they will never be able to reach the Price thereof Besides Christians whatever we do or suffer for God Luke 17.10 it 's no more than what we are obliged unto and surely in doing our duty we can never lay the (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost ad Rom. Homil. 7. Foundation of Merit for Eternal Glory Nor may we think to make a Purchase of the New Jerusalem by paying an old Score WOULD we ever Merit Heaven and Eternal Glory of God we must present him with some acceptable (d) Debemus enim deo et nos ipsos et nostra omnia Cha. n. Tom. 3. lib 14. cap. 20. pag. 497. Services which we owe him not but how shall we give him any thing wherein he hath not already a full propriety when there is nothing that we are or have there is nothing that we can do or suffer in a way of Obedience but is due unto God from us by every kind of Right Had we any thing of our own wherewith to come before the Lord there might then be some ground of pretence for the Merit of good Works (e) Ex gratia enim datur non solum justificatis vita bona sed etiam glorificatis vita aeterna Fulgent ad Monim l. 1. p. 18. But since all that we have is due to God because it came from him and bears his Image and Superscription upon it we cannot rationally think it possible for us to Merit any thing thereby of God unless we can think it rational that God should be obliged in point of Justice by giving us one Mercy to give us another by giving us Grace to put us at length in Possession of Eternal Glory That whereby Christians you differ from others from the vilest of Sinners from the Damned themselves that are now roaring out in Hell is not of Merit but of Grace not of Debt but a free Donative 't is nothing in your selves but the free distinguishing love of God dropping the Pearl of Grace into your hearts whilst others are left to perish in their Sins that hath made the difference And surely by those graces which you freely receive from God you may not think to Merit Life and Eternity of Glory at the hands of God For certainly whatever grace you have it obligeth you to Duty so that your Graces and your Obligations of Obedience to God they grow up together and the more grace you receive from God the more deeply do you stand engaged to abound in the fruits of Righteousness towards God How then can you once have a thought that that Grace and Holiness which God hath freely wrought in you and whereby he hath laid you under the strongest engagements to all holy and upright walking before him should make God your Debtor obliging him in point of Justice to render you the Reward of eternal Glory Indeed to whomsoever the Lord gives Grace he will also give Glory and whomsoever he now makes Holy he will Crown them at length with Eternal Happiness But this you must know not an act of Justice founded upon Man's Merit but an act of free Grace bottomed upon the Remunerative goodness of God in the Blood of Christ Rom. 6.23 (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost 'T is an act of Justice in God to punish Sin which is wholly our own and purely Evil and therefore Death is here called the Wages of Sin But to Reward the good Works of Believers which are neither their own nor purely good is an act of free Grace and therefore we find the Apostle to exclude all opinion of Merit calling Life Eternal in this place the gift of God (g) Non dixit similiter stipendia justitiae quia non est antequam remuneratur in nobis non enim nostro labore quaesita est Jerom. So that we see though it be of Justice that the Wicked are Punished yet it is of Grace that the Righteous are Crowned (h) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost And if it be of Grace then not of any Merit in our own good Works otherwise grace were no more grace if not every way free and gratuitous Rom. 4.4 For how can we count it a point of grace to give a Man his due Or what need he sue for Mercy who requireth no more than his own at the hands of God Admit but of Merit and you leave no place of entrance for the grace of God (i) Non est quo gratia intret ubi jam meritum occuparit Bernard Cant. 67. So likewise the grace of God in Christ it leaves no place for the Merit of our good Works For Grace and Merit are altogether inconsistent and mutually destructive one of another Rom. 11.6 So that if you pull down the Merit of good Works you set up Grace and if you go about to establish Merit you do utterly destroy the Grace of God and make it of none effect Let us not then Christians look in our Obedience to have that of Debt which God hath decreed to be of Grace nor go about to seek Heaven and Glory by way of Purchase which the Lord hath intended to be a Donative and of free Gift Whilst others trust to the Merit of their own good Works let us wholly rely upon the free Grace of God in Christ Jesus looking for the Recompence of Eternal Life not from the Justice of a Judge but from the Mercy of a Father not from the worth and dignity of our own Performances but from the free Bounty and Remunerative Goodness of the Lord our Redeemer You may do good Works and walk in ways of Obedience with an Eye to the Recompence of the Reward But yet none of these things must be done with respect to the Meriting of Eternal Life by them For though as (k) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Tom. 8. Serm. 15. Chrysostome sweetly saith we had done ten thousand good deeds yet it is of Grace that we must look to be saved and