Part 2

Hence 2. The reasons moving a soul to yield to Christ's drawing, comes under a twofold consideration; as 1. Natural dispositions. 2. As lustered with some common grace, and so thought preparatory to conversion and drawing.

In the former consideration, divines with good reasons, look at them as sins, and the greatest obstructions of conversion.

1. There is something that is taking with reason, why a man will not come to Christ; no man goes to Hell without hire, and gratis. Hell is a death, but a golden death, and fair afar: Ah, its sweet to men to perish; Hell is a most reasonable choice to the sinner, the chambers of death shine with fair paintry to the natural man's reason.

2. It's not single weakness, but wicked and willful impotency, that keeps men from Christ: as a beggar would be a king, he has no positive hatred of the honor, riches, pleasures of a king; but he has no legs, nor arms to climb so high, as to ascend to a throne. But the natural man neither will, nor can choose a king's life, and be a follower of Christ: nor is man any other than a natural hater of Christ, though many think they bear Christ at good will; (John 15:24) But now they have seen, and hated both me and my Father. The reason why men think they love Christ, is the luster that education and common literal report, from the womb, has put upon Christ; our fathers and teachers said ever, Christ is the Savior of man, and a merciful God, and therefore we have that common esteem of him; but were we born of Jewish parents, or among Jews, and taken from our parents, and heard nothing from the womb of Christ, but what the Jews say, and that is, that he is a false Prophet, that he rose not from the dead, but that his disciples, by night, stole him away out of the grave, we should from the womb hate Christ, as well as the Jews. And the like we may see in Indians, who love and adore the Devil from the womb; but with this difference, they love Satan truly, because both nature, now corrupt, and education carries them to it; but education can give no man a true love of Christ. (2.) From where is it that the world hates the children of God? It is from instinct and nature, rather than from any imperated acts, (John 15:19) Because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Verse 21. But all these things will they do to you, for my name's sake. To be chosen out of the world, to carry anything of Christ and his image and nature, and to be born again, and of another seed than the world is born of, is no ground of arbitrary and elective hatred; but of such hatred as comes from diverse natural instincts, such as is the hatred between the Wolf and the Lamb, the Raven and the Dove. If then the world hate the Saints, as they do, (Romans 1:30) and hate Christ, and hate the Saints upon this formal ground, Because they have in them the nature of God, the image of Christ, some of the excellency of Christ, then they must hate Christ far more; for, Propter quod unumquodque tale, id ipsum magis tale. The world hated Christ for God; for there was more of God in the Man Christ, than ever was in any creature: then they hated God more, and with a higher hatred. So Christ is the sampler and copy to all the Saints; therefore Christ must be more contrary to the wicked world, than the Saints are. If you hate the servant for the master's sake, then you hate the Master more. If you love the nurse for the child's sake, then you love the child more. So the Jews killed the servants, the Prophets, they stoned them, and beat them, (Matthew 21:35) but they did more to Christ, Verse 39. They caught him, slew him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and took the inheritance to themselves. (3.) Men naturally hate the ways of God: If there be holiness in his ways, then it must be most eminently in God: If they esteem his yoke sour and heavy, and Reformation a burden, then must they far more esteem so of himself.

2. Men have a sort of satisfaction in their natural condition: A whole man desires no physician. A dead man has some negative content to lie in the grave; he can have no acts of sorrow for want of life. (2.) We do not put forth any stirring of life or desire toward that which is naturally above us: A child in the belly has no acts toward a crown or a kingdom in this life, because desires are bottomed and founded on nature: as an ape, or a horse, has no desire to be a man. Pilate, as if he were burdened with Christ, says, (Matthew 27:22) What shall I then do with Jesus that is called Christ? What avails my birthright to me, says Esau, seeing I die for hunger?

3. When beasts and birds are allured by the snare, and fishes by the bait, death comes to them in the garments of life; for food is all their heaven: and instinct helps them to prosecute their ends, and there is a natural similitude and inclination between their nature and what they desire, bottomed on an instinct, even when the object of their inclination is but dyed with the hue and appearance of good. But there is no such instinct in the natural man, nor similitude between a cage of hell, and the beauty and excellency of Christ; between his sense and the hidden manna, or the banqueting house of wine.

4. The natural man cannot come to Christ. In that place (John 6:44) there be four things considerable.

1. The best of men is ill-suited to come to Christ, no man, whatever his parts and eminence be, had he a nature of gold, he cannot come to Christ.

2. He says not, No man comes, as denying the act, for so no man of himself is an excellent philosopher, but he denies a power, [illegible], He cannot come.

3. But help is much, perhaps if his eyes were open, the will is good, he would gladly come to Christ if he were able; No, says Christ, he is unwilling and unable both: He that cannot come, except he be hauled and drawn, and some violence offered to his corruption, has no good liking of Christ. But

4. It is but little drawing possibly that will do the business, some gentle blast or air of golden words, some moral suasion, some breathings and spiration of fine reasonings, from men or angel, can do much. No, but it is not so, no less (says Christ) can draw a sinner to me than the arm of the Father, and a pull of his omnipotence, who is greater than all (John 10). No man whatever mettle he be of, the finest of men can come, or has power to come to me, and to believe on the only begotten Son of God, except the Father who sent me draw him. We know Christ was much to extol his Father, his Father was ever in his esteem an eminent one, as (Matthew 11:25-27; Mark 14:6; Luke 23:46; John 3:35; John 5:21; John 6:27; Matthew 10:32; Matthew 24:37; John 2:16; John 5:43; John 10:29; John 19:2; Revelation 2:27; John 15:1).

So is there a power always denied to the natural man to close with Christ (Romans 8:7; 2 Corinthians [illegible]:5).

5. A will to believe and to submit to Christ is denied to natural men (John 5:40). "You will not come to me, that you may be saved" [illegible], (Luke 19:14). The enemies of Christ say [illegible]: "We will not have this man to reign over us." Verse 27: "But these my enemies that would not that I should reign over them, bring here and slay them before me" [illegible]. These to me seem to be allusions to Israel's wearying of the Lord of old (Isaiah 43:23): "I have not wearied you with incense" (Jeremiah 2:5); "What iniquity have your fathers found in me?" (Micah 6:3): "O my people what have I done to you, and in what have I wearied you? Testify against me." It is strange that sinners can see a black spot on the Lord's fair face, or that their will, that is nearer of kin to reason than the affections that are in beasts, should be averse to God; yet it is said of wicked men that they are haters of God (Romans 1:30). "His citizens hated him" (Luke 19:14; John 15:24). And especially these speeches carry allusion to (Psalm 81:11): "Israel would have none of me" [illegible]. Israel had no liking of me, no will of me. So that weakness simply is not the nearest cause of our not coming to Christ, but willful weakness, or rather weak-willfulness. 1. Because in agents that cannot work, their impotence, or lowness of nature, is the cause; as the reason why a horse cannot discourse as a man is because his nature is inferior to the reasonable nature of a man, and not because the horse will not, but because he cannot discourse. The cause why a lump of clay casts not such light in the night as a candle, or a star in the firmament, is the baseness and opacity of the nature of clay to produce such an action as to give light; there is not such a thing as will in the clay, which intervenes between its nature and the no-giving light in the night. But men hearing the Gospel do not believe, not only because they cannot, for beasts cannot believe; but because, as Christ says, they will not believe (John 5:40). They will have none of Christ (Psalm 81:11). They will not have Christ to reign over them (Luke 19:14). And will intervenes between the impotence of their will and their disobedience. 2. Because that hatred of God and of Christ, ascribed to unregenerate men (Romans 1:30; Luke 19:14; John 15:24), is the birth that lay in the womb of will, and comes from will as will, and not only from will as weak; so men's delighting and their loving to be estranged from Christ, and to satisfy themselves with other lovers beside Christ, are high-bent acts of the will. Which shows that not only weakness, but willfulness has influence in men's unbelief. 3. The Lord charges men with this (Matthew 23:37): "I would, you would not." 4. Conscience takes it on its will, and fathers disobedience on the will (1 Samuel 8:19). "No, but we shall, or we will have a King" (Jeremiah 44:16). The people avow their will, and their peremptory resolution is: "We will not listen to you."

6. But for the ground, reason, and cause on Christ's part of drawing, it is free grace, and only free grace, which are held forth in these positions.

Position 1. As there is no merit, good deserving, work, or hire in the miserable sinner dying in his blood, dead in sins, out of his wit, and disobedient, deceived, and serving various lusts (Ezekiel 16:4-8; Ephesians 2:1-4; Titus 3:3-4), so there is as much love, benevolence, and free grace in heaven, in the breast of Christ, as would save all in hell, or out of hell. I speak this in regard not of the Lord's intention, as if he did bear all and every one of mankind a good will, purposing to save them. But because there lies and flows such a sea and ocean of infinite love about the heart, and in the bowels of Jesus Christ, as would over-save and out-love infinite worlds of sinners (so all could come and draw and drink and suck the breasts of overflowings of Christ's free grace) in regard of the intrinsic weight and magnitude of this love, that if you appoint banks to channel, or boundaries to bound this free love, God should not be God, nor the Redeemer the Redeemer.

Pos. 2. Could any created eye of men or angels reach or compass the thousand-thousandth part of this love with one look, such an act of adoration and admiration must follow thereupon as should break the soul and breast of this creature in a thousand pieces; but Christ in heaven and out of heaven is hid. Infiniteness is a secret that angels or men never did, never shall comprehensively know; there is a secret of love seen in heaven, but never fully seen. How little of the sea do our natural eyes behold? Only the surface. We see but a little part of the skin, or hide, of the visible heavens with our bodily eyes, but so much as is seen is of exceeding beauty. No bodily eye can see the bottom of the seas, or the large in-fields in the visible heavens. If the infinite lump of the boundless love of Christ were seen at once, what a heaven's wonder, what a world's miracle would Christ appear to be? But as much of Christ is seen as vessels of glory, though wide enough, can comprehend. But if angels and glorified saints see much of Christ, and so accordingly as they see and know, do praise him, and yet cannot over-praise and out-sing so much as they see; and if the inside of the infiniteness of love, free grace, mercy, majesty, dominion, be an everlasting mystery, angels and men are below merit, even in heaven, and angels and saints must be ashamed of, and blush at, the imagination of merits; for an infinite lovely majesty seen, and not praised nor loved in any measure of equality or commensuration to his dignity and worth, must lay infinite, though sinless, debt for eternity on all the citizens of glory, whether home-born or natives of that country, as elect angels; or adopted strangers, as glorified saints.

