right eye to do it they were in danger of being cast into Hell where their Worm dieth not and the Fire is not quenched Mark 9.43 That they were condemned already and that the wrath of God did abide on them so long as they continued in unbelief John 3.18 36. When S. Paul preached Repentance at Athens his argument to persuade to it was because God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the World in righteousness Acts 17.30 31. And no greater argument can be used to awaken mens fears and to hasten them out of an impenitent state than to set before them the terrour of that day and the danger they are in every hour of falling under it so long as they remain unreformed The consideration of which while the impression was upon him made Felix the Roman Governour on the Bench to tremble when Paul at the Bar reasoned of righteousness temperance and the judgment to come Acts 24.25 And generally mens Repentance takes its first rise from their fears of falling under the wrath of Almighty God Which doth very well accord with what was said by David in the Psalms and twice by Solomon in his Proverbs The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom Psal 111.10 Prov. 1.7 and 9.10 The beginning of Wisdom that is of becoming truly wise as men are when they become truly religious and never till then And this usually begins as I say in those fears which are raised in men out of a sense of their obnoxiousness to the wrath and displeasure of God for sin past And from thence indeed it proceeds to a fear of displeasing him any farther for time to come in hope of obtaining pardon for what is past and this is wisdom indeed there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be seared Psal 130.4 But fear in this latter sense hath its rise and beginning from fear in the former The principle of Self-preservation which is deeply rooted in every mans nature does naturally cause a fear of God as armed with Almighty power to destroy them that have provoked him But in mans degenerate state we cannot say it is so natural to fear displeasing him nor is attained to without some hope of pardon for what is past Fear in the former sense goes before fear in the latter as the needle does before the thred It hath indeed as godly sorrow hath a tendency in it to work Repentance though neither of them amount to saving repentance it self Fear of wrath hath torment in it and that prepares a man to hearken to that which will give him ease to wit the doctrine of pardon through Christ and to the doctrine of Repentance as the condition of obtaining it As rain and moisture are to the ground on which Weeds or Thorns grow to prepare the way of tearing them up by the root so is the fear of Gods wrath to make way for the plucking up mens lusts by the root it makes the heart more soft and tender For by how much sin hath disquieted and perplexed the mind with fears of the wrath of God provided it be not to excess as in case of despair by so much the less grievous it will be to part with it in hope of obtaining both ease and pardon thereby But here to prevent all mis use of this Doctrine touching the necessity of a sense in each sinner of his obnoxiousness to the wrath of God to prepare him for such a Repentance Faith and Obedience as is saving let this be observed and remembred by way of caution to wit That no greater a sense hereof is necessary to this end than that which issues and ends in such a Repentance Faith and Obedience We must not measure the truth and sincerity of our Repentance Faith and Obedience by the measure or degree of the sense we have of our liableness to Gods wrath or our fears of it but on the contrary the dueness or sufficiency of such a sense to prepare us by the truth and sincerity of our Repentance Faith and Obedience It is not unlikely but that Cain and Judas might have a greater sense of their obnoxiousness to the wrath and displeasure of God than most of those who through a due sense of their liableness to wrath have been prepared for a saving Repentance Faith and Obedience but yet we cannot judge by that that they had any such Repentance or Faith So much sense therefore of mens danger by reason of their guilt of sin is sufficient be it more or less as does prevail with them sincerely to repent of sin past to receive Christ Jesus as Saviour Lord and Governour for time to come to save them from sin by his death and to be governed by his precepts and example for all times to come whether peaceful and prosperous or however adverse or hazardous they may be And the reason why such a sense is sufficient be it more or less is because it reacheth its end it hath done its work for which it was raised by God when once it hath thus drawn men to Christ to become his true Disciples to believe in him and to learn of him the Christian life All means whatsoever are sufficient in their kind when they attain their end for which they were appointed and so this of which we now speak This is a truth seen by its own light By this the great mistake of some good people appears who have been afraid to apply Christ unto themselves as a Saviour and to lay hold of the gracious promises of the Gospel as being in doubt with themselves whether they had been sufficiently humbled broken and prepared by legal terrors when yet they have been zealously desirous and industrious to approve themselves to him in a good life When once men are made willing to receive Christ as Lord and Saviour and to walk in him as they have received him there is no place left to question whether their humiliation hath been sufficient or no. For our Saviours invitation of coming to him is made to him that is athirst and his promise to him that does come in good earnest is that he will by no means cast him out The promise of being received if they do come to Christ is not made upon condition of being thus or thus humbled but upon condition of their coming to him Nor does any degree of that humiliation which consisteth in fear or terror avail any man further than it is an occasion of his applying himself to the remedy prepared by God against his danger By what hath been said to shew what sense of ones spiritual danger is sufficient in its kind and for the end for which it serves it may appear also That such persons as have by the advantage of a pious education drunk in operative principles of godliness in the early days of their lives so that like Ohadiah they have feared God from their youth or as Timothy have known the holy Scriptures from a child need
