A Discourse of the Efficient of
Regeneration
Part 1
by
Stephen Charnock
Which were born, not of blood, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.—John 1:13.
This evangelist so plainly describes the
deity of Christ, and in so majestic a style, in the beginning of the chapter,
that the accidental view of it in a book lying open by neglect, was
instrumental for the conversion of Junius, that eminent light in the church,
from his atheism.
We shall take our rise only from ver. 9,
'That was the true light, which lightens every man that comes into the world.'
John Baptist, who, ver. 6, &c., was to bear witness of this light, was a
light by our Saviour's assertion, 'a burning and a shining light,' John v. 35,
but not that 'true light' which was promised, Isa. xlix. 6, to be 'a light to
the Gentiles, and the salvation of God to the ends of the earth.' The sun is
the true light in the heavens and of the world; not but that other stars are
lights too, but they all receive their light from the sun. Christ is called the
true light, by nature and essence, not by grace and participation: 1 John v.
20, 'We know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus
Christ,' the natural light and Son of God.
1. True, as opposed to types, which were
shadows of this light.
2. True, as opposed to false. Philosophical
lights, though esteemed so, are but darkness, and ignes fatui, in
comparison of this.
3. True original light, ratione officii,
illustrating the whole world with his light. Whatsoever is light in heaven or
earth, borrows it from the sun; whosoever is enlightened in the world, derives
from him 'which lights every man that comes into the world.' Some join coming
into the world, to lift, and read it thus, 'He is the light coming into the
world, which lights every man.' The Greek is something ambiguous, and it may be
referred to light, though not so commodiously. But the translation which we
have has been followed in all ages of the church; and is contended for (the
other is contended for? editor) only by those who deny the deity of our
Saviour, or are somewhat affected to them that do.
How does Christ light every man that comes
into the world?
1. Naturally. So Calvin; the world was made
by him, and therefore that which is the beauty of the world, the reason of man,
was made kindled by him. As all the light the world has had since the creation
flows from the sun, so all the knowledge which sparkles in any man is communicated
by Christ, even since the creation, as he is the wisdom of God, and as
mediator, preserving those broken relics of the fall: Prov. xx. 27, 'The spirit
of man is the candle of the Lord,' lighted and preserved by him. The light of
nature, those common notions of fit and just in men's consciences, those honest
and honourable principles in the hearts of any, those beams of wisdom in their
understanding, though faint, and like sparkles raked up in ashes, are kept
alive by his mediatory influence, as a necessary foundation for that,
reparation which was intended in his first interposition.
2. Spiritually. So not only the Socinians,
but some very sound, understand it; not that all are actually enlightened, but,
(1.) In regard of power and sufficiency, he
has a power to enlighten every man; able to enlighten, not a few, but every man
in the world, as the sun does not light every man, though it has a power to do
so, and does actually light every man that shuts not his eyes against it.
(2.) Actually, taking it distributive,
not collective; that whosoever is enlightened in the world, has it
communicated from Christ; as Ps. cxlv. 14, 'The Lord upholds all that fall, and
raises up all those that are bowed down;' as many as are upheld and raised, are
upheld and raised by God' He does indeed 'shine in darkness,' his light breaks
out upon men, but they are not the better for it, because 'the darkness
comprehends it not'; as when there is but one schoolmaster in a town, we
usually say, he teaches all the boys in the town; not that every individual boy
comes to school, but as many as are taught, are taught by him. I embrace the
former, because the evangelist seems to begin with his person, as God; his
office, as mediator; and then descends to his incarnation; and it is a sense
which puts no force upon the words. And I suppose that every man is added, to
beat down the proud conceits of the Jews, who regarded the Gentiles with
contempt, as not enjoying the privileges conferred upon themselves; but the
evangelist declares, that what the Gentiles had in natural light, and what they
were to have in spiritual light, did, and was to come from him, who would
disperse his beams in all nations, ver. 10. And therefore 'he was in the
world,' before his coming in the flesh, in regard of his virtue and efficacy,
by the spreading his beams over the world, enlightening men in all ages and
places with that common light of nature; he was near to every man; 'in him they
lived, and moved, and had their being;' but the world by their natural wisdom
knew him not, and glorified him not. 'The world was made by him, yet the world
know him not.' Ingratitude has been the constant portion of the mediator, from
the world; they knew him not in past ages, knew him not in the present age of
his coming in the flesh; they did not acknowledge him with that affection,
reverence, and subjection that was due to him.
He aggravates this contempt of Christ,
1. By the general right be had, 'he came to
his own,' "Eis ta idia", ver. 11, meaning the world, it being put in
the neuter gender. The whole world was his property and his goods, yet they
knew not their owner. In this, worse than the ox or ass.
2. By the special privileges conferred on
those to whom he first came, and from whom he should have the most welcome
reception; implied in these words, 'and his own,' "hoi idioi", in the
masculine gender, his own people, that had been his treasure, to whom he had
given his law, entrusted with the covenants and oracles of God, these 'received
him not.' His own, some say, as being peculiarly committed to him, the angel of
the covenant; whereas other nations were committed to angels to receive laws
from them. His own flesh and blood, who expected a Messiah, to whom he was
particularly sent, as being the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Christ is
most rejected where proffers most kindness. Those of Tyre and Sidon, those of
Sodom and Gomorrah, would not have used him so ill as Capernaum and Jerusalem,
his own people. He descends to show the loss of them that rejected him, the
benefit of those that received him: ver. 12, 'But as many as received him, to
them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his
name.'
Where is,
1. The subject: these that received him.
2. The benefit: the dignity of sonship.
3. The manner of conferring this benefit:
'gave them power.'