of Loving-kindness not of any desert in ourselves that we must seek to obtain Eternal Glory (l) Totis licet animae et corporis laboribus desudemus totis licet obedientiae viribus exerceamur nihil tamen condignum merito pro coelestibus bonis compensare et offerre valebimus Euseb Emissen homil 3. ad Monarch We stand so infinitely indebted to the God of Heaven that though we should with all the strength of Body and Mind exercise ourselves in Obedience to God all our Life long though with bitterness and anguish of Spirit we should bewail our own Sins mourn in some Wilderness till Doom's-day and dissolve our Souls with weeping into (m) Flaccescant licet membra vigilijs pallescant licet ora jejunijs non erunt tamen condignae passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam Idem Rivers of Tears though we should live like Angels of Light shine like the Sun in it's Noon-day Brightness and exercise ourselves unto Godliness continually with all
us with his Love arrest us by the gentler hand of his Mercy inveagle us by the sweet insinuations of his own Spirit subdue us to the obedience of his Righteous will by an irresistible over-powering Work of free Grace and after aâ—l this allure us to be Happy leading us on in wayes of holiness by the Divine Suada by the powerful Rhetorique by the unsullied captivating glances by the magnetique prospect of Heaven and Eternal Glory God might have measured us out a full Cup of Divine Fury without any ingredients of Love he might have writ the Sins we stand Guilty of and his wrath against us for them in our own Blood he might have raised up a Monument of Glory to himself out of our Eternal Ruins he might have made every one of us even in this present Life a Magor-missabib filling us with the trembling of Cain the madness of Achitophel the despair of Judas and the dreadful astonishment of Belshazzer thro' the heart-rending proccupations of Hell and Eternal Damnation When therefore in stead of all this Terrour we find the Lord willing to glorifie the Riches of his Mercy in our Happiness and Salvation not only wooing us to receive Mercy beseeching us to be Happy and entreating us to accept of Heaven and Glory but also setting open the Wells of Salvation feasting us with Heavenly Manna giving us many sweet prelibations and fore-tasts of Eternal Glory taking us up every Day to the top of Mount Pisgah and thence raising us for our encouragement in well-doing to see the Beauties and to antedate the Pleasures of the Celestial Canaan of the Heavenly Jerusalem how can we choose but stand adoring as Men filled with Extasies and Trances of Admiration the Lords wonderful Condescention and matchless Goodness towards us Was it ever known amongst the Kings Potentares and Monarchs of the World that they could ever do any thing worthy to make so much as an Emblem of Gods remunerative Goodness when in their chiefest Goodness they set their Wits a-work how to gratify their greatest Favourites and what to do for the Man whom they delighted to honour They have cloathed their Favourites in Purple and Royal Apparel they have incircled their Heads with a princely Diadem they have intrusted them with universal negotiations of State they have mounted them upon their own Steeds with Proclamations before them of their special Favour But yet all this superadding thereto all that Splendour which attracts the desires of the most noble Heroes all that Glory which feeds the Admiration of the most ambitious Princes all that Beauty which captivates the Hearts of the most passionate Lovers all those Thrones Empires and Triumphs which the World so much adores I say all this will be no more than the small drop of a Bucket to the whole Ocean than the light of a Star to the glorious Sun if compared with that Crown that Kingdom that eternal Reward which through a Miracle of condescending Love and matchless Goodness the Lord promises and makes proposal of for the encouragement of his own People For what is finite compared with that which is infinite What is Earth compared with Heaven What is a temporal Reward if compared with the recompense of Eternal Life What in a word is the confluence of all secular enjoyments if compared with the vast and boundless Ocean of Gods (a) Psal 17.15 fulness wherewith his People have a sure promise to be satisfied for evermore Oh that all you who do yet continue the Vassals of Satan and are still Slaves to your own usurping Lusts would now consider your folly your madness in refusing to walk in obedience before so bountiful a Master and in entertaining unreasonable prejudices against the ways of God as if there were no profit nor advantage to be found in them Consider it poor foolish Sinners can the World the Flesh and the Devil do that for your Souls that the God of Heaven both can and hath promised to do will you but submit to the Scepter of his Kingdom endeavouring to walk in all dutifull obedience before him God offers you a Crown of Life together with many exceeding precious promises which as so many Death-bed Cordials will antidote your Hearts against the Terrors of the Grave and can the World the Flesh and the Devil make you any such Tenders and make them good when they have done that hearkning unto them you should ungratefully turn your backs upon the God of Heaven making light of the Tenders of his Love and Grace But must the Lord have such a stir to make you Happy Must he follow you with daily Importunities