put on the yoke of Christ and to submit to his government and precepts of life because those precepts of his are almost and in a manner all of them of a moral nature The things which he enjoins his Disciples are generally good in themselves and rather to be chosen than their contrary in case there were no other reward attending them but onely their suitableness to humane nature The minds of men are better appaid and satisfied in doing those things which Christ enjoins whether they know he enjoins them or no than they would or can be in doing the contrary To do to all men as we would they should do to us under like circumstances brings more satisfaction to the mind than the contrary Humility brings more ease to the mind than Pride and so does Love than Envy and Malice and so does Meekness than Wrath and Rage and so does Mercy than Cruelty and so do moderate desires to the accommodations of this life than those which are excessive And Temperance and Chastity contribute more to the ease and health of the body than Intemperance and so of the rest The consequence of all which is That the more men are by powerful impressions of natural Religion upon the mind made sensible of the excellency of moral righteousness and goodness and of the peaceable and comfortable effects of the practice of it the sooner and the more easily they will be induced to embrace the doctrine of our Saviour which in reference to practice consisteth mostly of matters of that nature For we must know that here the matter sticks most with men They are well enough content to hear of Christs having expiated sin by the sacrifice of his death and that forgiveness is preached in his name But to men that are wedded to their several Lusts of immorality the Precepts of Christ which are quite contrary to those Lusts are to them so many hard sayings and they say within themselves Who can hear them But by how much men are taught by natural Religion to discern the difference between Morality and Immorality both in the nature and effects of them as to the peace of the mind on the one hand and to the disquiet thereof on the other as to the honour of their nature and name on the one hand and to the shame thereof on the other as to the ease and health of their bodies on the one hand and to the contrary on the other by so much are they in a fit preparation of mind to receive the Laws of Christ which enjoin morality with promise of great reward but prohibit and condemn all immorality under the severest penalties The condition on which the pardon of fin and eternal life were promised through Christ consists mostly in a sincere performance of moral duties towards God and men it consisteth of such a Faith as worketh by love to God and men which love is an evangelical fulfilling of the Moral Law as we are taught Mat. 22.40 Rom. 13.8 10. Gal. 5.14 From which it still follows that by how much men are improved in morality by the teaching of God by so much is their belief of the doctrine of Christ and the fulfilling of his great and precious promises facilitated And the reason hereof is because his rules and precepts of living agree with those sentiments and notions of righteousness and goodness which are planted in the nature of man and therefore the consent of their minds to them as just reasonable and good and fit to be observed must needs be the more easily obtained And not onely so but by means of this congruity between the Precepts of Christ without and the notions of moral righteousness within us planted in the nature of man way is made also to gain belief of the other doctrines of Christ which depend wholly upon supernatural revelation such as are his being the Son of God and the forgiveness of sin and the like For when they find our Saviour in his doctrine pressing and inculcating upon the minds of men such precepts of moral righteousness and goodness as they by their own natural light know to be good and therefore from God but never any thing to the contrary they will be the more easily induced to believe him to be no Impostor but one sent from God as he affirmed he was and consequently to believe all his other doctrines Now as concerning the manner how Almighty God doth raise such a sense in men of the true nature and effects of moral righteousness and goodness as by which they are prepared to believe the Gospel I do not think he doth it onely by assisting their faculties to act according to their natural liberty for so he does assist them when they abuse their liberty in acting sinfully but God does it by ingaging their minds more to consider their ways than they had done before to consider the nature and tendency of those good ways which they had refused to walk in and the like concerning those evil ways which they had chosen And by a frequent representation of these things to their thoughts and by drawing their minds to look more narrowly into them they come better to discern the nature and tendency both of the one and of the other and so to