sometimes also concludes that which is true from premises that do not infer it p. 67. His designe in all this p. 68. And the disservice that is done the Truth by it p. 70. CHAP. 2. For the producing of what effects the Holy Spirit is promised to men which is the first matter of enquiry p. 72. may be discerned in great part from Luke 11.13 p. 73. To which end the scope of our Saviour's discourse there is considered p. 74. And it is from thence proved that they are onely needful purposes for which the Holy Spirit is there promised p. 76. What effects are needful p. 77. What are necessary p. 79. What are profitable p. 81. How we are to pray for needful Graces of the latter sort p. 83. Several Consectaries useful to our proceeding in the following enquiries gained from the fore-mentioned Text p. 88. An exception to this Chapter from the necessity of Regeneration p. 94. CHAP. 3. The Doctor 's loose way of talking concerning Regeneration p. 96. But at last he concludes the word is to be understood in its proper sence p. 99. That it is absurd so to understand it p. 100. That it cannot be so understood without contradicting the Scriptures p. 101. His argument that the Scripture has no metaphorical expressions of the work of the Spirit p. 106. His manner of charging his Adversaries with turning all Scripture-expressions of spiritual things into Metaphors p. 110. His scornful hints concerning Christian Virtues p. 112. That Regeneration is a metaphorical expression proved from what he saith himself where he denies it p. 113. How Dr. Owen and the Papists do alike abuse the Scriptures p. 115. What we are to understand by the state of Regeneration p. 117. The notion proved p. 119. The Doctor represents his Adversaries notion of Regeneration falsly p. 123. And that knowingly p. 125. The distinction between Grace and moral Virtue considered 126. That the Doctor rejects the true notion of Regeneration in terms that do notoriously contradict the Scriptures p. 128. That he contradicts them also by that reason which he gives for rejecting it p. 130. The charge of Pelagianism justly retorted upon Dr. Owen p. 133. Regeneration considered as an Effect p. 136. Several reasons why the state of a true Disciple of Christ is exprest by the Metaphors of Regeneration the New Creature c. p. 139. Why the expression of Regeneration is more used than the rest p. 143. The scope of our Saviour's discourse to Nicodemus shewn p. 145. A Paraphrase of that part of it which concerns Regeneration p. 149. The reddition of our Saviour's similitude of the Wind explained p. 150. A probable sence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by our Saviour to Nicodemus p. 155. The Doctor 's Objection against the true notion of Regeneration grounded upon the rebuke given to Nicodemus answered p. 157. CHAP. 4. That Faith is an effect of a divine Operation p. 161. In what sence it is affirmed so to be p. 162. The preparation required for Faith p. 165. That all those Christian vertues which flow from Faith are also the Graces of the Holy Spirit p. 169. That our improvement in those virtues is so likewise p. 173. What is meant by God's dwelling in men p. 175. What was signified by his dwelling in the Ark p. 176. which is applied to the state of the Christian Church p. 178. That God is said to dwell onely in good men p. 181. That their progress in Christian vertue and perseverance is from the Holy Spirit p. 185. Some Consectaries from the foregoing discourse p. 186. CHAP. 5. Gifts pretended to be from the Spirit p. 189. Immediate revelation of the true sence of Scripture not promised in St. Luke p. 191. Either to the spiritual Guides or their people p. 193. Nor absolute assurance of our particular Election p. 195. Dr. Owen's way of proving such assurance profitable p. 197. What the Author understands by the full assurance of Hope mentioned Heb. 6.11 p. 199. The reason why some will not admit of comfort without assurance p. 204. Neither is it there promised that the Spirit will dictate extemporary Prayers p. 205. That in the better sort of these Prayers there is a form of matter and usually of method and that all the variety commonly lies in shifting of Words and Phrases p. 209. That these three pretended gifts are promised no where in the Scripture p. 211. What is meant by sealing to the day of Redemption p. 214. And by the witness of the Spirit p. 216. And by praying with the Spirit p. 218. And by the Spirit 's helping our infirmities p. 219. CHAP. 6. The Holy Spirit given to whom p. 233. The difference between common and special Grace p. 234. Special Grace promised upon conditions p. 237. And not to be expected but by those that perform them p. 239. Dr. Owen's mystical talk concerning the object of sanctifying Grace p. 240. That he makes no qualification on our part requisite beforehand for Regeneration p. 243. And that according to him all praying for it is unprofitable p. 244. That he shuffles off the task of proving his main principle by pretending falsly that he had proved it before p. 246. The folly of trusting to a supposed absolute Decree p. 247. The Doctor 's insincerity in changing his notion of Election to shift off the difficulty of proving his own opinion concerning it p. 250. That he makes nothing to contradict himself as his cause requires it p. 258. What that common Grace is which is given to all p. 261. The notion proved p. 262. Why the promise of common Grace is not expresly made to all p. 266. That it is not properly part of the New Covenant p. 267. That the promises of special Grace are made to all under possible conditions p. 268. CHAP. 7. Difficult to define the manner of the Holy Spirit 's Operations particularly p. 270. Dr. Owen peremptory and fierce in this point p. 271. His definition of it of dangerous consequence p. 274. Faith and Repentance are in that manner caused by the holy Spirit that they are still properly the effects of God's Word p. 274. That according to Dr. Owen's principles they are not the effects
thereof p. 277. An instance of his excessive boldness in this matter p. 280. The manner of the holy Spirit 's Operations suitable to the rational nature of Mankinde p. 282. which is in words granted but in effect denied by Dr. Owen p. 283. His vain endeavours to reconcile this Proposition with his Physical immediate Operation p. 286. Isa. 5.4 discoursed upon p. 290. The holy Spirit operates in that manner as to leave our diligence necessary to attain the end of his Operations p. 292. What is meant by God's working in us to will and to do p. 293. And by giving a new Heart p. 296. The Operations of the Spirit suited to our spiritual estate p. 298. That his Graces are wrought gradually is an useful consideration p. 302. That the Operations of the holy Spirit are in themselves imperceptible and known onely by their effects p. 305. That to be guided by the Holy Spirit and by the Gospel and by a good Conscience is one and the same thing p. 309. That men resist the Holy Spirit when they think of nothing less p. 312. That the Operations of the Holy Spirit are Assistances p. 314. Dr. Owen falsly pretends that his Adversaries deny the Assistances of Grace p. 315. That his errour is more justly chargeable upon himself p. 318. The promise of the Holy Spirit a forcible motive to Godliness shewn from the general Heads of the whole Discourse p. 324. The Conclusion of the First Part p. 326. THE INTRODUCTION SECT I. FRom what St. Paul saith Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure it is evident that the consideration of that Divine Assistance whereof the Apostle speaks is a pregnant motive to excite our greatest care and endeavour to do the will of God For I suppose no Christian will say that St. Paul pretended to enforce his Exhortation with an Argument that had little or no force in it to perswade The forcibleness of this Motive lies principally in this Supposition that as they upon whom the aids of the Holy Spirit which are promised in the Gospel are bestowed may fulfil the conditions of obtaining Eternal Life so withal they may miscarry through their own negligence and then their sin becomes more inexcusable and their punishment will be more heavy And this is a clear reason why even those in whom God worketh both to will and to do are yet exhorted to work out their Salvation with fear and trembling Upon this Supposition the Author to the Hebrews doth earnestly exhort Christians to perseverance in the profession and practice of the Gospel For saith he of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath done despite to the spirit of grace which he saith plainly for this end to excite them to an effectual care in improving those Spiritual Aids whereby they were able to persevere This I think will easily be granted unless we can imagine that the Apostle talks at as strange a rate as Dr. John Owen frequently doth in his Book concerning the Holy Spirit where he often threatens them with the day of Judgement that look upon him and divers of his notions in Divinity to be senseless and fanatical For we shall see that his threatnings have not that charitable meaning in them which the admonitions of the Apostle have He tells us that Those by whom Regeneration i. e. his notion of it is exposed to scorn will one day understand the necessity of it although it may be not before 't is too late to obtain any advantage by it Now one would think it to be the Doctor 's opinion that those who shall one day be damned might by a timely care have prevented it and that he intended this warning to make them careful to understand the necessity of Regeneration before it be too late But if you think so you are much mistaken and you do not yet understand this man's Principles for throughout his whole Book he supposes a certain powerful illumination of the Holy Ghost given to none but those that shall certainly be saved to be necessary in order to a saving knowledge of Regeneration And as for the rest the darkness that is in them is no less effectual to binde them in a state of Sin than it is in the Devils themselves Now I do not understand how the Doctor 's Warnings could be of any use to the Devils themselves And I do as little understand why he makes such frequent excursions as he doth to threaten his Adversaries with the day of Judgement unless as one would be tempted to believe by the insulting language that goes along with it it be some refreshing to a man so naturally vindictive to think he shall one day see 'em damn'd This is one great exception I have against this Man's Book that whereas he contends so fiercely for his Opinions as he doth all along pretending in particular That it is of the highest importance to us to enquire into and secure unto our selves the promised workings of the Spirit yet supposing his notions thereof to be true it is no matter whether they be enquired into or no for neither can we have a true understanding what they are nor if we could would that excite our endeavours to secure them for according to him it is impossible for a man to understand a spiritual truth or do any thing that is spiritually good unless he be enabled by such an Almighty Power as leaves it on the other hand impossible for him to be spiritually blinde and dead any longer For this power he saith is irresistible and he affirmeth it to be false that the Will can make use of that Grace for Conversion which it can refuse Now the Doctor confesses that this kinde of blindness and deadness with respect unto spiritual things is a matter which the World cannot endure to hear of and is ready to fall into a tumult upon the mention of it And if he says true I am very glad on 't because if the World could not endure to hear such Doctrines as these are we might hope to see a great many men wiser and better than they are for he hath stated the Doctrine of the operations of the Spirit in that manner that instead of exciting men thereby to hearty endeavours after true goodness he hath laid down Principles that will excuse them if they be never so careless and so hath betray'd this great encouragement of the Gospel into the hands of lazy and wicked men I shall therefore endeavour to give a better account of what the Holy Scripture teacheth us in this matter then I think he hath done and I shall withal examine those Arguments wherewith he pretends so to demonstrate his notions that the proudest and most petulant of his Adversaries shall not be able to return any thing of a solid answer
illuminated by an almighty work of the Spirit so that none but the Doctor and his enlightned ones can possibly either give or receive a rational account of the workings of the Spirit and then if we reject his talk 't is because we want that spiritual Power without which the minde cannot receive it If you ask yet further what this spiritual Power is he gives you an admirable description of it The spiritual power of the Minde consists in a spiritual light and ability to discern spiritual things in a spiritual manner So that spiritual Light is spiritual Power and spiritual Power is spiritual Light This men in the state of Nature are utterly void of but any one that is truely sanctified hath light enough to understand the spiritual things of the Gospel in a spiritual manner for we have received the Spirit of God that we may know the things that are freely given us of God What others may think of this I know not but methinks it would grieve any Christian heart to observe the Gospel of our Saviour that Divine means of making men truely wise and good thus debased and dishonoured by such a senseless use of Scripture-phrases as this man makes of them who writes himself D. D. For that which sets off all this wilde and confused talk of his which is enough to puzzle any man at the first blush is his perverting the true use of these Phrases viz. the Natural man and the state of Grace spiritual things and discerning them spiritually with which he rings the changes so often in his Book leaving a noise of the words in the fancies of his Readers instead of the true i. e. the Scriptural notion belonging to them imprinted on their Mindes That I may therefore reconcile the Reader to an opinion that I may possibly write of the operation of the Holy Spirit with more truth than this man hath done I shall prepare my way by enquiring into the sense of this Text of St. Paul The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned For it is chiefly upon this place as far as I can understand that the Doctor builds his confidence that we cannot spiritually discern Spiritual things and as by expounding thereof the use of those Phrases and such as are equivalent to them will be understood so the understanding of them will be conducible also to the main designe of this Book I shall first examine the Doctor 's interpretation of this place of Scripture and then offer that sense of it which I take to be truer than his Before I attempt either of which things I must beg his pardon if I do not think it fit to follow him as oft as he is pleased to leave the Argument and fall a railing against those that have other thoughts of the Text than he has especially where he spends almost two whole Pages upon nothing else charging his Adversaries with the want of those Vertues particularly enumerated by him which they greatly praise and extol and accusing them of Pride Ambition Covetousness Vanity and Profaneness and I know not how many Vices more Now what is all this and a great deal more of the like stuff which he hath swelled his Discourse withal to the explanation of St. Paul's Text which he was endeavouring Suppose I had a minde to retaliate having so large a Subject as Dr. Owen's Pranks from the year 1648 to this present time to expatiate upon what goodly work were here for the Reader Therefore all I shall say to this matter is that whereas his lewd and notorious practices against the Church and State have been exposed in Print and these charged upon him not from Tales pickt up in the Streets and at Gossiping-meetings but from his own publick Actions and Writings He hath no way to be revenged upon the Gentleman that hath done him this kindeness but by letting fly upon his whole Order with all sorts of Calumnies and Reproaches though 't is very likely he is not able to fasten his Accusations upon any one of those whom he thus bespatters since his plentiful Rage against them might satisfie any man that his Will was not wanting Wherefore it being to as little purpose to attempt the confutation of such loose and general Calumnies as it had been to have answered the Doctor if he could have satisfied his implacable malice with being at a word and calling us once for all Rogues and Villains I shall leave him in the quiet possession of his Talent at Lying and Defamation and shall now onely try whether his Reasonings be as unanswerable as his Railings SECT III. I Often finde it very difficult to fasten any meaning upon so slippery a Writer as this but to my best understanding he thus explains the phrases of the Text. 1. By the Natural man he means one that hath the use of all his rational faculties or every one that is so and that is no more than so that is every one who is not a spiritual man is not one who hath received the spirit of Christ one that hath the spirit of a man enabling him to know things Natural Civil or Political but not the Spirit of Christ to know things Spiritual So that the Natural man is one who is not a Spiritual man but a Natural man onely as the Spiritual man is one who is not onely a Natural man or thus the Natural man concerning whom the Apostle saith that he cannot know the things of the Spirit of God is one who hath not the Spirit and cannot know the things of the Spirit of God And if the Doctor had rested in this Explication I think he had been safe enough for ever being confuted But he hath a further meaning which discovers not it self till we come towards the end of his Comment For he tells us the reason why the Natural man hath no ability to discern spiritual things is because the Light it self whereby alone spiritual things can be spiritually discerned is created in us by an Almighty Act of the Power of God so that at last this is his notion of a Natural man which agrees with the rest of his Book that he is one in whose minde spiritual Light is not created by the Almighty Power of God 2. By the things of the Spirit of God he understands the mysteries of the Gospel which depend wholly on supernatural Revelation and I think this is the onely Phrase he understands right If he means honestly by supernatural Revelation viz. that Revelation which was communicated to the World by Christ and his Apostles and not any particular Revelation made to himself and his Party by an irresistible work of the Spirit upon their mindes But such a custom he has gotten to confound every thing that within two Pages he understands by it all the Commands of God whatsoever for through
two whole Sections he discourses concerning the impotency of Man to perform the Commands of God and makes it equivalent to an inability of receiving Spiritual things and quotes Rom. 7.8 The carnal minde is not subject to the Law of God as if it were a parallel place to the Text in hand For my part I cannot tye these incoherent things together if the Doctor can let him He had told us in plain terms that moral Duties to be observed towards God our selves and other men were not the things here peculiarly intended and that is right but the Mysteries depending on more Soveraign Supernatural Revelation and that wholly And in this notion I shall understand him for I cannot understand him in both together 3. He explains receiving of these things by receiving them spiritually and sometimes by receiving them as they are in themselves and by other Phrases that are equivalent according to him But what means he by Spiritually he tells you the Natural man may so receive them as to assent to their truth but that which he cannot do is to assent to them under an apprehension of their conformity to the Wisdom and Holiness of God nor can he discern their suitableness unto the great ends for which they are proposed as the means of accomplishing So that this it is to discern them spiritually and as they are in themselves He likewise tells us the proper meaning of receiveth not is he cannot know them and that impotency is double 1. A Natural impotency that of the Vnderstanding in respect whereof he is absolutely unable so to do without an especial renovation by an irresistible work of the Holy Ghost and this impotency he says is absolutely and naturally insuperable And 2. A moral Impotency that of the Will and Affections The short of it is he neither will nor can if he would know them spiritually so that his meaning of these words The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God is this That a man in whose minde an Eternal Light is not created by the Almighty Power of God although the Doctrines of the Gospel be proposed to him with that evidence that he assents to the truth of them yet he neither can nor will understand them to be agreeable to the Wisdom and Holiness of God and suitable to the ends of the Gospel the Glory of God and the Salvation of Man 4. This clause they are foolishness unto him he hath perplexed with various interpretations After giving several accounts on which a thing may be esteemed foolishness he tells us for one or other or all of these reasons are spiritual things foolishness to the natural man which is as much as to say there is some reason why they are so though he cannot directly tell us what it is If any of his Reasons will serve let us take one for instance That is looked on as foolish which contains means and ends disproportionate Now he had told us spiritual things are foolishness in the nature of the things themselves with respect unto the minde I think he means thus that such is the nature of them that a natural man must needs look upon them to be a means unsuitable and disproportionate to the ends of God's Glory and Man's good and then his interpretation runs thus The Natural man is one who for want of the irresistible Light cannot discern the suitableness of the Gospel to those ends because he cannot discern it is suitable to them But it may be his Instances will make his minde more plain One is that of the Philosophers of old to whom the Gospel was foolishness now says he if spiritual things had been suited to the reasons of natural men then those who had most improved their mindes would more readily have received them than others By which I perceive he understands by these things being foolishness to the natural man their unsuitableness to their mindes who had most improved them or were wisest and knew most But that which is somewhat stranger is his telling of us that things of any worth in nature and morality are soonest embraced by such persons But here things fell out quite otherwise they were the Wise the Rational that made the longest opposition to spiritual things i. e. if the Doctor 's instance be pertinent that such is the nature of those things that it could not be otherwise so that the unsuitableness of spiritual things to our mindes doth at last consist in this that the more wise and knowing a man is the more unapt he is to receive them But then his other instance of those to whom the Gospel is as he says foolishness viz. That of his present Adversaries is to a quite contrary purpose for he chargeth them with profound Ignorance and Confidence which cannot be sufficiently admired or despised and certainly then their mindes are not very much improved Now I think he says concerning these that they look upon the spiritual things of the Gospel as foolish and unsuited to the rational principles of their mindes So that all the light we have gained by the Doctor 's instances to discern his meaning of this clause is that the spiritual things of the Gospel are in themselves unsuitable to the mindes of those who have the best improved reasons and they are look'd upon to be unsuitable to the rational principles of their mindes whose Ignorance and Confidence can never be sufficiently despised And here I desire the Doctor to make my peace with the Reader for carrying him along with me to grope after his meaning in such a tedious Labyrinth as he hath contrived to lose us in But I do not ask the Doctor 's pardon if I have miss'd of his meaning at last since if he please he may write more perspicuously if he cannot his Friends would do well to finde out a more natural employment for him 5. Because they are spiritually discerned he explains thus because they are discerned by a spiritual light What light is that he tells you the light it self whereby alone spiritual things can be spiritually discerned is created in us by an Almighty act of the Power of God Now from the examination of his Notions concerning the several Phrases his sense of the whole seems to be this That a man in whose minde a spiritual Light is not created by the Almighty act of the power of God neither can nor will understand the revealed Doctrines of the Gospel to be agreeable to the attributes of God and fit to procure man's Salvation because such is the nature of those Doctrines that he cannot but look upon them to be disagreeable to the one and unfit for the other or because they are unsuitable or are looked upon as unsuitable to the rational Principles of the Minde and 't is utterly impossible he should discern that agreeableness and fitness without that new light created in his minde because such is the manner whereby
the Minde unprofitable to man and dishonourable to God but then withal I cannot finde them any where in the Scripture and therefore whatever he fancies of a possibility to believe that to be divinely revealed which is not believed to be consistent with the divine Attributes c. I do not so much as believe them nor do I see any likelihood that I ever shall unless some irresistible Power makes another thing of me than I finde my self to be at present And if this will content the Doctor I have no quarrel with him But then if he pretends that the real Doctrines of our Saviour's Gospel viz. That the Son of God was crucified for us and that we must be saved by Faith in him and that God will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him c. are as unintelligible and the usefulness of them as indiscernible as that of his new-fashion'd Principles I must beg his pardon if I cannot believe that neither but reckon on the contrary that the Doctor hath cast an horrible reproach upon the Christian Religion while he makes it impossible for a man that bends his Minde to consider the Doctrines thereof never so attentively and useth his reason never so modestly in the examination of them to assent to them as Doctrines worthy of God and profitable to man If that be true then this pernicious Consequence is unavoidable That it is to no purpose for a man to use any means to satisfie himself concerning the Truth of the Gospel and if it be yet pretended to him that he ought to be a right Believer he hath no way but to sit down in a lazy expectation of that Light which the Doctor saies must be created in his Minde by an Almighty Act of God before he can know and believe the Mysteries of the Gospel as they are and as they ought to be known This is the consequence of the Doctor 's interpretation of St. Paul's Text and let any man but himself judge whether it doth not infinitely disparage the whole Gospel of our Saviour and whether it do's not offer great wrong to the Souls of men by betraying them either into a contempt of Christianity or at least into a sluggish neglect of all that Consideration whereby they come to understand and believe it upon its proper grounds And this is the reason why I have been so punctual in finding out and so long in confuting his Notions of this Text which if they had not been altogether as pernicious as they are false I should have left them to perish in their own Nonsense SECT V. THe incoherence of his Interpretation with the scope of St. Paul in that and the former Chapter must be judged of by observing what St. Paul's design is in them which I now come to enquire into and thereby to lay a foundation for the true Interpretation of the Text. To allay those Contentions that were amongst the Corinthians about their Teachers whom they should follow Chap. 1. vers 11. St. Paul reminds them how he had preached the Gospel among them and by what arguments they had been won to receive it not with wisdom of words vers 17. and again not with enticing words of mans wisdom Chap. 2. vers 4. but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power i. e. not with Rhetorical Orations or Philosophical Discourses such as the wise men among the Gentiles made use of to put off their Opinions to the people withal he did not go about to perswade them in this manner but as it was fit to prove the truth of a divine Revelation which the Gospel was pretended to be he proved it to them by a divine Demonstration of the truth thereof viz. that of Supernatural Gifts bestowed now upon Believers of antient Prophesies of apparent Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles and such Testimonies of Gods owning the Gospel to be a Revelation from him as these are The consequence whereof was that their Faith did not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God i. e. that their Faith was not grounded upon the Eloquence or the subtle reasonings of men but upon the plain Testimony of God declared by Miracles c. And this was clearly a good consideration to take them off from contending about the persons of their Teachers who never went about to make Proselytes to themselves as vers 13. by the oftentation of Learning and Eloquence but to win them to the Christian Faith by the demonstration of the Spirit and of Power But hereupon the Apostle takes occasion to shew 1. The offence which they who were most in vogue for wisdom took at the Gospel and the way of preaching it and the prevalency of that way notwithstanding above all other methods to make men wise and good and this is the scope of chap. 1. from vers 18. to the end 2. To vindicate this way of preaching the Gospel against their pretences who rejected the Revelations of the Gospel which is the designe of chap. 2. That the former is the designe of the Apostles discourse in the first Chapter is plain from what he saith vers 18. and so forward For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness And who these were we learn from vers 20. Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe c. i. e. Let those men who are offended at the Preaching of Christ crucified come and compare the Religion they teach and the Reasons they bring for it and the Good they do by it with our Doctrine and the Testimonies we confirm it withal and the Advantages which it brings to them that believe it For it pleased God by the foolishness as they are pleased to call it of preaching to save them that believe vers 21. And the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness c. vers 25. i. e. Let it be consider'd and you will see a clear manifestation of Divine Wisdom and Power in the Death and Resurrection of Christ to the convincing of men that his Doctrine is true and the bringing of them to Salvation by it vers 24. You will see also what an infinite disparegement this wise contrivance of God will do to all the methods of human wisdom when they are compared with it For God hath chosen the foolish things of this world those waies of instructing and saving Mankinde which are so far above all the inventions and above the expectations of the wisest men that they now generally reckon them to be foolish to confound the wise to put down all that wisdom of theirs which they so much glory in and thereby to shew that God is infinitely wiser than men v. 27. That no flesh should glory in his presence vers 29. But the particular reasons why so few of those persons whose wisdome was in this manner baffled did embrace the Gospel of Christ for not many wise men after the flesh are called vers 26.