Pos. 3. The manner of grace's working on saints is gracious, and so essentially free; as is evident in our first drawing to Christ, when many sins are forgiven, and so the soul loves much; and the sweetest burden in heaven, or out of heaven, is a burden of the love of Christ. All debt must be a burden to an ingenuous spirit; but the debt of free grace, that lies from eternity on angels and men, is a lovely and a desirable pain. That men before they were men, and had being, and before all eternity, were in the bosom of Christ the engaged debtors of the Lamb, in the purpose of free grace loved with an everlasting love, is a deep thought of love; and that being was gracious being, before actual being, speaks and cries much love. And it is the flower, the glory, the crown of free grace, that God's free love in Christ casts forth the warming rays and beams of the Redeemer's kind heart on men who are enemies, darkness, haters of God, dead in sin, dying in blood and pollution. And how broad, how warm, and how rankly must the fair and large skirts of Christ's love smell of admirable grace, when they are spread over the bleeding, the loathsome, the black, and unwashed sinner — is not every word a heaven. Now when I passed by you, and looked upon you, behold your time was the time of love, and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: indeed I swear to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine (Ezekiel 16:8). Christ's passing by is as a traveller on his journey, who finds a child without father or mother, in the open field dying and naked wallowing in blood, and then casting a covering of free love (and love has broad skirts) over his people; and it is an expression of much tenderness and warmness of love. Many articles in that place extol free grace.

1. Christ is brought in as a passing by-passenger, to whom this foundling was no blood-friend, but a mere stranger; so if humanity and human kindness had not worked on his heart, he might have passed by us. We are to Christ nothing of kindred or blood by our first birth, but strangers from the womb to God, going a-whoring as soon as we are born.

2. Christ looked on forlorn sinners and there is love in his two eyes; it may be that bowels of iron, in which lodges nothing of a man or of natural compassion, would move a traveller to see and not see a young child dying in his blood. But (says he) I saw you; my heart, my bowels had eyes of love toward you; there was tender compassion in my very look; my bowels within me turned and swooned at the cast of my eye when I saw your misery.

3. Behold, and behold, he would own his own mercy and love; let angels and men wonder at it, that the great and infinite majesty of God should condescend to look on such base sinners, so far below the free love and majesty of God. There is a behold, a sign put upon this door: come here, angels and men, and wonder at the condescension. 2. Tenderness. 3. Strength of heat and warmness. 4. Freedom and unhired motions. 5. Riches and abundance. 6. Efficacy and virtue. 7. The bounty and reality of the free love of Christ.

4. Your time was a time of loving. What? Of loving: it was a time of loathing; a time of love? When sinners were so base, so poor, wretched, so sinfully despicable, such enemies to God in their mind by wicked works (Colossians 1:21), dead in sins and trespasses, walking according to the course of this world ([reconstructed: an ill compass to steer by]), according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience? Was this a time of love? Indeed, Christ's love cannot be bowed or budded with anything without Christ: it is as strong as Christ himself, and sin and hell can neither break nor counter-work the love of Christ; your hatred cannot countermand his imperious love.

5. It was not a time of single love, but it was a time of loves — Christ has a time, and sinners have a time, when they are ripe for mercy, it was a time [illegible] of loves; of much loves, of much love. He loved us, and showed mercy on us (Ephesians 2:4), [illegible], for his great and manifold love. Song of Solomon 7:12: "there I will give you my loves." Song of Solomon 6:2: "Your loves are better than wine." Verse 4: "We will remember your loves, more than wine." It is a bundle, a wood of many loves that is in Christ. Then verse 5: "I spread my skirt over you." He is a warm-hearted passenger, who on a cold day, will take off his own garment, to clothe a naked foundling, that he finds in the way; I (says Christ) laid on you a naked sinner, the skirt of that love, with which the Father loved me. O what a strange word is that? (John 17:26): "I have declared to them your name, and will declare it; that the love with which you have loved me, may be in them, and I in them." It is true, Christ could not be stripped naked of the love, with which his Father loved him, and that love being essential to God, cannot be formally communicated to us, yet the fruit of it, is ours; and the Lord Jesus spreads over his redeemed ones, a lap of the same love and bowels, in regard of the fruits of free love, which the Father did from eternity spread over himself.

6. I covered (says Christ) your nakedness. O what a garment of glory is the imputed righteousness of Christ? Bring forth the best robe, and put on him. This is the white raiment that clothes the shame of our nakedness.

7. Indeed I swore to you, and entered in covenant with you. Equals do much, if they swear, and enter in covenant with equals; but O humble Majesty, of an infinite God, who would enter in covenant with sinners, wretched sinners, at our worst condition, and would quiet our very unbelieving thoughts of sinful jealousy, with an oath of the most high, who has no greater to swear by than himself.

8. And you became mine — in Hebrew, you were for me, set apart for me. Here is stooping, and lowly condescending love to own sinners, and a claim and propriety on wretched and far-off strangers, to name dying, bleeding, sinning, and God-hating dust, and guilty-perishing clay, his own proper goods.

9. Verse 9: "Then washed I you with water." That Christ's so fair hands should stoop to wash such black-skinned and defiled sinners, in either free justification, or in purging away the rotten blood, and filth of the daughter of Zion, in regeneration, makes clear that (to the free love of Christ, that which is black is fair and beautiful.)

10. And I anointed you with oil, free grace, and Christ dwelling by faith (Ephesians 3:17), in saints, that are the flower, gold, and marrow of the Church, is a high expression of free love. Sinners are worse than withered and dry clay, without saving grace.

11. And to all these, Christ clothed his naked Church with embroidered work, fine linen and silk, he puts bracelets on her hands; a chain of gold of grace about her neck, a jewel on her forehead, earrings on her ears, and a beautiful crown on her head, the grace to profess Christ, and carry on the forehead, the name of the Father, of the Lamb, and of the new Jerusalem, the bride, the Lamb's wife; before men and angels, is a fair ornament.

12. Besides, a name, and the perfume of a sweet and precious report in the world, adds a luster to the saints, who are by nature the children of wrath, as well as others (Ezekiel 16:10-14; Ephesians 2:1-5).

Position 4. It is an abasement of Christ, that he who gives such a ransom to justice for free grace, should wait for a penny from sinners, that sinners must bid, and buy, and engage him to give, and Christ say, "You must give me more, I must sell, not give grace, for nothing." Your penny worths cannot roll about that everlasting wheel of free grace, the decree of election, or bow, or break Christ's free heart to save you, rather than another. 2. There is no more proportion between wages and saving grace, than between wages and eternal glory. Now there is much debt in heaven more than on earth, but no merit at all in either heaven or earth, except Christ for all. Merit cannot grow in a land of grace. 3. Grace is the sinner's gain, but no gain to Christ; is it gain to the sun, that all the earth borrows light and summer from it? Or to the clouds that they give rain to the earth? Or to the fountains, that they yield water to men and beasts? Can you make infinite Jesus Christ rich? You may add to the sea, though very little. The Creator could have made a fairer sun, than that which shines in the firmament, though it be fair enough. But the Mediator Christ is a Savior so molded, and contrived, that it is impossible to add to his beauty, excellency, loveliness; man or angels, could not wish a choicer Redeemer, than Christ; if your wages could add to him, he should be needy, as you are.

Position 5. Free grace is the loveliest piece in heaven or earth; it makes us partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). And though the creature graced of God keeps an infinite distance from God, and is not "Goded" nor "Christed," as some do blasphemously say, yet it is considerable that there is a shadow (though but a shadow) of proportion between that expression of Paul (1 Corinthians 15:10), [illegible], "By the grace of God, I am that I am," and that which the Lord says of himself (Exodus 3:14), speaking to Moses, [illegible], "I am that I am." Grace is but a borrowed accident of the creature — not heritage, not his essence. But Paul would say, all his excellence was from free grace. Were any indifferent beholder up in the highest Jerusalem after the day of judgment, to see the company of the Lamb and his court — so many thousand pieces of clay, then clothed with highest grace, smiling on the face of him that sits on the throne, made eternal kings — that for glory and robes of grace, and the weighty crown, you cannot see a bit of clay, and yet originally, all these are but glistering bits of clay, and graced dust — it should tire the beholder with admiration. O but the second creation is a rare piece of workmanship. But again come and see that heaven of wonders, the Man-Christ, who as man has: 1. flesh and blood, and a man's soul, as we have; but O so incomparably wonderful, as the grace of God without merit has made the man Christ. Grace has exalted this man to a high throne; the Godhead in person dwells in this clay tent of endless glory, and God speaks personally out of this man, and this Emmanuel is God, and the man is so weighted with glory, as all that are there (and they be a fair and numerous company) are upon one continued act of admiring, enjoying, praising, loving him, for no less date than endless eternity, and they can never be able to pull their eyes off him. And then grace seen, enjoyed as it grows at the well-head, up in Emmanuel's highest and newest land, is of another strain — sweeter and more glorious than down here in the earth, which is not the element of grace; they are but glimpses, borrowed shadows, chips, and drops of grace that are here. That is a world of nothing but [reconstructed: Grace]; all which I speak, to let us see how far free grace is from base hire, and that we may not dare to make Christ, who is an absolute free King, a hireling.

Position 6. Grace is not educed or extracted out of the potency of any created nature. Grace is born in heaven, and came from the inmost of the heart of Christ; it has neither seed nor parent on earth, therefore the Lord challenges it as his own (2 Corinthians 12:9): "The Lord said to me, My grace is sufficient for you." (2 Timothy 2:1) "The grace that is in Christ Jesus." (1 Corinthians 15:10) "The grace of God." (2 Corinthians 13:14) "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:15) "He called me by his grace." If we could engage the grace of God, or prevent it, then grace should be our birth; but grace is not essential to angels. It's a doubt whether any creature can be capable by nature of any possibility natural not to sin; it is much to know the just owner of grace — who begot it? It came out of the eternal womb and bowels of Jesus Christ.

Question: But are there no preparations either of nature or at least of grace going before saving grace, and the soul's being drawn to Christ?