make a better judgment of them And by that means their former aversation from that which is good and strong and violent inclination to that which is evil comes to be weakned and something broken And this prepares them to be quite overcome by the powerful motives of the Gospel when they come to be considered and to be turned quite about This we see in David for an instance Psal 119.59 I thought on my ways and I turned my feet unto thy testimonies And again Ezek. 18.28 Because he considereth and turneth away from all his transgressions which he hath committed he shall surely live he shall not die In these Scriptures we see consideration takes place first with men before they turn and by that means they are brought to turn that which is consequent upon consideration of ones ways is turning from transgression and to Gods testimonies Now God can and does when he pleaseth pitch mens minds and thoughts upon such things as he would have seriously considered and in some sort terminate and hold them to them David knew this when he prayed thus unto God Keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the hearts of thy People and prepare their heart unto thee 1 Chron. 29.18 To exemplifie this whole matter of Gods preparing men for the belief of the Gospel let it be considered how it came to pass that those few uncircumcised Proselytes from among the multitude of those of the Nations of the Gentiles at first came to be such How came such as the Aethiopian Eunuch and Cornelius to be such devout persons as they and other such Proselytes are described to be when the generality of those Nations remained still in gross Gentilism
indeed they were prepared for their receiving of Christ against he should come by principles of natural and revealed Religion and some of the Gentiles by principles of natural Religion onely But how can this concern us Christians who have prevented the need of any such preparation for receiving Christ by having received him already as having been taught by our Parents from our Childhood to do so when they taught us all the Articles of the Christian Faith Yet we who live now after Christ is come are as much concerned to be prepared for a saving reception of Christ by the same temper of mind as they were who lived before his coming Our Saviour hath said it That no man can come to me except it be given unto him of my Father John 6.65 And again No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him ver 44. And if this be true with respect to all men then of us who live in these days as well as of those who lived when Christ first appeared in the World For our Saviours words we see contain an universal proposition No man to whom it is not given of my Father No man whom the Father which hath sent me draweth not can come unto me He does no more limit his assertion to those who did precede than to those who do succeed his coming There is no doubt but a sense of our obnoxiousness to the displeasure of God and the sad effects of it in another World upon the account of sin is as necessary now as ever it was to prepare and dispose men heartily to receive Christ because it is by this sense on our minds that Christ is looked upon as the most suitable good and consequently as the most desireable good as I shewed before It is by means of this sense when any thing strong and affecting that Christ becomes precious unto men as he is to every one that believes To you that believe he is precious saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.7 A true sense of the danger we are in by having provoked the great God against us gives great disquietness to the mind until we come to know that that displeasure is taken off and the danger we were in thereby removed And it is the sense of this danger that makes Christ precious to us when we come to understand that we cannot escape this danger but by him and when we find that pain removed by believing in him which the sense of danger before put us to And it is this sense that prepares the soul to receive Christ as Lord as well as Saviour by that time the Gospel is well opened to men And the reason is because they understand thereby that none can have the benefit of that Atonement and satisfaction made by his death but such as are content to be governed by him in their lives and to yield obedience to his precepts that none can be saved by him that refuse to become sincere Disciples to him And they will find it no unreasonable thing for them to obey his Precepts and to imitate his Example when they understand that to do so is in effect but to abandon those sins which created so much trouble in their mind before by making them liable to and by putting them in fear of the eternal wrath of Almighty God The sense of that danger their sins had exposed them to and of that anxiety of mind they were brought into thereby will prepare the mind and dispose the will to receive Christ as Lord and to obey him in forsaking those sins so long as they are well assured that then and not till then they shall be pardoned through his bloud and so be discharged from those fears of the wrath of God which had given them such uneasiness of mind before And when they have found the difference between the ease of mind and peace in the Spirit which they have by their knowledge of Christ so long as they obey him and the sad thoughts dark and doubtful apprehensions misgivings of mind and storms in the spirit which sin had wrought and raised in the soul before it will then make them out of love with sin and afraid to have any more to do with it And thus you see according to the reason and nature of the thing how useful and necessary such a sense is as I have oft mentioned to prepare and dispose men to go to or to receive Christ when