we finde in vers 22 23. For the Jews require a signe and the Greeks seek after wisdom But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness Here are two sorts of men concerning whom the Apostle speaks and he shews concerning each of them why they rejected the Gospel 1. The Jews were offended at it because it required the belief of a crucified Messias but their pretence was that they wanted a Sign i. e. some Prodigy from Heaven or some such amazing appearances as accompanied the delivery of the Law to Moses upon mount Sinai 2. The Greek Philosophers of those days were offended at the simplicity of the Apostles preaching who nakedly represented their Doctrines without any such Philosophical Subtleties and Reasonings as they used themselves For that which they sought after which they pretended to want in the preaching of the Gospel was wisdom or demonstration from natural Principles and therefore 't is of these peculiarly said that the Gospel was foolishness unto them viz. because they looked for Wisdom or Discourses merely Philosophical Now it is plain that the Apostles chief designe in the second Chapter is to vindicate his way of Preaching the Gospel against the fault which the Greeks found with it For to this purpose he begins directly thus And I Brethren when I came to you came not with excellency of speech or wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God i e. I answered not their expectation who looked for Eloquence or Philosophy For I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified v. 2. not to make known unto you any other Doctrines but those which God had revealed and particularly that the crucified Jesus was the Son of God And my Speech and my Preaching was not with enticing words but in demonstration of the Spirit c. i. e. and these Doctrines I proved by Miracles and other Divine Testimonies Now this way of proving them the Apostle justifies from the nature of those things which he had preached unto them shewing that they had depended altogether upon the free and Sovereign Will of God and therefore could not be known but by Revelation and therefore could not be proved to those unto whom they were not immediately revealed otherwise than by sufficient testimony that God had revealed them to others such as Miracles and this was enough to shew why he rejected excellency of speech and wisdom viz. because it was an improper way of proving things of that nature which he had delivered to them Thus saith the Apostle We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom which God ordain'd before the world unto our glory v. 7. i. e. we declare those counsels of God concerning the Salvation of Mankinde which were concealed from former ages and which God hath now honoured us with the clear revelation of Which none of the Princes of the world knew for had they But as it is written Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entered into the heart of man what things c. vers 8 9. i. e. if it could have been found out by natural Sense or natural Reason that God would send his Son into the world c. the chief men among the Jews could not have been ignorant of it and instead of crucifying him they would have become his Disciples themselves But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit vers 10. But these things to the knowledge whereof no man by meer natural reason could attain God hath made known to us by revelation of his Spirit so that this contrivance of Divine Wisdom is no longer hidden now being revealed to us by the Spirit For the Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God for the Spirit of God is acquainted with all the secret Counsels of God and we may therefore be sure that we are acquainted with as many of them as the Spirit reveals unto us For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God vers 11. i. e. what man knows the secret purposes of another man till he thinks fit to discover them himself So the things of God i. e. his Counsels concerning the Salvation of man which depend meerly upon his own Will and Choice none can know but the Spirit of God And that these are the things which the Apostle means is plain from the Argument which he useth here for those things of a man which are common to humane nature one man may know concerning another without being acquainted by him what they are In like manner without particular Revelation a man may understand the Natural Perfections of God and those Divine Truths which by the meer use of Reason may be thence inferred wherefore the things of God here meant are those intentions and designes of God which by natural reason cannot be inferred from the consideration of the divine Perfections because they depend only upon the Will and Pleasure of God and are therefore only to be known by Revelation And this is further expressed by the Apostle in the 12 vers We have received the Spirit which is of God that we may know the things which are freely given to us of God to instruct men in the knowledge of those things that could not otherwise be known Which things also we speak not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual i. e. there is then no reason why they should be offended that we pretend not to prove these divine matters by Philosophical Arguments but by such Arguments only as are proper to prove them by The truth of our Revelation we prove by the demonstration of the Spirit and of Power vers 4. The sense of Revelation we prove by comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual i. e. one divine Revelation with another the Revelations of the Old Testament with the Revelations of the New Then the Apostle addes But the natural man receiveth not c. which is the Text to be explained Now if we will allow the Apostle to speak consistently we are 1. By the Natural man to understand one who rejects Revelation not excluding him that never had it offered to him But the former seems principally to be intended though upon the matter it comes all to one viz. he who rejects the testimonies whereby any thing is proved to be divinely revealed which is above the reach of Philosophical wisdom Thus did the Greek Philosophers who counted the Doctrine of a crucified Saviour foolishness as here the natural man doth the things of the Spirit of God and it is he to whom the Apostle offers the Demonstration of the Spirit and of Power against the excellency of speech and wisdom wherefore the Natural man is he against whom St. Paul was proving the necessity
of Revelation and the truth of revealed Doctrines by testimonies of Revelation and consequently the Natural man is one who rejects revealed Doctrines Though as I intimated before he may be so called that is fain to rely upon his meer natural Reason for want of Revelation because it was never proposed to him For whether a man never had it or rejects it being offered he is equally forced to trust to natural Reason in his enquiry after divine Truths And therefore if the Doctor by the state of Nature which he makes such a clutter about all over his Book means the state of the Natural man here spoken of the Scriptural notion thereof though we do not finde this very phrase The state of Nature in the Scripture is this viz. the state of an heathen man who either wants or rejects divine Revelation And thus it is fitly opposed to a state of Grace as that signifies being a Believer or a member of the Christian Church And both are distinguish'd from the state of Judaism or being under the Law For the Jews did not reject all divine Revelation believing that which came by Moses and so were not in a meer state of Nature as the Heathens were But as many of the Jews as would not receive the Gospel were under the Law but not under Grace as the Apostle speaks Rom. 3. i. e. they were not in a state of Grace not as the phrase is taken now adays but as it signifies no other thing than the receiving of the Christian Faith which those Jews who received not were under the Law those Heathens who received not were in a state of nature or the natural men which the Apostle here speaks of 2. By the things of God which the natural man rejects the Apostle means those Doctrines of Christianity the truth whereof is not discoverable by natural Reason which neither eye hath seen c. vers 9. the hidden wisdom of God v. 7. but are knowable only by Revelation God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit vers 10. being they concern the purposes of God that depended upon his Soveraign Will and Pleasure even so the things of God c. vers 11 12. and therefore are to be proved only by divine Testimonies and Arguments by the demonstration c. vers 4. in words which the Holy Ghost teacheth c. vers 13. 3. Because they are foolishness unto him signifies because they are not proved by wisdom which the Greeks seek after by Philosophical Demonstrations from Natural Principles chap. 1. vers 22. 4. By being spiritually discerned is meant their being known and understood and judged of by the Revelation and Testimony of the Spirit and that external to those who are not immediately inspir'd as the Apostles were which is clear from St. Paul's former discourse for he proposes this way whereby to judge of the truth of the Gospel viz. the demonstration of the Spirit and of Power he also proposeth this way whereby to judge of the sense of the Doctrines thereof viz. by comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual that is one divine Revelation with another Now this had been utterly vain if those to whom that evidence and this help was proposed could not possibly know spiritual things without such an internal and immediate Revelation of them as the Apostles had themselves The Doctrines of the Gospel are revealed to the world not immediately by the Spirit but by the Apostles who had the Spirit of Christ and have left us the Doctrines of Christ in their holy Writings They proved that the Spirit of God had revealed those Doctrines by the demonstration of the Spirit they proved the Sense of them by comparing one divine Revelation with another And this way of Conviction St. Paul clearly opposeth to Philosophical Demonstrations which it had been ridiculous to do if he had not meant an external means of conviction by it i. e. a means by which one man may convince another which the Doctors irresistible Light cannot with any face be pretended to be wherefore to be spiritually discerned doth according to the clear scope of the Apostle signifie to be discerned and understood by the external revelations and testimonies of the Spirit As things that are naturally discerned are things discernable by Sense or meer natural Reason so things that are spiritually discerned are those which be discernible only by the revelation of the Spirit i. e. by the testimony of the Spirit in the Miracles of Christ his Apostles as to the truth of them and by comparing one divine Revelation with another as to the meaning of them So that the Apostle's Argument is this A Natural man cannot understand those things which are to be known by revelation from the Spirit because they are spiritually discerned i. e. because there is no way of knowing these things but by Revelation and Testimony of the Spirit which he rejects Now he whose Faith is grounded upon this Revelation the Apostle calls a Spiritual man v. 15. in opposition to the Natural man and he saith concerning him that he judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man i. e. either according to St. Chrysostome's excellent Note He judgeth both the Doctrines that may be known by meer natural Reason and those which cannot be known but by Revelation For he hath the Principles of Natural Reason equally with the Natural Man and moreover he hath further knowledge by Revelation which the other hath not Or He judgeth all things of that nature whereof the Apostle was speaking viz. Gospel-Mysteries He is able to prove the truth of these things by proving that they are divinely revealed and thereby to confute their pretences who reject them because they cannot be known by meer natural Reason but no man can confute him whose knowledge of these things is grounded upon sufficient evidence that they are divinely revealed For who hath known the minde of the Lord Who can pretend to know the minde of God better than God himself doth and yet those must do so who contradict what is proved by the demonstration of the Spirit and therefore this is the certain foundation of our knowledge which must stand when all the Wisdom of the wise men shall perish that we have the minde of Christ that we are instructed by Christ himself who came from God Thus have I largely shewn the designe of the Apostle in these two Chapters and that sense of the Text in hand which makes the Apostles Discourse clearly consistent And now I leave it to the unprejudiced Reader to judge whether the Doctor 's interpretation of it which I have already shewn to be absurd in it self be not also utterly impertinent to the Apostles main designe for supposing the natural man to be one in whom spiritual Light is not created by an almighty work of God upon his minde how strangely must the Apostle have wandered from his purpose which was to shew that revealed Truths
could onely be known by God's revealing them to us and the truth of such Revelation by Miracles Prophecies and such Arguments as he opposed to those natural Demonstrations and ways of proving things which the Philosophers used And how justly might they have derided the Apostle for finding fault with them because they rejected revealed Religion for it s not being knowable by mere natural Reason if after so long a flourish about an higher and better way of demonstrating those divine Truths he spake of than from natural Principles he had concluded that no man could understand their truth and sense as they ought to be understood till God made him to understand them by an irresistible work upon his minde which is the Doctor 's sense of those words that they are spiritually discerned I put it also to the Reader to judge whether this following Paraphrase upon these words which the Doctor carps at be as he calls it a wresting of the Scripture at pleasure But such things as these matters of Divine Revelation they that are led onely by the Light of humane Reason the learned Philosophers c. do absolutely despise and so hearken not after the doctrine of the Gospel for it seems folly to them Chap. 1. vers 28. nor can they by any study of their own come to the knowledge of them for they are onely to be had by understanding the Prophecies of Scripture and other such means which depend on divine Revelation the Voice from Heaven descent of the Holy Ghost Miracles c. This is the Paraphrase of the Reverend Dr. Hammond and it fully expresseth that sense which by the Context I have proved to belong to the Text. Our Author brings it in at last to examine it by his own comment which since I have disproved I might spare my self any further trouble in defending the sense of that Paraphrase But let us see what he hath to say against it 1. He saies that the Apostle by the natural man intends not onely the learned Philosophers but every one of what sort and condition soever who hath not received the Spirit of Christ. To see what a man will say when he is set to wrangle Dr. Owen himself more than once gives his meaning of the natural man in such expressions as these One which hath the use and exercise of all his rational faculties the things of the Gospel were foolishness to the learned Philosophers of old and the wise knowing and rational made the longest opposition to them And he says himself in the very next exception The Apostle gives an account why so few wise and learned men receive the Gospel But if Dr. Owen's offence be taken that they onely are intended by Dr. Hammond this offence is unreasonably taken for the Doctor intends as his words are very plain all those of whatsoever sort they be that are led onely by the light of humane Reason i. e. who either want or reject Revelation 2. He dislikes the paraphrasing of he receiveth not by he absolutely despiseth the things of the Spirit and yet this is sometimes his own Paraphrase as where he gives the reason why the natural man doth not receive them he says the Apostle tells them the Gospel is the foolishness of God and that to cast a contempt upon the wisdom of men by whom it is despised And in divers other places he useth the same liberty But his chief exception against this part of the Paraphrase is because it doth not express the reason given by the Apostle why the natural man doth not receive c. and that reason is his disability to receive them i. e. because it doth not express that which the Apostle could not possibly intend for he that barely says that any one believes or receives not such a Doctrine will not unless he be a Fool pretend that by saying so he gives a reason why he doth not But Dr. Hammond gives a reason why the natural man receiveth not the things of God where St. Paul gives a reason who saith he doth not receive them because they are foolishness unto him and he cannot because they are spiritually discerned His fifth Objection is to the same purpose with this for he saith the proper meaning of receiveth not is given in the ensuing reason and explanation of it he cannot know them which is nonsense for not to know a Doctrine is one thing and not to be able to know it is another and therefore the latter cannot be the proper meaning of the former nor do I understand how the meaning of a Proposition can be said to be given by the reason of it for I always thought that the meaning of a Sentence must first be understood before the reason or truth of that meaning can be known It were much to be wished that though Dr. Owen takes no care to speak truth he would yet make some conscience of speaking sence 3. He says The Apostle treats not of what men could finde out by any study of their own but of what they could not do they could not receive the spiritual mysteries of the Gospel Which exception I am amazed at because neither Dr. Hammond speaks of what they could finde out but of what they could not finde out by any study of their own but says J.O. they could not do it when the Gospel was proposed declared and preached to them and so the Doctor supposes too and any man in his wits must suppose it likewise for how else could they have called the Gospel foolishness if it had never been known to them 4. The Gospel was preached to them by the testimonies of Prophecies Miracles and the like in the same way and manner as it was to those that believed What then why you may go look for he has onely left us to guess at the designe of this exception But at the end of his fifth exception he says concerning the things of the Gospel being spiritually discerned To wrest this unto the outward means of revelation which is directly designed to express the internal manner of the mindes reception of things revealed is to wrest the Scripture at pleasure I answer 1. If the word spiritually is designed to express not the means but the manner of receiving Gospel-mysteries then Dr. H. does wrest the Scripture by making it to signifie the outward means of discerning them viz. Miracles Prophecies c. But then withal Dr. Owen wrests the Scripture too by making it to signifie the inward means of discerning them viz. the irresistible Light by which he discerns them for inward means of doing a thing are opposed to the manner of doing it equally with outward means And if Dr. Owen saith that the internal manner of the mindes reception is expressed by his saying that they are discerned by irresistible Light I ask him why I may not say too that the internal manner of the mindes reception of them is expressed by Dr. Hammond's affirming that they are discerned by
Miracles Prophecies c. The true difference between Dr. H. and Dr. O. in this matter is not whether the manner or the means of receiving spiritual things be signified by the word spiritually but whether it is designed to express those means which Dr. H. affirms viz. external Testimonies of divine Revelation or those which Dr. O. contends for viz. the internal and irresistible operations of the Spirit upon a mans minde But 2. I have shewn by the clear scope of the Apostle that the outward means are here to be understood This I see is our Author 's great trouble that Dr. H. supposes the true cause why the Natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit is because he will onely be led by his natural Reason and will not attend to Revelation and the outward means whereby revealed Doctrines may be proved whereas J. Owen's meaning is that he cannot receive them because the New Light is not yet created in his minde by an almighty act of the Spirit The truth of Dr. Hammond's sence and the absurdity of Dr. Owen's I have already shewn and shall onely adde this to help our Authors understanding viz. That the proposal of the external evidences of a divine Revelation made equally to those who rejected the Gospel with them who received it is no argument that they who rejected it could not receive it because their mindes were not enlightned by an omnipotent act of the Spirit For another reason may be given why they could not viz. the Apostles reason because they sought after mans Wisdom and would not admit of that for truth which was not proved by Philosophical discourse By the Authorities he brings to confirm his own exposition and to confront Dr. Hammond's we may guess how pertinent the rest are that his Book is stuffed withal He produceth that saying of St. Chrysostome A natural man is he who lives by the flesh and hath not his minde yet enlightned by the Spirit but only hath that connatural humane understanding which the Creator of all things hath endued the mindes of men withal This Exposition which he calls better than Dr. Hammond's is clearly to the same purpose with it for here is not a word about that irresistible Light which J. O. contends for and to be led only by the Light of humane Reason which are Dr. Hammond's words is perfectly the same with having only the connatural humane understanding c. The following passage of Chrysostome which he quotes is to the same effect I shall only adde that citation out of the same Writer which he brings in at the beginning of his Exposition The natural man is one that ascribes all to the reasonings of his own minde and doth not think that he stands in need of aid from above which is madness for God hath given the Soul that it should learn and receive what he bestows or what is from him and not suppose that it is sufficient to it self Eyes are beautiful and profitable but if they would see without light this beauty and power will not profit but hurt them and the Minde if it would see without the Spirit of God it doth but entangle it self This is clearly against him For that which God is here said to bestow is not that irresistible Light the Doctor speaks of but the Light of Revelation which I have been discoursing of i. e. revealed truths which St. Chrysostome saith the Soul is to learn but to learn that Light he talks of is nonsence St. Chrysostome is so far from supposing that it is impossible for a man to receive what Revelations God bestows unless the Almighty Power of God necessitateth him to do it that he saies God hath given the Soul that it might receive them when they are bestowed And he reckons it madness for a man to think he needs no divine Revelations and consequently to reject them when they are offered with sufficient evidence Now the only reason according to J. O. why he rejects them is because the Almighty work hath not been yet upon his minde If St. Chrysostome had thought so too he had been a mad man himself for accusing them of Madness that fail'd of doing what no Power less than almighty could enable them to do which is in effect to accuse them of Madness because they were not Almighty themselves St. Chrysostome's Similitude is very pertinent For as Light is to bodily Eyes so is Revelation to the Minde in respect of revealed Truths which are such as none but the Spirit of God could discover And therefore whoever refuseth to attend to his revelation of them must needs be ignorant of them and will finde himself entangled in many difficulties which he might have understood by hearkning to Revelation This Similitude St. Chrysostome useth elsewhere to the same purpose for he saith As no man with his naked eyes can learn the appearances in the heavens so the Soul alone cannot learn the things of the Spirit i. e. they are not to be learned by meer Natural Reason without the aid of Revelation I now leave the Reader to judge with what conscience this man could pretend the Authority of St. Chrysostome to countenance his own Exposition of this Text of St. Paul and this is all I shall say to the Doctor 's Authorities which any one may see are as convincing as his Reasons And now at length I desire him to take notice that it will be to no purpose for him to reject what I have to say concerning spiritual things contrary to his notions of them under pretence that I am a natural man for I thank God I am a Christian and so long as I have the Scriptures by me I enjoy the means of understanding what Revelations God hath made known to us by his Son For they contain those Doctrines which were proved by the demonstration of the Spirit and of Power These Doctrines are so far from being foolishness to me or rejected by me because they are not knowable by meer natural Reason that I should be guilty of inexcusable madness if I should not surrender up my belief unto them Though I could not possibly finde them out nor have known them unless they had been revealed yet being revealed I discern the great Wisdom and Goodness of God towards us in them still acknowledging that I know but in part and that there is a depth of Wisdom in the Mysteries of the Gospel which my understanding cannot reach But the truth of these Revelations I learn principally from the testimonies given to them and the sence of them not excluding other subordinate helps by comparing one Divine Revelation with another and the Doctor hath no other means to qualifie him for the discerning of these things aright but that new light which he pretends to but which the Apostle speaks never a word of and let him make his best advantage of it But if the Doctor be resolved to Cant on still in his own defence and
Isai. 42.1 where the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have given my Spirit upon him which is almost the same expression with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. John only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon Him makes the former to allude to the Descent of that visible Glory upon our Saviour when he was consecrated to his Office by the Holy Ghost But the Doctor hath met with an unexpected Secret in the Phrase of putting on for he doth not only pretend that it is the person of the Spirit which God is said to put upon men but he thinks something more is meant by it than by Giving the Spirit He saith God doth not only give and send his Spirit unto them to whom he designes so great a benefit and privilege but he actually collates and bestows him upon them He doth not send him unto them and leave it in their wills and power whether they will receive him or no but he so effectually collates and puts him in them or upon them as that they shall be actually made partakers of him And again As to some Gifts and Graces God doth bestow his Spirit where there is some preparation and cooperation on our part but wherever he designes to put or place him he doth it effectually This is too serious a subject to be pleasant withal otherwise here would be occasion enough The Doctor it seems hath discovered that the person of the Spirit is bestowed upon those that are converted and that their Conversion is by an irresistible work and all this in the Phrase of putting the Spirit upon a man or in him Now what a goodly Argument is here lost if this Phrase should signifie the same thing with that of giving the Spirit as I have shewn that it doth unless our Authour is subtle enough to shew some real difference betwen the meaning of these Phrases in Matth. 12.18 and John 3.34 where they are used concerning Christ. But perhaps the force of his Argument lies in the only word Put and therefore he produces that Text Isai. 63.11 where indeed the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is made use of which properly signifies to Put. The words are Where is he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that put his Holy Spirit in the midst of them i. e. whose Spirit was present with the Israelites to save them from their enemies For the Context plainly shews this to be the meaning Where is he that brought them up out of the Sea where is he that put c. that led them by the right hand of Moses c. vers 12. Now certainly this work of the Spirit in saving the Israelites from the Aegyptians doth not imply that the very person of the Spirit was put upon them and without all question 't is of a very forreign nature from that work for which as he pretends to prove from this place the Spirit is irresistibly put upon men And therefore this Text is every way impertinent to his purpose To conclude The Reason of these and the like expressions may be easily understood by comparing them with that plain Text of St Paul 1 Cor. 12.4 There are diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit for to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom to another c. All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit dividing to every one severally as he will vers 11. For because it is the person of the Holy Spirit that bestowed these several gifts therefore by an usual Metonymy they who received these gifts were said to receive the Holy Spirit 1 Cor. 2.12 And in like manner the Spirit of God is said to be given and sent and poured forth and administred and put upon those in whom his Operations are and upon whom his Blessings and Benefits his Gifts and Graces are bestowed These are 〈◊〉 significations of this word Spirit in the Holy Scriptures which I have not noted as being too â—â—â—rain to my present purpose of stating the subject of this Discourse to which I now proceed SECT 2. First of all by the Operations of the Holy Ghost I understand those which the Minde of man is the object of and therefore I do not intend to say any thing of the work of the Spirit in the creation of Man in the forming of his Body and his Soul and in enduing him with Intellectual and Moral Abilities much less in the Creation of the World the Heavens and the Earth c. which Dr. Owen hath taken great pains about But I cannot think this needful to the designe which I have of discoursing about the Actions and Operations of the Holy Spirit upon our mindes for they are hereby supposed to have been created and to be what they are Thus the first signification of the word Spirit is proper to the object about which those Operations of the Holy Ghost that I mean are conversant Secondly I intend those Actions of the Holy Ghost upon our mindes which are proper to cause certain Qualities in them whereof they are capable subjects for instance such as are contained under the second signification of the word Spirit viz. Faith and Charity and Meekness and the like But I do not mean nor is it requisite for me to say any thing of the Operation of the Spirit whereby our mindes or any other created beings are sustained in their Natures especially because the Doctor hath taken care not to omit that Subject Thirdly I mean those Operations of the Holy Spirit onely the promise whereof is contained in the Gospel of our Saviour by which limitation of the Subject you see I am not like to trouble you with any enquiry concerning the Operations of the Spirit upon the minde of Man before the Fall for the promise of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel is made to Faln creatures and what his Operations upon our mindes are since the Fall cannot be known but by Revelation because it depended altogether upon God's free Will and Pleasure to bestow the Spirit upon us Neither shall I discourse of the nature and degrees of the Spirit of Prophecy as it was communicated before the coming of the Messias nor shall I at present examine our Author's learning in that point because I intend to confine my self to those promises of the Spirit which may be met withal in the Gospel For the same reason I shall altogether omit to take notice how by the Operations of the Spirit men grow skilful Politicians in which matter if any one hath a minde to be informed he may consult Dr. Owen Nor lastly do I think my self concerned to say any thing of the work of the Holy Spirit in and upon the humane nature of Christ which the Doctor hath likewise spent above a long Chapter upon for that is not the work of the Spirit upon our mindes which Christ hath promised to us and which we can have no other knowledge of than by his Word i. e. by
that they might be Witnesses c. and the promise of the Holy Ghost which Christ received from the Father Acts 2.23 peculiarly concerned the miraculous Gifts which were bestowed after Christs Ascension and this as I conceive the Doctor acknowledgeth by saying that Christ shed forth what they saw and heard in the miraculous operations and effects of it Now saith he In this promise viz. Acts 1. vers 4 8. the Lord Christ founded the Church it self and by it he builded it up And this is the Hinge whereon the whole weight of it doth turn and depend unto this day It is indeed certain that the faith of the Church is at this day founded upon the extraordinary testimonies that were given to the Gospel by the Spirit in the first ages of the Church But that which follows is absolutely false Take away this promise suppose it to cease as unto a continual Accomplishment and there will be an absolute end of the Church of Christ in this world For as he elsewhere confesses himself Miracles are ceased and yet there is a Church He proceeds thus No Dispensation of the Spirit no Church he that would utterly separate the Spirit from the Word had as good burn his Bible Be not so hasty for although this happens to be a truth yet 't is more than you have proved The Operations of the Spirit may now be utterly separated from the Word for all Acts 1.4 And although you very truely tell us that the bare Letter of the New Testament cannot ingenerate Faith and Obedience in the hearts of men yet for any thing you have here said it may For those Texts upon which you ground your confidence speak onely of the miraculous Gifts whereby the Gospel was confirmed Now these being recorded in the New Testament together with that Doctrine which was proved by them may be as able to assure men of the truth of the Gospel and make them obedient to the Law of Christ as they were when they were seen and heard and that of themselves too for any thing you have shewn to the contrary from Acts 1. though the contrary may well be shewn from other Scriptures Now I cannot see to what end these men when they are speaking of the Promise of the Spirit which will in all ages be accomplished should fly so often as they do to those Texts which mention those extraordinary gifts of the Spirit that were bestowed in the first unless it be to make their followers believe that the true Ministers of the Gospel are inspired as the Apostles were and that they preach in the demonstration of the Spirit and of Power as the Apostles did Which because we do not pretend to it is left to them who do so to be sole owners of the Priviledge Just as the Papists support their pretence to Miracles and Infallibility by drawing the promises peculiarly made to the Apostles and first Believers into consequence for the Church of Rome in every age And I fear by the like device our Author hath laid his Plot to unchurch us quite and clean who conform to the Laws For saith he Let men cast themselves into what order they please institute what forms of Government and religious Worship they please let them do it by an attendance according to the best of their Vnderstandings unto the Letter of the Scripture i. e. let their Government and Worship be as neer the rule of the Scripture as they can possibly frame it yet if the work of the Spirit of God be disowned or disclaimed by them if they disown those extravagant pretences to the Spirit which you set up to magnifie your selves withal If there be not in them and upon them such a work of his as is promised by our Lord Jesus Christ there is no Church-state amongst them nor as such is it to be owned and esteemed And is this that you have been driving at all this while you have now found out a new colour for your Schism and it seems the separation from the Church of England must go forward upon this pretence that the work of the Spirit promised by our Lord Jesus Christ is not in us and upon us which in many places of your Book also you spare not to say we reproach and disavow But I beseech you dare you say that you have that work of the Spirit in you and upon you which is signified by the fore-mentioned Texts If you say so we shall presently desire you to convince us of it by Miracles and such signes as the Apostles did If you dare not say it then it seems that work of the Spirit is no more in you and upon you than 't is in us and then I hope we are not unchurched for not pretending to it nor fit to be accounted Reprobates because we are not Liars I acknowledge that promise of our Saviour mentioned by you in your next Section Matth. 28.20 I am with you always even unto the end of the world proves the constant presence of Christ in his Church by his Spirit but then Sir it doth not prove nor I think are you able to prove that the fore-mentioned promise made to the Apostles is the same promise with that which is here made Now as to that work of the Spirit which will indeed continue through all ages of the Church God forbid that we should disown and disclaim it But we disown the proving it from such places of Scripture as you lay the great stress of your proof upon lest we should seem to pretend to those influences of the Holy Spirit which were poured forth upon the Church at her first appearance in the world to confirm the Christian Faith by signes and wonders and not being able to make good our pretence be laughed at for our pains It would not avail us to say that we pretend not to those measures of the Spirit those extraordinary Gifts which the Apostles and first Believers had for it would be unanswerably returned upon us that these Texts cannot be proved to speak of any but these and thus we should disparage a good cause by arguing no better for it Therefore Doctor if the whole work of the Spirit in and towards the Church it self be openly derided as you complain you may I doubt in great part thank your self and such as you who by imprudent Discourses upon this subject have given profane persons occasion to make a question whether now-a-days there be any work at all of Gods Spirit upon the hearts of men I shall now endeavour to shew that there is and that by laying together what the Holy Scriptures say concerning it All which I suppose may be reduced to these three heads 1. What those effects are for the producing of which in the mindes of men God will give the Holy Spirit in all ages of the Church 2. To whom this promise of the Holy Spirit is made 3. What is the manner and measure of his Operations By