Answer: That we may come to consider preparations or previous qualifications to conversion, let us consider whether Christ coming to the soul has need of an usher.

Assertion 1. Dispositions going before conversion come under a fourfold consideration: 1. As [reconstructed: efficient] causes, so some imagine them to be. 2. As materially and subjectively they dispose the soul to receive grace. 3. Formally or morally, either as parts of conversion, or moral preparations having a promise of conversion annexed to them. 4. As means in reference to the final cause, or to the Lord's end in sending these before; and what is said of these may have some truth proportionally in a church's low condition or humiliation, before they be delivered. We may also speak here of dispositions going before the Lord's renewed drawing of sinners already converted, after a fall, or under desertion (Song of Solomon 1): "Draw me, we will run."

Assertion 2. No man but Pelagians, Arminians, and such do teach that if any shall improve their natural abilities to the uttermost, and stir up themselves in good earnest to seek the grace of conversion, and Christ the wisdom of God, they shall certainly, and without miscarrying, find what they seek. 1. Because no man — not the finest and sweetest nature — can engage the grace of Christ, or with his penny or sweating, earn either the kingdom of grace or glory, whether by way of merit of condignity or congruity (Romans 9:16): "So then, it is not in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but of God that shows mercy." (1 Timothy 1:9) "Who has saved us, and called us, with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began." So (Ephesians 2:1-5), (Titus 3:3-5), (Ezekiel 16:4-10). (2.) Because there is no shadow of any engagement of promise on God's part, or any word for it: "Do this by the strength of nature, and grace shall be given to you." 3. Nor are we ashamed to say with the Scripture, it is as impossible to storm heaven, or make purchase of Christ, by the strength of nature, as for the dead man to take his grave in his two arms, and rise and lay death by him, and walk. Nor does this impossibility free the sinner from guiltiness and rebukes. 1. Because it is a sinfully contracted inability, except we would deny original sin. 2. It's voluntary in us, and the bondage that we love. 3. The Scripture both calls it impossibility, and also rebukes it as sinful (John 6:44), (Romans 8:6-8), (Ephesians 2:1-3, 11-13), (Ephesians 4:17-19), (Ephesians 5:8).

Asser. 3. All preparations even wrought in us, by the common and general restraining grace of God, can have no effective influence to produce our conversion, from the Scriptures alleged; for then should we be called, saved, and quickened, when we are dead in sin, foolish, disobedient, and enemies to God, [illegible], and [illegible], according to our works of righteousness which we had done, contrary to (Ephesians 2:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:3). (2.) Then common general gifts might also engage Christ's free grace. 3. Men might prevene grace, and forestall Christ and his merits, which overturns the foundation of the Gospel, and cries down Christ and free grace.

Asser. 4. All these foregoing endeavors and sweatings being void of faith, cannot please God (Hebrews 11:6). Those who act in the strength of them, are yet in the flesh, and not in the Spirit, and so can do nothing acceptable to God, being yet out of Christ (Romans 8:8; John 15:4, 5, 6). And the tree being corrupt, the fruit must be sour, and naught; humiliation, sorrow for sin, displeasure with ourselves, that go before conversion, can be no formal parts of conversion, nor any essential limbs, members or degrees of the new creature; nor so much as a stone or pin of the new building. Divines call them, gradus ad rem, initium materiale conversionis; non gradus in re, nec initium formale: for parts of the building remain in the building; when the house is come to some perfect frame, all those bastard pieces, coming not from the new principle the new heart, Christ formed in the soul, are cast out as unprofitable. Paul, when he meets with Christ, casts off his silks and satins, that he was lordly of while he was a Pharisee, as old rags, loss and dung, and acts now with far other principles and tools. It's all new work, after another sampler; heaven works in him now.

Asser. 5. Those are not moral preparations which we perform before conversion, nor have they any promise of Christ annexed to them; as, He that is humbled under sin, shall be drawn to Christ: He that wishes the Physician, shall be cured, and called to repentance: we read of no such promise in the word. 2. A man not in Christ, is without the sphere or element of Christ, at the wrong side of the door of the sheepfold, he is not in Emmanuel's land; and all the promises of God are in Christ, indeed and Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20). The whole stock of Gospel-promises are put in Christ, as the first subject; and believers have them from Christ, at the second hand. Christ keeps, as the true Ark, the book of the Testament, the believers' Bible. It's true, the new heart is promised to the elect, even while they are not in Christ, but they cannot make claim to that promise till they be first in Christ: but those promises are made, in a special manner, to Christ, as to the head of the redeemed, to be dispensed by Christ, to those only whom the Father gave him before time. And as the promises are peculiar to Christ, so the persons and grace promised, both the one and the other, are due to Christ, and result from the Head, to those who in God's decree only shall be members; as righteousness, life eternal, and perseverance, are made to those that are members. 3. Many run, and obtain not (1 Corinthians 9:24, 25, 26). Many strive to enter in, and shall not be able (Luke 13:24). Many lay a foundation, and are not able to finish (Luke 14:29). Many hunt, and catch nothing: many have storms of conscience, as Cain, and Judas, who go never one step further. When therefore Antinomians impute to us, that we teach, that to desire to believe, is faith: to desire to pray, is prayer, they foully mistake; for raw desires, and wishes after conversion, and Christ, are to us no more conversion, and the soul's being drawn to Christ, than Esau's weeping for the blessing, was the blessing; or Balaam's wish to die the death of the righteous, was the happy end of such as die in the Lord. But the sincere desires and good will of justified persons, are accepted of the Lord, for the deed: and when Christ pronounces such blessed as hunger for righteousness, we say, in that sense, a sincere desire to pray, and believe, is materially, and by concomitancy, a neighbor, and near of kin to believing, and praying. A virtual or seminal intention to pray, believe, love Christ, do his will, is in the seed, praying, believing; when the intention is supernatural, and of the same kind with the act; as the seed is the tree: we say not so of natural intentions and desires. As Abraham's sincere intention to offer his son, was the offering of his son; the widow's casting in her mite, was, in her honest desire, the casting in of all that she had; certainly, not all simply, that had been against charity toward herself: but (2) single desires, unfeigned aims, weigh as much with Christ, as actions, in their reality. So we say many are, in affections, martyrs, who never die nor suffer loss for Christ; because nothing is wanting on the part of such saints, thus disposed, but that God call them to it. So Abraham offered his son Isaac to God; because Abraham did all on his part, and he was not the cause, why he was not offered and made an actual sacrifice to God; but God's countermand and his forbidding was the cause, and nothing else.

Assertion 6. The humiliation and sorrow for sin, and desire of the physician, by way of merit, or 2. by way of a moral disposition, having the favor of a Gospel-promise, do no more render a soul nearer to Christ and saving grace, than the want of these dispositions; for as a horse, or an ape, though they come nearer to some shadow of reason, and to man's nature, than the stork, or the ass, or than things void of life, as stones and the like; yet as there is required the like omnipotency to turn an ape into a man, as to make a stone a son of Abraham; so the like omnipotency of grace is required to turn an unhumbled soul into a saved and redeemed saint, as to turn a proud Pharisee into a saint. And merit is as far to seek in the one, as the other. So an unconverted sinner, though some way humbled, if the Lord of free grace should convert him, were no less obliged to free grace, and no less from laying any tie or bands of merits, or obligation, by way of promise, on Christ, for his conversion, than a stone made a believing son of Abraham, should be in the same case of conversion. And 3. the humbled soul, for ought he knows, (I speak of legal humiliation) has no more any Gospel-title or promise that saving grace shall be given to him, even of mere grace, upon condition of his humiliation, or external hearing, or desire of the physician, than the proud Pharisee. Yet as the body framed and organized is in a nearer disposition to be a house to receive the soul, than a stone, or a block; so is a humbled and dejected soul, such as cast-down Saul, and the bowed-down jailer, and those that were pricked in their hearts (Acts 2) in the moment before their conversion were nearer to conversion, and in regard of passive and material dispositions made by the Law-work, readier to receive the impression and new life of Christ formed in them, than the blaspheming Jews (Acts 13) and the proud Pharisees, who despised the counsel of God, and would not be baptized (Luke 7:30). There be some preparatory colors in dying of cloth, as blue, that dispose the cloth for other colors more easily; so is it here: And a fish that has swallowed the bait, and is in the bosom of the net, is nearer being taken, than a fish free and swimming in the ocean; yet a fish may break the net, and cut the angle, and not be taken. A legally-suited man may be not far from the Kingdom of God (Mark 12:34) and yet never enter in. And those same dispositions, in relation to God's end in saving the elect, are often means, and disposing occasions, fitting souls for conversion: though some be like a piece of gold lying in the dirt, yet it is both true metal, and has the King's stamp on it, and is of equal worth with that which goes current in the market. So, in regard of God's eternal election, many are in the way of sin, and not converted as yet, notwithstanding all the luster of foregoing preparations, though they be as truly the elect of God, as either those that are converted, indeed or glorified in heaven; yet their preparations do lead them, in regard of a higher power, (that they see not) to saving grace. And for anything revealed to us, God ordinarily prepares men by the Law, and some previous dispositions, before they be drawn to Christ. I dare not peremptorily say, that God uses no Royal prerogative, or no privileges of Sovereignty, in the conversion of some who find mercy between the water and the bridge; indeed, I think that Christ comes to some like a roe, or a young hart, skipping and leaping over hills and mountains, and passes over his own set line, and snatches them out of hell, without these preparations; at least, he works them suddenly: And I see no inconvenience, but as in God's ways of nature, he can make dispensations to himself, so in the ways of grace, we cannot find him out. However, sure of crabbed and knotty timber he makes new buildings; and it is very base and untoward clay that Christ, who makes all things new, cannot frame a vessel of mercy of. To change one species or kind of a creature into another, a lion into a lamb, and to cause the wolf and the lamb to dwell together, and the leopard to lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child to lead them, is the proper work of Omnipotency, whatever be the preparations, or indisposition of sinners.