he is made known to them by the Gospel and that as well now under the Gospel as before if by receiving Christ we understand such a receiving as is saving But otherwise men may and doubtless do without any such sense as is effectual to its end not onely profess belief in Christ but also really believe in him with an inoperative ineffectual and dead Faith And to the end we may yet farther see how necessary such a sense in men of their danger as I have been speaking of is to prepare and dispose them to come to Christ in good earnest and to believe in him with all their heart I shall shew it you by the method which our Saviour and his Apostles used in their preaching Both he and they insisted mainly in the first place in order to mens conversion upon such doctrines as tended to beget in them a great sense of their danger by reason of guilt upon them And this they did by preaching Repentance by which as I shall presently shew they laboured to beget such a sense in men Our Saviour began his Preaching with this Mat. 4.17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand And so did his twelve Apostles when he sent them out by two and two They went out and preached that men should repent saith S. Mark 6.12 When the Author to the Hebrews gives a summary account of the first Principles or beginning Doctrines of Christ Repentance from Dead Works is not onely one of them but is the first of all in order Heb. 6.1 S. Paul gave this account to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus both of the method and substance of his preaching publickly and from house to house when he told them that he had testified both to the Jews and also to the Greeks repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ First Repentance then Faith Repentance for sin and from sin and then Remission of it through faith in Christ Now in thus preaching Repentance in the first place they laboured to possess men with a strong sense of the danger they were in until they did repent For that was the great Argument or motive by which they persuaded them to it We knowing the terrour of the Lord we persuade men saith S. Paul 2 Cor. 5.11 Thus our Saviour taught the People that so long as they did not repent and reform though it should cost them the cutting off their right hand and plucknig out their
he hath done and does more for us in another respect under the Gospel than he did in times past for his own peculiar People For according to the various predictions of the Prophets of old we under the Gospel have a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit to enable us to perform the condition of the promise of pardon and life than ever they ordinarily had Which brings me to the second thing I proposed to insist on which is to shew what assistance men receive in performing the condition of the promise by the influence and operation of the Spirit of God CHAP. V. How by the Holy Spirits operation upon the Mind and Will men are assisted in performing the condition of the Promise BUt before I proceed to shew this to prevent misunderstanding in this matter I must premise thus much by way of caution to wit That when I propose the influence and operation of the Holy Spirit to be considered as an aid distinct from that which is vouchsafed by the Gospel it self I would not be understood thereby to deny that assistance which we receive by the Gospel it self in performing the condition of the promise to be the aid and assistance of the Spirit at least in some respect I onely suppose that there is an influence and operation of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of men by which they are enabled to perform the condition of the promise over and above what the Gospel in its own nature abstractedly considered does contribute thereunto Otherwise as I have been now shewing the operations of the Gospel it self is of and from the Holy Spirit both in respect of its revelation and consirmation So that what is said and done by the Gospel is in a sense said and done by the Holy Spirit And they are led by the Spirt and walk in the Spirit that make the Gospel their Guide All Scripture is given by inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3.16 and holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 And the things spoken by the Prophets in the Old-Testament are said in the New to be spoken by the Holy Ghost Acts 1.16 and 28.25 Heb. 3.7 and 10.15 And it 's seven times said in Revel c. 2 3. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches meaning what he said to them in and by those Epistles which S. John sent to the seven Churches in Asia And God is said to have testified against the People of the Jews by his Spirit in his Prophets Neh. 9.30 And S. Stephen said to those in his time for opposing the Gospel Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost as your Fathers did so do ye And S. Paul said touching such as should despise their doctrine and commands He that despiseth despiseth not man but God who also hath given unto us his Holy Spirit 1 Thess 48. By all this it appears that what is done by the doctrine of men divinely inspired is done by the Spirit of God and what is done against it or against them for the sake of it is done against the Spirit of God He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me saith our Saviour also Luke 10.16 But yet though the assistance men receive by the Gospel in performing the condition of the promise be the assistance of the Holy Spirit yet it is not all the assistance they receive from the Holy Spirit therein For when the holy Scripture speaks of the Gospels coming unto men not in word onely but also in power and in the Holy Ghost 1 Thess 1.5 of their being born of the Spirit John 1.13 and 3.5 of