shewing what we are taught in the Scriptures concerning these things I hope the Reader who hath not so well considered them may gain a profitable knowledge of this part of Christian Doctrine And that is a profitable knowledge of it which will incite him to the study of Godliness and Virtue For this promise is made to encourage men to be good and the principal end which I aim at in this undertaking is to make it appear what great reason they have to endeavour earnestly after true goodness since God hath promised to give his Holy Spirit CHAP. II. Concerning those effects for the producing of which the Holy Spirit is given to Believers SECT I. DOctor O. saith well that when we treat of the Operations of the Holy Spirit we are exercised in such a Subject as wherein we have no rule nor guide nor any thing to give us assistance but pure Revelation For I suppose he means by these words that all our knowledge concerning this matter depends upon Revelation For the promise of the Spirit is a branch of the New Covenant which depended upon the pleasure of God therefore our knowledge of this part of the Covenant must be grounded upon the Scriptures which contain the revelation of it And by God's assistance I shall endeavour to govern my self by that rule while I am debating those Questions I have propounded concerning the Operations of the Holy Spirit The first whereof is this What those effects are for the producing of which the Holy Spirit is given to men And this I the rather begin withal because the end of his Operations being well understood we shall be the better able to judge of the meaning of those Texts which tell us who they are to whom the Spirit is promised and what is the manner of his Operations What the effects themselves are for which the Spirit is given may be known 1. In great part from that promise of the Holy Spirit which our Saviour made to his Disciples Luke 11.13 2. They may be fully known from those other places of Scripture which mention the several Graces of the Holy Spirit I begin with the promise in St. Luke whereby we may understand for what purposes the Holy Spirit is promised to those that believe in Christ. The Text is this How much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him These words deserve our attention the more because they are the first wherein we finde our Saviour mentioning the Gift of the Holy Spirit to his Disciples and therefore let us consider their connexion with the precedent part of the Chapter to come by that means to their true meaning and hereby also we shall plainly see what those effects are for the producing of which the Holy Spirit is promised to us in this place We finde vers 1. that one of his disciples said unto him Lord teach us to pray whereupon he taught them that Form of Prayer Our Father c. Having thus answered their desire he takes this occasion to require them to pray fervently and importunately urging his Command with this Argument that if they did so they should certainly be heard and their requests should be granted for thus he speaks to them vers 9. I say unto you Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened to you for every one that asketh receiveth c. This argument is enforced by two similitudes whereof the former makes way for the latter to proceed with more strength towards the proving of this thing that God will hear our earnest Prayers The first is that of a man that goes to his friend at midnight to beg three Loaves for the entertainment of another friend of his vers 5 6. Now it is here observed that the request was very troublesome and unseasonable vers 7. Trouble me not the door is now shut and my children are with me in bed and withal the trouble was so great that the bare friendship that was between them would not have prevailed vers 8. He will not rise and give him because he is his friend Yet on the other side 't is observed that two considerations prevailed with him viz. that of the necessity and that of the importunity of his friend Yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth Now from hence our Saviour concludes vers 9. that if we ask we shall have i. e. God will give us whatsoever things we ask of him importunately if those things are needful for us And this with great reason for 1. God is our best Friend and greatest Benefactor 2. We are never unseasonable to him and the giving of what we ask is never uneasie to himself Wherefore if a man will grant to his friend what he is importunate with him for if it be needful for him though he cannot do it without trouble and uneasiness to himself much more will God who loveth us more than a man can do his friend bestow such things upon us as are needful if we earnestly desire him since he can without any trouble to himself grant our requests In the next Similitude the Argument is improved If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father will he give him a stone or if he ask a fish will he for a fish give him a serpent Or if he shall ask an egg will he offer him a scorpion vers 11 12. Now here 1. The Son asks of the Father where on the one hand the natural affection is greater between a Father and his Son and on the other the dependance greater in the Son upon his Father than in one Friend upon another 2. The Son requests food necessary to sustain himself not for the entertainment of another as in the former Similitude wherefore seeing here is greater love on his part that is asked greater dependance and necessity on his that asks our Saviour concludes he will prevail so that the Father instead of giving that which is necessary will not give that which is unprofitable as a Stone instead of Bread much less will he instead of that which is profitable give that which is hurtful as a Serpent for a Fish and a Scorpion for an Egg. From hence our Saviour argues If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him The Argument proceeds à minori and the force of it lies in this That earthly Parents who may be tenacious towards others and envy what they enjoy for in that sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken Is thine eye evil because mine is good will not yet be so towards their Children when they ask such things as they need much less will God who is in this Similitude affirmed to be our Father as in the former he is supposed to be our Friend and who
is good to all his creatures who envieth no man's happiness who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth none much less I say will he deny us his Holy Spirit if we ask him From hence it is evident that the scope of our Sayiour in this Discourse is to perswade his Disciples to pray fervently for such things as are indeed needful for them and that by this Argument that God will grant such requests as these are It is also evident that our Saviour concludes with this Argument in these words God will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him Wherefore I conceive we have gained one note of those spiritual Effects which the Holy Spirit is promised to work in our mindes viz. that they are such as are indeed needful For it is plain that in both Similitudes the things that were asked either by the Friend or the Childe were really such as they stood in need of the one for his friend the other for himself and that this was one reason why they prevailed Now from hence our Saviour infers that God will much more give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him i. e. for such purposes as are needful otherwise the Argument will not hold For we cannot infer from this consideration that we are ready to bestow upon our Children what they need therefore our heavenly Father will give us the Holy Spirit for such ends as are needless If the demands of Children be not within the limits of Reason and Modesty if they ask not to supply their real needs but to gratifie their wanton appetites it is consistent with the goodness of a Parent to deny such desires as those and to rebuke the folly of them too And if we should ask those gifts of the Holy Ghost which are not needful for us this would be more than we are encouraged to do by the promise of Christ and the compassion of our Heavenly Father may very well consist with the refusal of such Requests as these SECT 2. But this general Rule that we are to pray for such effects of the Holy Spirit as are needful for us would be insufficient to direct us what to pray for in particular if we did not also understand what effects are needful Now to satisfie you in this matter I might presently produce those places of Scripture where the several effects of the Holy Spirit upon the mindes of Believers are mentioned which work belongs properly to the second way propounded for the resolution of the present Question But before I come to that I shall try how far we may conclude from our Saviour's promise thus This is a needful Grace therefore we are to pray for it and then I shall in due place proceed to the second Head under which those Texts are to be considered from whence we may conclude in this manner This Grace we are to pray for therefore it is needful These methods of arguing will indeed bring us to the same conclusion concerning what those effects are for which the Holy Spirit is promised in St. Luke But by so doing they will afford mutual light to each other and infer the conclusion with more strength which I hope will not be judged unprofitable in a matter of so great weight for every Christian to be well satisfied about I begin with arguing from our needs to those Graces of the Holy Spirit which we are to pray for Now because it is some good or advantage of ours that is regarded in this promise of the Holy Spirit and in respect whereof his Graces are supposed to be needful we must in the first place set that end before us by which we are to measure what effects are needful to be wrought in us by the Holy Spirit and then consider what are indeed needful to that end for so far as we understand this we shall know what Graces to pray for since we are to pray for those that are needful and the needfulness of any thing must be judged of according to that end in respect whereof it is said to be needful 1. As for the end it self if we consider that this promise of the Holy Spirit is part of the New Covenant there can be no reason to doubt but the ultimate end of this promise with regard to our Good is our eternal Salvation and Glory For that which is the last end of the whole Covenant is the last end of every part of it Now the state which Christ came to bring us to at last is that of seeing God as he is and living for ever in the enjoyment of his Love For which reason St. John tells us This is the promise that he hath promised us even eternal life 1 Joh. 2.25 not as if the Gospel had no other promises but because the rest are subordinate to this and consequently that of the Holy Spirit must needs be so Wherefore in that promise of his Operations to produce all needful effects in our mindes those are supposed to be such which are needful for our Eternal Salvation Now 2. We must consider what effects are needful to be wrought in us for that end The needfulness of any means to an end consists either in this that the end cannot be attained without them at all or not so well without them That which is needful in the former sense is absolutely necessary that which is needful in the latter is onely profitable Let us therefore first consider what effects are absolutely necessary to be wrought in us in order to our eternal Salvation what these are we are plainly told in the Scripture and they may be comprised under these Heads 1. Faith in Jesus or believing him to be the Son of God and so one upon whose Authority we may safely rely as to whatever Revelations he hath made of God's Will the necessity of which Faith our Saviour hath told us in those words If ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins Though indeed the Holy Spirit cannot be said to be promised in this place of St. Luke for the producing of Faith in this notion it being apparently supposed that whatever is here promised is promised to the Disciples of Jesus who do already believe him to be the Christ. 2. So much knowledge of the Christian Doctrine which is Faith in another notion as is necessary to instruct us in and encourage us to that Repentance and Holiness which the Gospel requires in order to Salvation When we believe in Christ our next care must be to know what his will is and to possess our mindes with those principles of Obedience without which it is impossible to please God For if it be necessary to salvation to do the Will of Christ it is equally necessary to understand his Revelations his Laws and Promises in that measure which is necessary to the doing of his Will and therefore a Believer is encouraged by this promise of our Saviour to ask the Holy Spirit that he may
God we are not to ask them so particularly or if we do not so absolutely as the former I may and ought to pray for them in general and particularly for those degrees of them which are proper for my condition if I govern a Family for so much knowledge as may well serve me to bring up those that are under me in the fear of God and the way of Salvation or if I am a Minister for that underderstanding in Religion which may best fit me to discharge that duty I owe to God of guiding those souls to Heaven that are committed to my trust but if I pray more particularly for the understanding of such a difficult Point in Religion which I would satisfie my self or others about I must not do it absolutely but with submission to God's wisdom and pleasure Thus have I endeavoured to shew what qualifications of minde we are to pray for under this notion of their being needful to Salvation and consequently what those effects are for the producing of which the Operations of the Holy Spirit are promised to Believers in Luke 11.13 Dr. Owen indeed thinks that there is a certain change of the minde of a very different nature from any that I have named necessary to Salvation which he makes to be the Great work of the Spirit upon the Souls of Believers I shall not be long before I come to consider what reason he has for it In the mean time it may not be amiss to observe what conclusions may be made from this promise of the Holy Spirit which we have begun with the Consideration of And the first is SECT 3. 1. That we ask the Holy Spirit in the Lords Prayer which as it may be concluded from the perfection of that Form in general so more particularly from the coherence of our Saviour's Discourse in this place upon occasion of that request made by one of his Disciples that he would teach them to pray For to satisfie the request fully he did these two things 1. He taught them what things to pray for by prescribing to them the use of this Form Our Father who art in Heaven c. 2. He taught them in what manner to pray for these things that they might obtain them viz. to pray importunately and fervently for them as 't is plain from vers 9. compared with vers 8. and one reason given by him upon which they may conclude God will grant their requests is this that they ask onely needful things Now it is very improbable that our Saviour should have left out so needful a Request as that of the Holy Spirit in that Prayer which he had taught them for then he did not instruct them so fully what needful things to pray for by prescribing that Form as he did in what manner they should pray for those things by the following directions But much more improbable is it that he left that Request out of this Form considering that he chose the gift of the Holy Spirit for an instance of what might be obtained by Prayer so soon after he had commanded his Disciples to use the Form of his prescribing For this gift of the Holy Ghost is the greatest blessing that is now to be obtained under Heaven and it is not credible that he should immediately as it were tax his own Form of so much imperfection as the want of that Request must suppose in it Or that he should let his Disciples know there was no other way to obtain the Holy Spirit but by asking though he had not before taught them to ask it in the Prayer which he had given them But lastly there is no necessity of inferring this Conclusion from the coherence of our Saviour's Discourse since the gift of the Holy Ghost comprehends the gift of all those Heavenly Graces which we ask in the Lords Prayer and therefore the meaning of those words God will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him is this God will give the Disciples of Christ such needful Graces as he hath taught them to ask in that excellent Form which he gave to his Disciples And this indeed makes the coherence of our Saviour's Discourse most clear and accurate For upon this supposition you see that he does at last instance in such a request viz. that of the Holy Spirit which is a brief Summary of all the most considerable matters that he had taught them to pray for before Wherefore observe that 2. We pray for the Holy Spirit when we pray for any Grace or Virtue or for any Disposition of minde which is needful to qualifie us for the Kingdom of God In the Lords Prayer wherein the Holy Spirit is asked the Petition is not formally express'd but contained under other words for instance under these amongst others Thy Will be done as in Heaven so in Earth For in this Petition we pray That till we come to the perfect heavenly state we may by the Divine Spirit be disposed to such a submissive and cheerful performance of the Will of God upon Earth as may bear some resemblance and carry some proportion to that absolute readiness of minde wherewith the Angels and the Spirits of just men made perfect and wherewith we our selves do hope ere long to perform the Will of God in the Kingdom of Heaven I say although in that Petition we do not expresly ask the Holy Spirit yet in effect we do because we pray for such a temper of minde as may qualifie us for the heavenly Life hereafter And to ask of God so needful a Grace as this is is as I have already shewn by the plain scope of our Saviour's Discourse the same thing with asking the Holy Spirit Now for the same reason in every Petition wherein we beg of God that we may be able to subdue any Lust that we may be endued with any Christian Virtue or grow in any Grace In every such Petition I say we ask the Holy Spirit because this is to ask those needful things for which his Operations are promised to us Therefore those Prayers of our Church that God would make us to have a perpetual fear and love of his holy Name that he would give unto us the increase of Faith Hope and Charity that he would keep us from all things hurtful and lead us to all things profitable for our salvation together with all the yearly Collects are Prayers for the gift of the Holy Spirit i. e. for the several Graces of the true Disciple of Christ which are expresly ascribed to the Spirit in that Prayer that God would grant to us his Spirit to think and to do always such things as be rightful that we who cannot do any thing that is good without him may by him be enabled to live according to his will And this I have by the way observed that you may see how fully our publick Prayers agree to that rule of our Saviour concerning what we are to pray for viz. that we
But so troublesome a thing it is to deal with a Writer that plays fast and loose I must yet go further about to come to the business and begin with making good my charge against our Author that he contends for the proper use of these words For some passages he hath himself that look another way and might perswade a man that he did not understand those Scripture-expressions literally and properly but figuratively Thus he tells us This new creature therefore doth not consist in a new course of actions but in renewed faculties with new Dispositions Power and Ability to them and for them These Dispositions he saith are the Divine Nature spoken of by St. Peter a divine principle of operation and hereunto saith he St. Paul exhorts in these words Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mindes If now the new Creature the state of Regeneration consists in the renewing of our Faculties our Wills and Understandings that is in furnishing them with new Dispositions Power and Ability for a new course of Actions then it is not literally true of that man who is thus fitted for the Kingdom of God that he is a new creature but onely figuratively i. e. that he is the old creature still onely bettered hath the same Will and Understanding that he had before but these renewed and made better than they were before and that God doth not properly give a man another Understanding or another Heart which he had not before when he is said to Regenerate him but that he reforms the old furnishing them with new Abilities and Dispositions Again he saith in the same Section that the New creature consists in the universal Change of the whole Soul as it is the principle of all Moral and Spiritual Actions If that be true then here is the same Soul there was before only it is changed from bad to good and whereas it was hitherto dispos'd to evil Actions it is now byassed by better Principles than it was before and disposed to those Actions that are good and pleasing to God Consequently it is not true in the Literal sence of that man who is fit to see the Kingdom of God that he is Born again and is a New Creature and hath a new Heart Will and Understanding Now these and other such passages in the Doctor 's Book were either inserted by him that he might the more fairly retreat in case he should be forced to quit the Literal and proper sence or else which sometimes happens he spake the truth against his will For whatever he hath said to this purpose he earnestly contends that those expressions of the New Creature and Regeneration are to be understood in their proper sence And even in this very Section he tells us It is called the New man because it is the effect of Gods creating Power and that in a way of a new Creation Now the object of a creating Act is an Instantaneous production whatever preparations there may be for it the Bringing forth of a New Form and Being by creation is in an instant Which words plainly suppose that there is a New being properly created in man when he is said to be Born again and to become a New creature and he argues from the Literal sence of Creation to prove that a man is made a new Creature in an instant for the object of a creating Power is an Instantaneous production Again he saith The new creature is produced in the Souls of men by a creating Act of the Power of God or it is not a Creature and it is superinduced into the essential Faculties of our Souls or it is not a New creature for whatever is in the Soul of Power Disposition and Ability or inclination unto God or for any moral Actions by Nature it belongs unto the old creation it is no New creature And it must be something that hath a being and subsistence of its own in the soul or it can be neither New nor a Creature This passage is strangely perplexed for by what our Author saith concerning the disposition and inclination of the Soul to God one would guess he was for the Metaphorical sence and all the rest carries it clearly for the Literal But that we might know his meaning he falls foul upon them that say the expression is Metaphorical and consequently that the New creature is a Moral man that hath changed his course and way and in a triumphant manner tells us This is good Gospel at once overthrowing Original Sin and the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I may in time convince the Reader that he is neither to trust this Author what those Doctrines are which overthrow these things nor what the Judgment of our Conformable Divines is in these matters At present my business is to fix this man to a certain sence and to make it good that what I charge him with is his opinion He saith plainly that the New creature hath a being and subsistence of its own in the Soul and 't is superinduced into the essential faculties of the Soul otherwise it could not be New nor a Creature that is literally and properly so for it may figuratively so that besides the heart which the Sinner had before he hath now another and then I grant the expression is not Metaphorical He tells us That which is born of the Spirit is a new spiritual being creature nature life as shall be declared Now he declares what his meaning is by these expressions very solemnly where he renounceth at large that opinion which makes them to be Metaphorical and hath these remarkable words among the rest So long as we can obtain an acknowledgment from men that the writings of the New Testament are true and in any sence the word of God we doubt not but to evince that the things intended in them i. e. the things signified by Regeneration New creature c. are properly expressed i. e. by those Phrases so as they ought to be which no body denies and so as they are capable to be expressed i. e. if he be consistent to himself that they cannot be expressed more properly Again Some meaning himself and his Party judge the things of the Gospel to be deep and mysterious the words and expressions of it to be plain and proper Others meaning his Adversaries think the words and expressions of it to be Mystical and Figurative but the things intended to be ordinary and obvious By all which and much more to the same purpose it is plain that this he must stand to as his opinion That the forementioned expressions are not to be understood Metaphorically but literally and properly And now my next work is plain which is this 1. To prove that they are not so to be understood as he saith they are 2. To answer those Arguments which are produced by him to the contrary SECT 2. I shall first prove that these expressions ought not to be understood
be whether there be not more Metaphors than he allows not as he pretends here whether there be any Metaphors at all But since he will have it so he must not say hereafter that he intended only to prove all the expressions of the Gospel were not Metaphorical since his Argument concludes that they are all proper if it concludes any thing That most of them are proper we grant and 't is well that it stands not in need of being proved by him for his untoward way of proving would tempt a man to suspect the plainest truth he meddles withal if he had not better reasons of his own For Secondly What consequence is there in this Arguing If there be a secret mysterious work of the Spirit upon the Souls of men intended in the Scriptures then are all the expressions of the Gospel concerning it plain and proper otherwise the Scripture is obscure For 1. None of the expressions of it might have been proper and yet some of them plain and then the Scripture would not have been obscure in that thing for a Figurative expression may be plain enough to be understood by a man of common sense Sure our Author will grant that saying of our Saviour This is my body to be figurative and I hope he will not deny it to be plain because it is figurative So that his Argument by which he concludes all the expressions of the Scripture concerning this mysterious work to be proper doth not prove that any one is so 2. If some of the expressions be both plain and proper and others figurative some whereof are more and some less plain as the truth is and if those which are not so plain may be understood by the help of plainer then may this secret mysterious work be sufficiently understood by the expressions of it in the Scripture and consequently the Scripture far from being the obscurest Book in the world because all the expressions of it are not to be taken properly and literally But it seems our Author hath an opinion by himself that no Writer in the world ever used the liberty of Metaphorical expressions Thirdly his way of proving that there is such a mysterious work is a mere begging of the Question This we shall see by considering what he must mean by a secret mysterious work viz. such a work of the Spirit as is properly exprest by Regenerating Creating Quickning and Drawing the Soul of a man and this I grant to be a very mysterious work if these be all proper expressions of it Now he proves there is such a work by this Argument That otherwise the Scriptures are obscure Why so Because they are obscure if these be not proper expressions of the work of the Spirit so that he proves there is a mysterious work i. e. a work properly expressed by Regeneration Creation c. by this Argument that these are proper expressions of such a work which is to prove a thing by it self And he proves also that these are proper expressions because there is such a mysterious work that is a work properly expressed by them which is to beg the Question So that if you will grant the Doctor that they are proper expressions he can then prove there is a a work properly expressed by them or if you will grant there is such a work he can prove those to be proper expressions And now I understand the Doctor when he saies The Difficulties which seem to be in these things arise from their mysterious Nature and not from any obscurity in the Declaration of them and I am fully of his minde for if any one tells me that a Body may be greater than it self and lesser than it self and that Transubstantiation may be true Doctrine or that a man may be properly Regenerated Created Quickned Drawn and Awakened all at once I grant he does not obscurely declare his minde to me and that I finde no difficulty to understand the meaning of his words But the onely difficulty which seems to be in these things ariseth from the mysterious nature or rather the nonsence of the things themselves contained under these plain expressions for the more plain any nonsence is the more easily it is understood to be so This I think is a sufficient answer to that slender proof which the Doctor brings for the judgement of his party concerning the propriety of these Scripture-expressions but it will not be amiss to consider how he represents the judgement of those others whom he speaks of For he saith SECT 4. Others think the words and expressions of it to be mystical and figurative but the things intended to be ordinary and obvious to the natural Reason of every man So that if the Doctor may be believed there are some who think the effects of the Holy Spirit upon our Hearts are not expressed by any proper words at all in the Scriptures but as he saith they turn all Scripture-expressions of spiritual things into Metaphors If any such senceless people there be they are I should think most likely to be found among those that separate from the Church of England for many of their Preachers if we may judge of their Sermons by their Books do so train them up to Metaphorical talking that some of them may possibly believe the Scripture affords little or nothing else But as for those who think the things intended by these expressions suppose the assistances of the Divine Spirit are ordinary and obvious to the natural Reason of every man I never heard there were any such before if by obvious the Doctor means discoverable by mere natural Reason for the knowledge of these things is by all granted to depend on divine Revelation But being revealed I would fain know what reason we are to understand them withal besides our natural Reason But if by ordinary and obvious he means plain and intelligible by an ordinary capacity I am one of those who think the things of the Gospel whereof we are speaking to be ordinary and obvious and that they are not the less but the more excellent for being so our Author must grant unless he will revoke his Argument that the expressions of these things are not Metaphorical taken from hence that otherwise the Gospel is dark and unintelligible So that we are both agreed in words at least that Perspicuity and Intelligibleness is an excellent thing But the truth is he and his Party have a notion of Intelligibleness and Perspicuity by themselves as any one would guess by their Writings For Example the Doctor here tells us that if the Gospel intends nothing but moral Duties and their observance in its Doctrine of Regeneration then it is dark and unintelligible Now this is very strange for â—f as it is confessed on all hands moral Duties are easily intelligible and if the Scripture intends 〈◊〉 more by the Doctrine of Regeneration than the performance of moral Duties then is the Scripture very intelligible in the point of