4. The instrumental cause: 'believe on his
name.' Though his own rejected him, they lost a dignity which was conferred
upon those that received him: he lost not his pains, for he gathered sons to
God out of all parts of the world. 'To as many as received him.' It was not now
peculiar to the Jews, who boasted of being Abraham's seed, and to have the
covenant entailed upon them to be the people of God. It was now conferred upon
those who were before Lo-ammi and Lo-ruhamah, Hos. ii. 23. It was
nothing but faith on his name that gave men the privilege of being the sons of
God, and this was communicated to Gentiles as well as Jews. Power: not a power,
but a dignity, as the word properly signifies. Not a power if they would, but a
will, for they were born of the will of God. Faith brings men into a special
relation to God; which faith is more than an assent and giving credit to God;
for to believe on God, to believe on his name, is a phrase peculiar to Scripture.
'To become the sons of God;' some understand this of sonship by adoption, but
the following verse gives us light to understand it of a sonship by
regeneration. St Paul uses the word adoption, but St John, both in his gospel
and epistles, speaks more of the new birth, and sonship by it, than any of the
other apostles; 'who were born not of blood,' or 'of bloods.' He removes all
other causes of this, which men might imagine, and ascribes it wholly to God.
This place is variously interpreted. 'Not of blood.' Not by natural instinct,
says one; not by an illustrious stock. The Jews imagined themselves holy by
their carnal generation from Abraham in a long train of ancestors. Grace runs
not in a blood. It is not often a flower growing upon every ability; 'not many
wise, not many mighty.' Not hereditary by a mixture of blood. Natural
generation makes men no more regenerate than the rich man in hell was
regenerate by Abraham, his natural ancestor, whom he calls 'father Abraham.'
Religious parents propagate corruption, not regeneration; carnal generation is
by nature, not by grace; by descent from Adam, not by implantation in Christ.
Abraham had an Ishmael, and Isaac an Esau: man begets only a mortal body, but
grace is the fruit of an incorruptible seed. 'Nor of the will of the flesh.'
Not by human election, as Eve judged of Cain that he should be the Messiah, or
Isaac of Esau that he should be heir of the promise, as the Jews say. Not by a
choice of those things which are necessary, profitable, or delightful to the
flesh; not by a will affected to the flesh, or things of the flesh. Not by any
sensual appetite, whereby men used to adopt one to bear up their names when
they scanted posterity of their own. I would rather conceive it to be meant of
the strength of nature, which is called flesh in Scripture; not by legal
observances, the ceremonies of the law being called carnal or fleshly
ordinances, Heb. ix. 10. It is not a fruit of nature or profession. 'Nor of the
will of man.' Calvin takes the will of the flesh and the will of man for one
and the same thing, the apostle using two expressions only to fix it more upon
the mind. I rather fudge it to be meant thus: not by natural principles, or
moral endowments, which are the flower and perfection of man as man. It is not
arbitrary, of the will of man, or the result naturally of the most religious
education. All the power of regenerate men in the world joined together cannot
renew another; all the industry of man, without the influence of the heavens in
the sun and rain, cannot produce fruit in the earth, no, nor the moral industry
of men grace in the soul; 'but of God,' or the will of God; his own will: James
i. 18, 'Of his own will begot he us,' exclusive of all other wills mentioned
before. It is the sole efficiency of God; he has the sole hand in it; therefore
we are said to be both begotten and born of him, 1 John v. 18. It is so purely
God's work, that as to the principle he is the sole agent; and as to the
manifestation of it, he is the principal agent. Not of the will of the flesh,
that is only corruption; nor of the will of man, that at best is but moral
nature. But whatsoever the meaning of those particular expressions is, the
evangelist removes all pretences nature may make to the efficiency of this
regeneration, and ascribes it wholly to God.
1. There is a removal of false causes.
2. A position of the true cause.
(1.) The efficient, God.
(2.) The manner, by an act of his will.
Showing thereby,
[1.] To necessity in him to renew us, no
motive but from himself.
[2.] No merit on our parts. Man cannot
merit, say the papists, before grace, no child can merit his own birth, no man
grace.
Doct. 1. Man, in all his capacities, is too
weak to produce the work of regeneration in himself.
It is subjectively in the creature, not
efficiently by the creature, neither ourselves nor any other creature, angels,
men, ordinances.
Doct. 2. God alone is the prime efficient
cause of regeneration.
Doct. 1. For the first. Man, in all his
capacities, is too weak to produce the work of regeneration in himself. This is
not the birth of a darkened wisdom and an enslaved will. We affect a kind of
divinity, and would centre ourselves in our own strength; therefore it is good
to be sensible of our own impotency, that God may have the glory of his own
grace, and we the comfort of it in a higher principle and higher power than our
own. It is not the bare proposal of grace, and the leaving the will to an
indifferent posture, balanced between good and evil, undetermined to the one or
the other, to incline and determine itself which way seems best to it. Not one
will, in the whole rank of believers, left to themselves. The evangelist
excepts not one man among them; for as many as received Christ, as many as
believed, were the sons of God, who were born; which believers, every one that
had this faith as the means, and this sonship as the privilege, were born not
of the will of the flesh nor the will of man.