the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3.5 of their obeying the truth through the Spirit 1 Pet. 1.22 of a being built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit Ephes 2.22 of the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and of Gods working in them to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.13 and the like there is no reason to restrain the sense of such sayings unto the alone operation of the doctrine of the Gospel as having God or the Spirit of God for its Author and no more The Prayers which our Saviour made and taught his Disciples to make for the success of the Gospel and which the Apostles made and taught the Christians to make for the like do all of them imply likewise something more to be done by God for the renewing of men unto himself than onely by his bare sending his Gospel among them Although men can consider matters discovered by the Gospel when they hear them as well as they can any other things set forth by Discourses of another nature and indeed God expects they should do so at the peril of their own destruction if they do not yet such is the zeal of the Lord to promote and set forward the business of our salvation that he is not willing to trust the work onely in our hands though he hath brought it to our hands by such preparations wherein he hath prevented all endeavours of ours He doth not onely bring the Gospel and our minds together and then leave them to operate upon each other in the strength of their own nature onely but is graciously pleased to accompany his word more or less as he sees good with a secret operation of his spirit upon our minds both to incline and dispose the internal faculties to exercise and imploy themselves about matters of this high nature and likewise to assist them in it There is doubtless a secret power and efficacy of the divine Spirit goes along with the Gospel into the mind and will by means whereof the Gospel does the more readily and effectually work upon the mind and will to the renewing of them When the Disciples scattered by occasion of the Persecution by Saul preached the Gospel to the Grecians it is said The hand of the Lord was with them and that a great number believed and turned to the Lord Acts 11.21 Their believing and turning to the Lord was the effect of the Lords hand being with them in preaching as well as it was the effect of what was preached The Gospel is the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth Rom. 1.16 Believing and Salvation are the effects of Gods power going along with the Gospel as well as of the Gospel it self By that the Gospel becomes more quick and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword It is the sword of the Spirit as it is called as well in respect of its being managed by the Spirit as it is by being provided by the Spirit for Christians to manage The whole success of the Gospel in producing those happy effects in men by which they become other manner of men than they were before is ascribed unto the grace and blessing of God that goes along with the Gospel I have planted and Apollos
watered but God gave the increase saith S. Paul So then neither is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth but God that giveth the increase 1 Cor. 3.6 7. Upon this account all that appearance of the Vertues of Christ which is in true Christians by which they give some good account unto the World what an one Christ is and what manner of thing his Gospel is is ascribed unto the operation of his holy Spirit upon their hearts in that metaphorical way used by S. Paul when he told the Christians at Corinth That they were the Epistle of Christ written by the Spirit of the living God upon the fleshly Tables of their hearts 2 Cor. 3.3 Thus much in general to shew that there is an assistance by the operation of Gods Spirit vouchsafed unto men in performing the condition of the promise over and besides what assistance they receive therein from the nature of the Gospel I shall now proceed to shew a little more particularly how men are assisted by the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit in performing the condition of the promise of pardon and life Not to undertake to describe all those ways by which God communicates his aids unto men in performing the condition of the promise but onely so much of those divine methods as may give some light in the thing and some satisfaction to our minds touching this great affair of our souls 1. One of the first things is a procuring from men or Gods working in them a fixedness of thoughts upon the things which concern their salvation or damnation a keeping their minds upon them Before this is done men may have many fluctuating thoughts about God and Christ Heaven and Hell and about the way of escaping the one and of obtaining the other and yet be little or nothing the better for them For these being things out of sight and remote from the senses there are a multitude of other thoughts which throng into the mind from external objects that lie open to the senses which scatter and divide yea and which in a great measure exclude and thrust out of the mind those other more necessary thoughts The thoughts and cares about the Farm the Merchandize the Oxen and the marrying of a Wife spoken of in the Parable yea and worse than these about unlawful pleasures and undue seeking of honours these so entertain and take up mens minds that thoughts of God and another World and the great concerns of Religion which have not the advantage of making their way into the mind by the senses have little or no room there Hence comes the sin of forgetting God so much spoken of in Scripture which carries in it a forgetting our accountableness to him and consequently a