that is to renounce the Doctrine here by him maintained viz. That a man may do Righteousness without the renovation of the Spirit or without being born of God and then he must say with the Apostle that He that doth righteousness is born of God which is one of those Arguments whereby I have proved that a state of Regeneration is a state of inherent personal Righteousness and which together with the rest I have produced does prove that to be Regenerate as it signifies the state of a man is no other thing than to be a sincere Disciple of Christ to believe and obey the Gospel of our Blessed Saviour which was the first thing to be shewn SECT 8. 2. If we consider Regeneration as an effect we are to enquire into the causes and means of that state which we have described Regeneration to be These our Saviour affirms to be Water and the Spirit vers 5. viz. when he repeated his Doctrine to Nicodemus Concerning which Grotius well notes Exponit jam qualem nativitatem intelligat nè Nicodemus diutius Allegoricae locutionis ignorantiâ fallatur Our Saviour now explains what Birth he understood that Nicodemus might no longer be deceived by his ignorance that Christ spake figuratively For after it was told him that this Birth was effected by Water and the Spirit he could not dream that our Saviour meant being born again in the literal and proper sence as he conceived at first when it was onely told him Except a man be born again be cannot c. Now whether one cause of the state of Regeneration or more be expressed in these words by Water and the Spirit is not generally agreed upon there being some whereof Grotius himself is one who conceive that by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those words signifie the sanctifying or cleansing Spirit of God Non loquitur de Baptismo saith Grotius but withal he saith Sed locutiones sunt alludentes ad Baptismum our Saviour alludes to Baptism as he supposeth him to allude to the Eucharist in those words Except ye eat the Flesh and drink the Blood c. But by the leave of so great a man I think the other opinion more generally received and in particular maintained by Dr. Hammond viz. that by Water Baptism is here meant to be to say no more far more probable than the supposition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that for these two reasons 1. Because Baptism was that ceremony of Proselytism among the Jews which our Saviour borrowed from them To be born of Water was no new Name or Notion as Dr. Owen pretends for the Jews called their Proselytes Recens nati as Grotius himself observes new Born men and as such counted them to have quitted their Relation to their former Country Parents and Kindred and since the Jewish Proselyte was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a baptized person and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or immersion in Water was one of the indispensible ceremonies of his Proselytism or Regeneration we may well conceive that by being born of Water our Saviour meant becoming a Proselyte to his Church by Baptism as by Baptism the Jews admitted Proselytes to theirs for otherwise it would not have been so strange that Nicodemus a Master of Israel should not understand what our Saviour meant by being born of Water 2. St. Paul does expresly call Baptism the laver of Regeneration which what it signifies but a means whereby we are regenerated or become the Disciples of Christ I cannot understand and then that is the very same with being born of Water Now where there is not onely no necessity to finde a figure in Scripture-phrases but the proper sence also contains a truth very pertinent to the Subject spoken of in all reason there the proper sence and consequently here of the word Water ought to be followed And then being born of Water signifies our being admitted into the Church as the Disciples of Christ and engaged to be so for the future by Baptism To be born of the Spirit is to be made the sincere Disciples of Christ and true to the profession of Baptism by the Operations of the Holy Spirit and what the Scripture teacheth us concerning them is the main designe of this Treatise to shew therefore I shall say no more of them in this place but onely adde that we are not to understand the Spirit of God to be the immediate cause of our Regeneration or becoming good Christians but we are to suppose those other Causes viz. those means which the Scripture ascribes our Regeneration unto to be included under the Spirit who is indeed the principal cause of this effect without whose operations those means cannot be effectual to their end And these are the Doctrines of the Gospel For St. Peter tells us 1 Pet. 1.23 That we are born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever But this shall be more fully considered when I come to speak of the manner of those Operations of the Holy Spirit whereby we are born again And thus have I given you an account of the true meaning of being Born again both as it signifies a State and as an Effect and the sum of all is this That our Saviour doth require us to become his sincere Followers and Disciples if we hope to see the Kingdom of God SECT 9. I come now to shew the Reasons why our becoming the sincere Disciples of Jesus is exprest by being born again And I shall likewise shew how fitly the same thing is exprest by the other Metaphors that are used in the Scripture for that purpose and this because our Author seems unable to conceive how so mean a thing as to believe and obey the Gospel of Christ should be intended by such grand and Hyperbolical expressions as those of the new Birth the new Creature c. I shall first observe the similitude between our becoming true Christians and being Born First the greatness of that alteration which is made in a man's state by his becoming a sincere Disciple of Jesus is one good reason why the state of such a Disciple is exprest by this Metaphor for it expresseth a very great change Thus Mr. Baxter tells us very well that Regeneration is a Metaphorical term taken from our natural Generation because there is so great a change that a man is as it were another man If we consider how great this change is we shall finde it so to be There is first of all an Intrinsick change peculiar to the state of adult Christians their understandings being informed with the knowledge of those truths concerning God and themselves and a Life to come which they are most of all concerned to know which is the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Hereby also is produced a proportionable change in their Wills and Affections which the belief of the Gospel hath wrought such effects upon that
of that change And as that original or cause of that change is not perceived by us as we know not whence the Wind cometh so the end of it is not perceived by us neither for that is eternal Life which yet we do not see as we know not whither the Wind goeth but onely believe 3. Our Saviour's Similitude likewise shews that a thing may be discoverable onely by its effects as the Wind is by the noise it maketh and other effects thereof so likewise the Operations of the Holy Spirit upon our mindes though they are not in themselves perceivable by us yet in their effects they are for if Christian Virtue and Piety cannot be attained or preserved without the Operations of the Holy Spirit then where there is this change in a mans state there we are sure have been and still are the Operations of the Spirit and though he doth not feel the cause it self yet he discovers it in its effects Dr. Owen indeed tells us that the Work it self is discoverable in its Causes and brings this very Text to prove his saying which proves the contrary 'T is true we know that the Spirit of God is the cause of this change but how not by the Work it self but by the Revelation of Christ who withal hath informed us that we have no other way to discern the Operations of the Spirit in us but by their effects i. e. those alterations that are thereby produced in our Hearts and Lives Thus then we may understand our Saviour's words Let not this startle you that the Operations of the Holy Spirit whereby you must be changed and as it were born again are not discernible and sensible for though you cannot feel them yet you may understand them by the effects and alterations in you that are caused by them Now whereas Nicodemus answered How can these things be I suppose the reason of his Hesitation was either 1. That he did not understand this to be our Saviour's meaning or 2. That he thought as Dr. Owen does that to be born again was too Hyperbolical an expression of that which he now perceived our Saviour meant by it I cannot positively say which it was But suppose whether you will our Saviour's Reply to him rebuked his Ignorance either way Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things vers 10. q. d. Art thou one of the Great Council a learned Jew and yet ignorant of these matters Do you not perceive that I speak to you of the necessity of becoming my Disciple in such language as any man who is vers'd in your Customs and in the Writings of the Prophets may easily understand Is not being born again that very phrase whereby you express the making of a Proselyte Is not washing one of the Ceremonies whereby a Proselyte is made amongst you and therefore when I tell you a man must be born of Water what should you think I mean but that he must become my Disciple by Baptism I have also told you that he must be born of the Spirit too and can you be ignorant that those Prophecies which speak of the days of the Messias do mention the Operations of the Holy Spirit upon the Hearts of men which shall then be liberally bestowed upon the Subjects of his Kingdom to make them good and holy persons viz. that God will circumcise the Hearts of his people that he will take away their Heart of stone and give them an Heart of flesh with his Law written in it that they may be the true Disciples of the Messias that Prophet to whom you are to hearken in all things I say unto thee We speak that we do know and testifie that we have seen and ye receive not our testimony vers 11. Now I am that Prophet but how credible soever that testimony is which is given hereof ye regard it not If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things vers 12. This last is a place of some difficulty for although by heavenly things are meant Doctrines which were to be known by the Revelation of Christ yet by those earthly things which our Saviour had told Nicodemus already we must not understand truths merely natural for that Jesus was the Messias that it was necessary for the Jews to become his Disciples by Baptism and to be born of the Spirit which none but his Disciples could be these were heavenly Doctrines too in this sence that they were knowable onely by Revelation Wherefore I conceive that by heavenly things here may probably be meant such revealed Doctrines as were most contrary to the worldly and sensual expectations of the Jews who had long cherished in themselves the notion of a Messias who should fight their Battels for them as their other Saviours and Deliverers had done and rescue them from the Roman Power Now these Doctrines were that Christ should be delivered into the hands of the Romans and be Crucified for the sins of the World that those who believed in him should not perish but have everlasting Life Divers Considerations make it probable that these are the heavenly things meant by our Saviour in this place for 1. After he had made way for it by telling Nicodemus that he onely ascended up into Heaven i. e. knew the secret purposes of God concerning the way of Salvation he falls upon the mention of that Death which he was to undergo for the sins of the World And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in c. 2. The Cross of Christ was that which made the Jews most of all offended that his Disciples should still pretend him to be the Christ. It was to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks Foolishness and therefore it is probable this was the thing which the Jews would hardly believe viz. that God would save Mankinde by the death of his Son 3. When St. Peter rebuked our Saviour foretelling his own Passion he said unto Peter Get thee behinde me Satan for thou savourest not the things that be of God or heavenly things i. e. the wisdom of God's way to save the World but the things that be of man thou speakest according to the imaginations of the Jews who perswade themselves that the Kingdom of the Messias will be of this World Lay all these things together and it will appear probable that by those heavenly things which our Saviour intimated would be more difficulty believed by the Jews than those which he had already mentioned to Nicodemus are meant his Sufferings and Death by which Believers should be saved and which he discoursed to Nicodemus of presently after And then by the earthly things on the other hand we are to understand those truths which were indeed divinely revealed but were not so contrary to the worldly expectations of the Jews as the other viz. that Jesus was the Christ and that all men were to be his Disciples which
in believing his Gospel so as to yield a sincere obedience to his Laws This is that Regeneration which is necessary to Adult persons as Nicodemus was and as you may remember is one of those needful effects for the producing of which in our mindes God will give the Holy Spirit to us if we ask him Thus have I shewn what those Qualifications are for the effecting of which the Holy Spirit is promised in St. Luke 11.13 Now though I have not pretended to prove from this place that God will give the Holy Spirit to work faith and the beginnings of a good minde and good desires in us and there was good reason for it since the Spirit is here promised to Believers and such as desire to do the will of God yet I intended not to exclude them from being the effects of the Holy Spirit and I shall immediately prove that they are for I now proceed to shew what those several Graces are which the Scriptures particularly ascribe to the Operations of the Holy Spirit which was the second way propounded for the resolving of the first Question and will not onely confirm what has been offered for that end from St. Luke but fully satisfie the Question we are upon CHAP. IV. Concerning the several Graces of the Holy Spirit SECT I. IN the first place Faith it self as that signifies a firm perswasion of the truth of our Saviour's Doctrine is an effect in our Mindes which the Scripture frequently ascribes to the Operations of the Holy Spirit This is the first Grace of the Holy Spirit which I mention because an hearty belief of the Gospel is the foundation of all other Christian Virtues And I shall now shew that the Spirit of God is given to prepare our mindes as they ought to be prepared that we may become the true Disciples of Christ. To speak clearly to this matter we are to consider 1. That the Revelations of the Doctrines of the Gospel and sufficient testimonies that they are divinely revealed are presupposed to our obligation of believing them and 2. That teachableness and due attention is necessarily required to Faith or actual believing of those Doctrines Now that which I shall take upon me to prove is this That the Teachableness of Minde which is necessary to actual Believing is from the Holy Spirit And I onely say that Faith in this sence is an effect of his Operations upon the Mindes of men But I do not say that the Holy Spirit doth now reveal the Doctrines of the Gospel to men by immediate Inspiration or that he convinceth them of their truth by any immediate or any new testimony whatsoever that they may believe Not the First because we have them in the Scriptures As to the Doctrines of the Gospel themselves we may say with the Apostle God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit 1 Cor. 2.10 But not to us as he did to the Apostles to them by Inspiration to us by their Writings whereby we may be fully instructed in all necessary Truth Not the Second because the Doctrines of the Gospel have been sufficiently confirmed already even by the demonstration of the Spirit and Power in the Miracles and Resurrection of Christ and the supernatural Gifts which the Apostles and the primitive Believers had And there is not any one promise in the Scripture that I can finde that God will give unto us any further testimony of the Holy Ghost to the truth of the Gospel after that which was given to it by the Holy Ghost at first Wherefore we have no Warrant to look for any private Illumination and Conviction by the Holy Spirit to assure us of the truth of that Doctrine which hath been abundantly confirmed to our hands by so many divine Testimonies already It is the same light and the same evidence by which we discern the truth of the Gospel that those to whom Christ and his Apostles preached discerned it by i. e. the Testimonies by which they proved their Doctrines onely with this difference that they saw and heard them we know them by the tradition of the Scriptures Our Saviour saith Light is come into the world but men c. i. e. The Will of God was plainly revealed by him and he was clearly proved to be the Son of God by the testimony of his Works c. and yet many would not believe him Now this is that Light which still continues in the world viz. the Revelations of the Gospel and the Testimonies by which they were confirmed for we have them in the Scriptures which are delivered to us that we might believe the same Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles preached to the world and upon the same evidence whereby men were at first convinced of their truth Therefore I do not say that the Holy Spirit worketh Faith in us by illuminating our mindes with any new Revelation of the Christian Doctrine or any new Testimony of the truth thereof for this is more than needs to be done and I conceive more than any body can prove But he doth it by disposing our mindes to attention and teachableness or to that temper which whosoever is of will believe truths that are proposed to him with sufficient evidence It is true indeed that there is no more required to an understanding man's assent to a true propoâ—tion in Philosophy than to explain the meaning and represent the reasons of it to him intelligibly and clearly This ordinarily is sufficient in that case But there is more assistance required towards the belief of the Gospel though propounded with sufficient evidence of divine Revelation For there is this difference between the truths of Religion and conclusions in natural Philosophy and other Sciences that our sensual Appetites and worldly Interests are thwarted by those but not by these and therefore we are not so apt to rise up in contradiction to the latter as we are to the former though they may be both proved with equal evidence Religion is to govern our lives and bindeth us to deny the pleasures and advantages of sin under the penalty of God's high displeasure And no wonder if the Lusts of men influence their Judgements and blass their Understandings against the belief of those Doctrines which are so irreconcilable to a wicked life These are the things which do not onely so often spoil the virtue and efficacy of Faith where it is but do also cause uncertainty and unbelief where Faith is not but where in all reason it ought to be For they make men unwilling to believe and this unwillingness doth on the one hand hinder their attention to the force of those Arguments which prove the Gospel to be indeed the Word of God and inclines them on the other hand to lean to the weakest Objections that can be offered against it This was just the case of the great men amongst the Jews as is plain from that one instance in John 9. amongst many For when our Saviour had
but by the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 This is the substance of what I can finde in the Scripture concerning this matter and I suppose it is sufficiently shewn that faith or a firm perswasion that Jesus is the Son of God and that his Doctrine is the Word of God is an effect of a divine Operation upon our mindes and that the first preparations within us towards Regeneration are from the Holy Spirit And consequently that the Semipelagian opinion introduced by the Massilienses upon occasion of the Pelagian controversie viz. that there is no necessity of preventing Grace though Grace be necessary to make our Faith fruitful of good works but that Faith and the first inclinations of the Will to that which is good are merely from our selves is contrary to the Scriptures SECT 2. Now when we are once perswaded that Jesus is the Son of God that which still remains to be done by us is to overcome the world and keep the Commandments of God Indeed if we believe in Jesus we have entertained into our mindes such forcible and prevailing considerations as will not easily suffer us to disobey him in any thing and they have so much power to lead our Affections after them and to govern our practices that I always thought the Semipelagians might with more appearance of reason have questioned the Doctrine of the Church concerning those divine Operations by which the Faith of a Believer is crowned with all other Christian Virtues than concerning those which are preparatory to Faith it self for of the two he is a more unreasonable man who believing God's Word is yet so mad as to go on still in his sins than he who believes it not and since the Lusts of men make them so unwilling to attend to those truths which are against them we might think it were an easier matter to keep the Faith of Christ from entring into their Hearts than to resist the power of it when it is once admitted But now as the evidence of those Reasons by which the Gospel is proved to be a divine Revelation is far from excluding all need of a divine Influence upon our mindes to create a firm Faith in us So neither does the power of those motives which are contained in our Faith render the concurrence of the Holy Spirit needless to move our Wills to that which is good and upon good principles but still our sufficiency is of God without whose Grace the temptations of the World and the lusts of our corrupt Nature which make us unwilling to entertain the truth would always suppress the force and vertue of it afterwards Thus our Saviour told his Disciples Without me ye can do nothing John 15.5 but he did not suppose that they were incapable of doing any thing with him too but that they had power to bring forth fruit unto God and that it was from him Now that this power imparted to them was not merely the effect of the Revelation of his Doctrine to them is plain from hence that they already believed the Revelations he had made Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to you vers 3. and yet he tells them that without him they can do nothing which must needs imply some grace distinct from the bare revelation of the Gospel by which they had already bore some fruit and were capable of bringing forth more vers 2 3. But that all those dispositions and vertues wherein our obedience to the Gospel doth consist are as well the graces of the Holy Spirit as the effects of our Faith is clearly and fully affirmed in those words of the Apostle Phil. 2.13 It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do which being again spoken to Believers manifestly suppose a divine Operation distinct from the Revelation of the Gospel which enabled them to will and to do i. e. to perform that obedience from their very souls which would qualifie them for eternal happiness For this is the motive by which the Apostle encourageth them to work out their Salvation vers 12. by universal obedience as hitherto they had done Now because the motive extends to engage us to every part of our duty therefore God worketh in us that we may be every way so disposed in minde and will and obedient in life as to become meet for the Kingdom of Heaven Wherefore the fear and love of God and godly Sorrow and true Repentance and the hope of eternal Life together with all Christian Virtues such as Righteousness Mercy Patience Love Peace Joy Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness and Temperance are the Graces of the Spirit Wherefore Lastly our doing that which God requires and with that fear and love of him which he requires too are the effects of his Operations in us If any thing were yet wanting to satisfie us fully in this matter our being taught to pray that we may not enter into temptation and to pray always that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil would leave no room for doubting whether of our selves we need or by promise have this great encouragement to the study of Godliness and Virtue or not For these directions were unprofitable if we either needed no strength from the divine Spirit against our Temptations or if it were not to be gained by our Prayers Much less would those Prayers of St. Paul for other Christians which we so often meet withal have signified any thing to their advantage or encouragement if there were not a divine Grace obtainable by them for the producing of those effects which he so much desired to see in their conversation And these effects were no other than all kindes of Christian Virtue and Goodness as we may learn by the following places Wherefore also we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of Faith with power 2 Thess. 1.11 i. e. that God would make their Faith fruitful of all good works acceptable to him that the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ might be glorified in them as he speaks in the following verse Again we do not cease to pray for you and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his Will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing being fruitful in every good work Col. 1.9 10. Thus in another place For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the Inner man Now that which the Apostle prays for in these and many like places is plainly this That those Christians to whom he wrote might attain all those Qualifications which the Gospel requires in Believers And from hence it follows that God hath not left the success of the Gospel to
purpose it is observable that God's dwelling thus in the Most Holy place is called his dwelling amongst the Israelites Thus when he commanded the building of the Ark Let them saith he make me a Sanctuary that I may dwell amongst THEM Exod. 25.8 And after he had promised to sanctifie the Tabernacle with his Glory he tells Moses And I will dwell amongst the Children of Israel and will be their God Exod. 29.45 Now that the presence of his mercy and favour towards them was meant in this promise appears by the following words And they shall know that I am the Lord their God that brought them forth out of the land of Aegypt i. e. he would so manifest his power in protecting and defending them from all their Enemies that they should know he had the same care of them which he shewed in delivering them from the Aegyptian bondage But this is yet more clearly signified by those words In all places where I record my NAME I will come unto thee and BLESS thee Exod. 20.24 For the Name of God as we find in 2 Sam. 6.2 was The Lord of Hosts that dwelleth between the Cherubims And this is that account which the Psalmist gives of God's dwelling in Sion where the Ark of his presence was The Lord hath chosen Sion he hath desired it for his habitation This is my rest for ever here will I dwell for I have desired it I will abundantly satisfie her poor with bread I will cloath her Priests with salvation and her Saints shall shout aloud for joy Psal. 132.13 Thus in times of distress and danger they began their prayers for deliverance by invoking the Lord God of Israel that dwelleth between the Cherubims 2 Kings 19.15 and Psal. 80.1 By all which it appears that Gods dwelling there signified the peculiar favour which he had towards the house of Israel before all other people And accordingly we may observe that the Scripture doth use to express the presence of God amongst them when they were punished for their sins not by dwelling with them but by visiting them which you know is a word that does not imply continuance and long abode as the other does and is therefore much fitter than that to express the presence of his angry Justice who delighteth not in Vengeance but in Mercy and who is more easily prevailed with to withdraw his displeasure than his favour and kindness Thus saith the high and lofty One I DWELL with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit which that it signifies the lasting presence of his favour is plain from the following words For I will not contend for ever neither will I be always wroth for the spirit should fail before me and the souls which I have made Isa. 57.15 16. Although God is said to visit men both when he is present to punish them as in Exod. 32.34 Psal. 89.36 c. and when he is present to deliver and bless them as in Exod. 3.16 Psal. 106.4 yet 't is in respect of the latter onely that he is said to dwell amongst them Now as I observed before the Apostle cites that promise of God made to the Israelites that he would dwell in them applying it to the state of the Christian Church as you may see 2 Cor. 6.16 Wherefore God's dwelling in men as this phrase is used in the New Testament signifies also his peculiar grace and favour toward them as the Apostle himself explains it by subjoyning that other place thereto And I will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters saith the Lord God Almighty And this is that testimony which he hath given us hereof that the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth John 1.14 By whom we have received God's blessings and favours and the clear revelations of his Will more freely than the Israelites ever did by the dwelling of the Ark amongst them They prayed towards their most Holy place where God was extraordinarily present that he would stir up his strength and come and save them But we look up to the more Holy Mercy-seat where God is more gloriously present than he was between the Cherubims even to Jesus whom all the Angels of God worship and in whom the fulness of the God-head dwelleth bodily that through him we may have help and salvation The Name of God which he hath now recorded amongst us is The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and by this name we invoke him that he would come unto us and bless us And there is as great difference between the Blessings that God's coming to us and dwelling amongst us implies and those which were promised to the Israelites as between the testimonies themselves of God's presence amongst them and amongst us They were temporal favours and deliverances which they promised to themselves from God's presence in the most Holy place But we look for a salvation incomparably more excellent God having blessed us through Christ with all spiritual blessings in things that concern Heaven Eph. 1.3 The Enemies we are to subdue by the strength of the Lord and the power of his might are those which would hinder us of our heavenly Canaan viz. our sensual Lusts and earthly Affections and the temptations of the World and the Devil For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickednesses in high places Eph. 6.12 against all the suggestions of evil spirits whether to more gross and sensual or to more refin'd and spiritual vices And they are Enemies so much more dangerous than those which the Israelites had to deal withal that theirs do not deserve to be called Principalities c. when they are compared with those here mentioned by the Apostle Thus by the Spirit of God dwelling in us twice mentioned by St. Paul Rom. 8.9 11. we are to understand the presence of his Grace whereby we are constantly enabled to mortifie the deeds of the Body vers 13. For then our Bodies shall have a blessed Resurrection vers 11. and the Spirit is life because of Righteousness vers 10. our Souls shall then be qualified for eternal Life and Happiness Now this being certain to come to pass if the Spirit of God dwelleth in us it is plain that the peculiar grace and favour of God towards us which is signified thereby is that by which we may be kept from living after the flesh which if we do we shall die and enabled to mortifie the deeds of the Body to subdue our spiritual Enemies more perfectly and to prevail finally against them that we may live vers 13. Therefore to conclude this point as God's dwelling amongst the Israelites signified his peculiar favour to them in protecting and defending them and bringing them to the Land of Canaan and blessing them with plenty and increase c. so is the peculiar presence of his Grace
trusted and his Soveraign Dominion owned by a spirit of obedience and submission to it which are incomparably more effectual acknowledgments of the Divine perfections than whole Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices For this as our Saviour speaks is to worship God in spirit and in truth Such a Temple as this God is so delighted in that in comparison therewith he disregarded the Temple at Hierusalem with all the external services that belonged to it For that God dwelleth in pious mindes was not unknown to the Jews Where is the house that ye build unto me and where is the place of my rest To him will I look saith the Lord even to him that is poor and of a contrite heart and trembleth at my word Isa. 66.2 3. Thus saith the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity whose name is Holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the spirit of the contrite ones Isa. 57.15 Let us now lay these things together and the conclusion will be that God's dwelling in men implies a plentiful communication of Divine grace to confirm and strengthen them in all goodness which was what I took upon me to shew under this head For since this expression of God's dwelling in men denotes the presence of a peculiar grace and favour to those in whom he is said to dwell which is not afforded to others Since the dwelling of the Holy Ghost in Believers is to enable them to mortifie the deeds of the body and to prevail finally against all their spiritual Enemies Since also it is true that God dwelleth in good and righteous but not in impure and unholy persons it follows in the first place that after we are regenerated it is still by the grace of God and the Operations of his Holy Spirit that we are enabled to proceed in vertue and godliness and to persevere therein to the end for God dwelleth in us that we may mortifie the deeds of the body by the Spirit Secondly it follows also that there is a more abundant measure of Divine Grace communicated to holy persons than to those who are not so For God's dwelling implies the presence of more than ordinary Grace And thus our Saviour also hath plainly told us To him that hath shall be given and he shall have abundantly Finally this Doctrine is very well consistent with that of attributing the beginnings of Christian Faith and goodness in us to the Operations of the Holy Spirit For although the Spirit of God dwells onely in good men yet it is by his Operations that any are made so at first and as the Apostle speaks we are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit Eph. 2.22 But his dwelling in us afterward signifies as we have shewn the more abundant grace we are made partakers of And thus although the blessings which all the World enjoyed while the Tabernacle and Temple stood flowed to Mankinde from the Divine bounty and goodness yet God was said to dwell onely among the Israelites because he had a more especial care of that people than of any other Nation in the World My designe in this Chapter was to shew that the beginnings and progress of that state whereby we are qualified for Heaven are in the Scriptures ascribed to the Operations of the Holy Spirit and that all Christian Vertues are the gifts and graces of God I might now prove by as convincing testimonies that perseverance in the Faith and obedience of the Gospel is the effect of a Divine Operation in us But this truth is so evidently consequent from what the Scripture asserts concerning God's dwelling in good men which I have largely enough discoursed of that I reckon it needless to produce any further testimonies to confirm it Thus have I discharged what I promised in the close of the last Chapter which was to prove that those Christian Vertues in which the state of Regeneration consists together with our improvement and perseverance in them are particularly ascribed in the Scriptures to the Operations of the Holy Spirit And from what hath been thus proved these things follow 1. That he who is endued with these Virtues hath the Spirit of God for they are the effects of his grace And to say that a man may be endued with them and yet be void of Grace is to contradict the Scriptures which ascribe them in whomsoever they are to the Operations of the Holy Spirit 2. And by consequence it is an idle supposition that God will be displeased with us though we be never so careful to do his Commands and to increase in Christian Virtues if all this while we have not the Spirit of God for the former cannot be without the latter 3. Wherefore also it is a vain thing to make our believing and obeying the Gospel on the one side and our having true Grace and the Spirit of God on the other distinct marks of a Regenerate state For if Faith and Obedience are the fruits of the Holy Spirit within us if they are Grace as that signifies the performance of our duty and the effects of Grace as that signifies Divine Assistance then having the Grace of God and the Spirit of God is not a mark of Regeneration distinct from believing and obeying the Gospel because this is Grace it self in the former and is it self the onely mark of Grace in the latter sence of the word i. e. of our having the Spirit of God And now I have not discoursed upon this subject out of the least suspition that there are any in this Church who deny the Qualifications of a true Disciple of Jesus to be the graces of the Holy Spirit For excepting Dr. Owen and some of his party and as those who are acquainted with them say the Quakers I do not know of any in England who may justly be suspected to use one of the Doctor 's phrases of being gone over into the Tents of the Pelagians Nor was it merely to vindicate the Ministers of this Church whose judgement in this matter I am acquainted with something better than our Author seems to be from the imputation of Pelagianism which with so much clamour and railing he hath charged them withal But principally to give those who believe what the Scripture thus plainly declares occasion to consider it again and to lay it to heart since there can hardly be a more effectual encouragement to Piety and Virtue than this that God will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him for all blessings needful for their eternal welfare And nothing will render the wilful sinner more inexcusable and more severely punishable than this that whilst he goes on in his wicked life he does despight unto the Spirit of Grace CHAP. V. Concerning pretended Gifts of the Spirit SECT I. HItherto I have shewn of what kinde those Effects are for which the Holy Spirit