For the proof of this in general,
1. God challenges this work as his own,
excluding the creature from any share as a cause: Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27, 'I will
sprinkle clean water upon you, I will cleanse you, I will give you a new heart,
I will put a new spirit into you, I will take away the heart of stone, 1 will
give you a heart of flesh, I will put my Spirit into you.' Here I will no
less than seven times. Nothing is allowed to man in the production of this work
in the least; all that is done by him is the walking in God's statutes by
virtue of this principle. The sanctifying principle, the actual sanctification,
the reception of it by the creature, the removal of all the obstructions of it,
the principle maintaining it, are not in the least here attributed to the will
of man. God appropriates all to himself. He does not say he would be man's
assistant, as many men do, who tell us only of the assistance of the gospel, as
if God in the gospel expected the first motions of the will of man to give him
a rise for the acting of his grace. You see here he gives not an inch to the
creature. To ascribe the first work, in any part, to the will of man, is to
deprive God of half his due, to make him but a partner with his creature. The
least of it cannot be transferred to man but the right of God will be
diminished, and the creature go shares with his Creator. Are we not sufficient
of ourselves to do any thing? and are we sufficient to part stakes with God in
this divine work? What partner was the creature with God in creation? It is the
Father's traction alone, without the hand of free-will. 'None can come, except
the Father, which has sent me, draw them,' John vi. 44. The mission of the
Mediator, and the traction of the creature, are by the same hand. Our Saviour
could not have come unless the Father had sent him, nor can man come to Christ
unless the Father draw him. What is that which is drawn? The will. The will,
then, is not the agent; it does not draw itself.
2. The titles given to regeneration evidence
it. It is a creation. What creature can give itself a being? It is a putting in
a law and a new heart. What matter can infuse a soul into itself? It is a new
birth. What man did ever beget himself? It is an opening the heart. What man
can do this, who neither has the key, nor is acquainted with the wards? Not a
man knows the heart; it is deceitful above all things, who can know it?
3. The conveyance of original corruption
does in part evidence it. We have no more interest of our wills in
regeneration, than we had in corruption. This was first received by the will of
Adam, our first head, thence transmitted to us without any actual consent of
our wills in the first transmission; that is conveyed to us from the second
Adam, without any actual consent of our wills in the first infusion. Yet though
the wills of Adam's posterity are mere passive in the first conveyance of the
corrupt habit from him by generation, yet afterwards they are active in the
approbations of it, and production of the fruits of it. So the will is merely
passive in the first conveyance of the grace of regeneration, though afterwards
it is pleased with it, and brings forth fruit meet for it.
4. Scripture represents man exceeding weak,
and unable to do any thing spiritually good. 'So then, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God,' Rom. viii. 8. He concludes it by his so then,
as an infallible consequence, from what he had discoursed before. If, as being
in the flesh, they cannot please God, therefore not in that which is the
highest pleasure to God, a framing themselves to a likeness to him. The very
desire and endeavour of the creature after this, is some pleasure to God, to
see a creature struggling after holiness; but they that are in the flesh cannot
please him. 'Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?' was said of our Saviour.
So may we better say, Can any good thing come out of the flesh, the enslaved,
possessed will of man? If it be free since it was captivated by sin, who set it
free? Nothing can, but 'the law of the Spirit of life,' Rom. viii. 2. To be
'sinners,' and to be 'without strength,' is one and the same thing in the
apostle's judgment: Rom. v. 6, 8, 'While we were yet without strength;'
afterwards, 'while we were yet sinners;' he does not say, We are without great
strength, but without strength, such an impotence as is in a dead man. Not like
a man in a swoon, but a man in a grave. God only is almighty, and man all
impotency; God only is all-sufficient, and man all-indigent. It is impossible
we can have a strength of our own, since our first father was feeble, and
conveyed his weakness to us; by the same reason that it is impossible we can
have a righteousness of our own, since our first father sinned: Isa. xliii. 26,
27, 'Declare, that thou may be justified. Thy first father has sinned.'
5. This weakness is universal. Sin has made
its sickly impressions in every faculty. The mind is dark, Eph. iv. 18, he
cannot know, 1 Cor. ii. 14, there is a stoniness in the heart, he cannot bend,
Zech. vii. 12; there is enmity in the will, he cannot be subject, Rom. viii. 7.
As to faith, he cannot believe, John xii. 89. As to the Spirit, the worker of faith,
he cannot receive; that is, of himself, John xiv. 17; acknowledge Christ he
cannot, 1 Cor. xii. 3. As to practice, he cannot bring forth fruit, John xv. 4.
The unrighteousness introduced by Adam poured a poison into every faculty, and
dispossessed it of its strength, as well as of its beauty: what else could be
expected from any deadly wound but weakness as well as defilement? The
understanding conceives only such thoughts as are pleasing to the law of sin;
the memory is employed in preserving the dictates and decrees of it; the
imagination full of fancies imprinted by it; the will wholly submitting to its
authority; conscience standing with fingers in its mouth, for the most part not
to speak against it; the whole man yielding itself and every member to the
commands of it, and undertaking nothing but by its motions, Rom. vi. 19.
6. To evince it, there is not one regenerate
man but in his first conversion is chiefly sensible of his own insufficiency;
and universal consent is a great argument of the truth of a proposition; it is
a ground of the belief of a deity, it being the sentiment of all nations. I do
not speak of disputes about it from the pride of reason, but of the inward
experience of it in any heart. What more frequent in the mouths of those that
have some preparations to it by conviction, than I cannot repent, I cannot
believe, I find my heart rotten, and base, and unable to any thing that is
good! There have been instances of those that would elevate the power of man,
and freedom of will in spiritual things, who have been confuted in their
reasonings, and acknowledged themselves so, when God has come to work savingly
upon them. Indeed, this poverty of spirit, or sense of our own emptiness,
insufficiency, and indigence, is the first gospel grace wrought in the soul,
and stands in the head of all those noble qualifications in our Saviours
sermon, as fitting men for the kingdom of God: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit;
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,' Mat. v. 3. And God in the whole progress of
this work keeps believers in a sensibleness of their own weakness, thereby to
preserve them in a continual dependence on him; and therefore sometimes
withdraws his Spirit from them, and lets them fall, that they may adhere more
closely to him, and less confide in themselves.