forgetfulness of all those things which depend upon ourminding of these Now while thoughts of this nature rule and bear sway in the mind and other thoughts are onely now and then floating there without any setled abode these latter can have no powerful influence to alter the standing temper of the mind or to change the motions and operations of the will which yet are necessary to the performing of the condition of the Promise And therefore one of the first things as I say which God does in assisting men in the performance of the condition of the promise is to stay and six their thoughts upon the things which concern their salvation Though their thoughts are and must be exercised about the things of this present life yet their thoughts about their souls and another World are so fixed by God in their minds when thus assisted by him that they are continually intermingling themselves with their other thoughts and correcting their extravagancy and exercising a power over them Here now they dwell though they must give some place to other necessary thoughts yet so as that they are never long absent but still return into the mind Thus the good Ground hearers which bring forth fruit with patience are said to be such as having heard the Word keep it Luke 8.15 that is they keep it on their minds so as that it is not stolen out of their hearts by the evil one by filling the mind with other things as it befals the Stony ground hearers nor choaked or stifled in its operation by an over-powering multitude of other thoughts about things grateful to the flesh as about riches and pleasures and lusts of other things as it is in the Thorny ground hearers Not as if where God thus sixeth the thoughts upon their principal objects that there he gives memories to retain all they hear that is not meant by their keeping the word but that such keep upon their minds the scope and substance of those points of the Christian Religion as are necessary to their salvation as the fruit of all their Hearing It is the ingrafted Word which is able to save the soul Jamâ—◠〈…〉 21. that is as it is ingrafted upon the mind by setled thoughts and sixed consideration without which men may hear all the days of their life and yet be but as the silly women S. Paul speaks of laden with sins and led away with divers lusts who were always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth 2 Tim. 3.6 7. The Lord made David wise through his Word but it was by keeping it and his mind together Thou saith he through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies for they are ever with me I have more understanding than all my Teachers for thy testimonies are my meditation Psal 119.98 99. Thus when the Lord assisted Lydia in the business of her believing he opened her heart so that she attended to the things which were spoken by Paul She held her self to them so the Dutch Translators render it she kept her mind staid upon them by serious consideration And this we see was the effect of Gods operation upon her mind he opened her heart so that sheattended Acts 16.14 It is God that thus puts his Law into mens minds that pitcheth and terminateth their thoughts upon the things contained in it according to the tenour of the New Covenant Heb. 8.10 This is one thing wherein the Divine Assistance doth consist 2. Another thing is the Holy Spirits operation upon the mind enabling it by the light of the Gospel to discern the nature tendency and usefulness of the things discovered and revealed by the Gospel By mans Apostasie from God and customary sinning the mind is darkened the eye of the understanding corrupted and thereby to a great degree rendred impotent and unable to discern things discovered by the Gospel to be what they are though set before it Like the man in the Gospel who while imperfectly cured of his blindness saw men walking as Trees they have and can have in that state but confused and indistinct notions of spiritual things if the eye be evil the whole body is full of darkness This being mans case there
is need of a Divine Power to work some cure upon the Eye of the mind to discern aright concerning the things of the Gospel David had some sense of this upon his mind when he prayed thus unto God Open thou mine eyes that I may behold the wondrous things of thy Law Psal 119.18 The Disciples had not right notions of things revealed by the Scriptures concerning Christ until our Saviour opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures Luke 24.45 When the Veil is taken away so that men with open face behold the glorious things of the Lord in the Gospel it is by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 Though the hope of the Christians calling and the riches of the glory of Gods inheritance in the Saints are revealed in the Gospel yet S. Paul knew for all that that there was need of having the eyes of the understanding inlightned to know and discern what those are and therefore prayed unto the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for it in the behalf of the Ephesians c. 1.17 18. And if these Christians after they believed stood in need to have the eyes of their understanding further enlightned by God in order to a more clear and full prospect of the gloriousness of the Hope set before them for the strengthening and encouraging them to persevere and hold out in their obedience to the Gospel then doubtless they much more stood in need of some enlightning by God in this kind to enable them at first to begin to be sincerely obedient In the dark men are apt to mistake one thing for another so before this illumination of the mind by the Spirit of God they are apt to call evil good and good evil to put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter to chuse