perswaded that it was the purpose of God from all eternity to bring a few men to eternal Life by an irresistible power and to leave the rest to unavoidable ruine he can no more hope to obtain the favour of God by doing what he can to please him than to reverse the Decrees of Heaven Wherefore if he understands his own principles he must needs be under a great Agony till he becomes assured that he is one of that happy number whom nothing no not sin it self can separate from the love of God But if we entertain honourable thoughts of God as we have great reason to do if we believe that he seriously calls upon us to repent and would have us to be saved and that he is ready to supply us with Grace sufficient 2 Cor. 12.9 then upon our care to please God in all things we shall never want so much comfort as we need i. e. the joy of well-doing which is the testimony of a good Conscience Wherefore since an absolute assurance that we shall be saved is needful neither as a condition of Salvation nor as a motive to Holiness nor as a means of Comfort I may conclude also that neither is this one of those Graces which our Saviour hath told us God will give to them that ask him SECT 3. Lastly that promise giveth us no reason to expect that the Holy Spirit will dictate extemporary Prayers to us For 1. Such Prayers themselves are not necessary to the obtaining of our requests for had that been so then certainly we should have been admonish'd in the Scriptures to pray Extempore as they call it as well as to pray at all and to beware of Book-prayers and the use of Forms as much as of neglecting the Duty altogether or performing it in a careless slothful manner And this the rather because Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving were used in the Jewish Church and because also the modesty of many good Christians and the inabilities of many more would naturally prompt them to the use of so ready a help to devotion as pious and useful Forms of Prayer are But so far are we from finding any Command in Scripture to pray upon sudden invention that we finde no preference given to this way above the use of Forms but rather the contrary for when our Saviour taught his Disciples to pray he enjoyned them the use of a Form When ye pray say Our Father c. Luke 11. But 2. Not to contend for the usefulness of Forms of Prayer above leaving the performance of this duty to extemporary effusions but admitting the advantage lay on the side of the latter as some men perswade themselves I affirm that the suggestions of the Holy Spirit are not necessary to the conception or utterance of such Prayers For first they are not necessary to dictate what things we are to pray for since the Holy Scriptures may abundantly supply us with the knowledge of them Therefore I see no reason why Dr. Owen should say with so much anger that the Spirit of God let the proud carnal world despise it whilst they please and at their peril doth gratiously in the Prayers of Believers carry out and act their Souls and Mindes in Desires and Requests which for the matter of them are far above their natural contrivances and invention This is somewhat obscure but I would know what requests those are which for the matter of them are above your natural contrivance and invention If they be agreeable to the Word of God as I suppose you will say they are then either you knew them to be so before you pray'd or you knew it not If you did you have no reason to say that the matter of these requests was above your natural contrivance and invention if you mean thereby as I think you do that when you were praying you could not possibly have thought of those requests without a supernatural suggestion for you confess that you knew well enough before that you were to pray for such things as then come to your minde But if you knew them not then either you prayed for such things as you did not then know to be agreeable to God's Word or else you must suppose that the Holy Spirit which then gave you the first notice of them did immediately reveal to you that they were And yet you said just before I do not think that the Spirit worketh supplications in us by an immediate supernatural divine Afflatus so as he inspir'd the Prophets of old who oft-times understood not the things uttered by themselves Now that Revelation is as immediate and supernatural as the Inspiration of the Prophets was and to make all even you say elsewhere that let prophane and ignorant persons whilst they please deride what they understand not nor are able to disprove the Holy Spirit of God doth guide Believers in and by the working and experience of Faith to pray for those things the depths of whose mysteries they cannot comprehend So that if you neither know them before nor understand them afterward I think you may lay claim to the Afflatus of the old Prophets upon a double Title by your own account Now I shall be so far from deriding your pretence that I shall not go about to disprove it but onely tell you that we are not bound to believe you to be Inspired men unless you could prove it by some evident divine Testimony for want of which you again appeal to your Experiences and let us know withal that he who hath not experience hereof i. e. of having the matter of his Prayers suggested to him by the Spirit is a greater stranger to these things than will at length be unto his advantage which any man may say who speaks more than he understands All that I contend for is that the matter of our Prayers needs not to be dictated by Inspiration and that because the Spirit teacheth us by the written Word of God what we may and what we ought to pray for Nor 2. The words in which we pray for a ready use of our Mother-tongue will serve us with them freely enough so that a competent understanding of the chief Heads of Religion and the retaining in memory of a certain number of Scripture-phrases and Passages of holy Writ proper to be converted into Petitions together with a tolerable readiness of uttering ones thoughts in proper words will in some measure furnish a man with this gift and being thus qualified he shall not need to have the matter or the words of his Prayers dictated to him by the Holy Spirit any more than of an ordinary discourse with his Neighbour upon a subject which he is used to speak of But if he hath over and above a warm Invention and a voluble Tongue and a good share of Assurance in himself especially if he be apt to be heated with his own thoughts and expressions he is then qualified to excel in the way of
extemporary praying and to pass for one that hath a double measure of the Spirit with them who are apt to ascribe all Heat and Eloquence in matters of Religion to a divine Principle I do not speak this to undervalue any man's abilities in this kinde but onely to shew that they may be set too high As for them that do so they may undeceive themselves by observing the very Prayers of those persons whose gifts this way are most remarkable for although these men are sometimes pleased to decry the use of Forms as not savouring of the Spirit yet it is plain enough that their own Prayers as spiritual as they look may be as purely Humane as the Prayers of a Book are by them judged to be For it is evident that they tie up themselves to those usual Topicks of Prayer and Heads of Devotion according to which Book-prayers as they call them are framed They usually begin with the Invocation of God by the acknowledgement of his Attributes and then they run through the common places of Confession Petition and Thanksgiving which are the subjects that furnish set Forms of Prayer They confess the same Sins they beg the same Graces they praise God for the same Blessings in all their Prayers Now this is that which I suppose none of them will deny and then I think they must confess that their Prayers as to the matter of them are as formal as those of the Liturgy But further as the matter of their Prayers is confined to certain Heads so for the most part they use the same expressions onely with this condition that they are laid in with such good store of them that they need not use them all at once but may keep some against another time And thus indeed they do not tie up themselves to a form of Words because they have as many Forms to use as may be made by the shifting and transposing of those Phrases which they have in stock and so many Forms they have more or fewer according as that stock increases more or less And thus as we pray out of our Books so do they out of their Memories and the difference between their way and ours for I speak now of those that do not use to talk idly and extravagantly in their extemporary Prayers is this that ours hath the advantage of Safety and theirs of Popularity and Ostentation But I am not able to divine what that is in Extemporary praying as that is distinguish'd from using a set Form which must needs be ascribed to the immediate suggestion of the Spirit The matter of such Prayers is certainly the most considerable and the knowledge of that we see may come another way which seem'd to be the minde too of the late Assembly who although they threw aside the Book of Common-prayers to make way for Extemporary Performances yet thought fit to give the Minister a Directory for the Matter without leaving him to be guided in that by the suggestion of the Holy Ghost which made some men think they might e'ne as well have prescribed a set Form unless they intended to leave the meaner office of supplying him with words to the Holy Spirit But the words and phrases as I have shewn you may come from a more familiar Principle And then there is nothing left but that shifting and changing of places with them which makes the great show of variety But this is so unworthy to be ascribed to a divine principle that I may conclude extemporary Prayers allowing them to be never so useful and profitable need not to be dictated by Inspiration and therefore no such Inspiration was promised by our Saviour when be promised the Gift of the Holy Spirit to all his Disciples Thus have I shewn that neither of these three things come under the promise in St. Luke 11.13 For they are not Gifts of that kinde which are there promised to them that ask the Spirit And I adde it may be strongly presumed that they are promised nowhere else since they do not fall under this general promise of the Spirit which comprehends all the rest But because there are some men so vehemently perswaded that the Holy Spirit is given for these purposes that they reckon it little better than Blasphemy to gainsay it I shall proceed to those places of Scripture upon which such mighty confidence is grounded to see whether they afford any reason for it SECT 4. And first as to those testimonies which are alledged out of the Bible in favour of interpreting or understanding Scripture by the immediate revelation of the Spirit I refer the Reader wholly to Dr. Hammond's Postscript concerning New Light and divine Illumination annexed to his Paraphrase c. upon the New Testament where they are all considered and shewn to infer no such thing as is desired to be concluded from them But if after all any man should say that he knows by the Light of the Spirit that Interpretation which Dr. Hammond hath given of those Texts to be nothing better than carnal Reasoning and come over with Dr. Owen's talk of the Natural Man and the impossibility of understanding the spiritual sence of Gospel-truths without the Almighty Illumination of the Spirit I confess it will prove a matter of as great difficulty to reply to such a pretender as it is to finde out a way to convince a Quaker For what success can any man promise himself by replying to a confident Enthusiast who perpetually appeals from the most evident reasons the plainest testimonies of Scripture and the most rational inferences from them to the testimony of the Spirit However this I will venture to say that if it were granted impossible to understand these Texts without that New Light which the Papists call an Infallible Spirit and Dr. Owen and his party an Almighty work of the Holy Ghost for in effect they are both the same thing then it must be granted withal that these Texts are impertinently produced to convince us who do not pretend to this Infallible Spirit that there are a sort of men upon whom God bestows that priviledge For that theirs is the true sence cannot be proved to us but by rational means i. e. either by arguing from the original words or the Context or parallel places or the like or else by some clear divine testimony proper to convince us that they in particular are inspired such as real and undoubted Miracles This latter way is pretended to onely by the Papists and though the frauds they have been deprehended in sufficiently shew those amongst them that have raised the noise of their Miracles to be Impostors yet it is to be acknowledged that they pretend to offer a rational means of Conviction that their Church interprets the Scripture by an infallible Spirit which the men I am at present speaking of do not offer in the least As for the former way of convincing us by rational evidence from the Text it self it is that which we are
ready to submit to and then I desire Dr. Hammond's interpretation may be considered But if they neither use this way nor the other nor any like it it is an absurd thing to produce those testimonies of Scripture at all to convince us by them because upon these terms it is utterly impossible they should convince us till we have received that New Light which they themselves pretend to And this is all that I can hope to bring them to viz. to confess their own impertinency in offering any testimony of Scripture for the justifying of their pretence and that when all is done they have nothing to say but the Spirit tells them this is the true sence and meaning of Scripture without enabling them to make it appear to any body else And so we are to let them go either for errant Hypocrites or rank Enthusiasts whom the State hath reason to be jealous of lest they should have some dangerous design against the Government or be prompted to Sedition and Rebellion by the heats of their own fancies or the suggestions of the Devil which by an Enthusiast may be so easily mistaken for the Impulses of the Holy Ghost If last of all it should be said that although God hath not promised this Inspiration we are speaking of yet for ought we know he may do more than he hath promised and reveal the true sence of what passages in Scripture he pleaseth to whom he pleaseth I answer that as I am no way obliged to contradict this supposition so withal I must adde 1. That supposing a man to be thus inspired he cannot prove to another that he is so otherwise than by Miracles which if he doth not neither can he justly expect to convince another that the sence revealed to him is the true sence otherwise than by such rational means as he must have used if it had not been revealed and 2. That therefore if one man hath nothing to say in conclusion for his interpretation of a place of Scripture but that the Spirit led him to it and that to put any other sence upon it is the fruit of carnal reasoning and of the wisdom of the flesh and a signe of Vnregeneracy and the state of a natural man that hath not the Spirit of God which is always Dr. Owen's last refuge and another plainly shews either by the words themselves or by the designe of the discourse to which they belong or by some other way apt to convince a rational man that the foresaid meaning does not belong to them but one that is different from it In this case I say the former is convinced to pretend falsly to Inspiration and in plain English he must be a very Fool that will prefer his interpretation before the other And so much for that matter SECT 5. 2. The principal passages of Scripture which seem to imply Assurance to be a gift bestowed upon the regenerate by the Holy Spirit are two The first I shall mention is that of St. Paul to the Ephesians Grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption Eph. 4.30 Now by the Believers being sealed c. some have thought that a testimony of the Spirit whereby they are absolutely assured that they shall be saved must needs be meant But first the words are fairly capable of another meaning viz. that the gifts of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon Believers were an evidence that God was now preparing them for the Kingdom of Heaven since upon their believing he had blest them with so many advantages in order thereunto and therefore that he had now a peculiar right to their obedience For this we know is one use of sealing to distinguish that which of right belongs to our selves from what is common Thus are all Believers marked out for God's portion and peculiar by the eminent advantages of the Gospel which he hath made them partakers of and therefore are they said to be sealed by the Holy Spirit because the Gospel is a divine Revelation and the ministration of the Gospel is the ministration of the Spirit Thus when it is said that God the Father hath sealed Christ John 6.27 the meaning is that by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him he owned him to be his Son that great Prophet who was to declare the will and pleasure of God to men In like manner God's giving his Holy Spirit to them that believe in Christ is as St. Chrisostome speaks excellently upon this place his marking them out to be a Royal Flock it is a token of their peculiar designation to the service and obedience of God and a pledge of that Inheritance 2 Cor. 1.22 they shall be rewarded with if they walk as becomes the Gospel But all this is very far from inferring an absolute assurance in them who are thus marked out for God's people that they shall infallibly persevere in that duty which belongs to their peculiar relation to God and the performance whereof is the condition of receiving the Inheritance And therefore such assurance cannot be proved to be spoken of in this place But 2. The words are not onely capable of that sence which I have offered but their coherence with the foregoing and following verses and the force and reason of St. Paul's Exhortation requires it Let him saith he that stole steal no more and let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth c. Let all bitterness and wrath c. be put away The Argument wherewith he enforceth these Exhortations is this that otherwise they would grieve the Holy Spirit by which they were sealed c. i. e. they would plainly contradict the end for which God had bestowed the gifts of the Spirit upon them who were thus marked out to be his Servants and Children This would be to grieve the Holy Spirit i. e. to bereave themselves of his gracious presence and to come in danger of being excluded for ever out of the Rest of God as it was with the Israelites in the Wilderness with whom God was grieved forty years and he swore in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest Heb. 3. And the note which the Apostle makes thereupon is this that we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end vers 14. i. e. if we hold on resolvedly and patiently in the course of a Christian life It is the like Argument which the Apostle useth more concisely to the Ephesians when he disswades them from impure and evil courses lest they grieve the Holy Spirit of God and by consequence never enter into that Rest God had designed for them But this consideration could have been of no force at all if they had been absolutely sure of their Inheritance as some from these words have pretended they were whereas it must be granted to be very prevailing on supposition that by sealing is here meant their being as it were
consecrated to a life of obedience by the Spirit of God which they were made partakers of for then they would finde little excuse and a greater punishment for their unchristian practices if being so greatly obliged they should prove unthankful and disobedient The second place is that of St. Paul to the Romans The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God Rom. 8.16 But 1. This testimony of the Spirit is that publick Testimony which was given by the Spirit that true Christians are the Sons of God for it is said in the former Verse that they had received the spirit of Adoption which being opposed to the spirit of Bondage shews the Apostle's meaning to be this that the Christians were the Children of the promise and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Free-woman as he expresseth it Gal. 4.28 whereas the Jews those of them that were under the Law answered the condition of Ishmael who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Son of the Bond-woman to whom there was no promise of an Inheritance Now that none but true Christians were the Sons of God and Heirs of the promised Inheritance was that which was testified against the Jews by the Miracles and supernatural gifts of the Apostles and primitive Believers i. e. by the testimony of the Spirit And then this Text is very far from intending any immediate testimony of the Holy Ghost to our mindes that we are God's Children And yet 2. All that is here affirmed regards onely our present state that we are the Children of God which if we be it is certainly possible for us to be assured of it nay we cannot be ignorant of our spiritual condition without our own fault since we have so plain a rule to try our selves by as the Word of God By this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments Now our keeping of God's Commandments is that which our own spirit or Conscience must witness and then upon this condition the Revelations of the Gospel wherein to be sure is the witness of the Spirit witness to us that we are the children of God and if children then heirs c. All which may very well be without our believing that it is absolutely impossible for us to forfeit our Inheritance by any future miscarriage and therefore from this place it cannot be concluded that such assurance is given by the Holy Spirit SECT 6. 3. For the pretence of uttering the suggestions of the Spirit in Extemporary Prayers I know likewise but two places of Scripture commonly urged in favour of it The former is St. Paul's saying I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also 1 Cor. 14.15 Which I confess is a Text that I never heard produced for this pretence but by those that have nothing but mere zeal to defend their opinions withal I mean some of the people that follow Dr. Owen and his Brethren of the Separation I do not wonder that after they have been possest with a strong perswasion that the Spirit of God helps them to Words or Sence or both in their Prayers they conceit this Text to be a proof for their purpose for the words sound that way if a man believes what they do about Extemporary Prayers before-hand But I have often wondered that they who take upon them to be their Guides who pretend to learning and if they minded the Text at all can hardly be ignorant that the praying by the Spirit there meant was using the gift of Tongues in Prayer and the praying by the Vnderstanding was praying in a Language understood by the people that they I say should suffer their people to run away so long together with a belief that this Text gives them Authority to expect that the Spirit of God will take care they shall speak good sence in their Extemporary Prayers this is that which I cannot but admire I do not say they are all so dishonest but I have reason to think that many of them are and they cannot deny it I suppose unless they grant that we are acquainted with the talk of their Followers better than they themselves are But dismissing this place which is so very wide from the purpose which it is produced for I proceed to the second which indeed carries a more likely appearance and in the judgement of Dr. Owen contains a sufficient proof that the Spirit of God carries out the mindes of Believers in requests which for the matter of them are far above their natural contrivance and invention i. e. that when Believers venture to pray Extempore the Spirit of God prompts them as they go along to pray for such things as otherwise could never have come to their mindes For his words signifie thus much at least if not that the very knowledge of those things is communicated to them at that very instant before they pray for them and that by immediate Revelation The place is this Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the Hearts knoweth what is the minde of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God Rom. 8.26 27. I shall endeavour to shew the true meaning of these words and leave it to the Reader whether the foresaid opinion of the Doctor can be concluded from them His other thoughts of this matter I shall not pretend to confute because I do not so well comprehend what he means viz. when he tells us with respect to the subject of Prayer the sanctified Heart that by the Groans which cannot be uttered are meant that bent frame inclination and acting of the Inward man in prayer from the power of the Spirit which they themselves in whom they are wrought do not fathom nor reach the depth of unless he means that a man may desire the Graces of God with inexpressible vehemence and yet not understand that he does so If he intends this I need onely to tell him that because these groanings are unutterable it follows not that they are unintelligible If he intends it not I do not fathom nor reach the depth of his meaning Again when he tells us with respect to the object of Prayer that the mysterious things which Believers pray for are now made nigh now realized unto them I do not well know whether he means now at their Prayers or now at some other time before If when they are praying 't is somewhat hard to conceive that the Spirit represents the truth of those things in and by the Word as he saith if at some other time before then certainly the things themselves were represented before too and they knew they were to pray for these things and then it is above my apprehension how the matter of their Prayers should be far above
their natural contrivance and invention either just before or while they are praying It seems strange likewise that by the Prayers of men low and weak in their notional apprehension of things we may see them led into Communion with God in the highest and holiest mysteries of his Grace and that they have an experience of the life and power of the things themselves in their own Hearts For what have we to see this by but their Words and Gestures c. But it is past my reach how by these helps we can see that which he told us before God onely sees viz. the fervent workings of the New Creature when acted by the Holy Ghost in supplications And to do him right he seems not to ascribe the extemporary utterance but onely the present conception of matter to the Spirit Other observations of this kinde might be made which I shall not clog the Reader withal But upon the whole matter Rom. 8.26 27. seems to me much easier to be understood than any thing that he saith with relation to it and unless he shall please to explain himself further one may sooner I think understand St. Paul than him though there be considerable difficulties in the Text which need an Interpreter Therefore I shall 1. Consult the sence of good Authors and such as the Doctor I hope will not take upon him to say were Proud Carnal Ignorant and Profane persons words which he throws so fiercely about him whilst he is discoursing of Prayer the very mention of which one would think should have taught him more meekness 2. I shall compare what they say with that which seems to me to be the designe of St. Paul in the foregoing and following Verses This I take to be a good way both to understand the Text and to avoid the Doctor 's displeasure if we should not altogether agree about the meaning of it at last St. Chrysostom saith that in those words Likewise the Spirit helpeth our infirmities for c. St. Paul instructs us not always to judge those things profitable which seem to be so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mere natural Reason For it was likely that they who suffered so many evils wished a relaxation asking it as a grace from God But saith he do not think that would be best which presently appears to be so upon this very account we need divine assistance for man knoweth little or nothing what is for his welfare wherefore the Apostle saith We know not c. And then he shews this was St. Paul's case too when he prayed that the Thorn in the Flesh might be removed 2 Cor. 12. but obtained it not For he proves that this Thorn were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Dangers and Persecutions he lay under In like manner St. Austin tells us It is not to be believed that St. Paul or those to whom he spake knew not the Lord's Prayer why should he therefore say We know not what to pray for as we ought but because temporal afflictions are mostly profitable either to cure us of the swelling of Pride or c. but we not considering this desire to be exempted from them From which ignorance the Apostle shews himself not to have been free when lest he should be exalted by the abundance of Revelations there was given to him a Thorn in the Flesh a Messenger of Satan to buffet him and he besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from him herein not knowing what to pray for as he ought Therefore in these tribulations which may be either profitable or hurtful we know not what to pray for i. e. whether it be better to have them removed or not and yet because they are hard to be born we do as men altogether desire to have them removed And not long after he saith The Spirit causeth the Saints to intercede with unutterable groans inspiring them with the desire of a thing yet unknown which they patiently expect for how should that which is desired be uttered when it is yet not known To the same purpose St. Hierom saith the Spirit helpeth our Infirmities that we should not desire earthly but heavenly things we know not what to pray for They are commonly hurtful things which we think profit us and therefore our desires are not granted as he saith himself elsewhere For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me He maketh intercession for the Saints Here saith he St. Paul by the Spirit means the grace of the Spirit For the Spirit intercedes because he maketh us to pray with unutterable groans as God is said to try us that he might know us that is that he might make us know our selves And to intercede according to the will of God is to desire Holy and not Secular things Thus St. Ambrose if he was the Author of those Commentaries We know not c. for we are deceived thinking those things will profit us which we desire when they are not profitable and here he useth the same instance likewise of St. Paul's desiring that the Messenger of Satan might depart from him to which he addes that of James and John desiring the pre-eminence in Christ's Kingdom who asked they knew not what But withal he supposeth that the Spirit doth properly intercede with God in our behalf that we may have such things as are profitable for us Theodoret saith the Apostle speaks to this purpose Pray not to be delivered from troubles for you know not what is profitable for you as God doth who governs all Resigne up your selves to him that holds the Helm of the Vniâ—â—â—se c. But saith he by the Spirit is meant the grace of the Spirit which is given to them that believe for being thereby stirred up we pray more earnestly c. And he addes that the Apostle spake this from the experience of what he had suffered referring probably to that passage concerning the Messenger of Satan so often already mentioned To mention no more Origen thus paraphraseth upon the Text Sometimes through infirmity we desire things contrary to our welfare as a sick man would have the Physician prescribe him what is agreeable to his present appetite instead of that which is for his health so in this infirm state of ours we ask sometimes what is not expedient for us And I Paul who had the Messenger of Satan given me thrice asked c. not knowing what I asked and received this answer My grace is sufficient for thee The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit but when the Spirit of God seeth our spirit striving against the Flesh he reacheth out his help Now saith he if any one can finde out a more sublime sence than this let him enjoy it to himself But they are to be admonish'd who desire of God the prosperity c. of this life because in these respects they know not what to pray for