2. What kind of impotency or insufficiency
is there in the soul to be the cause of this work?
Ans. 1. It is not a physical weakness for
want of faculties. Understanding we have, but not a spiritual light in it to
direct us; will we have, but no freedom to choose that which is spiritually
good. Though since the fall we have such a free will left, which pertains to
the essential nature of man, yet we have lost that liberty which belongs to the
perfection of human nature, which was to exercise acts spiritually good and
acceptable to God! Had the faculties been lost, Adam had not been capable of a
promise or command, and consequently of ever sinning after. In Adam, by
creation we were possessed of it. In Adam, by his corruption, we were stripped
of it; we have not lost the physical but the moral nature of these faculties;
not the faculties themselves, but the moral goodness of them. As the elementary
heat is left in a carcass, which yet is unfit to exercise any animal action for
want of a soul to enliven it; so, though the faculties remain after this
spiritual death, we are unfit to exert any spiritual action for want of grace
to quicken them. If man wanted faculties, this want would excuse him in his
most extravagant actions: no creature is bound to that which is simply
impossible; nay, without those faculties, he could not act as a rational
creature, and so were utterly incapable of sinning. Sin has untuned the
strings, but did not unstring the soul; the faculties were still left, but in
such a disorder, that the wit and will of man can no more tune them, than the
strings of an untuned lute can dispose themselves for harmony without a
musician's hand.
2. Neither is it a weakness arising from the
greatness of the object above the faculty. As when an object is unmeet for a
man, because he has no power in him to comply with it; as to understand the
essence of God; this the highest creature in its own nature cannot do, because
God dwells in inaccessible light; and it is utterly impossible for any thing
but God to comprehend God. If man were required to become an angel, or to rise
up and kiss the sun in the firmament; these were impossible things, because man
wanted a faculty in his primitive nature for such acts: so if God had commanded
Adam to fly without giving him wings, or to speak without giving him a tongue,
he had not been guilty of sin in not doing it, because it was not disobedience,
for disobedience is only in what a man has a faculty to do; but to love God,
praise him, depend upon him, was in the power of man's original nature, for
they were not above those faculties God endued him with, but very correspondent
and suitable to him. The objects proposed are in themselves intelligible,
credible, capable to be comprehended.
3. Neither is it a weakness arising from the
insufficiency of external revelation. The means of regeneration are clearly
revealed in the gospel, the sound is gone into all the earth, Rom. x. 18, and
the word of the Lord is an apprehensible object; it is 'near us, even in our mouths,'
Rom. x. 8; 'the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes,' Ps.
xix. 8. If the object were hid, the weakness lay not on the part of man, but on
the insufficiency of revelation; as if any thing were revealed to man in an
unknown tongue, there were an insufficiency in the means of revelation.
But, 4, it is a moral weakness. The
disability lies chiefly in the will, John v. 40; what is there, 'You will
not come to me,' is, ver. 44, 'How can you believe?' You cannot,
because you will not. Carnal lusts prepossess the heart, and make their party
in the will against the things of God; so that inward propensities to embrace
sin, are as great as the outward temptations to allure to it, whereby the soul
is carried down the stream with a wilful violence. In this respect he is called
dead, though the death be not of the same nature with a natural death; for such
a one has not the natural faculty to raise himself, but this is an impotency
arising from a voluntary obstinacy; yet the iniquity of a man binds him no less
powerfully under this spiritual captivity, than a natural death and
insensibility keeps men in the grave; and those fetters of perversity they can
no more knock off, than a dead man can raise himself from the grave. By reason
of those bands they are called prisoners, Isa. xiii. 7, and cannot be delivered
without the powerful voice of Christ commanding and enabling them to go forth:
Isa. xlix. 9, 'That thou must say to the prisoner, Go forth.' The apostle lays
the whole fault of men's not receiving the truth upon their wills: 2 Thess. ii.
10, 'They received not the love of the truth;' they heard it, they knew it, but
they loved not that which courted them. It is not seated in any defect of the
will, as it is a power of the soul; for then God, who created it, would be
charged with it, and might as well charge beasts to become men, as men to
become gracious. Man, as a creature, had a power to believe and love God; to
resist temptations, avoid sin, and live according to nature; but man, as corrupted
by a habit derived to him from his first parents, and increased by a custom in
sin, cannot believe, cannot love God, cannot bring himself into a good frame;
as a musician cannot play a lesson when he has the gout in his fingers. When
the eyes are full of adultery, when the heart is full of evil habits, it
'cannot cease to sin,' it cannot be gracious, 2 Pet. ii. 14.
Now, these habits are either innate, or
contracted and increased.
(1.) Innate. By nature we have a habit of
corruption, fundamental of all other that grow up in us. Man made a covenant
with sin, contracted a marriage with it; by virtue of this covenant sin had a
full power over him. What the apostle speaks of the marriage between man and
the law, Rom. vii. 1-4, is applicable to this case. Sin as a husband, by way of
covenant, has a powerful dominion over the will, and binds it as long as sin
lives; and the will has no power to free itself, unless a higher power make a
divorce, or by the death of the husband. This is the cause of man's obstinacy
against any return to God, the will is held in the cords of sin, Prov. v. 22.