evil under the notion of good and to refuse good under the notion of evil But when the light of the Law and Gospel are let into the mind by which every thing is discovered and discerned in its true shape and colour then Sin and Vertue appear to be what they are in their own nature sin to be sin indeed and vertue and goodness to be vertue and goodness indeed Then sin appears in the turpitude deformity and malignity of its nature and in its tendency to the ruine of the subject in which it dwells and righteousness vertue and goodness appear in their beauty and usefulness and in their tendency to the happiness of such in whom they dwell For instance Before this illumination men are apt to mistake the doctrine of the grace of God which brings salvation and to think they shall be saved because Christ died for sinners and because they believe he did so especially if they be but now and then troubled in their minds and sorry for their sins and do pray God to pardon them though they still continue in them But when the eyes of their understanding are opened to see things as they are and are represented in the Gospel then they perceive none shall be saved by the death of Christ what ever their belief may be but such as shall be persuaded by the great motives of the Gospel to be reconciled to God by being reconciled to their Duty throwing down the weapons of their rebellion and becoming universally sincerely obedient to his government according to the Laws of Jesus Christ This illumination of the mind by God contributes so much towards mens performing the condition of the promise that the whole of their conversion is sometimes meant in Scripture when but this only is mentioned Heb. 10.32 3. Another part of the Divine Assistance afforded unto men in performing the condition of the promise is the Holy Spirits operation upon the will to assist it in what is proper to it in performing of the condition of the promise For what ever sense there is begot in men of the danger they are in by reason of sin or whatever illumination is wrought in the mind touching the way and method laid down by God of escaping that danger yet until the will be changed and wrought to a firm resotion of complying with the terms on which the promise of pardon and life through Christ is made the work is not done the person is not regenerate nor in a regular capacity of enjoying what is conditionally obtained by Christ and conditionally promised through him Men are not begotten of God nor born of God as the Scripture speaks of some that are they are not begotten by the word of truth nor born again of the immortal seed of the Word until the change be made in the will as well as in the understanding and when ever it is made it is the effect of a divine operation It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.13 Now in that assistance which is vouchsafed unto men in renewing them in their wills in working in them to will several things are to be considered 1. The Holy Spirit disposeth the Will to be passive in reference to those notices given by the enlightned mind and understanding touching those things which have been discovered to it by the Gospel through the illuminating operation of the Spirit upon it The Will having been accustomed to busie and exercise it self about other objects such as the senses have presented to it things that concern onely this present world and life it will hardly suffer any passage for heavenly and divine things which are strangers to it without some divine operation of the Spirit to incline the will thereto or to open a passage for them Which is done I conceive by suspending the evil influence which the will had upon the understanding in keeping or with-holding it from considering with any seriousness and frequency the things that concern the soul and another life And if the understanding be but at liberty seriously and frequently to consider such things as well as those that concern onely this present life the will then cannot but see and taste them to be better because the mind and judgment in such case cannot but represent them to the will as much better and as things wherein the happiness of our nature is much more concerned than in any than in all the things of this world God in taking off the will from the foresaid bad influence it had upon the considerative faculty takes away the heart of stone the Scripture speaks of For the heart of stone which God said he would take away signifies the inflexible temper of the will and the resistance it makes against the understandings taking those things into serious consideration which tend to persuade the will to alter its purposes and to alter its choice of objects Mens not considering things that concern their souls and another life when yet they can and do consider things that relate to the animal life is justly imputed to the faultiness of their wills they do not consider them because they will not