as profitable for it often happens that these present advantages c. tend to the harm of the soul. And therefore that is to be minded by us which we are taught in the Lord's Prayer Thy Will be done As to that clause who searcheth the Hearts he saith it shews that God regardeth the minde more than the words wherewith we pray As to the unutterable groans he saith How can that which the Spirit of God speaketh to God be uttered by us when sometimes that which our own spirit feels and understands cannot be expressed by us in words Now I believe we shall not readily meet with a place of Scripture containing any matter of difficulty in the interpretation whereof the Fathers do more unanimously conspire than they do in their sence of this I could easily have added more Authorities to the same purpose if I had pleased but I hope these will be sufficient to satisfie any sober person that that interpretation of this Text which I prefer before Dr. Owen's is not fit to be call'd presently the reasoning of the carnal and unregenerate man for I shall offer no other than what is agreeable to the sence of these Christian Writers who may with the help of a little charity I think pass for regenerate men The sum of what they say towards the interpretation of the Text is this 1. That we ought in the general to pray for what is best for us 2. That in some cases we know not what is best and they are those which concern our present state in this world with regard to afflictions on the one side and ease and prosperity on the other And thus St. Austin prevents that Objection of the Christians knowing the Lords Prayer by restraining the ignorance of what we are to pray for to the matter of temporal afflictions 3. That our infirmities here mentioned consist in this ignorance together with our proness to desire Health Riches and Ease c. and the natural aversation we have to Pain and Trouble when as yet God may see that the former will be hurtful the latter profitable for us 4. By the Spirit 's making intercession for us they all understand his exciting us to pray for our selves excepting St. Ambrose who supposeth the Spirit to intercede properly for us that God would bestow better things on us than we sometimes ask for our selves and Origen seems to understand both 5. That the Spirit 's helping our infirmities is his inciting of us to pray for heavenly things and not for earthly as St. Hierom saith which is to pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the pleasure of God not as if it were unlawful to pray at all for any temporal blessings but that we are to be content if we be denied because those things viz. deliverance from Afflictions c. which we think would profit may hurt us as he observes And therefore all our desires of this kinde are to be limited by that Petition which our Lord hath taught us Thy Will be done as Origen notes In short by the scope of what they all say this seems to be their meaning that the Spirit helpeth our infirmities by increasing our desires after heavenly things by making us more indifferent about earthly matters and content with afflictions if God seeth them good for us seeing his Grace is sufficient for us as he told St. Paul when he so earnestly desired to be delivered from the Messenger of Satan which is the Instance they all use 6. By the unutterable groans some of them understand that inexpressible fervency of minde enkindled in good men by the Spirit of God wherewith they desire heavenly things and which where-ever it is will certainly abate our desires of worldly advantages and make us less weary of afflictions Others of them suppose the proper intercessions of the Spirit to be understood by them And St. Austin in particular supposeth that by the unutterable groans is meant the desire of that state and condition in this world which is best for us For saith he how should that which is desired be uttered when it is yet unknown i. e. when under an affliction we pray for what God seeth best for us not knowing whether that may prove to be the continuance or removal of it Thus you see how they agree in the main about this matter the interpretation of Origen himself who could not learn it from any of the rest falling in with theirs and yet he was apt to finde as many mysteries in the Bible as another man but he leaves them that could light upon a more sublime sence of these words to enjoy their opinion by themselves Now it is very plain that the supposition upon which they go in interpreting the Text this way is this that our not knowing what to pray for belongs to the case of present afflictions which for ought we know may be more profitable for us than to be exempted or rescued from them And now I come to shew that this Supposition and the Interpretation built upon it is agreeable to the designe of the Apostle in that part of the Chapter wherewith this Text hath a plain coherence which was the second thing propounded In the 17 verse St. Paul begins to comfort the Christians under their afflictions shewing them that they who suffered with Christ should be also glorified together This consideration affords two arguments of Patience which he distinctly notes The former being the transcendent greatness of that Glory which they hoped for The latter the profitableness of their present sufferings to prepare them for that Glory 1. The nature of the Glory it self For I reckon saith he that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us v. 18. From which Verse to the 24th he proceeds to shew that as in God's good time the Heathens would be rescued from their Idolatries to be made partakers of this Glory so the Christians should be rescued from their sufferings also under which they now groaned Wherefore at present he would have them take comfort in the hope of that deliverance and Glory which was yet to come For saith he we are saved by hope c. v. 24. But if we hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it v. 25. 2. He perswadeth them to patience yet further by the profitableness of their present sufferings We know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to purpose vers 28. that is who with full purpose and resolution adhere to the profession whereunto they are called notwithstanding all these sufferings For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of his Son that he might be the first-born among many brethren Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified
them he also glorified vers 29 30. i. e. And it is not onely true that God will convert these sufferings which now befall us into a means of our inestimable advantage but we are to consider also that those whom God fore-knew or fore-approved for his Children were fore-appointed to sufferings that in this respect also we might be like our elder Brother Christ Jesus who hath shewn us this way of coming to the joy that is set before us wherefore we are not to wonder if we be called to actual sufferings now upon our undergoing of which with faith and patience God will justifie and own us for sincere persons and reward us eternally What shall we say then to these things If God be for us who can be against us vers 31. c. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written For thy sake are we killed c. vers 35. Nay in all these things which through the divine disposition tend to our good we are more than Conquerours vers 37. c. This is the second argument used by the Apostle viz. the profitableness of afflictions themselves to them that love God which is fully express'd vers 28. and vehemently urged to the end of the Chapter But the Apostle makes way for this argument by what he saith vers 26 27. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what to pray for as we ought c. For it is plain by those words likewise also that he was now offering to them a further consideration having just before concluded that motive to patience from the Deliverance and Glory which they hoped for And that which he proceeds to shew is the mistake of thinking that it were at least better for the present to be exempted from these sufferings since in matters of this nature we know not what to pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us that we may have what is best and then if sufferings befall us we know they are most profitable for us and consequently that all things work together for good c. Now by this time I think it is very plain that the supposition upon which the Fathers went restraining the ignorance of what we are to pray for to the matter of present afflictions is not onely coherent with the designe of the Apostle in this place but that the context does indeed require it I shall onely adde that the words themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do properly signifie the Spirit relieveth us under our afflictions for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here translated infirmity is very frequently used in the New Testament to signifie Misery and Distress To conclude therefore if with Origen St. Ambrose and Dr. Hammond you suppose the intercession of the Spirit to be understood in the proper sence the Text may be thus paraphrased The Gospel of Christ affords us this relief against impatience under afflictions that whereas we know not whether Afflictions or Deliverance and Ease be best for us at present and consequently as to these respects know not what to pray for in particular the Spirit of Christ himself intercedes for us with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unuttered groanings i. e. earnestly and powerfully for by an inexpressible desire we commonly understand one that is vehement And God who searcheth our Hearts and understands that we do sometimes desire such things as tend not to our advantage knoweth also what the Spirit intercedes for and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he requests in our behalf better things for us than we do for our selves for we are ever ready to desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such things as seem best to man but he asks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what God knows to be best for us But if with St. Austin and the rest we understand by the intercession of the Spirit his making us to intercede for our selves as we may without swerving in the least from the main scope of the Text or excluding the former sence then the words admit of this Paraphrase Whereas when we pray for deliverance from affliction we know not whether it be best for us to have our desire granted the Holy Spirit inclines us to an entire submission of our selves to the divine Will and together with our most earnest prayers of that kinde there is all along mingled that secret and more vehement desire of what God seeth best for us which is a grace of the Holy Spirit whereby the forwardness of our Appetites after the ease and comforts of this world is corrected and governed Now though this earnest request be not uttered the particular matter of it being not yet known since we are ignorant what will be most profitable for us yet he that searcheth the Heart understands it perfectly and knows that we vehemently desire not so much that deliverance or worldly advantage which is the matter of our uttered groans and Prayers as that good which the Spirit moveth us to pray for and which we cannot particularly utter that namely which God seeth best for us This indeed is a desire of the Heart which proceeds from a divine cause and God is so pleased with it that he will not fail to grant it so that if afflictions continue we know they shall work together for good c. And thus the Holy Spirit relieveth us under our infirmities and distresses by bringing all our worldly appetites under submission to the pleasure of divine Wisdom and Goodness And thus much for the interpretation of this Text which I have been the more careful in considering because it is perpetually produced to justifie the pretences of those men that ascribe their extemporary inventions and contrivances in Prayer to the suggestion of the Spirit of God and make it little less than Blasphemy for any man to contradict them I have by good Authorities and by the scope of the place and by the importance of the words themselves clearly shewn that it belongs to another very distinct matter and is consequently incapable of being made use of for their purpose And now whether he that useth pious Forms of prayer be not capable of that relief from the Spirit which is here mentioned ◠leave it to every sober Reader to judge but will not so far question his understanding or presume upon his patience as to help him any further to do it Thus have I at last considered those places of Scripture which are commonly alledged in favour of those three pretended gifts of the Spirit which I shewed before were not contained under the general promise of the Holy Spirit Luke 11.13 Amongst many other reasons inducing me to this work I shall mention but these two 1. To vindicate the Holy Spirit from those dishonours that are daily done to him either while wicked and unrighteous men attribute their confidence that they are personally
understood which is this That although Faith be an effect of divine Grace yet there is an higher measure of Grace promised to us if we believe and a greater than that if we sincerely obey the Gospel The greater promises of Grace are made to those that are in a good way already and the better that way is in which they are the more plentiful communications of the divine Spirit are they capable of It is indeed impossible to assigne the several degrees of that Grace which is bestowed upon men under such qualifications as the Gospel requires because we know not the degrees by which men are more or less qualified The Scripture hath onely acquainted us that believers and good men have promises of special Grace As for the particular degrees of it it is not necessary we should know them and therefore our Saviour hath told us onely in general To him that hath shall be given that is as the Parable to which these words belong clearly imports greater measures of Grace shall be bestowed upon them who best improve the Grace they have already received And this is a very weighty encouragement to make us all careful to be better SECT 2. I come now to speak directly to the Argument of this Chapter viz. who are the Object of Grace or the Operations of the Holy Spirit and that by laying down two or three plain Propositions which being proved the Question will be sufficiently and truely answered 1. God will give special Grace to all those that perform the conditions upon which it is promised which I hope stands in need of no other medium to prove it by than that God is faithful and true and will perform his promise Dr. Owen truely observes that the same Grace in nature and kinde is communicated unto several persons in various degrees and is by them used or improved with more or less care and diligence I shall adde that this special Grace for of that he speaks is communicated unto them in those degrees according as the Grace they had formerly received was improved with more or less diligence for that is plainly the meaning of those words now mentioned To him that hath it shall be given a saying so often repeated in the Evangelists but as neer as I can remember not once taken notice of by our Author throughout his great Book though it be as material and necessary a passage for any Christian Writer that undertakes this subject to guide himself by as any is in all the Scripture For what reason he slipt over this Text though it lay so plainly before him in the Bible he knows best himself He could not but know it was very pertinent to the subject though it was impertinent to his manner of handling it I am sure it is a sufficient confutation of his designe in the Chapter concerning works preparatory to Regeneration where as I shall in due place manifest he makes all the preparatory works that one can well think of to signifie nothing at all in effect towards the obtaining of that Grace whereby we are Regenerated which besides that it confutes the Title of the Chapter is nothing less than to make the communication of that Grace an arbitrary act that depends not upon the performance of any conditions required on our part and consequently to destroy all the encouragement we have from the promise of Christ to pray for the Holy Spirit that we may become the sincere Disciples of Christ. Indeed he is now and then pleased to mince the matter as where he tells us Sometimes as to some gifts and graces God doth bestow his Spirit where there is some preparation and co-operation on our part Sometimes and some Graces and some Preparation are uncertain words But I would know what he means by those Graces which he supposeth will not be bestowed though there be never so much preparation on our part for that is also clearly supposed in his words For instance If through the grace of God a man believes the Gospel and heartily desires to live according to it praying as our Saviour hath taught him for the Holy Spirit in order to that end I would know whether upon this preparation and co-operation on his part God will not enable him so to do If our Author denies it let him answer our Saviour's saying How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him And so upon the like preparation for any special Grace that we need If he should deny that God will bestow it I would also desire him to give us his thoughts upon that other saying of our Saviour which seems to conclude against him in all instances of this nature viz. That unto every one which hath it shall be given Luke 19.26 2. On the other hand the Gospel giveth us no ground to expect any special Grace or such Operations of the Spirit as are promised to qualified persons if we do not perform the conditions upon which the promise depends But on the contrary we have reason to believe that God will withdraw that Grace which he hath already given from those slothful persons that refuse to make any good use of it Indeed how long God will extend his patience towards them and bear with their obstinacy is concealed from us and depends upon his Soveraign pleasure But our Saviour plainly told us that from him that hath i. e. improveth not even that he hath shall be taken away from him So little reason hath any such person to expect any new accession of Grace to that which he hath forfeited by receiving it altogether in vain Wherefore I am far from contradicting those men that say the promises of regenerating Grace belong not to all who have the Gospel preached to them though I take my leave of them when they tell us that these promises are restrained to a few men whom God hath personally chosen and by an absolute Decree fore-appointed to salvation but instead thereof I affirm that the restriction of these promises to certain persons is measured onely by the conditions upon which they are made i. e. that they belong onely to those by whom these conditions are performed My reason is this because there is not one promise in the whole Covenant that is made absolutely to this or that man's person but they are all made with respect to mens qualifications Now the New Covenant is the onely means by which we can know any thing of God's Councils and Decrees concerning our salvation Wherefore if the promises of the Covenant be not absolute but conditional then the reason why every man cannot claim the benefit of them is not because this man's person was absolutely excluded and that man's benefit absolutely intended by them but because some are qualified as they ought to receive the promises and others are not Thus I cannot but subscribe to the Title of our Author's third Chapter in his fourth Book viz. That Believers are
the onely object of Sanctification and subject of Gospel-holiness for this one would think to be his meaning that a man must be a Believer before he can be an holy person since believing of the Gospel is an indispensible condition of obtaining that Grace by which we may obey it for I know not what we should understand by Gospel-holiness but the obedience of the Gospel But this is not that which he intends for if you examine the Chapter it self you will finde that by Believers he means Regenerate persons For he tells us that that the Spirit is promised and received as a spirit of Sanctification unto and by the Regenerate that is unto Believers and onely unto them and withal that the Qualifications of Faith and Obedience are not previously necessary to Regeneration which must needs be true if to be Regenerate be no other thing than to Believe and Obey the Gospel His meaning is that Regeneration or Faith and Obedience is previously required to sanctification which he confesseth to have some difficulty and so do I think too since no man can be regenerate who is not in some measure a sanctified or an holy person But he removes the difficulty by answering thus The same Spirit first worketh Faith and Obedience in us and then preserveth it when it is wrought So that his meaning is this Faith and Obedience are not conditions pre-required to Faith and Obedience but where they are preserved it is necessary they should be before This you will say is plain enough but the Doctor is not content to let it go so wherefore to clear the manner of it as he saith we may observe that Sanctification may be considered 1. As to the essential work of it which consists in the preservation of the principle of spiritual life and holiness communicated to us in our regeneration 2. As to those renewed actual Operations whereby it is carried on And then Faith also may be considered 1. As to its original communication infusion c. into the Soul or as to the seed principle and habit of it and thus 't is wrought as all other graces is in Regeneration 2. As to its actings in us or as unto actual believing or the exercise of Faith and the fruits of it in holy obedience Now saith he Sanctification in the first sence respects Faith also in the first i. e. the preservation of the seed principle c. of Faith belongs unto the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and so believers onely are sanctified And in the latter sence it respects Faith in the latter also that is the progress of the work of the Sanctification is accompanied with the actings and exercise of Faith i. e. the actings of Faith are pre-required to a progress in sanctification and thus Faith is both ways a necessary qualification in and unto them that are sanctified This is that which our Author calls Clearing but is in my minde confounding what was clear enough before viz. that where Faith and Holiness are preserved they must be before and that the sanctifying work of the Spirit consists in the preservation of them which is all that he means onely he has drest it up with formal distinctions and solemn phrases as men use to do that would seem to say something when in effect they say nothing at all For all this while I do not see that difficulty removed how that which he makes to be a necessary qualification of being at all sanctified should not be as necessary to Regeneration since I cannot understand how a man should be regenerated without some measure of sanctification But the worst of it is that the difficulty is impossible to be removed if Regeneration and Sanctification that namely which is the condition of obtaining eternal Life be the very same thing as I say they are and for the proof thereof I refer the Doctor to the Chapter of Regeneration Now after all our Author's designe in distinguishing thus artificially between Regeneration and Sanctification was this that he might seem to grant there were some Qualifications required to make us capable of the sanctifying Operations of the Holy Ghost which no man can deny without facing down the Word of God though all the while he granted no such thing excepting onely in this sence that the Holy Ghost will take care to keep those in a sanctified state who are sanctified or which is the same thing who are regenerated already For to Regeneration it is very plain that he makes no qualification on our part necessary at all and that I do not wrong him by saying so will appear from his own words He saith The chief and principal ends for which the Holy Spirit is promised may be reduced to four heads the three first of which are Regeneration Sanctification and Consolation And this he saith is the plain order and method of these things 1. He is promised and received as to the work of Regeneration unto the Elect 2. As to the work of Sanctification unto the Regenerate 3. As to the work of Consolation unto the Sanctified This is the Scheme of those Qualifications which he supposeth are previously required to the respective works of the Holy Spirit and it is plain that he makes no other qualification necessary to the regenerating work of the Spirit but Election which according to him signifies an absolute Decree of God that some certain persons shall be glorified and if there be any persons thus absolutely chosen I confess they need no other Qualification for the regenerating work of the Spirit But now as the Doctor very well observes this Election is no Qualification on our part but onely the secret purpose on the part of God what himself will do From whence I conclude that if Election be the onely qualification previously required to Regeneration then no Qualification on our part is necessary thereunto and further that if his Elect onely shall be regenerated then no such Qualification can be profitable to any one else nor can it make him capable of the regenerating Grace of the Holy Ghost Lastly if both these things be true then besides many other evil consequences fundamentally repugnant to the very nature and designe of the New Covenant between God and Man it unavoidably follows that the promises of Grace can never afford us a good reason to do any thing in order to our Regeneration Which inconvenience of confining Election to eternal Life first of all and then the promises of regenerating Grace to a few certain persons without any respect to what they are one needs not the Doctor 's abilities to be sensible of though I finde it requires greater than his own to remove it unless a man may be said to remove an Objection by dissembling the force of it instead of answering it For the Doctor proposes it thus May a person saith he who is yet unregenerate pray for the spirit of Regeneration to effect that work in him May he
do so yes without question he may and if he please he may let it alone too Our Author having told us that the spirit of Regeneration was promised onely to the Elect and then falling upon that point of praying for the spirit of Regeneration tells us that he might give directions in some enquiries which indeed deserve a larger discussion if his present designe would admit of it but he would instance onely in one i. e. May a person who is unregenerate and knows not his election c. But now there is another enquiry that deserves a larger discussion than this viz. Whether the Prayers of an unregenerate man can avail any thing towards the obtaining of the Spirit of Regeneration whether he knows his election or whether he knows it not But there was good reason why this enquiry was not to be meddled withal namely because our Author 's present designe would not admit of it which was to serve an Hypothesis that would not bear the enquiry That he was well enough aware of it we may see by the last Answer he brings to that one gentle Question he took in hand May an unregenerate man pray for the spirit of Regeneration Doubtless he may for persons saith he under such convictions as put them upon praying for Regeneration have really sometimes the seeds of Regeneration communicated unto them and then as they ought so they will continue in their supplications for the increase and manifestation of it Now if the Doctor had not been asham'd of his meaning he might have express'd it plainly and undisguisedly in this manner All may and ought to pray for Regeneration for some i. e. the Elect happen to be regenerated while they keep on praying and then they will be sure to pray on still that they may know it This is the most that can be made of his final Answer and it comes to no more than this that the Prayers of unregenerate men will do them no hurt but for any thing I can see he has not yet satisfied us that they will do them any good which I should have thanked him to have shewn me according to his principles if his present designe would have admitted it But what if the Scriptures teach that the promises of regenerating Grace are made onely to those who are absolutely elected to Glory I answer If that can once be shewn I have done or if it can be made to appear but probable by the Scriptures I shall begin to suspect all my reasoning against it to be as carnal as the Doctor can believe it For I heartily believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God and all my Reasonings shall submit to this one Proposition Whatever God hath said that is true Now the Doctor having repeated the first Proposition of the forementioned Scheme viz. that the Spirit of Regeneration is promised onely unto the Elect tells us that the promises concerning the communications of the Spirit unto this end have been before explained and vindicated These words I confess surprized me for they suppose that he had elsewhere produced some promises in the Scripture inconditionally made to some certain persons that they should be regenerated or at least some Texts to prove that the promises of regenerating Grace were meant onely to some men whom God from all eternity had absolutely chosen to Glory Now one would have thought there had been a former Chapter with this Title The Elect are the onely Object of regenerating Grace But there is no such thing however I have looked backward and forward to finde where he had explained and vindicated these promises he speaks of but after a long search I was satisfied that my Memory had not failed me in this particular and that I looked for what was not to be found unless it be in the first Chapter of the third Book where he dogmatically tells us that the Souls of God's Elect were the matter designed of God for the work of the New Creation to be wrought upon without offering one syllable of proof to make it good Now to flip over the great difficulty when one comes at it by pretending that it is satisfied elsewhere without referring to the particular place is the Artifice either of a bad writer or one that serves a bad Cause and a man may fairly put it in practice that writes so largely as the Doctor does for 't is hard if some of his Readers are not so courteous as to distrust their own Memories after they have gone above half way through so great a Book as his rather than to question his honesty But for his sake I shall be very sure of an Author before I trust general References again Now till I see those promises produced that I have look'd for in vain viz. that God will regenerate these Elect I shall not onely conclude that God will enable us to forsake our sins and to keep his Commandments if we believe the Gospel and implore the assistance of the Holy Spirit but also that without these qualifications we have not the least ground to expect that special Grace which is proper for that end that is to make us regenerate or holy persons If it should be said that for ought we know there are some persons whom God hath absolutely decreed to save and whom therefore he will take care to regenerate that they may be fit for salvation which is the Doctor 's notion of Election as is plain from his Scheme here in this place and from the second Chapter of his fifth Book though he hath disguised it there with many intricate sayings as his manner is I answer without assuming the boldness to pronounce concerning God's secret Decrees that it is a monstrous vanity for any man that may become a regenerate person and obtain eternal Life by a method determined by that Will of God which he knows to trust that he shall be regenerated and saved by force of a supposed Will in God which he knows not If the Scripture had told us there were some persons absolutely elected to Glory hereafter it had been a very dangerous thing for any man to neglect the care of becoming a regenerate person trusting to his particular election for the certainty of his Regeneration unless withal the Bible had given us the names of these special Favourites of Heaven and he had found his own amongst them But if the Scripture had mentioned no such thing at all it is little better than madness to venture our Regeneration upon so great an uncertainty And thus much I think may be gathered from Dr. Owen where he saith The expectation and hope of any man for Life and Immortality and Glory without previous holiness can be built on no other foundation but this that God will rescind his eternal Decrees and change his purposes that is cease to be God merely to comply with them in their sins And who knows not what will be the end of such a cursed
other part of it look'd backward to keep off the first And at this rate a Childe may confute all the Arguments in the world that are brought for or against any thing Having thus discovered our Author's fallacious way of proceeding upon this Head and his art in declining the proof of what he so boldly affirms concerning personal Election and the promise of regenerating Grace being made to his Elect it may not now be unnecessary to put the Reader in minde that I have not been wandring all this while from the designe of this Section which was to shew that we have no reason to expect God's special Grace such as that is whereby we are enabled to keep the Commandments of Christ if we be not on our parts qualified to receive it Now I do not see how this can be admitted for a certain truth on supposition that there are any absolute promises in the Scripture made to some particular men that God will regenerate them or that there are any certain persons whom without consideration of any qualities in them God decreed to save But if these are groundless suppositions themselves I understand not which way any man should think to obtain the special Grace of God but by performing the condition on which it is promised And then I say with Dr. Owen that Believers are the onely object of Sanctification and subject of Gospel-holiness not meaning by Believers as he doth holy persons though the word is and may be so used but those merely that are perswaded that Jesus is the Christ. I onely adde that these Believers must visibly own themselves the Disciples of Christ and they must use earnest Prayers for that divine Grace which will enable them to do the Will of God upon Earth as it is done in Heaven For both these conditions are supposed in that promise of the Holy Spirit made to the Disciples of Christ which is mentioned in Luke 11.13 Wherefore if Believers themselves do not perform these conditions they have no reason to expect that special Grace which is there promised Finally since the Spirit of God is promised to dwell in good men onely if the Disciples of Christ do not improve that Grace which they obtain by their Prayers to actual amendment and a sincere obedience of the Gospel it would be a vain presumption in them to think that God will communicate those fuller measures of Grace to them while they are thus unreformed which are signified by his dwelling in us SECT 3. Having thus shewn you who are the Objects of special Grace I proceed to a third conclusion which being proved nothing else seems necessary for the satisfying of this Question To whom the Holy Spirit is given Wherefore I adde 3. That common Grace or that which is not suspended upon the performance of any condition required in the Covenant is given to all those that live under the ministration of the Gospel My meaning is they are all prevented with that Grace which makes it possible for them to begin well i. e. to desire the knowledge of God's ways with a purpose of walking in them when they are known and then to be convinced that the Gospel is the Word of God by the use of those external means which God hath afforded them I do not say that every one of them hath this Grace always bestowed upon him for it is possible that some of those to whom the Word of God is spoken may put it away from themselves as the Jews did and be at length forsaken by the divine Grace and left under an obstinate and unteachable minde as they were Much less shall I venture to say how long the divine Spirit moves upon the Souls of men to make them teachable and willing to learn the truth before he gives them over For God hath reserved this matter to his own Soveraign pleasure and therefore we neither ought to set limits to his patience nor to presume upon the length of it But all I say is this That Grace of God which prevents our first good inclinations and desires and is necessary to make us capable of learning the Truth is given to as many as have the Gospel preached to them so that until by their obstinacy they have utterly forfeited the divine Grace and Blessing it is in their power to lay aside prejudice to attend to the Word of God and receive the knowledge of the truth Out of many Arguments which the Scripture affords to this purpose I shall chuse but one having already drawn out this Part into a greater length than I expected but that concluding strongly enough to spare me the labour of producing any more The Argument I mean is founded upon those passages in the New Testament wherein those to whom the Word of God is made known are threatned with eternal Damnation if they believe it not and with more grievous punishments than had been inflicted on them if the Gospel had never been preached to them Thus saith our Saviour to his Apostles Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.15 16. If any man hear my words and believe not but rejecteth me the word that I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day John 12.47 48. He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the Name of the onely begotten Son of God John 3.18 Further the severity of that punishment which belongs to them who believe not is intimated plainly in the aggravation of their fault as our Saviour saith If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin they could not have been accused of this particular sin of not believing in me and that would have mitigated their other faults but now they have no cloak for their sin they are every way inexcusable and therefore the more punishable John 15.22 But it is fully express'd in Matth. 11.20 where we finde our Saviour upbraiding the Cities that rejected him and declaring it should be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon and Sodom at the day of judgement than for them vers 22 23. These testimonies of Scripture being premised I argue thus If all that preventing Grace which is necessary to believing be not sometime given to all that hear the Gospel then it would be always impossible for some that hear to believe and that without their fault But it is not always thus impossible for any therefore such Grace is sometime given to all The former Proposition is evident for as long as I want that which is necessary to the doing of any thing so long is that thing impossible to me and if it be not my fault that I want the former neither is the impossibility imputable to me as a fault Finally it is not my fault that I want it if I could never do any thing to procure it and 't is