Assertion 7. Not any Protestant divines, I know, make true repentance a work of the law, going before faith in Christ. 1. The law speaks not one word of repentance; but says, either do, or die. Repentance is an Evangelical ingredient in a saint. 2. Christ was made a Prince, and exalted to give repentance (Acts 5:31), and the law as the law, has not one word of Christ, though it cannot contradict Christ, except we say, that there be two contradictory wills in Christ, which were blasphemy; but some dispositions before [reconstructed: conversion], I conceive Antinomians yield to us. For one says, speaking of the manner of his conversion: One main thing, I am sure, was to get some soul-saving comfort, that moved me to reveal my troubled conscience to godly ministers, and not in general to allay my trouble. Yet I can make good from Scripture, that this desire can be in no unconverted soul; a physician that mistakes the cure doctrinally, will prove a cozening comforter. And another says: The persons capable of justification are such, as truly feel what lost creatures they are in themselves, and in all their works: this is all the preparative condition that God requires on our part, to this high and heavenly work, for hereby is a man truly humbled in himself, of whom God speaks, saying — I dwell with him that is of a humble spirit, etc. To make persons capable of justification, here is required a true feeling that they are lost in themselves, and in all their works. But this can be no preparative condition of justification, as Eaton says, because true feeling must follow faith, not go before it. And 2. true feeling is proper to justified persons; nothing going before justification, and so, which is found in unjustified persons, can be proper to justified persons only. 3. Antinomians say, sinners as sinners, and consequently all sinners are to believe justification in Christ, without any foregoing preparation. This man says, prepared and feeling persons that are sensible of sin, are only capable of justification. 4. To truly feel a lost condition, cannot be all the preparative condition, for the word has annexed no promise of justification to the unjustified, who shall feel his lost condition. For the place (Isaiah 57) speaks of a justified sinner, not of an unjustified, who is only prepared for justification. 1. Because God dwells in this humbled soul, then he must be justified and converted (Ephesians 3:17): that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith. 2. This is a liver by faith, and so justified; the just shall live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38). And he must live by faith, whom the high and lofty One revives.

Objection 1. But to bid a troubled soul be humbled for sin, and pray, and set upon duties, and speak nothing of Christ to them; whereas poor souls cannot pray in that condition, is to teach them to seek righteousness in themselves.

Answer 1. Satan cannot say, that we teach any to set on duties, and to silence Christ's strength and grace, by which only duties may be done. 2. To bid them set on duties, as their righteousness before God, and as the way to find rest and peace for their souls, and that speaking nothing of Christ, we disclaim as Antichristian and Pharisaical. 3. It is no argument, but the Arminian objection against free grace, not to bid a troubled soul pray, because he cannot pray without the Spirit, for Peter (Acts 3) bids Simon Magus, who was in the gall of bitterness, pray, yet without the Spirit, he could not pray. Antinomians exhort troubled souls, though not converted, to believe in Christ: yet they are as unable to believe without the Spirit, as to pray without the Spirit. 4. To bid them set on Evangelical duties, without trusting in them, that is, to feel their lost condition, to despair of salvation in themselves, to look far off to Christ, to desire him, are the set way that Christ walks in, to fit us for saving grace.

Objection 2. Despair of salvation in myself, is a part of faith, so you exhort the troubled in mind at first to believe.

Answer. Not so: Judas and Cain both despaired of salvation in themselves, yet had they no part of saving faith. It's impossible that any can rely on Christ while they leave resting on false bottoms; faith is a sailing and a swimming, ships cannot sail on mountains, it's impossible to swim on dry land; as it is impossible to have a soul, and not to have a love; so we cannot have a love to lie by us, as useless; but a lover we must have, and Christ's work of conversion is orderly; as first to plow, and pluck up, so then to sow and plant; and first, to take the soul off old lovers. We are on a way of gadding to seek lovers (Jeremiah 2:[reconstructed: 26]). On a high and lofty mountain to set our bed (Isaiah 57:7). God must strew thorns and briars in our love-bed, and take Ephraim off his idols (Hosea 14:6), and from riding on horses, and make the soul as white and clean paper, that Christ may print a new lover on it. Therefore it's young mortification in the blossom, to give half a refusal to all old lovers; this is Christ's aim (Song of Solomon 4:8): Come from the lions' dens, and the mountains of leopards with me.

Objection 3. Desires to pray and believe, being sometimes cold, sometimes none at all, cannot satisfy a troubled soul. I must have besides desires, endeavors: and desires to desire, and sorrow, because I cannot sorrow for sin, are but legal works; not such as are required in a broken heart.

Answ. Desires going before conversion are nothing less than satisfactory, nor are they such as can calm a storming conscience: he knows not Christ, who dreams that a wakened conscience can be calmed with anything less than the blood of Jesus Christ, that speaks better things than the blood of Abel. Never Protestant divines promise soul-rest in preparations that are wrought by the law. If Antinomians can give soul-rest to troubled consciences, by all the promises of the Gospel, and raise up the spirits of Judas, or Cain to found comfort, let them be doing; indeed, or to weak afflicted souls: while the Spirit blows right down from the Advocate of sinners, at the right hand of God, we much doubt. Sure there is a lock on a troubled conscience, that the Gospel-letter, or the tongue of man or angel can be no key to open. Christ has reserved a way of his own to give satisfaction to afflicted spirits. But the question is now, supposing you deal with unconverted men, whether or no you are not: first, to convince them of the curses of the law to come on them, to humble them, and so to chase them to Christ; and if to bid them be humbled, and know their dangerous condition, the state of damnation; and set to these preparatory duties, be to teach them to seek righteousness in themselves. We answer no.

Object. 4. If we preach wrath to believers, we must either make them believe they lie under that wrath, or no; if they be not under that wrath, we had as good hold our tongues, if we say, if they commit these and these sins, they are damned, and except they perform such and such duties, and except they walk thus and thus holily, and do these and these good works, they shall come under wrath, or at least, God will be angry with them; what do we in this, but abuse the Scriptures? We undo all that Christ has done, we [reconstructed: belie] God, and tell believers that they are under a covenant of works. —I would have wrath preached to believers, that they may abstain from sin, because they are delivered from wrath, not that they may be delivered from wrath; for God has sworn, (Isaiah 54) as the world shall be no more destroyed with waters, so he will be no more wrath with his people.

Answ. 1. We are to make believers know if they believe not, and walk not worthy of Christ, in all holy duties; their faith is a fancy, and a dead faith, and the wrath of God abides on them, and they are not believers. 2. Though they be believers, wrath must be preached to them, and is preached to them everywhere in the New Testament; as death (Romans 6:21-22), damnation (Romans 14:23), the wrath of God (Ephesians 5:6), condemnation (2 Thessalonians 1:8), perdition, flaming fire, eternal fire (1 Corinthians 3:17), (1 Corinthians 11:32, 34), (Jude 7-8), (1 Timothy 6:9), (1 Corinthians 16:22), to the end they may make sure their calling and election. 3. What is this, but to make a mock of all the threats of the Gospel? For by this argument, the threats are not to be preached to the elect before their conversion, except we would make them believe a lie, that they are reprobates, and under wrath, when they are under no wrath at all, but from eternity were delivered from wrath, nor should the Gospel-threats be preached to reprobates. Why? Show me one word where pastors are bidden tell men they are to believe, they are reprobates, and under eternal wrath, peremptorily, except we know them to have sinned against the Holy Ghost. 4. Nor is deliverance from wrath to be believed as absolutely by us; whether we believe and walk worthy of Christ, or do no such thing, but walk after the flesh as we are to believe the world shall never be destroyed with waters; that is, a comparison to strengthen the people's weak faith. Else I retort it thus, whether the world believe in Christ, or not, they shall never be drowned with water, and that we are to believe absolutely. Then by this reason, whether men believe on Christ, or no, there is no condemnation, or wrath to be feared. The contrary is expressly (John 3:18, 36). I take the mystery to be this; Antinomians would have no moral, no Ceremonial Law preached at all; and therefore one of them writes expressly. 1. That there be no commandments under the Gospel. 2. No threats or penalties at all. 3. That the whole Law of Moses Moral, as well as Ceremonial, is abrogated under the Gospel. That is a merry life.

Object. 5. Other preachers bid the troubled soul be sorry for sin, lead a better life, and all shall be well.

Answ. Such as lead not men to Christ, with their sorrow for sin, or to any good life, that is not, or fits not for the life of faith, are none of ours, but the Antinomians.

Object. 6. But others bid the troubled soul believe, but he must first seek in himself qualifications, or conditions, but this is to will them to walk in the light of their own sparks.

Answ. If to bid men abstain from flagitious sins, and from seeking glory of men, that are both neck-breaks of faith (John 5:44), and bring men under eternal displeasure, both before, and after we believe, be to walk in the light of our own sparks; then when the Lord forbids these in his Law, and commands both the believer and unbeliever, the contrary virtues he must counsel the same with us. To believe and not be humbled, and despair of salvation in yourself, is to presume, he that believes right is cast on that broken board, like a ship-broken man, either must I cast myself on the Rock Christ, or then drown eternally and perish: the unjust steward was at, (what shall I do) before he came to a wise resolution; to go the road way that Christ leads all believers, is not to walk in the light of our own sparks. It's one thing to seek qualifications of ourselves, trusting in them; and another thing to seek qualifications in ourselves, as preparatory duties wrought by Christ's grace; the former we disclaim, not the latter.

Objection 7. I will relate my own experience. First, when I was minded to make away myself, for my sin, the Lord sent into my mind this word: I have loved you with an everlasting love. Ah, thought I then, has God loved me with such an everlasting love, and shall I sin against such a God? 2. Many doubts and fears arose from the examination of myself; I was afraid of being deluded. 3. The promise (Isaiah 55:1) did sweetly stay my heart; Christ in his ordinances witnessed to me that he was mine. 4. I went on for some time full of joy. 5. I was in fears again, that I could not pray, but I had a promise: I will fulfill the desires of them that fear me, etc.