men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonas and behold a greater than Jonas is here That which is or may be made ineffectual to its end is not irresistible in its operation but the means of repentance vouchsafed the unbelieving Jews was made ineffectual by them as to their repentance though more and greater than the men of Nineveh had by which repentance was wrought in them By which it is manifest that the repentance of the Ninevites was not wrought by an irresistible operation because the means used to bring the unbelieving Jews to repentance was greater than that the Ninevites had and yet was resisted Though I do not say or think that God doth always give the same degree of assistance to all persons in like cases he doth what he will with his own it is enough he gives sufficient to all yet the reason of the different event of the same means of grace vouchsafed to those that do not repent and to those that do ordinarily so far as we can judge lies in the greater degree of untractableness and unteachableness which is found in the one than is found in the other by means whereof the same applications and assistances from God are rendred ineffectual to the one which are not so to the other But if the method and manner of Gods operation in working repentance and faith were irresistible no degree of obstinacy in men could withstand it or render it ineffectual There is an opinion indeed much different from this and which hath obtained even among many good and worthy men which does suppose the reason of the different event of Gods applications to men to lie in the different manner of his applying himself to them As when we are invited by it to conceive that the reason why some repent and others do not is because God works it irresistibly in the one when he refuses to do so in the other The ill consequents of which opinion we may well suppose they were no whit aware of who were the first promoters of it and were far enough from owning them though they held fast the opinion which does infer them But yet if the things necessarily consequent upon this opinion prove it to be bad it can be no breach of any rule of charity or modesty to mention them upon so fair an occasion as this now before us but rather the contrary if I should not and may consist well enough with that veneration I have for the memory of many of those who have embraced it This opinion renders the damnation of such as perish impossible for them ever to have escaped after they had once sinned For if nothing less than Gods irresistible operation be sufficient to bring sinners to repentance then would it have been impossible for any that perish to have prevented it because no such means of repentance was ever vouchsafed them for if it had they could not but have repented as well as any This opinion therefore tends to lessen the grace and mercy of God in that provision which he hath made for the redemption of the World as if it were not sufficient for the salvation of any but such as are and shall be actually and eventually saved It implies and supposes that the reason why such as perish are not saved by the death of Christ as well as others is for want of so much compassion in God towards them as to assist them to perform the condition on which such salvation is purchased and promised Whereas Almighty God hath not onely given his Son to be a propitiation for the sin of the whole World but hath also afforded such assistance unto all as by which they might have come to perform that condition upon which the promise of salvation is made as I have before endeavored to shew It does not consist with the plain and obvious sense of such Scriptures as tell us that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance For how can we conceive any such willingness in God concerning those who yet do perish if he should wholly have refused them that assistance without which it was impossible they should repent and escape perishing An opinion it seems to be if it were true which would render all Gods applications to those that perish to have prevented their perishing useless and insignificant For to what end should other means be used to bring those to repentance who in the issue do not repent if no other means be sufficient to effect it in them but such an irresistible operation of God as he never intended them And how ill a representation would it make of God if he according to the tenor of this opinion should at last condemn men for not repenting and for not believing and obeying the Gospel when it was impossible they should so long as God refused to work these graces irresistibly in them And truly if those that perish had so much to plead in excuse for themselves why they did not repent under all the mighty motives they had to persuade them to it and other means to assist them in it it would abate or rather quite take away a great part of the torments of the damned which do arise from a sense of their gross wilful and obstinate neglect to hearken to those powerful motives they once had to persuade them to repent and to make use of those helps and means they once had to assist them in it If they could but plead the impossibility of their repenting upon the account of Gods not vouchsafing them the irresistible operations of his grace and Spirit which was granted to all others that escape perishing it would in a great measure at least abate the tormenting gnawing of the worm that never dieth For then it would leave no place for those gripes of conscience fierce self-accusations and intolerable self-reflections which proceed from the remembrance and consideration of the loss of the opportunity they once had given them from God of escaping the misery they have brought upon themselves wherewith they are perpetually racked For if they could believe that all they could have done here in this life towards the escaping of that miserable state would have availed them nothing but that it depended wholly upon the irresistible operation of God upon them which was altogether out of their power they might perhaps turn their rage against Almighty God for not affording them the same means of escaping as he had done others that were sinners as well as themselves but would hardly reflect upon themselves for not doing that which was impossible for them to have done This ill consequence alone of the opinion under consideration if there were no other were enough one would think to detect the crookedness and deformity of it which yet as I have said hath obtained so long as it hath done among many good men as