alluring you by Rewards to provide for your own everlasting Welfare and will you yet go on in the careless neglect of him and his wages as if Heaven and Eternal Glory were not worth the looking after Is the Lord such a plentiful rewarder of those that diligently seek allowing them for their encouragement in all Holy and Upright walking before himself the full prospect of such an Heavenly Kingdom such an unfadable Crown of Life such an incorruptible undefiled and glorious inheritance and will you still go on to undervalue his Love and Goodness refusing the right ways of obedience as unprofitable and fruitless which do all of them center in Eternal Blessedness Then blame not the God of Heaven the Riches of whose (b) Rom. 2.4 Grace and Goodness you have thus despised if for bringing up an evil report of him and his wayes he cause you with those unbelieving Jews to die in the Wilderness and for ever exclude you out of the Celestial Canaan You must not always think to live upon the Expences of free Grace But if still you go on to turn it into wantonness being thus abused it will shortly turn to fury The Divine remunerative Goodness of God so richly expressed in the frequent tenders of Heaven it should have dropt Oyl into the Wheels of your Souls making them more like the Chariots of Aminadab (c) Cant. 6.12 Si 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notationem spectes populum voluntarium beneficum animo liberali praeditum sonat Rom. 2.5 like a bounteous sweet-hearted and willing People as that Word may import in all the Ways of Obedience with a Noble Spontaneity But if still you shall retain your unreasonable prejudices against and wonted averseness to the right way of God's Commandments esteeming of the Lord as an hard Task-master and looking upon his Service as a cruel Bondage assure your selves that the very Goodness of God will accumulate Wrath against you and plunge you a Thousand Times deeper in remediless unpreventable misery than if you had never sitten under the tenders the solicitations the gracious Importunities of it (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Admon ad Gent. p. 40. Oh inconsiderate ungrateful Sinners of what a crimson tincture is your giving the repulse to Gods merciful condescentions when waiting upon you with tenders of Grace and Glory
these Gentlemen continued to give him made up the main of his Subsistence both when he was in and out of his place Yet it must farther be owned that he and many other of his suffering Brethren have had their Supplies from an unseen Hand It was the observation of one that is now in Heaven that he and some others had carefully surveyed the County where they lived which is one of the largest in England and afforded as many Non-conformists as any yet said he they all live maintain their Families pay their Debts It s true there have been others that have been as great Critic's as he in these learned Languages but let the Reader take this along with him that he got all by his own industry He had no Maître de langue saving what he had as a School-boy He conversed only with the Dumb Silent Writers were his instructors By him a Man may learn what industry can do and what Labour can overcome besides he did all this when he had the noise of diverse little Children Ten at the least a large Family calling for Bread which yet his paternal Care and God's good Providence as was said before did supply He was moreover all this while a constant Preacher and which was more an acceptable and followed Preacher for our Rabinnical Men are commonly the scorn of the Vulgar they are better at Criticisms than Elocution they that remember Mr. Wheeler Dr. Castle and some other such like know this to be true But our Author as he was happy in the sacred Criticks so he sought to find out acceptable words Eccles 12.19 and could express himself ad captum populi in his Mother Tongue and with a certain kind of divine and winning Rhetoric draw them after him He was no stranger to natural Philosophy nor the Mathematicks nor yet to Medicin in which by his study and conversation he had profited much For he was an inquisitive Person and learned greatly by learned Men when he met with them And by this means if God had blessed him with longer Life he intended to have gained an Addition to his subsistence Yet all this Learning Usefulness I might add modesty Humility and forbearance to meddle with things not concerning him cou'd not keep him out of a Prison Once he lay in Worcester Goal for the great crime of Preaching yet had the Courage to preach the same day the Law released him At another time he was sought after to undergo the same preferment but God hid him as we may verily believe For being searched for by some Troopers sent to his House on purpose who not finding him one of them more suspicious and diligent than the rest swore the usual Oath This fellow hides himself in the Chappel Whereupon he came to the Door the Key was in it he turns and opens looks about him and goes back without farther search But had he gon in he had certainly found the party he looked for for thither Mr. C. had retired upon some notice of their coming His care of keeping a good Conscience towards God and Man may most evidently be seen in a Paper found in his Study wherein he undertook diligently to search and try his own Heart and Ways A work that too few are acquainted with how profitable soever it is We shall exhibit this