Answer. The method of the conversion of a deluded Antinomian is no rule to others. 2. Nor do I think that God keeps one way with all, especially when this [reconstructed: man's first step] is from nature, and thoughts of self-murder, up to the Lamb's book of life, the secret of eternal election in the [reconstructed: breast] of God: I have loved you with an eternal love. How did the Author know this to be God's voice from a qualification in his soul? It kept him from self-murder. You see qualifications in ourselves, which the Author says is the way of Legal Preachers, are required in any that believe. 2. It is utterly false that the Gospel-faith commanded to all the Elect and Reprobate is the apprehension of God's eternal love to me in particular; the Scripture says no such thing. Experience contrary to Scripture can be no leading rule. So the Antinomian way of conversion is that every soul troubled for sin, Elect or Reprobate, is immediately, without any foregoing preparations, or humiliation, or work of the law, to believe that God loved him with an everlasting love. A manifest lie, for so Reprobates are to believe a lie as the first Gospel-truth. This is, I confess, a honey-way, and so evangelical, that all the damned are to believe that God did bear to them the same everlasting good will and love he had in heart toward Jacob. 2. All Reprobates may abstain from self-murder, out of this principle of the Lord's everlasting love of election, revealed immediately, at first without any previous signs or qualifications going before. 3. The Gospel we teach says eternal election is that secret in the heart of the Lamb, called his book; so as really God first loves and chooses the sinner to salvation, and we are blacked with hell, lying among the pots, till Christ takes us up, and washes, and licks the leopard spots off us; but to our sense and apprehension, we first love and choose him as our only liking, and then by our faith, and his love on us, we know he has first loved us with an everlasting love: but there are many turnings, windings, ups, and downs, before it comes to this. I have not heard of such an experience, that at the first, without any more ado, immediately, the Lord says, Come up here, I will cause you to read your name in the Lamb's book of life. The same Author says, Election is the secret of God, and belongs to the Lord (page 104), and shall the believing of the love of election to glory be the first medicine that you give to all troubled consciences, Elect and Reprobate? This is to quench the fire by casting in oil; but if Antinomians take two ways, one with the unconverted Elect troubled in conscience, another with unconverted Reprobates so troubled, we should be glad to hear these two new ways. 4. In the second place (he is so well acquainted with the way of the Spirit, as if through the casement of the cabinet-counsel of God he had seen and reckoned on his fingers all the steps of the stairs), he says he had many doubts and fears of being deluded; that is, he doubted if his faith was true and saving: for this is all the delusion to be feared upon self-examination; so page 24, chapter 2. But you may read his words, chapter 5, page 93: I find not any (says the same Author) in the whole course of Christ's preaching, or the disciples', when they preached to them to believe, asking the question whether they believed or no. Then it is likely this experience finds no warrant or precedent in the saints to whom Christ and the Apostles preached. 5. The sweet witnessing of the Spirit from (Isaiah 55:1), Ho, every one that thirsts, come to the waters, is Gospel-honey, but consider if there were no law-work preparing, no needle making a hole before Christ should sew together the sides of the wound. It is but a delusion. 1. Because (Isaiah 61:1), no whole-hearted sinners meet with Christ; none come at first laughing to Christ; all that come to Jesus for help come with the tear in their eye. 2. To come dry and withered to the waters (Isaiah 55:1) is the required preparation. 3. The gold in a beggar's purse in great abundance is to be suspected for stolen gold, because he labored not for it. This I say not because preparations, and sweatings, and runnings, that go before conversion, are merits, or such as deserve conversion, or that conversion is due to them. Antinomians impute this to us, but unjustly; I humbly conceive it not to be the doctrine of Luther, Calvin, or Protestants, which Libertines charge us with: that I may clear us in this, let these propositions speak for us.

Proposition 1. We cannot receive the Spirit by the preaching of the Law and covenant of works, but by the hearing of the promises of the Gospel (Galatians 3). The Law alone can chase men from Christ, but never make a new creature; nor can the letter of the Gospel without the Spirit do it.

Proposition 2. When we look for anything in ourselves, or think that an unrenewed man is a fitting person to purchase Christ, we bewilder ourselves, and vanish in foolishness: this wrong Libertines do us, from which we are as far as the East from the West.

Proposition 1. It is not our doctrine, but the weakness of sinners, and of the flesh, that we should be shy to Christ, and stand aloof from the physician, because of the desperate condition of our disease. This is, as if one should say, it is not fit for the naked to go to him who offers white linen to clothe him, nor that the poor should go to him, who would be glad, you would take his fine gold off his hand, or to say, set not a young plant, but let it lie above earth, till you see if it bears fruit. Unworthiness in the court of justice is a good plea, why Christ should cast us off; but unworthiness felt, though not savingly, is as good a ground to cast yourself on Christ, as poverty, want, and weakness, in place of a statute, and act of Parliament to beg, though the letter of the law forbid any to beg.

Proposition 4. Acting and doing though neither savingly, nor soundly, is not merit of grace, yet not contrary to grace; to obey the law of nature, to give alms, is not against grace. Libertines should not reject this, though it be not all, but a most poor all to engage Christ.

Proposition 5. Faith is a moral condition of life eternal, and wrought in us by the free grace of God. I never saw a contradiction between a condition wrought by irresistible grace and the gift, or free grace of life eternal; for life eternal given in the law, and Adam's doing and performing by the irresistible acting and assisting of God, are not contrary; yet the former was never merit, but grace; the latter was legal doing.

Proposition 6. We do receive the promise of willing and doing, wrought immediately in us, according to the good will and most free grace of Christ, and yet we are agents, and work under Christ.

Proposition 7. Luther (for I could fill a book with citations) Calvin, and all our Protestant divines, are for qualifications void of merit, or promise, before conversion, and for gracious conditions after conversion under the gospel. Antinomians belie Luther.

Proposition 8. Antinomians yield the preaching of the law, and preparations before conversion, and conditions after, and peace from signs of sanctification, etc.; yet they are to be reputed enemies to grace and holiness, and turn all sanctification in their imaginary faith and justification, of which they are utterly ignorant. Never an Antinomian knew rightly what free justification is.

Proposition 9. Immediate resting on Christ for all we do, and drawing of comfort from the testimony of a good conscience, are not contrary.

Proposition 10. Holiness idolized or trusted in, is to make Christ, the alone Savior, no Savior.

Proposition 11. God is not provoked to reprobate whom he elected from eternity, by new sins; yet is he displeased with David's adultery so far, as to correct him for it; and Solomon for his backsliding, with the rod of men.

Proposition 12. Works before justification please not God; but it follows not, that God keeps not such an order, as sense of sin, though not saving, should go before pardon and conversion; no more than because Adam's sin pleased not God, therefore it should not go before the Son's taking on our flesh. If we are not to do, nor act anything, before conversion, neither to hear, confer, know our sinful condition, nor be humbled for sin, despair of salvation in ourselves, because these are not merits before conversion, nor can they procure conversion to us; neither are we after conversion to believe, for believing cannot merit righteousness and life eternal, nor are we to hear, pray, be patient, rejoice in tribulation, for not any of these can procure life eternal to us: and why is not the doing of the one, as well as the other, a seeking righteousness in ourselves?

Proposition 13. The promise of Christ's coming in the flesh, (2.) and of giving a new heart, are absolute promises; the former requires no order of providence, but that sin go before redemption: the latter requires an order of providence, not of any gospel-promise, or merit, in any sort; there never was, never can be merit between a mere creature and God.

Proposition 14. There is no faith, no act of Christ's coin, or of the right stamp before justification.

Proposition 15. We are justified in Christ virtually, as in the public head, when he rose again and was justified in the Spirit. 2. In Christ, as his merits are [reconstructed: the] cause of our justification. 3. In Christ, apprehended by faith, formally, in the Scripture's sense, in the Epistle to the Romans and Galatians; not that faith is the formal cause, or any merit in justification, but because it lays hold on imputed righteousness, which is the formal cause of our justification. 4. We are justified in our own sense and feeling, not by faith alone, (because we may believe, and neither know that we believe, nor be sensible of our justification) but as we know that we believe; whether this knowledge results from the light of faith, or from signs, as means of our knowledge. 5. Justification by way of declaration to others, is not so infallible, as that the Scripture calls it justification, properly so named.

Objection 8. I was, sixthly, in hearing the word shined upon, by a sweet witnessing of the Spirit: But O how I did strive against this work! I was called upon, but I put away all promises of mercy from me; I may justly say, The Lord saved me, whether I would or no. Sometimes I was dead, and could not pray; sometimes so quickened, that I thought that I could have spent a whole night in prayer to God.

Answer 1. If the faith of the eternal love of free election was his first conversion, no wonder he was shined upon with light. But it was not Scripture-light, but wild-fire; for the method of Christ's drawing in the Scripture is not Enthusiastical, up at secret election at first. There is no doubt we put Christ away from us after conversion (Song of Solomon 5:1), and that so Christ saves us against our will. That the principle of saving is free grace; 2. that free will is neither free nor willing till Christ first draw us, till he renew and work upon the will: But I fear Antinomians will have free will a block to do nothing at all. If Christ will let me sin, (say they) let him look to it upon his honor be it. And, Faith justifies an unbeliever; that is, that faith that is in Christ, justifies me who have no faith in myself. And, It is legal to say we act in the strength of Christ. And, To take delight in the holy service of God, is to go a whoring from God. And, A man may not be exhorted to any duty, because he has no power to do it. And, The Spirit acts most in the Saints, when they endeavor least. And, In the conversion of a sinner, the faculties of the soul and working thereof are destroyed, and made to cease. Indeed, says the Bright Star, chapter [illegible], page 20. The naked influence of God annihilates all the acts of the soul. Chapter 4, page 28. Boiling desires after Christ, savors too much of action — hinders the soul to be perfectly illuminated, and to arise to the rosy kisses and chaste embraces of her Bridegroom. See Theologica Germanica, chapter 5, pages 9-10, and In place of them the Holy Ghost works. And this author says, The Spirit of adoption works not freely, when men are in bondage to some outward circumstances of worship, as time, place, or persons, that they cannot pray but at such hours, or in such places, etc. Protestant divines teach no such thing. But his aim is to set on foot the Familists' doctrine, That we are not bound to keep a constant course of prayer in our families, or privately, unless the Spirit stir us up to do so. Saltmarsh says, he thought he could have spent a whole night in prayer; but 1. whether he did so or no he expresses not, lest he should contradict his brethren the Familists of New England, who teach, That to take delight in the service of God, is to go a whoring from God. 2. It would be asked, Whether this fit was on him before, or after his conversion? To say before, would seem a delusion, or a preparation of eminence: if after conversion, its to no purpose, except to be a mark of a converted man. And Antinomians have no stomach for marks: nor does it belong to the way of his conversion, which he relates. It is true, we cannot tie the Spirit to our hours; but then all the Lord's Day worship, all set hours at morn or at night, in private or in families, set times and hours for the church's praying, preaching, [reconstructed: hearing], conference, reading, were unlawful; for we cannot stint the Spirit to a set time, nor are we tied to time, except to the Christian Sabbath. Some may say, It is no charity to impute Familists' errors of New England to Antinomians here. Answer. Seeing Saltmarsh and others here do openly own Antinomian doctrine as the way of Free Grace, they are to be charged with all those, till they clear themselves, or refute those blasphemies; which they have never done to this day.