The habit has obtained an absolute sovereignty over it: Hosea v. 4, 'They will
not frame their doings to turn unto their God.' Why? 'For the spirit of
whoredoms is in the midst of them,' that is, in their hearts. This adulterous
or idolatrous habit holds their wills in chains, and acts them as a man
possessed by the devil is acted according to the pleasure of the devil. The
devil speaks in them, moves in them, and does what he pleases by them. And
which binds the will faster, this habit is not in a natural man by way of a
tyranny, but a voluntary sovereignty on the part of the will, the will is
pleased and tickled with it. As a woman (to use the similitude of the Holy
Ghost in that place) is so overruled by her affections to other lovers that she
cannot think of returning to her former husband, but her unlawful love plays
all its pranks, and rises with that force against all arguments from honesty
and credit, that it keeps her still in the chains of an unlawful lust, so this
is not a habit which does oppress nature, or force it against its will, but by
its incorporation, and becoming one with our nature, has quite altered it from
that original rectitude and simplicity wherein God at first framed it. It is a
law of sin, which having razed out the purity of the law of nature, commands in
a greater measure in the stead of it. Hence it is as natural to man, in his
lapsed state, to have perverse dispositions against God, as it is essential to
him to be rational. And the chariot of that weak remaining reason left us, is
overturned by our distempered passions; and the nobler part of man is subject
to the rule of these, which bear down the authority both of reason and God too.
That one sin of the angels, howsoever complicated we know not, taking place as
a habit in them, has bound them for ever from rising to do any good, or
disentangling themselves from it, and may perhaps be meant by those 'chains of
darkness' wherein they are reserved and held to the judgment of the great day,
having no will to shake them off, though they have light enough to see the
torment appointed for them.
(2.) New contracted and increased habits
upon this foundation. Custom turns sin more into another nature, and completes
the first natural disorder. An unrenewed man daily contracts a greater
impotency, by adding strength to this habit, and putting power into the hands
of sin to exercise its tyranny, and increasing our headstrong natures in their
unruliness. It is as impossible of ourselves to shake off the fetters of
custom, as to suppress the unruliness of nature: Jer. xiii. 23, 'Can an
Ethiopian change his skin? or a leopard his spots? then may you also do good
that are accustomed to do evil.' The prophet speaks not here of what they were
by nature, but what they were by custom; contracting thereby such a habit of
evil, that, like a chronic disease could not be cured by any ordinary means.
But may he not accustom himself to do good? No, it is as impossible as for an Ethiopian
to change his skin. Those habits draw a man to delight, and therefore to a
necessity, of sinning. The pleasure of the heart, joined with the sovereignty
of sin, are two such strong cords as cannot be untwisted or cut by the soul
itself, no, not without an overruling grace. It was a simple wound in Adam, but
such as all nature could not care, much less when we have added a world of
putrefaction to it. The stronger the habit, the greater the impotency. If we
could not raze out the stamp of mere nature upon our wills, how can we raze out
the deeper impressions made by the addition of custom? If Adam, who committed
but one sin, and that in a moment, did not seek to regain his lost integrity,
how can any other man, who by a multitude of sinful acts has made his habit of
a giant-like stature, completed many parts of wickedness, and scoffed at the
rebukes of conscience?
Let us now see wherein this weakness of our
wills to renew ourselves does appear.
1. In a total moral unfitness for this work.
Grace being said to make us meet for our Master's use, it implies an utter
unfitness for God's use of ourselves before grace. There is a passive
capability, a stump left in nature, but no fitness for any activity in nature,
no fitness in nature for receiving grace, before grace; there is nothing in us
naturally which does suit or correspond with that which is good in the sight of
God. That which is natural is found more or less in all men; but the gospel,
which is the instrument of regeneration, finds nothing in the nature of man to
comply with the main design of it. There is indeed some compliance of moral
nature with the moral precepts in the gospel, upon which account it has been
commended by some heathens; but nothing to answer the main intendment of it,
which is faith, the top grace in regeneration. This has nothing to commend
itself to mere nature, nor finds an internal principle in man that is pleased
with it, as other graces do, as love, meekness, patience, &c. For faith
strips a man of all his own glory, brings himself from himself to live
dependently upon another, and makes him act for another, not for himself; and
therefore meets not with any one principle in man to show it countenance: 'No
good thing dwells in the flesh,' Rom. vii. 18. There may be some motions
lighting there, as a fly upon a man's face; but they have no settled abode, and
spring not up from nature. If the apostle, who was renewed, found an unfitness
in himself to do that which was good, how great is that unfitness in a mere
natural will, which is wholly under the power of the flesh, and has no
principle in it correspondent to spiritual truth, to renew itself! If this
regeneration had any foundation in nature, it would be then in most men that
hear the gospel, because there is not a general contradiction in men to those
things which are natural; but since there is no good thing dwells in any flesh,
how can it be fit of itself to be raised into a conformity to God, which is the
highest pitch of the creature's excellency? The Scripture represents us not as
earth, which is fit to suck in showers from heaven; but as stones, which are
only moistened in the superficies by the rain, but answers not the intendment
of it. Adamants are unfit to receive impressions; and the best natural heart is
no better, like a stone, cold and hard. The soul with its faculties is like a
bird with its wings, but clogged with lime and clay, unfit to fly. A barren
wilderness is absolutely unfit to make a pleasant and fruitful garden. There is
a contractedness of the heart till God enlarge and open it, and that in the
best nature. Acts xvi. 14, Lydia, it is said, worshipped God; there was
religion in her, yet the Lord opened her heart for the gospel. Can anything be
more indisposed than a fountain that is always bubbling up poison? So is the
heart of man, Gen. vi. 5. The least imagination rising up in the heart is evil,
and can be no better, since the heart itself is a mass of venom. If the renewed
natures find so much indisposition in the progress of sanctification, though
their sails be filled with grace, how great must it be where corrupt nature
only sits at the stern! As when Satan came to tempt our Saviour he found
nothing in him, no touchwood in his nature to take fire by a temptation, so
when the Spirit comes, he finds no tinder in man to receive readily any spark
of grace. This unfitness is in the best mere nature, that seems to have but a
drop of corruption: a drop of water is as unfit to ascend as a greater
quantity.