writing in his own words when we have only told you that his laying such a heavy charge against himself is as I believe according to Truth and a justifiable thing The Apostle St. Paul to whom our Author may in many things be compared and whom he followed though non passibus aequis doth the very same calling himself the least of the Apostles the meanest of Saints Sin had wrought in him all manner of concupiscence Sin taking occasion by the Commandment deceived him In me saith he dwelleth no good thing The good that I would I do not when I would do good Evil is present with me I was a Blasphemer a Persecutor Injurious Wonder not then to find our Author expressing himself in such words detesting himself and his evil Courses But God had mercy on these two Men who by his Grace became eminent Saints and Preachers of his Grace Who as before their Conversion they were exceeding vile and sinful at the time of its full of Pangs and afterwards exceeding laborious for their great Lord and Master Add to this that they both spake with Tongues more than many others the one indeed by a miraculous Inspiration the other by the blessing of God upon his industry The one spared not his Corinthians was afraid of his Galatians wept over his Philippians so was the other very zealous for his People reproving freely praying and weeping plentifully for his beloved Floâ—k at Mosely But to return to his Paper which he never thought shou'd have been published but was reserved for his private review and use Because it may do good to excite others to the like examination of themselves and penning down their Experiences Evidences and observations about their own spiritual Estates it is here offered as an Example wherein he is as full in shewing his dark side as his bright side I know a Man whether in Christ or out of Christ I cannot tell such an one I know who believing an Eternal Judgment and willing to state the case of his own Soul against that dreadful Solemnity that he might the better understand what issue to expect in the invinsible World His Appetites were strong and violent to all manner of Evil neither did he restrain himself from any desire of his own wicked Heart but what the fear of Stripes or when he grew to be bigger the Fear of Hell restrained him from yet here also where he durst not adventure upon the overt Act he practised it all and rioted upon it in Contemplation You take too spare a measure of his Wickedness if you suppose he proceeded no farther than Rioting and Drunkeness Chambering and Wantonness Strife and Envy Sabbath-breaking and Lying which often was suborn'd to palliate all the rest Imagine what you will forbidden that falls within the compass of the Ten Commandments he really thinks that one way or other he stands chargeable with it besides the wilful omission of all affirmative Duties conceived in both Tables of the Law In this cursed course was his Life and so suitable was it to the Diabolical Nature that dwelt in him that nothing was more irksome to him than that which gave check to his compliance therewith Which yet through the infinite Goodness of God he sometimes met with such as guilty Fears in his own conscience confounding â—hame for all his unkindness to the gracious God whose Mercy had so long prevented his Destruction in Hell and violent Conviction of a necessity of breaking off his Sins by Repentance or perishing which had some times such a mighty force upon him as to drag him out of his Pleasures and from amongst his evil associates into the Garden
then by his Grace excite it that the Sinner may actually believe and repent to the saving of his Soul No Man did ever yet believe repent or come to God for Mercy but in the strength of God Nor did any ever yet obtain the Reward of Eternal Life but through the Grace of God effectually enabling to work in the Lord's Vineyard and making him faithful unto the Death Go then to God in Prayer you that love your Immortal Souls for Grace for Purity for Holiness but be sure that you pray fervently remembring you can never arrive at the Haven of true Happiness without the gentle gales of God's own Spirit to speed you thither By nature you are dead in Trespasses and Sins and if therefore God quicken you not you are lost for ever By nature you are mortally wounded and this your wound is uncurable you must die of it if God heal it not for you By nature you are a Reprobate to every good Word and Work unless therefore God work in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure you can never work out your own Salvation By nature you are dreadfully polluted all over unclean as a Vessel in which there is no pleasure so that if you beg not the Spirit of God to cleanse you from all filthiness both of Flesh and Spirit you can never be Vessels of Honour sit for the Masters use Holy Jacob being in danger of his Brother Esau's Fury he wrestled with God all Night resolving not to let him go without a Blessing and his two Arms he used in this holy Wrestle (a) Hos 12.4 they were Prayers and Tears Thus Sirs you are in danger not of Man's Fury but of indignation of Wrath and Hell from the great God and will you not wrestle for a Blessing closing in with God by the Arms of Prayer and Tears Oh seek the Lord while he may be found and see that you call upon him whilst yet he is near Do not oh do not trifle away that Time about the Meat that perisheth which should be spent in labouring for the Meat which will