Objection 9. I seldom desired pardon of sin, till I were fitted for mercies; but now I see we are pardoned freely. O rest not in your own duties.

Answer. To desire pardon of sin before we be fitted for pardon, by no divinity is contrary to free pardon, though such desires be fruitless, as coming from no gracious principles.

Assertion 8. To believe and take Christ because I am a needy sinner, is one thing; and to believe, because I am fitted for mercy and humbled, is another thing: this latter we disclaim. Preparations are no righteousness of ours; nor is it our doctrine to desire any to rest on preparations, or to make them causes, foundations, or formal media, formal means of faith: they hold forth the mere order and method of grace's working; not to desire pardon, but in God's way of foregoing humiliation, is nothing contrary, but sweetly subordinate to free pardon. And to cure too suddenly wounds, and to sweeten secure and proud sinners, and sweeten and oil a Pharisee, and to reach the Mediator's blood to an unhumbled soul, is but to turn the Gospel into a charm; and when, by magic, you have drawn all the blood out of the sick man's veins, then to mix his blood with sweet poison, and cause him drink, and swell, and say you have made him healthy and fat. Now Peter (Acts 2) poured vinegar and wine at first on the wounds of his hearers, when he said, 'You murdered the Lord of glory'; and they were pricked in their heart. This is the law's work (Romans 3), to condemn and stop the sinner's mouth. And you cannot say that Peter failed in curing too suddenly; because he preached first the law, to wound and prick them, for that they crucified the Lord of glory, before he preached the Gospel of belief and baptism. And the Lord rebuking Saul from heaven, convincing him of persecution, casting him down to the ground, striking him blind, while he trembled: and the Lord's dealing with the jailer was fouler work, than proposing and pouring the Gospel oil and honey of freely imputed righteousness in their wounds at the first; and a close unbottoming them of their own righteousness. And the Lord's way of justifying Jews and Gentiles, is a law-way, as touching the order (Romans 3), having proved all to be under sin (verses 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18), he says in verse 19: 'Now we know that whatever things the law says, it says to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God.' Indeed, if they be convinced of sin by the Spirit, and so converted, and yet under trouble of mind, a pound of the Gospel, for one ounce weight of the law, is fit for them. But Antinomians err, not knowing the Scriptures, in dreaming that converted souls are so from under the law, that they have no more to do with the law, no more than angels and glorified saints; so as the letter of the Gospel does not lead them, but some immediate acting of the Spirit. And that, 2, there is no commandment under the Gospel, but to believe only. That, 3, mortification and new obedience, as Mr. Town and others say, is but faith in Christ, and not abstinence from worldly lusts that war against the soul. 4. That the Gospel commands nothing, but persuades rather, that we may be libertines and serve the flesh, and believe, and be saved. 5. That God has made no covenant with us under the Gospel; the Gospel is all promise, that we shall be carried as mere patients to heaven, in a chariot of love. 6. That the way is not straight and narrow, but Christ has done all to our hands. 7. That it is legal, not Gospel-conversion, to keep the soul so long under the law for humiliation, contrition and confession, and then bring them to the Gospel: whereas we teach, that the law purely and unmixed, without all Gospel, is not to be used as a diet-potion, only to purge, never to let the unconverted hear one Gospel-promise. It is true, Peter preached not law to Cornelius, nor Philip to the Eunuch, nor Ananias to Paul; but these were all converted beforehand. We think the unconverted man knows neither contrition nor confession aright. But I was more confirmed that the way of Antinomians is for the flesh, not for the Gospel, when I read that Mr. Crispe expounding confession (1 John 1), makes it no humble acknowledging that the sinner in person has sinned, and so is under wrath eternal, if God should judge him; but he makes it a part of faith, by which a sinner believes and confesses, that Christ paid for his sin, and he is pardoned in him. Sure, confession in Scripture is no such thing (Ezra 10:1; Nehemiah 9:2); in Scripture, confession of sins is opposed to covering of sin, and not forsaking of it (Proverbs 28). Joshua sought not such a confession of Achan. James commands not such a confession. Daniel's, Ezra's, Peter's confession were some other thing (John 1:20; Acts 19:18; Hebrews 11:13; Proverbs 28:13; 1 John 4:2; Mark 3:6; Joshua 7:19; Daniel 9:4; Romans 10:10; 1 Timothy 6:13; Psalm 32:5; James 5:16; Leviticus 5:5; Leviticus 16:21; Leviticus 26:40; 2 Chronicles 6:24), in which places, faith and confession of sins cannot be one; nor are we justified by confession, as by faith. But these men have learned to pervert the Scriptures.

Assertion 9. There are more vehement stirrings and wrestlings in a natural spirit under the law; as the bullock is most unruly at the first yoking: and green wood casts most smoke. Paul (Romans 7) was slain by the law; but this makes more way for Christ: and though it does not morally soften, and facilitate the new birth; yet it ripens the out-breaking. Preparations are penal, to subdue; not moral, to deserve or merit; nor conditional, to engage Christ to convert, or to facilitate conversion.

Assertion 10. There are no preparations at all required before redemption (1 Timothy 1:15; Romans 5:8). But there is a far other order in the working of conversion: those who confound the one with the other, speak ignorantly of the ways of grace; for though both be of mere grace, without wages or merit, yet we are mere patients in the one, not in the other. Saltmarsh and Antinomians argue from the one to the other, most ignorantly.

Assertion 11. That the promises of the Gospel are held forth to sinners, as sinners, has a twofold sense. 1. As that they be sinners, and all in a sinful condition to whom the promises are held forth. This is most true and sound. The Kingdom of grace is a Hospital and Guest-house of sick ones, fit for the art and mercy of the Physician Christ. 2. So as they are all immediately to believe and apply Christ and the promises, who are sinners; and there be nothing required of sinners, but that they may all immediately challenge interest in Christ, after their own way and order, without humiliation, or any law-work. In this sense, it is most false, that the promises are held forth to sinners, as sinners; because then Christ should be held forth to all sinners, Americans, Indians, and sinners who never, by the least rumor, heard one word of Christ. 2. Peter desires not Simon Magus to believe that God had loved him, in Christ Jesus, with an everlasting love; nor does the Gospel-promise offer immediately soul-rest to the hardened, and proud sinner, wallowing in his lusts, as he is a hardened sinner; nor is the acceptable year of the Lord proclaimed, nor beauty and the oil of joy offered immediately to any, but to those who are weary and laden, and who mourn in Zion, and wallow in ashes (Matthew 11:28-30; Isaiah 61:1-3). It is true, to all within the visible Church, Christ is offered without price or money; but to be received after Christ's fashion and order, not after our order; that is, after the soul is under self-despair of salvation, and in the sinner's month, when he has been with child of hell. I grant, in regard of time, sinners cannot come too soon to Christ, nor too early to Wisdom; but in regard of order, many come too soon, and unprepared. Simon Magus too soon believed. Saltmarsh says, He mis-believed too soon; for he falsely believed: none can believe too soon. Answer. To believe too soon, is to mis-believe; and Saltmarsh and Antinomians teach us the method of false-believing, when they teach us too soon to believe; that is, to believe that God has loved you (be you what you will, Simon Magus, Judas, or others) with an everlasting love; for that is the Antinomian faith. Simon Magus is without any foregoing humiliation, or sense of sin, or self-despair, to believe he was no less written in the Lamb's book of life from eternity, than Peter; and this he cannot believe soon enough. I say, neither soon or late ought a reprobate to believe any such thing. A covetous man, who had great possessions, had not yet bid farewell to his old god Mammon, when he came to Christ; therefore he departed sad from Christ. Another came before he had buried his father; and some come (Luke 14:28-29) before they advise with their strength, and what Christ will cost them. I desire I be not mistaken: none can be thoroughly fitted for Christ, before he come to Christ; but it is as true, some would buy the pearl before they sell all they have, which is not the wise merchant's part: and they err foully who argue thus, If I were not a sinner, or if my sins were less heinous, and so I were less unworthy, I would come to Christ and believe; but ah, I am so grievous an offender, and so unworthy, that I cannot go. Their antecedent is true, but the consequence is worthless and wicked. It is true, I am sick, and good that I both say and feel that I am sick; but, ergo, I cannot, I will not go to the Physician, that is wicked logic, and the contrary consequence is good: whereas the other consequence is a seeking of righteousness in ourselves. 2. Another false ground is here laid by Libertines, that we place worth and righteousness in preparations; or, 2. that preparations make us less unworthy, and less sinners. But preparations are not in any sort to us money nor hire; we value them as dung, and sin; yet such sin, as sickness is in relation to medicine. 2. Preparations remove not one dram, or twentieth part of an ounce of guiltiness, or sin. Christ, in practice of free grace, not by law, indeed not by promise, gives grace to the thus prepared, and often he denies it also: indeed, and there is a good hour appointed by God, when Christ comes. Other physicians take diseases so early as they can, lest the malice of the disease overcome art; but Christ lets sin of purpose ripen, to the eleventh hour, often to the twelfth hour: He knows his art can overtake and outrun seven devils, most easily. The omnipotency of grace knows no such thing, as more or less pardonable in sin; indeed of purpose to heighten grace, that sinfulness may contend with grace, and be overcome, the Gentiles must be like corn ripe, white and yellow, before the sickle cuts them down, and they be converted (John 4:35). The boil must be ripe before it breaks; the sea full before it turns; therefore the Lord appoints a time, and sets a day for conversion (Titus 3:3). We ourselves were sometime [illegible], mad; but the Lord has a gracious [illegible], when; When the kindness and man-love of God appeared, he saved us. And (Jeremiah 50:4), In those days, and at that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah, going and weeping, they shall seek the Lord. (Zechariah 12:11) And in that day, there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo. It is good to lie and wait at the door and posts of Wisdom's house, and to lie and attend Christ's tide, it may come in an hour that you would never have believed. O what depth of mercy, when for natural, or no saving-one-waiting, or upon a poor venture, What if I go to Christ, I can have no less than I have? beside any gracious intention the Lord saves, and the wind not looked for turns fair for a sea-voyage to heaven, in the Lord's time.