2. There is not only an unfitness, but an
unwillingness. A senseless sluggishness and drowsiness of soul, loath to be
moved. No man does readily hold out his arms to embrace the tenders of the
gospel. What folding of the arms! yet a little more slumber, a little more sin.
Man is a mere darkness before his effectual calling: 'Who has called us out of
darkness,' 1 Peter ii. 9. His understanding is darkened; the will cannot
embrace a thing offered, unless it have powerful arguments to persuade it of
the goodness of that thing which is offered; which arguments are modelled in
the understanding, but that being darkened, has wrong notions of divine things,
therefore cannot represent them to the will to be pursued and followed. Adam's
running away from God to hide himself, after the loss of his original
righteousness, discovers how unwilling man is to implore God's favour. How
deplored is the condition of man by sin! since we find not one prayer put up by
Adam, nor can we suppose any till the promise of recovery was made, though he
was sensible of his nakedness, and haunted by his conscience: 'I was afraid,
because I was naked: and I hid myself,' Gen. iii. 10. He had no mind, no heart,
to turn suppliant unto God; he runs from God, and when God finds him out,
instead of begging pardon by humble prayer, he stands upon his justification,
accuses God to be the cause by giving him the woman, by whose persuasion he was
induced to sin. What glass will better discover the good will of nature to God
than the first motions after the fall!
3. There is not only an unfitness and unwillingness,
but an affection to something contrary to the gospel. The nature of outward
objects is such, that they attract the sensitive appetite, corrupted by sin, to
prefer them before that which is more excellent; the heart is forestalled by an
inordinate love of the world, and a pleasure in unrighteousness: 2 Thess. ii.
12, they 'believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness'
("Eudochesantes"), a singular pleasure. Where the heart and the devil
agree so well, what liking can there be to God or his will? Where the amity
between sin and the soul is so great, that sin is self, and self is sin, how
can so delightful a friend be discarded, to receive one he thinks his enemy!
This weakness arises from a love to something different or contrary to what is
proposed. When a man is so tied to that object which he loves that he minds not
that contrary object which is revealed by a fit light, as a man that has his
eyes or his heart fixed upon a fair picture, cannot observe many things that
occur about him; or if he does consider it, he is taken so much with the things
he loves, that he seems to hate the other; that though he does count it good,
yet compared with what he loved before, he apprehends it as evil, and judges it
evil, merely by the error of his mind,—a practical, affected, and voluntary
ignorance. So though a man may sometimes judge that there is a goodness in the
gospel and the things proposed, yet his affection to other pleasures, which he
prefers before the gospel, causes him to shake off any thoughts of compliance
with it. Now, all natural men in the irons of sin are not weary but in love
with their fetters, and prize their slavery as if it were the most glorious
liberty.
4. There is not only unfitness, and
unwillingness, and a contrary affection to the gospel, but according to the
degrees of this affection to other things, there is a strong aversion and
enmity to the tenders of the gospel. This enmity is more or less in the heart
of every unrenewed man; though in some it is more restrained and kept down by
education, yet it will appear more or less upon the approaches of grace, which
is contrary to nature. As a spark as well as a flame will burn, though one has
less heat than the other, there is the same nature, the same seminal principles
in all. The carnal mind, let it be never so well flourished by education, is
enmity to God; and therefore 'unable,' because unwilling, 'to be subject to the
law,' Rom. viii. 7. By nature he is of the devil's party, and has no mind the
castle of his heart should ever come into the hands of the right owner. It is
in every faculty. Not one part of the soul will make a mutiny within against
sin, or take part with God when he comes to lay siege to it; when he 'stretches
out his hands,' he meets with a 'rebellious and gainsaying people,' Rom. x. 21.
It can converse with anything but God, look with delight upon anything but that
which is the only true object of delight. It can have no desire to have that
law written in his heart whose characters he hates. All the expressions in the
Scripture denoting the work of grace, import man's distaste of it; it is to
deny self, crucify the flesh. What man has not an aversion to deny what is
dearest to him, his self; to crucify what is incorporated with him, his Isaac,
his flesh? The bent of a natural heart, and the design of the gospel, which is
to lay man as low as the dust, can never agree. A corrupt heart, and the
propositions of grace, meet together as fire and water, with hissing. The
language of man, at the proposals of the gospel, is much like that of the
devils, 'What have we to do with thee? Art thou come to destroy us?' Luke iv.
34.
5. This aversion proceeds on to a
resistance. No rebels were ever stouter against their prince than an unrenewed
soul against the Spirit of God: not a moment without arms in his hand; he acts
in defence of sin, and resistance of grace, and combats with the Spirit as his
deadly enemy: 'You always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do
you,' Acts vii. 51. The animosity runs in the whole blood of nature; neither
the breathings of love, nor the thunderings of threatenings, are listened unto.
All natural men are hewed out of one quarry of stone. The highest rock and the
hardest adamant may be dissolved with less pains than the heart of man; they
all, like a stone, resist the force of the hammer, and fly back upon it. All
the faculties are full of this resistance: the mind, with stout reasoning,
gives a repulse to grace; the imagination harbours foolish conceits of it; in
the heart, hardness and refusing to hear; in the affections, disgust and
displeasure with God's vans, disaffection to his interest; the heart is locked,
and will not of itself shoot one bolt to let the King of glory enter. What
party is like to be made for God, by bare nature thus possessed? Nature indeed
does what it can, though it cannot do what it would; for though it resist the
outward means and inward motions, yet it cannot efficaciously resist the
determining grace of God, any more than the matter of the creation could resist
the all-powerful voice of God commanding it to receive this or that form, or
Lazarus resist the receiving that life Christ conveyed to him by his mighty
word. God finds a contradiction in our wills, and we are not regenerate because
our will has consented to the persuasions of grace; for that it does not do of
itself; but the grace of God disarms our will of all that is capable to make
resistance, and determines it to accept and rejoice in what is offered. Nature
of itself is of an unyielding temper, and removes not one scale from the eye,
nor any splinter from the stone in the heart; for how can we be the authors of
that which we most resist and labour to destroy?