to all that shall hear that it will be possible for them to believe Which is so clear a consequence that the very mention of it would have been sufficient had not some men gotten a custom of imputing the want of Faith and indeed of all other Christian vertues to a defect on God's part as if he had not given them Grace enough to believe and repent c. The meaning of which Phrase and the like if it be this that the Grace of God hath not put it into their power to believe is so highly dishonourable to the divine Goodness that I have thought fit to shew wherein it is so and thereby to prove the untruth of it Finally this implicite promise of that Grace which is necessary to put them that hear the Gospel into the way of obtaining Salvation by it is not properly a part of the New Covenant such as the promises made to Believers and good men are because there is no condition annexed to it Thus that promise of God that he would send his Son into the world to be the Mediator between God and Man could be no part of that Covenant whereof Christ is the Mediator and which he was to seal with his Blood But it was an absolute promise of an act of Grace that was antecedent to the Covenant it self and which depended not upon any condition required by it The promise of a Saviour was indeed part of the Gospel or of the revelation of God's Will to Mankinde in order to our recovery and salvation but it cannot be affirmed to be a part of the Covenant between God and Man with any more propriety than it can be said that God's entring into Covenant with Man is an Article of the Covenant In like manner that Grace by which we are first put into a capacity of believing and consequently of obeying the Gospel after it is revealed is supposed in the Gospel otherwise the conditions of the Covenant were impossible which is to take away the very foundation of a Covenant of Grace such as that is whereof our Lord Jesus is the Mediator But although the promise of this Grace is implied in the Gospel yet 't is not properly any part of the Covenant because 't is a promise without condition SECT 4. 4. From what hath been already proved it may be inferred That the promises of special Grace are made to us all under possible conditions For since a Believer may by his prayers obtain that special Grace of God which is needful for sincere obedience since an obedient Christian may obtain that further Grace which is needful for perseverance seeing also that Grace which is necessary to a good beginning i. e. to excite good desires in us and to bring us to Faith is given absolutely to all that live under the means of Grace It follows plainly that the promises of special Grace are made to all such under possible conditions Wherefore we may conclude that God will give his Holy Spirit to all that live under the ministration of the Gospel that they may learn and believe and pray for his further Grace that to all who are thus qualified he will give his Spirit that they may overcome the World and obey the Gospel And that to all such sincere Christians he will give his Spirit that they may perfect holiness in the fear of God and persevere to the end which is a plain and satisfactory Answer to the second Question CHAP. VII Concerning the Manner and Measure of the Holy Spirit 's Operations SECT 1. THis Question may easily be multiplied into a great many more according as men are led by their curiosity That which has been still most debated under this Head is this How far or in what measure the Operations of the Holy Spirit upon our mindes conduce to those effects which are designed to be produced by them Now concerning this and all other Questions of this kinde I observe that the Scriptures are very silent in comparison to that clear and full account which they have given us of the former God having thought it sufficient for our encouragement in the search of Truth and the study of Godliness and Virtue to let us know assuredly that he will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him for necessary and profitable purposes without satisfying our curiosity about the manner of his Operations and the measure of their power Wherefore in treating upon this Subject a man should not venture to affirm many things or to conclude very particularly much less to obtrude his Opinions upon other men For in matters that are not knowable but onely by Revelation and concerning which there is but little revealed he that is most ready to affirm boldly and particularly is still most likely to miscarry and that if there were no other reason for it because it argues an immodest temper to define peremptorily in things which God hath reserved from our knowledge and this to be sure is none of those Qualifications which he hath promised to reward with the discovery of truth But yet I observe that some men have been as dogmatical and particular in determining the manner and measure of the Holy Spirit 's Operations as if their Conclusions were as clearly grounded upon Revelation as the plainest truth in the Gospel and have thrust them upon the world with more fierceness and zeal than would have become a much better Cause For an instance hereof we may take Dr. Owen's Book where he does not onely assert for himself and his Brethren that the efficiency as he calls it of the Holy Spirit on the mindes of men is irresistible and that Grace is always prevalent or effectual and cannot be resisted as to that end whereunto of God it is designed and much more to the same purpose but falls upon his Adversaries in this point with such insolent language and immodest reproaches that they could hardly deserve to be worse used by him if they had affirmed divine Grace was not necessary to Regeneration as resolutely as they maintain the contrary This is the Doctrine which he pretends to stand up for against the New Pelagians and a crew of Socinianized Arminians they are his own words as if to deny the personality of the Holy Ghost and the assistances of divine Grace and to contradict his opinion that the Holy Spirit does irresistibly produce the effects of Grace upon the mindes of men were the same thing But this you will less wonder at when you consider that he makes nothing to compare those that oppose his opinion to Cain and Ishmael For he saith The Enmity of Cain against Abel was but a branch of this proud inclination The instance of Ishmael in the Scripture is a representative of all such as under an outward profession of the true Religion do scoff at those who being as Isaac Children of the Promise do profess and evidence an interest in the internal power of it which they are
unquainted withal And by this he shews that the practice of despising his opinions concerning Grace has not been taken up of late Now I will not say how old the practice has been of making every quarrel a man is concerned in equal to the Cause of those godly men whose sufferings are mentioned in the Scripture but 't is well enough known that 't is at least as old as that Faction which our Author hath espoused and whether this be not one branch of a proud inclination let sober men judge It has been often observed of these men how dear They and their Opinions are to themselves and the Doctor has here given you a good ordinary instance of it For if he had not been bewitch'd with self-conceit he had never made this absurd parallel for what had Abel or Isaac to do with his Cause If he had onely called us the seed of Cain and Ishmael without saying why who would have thought the reason had been our questioning whether men are snatch'd into a state of Grace by an irresistible power And yet this is his great quarrel against us concerning the manner of Conversion which here he pretends to explain I know he does more than insinuate and that more than once that we disown the very assistances of the Holy Spirit as I shall convince you in a fitter place but this you are to look upon as an effect of his rage which makes him foam out Calumnies against us without any discretion for he knows well enough that his Adversaries are not guilty of it as I shall shew you too from his own words and then I shall desire him to consider whether the Father of Lyes be not the Representative of such shameless Writers as he is an example of As to what he saith that such a work of God upon men as he contends for is exposed to derision if upon that account he compares his Adversaries to scoffing Ishmael I think he does them great wrong For let him if he can name any of his opinion in this matter who has debated the point with any appearance of Modesty and Sobriety and was answered with the least shew of Contempt But as for those of whom Dr. Owen is one that instead of answering the Arguments of their Adversaries complain that they are laughed at and do themselves fall upon them with the foulest reproaches as upon the Enemies of Christ it may be sometimes good to take down their haughty spirits and to render their arrogance contemptible lest others be encouraged to hope that any Cause may be carried by vapouring In my opinion it is a difficult undertaking to define in particular what is the manner and measure of the Holy Spirit 's Operations because I think the Scriptures have not particularly acquainted us what it is Let others who have better considered the thing enjoy the liberty of thinking otherwise and for my own part I shall with all thankfulness submit to further instruction But as for Dr. Owen I hope to make it appear that the Scriptures do not favour his determination of the Question which I shall the rather endeavour because I conceive this opinion that the Spirit worketh upon our mindes in an irresistible manner especially as he hath advanced it to be of dangerous consequence to the Souls of men In the mean time I shall lay down some Propositions the truth of which will I think be easily granted by all sober Christians from whence we may in general conclude what is the manner of the Holy Spirit 's Operations and the measure of their power not that I think even this were needful if our Author and those of his way had not fallen into a dangerous Mistake by venturing too far For that which has been already said seems to me to afford a sufficient foundation of Godliness and Comfort if all be not subverted again by their opinion of the Manner wherein we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit Now I think it will appear that those general Propositions wherein they agree with us concerning the Manner of the Holy Spirit 's Operations on our mindes are inconsistent with their particular definition of it And the first of them is this That 1. Faith and Repentance or Conversion to God together with Perseverance in Holiness are truely and properly the effects of God's Word revealed to us in the Doctrines of the Gospel Wherefore such is the manner of the Holy Spirit 's Operation in producing these Qualifications in our mindes that it hinders them not from being the Genuine effects of the Revelation of the Gospel but they ought still to be ascribed to that force and efficacy of those divine Truths which are contained in it whereby the Gospel is in it self a fit and proper means of working the Grace of God in the mindâ— of men Now it is very plain that the proper and natural power of the Gospel to produce these effects consists in the evidence of its Truth in the authority and excellency of its Laws and in the weightiness of its Promises and Threatnings and other motives to obedience Wherefore if Conversion be the proper effect of God's Word it follows that the Holy Spirit does 1. Onely co-operate to the producing of that effect and 2. In that manner as it may truely be affirmed to be an effect of those considerations which are propounded to us in the Gospel The truth of the Supposition is manifest from divers places of Scripture As for Faith St. Paul plainly tells us it comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God Rom. 10.17 Thus upon the conversion of many Unbelievers it is said that the Word of God grew mightily and prevailed Acts 19.20 i. e. the testimonies which God gave to the truth of the Gospel convinced many that were in all appearance most likely to oppose it Hence St. Paul tells the Corinthians that in Christ Jesus he had begotten them through the Gospel i. e. by the preaching of the Gospel he had first brought them over to the faith of Christ. Furthermore our obedience is by St. Peter ascribed to the power of God's Word where he saith that we have great and precious promises given to us that by These we might be partakers of the divine Nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust 2 Pet. 1.4 To the same purpose the Word of God is said to work effectually in those that believed 1 Thess. 2.13 i. e. by the force of those promises mentioned by St. Peter and other weighty considerations moving to holiness Finally our Regeneration is expresly ascribed to the Word of God for we are said to be born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever 1 Pet. 1.23 and our Spiritual improvement is attributed not long after to the same cause As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby 1 Pet. 2.2 Thus the increase of
Christian Virtue is ascribed both to the Holy Spirit and to the Word of God in that Prayer of St. Paul for the Colossians that they might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing being fruitful in every good work c. that is by the means of a fuller understanding of the Will of God Col. 1.9 10. And the co-operation of both these Causes for the producing of the same Effect is yet more plainly expressed in those words of our Saviour's Prayer for his Disciples Sanctifie them through thy TRVTH thy WORD is TRVTH where nothing can be more plain than this that the holiness of Believers is ascribed to the Operation of Truth upon their mindes viz. that Truth which is revealed in the Gospel Seing then that the Gospel is not onely in it self a proper means of converting the Unbeliever and the Disobedient of confirming and improving the sincere Convert but as you see the Graces of the Holy Spirit are those effects also which the Scriptures frequently ascribe to the weightiness of those Reasons and Considerations that are offered to our understandings by the Word of God We must be careful not to define the manner whereby the Holy Spirit worketh in the mindes of men to produce these Graces so as to deny them to be the Genuine and proper effects of divine Truths which is done by assigning such a manner of Operation to the Holy Spirit as must needs be inconsistent with ascribing Conversion to the Operation of Truth Wherefore it is too boldly done of Dr. Owen and his Party to affirm that Conversion is an effect of such an Operation of the Holy Spirit upon the minde as makes it impossible for a man not to be converted and withal that Conversion is impossible without such an irresistible Operation For 1. If a man must necessarily resist the whole strength of God's Word till Conversion be wrought in him by an irresistible action of the Spirit as these men teach then 't is plainly absurd to make Conversion to be an effect of God's Word For upon this Hypothesis it contributes no more to a man's conversion than the hurling of a Pebble does to the throwing down of a mighty Wall that is falling by the fury of the Cannon If as the Doctor saith the Will cannot make use of that Grace for conversion which it can refuse if also it can resist all kinde of Perswasions Reasons Arguments and Motives as he himself supposes and by consequence that Operation of the Spirit whereby Conversion is caused be irresistible What can be more evident than that Conversion must upon these terms be onely and wholly the effect of an irresistible power and not at all of Reasons and Motives To say that the Operations of the Spirit produce their effects irresistibly because they are joyned with the Word is to ascribe an irresistible Operation to the Word as well as to the Spirit or rather to make the irresistibleness to arise from the concurrence of both those Causes Now besides that upon this Hypothesis all men to whom the Gospel is made known would be converted seeing we have proved the ministration of the Gospel to be accompanied with the Operations of the Spirit in all that hear it Besides this I say these men do not place the irresistible force by which Conversion as they say is wrought in the concurrence of the Word and the Spirit but in the sole Operation of the Spirit Now that Conversion should at the same time be an effect of God's Word which as they say a man cannot but resist till he is converted and of such an Operation of the Spirit too as is altogether irresistible is to me as unintelligible as Transubstantiation For if it were onely said that 't is possible for a man to resist the Operations of Truth and withal granted that Conversion must as well be an effect of the truth of God's Word as of the Holy Spirit 's Operating in our mindes it would plainly follow that his Operations were resistible The reason is because where an Effect depends upon the concurrence of two Causes he that hath it always in his power to resist the force of one is at any time able to frustrate the other and consequently to hinder the effect Now they themselves grant and it is plain by daily experience that the Word of God may be resisted and heard in vain as it was even when preached in the demonstration of the Spirit and Power Wherefore when the Operations of the Spirit conspire with the power of the Word to convert a sinner if he can be obstinate against the latter he may also quench the former and then they are not irresistible Furthermore it may be said if Conversion be wrought irresistibly by the sole Operation of the Spirit then the Word which may be resisted is unnecessary But if the Word cannot but be resisted till the effect is wrought by another power that is invincible viz. that of the Spirit then 't is plain that the effect is owing onely to that power which is to render the whole Ministry of the Gospel utterly vain and useless and to contradict all those passages of Scripture which attribute our Conversion to the force of divine Truth But 2. It is further evident from the manner of their explaining this irresistible Operation that they exclude all the influence of God's Word from being a means of Conversion Dr. Owen tells us that the Holy Ghost is the immediate Author and cause of Regeneration and he is often putting us in minde that we are converted by an immediate Physical Operation of the Spirit which he endeavours to prove for many Pages together Now a Physical Operation he opposeth to Moral and thereby excludeth from it all use of any Reasons Arguments and Motives whatsoever as he doth industriously more than once Now what is more plain than that to ascribe Conversion to such an Operation as this is wholly to exclude the Word of God from being any way subordinate to that Grace whereby we are converted For although the Doctor tells us sometimes that he grants a Moral Operation of the Spirit and that he onely denies the concurrence of that with the Word to be the total cause of Conversion yet by his leave he does not make it so much as a partial cause For if this Physical Operation onely is that Grace which can remove all obstacles and overcome all oppositions and infallibly produce the effect intended as he speaks if this Operation doth not consist in the use of any motive whatsoever contained in the Word of God Finally if this Operation be the immediate cause of Conversion if nothing intervenes between this Operation and the Effect it is then plain I conceive that the Word of God is wholly excluded from being a means of Conversion for neither is the use of any
motive included in the nature of this Operation nor does the Spirit use any motive when he thus operates for as these men say this Physical Operation is the immediate cause of Conversion And now let any man tell me in what capacity the Word of God can stand to be a means of Grace In the mean time our Author if you will believe him pays a great regard to the Scriptures which he does not onely render thus useless in general but many plain testimonies whereof he contradicts in particular and for instance that passage in our Saviour's Prayer Sanctifie them through thy truth thy Word is truth I desire him at his leisure to consider whether the Grace which our Saviour praied for in his Disciples behalf were an immediate Physical Operation if not whether we are now sanctified by another sort of Operation than that which Christ praied for Now to say in express terms that the Word of God is of no use in the conversion of a Sinner would sound so horridly in any sober Christians Ears that the Doctor himself has not ventured upon it but on the contrary he is often perswading his Reader that he attributes as much to the efficacy of the Word as any of them all For he tells us Whereas some contend that the whole of the Grace of God consists in the effectual application of it unto the mindes and affections of men whereby they are enabled to comply with it and turn unto God by Faith and Repentance they do not ascribe a greater power unto the Word than we do by whom this administration of it is denied to be the Total Cause of Conversion For we assigne the same power to the Word as they do and MORE also onely we affirm that there is an effect to be wrought in this Work which all this Power if alone is insufficient for After a few such sayings as these a man need not be ashamed to say any thing For 1. They who contend that the administration of the Word by the Spirit applying it to the minde is insufficient to cause Conversion and that there is another action of the Spirit wherein no use is made of the Word at all necessary to Conversion do not attribute so much power to the Word as they do who say the former is sufficient 2. Much less do they so if withal they pretend that this other Operation is the immediate cause of Conversion whereby the Word is excluded from intervening as a Means 3. And yet much less if they say this Operation produces the effect irresistibly and till this irresistible act hath taken place the Word is utterly ineffectual 4. Least of all can it be pretended that they assigne more power to the Word than their Adversaries do I wonder at this man's confidence to venture such open falshoods abroad as these are It had been enough in conscience for a modest man to say that those of our Author's opinion ascribe as much power to the Word as we do but to say they assigne more to it is too much in all reason to go for a mere mistake And therefore one may well think he saw clearly enough that he defer'd not so much to the Word as we and that because he affirmed the contrary he resolved to put on a Face for something and say withal that he ascribed more For truely he may e'ne say that as well as the other for this passage of his is but the next Page before he asserts and endeavours to prove for a great while together that till the Soul is changed by his Physical Operation the Word of God hath no more power to make a due impression on it no though the motives thereof be urged by the internal perswasion of the Spirit than you have to stir a Rock by speaking to it or to raise a dead Body from the Grave by a Syllogiâ—â—â— And yet this is the maâ— that just before would make you believe how he yields as much nay more efficacy to the Word than we who say that Mankinde is not so incapable of being converted by the Word but that when it is blessed and used as he well enough expresseth it by the Holy Spirit it is sufficient to convert a man without any such Physical Operation as they talk of But you see this man makes it to be no more than a Dead Letter even when it is quickened by the Spirit too and after all his Flourishes resolves Conversion into an irresistible Operation in which there is no use of the Word at all And this is enough to shew you what an irreverent opinion he has of it whatever he pretends to the contrary And so much for the first Proposition SECT 2. 2. The manner wherein the Holy Spirit acts upon the mindes of men is suitable to the ratioâ—nal nature of Mankinde Which is a truth so fully express'd and liberally granted by Dr. Owen that I shall need to say the less of it For he saith The power which the Holy Ghost puts forth in our Regeneration is such in its acting or exercise as 〈◊〉 Mindes Wills and Affections are suted to be wrought upon and to be affected by it according to their Natures and natural Operations Again he doth not act in them otherwise than they themselves are meet to be acted according to their own Nature Power and Ability He draws us with the Cords of a man And then he tells us the work it self is expressed by perswading and alluring and that it carries no more repugnancy to our Faculties than a prevalent perswasion doth Again that our mindes are not merely passive Instruments as formerly in Prophetical inspirations moved above their own natural Capacity and Activity as to the manner of Operation But he works on the Mindes of men in and by their own natural actings through an immediate influence and impression of his Power Lastly that he offers no violence or compulsion to the Will this he saith that Faculty is not naturally capable to give admission unto if it be compelled it is destroyed These are very fair concessions and â—â—less you have given over wondering at our Author's way of writing you would hardly believe they should drop from his Pen. But they are his own words I assure you though Light and Darkness may be assoon reconciled as they can be to that Opinion concerning the manner of the Holy Spirit 's Operations which he so eagerly contends for For if a Physical Operation immediately and irresistibly producing Faith and Holiness be utterly unsuitable and repugnant to the natural faculties and operations of the minde in which those effects are wrought then is it most evident that those Concessions are inconsistent with the Hypothesis of Conversion by that Physical Work Now let him tell me whether the minde of man is according to its Nature and natural Operations suited to be wrought upon by such a Power as makes not the least use of the Understanding of the least Thought
purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more i. e. God would afford them the means and opportunities of Conversion no longer because they had already obstructed the efficacy of them so long together And then by his purging Hierusalem it is plain nothing can be meant but his doing all that was proper for him to do in order to that end and which would certainly have accomplished it had they complied as they might with his gracious methods Thus also the goodness of God is said to lead them to Repentance who are not actually led by it being such as after their hardness and impenitent hearts treasure up wrath unto themselves against the day of wrath Rom. 2.4 5. The meaning is plainly this that the forbearance and Grace of God is a most sufficient means of bringing those to repentance who do not onely neglect what they ought to do in compliance with the goodness of God but harden their Hearts against it Thus we see the holy Scripture does ascribe unto God the honour of what he does toward the conversion of those Sinners that continue in impenitence by saying that he has converted and healed them even while they are yet in their sins hereby intimating to us that it was not through any defect of Grace on his part but onely through their own failing to excite such endeavours as they might have done that they were not actually reformed Now in like manner and according to the usual stile of the Scripture God may be said to Work even in those men to Will and to Do who are still unwilling and disobedient and therefore that Phrase does not necessarily import that God does more than excite and stir up our Wills by his Grace or that he does not leave it possible for us to obstruct the efficacy of his Operations For we see the Scripture supposes God's administring of those gracious Helps which are abundantly sufficient to make us true Converts to be ground enough for saying that he hath converted us Wherefore if the Words themselves are capable of such a meaning if the scope also and designe of the place does necessarily require such a meaning I know not what can be required more to prove this to be the true meaning of them viz. that God worketh in us to Will and to Do in that manner that if our own care and diligence be wanting we may neither will nor do but continue in our sins and perish everlastingly Further whereas God is said to give Repentance and a new Heart it is from hence plain that the meaning of such places is not this that he does all himself and leaves nothing for us to do that we may be converted because he commands us often to do those things which he is yet said to do for us Thus as it is said in Ezek. 36.26 A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and cause you to walk in my statutes which words considered by themselves run as if God had absolutely undertaken to do this for his People and they needed not now to trouble themselves with doing any thing towards it So by the same Prophet God requires them to Cast away from them all their transgressions to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit for saith he why will ye die O house of Israel Ezek. 18.31 From whence it is plain that notwithstanding God's promise of giving them a new Heart it was necessary for them to Renew their own Hearts And what can this signifie but that the Promise is not absolute but supposeth the concurrence of our own endeavours and consequently that it was given to encourage them but not to make them needless And this will be more evident to you if you consider that what the Lord promised to do in this kinde for his People was not done for some of them as you may see in Ezek. 11.19 20 21. I will put a new spirit into them and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them an heart of flesh That they may walk in my statutes c. But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations I will recompence their way upon their own heads saith the Lord God From whence the needfulness of their own care to walk in God's Statutes is most evident for if no such condition had been implied in the Promise none of them could have walked after their Abominations Finally Since the Holy Spirit is not onely promised to work in us all needful Qualifications for eternal Life but we are also Commanded Exhorted Entreated and that most Seriously Affectionately and Frequently to Repent and be Converted and to persevere in Holiness and all this with promises of an eternal Reward if we do and with threatnings of everlasting Punishment if we do not it follows that the Spirit is not promised to work his Graces in our Hearts in such a manner as to make our own endeavours unnecessary to the attainment of them For this were to make all those Commands and Exhortations of God's Word a solemn piece of Pageantry and to say that God hath required us under the greatest penalties and with the most alluring promises to obtain those Qualifications which will be thrust upon us though we do nothing to obtain them Wherefore I conclude that the Holy Spirit worketh no otherwise in the mindes of men than to leave them under as great an obligation to be diligent in the use of all proper means for their recovery and perseverance as if they had not the benefit of any such divine Operation but were left if it had been possible for them to do all themselves SECT 4. 4. It may be added that the Operations of the Holy Spirit upon the mindes of men are suited or proportioned to their present spiritual state He does not produce those effects in us all at once which the Scripture ascribes to divine Grace but in such an Order and by those Degrees that suit with our capacities and qualifications This is partly evident 1. From what hath been already said concerning the communications of special Grace the promises whereof are made onely to Believers and good men the Holy Spirit doth not form his other graces in us till he hath wrought an hearty belief of the Gospel in our Souls Nor does he dwell in them till they are purged from the love of sin and this world And since there are various degrees of holiness according to which good men differ from each other since also our Saviour hath told us that to him that hath more shall be given we may conclude that the communications of the Holy Spirit are not made in equal measures to all good men neither but according as their mindes are more or less raised towards the heavenly state And that the more perfect Christian enjoys a more plentiful influence of Grace from above and is