Assertion 12. The ground moving Christ to renew his love in drawing a fallen saint out of the pit, is the same that from heaven shined on him at the beginning. Love is an undivided thing; there are not two loves, or three loves in Christ, that which begins the good work, promotes it, even the same love which Christ has taken up to heaven with him, and there you find it before you, when you come there. 2. Some love-sickness goes before his return (Song of Solomon 3). I was but a little past, I found him whom my soul loves: the sky divides and rents itself, and then the sun is on its way to rise; the birds begin to sing, then the summer is near, the voice of the turtle is heard, then the winter is gone; when the affections grow warm, the well-beloved is upon a return. 3. You die for want of Christ; absence seems to be at the highest, when hunger for a renewed drawing in the way of comforting is great, and the sad soul, lowest, he will come at night, and sup, if he dine not. 4. Let Christ moderate his own pace; hope quietly waits; hope is not a shouting and a tumultuous grace. 5. Your disposition for Christ's return can speak much for a renewed drawing, as when the Church finds her own pace [reconstructed: slow], and prays, draw me, we will run; then he sends ushers before to tell that he will come. 6. Sick nights for the Lord's absence in not drawing, are most spiritual signs.

Antinomians believe, that all the promises in the Gospel, made upon conditions, to be performed by creatures, especially free will casting in its share to the work, smell of some grains of the law, and of obedience for hire, and that bargaining of this kind, cannot consist with free grace. And the doubt may seem to have strength in that our divines argue against the Arminian decree of election to glory, upon condition of faith and perseverance, foreseen in the persons so chosen, because then election to glory should not be of mere grace, but depend on something in the creature, as on a condition or motive; at least, if not as on a cause, work, or hire. But Arminians reply, the condition being of grace, cannot make anything against the freedom of the grace of election; because, so justification and glorification should not be of mere grace; for sure, we are justified and saved upon condition of faith, freely given us of God. The question then must be, whether there can be any conditional promises in the Gospel of grace, or whether a condition performed by us, and free grace can consist together. Antinomians say they, are contrary as fire and water.

Hence these positions for the clearing of this considerable question.

Position 1. The condition that Arminians fancy to be in the Gospel, can neither consist with the grace of election, justification, calling of grace, or crowning of believers with glory; this condition they say we hold, but they err: because it is a condition of hire, that they have borrowed from lawyers, such as is between man and man, ex causa onerosa, it is absolutely in the power of men to do, or not to do, and bows and determines the Lord and his free will, absolutely to this part of the contradiction, which the creature chooses, though contrary to the natural inclination, and antecedent will and decree of God, wishing, desiring, and earnestly inclining to the obedience and salvation of the creature. Now works of grace and infinite grace, flow from the bowels, and inmost desire of God, nothing without laying bonds, chains, or determination on the Lord's grace, or his holy will. Could our well-doing milk out of the breasts of Christ's free grace, or extrinsically determine the will or acts of free bounty; grace should not be grace. But without money or hire, the Lord gives his wine and milk (Isaiah 55:1; Ephesians 2:1-2; Ezekiel 16:5-7; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:3). (2.) Because such a condition is of work, not of grace; and so of no less law-debt and bargaining, than can be between man and man. And the party that fulfills the condition is 1. most free to forfeit his wages, by working, or not working, as the hireling, or laborer, in a vineyard; indeed or any merchant engaged to another, to perform a condition, of which he is lord and master, to do or not do. 2. He is no wise necessitated nor determined any way, but as the hire or wages do determine his will, who so works; but the wages being absolutely in his power to gain them, or lose them, determine his will; which cannot fall in the Almighty. 3. Such a condition performed by the creature, puts the creature to glory, but not in the Lord, but in himself (Romans 4:2). For if Abraham were justified by works, he has whereof to glory, but not before God. Indeed, Adam before the fall, and the elect angels, hold not life eternal by any such free condition of obedience as is absolutely referred to their free will, to do, or not to do; so our divines deny against Papists, with good warrant, the freehold of life eternal, by any title of merit. Sure, if God determines free will in all good and gracious acts, as I prove undeniably from Scripture. 2. From the dominion of providence. 3. The covenant between the Father and the Son Christ. 4. the intercession of Christ. 5. The promises of a new heart, and perseverance. 6. Our prayers to bow the heart to walk with God, and not to lead us into temptation. 7. The faith and confidence we have, that God will work in the saints to will, and to do to the end. 8. The praise and glory of all our good works; which are due to God only, etc. If God (I say,) determines free will to all good, even before, as after the entrance of sin into the world, and that of grace, (for this grace has place in law-obedience, in men and angels) then such a condition cannot consist with grace. For such a condition puts the creature in a state above the Creator, and all freedom in him.

Pos. 2. Evangelical conditions wrought in the elect, by the irresistible grace of God, and grace do well consist together. (John 5:24) Verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears my word, and believes in him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation: but is passed from death to life. (John 7:37) If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. (Acts 13:39) And by him, all that believe, are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified, by the Law of Moses. (Acts 16:30) The jailer says to Paul and Silas, what must I do to be saved? (verse 31) And they said, believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your household. There is an express condition required of the jailer, which he must perform, if he would be saved. And (Romans 10) look as a condition is required in the Law, (verse 5) For Moses describes the righteousness of the Law, that the man that does these things, shall live by them. So believing is required as a condition of the Gospel. (verse 6) But the righteousness which is of faith, etc. (verse 9) Says, that if you confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart, that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. (Romans 3:27-30), (chapter 4), (chapter 5) Faith is the condition of the Covenant of Grace, and the only condition of justification, and of the title, right, and claim that the elect have, through Christ to life eternal. Holy walking, as a witness of faith, is the way to the possession of the kingdom. As (Romans 2:6) Who will render to every man according to his deeds. (verse 7) To them who by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honor, and immortality, eternal life. (verse 8) To them that are contentious. — (verse 9) Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. (Matthew 25:34) Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. (verse 33) For I was hungry, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, etc. And let Antinomians say, we are freed from the Law, as a rule of holy walking, sure the Gospel and the Apostles command the very same duties in the letter of the Gospel, that Moses commanded in the letter of the Law, as that children obey their parents, servants their masters, that we abstain from murder, hatred of our brother, stealing, defrauding, lying, etc., that we keep ourselves from idols, swearing, strange gods. I do not say, that these duties, are commanded in the same way, in the Gospel, as in the Law. For, sure we are out of a principle of Evangelical love, to render obedience; and our obedience now is not legal, as commanded by Moses, in strict terms of law, but as perfumed, oiled, honeyed, with the Gospel-sense of remission of sins, the tender love of God in Christ. So that we justly challenge two extreme ways, both blasphemous as we conceive.

1. Arminians object to us, that which the Antinomians truly teach, to wit, that we destroy all precepts, commands, exhortations, and active obedience in the Gospel; and render men under the Gospel, mere blocks, and stones, which are immediately acted by the Spirit, in all obedience, and freed from the letter of both Law and Gospel, as from a legal bondage. This we utterly disclaim, and do protest, and beseech Antinomians, as they love Christ, and his truth, to clear themselves of this, which to us is vile Libertinism. And by this Arminians turn all the Gospel, in literalem gratiam, in a Law-Gospel, in mere golden letters, and sweet-honeyed commandments of Law-precepts, and will have the Law possible, justification by works, conversion by the power of free will, and moral persuasion, really without the mighty power of the Spirit and Gospel-grace, and receive the doctrine of merit, and set heaven and hell on new polls to be rolled about, as globes on these two poles, the unwilling and willing of free will, and they make grace to be sweet words of silk and gold. On the other hand, Antinomians do exclude words, letter-persuasions, our actions, conditions of grace, promises written or preached from the Gospel; and make the Spirit, and celestial raptures, immediate inspirations, the Gospel itself, and turn men regenerate into blocks. And how Mr. Den can be both an Antinomian, and loose us from the Law, and an Arminian, defending both universal atonement, and the resistible working of grace, and so subject us to the Law, and to the doctrine of merit, and make us lords of our own faith, and conversion to God; let him and his followers see to it. We go a middle way here, and do judge the Gospel to be an Evangelical command, and a promising and commanding Gospel, and that the Holy Ghost enables us to do, and the letter of the Gospel obliges us to do.

Pos. 3. The decree of election to glory, may be said to be more free and gracious in one respect, and justification, and glorification, and conversion, more free in another respect, and all the four, of mere free grace. For election, as the cause and fountain-grace is the great mother, the womb, the infinite spring, the bottomless ocean of all grace; and we say, effects are more copiously and eminently in the cause than in themselves; as water is more in the element and fountain, than in the streams; the tree more in the life, and sap of life, than in the branches. And conversion, and justification have more freedom, and more of grace, by way of extension, because good will stays within the bowels and heart of God, in free election, but in conversion, and justification, infinite love comes out, and here the Lord gives us the great gift, even himself, Christ, God, the darling, the delight, the only, only well-beloved of the Father, and he gives faith to lay hold on Christ, and the life of God, and all the means of life, in which there be many divided acts of grace (to speak so) which were all one in the womb of the election of grace.

Position 4. Conversion, justification, are free for election; and therefore election is more free, but all these as they are in God, are equally free, and are one simple good will. Though Christ justify and crown none, but such as are qualified with the grace of believing, yet believing is a condition that removes nothing of the freedom of grace. 1. Because it works nothing in the bowels of mercy, and the free grace of God; as a motive, cause, or moving condition, that does extract acts of grace out of God, only we may conceive this order, that grace of electing to glory stirs another wheel, (to speak so) of free love to give faith, effectual calling, justification, and eternal glory. 2. It is no hire, nor work at all, nor does it justify, as a work, but only lay hold on the Lord our righteousness.