endure to eternal Life What is it to gain Earth and lose Heaven to gain the World and lose your Souls What alass to fare deliciously every Day and at Death to be found despairing to be found dropping into Wrath into Tophet into Hell irrecoverably Oh how much better is it that now you should pray and mourn and weep bitterly before the Lord every Day to get prepared for Heaven for Glory for a Crown of Righteousness for the recompence of eternal Life than that you should then weep and howl without Hope for the Misery the Wrath the unsufferable Hellish Flames that must now seize upon you and burn you for ever torment you for ever Well that you may never forget seeking the Lord nor cease praying before him remember where your Strength where your Hope where all your Comfort lies 'T is the Lord alone that hath the Word of Eternal Life and therefore go to him resolving that you will pray and never give over praying that you will wrestle and never give over wrestling that you will weep and sigh and groan and never give over till you have the Blessing The same God who gives us the Crown when we have overcome he must give us strength whereby to overcome He that will cloath us upon with the Garments of Salvation when we come to Heaven he alone it is that must now give us Grace cloathing us first with the Garments of Righteousness that we may be fit for that glorious Inheritance CHAP. XIII The Doctrin improved by way of strong Consolation to God's People exhorting them to live upon a due respect to this eternal Reward as upon hidden Manna IV AND lastly though we have for a little while been leading you as through the Wilderness yet now we begin to draw nigh to the heavenly Canaan My Text is a Tree of Life and I would not willingly come from it till I have shaken some apples of Love some of its sweet and precious Fruit into your Bosoms 'T is the Mount of Transfiguration and I would not willingly come down till your Faces shine with the Oyl of Gladness 'T is a spiritual Eden a Garden full of all pleasant Flowers and I would not willingly come out of it till I have cropt here and there one and gathered you an heavenly Nosegay to revive and refresh with its Divine Fragancy your Spirits in a fainting Hour You have been with us a little upon the Ocean under all those Storms and rageful Tempests which will beat upon such for ever as have no right to the recompence of the Reward But supposing your claim to this Reward good your right unquestionable and evidences without flaw I shall now endeavour to lodge you in the peaceful and wished Harbour of Divine Consolation And truly here is a River the streams whereof if any thing will make glad the City of our God The Well I confess is deep but yet through the Comforters assistance you lending the Bucket of your Faith I doubt not but we may draw Water Water of Life nay the Wine of Eternal Consolation to refresh you to enliven and comfort your Hearts in every Condition What Wilderness need terrify thee having Canaan so plain before thee What Storms can disturb thy peace being come within Ken of thy Eternal Harbour Oh think with thy self dear Christian what Afflictions need discourage thee having always in thy Eye such a far more exceeding and Eternal weight of Glory This Doctrine drops Balm for the healing of wounded Souls 't is as so much spiritual Manna for God's People to feed upon in the Wilderness of this World till they are come to Canaan a Land that floweth with Milk and Hony Deny not then your selves the Comfort of that Reward which God sets before you The Lord for your better encouragement sets Heaven with all the Happiness and Glory thereof in your Eye and therefore let not your Eye upon a pretence of I know not what Modesty or Self-denial be turned away from the stedfast beholding it Oh see Christians that you dwell much in your thoughts in your serious Musings in your Divine Contemplations upon this Theam endeavouring with Moses in all that you do in all that you suffer for God to have a due respect to the recompence of the Reward Oh let the glimpses of Heavens Glory close up your Eyes when you go to Bed at Night and let the Light the bright irradiations and Heart-warming Sun-shine of the same Glory be sure to feast your Eyes when first you awake every Morning Whilst you live live in the Hope of Heaven and when you die oh strive that you may die in the full assurance of Heaven Get like Moses a prospect of Canaan before you leave this Wilderness and whether you pray whether you wrestle with Temptations whether you resist unto Blood striving against Sin or whatever you
Let us not unsubordinate the Creatures to God their Creatour And make that independent in its Workings which we know to be otherwise in its Being To me it seems little less than to divest the great God of his Prerogative-Royal and to set the Crown upon the Head of the Creature when acknowledging him for the first Cause we will (k) Acts 17.28 grant that we live and have our Being from him but not that we are moved by him The profound Bradwardine the learned Twisse the acute Ames the Judicious Zanchy Neither they with many others of our Protestant Divines nor (l) Nihil praeter primum motorem movet agitve nisi motum actum Zan. de lib. Arb. thes 2. pag. 116. he could yet bear such Doctrin who lays down this as a sure Maxim that nothing but God the first mover doth either move or act if not moved and acted And indeed its hard to say how they who deny