more sensibly affected with those joys of the Holy Ghost which increase the love of Virtue and confirm him in every divine disposition 2. This is further evident from those passages in Holy Writ where we are required to grow in grace to abound in the work of the Lord and to go on to perfection For these places and the like do strongly imply that we cannot on a sudden arrive to any degree of goodness which we fall greatly short of at present much less that we can presently be filled with the fulness of God Wherefore it plainly follows that the Holy Spirit does not affect our mindes when we begin the Christian life in the same manner and measure that he moveth us in after we have made some progress in it or shall arrive to such an eminent degree of Christianity as may answer that expression of being filled with the fulness of God For if it were thus then we might become Men in Christ assoon as we are Babes and come to the fulness of our stature without growing and going on to perfection It is further observable that the Word of God is affirmed to be the means of our increasing in holiness we must desire the sincere Milk of the Word that we may grow thereby as St. Peter tells us and in Col. 1.9 St. Paul instructs us that the way whereby the Spirit maketh us to walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing being fruitful in every good work is by filling us with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding From whence I observe that our improvement in holiness is greater or lesser according as we consider and meditate upon divine Truths viz. for this end of governing our lives by them which is to know them in Wisdom and spiritual Vnderstanding Now since the effects of the Holy Spirit 's Operation in our mindes are as I have shewn the genuine and proper effects of the Word of God seriously considered and laid to heart it follows that the Holy Spirit worketh in us according to that measure wherein divine Truths are considered by us Therefore since our fruitfulness depends upon our increasing in the knowledge of God or that spiritual Vnderstanding which the Apostle speaks of the Holy Spirit who worketh in us by the Word of God does not make us capable of arriving to that state of walking before the Lord in all well-pleasing all at once but by degrees viz. as we increase in the knowledge of God by daily Meditation Lastly since by the experience we have of Humane Nature we see that customes are not easily and presently put off and that matters of difficulty cannot be made familiar to us but by use and practice more particularly that they who are accustomed to do evil cannot of a sudden learn to do well that ill habits are not wasted but by degrees that the difficulties of a Religious life press most upon us when we first enter upon it and that they wear away insensibly by continuance in well-doing likewise that vertue is improved by exercise and that the Path of the just as the Wise man speaks is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day I say this being considered we must needs acknowledge that the Holy Spirit does not produce the effects of his Grace in the mindes of men all at once but that he accommodates his Operations to the state in which they are at present prompting them to that amendment which the measure of their capacity will admit And this I take to be a Consequence also of what the Doctor so fully grants viz. that the Spirit acts the mindes of men onely as they are meet to be acted according to their own Nature Power and Ability and according to their natural Operations For if we may trust the constant experience of Mankinde both of the good and the bad although an evil habit is sooner contracted than a good one yet none is gained without some use and exercise and ordinarily it cannot be otherwise Now if the Spirit moves us no otherwise than according to the Nature Power and Ability of our mindes we must not think that by his Grace we may leap out of a wicked course of life in a moment into the habits of Piety and Virtue but that he is in that manner present with us as to enable us to make a good beginning and if we do so that by his more abundant Grace we may proceed and so by degrees come to a divine temper of minde and to walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing There is no doubt but God if he pleaseth can in an instant change the most vicious man into a Saint but we have no more reason to think that he will do so than that he should work new Miracles to convert us But we have great reason to perswade us that he will not do so for if we may judge of the Manner and Measure of the Holy Spirit 's Operations by the promises of special Grace which belong onely to qualified and prepared persons or by the Commands of the Scripture to grow in Grace and in the knowledge of Christ or by the general experience of Humane Nature we may conclude that an habitual Sinner cannot become a good man in an instant He must first learn to be afraid of God's angry Justice he must be heartily sorry for his sins he must deeply consider the promises of the Gospel he must avoid the occasions of sin and fortifie himself with vehement resolutions to forsake his wicked course and he must make many earnest prayers before he can subdue his Lusts and overcome the world and yield a sincere obedience to all the Commands of God And by consequence he cannot expect that the Operations of the Holy Spirit should make him a holy man but by the former means and therefore by degrees This Consideration ought not to have been omitted because it may be of great use to two very different sorts of men 1. To those who have been long accustomed to a sinful course of life and think it impossible to recover themselves although they have the opportunities of amendment before them For it happens sometimes that such men wish they had taken an early care to live in the fear of God and the practice of Religion and Virtue but they believe it is now in vain to strive against those fatal habits which are so deeply rooted in their mindes and so they abandon themselves to carelessness and desperation The reason whereof is commonly this that when they attempted their own reformation and had purposed to lead a new life they soon found themselves surprized again by their former temptations and carried away as strongly by their sensual appetites as ever they were before which makes them conclude it is to no purpose to take any more pains with themselves as if because their freedom from the servitude of sin could not be effected in a
understand our being strongly and deeply affected with divine Truths for where the Word of God dwells richly there the Spirit of God dwells too Nay I may adde further that there is no need of being curious to mark what respect was principally aimed at by the Apostle in the use of these Phrases throughout Rom. 8. and likewise Gal. 5. and other places and that because the Apostle does not seem to be curious in the use of them himself Nor was it necessary for him so to be in order to the making good of that conclusion against the Jews which he aimed at viz. that Justification was not to be had by the works of the Law but by the faith of Christ i. e. by being a true Disciple of Christ in mortifying the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts. But on the other hand his using of those Phrases of being led by and walking after the Spirit indifferently for living according to the Gospel and being governed by the motions of the Holy Spirit was very suitable to his designe of shewing that Justification was no other way to be obtained but by being a true Christian For since mortifying of the deeds of the body and being subject to the Law of God in that degree which Christianity now required were necessary to Justification the Jew who rejected the Gospel of Christ must needs be under Condemnation because the Holy Spirit whose guidance and incitations were necessary to the subduing of sin was given for that purpose to none that rejected Christianity Wherefore as long as the Jew would not submit to the Law of the Spirit of Life i. e. to the Gospel to the profession whereof the special promise of the Spirit was made he must needs be subject to the Law of Sin and of Death Of sin because he refused the necessary means of subduing the lusts of the Flesh viz. the Faith of the Gospel which was to refuse the Incitations and Grace of the Spirit Of Death because if we live after the Flesh we shall die This Observation I thought might not prove altogether unuseful to well-meaning persons that have not hit on it before for a man may well be in danger of mistaking the Apostle's designe in this and other places where the fore-mentioned Phrases are promiscuously used if he expects that every one of them should have a peculiar mystery belonging to it and a sence quite different from all the rest But that which I chiefly intended was to observe that the promiscuous use of those Phrases in the holy Scripture is extreamly agreeable to that familiar way wherein the Holy Spirit moveth the mindes of men For if we are so moved by him that we are not sensible of any operation in our mindes but that of divine Truth as it is represented to us by ordinary means and thereupon embraced by our Understandings then we cannot better express our being led and guided by the Spirit than by saying that we obey the Gospel And thus you see a further reason of the promiscuous and indifferent use of the above-mentioned Phrases and that taken from the manner of the Holy Spirit 's Operations as the former was from the end and designe of them I shall conclude this point with inferring from what hath been said concerning it that we resist the Holy Spirit of God many times when we think of nothing less and we do not think of it because we do not feel that supernatural impression which is made upon us and cannot discern it from the free and natural Operations of our minds And thus we quench the motions of the Spirit very often when we imagine that we onely quarrel with our own Thoughts or reject the good counsels of a Friend or the exhortations of a Minister or the rebukes of our own Conscience Now if we could hear or apprehend the Holy Spirit disswading us from any wickedness as sensibly as when a good man speaks to us we should not dare surely to entertain one thought more of going forward A temptation could no more prevail against us if we were thus admonish'd than if God should speak to us from Heaven with an audible voice in these words O do not that wicked thing which I hate But God doth not use this method upon us because we are here to live by Faith because he will prove us whether we believe his Word or not Therefore if it be plain from the holy Scriptures that when we are sinning against the clear Convictions of our duty when we are baffling any good Exhortations and Counsels and our own hopes of Heaven or our fears of Hell or the force of any seasonable good thought tending to Repentance we do then as really contradict the perswasions of the blessed Spirit as if we heard his Voice sounding in our Ears shall we not be as much afraid to do the former as we should be to do the latter For it will not be admitted in our excuse that we did not think of rebelling against the Holy Spirit for our not thinking of it is another fault since we have reason to believe that every sin we commit against the checks of Conscience has that aggravation and why should we think that one fault will excuse another Wherefore if we cannot but acknowledge that the doing of despight to the Spirit of Grace must needs adde an heavy weight to every sin which we commit presumptuously and to every neglect of improving an inclination to Repentance methinks we should tremble to do the one or to delay the other Finally the consideration of this matter if we have any due reverence of God will not fail of making all good counsels profitable to us of giving strength to all our own good purposes and making us careful to improve by all reasons that are proper to convince us by all Examples that are fit to instruct us and by all opportunities of serious reflection upon our selves For the Operations of the Holy Spirit do conspire with such familiar methods as these are to produce his Graces in us SECT 6. From all these things it follows in the last place that the Operations of the Holy Spirit in our minds are Assistances or Helps as they are generally called by Christians of all perswasions not excepting our Author and the Friends of his way But I say also they are properly so called because the Operations of the Spirit are no more than Assistances and that because his Graces are truely and properly the effects of other Causes viz. of the ministration of the Gospel of the external means of Grace and of our own endeavours with all which the Operations of the Holy Spirit conspire for the producing of those effects in us The Spirit is indeed the principal cause of these effects and therefore they are called his Graces and ascribed to him as if we did nothing our selves to gain them according to that saying of the Apostle I laboured abundantly yet not I but the grace of God which
was with me 1 Cor. 15.10 But because they are our own free acts therefore He is not the onely cause of them The Holy Spirit doth not regenerate us in that manner as to do all himself and leave nothing for us to do in order to our regeneration but we are as much concerned to use all proper means of Regeneration as if the whole matter depended upon our single endeavours as I shewed Sect. 4. and that which I say of Regeneration is equally true of every particular Grace of the Holy Ghost It is this Supposition viz. that the Operations of the Spirit are Aids and Helps to our natural Faculties which makes the ascribing of all Christian Virtues to his Grace consistent with leaving the use of our Reason and those duties which depend thereupon necessary to the attainment of them Which our Author understood so well that in his Preface where he complains so tragically of the Reproaches that are cast upon those that dare take upon them to defend the work of the Spirit he pretends to plead for nothing else but the Aids and Assistances of the Spirit very well knowing that they do not impugn the use of reason in Religion as his Phrase is and withal that this Objection is produced by his Adversaries against nothing but his opinion of the irresistible manner of the Spirit 's Operations which very wisely he says not one word of through his whole Preface The onely inconvenience saith he wherewith our Doctrine is pressed is the pretended difficulty in reconciling the nature and necessity of our Duty with the efficacy of the Grace of the Spirit and I have been so far from waving the consideration of it as that I have embraced every opportunity to examine it in all particular instances wherein it may be urged with most appearance of probability And it is I hope at length made to appear that not onely the necessity of our duty is consistent with the efficacy of God's Grace but also that as on the one hand we can perform no duty to God as we ought without its AID and ASSISTANCE nor have any encouragement to attempt a course of obedience without a just expectation thereof So on the other that the work of Grace it self is no way effectual but in our compliance with it in a way of duty onely with the leave of some persons or whether they will or no we give the Preeminence in all unto Grace and not unto our selves And now who would not believe that there are some amongst us who do not give the Pre-eminence in all unto Grace nay and think that if we cannot perform our duty as we ought without the Aid and Assistance of the Spirit that the nature of Duty and the use of Reason in it is destroyed and withal that this man has spent a Folio of railing upon us because we denied the Aids of Grace and the internal Operations of the Holy Ghost Why any man saith he should be discouraged from the exercise of that industry which God requires of him by the consideration of the AID and ASSISTANCE which he hath promised unto him I cannot understand No truely nor I neither nor any man that has common sense For is it possible that a man should be discouraged from industry because he is promised that help without which his industry would not prevail But what is the reason that we hear nothing at all now but of Aids and Assistances when the Operations of the Spirit are mentioned Did the Doctor 's Adversaries ever urge any Objections against them Was the inconvenience wherewith his Doctrine of irresistible Grace is pressed ever charged by them upon the Aids of the Spirit When and where did any of them with or without whose leave he was resolved to write his Book pretend that the Supposition of the Aids of Grace was liable to the inconvenience he promiseth to remove Or rather what can this man say to palliate so foul an Imposture Let others as he goes on do what they please I shall endeavour to comply with the Apostles advice upon the enforcement which he gives unto it Work out your own salvation c. for it is God which worketh c. By all means Sir endeavour it but do not endeavour to perswade the World that the reason why you persecute us with bitter words is because we are not like to be pleased with you for taking the Apostles reason to follow his advice Or if you continue to insinuate this belief of us and to make folks think that the principal cause and occasion of your present undertaking was the open and horrible Opposition that is made unto the Spirit of God and his work in the World since as you go on there is no concernment of his that is not by many derided exploded and blasphemed and that your Adversaries of the Church of England whom you are so angry with for saying that you make a Buz and a Noise and trouble the mindes of men with unintelligible notions are such Scoffers that if any one shall plead the necessity of the Assistance of the Spirit for the due performance of Duties he shall hardly escape from being notably derided by them I say if you go on in this manner surely you must forget all the while that there is a day coming when you must appear before the Tribunal of the Great God to give an account of your Writings But as for our selves to use your own words I shall not trouble my self about an accusation which is laden with as many Convictions of Forgery as there are persons against whom you level these your uncharitable and malicious suggestions Let any indifferent man read your Preface where you pretend to give a Summary Account of your Book and say if the principal designe of it were not to possess your Readers with an opinion that it is our blaspheming the Doctrine of the Aids of the Holy Spirit which enkindled your zeal against us and that you have bestirred your self in the Book principally to make it good against all our opposition that we cannot do the Will of God without them But now if you light upon a Reader so unfortunate to your self as will take the pains to compare you and your self together your Preface with the greatest part of your Book he will soon finde that your Preface was but the Copy of your Countenance and not of your Heart For when you come to give us your opinion concerning the Operations of Grace in good earnest it plainly appears that 't is you that deny them to be Assistances and Helps and that your true quarrel against us is because we say they are Assistances not the onely Causes of Regeneration For you labour as I shall shew you further in the second Part with abundance of words and with all your might to prove that mere Assistance how great soever is utterly insufficient to the conversion of a Sinner and that Conversion is impossible to
be effected but by a Physical Irresistible Operation which whether it can be called an Assistance I leave you to judge after you have considered these words which are your own The most effectual perswasions of the Holy Spirit for of them you were speaking cannot prevail with men in the state of Nature to convert themselves any more than Arguments can prevail with a blinde man to see or with a dead man to rise from the Grave and you must not forget that you make as irresistible an Operation necessary to Conversion as we suppose to be necessary for the raising of a dead Body Now you know 't is to no purpose to perswade a dead man to stir and by your Argument 't is to as little to perswade a man dead in Trespasses and Sins to Repent But would it not be also a most absurd thing to say that God assists a dead body to be alive again Whoever is said to assist another to do any thing is not supposed to do it all himself much less by an irresistible Power but the person that is assisted is supposed to contribute his own endeavour towards the thing Now a dead Body can do nothing towards its own Resurrection and therefore is incapable of being assisted to rise and if God raiseth it to life he must do all himself And do you not therefore make a Sinner incapable of being converted by the assistance of the Holy Spirit If you do not see this Consequence pray will you acknowledge your own plain words where you give us your sence of that saying of the Apostle ascribing the honour of all he did to the Grace of God Not I but the grace of God which was in me 1 Cor. 15.10 For thus you argue from thence Suppose now that God by his Grace doth no more but AID ASSIST and EXCITE the Will in its actings that he doth not effectually work all the Gracious actings of our Souls in all our duties that is that he doth not do all himself the Proposition would hold on the other hand not Grace but I seeing the principal relation of the effect is unto the next and immediate Cause and thence hath its denomination These are your own words wherein you do not onely deny Regeneration but which is much stranger even the Good which regenerate men do to be the effect of divine Assistance and you deny this in such plain terms that you allow them not to be the next cause of the good they do as if S. Paul had meant that in truth he had not laboured at all though he plainly said I laboured abundantly And thus you plainly make Believing Repenting and Labouring not to be so much as our own acts but purely the acts of God so that we do not believe and obey but according to you God does all this for us not so much as making us to believe and obey as 't is impossible he should without making us the next and immediate cause of our doing so Can you read these words of yours without blushing if you remember your crafty Preface where you were all for the Aids and Assistances of the Spirit and put your self into such a combustion to defend them as if Pelagius were risen from the dead You knew well enough that we do believe God doth AID and ASSIST us by his Grace and that no body but your self and such as you denies Conversion and Perseverance to be the effects of divine Assistance onely you strained a point with your Conscience and cast the Odium of so detestable a Doctrine upon us in your Preface to make all the reviling Speeches you bestow on us in your Book go down the better with your Readers But this Artifice of yours is not confined to the Preface but used also in divers places of your Book I shall give you but one instance of it at present In the fifth Chapter of the second Book you pretend to reconcile the usefulness of the Commands Threatnings Promises and Exhortations of the Scripture with the promised Aids of the Spirit and ascribing all that is good in us to the Grace of God For this you say is the principal difficulty wherewith some men seek to entangle and perplex the Grace of God Who you mean by some men your Followers and we understand well enough but you know your Adversaries do not so much as believe that there is any difficulty at all in reconciling the assistances of Grace with the usefulness of Motives and then they cannot seek to entangle the Grace of God with this difficulty Now this is your way very often when you talk of the Objections that are made against supposing the Grace by which we are converted to be irresistible you make it your business to shew that these Objections do not lie against saying that the Operations of the Spirit are Aids and Assistances as here in this place you say If there be any opposition between the Commands of Duty and the Promises of Grace it is either because the nature of man is not meet to be commanded or because it needs not to be assisted and then you say very well that what the Holy Spirit doth in us he doth by us and our duty is to apply our selves unto his commands according to the conviction of our mindes and his work it is to enable us to perform them Very good All this we heartily believe but now the Doctrine we seek to entangle by the fore-mentioned difficulty is that men cannot be converted but by such an almighty Operation as that which made us out of nothing and will hereafter raise our dead bodies to Life And now I cannot understand why you should so often attempt to disentangle the Doctrine of the Aids of Grace from the former Objection which does not lie against it but because you have a minde to perswade the world that some men say we can keep the Commands of God without the help of his Grace Indeed in one place you apply the Objection as it ought to be viz. against your own Doctrine and I intend to let you see shortly that you have not taken it off but this is an argument that you had no other meaning in applying it wrong and so changing the state of the Question between us but to make the most odious representation of us you could devise And now I take may leave of you for a while wishing that you may hereafter write with the clearness of a Doctor the good temper of a Gentleman and the sincerity of a Christian and then we shall be very forward to give you that respect which is due to your abilities To sum up all that hath been said in this Chapter the Holy Spirit of God doth in that manner work his Graces in us that they are still the genuine effects of the Evidence and the motives of the Gospel of the natural use of our Faculties of Understanding and Will and of our own Care and
what he hath been pleased to declare concerning it by himself and his Apostles Lastly I mean those Operations of the Holy Spirit upon our mindes the continuance whereof is promised to the Church in all Ages removing those from the matter of our enquiry which were peculiar to the first i. e. such as shewed themselves in the extraordinary and miraculous Gifts of the Apostles and the Believers of that time who were to confirm and establish the Christian Doctrine in the world by the demonstration of the Spirit and of power by supernatural effects evident to sense and such testimonies of divine Revelation When the Doctrine of the Gospel was once fully demonstrated to be divinely revealed there was no need that God should appear in every Age to own it by new testimonies of Revelation because the knowledge of those that were given thereunto at first is conveyed down to us with sufficient evidence that they were then given Now Miracles and such extraordinary works of the Spirit are ceas'd But the Scriptures mention such a Promise of the Spirit which will never be out-dated while the ministration of the Gospel lasts and this is one of those promises made in the Gospel which argue the constant bounty and affection of our Heavenly Father towards us Now they are these Operations of the Spirit viz. which are continued through all ages of the Church to which I shall confine my thoughts in the following discourse But before I proceed it may not be amiss to make this plain Inference that since these Operations of the Spirit differ clearly in their nature and end from those which were peculiar onely to the first ages of the Church therefore those places of the Holy Scripture which onely concern the work of the Holy Spirit in gifts extraordinary and miraculous are not to be produced for the proof of any opinion concerning his ordinary and constant Operations And whatsoever is affirmed concerning those must not presently be affirmed of these unless it can be shewn by some clear Text or other good Reason that what is so affirmed is common to them both And therefore to be sure some care must be had not to mistake those places of Scripture which speak of the extraordinary gifts of some Believers for Texts which mention those Operations and Graces that are common to all But as obvious as the difference between these things is I finde Dr. Owen frequently confounding them as if there were no difference to be put between them Thus after he had recited those promises of our Saviour made to his Disciples The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatever I have said unto you I have many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he shall shew you things to come He supposeth that these are instances of that general promise of the Spirit which belongs unto all Believers unto the end of the world than which nothing can be more apparently false as is plain from our Saviours words themselves He shall bring to your remembrance whatever I have said unto you c. and he shall shew you things to come which and the like expressions no sober man can apply to Believers now And this the Doctor himself is so sensible of that he tells us in the same breath The Holy Ghost was bestowed on the Primitive Christians in a peculiar manner and for especial ends Now I would gladly know of him what other ends besides those that were peculiar to the state of the Primitive Church are mentioned in the foresaid promise of the Holy Ghost Many instances of this nature might be produced against him were it not for wasting of time I shall onely give the Reader a Specimen how he argues from those Texts which speak of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit He tells us that in some the Spirit works Conviction and Illumination without intending to work saving Grace in them which therefore shall never be effected and that the reason why some Believers are not so good as others is because the Spirit carrieth on the work to a great inequality And this Doctrine he makes a shift to countenance by saying that the Spirit worketh in all these things according to his own will aiming at that place of the Apostle to the Corinthians where he faith The Spirit worketh all these things dividing to every man severally as he will Now I think we have as good as his own confession presently after that this place belongeth to another â—â—tter viz. the distribution of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit For thus he faith And this is that which the Apostle mindes the Corinthians of to take away all emulation and envy about spiritual Gifts that every one should orderly make use of what he had received to the profit and edification of others Now either the Doctor alleadged this place to no purpose or he must be supposed to argue in this manner Because the Spirit distributed extraordinary gifts for the edification of the Church according to his own will therefore it is sometimes the will of the Spirit to enlighten and convince those men in whom he intends not to work saving Grace That the Spirit of God worketh always according to his own will and wisdom there is no question but we may well question whether in bestowing that Grace which is necessary to the salvation of every Believer he worketh in the same manner and method as he did in conferring extraordinary gifts that were none of them necessary to the salvation of those particular persons on whom they were bestowed and therefore that the Spirit of God in the distribution of these worked according to his own will can be no proof of the affirmative And the Doctor might have observed the inconvenience of referring to this Text in favour of his opinion from what he himself concludes So that it is an unreasonable thing for any to contend about them i. e. about those spiritual Gifts For if what is affirmed truely of the distribution of them be true also of all the effects of the Holy Spirit upon the mindes of men it is also an unreasonable thing to contend about any of them i. e. it is as unreasonable for the Doctor to reprove any man because he is not converted or because he hath no more Grace than he has as it would have been for him that could speak with Tongues to finde fault with his Christian Brother to whom that gift was not imparted Again it is plain enough that the promise of the Father concerning the Spirit which the Apostles were to wait for Acts 1.4 and the power which they received after the Holy Ghost came upon them
few moments it cannot be procured at all It many times hinders a good beginning that a man findes he cannot become a Convert in an instant and thence concludes that it can never be better with him than it is at present which he will be the more ready to do if he has heard that Conversion is a thing that comes by a snatch and an Instantaneous Act and that unless the work be done all of a sudden which he findes it will not be it can never be done But this is a Doctrine so pernicious to the Souls of men that the mischief of it were sufficient to prove it false For if it were true it were then in vain for an habitual sinner at least to attempt his own recovery since a custom in sin cannot be suddenly broken without a Miracle but must be worn away by contrary practices or not at all It will require some time and much patience to unlearn a way of life that is grown customary and natural and to make the contrary habitual and easie But by assiduity and constancy the thing may be done Therefore if a man has entertained any serious thoughts of Repentance he ought not to discourage himself though he findes his affection to sin hard to put off nor to give up himself for a lost person when he is again overtaken by a Temptation but to renew his resolutions more vigorously and to pray more frequently and earnestly and to keep on thus in a way of well-doing for there is not the least doubt but by this means every day something will be done to the bettering of his minde and the making of a good life more easie and ready to him till he has gained the true liberty of the Sons of God 2. This very Consideration which is of good use against despairing to prevail if a man that has yet the opportunity desires to amend his life is also a good Antidote against the madness of deferring our Repentance upon a presumption that we can repent and turn to God when we please For if it be not in the power of a wicked man while he is thus flattering himself to repent this present moment he has no reason to think that he may suddenly repent any time hereafter The most that is in his power at present is to do something in order to Repentance or Conversion but that is not to repent The utmost he can do is to begin well but that is not doing the thing Now the longer he is thus trifling with himself his evil habits contract more stubbornness and will require more time to break them and yet he has less time to do it in than he had before Nor is it likely that he will begin hereafter while he has any time before him for the reason why a man defers his reformation to another time is not because he intends to begin then but because he has no minde to begin now and unless he be then in a better minde than he is at present he will certainly defer his Repentance still nor is there any probability that he will finde himself better disposed after he has added Iniquity to Iniquity and made himself more a Childe of the Devil than he was before And indeed it commonly happens that they who cheat themselves in this manner run out their foolish presumption almost to the length of their Lives till the terrours of death make them serious and then I fear 't is too late to make a good beginning For what good should it do a man to promise that he will mend his life now he can live no longer or to resolve that he will spend his time better when he has no more to spend To conclude if the Conversion of a wicked man be a work of some time and requires much diligence and preparation If so far as we can judge by several Promises and Exhortations in holy Writ and by the experience of Mankinde the Operations of the Spirit move Unregenerate men according to their present capacities for instance either to Fear if they be yet Fearless or to Sorrow if they have yet little or no Remorse or to Care if they are ready to run upon Temptations and the like If the Holy Spirit enables them to mend their state by such Degrees and Means till their lusts and evil habits be subdued then as they that have lived a wicked life and yet enjoy the opportunity of Repentance have no reason to despair of their Conversion merely because they cannot break the power of their Lusts and overcome the world all at once so neither has any man the least reason to presume that he can repent when he pleases and thereupon to neglect the present opportunity For all that he can do at present is to make a good beginning and not to do that immediately when upon this moment my eternal state may depend what a madness is that SECT 5. To all that hath been said we may further adde that the Holy Spirit moves upon the mindes oâ— men in a most familiar way and that his Motions are not discernible by us from the natural Operations of our mindes We feel them no otherwise than we do our own Thoughts and Meditations we cannot distinguish them by the manner of their affecting us from our natural Reasonings and the Operations of Truth upon our Souls This imperceptibleness of the impressions made upon our Souls by the divine Spirit was that which as I told you before Chap. 3. Sect. 10. our Saviour signified to Nicodemus by the Similitude of the Wind Joh. 3. And we are not to wonder that the Holy Spirit does move our Souls when we are not conscious to our selves of any supernatural Influence which they are acted by since he can communicate Reason and Perswasion to them without making use of any thing that belongs to our bodily Structure and much more of our external Senses without which it is impossible for us to convey our Thoughts and Reasonings to one another's mindes Wherefore the Holy Spirit being intimate to our Souls which is a good expression of the Doctor 's used to another purpose can affect us when we are not sensible of it and produce effects upon our mindes in that manner as if they were merely the effects of our own natural reasoning and such consideration of divine Truth as we can excite in our selves and in one another Such is the manner of the Spirit 's Operations in us that if God had onely designed to give the Holy Spirit to us without making any mention of it in his Word we could never have known unless it had been communicated to us by some private Revelation that our Souls are moved by a divine Power when we love God and do his Will which as I take it the Doctor seems to grant in those words of his that this is a subject in the handling whereof we have nothing to give us assistance but pure Revelation which are large words