Objection. There is more of God in election to glory than in giving of faith, or at least of Christ's righteousness, and eternal glory; therefore there must be more grace in the one, than in the other. The antecedent is thus proved; because God simply, and absolutely, may choose to glory Moses, Peter, or not choose them to glory, and here is liberty of contradiction, and freedom, in the highest degree: but having once chosen Moses and Peter to glory; if they believe, the Lord cannot but justify them, and crown them with glory; because his promise and decree does remove this liberty of contradiction, so as God cannot choose, but justify and glorify these that believe, both in regard of his immutable nature, who cannot repeal, what he has once decreed, and of his fidelity, in that he cannot but stand to his own word, and promise, in justifying and saving the ungodly that believe. Again, in election to glory, there is nothing of men, but all is pure free grace, no condition, no merit, no faith, no works required in the party chosen to glory; but in the justified there is more of man, before he can be justified and saved, he must hear, consider, be humbled, know the need he has of a Saviour, and believe, and without these he cannot be justified.

Answer 1. I deny, that liberty of contradiction belongs to the essence and nature of liberty. It is enough to make liberty, that 1. It proceeds not from a principle determined by nature, to one kind of action, so the sun is not free to give light. 2. That the principle be free of all foreign force, the malefactor goes not freely to the place of execution, when hauled to it. 3. That it proceed from deliberation, reason, election, and wisdom, seeing no essential connection, or necessary, or natural relation, between the action, and the end thereof of themselves, but such as may be dispensed with; if these three be, though there be a necessity, in some respect, from a free decree, and a free promise, though there be not liberty of contradiction, simply to do, or not to do, yet is not any degree, of the essence of liberty removed. I well remember, Doctor Jackson, denying all decrees in God, that sets the Almighty to one side of the contradiction, resembles God to the Pope, whose wisdom he commends in that the Pope's decrees, grants, laws, promises, are fast and loose, and all made with a reserve of after-wit, so as if the morrow's illumination be better, than the day's; while his life breathes in, and out, he may change and retract his will; so says he, Papa nunquam sibi ligat manus, the Pope ties all the world to himself by oaths, laws, promises; but that lawless beast is tied to none. Now the Scripture teaches us, that the decrees and counsels of God are surer, than mountains of brass and unchangeable, and that his promise cannot fail. But who dare say, when he executes his decrees, and fulfills his promise, that he forfeits or loses one inch, degree, or part of his essential liberty, God should then be less free to create the world, than if we suppose he had never decreed to create it, and yet does create it; as if the Lord's free decree lavished away, and should drink up, and waste any part of his natural freedom in his actions: or as if his faithfulness to make good what he promised, should render him lame, and dismember him of the fullness and freedom of his grace, and so the more faithful and true, the less gracious; and the more unchangeable in his counsels; the more fettered and chained, and the less free in all these actions, that he does according to the counsel of his will. A gross misconception: and I deny, that God is less free in the justifying, and crowning the believer, than in electing, and choosing him both to glory, and to faith. It may be men's decrees, and promises that are rash, and may be at the second, or third edition, like their books, corrected by a new-born wit, or because they aim at under-board-dealing, diminish of their liberty; but it is not so in the Almighty. When the Lord by a promise to men, makes himself debtor to his creature, and that of free grace, with one and the same infinite freedom of grace, he contracts the debt, and pays the sum; for so the freedom of infinite grace, should ebb and flow, as the seas, and ascend and descend as the sun; which I cannot conceive; the effects of free grace I grant; being created and finite things in men, are more or less according to the free dispensation of God.

Answer 2. It is no marvel, that there be more of men in justification and glorification, that are transient acts passing out of the creature, than in election to glory, that is an immanent and eternal act; and so I grant justification to be more conditional, than election: but if more gracious; that is the question: for the condition of grace, is a thing of free grace; indeed, we argue against the Arminian election that hangs upon a condition of free will's choosing, such as their faith is, and their perseverance; and from there we conclude, from such a condition, their election to glory cannot be of free grace, but in him that wills and runs: because man's will determining God's will to choose this man to glory, not this man, is a running will, and a mad, and a proud will, that will sit above grace.

Position 4. Though it be true, that grace is essentially in God, and in us by participation; yet it is false, that grace is not properly in us, but that faith, hope, repentance, and the like, that are in us, are gifts, not graces. For grace in us may be called a gift, in that it is freely given us; as a fruit of the grace and favor of election, and free redemption, which indeed is the only saving fountain-grace of God, but if grace be taken for a saving qualification, and a supernatural act, work, or quality, given freely of the Father through Christ, upon God's gracious intention, to cause us freely believe, repent, love Christ, rejoice in the hope of glory, work out our salvation in fear and trembling: so grace is not only in Christ, but in us properly, though Antinomians hold all saving grace to be properly in Christ, and that there is nothing inherent in a believer, that differentiates him from hypocrites, all the difference must be in Christ (say they.) 1. The word says, there was another Spirit in Caleb and Joshua, than was in the rest of the spies; therefore, there was some distinguishing saving grace in them. 2. (John 1:16) And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. When he ascended to heaven, he sent down the Holy Ghost, (John 14:17) he dwells in you, and shall abide in you. (John 16:13) He will guide you in all truth — he will show you things to come. So there is a Spirit of grace poured on the family of David (Zechariah 12:10), on the thirsty ground (Isaiah 44:3), a new heart, put in the midst of the covenanted people (Ezekiel 36:26), fear of God put in their hearts (Jeremiah 32:40; Jeremiah 31:33; 1 John 3:9). 3. There is grace in the saints, that denominates them gracious. (1 Corinthians 15:10) By the grace of God, I am that I am. (Galatians 2:20) I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, etc.

There is a great deceitfulness in our heart, in the matter of performed conditions, so soon as we have performed a condition, though wrought in us by mere grace, we hold out our hand, and cry, pay me, Lord, my wages, for I have done my work; so near of kin to our corrupt hearts, is the conceit of merit.

2. A second deceit is, when an obligation of obedience presses us, we overlook the condition, and fix our eyes on the promise, when we should eye the precept; and when it comes to the reward, when we should most look to the promise of free grace, then we eye the precept, and challenge debt, and forget grace.

3. When we are pressed with the supernatural duty of believing, and should look only to free grace, which only must enable us to that high work of believing, we look to ourselves, and complain; oh, I am not weary and laden, and therefore not qualified for Christ, and so we turn wickedly, and proudly wise, to shift ourselves of Christ; when we should look to ourselves, we look away from ourselves, to a promise of our wages, but our bad deservings, if looked to, would turn our eyes on our abominations, that we might eye free grace, and when we should eye free grace, we look to our sinful unfitness to believe, and come to Christ.

Use: Beware of false preparations, that you take them not for preparations, or for grace: For, 1. discretion (Mark 12:34) is not grace, but wings and sails to carry you to hell. 2. Profession is a deceiving preparation, it blossoms and laughs, and deludes, under forms. 3. Victorious strugglings against lusts, upon natural motives, look like mortification, and are but bastard dispositions. 4. Education, if civil and externally religious, and civil strained holiness from fear of eternal wrath, or worldly shame, are not to be rested on. When the man is sick, and between the millstones of divine wrath, in heavy afflictions, his lusts may be sick, and not mortified. The strongest man living, under a fever, can make no use of his strength and bones, yet he has not lost it. It may be a query, whether the Lord imprints something of Christ on preparations in the elect that are converted, which is not in all the legal dejections of Saul, Cain, and Judas. 2. It may be a query, whether this be anything really inherent in these preparations; or only, which is more probable, an intentional relation in God, to raise these to the highest end proposed in the Lord's eternal election.

Use: If God bestow saving grace freely on us, without hire and price, then temporal deliverances may be bestowed on the Church, when they are not yet humbled. It is true, 1. The people of God are low, and their strength is gone before the Lord delivers (Deuteronomy 32:36). (2.) He delivers his people when they are humbled (Leviticus 26:41-42). But, 3. God keeps not always this method; nor is it likely he will observe it with Scotland and England, first to humble, and then deliver; but contrarily he first delivers, and then humbles. As (Ezekiel 20:42) And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you to the land of Israel, to the country, for which I lifted up my hand, to give it to your fathers. Verse 43. And there, in that place, [illegible] when you are delivered, you shall remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein you have been defiled, and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for all your evils, that you have committed. (Ezekiel 36:33) And I will sanctify my great Name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you have profaned in the midst of the heathen. (Then they were not humbled before they were delivered;) Verse 24. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and bring you to your own land. So when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, were they humbled? In fact, their murmuring against Moses and Aaron (Exodus 5:20-22) testifies their pride: and in that miraculous deliverance, and greatest danger, when they were between Satan and the deep sea, they were not humbled, but (Psalm 106:7) they provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:11-12). The Lord must also now first deliver us, and shame and confound us in Scotland with mercy, and so humble us; for mercy has more strength to melt hearts of iron and brass, than the furnace of fire has, or a sea of blood, or a destroying pestilence.

Use: The third particular Use is, we have no gracious disposition to Christ: every man has a forestalled opinion, and a prejudice against Christ; and our humiliation before conversion should humble us. The merit of decency, devised of late by Jesuits; of congruity, formed of old; or of condignity, to buy grace or glory, are all but counterfeit metal. Grace, the only seed of our salvation, is the freest thing in the world, and least tied to causes without. 1. That of two equal matches in nature, two born brothers in one womb, the Lord chooses one, and refuses another. 2. Of two sinners, of which one has one devil, another has seven devils, he shows mercy upon one that has seven devils, and forsakes the other. 3. Of two equally disposed and fitted for conversion, though none be fitted aright, he calls one of mere grace, and not the other. 4. Grace is so great that, (Revelation 5:11) when ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, are set on work to sing, (verse 12) Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and strength: indeed and to help them, every creature that is in heaven, and earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, cry, Blessing, and honor, and power, be to him that sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. And they have been since the creation upon this song, and shall be for all eternity upon it; but all of them for ever and ever, shall never out-bottom these praises to the bottom; there is more yet, and more yet to be said of Christ, and ever shall be. What wonder then that we have no leisure to praise grace, being of so little strength, and being clothed with time. Can you out-bottom the song of free grace? Or can any soul say so much of Christ's love, but there is a world more, and another world yet more to be said? And when will you end? Or come to a height? I know not. O be in grace's debt, and take the debt to eternity with you.