Two Further Reasons of the Point

If there be not preparation before implantation, then the soul is implanted into Christ while it is in the state of nature, under the command of sin, and power of Satan, and settled in itself; for upon this ground, and by this grant to be implanted into Christ, and to be at the same time unprepared, do stand together.

But that is utterly impossible as apparently contradicting the principles of reason, for then it should be under the power of sin and Christ at once; in the kingdom of light and darkness together; in hell and heaven [illegible] the same time; a subject to our Savior, and a subject to his corruption; and so a man might serve two contrary masters, fully [illegible] to the verdict of our Savior Christ, "You [illegible] serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24) [illegible] at the same time should be affirmed of the same thing. If it be light, then it's darkness.

The second reason is taken from Romans 11:24, where the Apostle speaking of the calling of the Gentiles, speaks thus, "If you were cut out of the [illegible] tree, which is wild by nature, and were contrary [illegible] nature grafted into the true olive tree." Every sinner is as a branch which grows naturally upon Adam's rebellion, as upon the wild olive; the true olive is the Lord Jesus, the second Adam, and head of the covenant of grace; our calling is our engrafting into Christ the true olive; our preparation is as it were our cutting of us off, by the knife of the law.

If cutting in nature is and in reason must be before engrafting, then preparing is before implanting; but cutting is before engrafting in nature and in reason; therefore, preparing is before implanting.

These scriptures, and these reasons may suffice to give in evidence for the settling and establishment of this truth.

For application, this doctrine serves to instruct, reprove, examine, and exhort.

For our instruction: hence we should receive it, and believe it for an everlasting truth, that Christ cannot be united to the soul, while it continues in the state of nature and unbelief. The doctrine formerly delivered, and the reasons alleged for the proof thereof, do force this conclusion beyond gainsaying: for if the sinner must be prepared and cut off from his natural condition, before his implantation, then while he is in his natural and corrupt estate, there can be no union and communion with the Lord Jesus; so the Apostle disputes (2 Corinthians 6:16), "What communion is there between light and darkness, righteousness and unrighteousness, Christ and Belial?" Therefore he says, "Come out from among them, and be separate, and touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God." We must come out of our distempers and corruptions before Christ will come; if we touch any unclean thing, Christ will not touch us; that is, unless we be divorced from all our [illegible], so as not to touch them with the touch of a marriage affection (so the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 7:1: "It's not good for a man to touch a woman"; that is, to be married to her), we must thus be divorced before we can be married.

And we are the rather to have our hearts and judgments established in this truth, because the contrary opinion — to wit, that Christ may be united to the soul remaining in the state of corruption — is a brooding error, that brings out a whole nest and company of delusions with it, which will pollute and pervert the judgment, and defile our practices in our daily conversations.

- 1 This maintains the sinner in a careless and remorseless security, and fondly persuades, that which is so pleasing to the flesh, that a man may keep his lusts and his Christ, his comfort and his corruption together, than which nothing is more contenting to a carnal heart: a Christ and a lust, a Christ and a proud heart; a Christ and a world; a Christ and a peevish nature; oh, such a Christ pleases us well, but such a Christ will never do us good. - 2 This makes a man bold to venture upon the commission of the grossest evil; this makes him fearless to continue in it; makes him negligent and regardless, by godly sorrow and saving repentance, to recover out of it; he cares not to take his poison and to drink it in, as his daily diet; he carries his [illegible] about him and that which will undoubtedly cure him: he may yet maintain union with Christ, and communion with his cursed lusts. - 3 This makes a man slight in holy services, so as neither to put a price upon them, nor to see an excellency in them, or judge aright of the necessity of such performances; he becomes sleepy and heartless in what he does; he is sure of a Christ that will answer all, and therefore he troubles not himself with holy duties; if he stumbles upon the doing of them, so: if he neglects the doing of them, so: he has a way to help all, he can have a Christ (he conceives) without these; and therefore he makes no great matter whether he does these or not. - 4 No, if he may have union to Christ while he is in his corruption, if so: he is then in a good estate; for he that has the Son [illegible] life (1 John 5:12); therefore he may have evidence of his good estate without the sight of any saving qualification, because he may have a Christ and so be in a good estate without any saving qualification.

And therefore this evidence must needs come from an immediate revelation from heaven; for there is no appearance, no manifestation of it on earth, either in our hearts or lives in what we have or do; and therefore then our good estate may be sure to us by Christ, when we have nothing but sin, and do nothing but commit sin.

And hence, because both graces and gracious actions may be wanting in this union to Christ (because separable from it), therefore the want of them cannot infer the denial of a good estate, nor the presence of them conclude the certainty of a good estate; because they are not proper and peculiar to such a condition, for then they could not be severed from it, which they may.

And thus, this one delusion like an Egyptian fog, darkens the whole heavens, even the bright beams of the Sun of the Gospel, and the everlasting covenant of God's free grace; cuts the sinews of sincerity, and eats out the blood and spirits of the power and presence and life of grace; and under a pretense of advancing Christ and free grace, destroys his kingdom, and frustrates the coming of Christ into the world: for he came for this end (1 John 3:8), to destroy the works of the Devil. The Apostle concludes it, verse 10, as a proof beyond all question or exception: the child of the Devil is manifest in this — he that hates his brother, and works unrighteousness, is the child of the Devil; and yet upon this grant, and according to this ground, a man may do both these, and yet be united to Christ, and so be blessed of him.

Look we therefore at these so desperate [illegible], not as rocks and sands where men may suffer shipwreck and yet be recovered; but like a devouring gulf, or whirlpool, into which whoever comes, there is no hope nor help to come out; as cutting a man off from the careful and conscientious use of the means appointed by God in the Gospel to recover him: as a ship that is foundered in the midst of the main ocean without the sight of any succor, or hope of relief. Besides the arguments formerly alleged, I shall propose some other to fortify against this so dangerous a deceit.