6. Add to all this, the power of Satan in
every natural man, whose interest lies in enfeebling the creature. The devil,
since his first impression upon Adam, has had the universal possession of
nature, unless any natural man free himself from the rank of the children of
disobedience: Eph. ii. 2, 'The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience;'
where the same word "enengein" is used for the acting of Satan, and
likewise for the acting of sin, in Rom. vii. 5. as it is for the acting of the
Spirit, Philip. ii. 13. In whom he works as a spirit as powerfully according to
his created strength, as the Holy Ghost works in the children of obedience. As
the Spirit fills the soul with gracious habits to move freely in God's ways, so
Satan fills the soul (as much as in him lies) with sinful habits, as so many
chains to keep it under his own dominion. He cannot indeed work immediately
upon the will, but he uses all the skill and power that he has to keep men
captive for the performance of his own pleasure: 2 Tim. ii. 26, 'Who are taken
captive by him at his will,' or for his will, "Eis to ekeinou thelema".
It is in that place a dreadful judgment which God gives some men up to for
opposing the gospel, taking away his restraints, both from the devil and their
own hearts, but more or less he works in every one that opposes the gospel,
which every unrenewed man under the preaching of the gospel does, he is the
strong man that keeps the palace, Luke xi. 21. Can the will of man make a
surrender of it, at God's demand, in spite of his governor? What power have we
to throw off these shackles he loads us with? We are as weak in his hand as
birds in a fowler's. What will have we, since we are his willing slaves? The
darkness of nature is never like by its own free motion to disagree with the
prince of darkness, without an overpowering grace, able to contest with the
lord as well as the slave; for by the fall he is become prince of the lower
creation, and holds it in chains too strong for weakness to break. How great,
then, is man's inability! How unreasonable is it to think that the will of man
possessed with such unfitness, unwillingness, affection to other things,
aversion to the gospel, resistance of it, and in the devil's net, can of itself
do anything towards its recovery, from that it counts no disease; or to turn to
that which it accounts its burden? If unspotted and sound nature did not
preserve Adam in innocence, how can filthy and craze nature recover us from
corruption? If it did not keep him alive when he was living, how can it convey
life to us when we have not a spark of spiritual life in us? Man was planted a
'noble vine,' but turned himself into 'a degenerate plant;' nothing that has
decayed can by its own strength recover itself, because it has lost that
strength whereby it could only preserve itself.
1. Man cannot prepare himself for grace.
2. He cannot produce it.
3. He cannot co-operate with God in the
first work.
4. He cannot preserve it.
5. He cannot actuate it.
1. Man cannot prepare himself for the new
birth.
I shall premise a few things for the better
understanding of this,
(1.) Man has a subjective capacity for grace
above any other creature in the inferior world; and this is a kind of natural
preparation which other creatures have not. A capacity in regard of the powers
of the soul, though not in respect of the present disposition of them. A stone
or a beast are not capable of habits of grace, no more than of habits of sin,
because they want rational natures, which are the proper seats of both. Our
Saviour did not raise trees or stones to life, though he had the same power to
do that as he had to raise stones to be children to Abraham; but he raised them
that had bodies prepared, in part, for a receptacle of a soul. As there is a
more immediate subjective capacity in a man newly dead for the reception of
life upon a new infusion of the soul, because he has all the members already
formed, which is not in one whose body is mouldered into dust, and has not one
member organised fit for the acting of a rational soul. These faculties have a
spring of natural motion in them, therefore are capable of divine grace to make
that motion regular; as the wheels of a clock out of order retain their
substance and their motion if their weights be wound up, but a false motion
unless the disorder of the spring be mended. Man has an understanding to know,
and, when it is enlightened, to know God's law; a will to move and run, and,
when enlarged by grace, to run the ways of God's commandments; so that he
stands in an immediate capacity to receive the life of grace upon the breath
and touch of God, which a stone does not, not the most sparkling jewel any more
than the meanest pebble; for in this it is necessary rational faculties should
be put as a foundation of spiritual motion. Though the soul be thus capable as
a subject to receive the grace of God, yet it is not therefore capable, as an
agent, to prepare itself for it or produce it; as a piece of marble is
potentially capable of being the king's statue, but not to prepare itself by
hewing off its superfluous parts, or to raise itself into such a figure. If
there were not a rational nature, there were nothing immediately to be wrought
upon. If there be not a wise agent and an omnipotent hand, there were nothing
to work upon it.
(2.) Besides this passive capacity, there
are more immediate preparations. The soul, as rational, is capable to receive
the truths of God; but as the heart is stony, it is incapable to receive the
impressions of those truths. A stone, as it is a corporeal substance, is
capable to receive the drops of rain in its cavities; but because of its
hardness is incapable to suck it in, and be moistened inwardly thereby, unless
it be softened. Wax has a capacity to receive the impression of the seal, but
it must be made pliable by some external agent to that purpose. The soul must
be beaten down by conviction before it be raised up by regeneration; there must
be some apprehensions of the necessity of it. Yet sometimes the work of
regeneration follows so close upon the heels of these precious preparations,
that both must be acknowledged to be the work of one and the same hand. Paul on
the sudden was struck down. and in a moment there is both an acknowledgement of
the authority of Christ, and a submission to his will, when he said, 'Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do?' Acts ix. 6. The preparation of the subject is
necessary, but this preparation may be at the same time with the conveyance of
the divine nature: as a warm seal may both prepare the hard wax, and convey the
image to it, by one and the same touch.