the Will of Man to be physically determined of God make not Man the first mover not moved the (m) Quod si haec hominis determinatio non praedeterminetur à Deó physicè primum erit homo determinans in genere entis physicè non determinatum primum movens non motum primum agens non actum ab alio ideoque determinationis suae prima causa primum principium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 independens Et quia primum movens propterea duo prima erant sic Deus non erit ens absolute primum D. P. de Trad. hom peccat ad glor pag. 15. first Agent not acted by any other So that he shall be the first cause of determining his own Will yea independent and without any other cause than himself For we may not think that God only offers his Creatures a certain indeterminate common and indifferent concourse which is either like a Laquy subsequent to their determining themselves and comes in at the close of the day actum agere or like a Lesbyan Rule which (n) Novum istud commentum Jesuitarum solide refutatur à Thomistis quia facit providentiam Dei confusam imperfectam à creaturâ pendentem ut ab ea proficiatur Ames Dâ—llar Enervat tom 4. lib. 1. p. 31. they may incline determine and bend either to good or evil as they please This Devise of the Jesuites is confuted at large by the Thomists and most of our own Divines in the Doctrin of Providence who reject it as that which makes the divine Providence confused dependent imperfect and such as is capable of receiving its ultimate Perfection from the Creature Though Similes prove nothing yet they may illustrate and therefore to give you a perfect understanding in this case I shall shut up with the Simile of a learned Divine whereof the most of our English Divines in their Discourses about Providence make use telling you with him that God set up the World as a fair and goodly Clock to strike in time and to move it in an orderly manner not by its own Weights by fresh Influence from himself by that inward and intimate Spring of immediate Concourse that should supply it in a most uniform and proportionable manner This great Organ of the World he turned it yet not so as that it could play upon it self or make any Musique by virtue of its own Composure as Durandus fancies but that it might be fitted for the Finger of God himself and at the presence of his powerful touch might sound forth the praise of its Creatour in a most sweet and harmonious way So then if where Man hath a Power he cannot act unless determined thereto of God how much less is he able to act graciously in spiritual Concerns without the immediate predetermining Work of God's Grace upon him Thou can'st not stir a foot nor move an Hand without God and can'st thou then run the way of his Commandments or touch the golden Scepter of his Grace without him Never think to come to God without strength from God nor to come to Heaven if God carry not thy Soul thither in the triumphant Chariot of his own Grace The Lord breathed into Adam the Breath of Life and then he became a living Soul So the Lord must breath into thy Soul the enlivening Breath of his own free Grace and then thou wilt no longer be dead but alive unto God If Christ will draw her †Cant. 1.4 the Spouse doth then promise that she will run after him Thus thou wilt never run after Christ nor love Christ nor have the least desire to Christ if first he draw thee not by his own Spirit sweetly over-powering thy will to embrace to chuse to love the best things ¶ John 1.13 Sicut in nativitate carnali omnem nascentis hominis voluntatem praecedit operis divini formatio sic in spirituali nativitate nemo potest habere bonam voluntatem motu proprio nisi mens ipsa reformetur à Deo Fulg. de gâ—â— lib. arb p. 758. The Power and Wisdom of God forming the Babe in the Womb that prevents and goes before all thought that the Child could have of its own formation Thus those that have the happiness to be conceived in the Womb of free Grace the Spirit of regeneration that prevents them with a principle of life before ever they could have so much as a thought of or a will to or the least groan of desire after their new Birth Lazarus he had never come out of the Grave at Christ's call if the Lord had not first put life into him Thus our good Works can never come out of the Grave of our unclean Hearts 'till God do first of all * Isa 26.12 work them in us Not that we are to think he doth formally believe repent and as one Person with us exert other vital actions of Grace according to that wild Opinion of some Libertines But that he as the Author doth by the efficacy of his own Holy Spirit working in us enable us to perform whatever Duties whatever Services whatever Conditions himself hath required as necessary to our Salvation * Certum est nos velle cum volumus sed ille facit ut velimus bonum de quo dictum est Deus est qui operatur in nobis velle operari Certum est nos facere cum facimus sed ille facit ut faciamus praebendo vires efficassimas voluntati qui dicit faciam ut in justificationibus meis ambulâ—tis judicia mea observetis faciatis August de liber arbitr Grat. cap. 4. Gratia non credit non resipiscit non sperat â—â—n obtemperat Deo sed homo per gratiam idem In the conversion of a lost Sinner unto God 't is Man that doth believe repent and will whatever is good and pleasing in the sight of God But yet 't is God as the sole donour of every such good and perfect gift that doth first bestow a renewed will and