(3.) Though some things which man may do by
common grace may be said in some sort to be preparations, yet they are not
formally so, as that there is an absolute causal connection between such
preparations and regeneration They are not causae dispositivae of grace,
not disposing causes of grace. Grace is all in a way of reception by the soul,
not of action from the soul. The highest morality in the world is not necessary
to the first infusion of the divine nature. Mary Magdalene was far from the
one, yet received the other. If there were anything in the subject that was the
cause of it, the most tender and softest dispositions would be wrought upon,
and the most intelligent men would soonest receive the gospel. Though we see
them sometimes renewed, yet many times the roughest tempers are seized upon by
grace; and the most unlikely soils for fructifying God plants his grace in,
wherein there could be no preparations before. It is not with grace as it is
with fire, which gives as much heat to a stone as to a piece of wood; but the
wood is sooner heated than the stone, because it is naturally disposed, by the
softness and porousness of its parts, to receive the heat. Moral nature seems
to be a preparation for grace; if it be so, it is not a cause howsoever of
grace, for then the most moral person would be soonest gracious, and more
eminently gracious after his renewal, and none of the rubbish and dregs of the
world would ever be made fit for the heavenly building. There seems to be a
fitness in morality for the receiving special grace, because the violence and
tumultuousness of sin is in some measure appeased, the flame and sparks of it
allayed, and the body of death lies more quiet in them, and the principles
cherished by them bear some testimony to the holiness of the precepts. But
though it seems to set men at a greater nearness to the kingdom of God, yet
with all its own strength it cannot bring the kingdom of God into the heart,
unless the Spirit opens the lock. Yea, sometimes it sets a man further from the
kingdom of God, as being a great enemy to the righteousness of the gospel, both
imputed and inherent, which is the crown of the gospel: to imputed, as standing
upon a righteousness of their own, end conceiving no need of any other; to
inherent, as acting their seeming holiness neither upon gospel principles, nor
for gospel ends, but in self-reflections and self-applauses. What may seem
preparations to us in matters of moral life, may in the root be much distant
and vastly asunder from grace; as a divine of our own illustrates it, two
mountains whose tops seem near together may in the bottom be many miles
asunder. The foundation of that which looks like a preparation may be laid in
the very gall of bitterness; as Simon Magus desiring the gift of the Holy
Ghost, but from the covetousness of his heart. Other operations upon the soul
which seem to be nearer preparations, as convictions, do not infer grace; for
the heart, as a field, may be ploughed by terrors, and yet not sown by any good
seed. Planting and watering are preparations, but not the cause of fruit; the
increase depends upon God.
(4.) There is no meritorious connection
between any preparation in the creature and regeneration. The Pelagian opinion
was, that by a generous love of virtue we might deserve the grace of God, and
the farther assistance of the Spirit, we first (say they) put our hearts into
the hands of God, that God may incline them which way he please; and by thus
making our wills depend on God, we merit help from God, and make ourselves
worthy of him. Whether this be the opinion of any now, I know not. This is to
assert, that man gives first to God, and then God to man in way of requital.
What son can merit to be born? What desert before being? Nothing can be
pre-existent in the son which merits generation by the father. The fair hand of
moral nature more induce God to confer on man the state of grace, than the deed
of conveyance of a manor, fairly drawn, can dispose the lord to pass it away.
In what part of Scripture has God indulged mere nature with any promise of
adding grace upon the improvements of natural abilities? Whatsoever conditional
promise there is, supposes some grace superior to nature in the subject as the
condition of it. We do not find that God has made himself a debtor to any
preparation of the creature.
But there is no obligation on God by
anything that may look like a preparation in man. For,
[1.] If man can lay any obligation on God,
it must be by some act in all parts his own, for which he is not in the least
obliged to God. Thinking is the lowest step in the ladder of preparation. It is
the first act of the creature in any rational production, yet this the apostle
does remove from man, as in every part of it his own act: 2 Cor. iii. 5, 'Not
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our
sufficiency is of God.' The word signifies reasoning. No rational act can be
done without reasoning; this is not purely our own. We have no sufficiency of
ourselves, as of ourselves, originally and radically of ourselves, as if we
were the author of that sufficiency, either naturally or meritoriously. And
Calvin observes that the word is not "autarkeia" but
"hikanotes", not a self-ability, but an aptitude or fitness to any
gracious thought. How can we oblige him by any act, since, in every part of it,
it is from him, not from ourselves? For as thinking is the first requisite, so
it is perpetually requisite to the progress of any rational act, so that every
thought in any act, and the whole progress, wherein there must be a whole flood
of thoughts, is from the sufficiency of God. We cannot oblige God after grace,
much less before, for when grace is given there must be constant effluxes of
grace from God to maintain it; and the acts of grace in us are but a second
grace of God. How can we then oblige him by that which is not ours, either in
the original or improvement? If when a man has given to another a rich gift he
must also give him power to preserve it, and wisdom to improve it, the person
cannot be said by his improvement of it to oblige the first donor. What has any
man that he has not received? 1 Cor. iv. 7. The apostle excludes everything in
us from the name of a donation to God. If there be no one thing but is received
from God, then no preparation to grace but is received from him. The obligation
then lies upon the receiver, not upon the donor. But may we not oblige God by
the improvement of such a gift? The apostle includes everything, challenges him
to name any one thing which was not received, which will contain improvements
as well as preparations. If we have power to improve it, wisdom to improve it,
hearts and opportunities to improve it, all these are by way of reception from
God.
[2.] If man can lay any obligation upon God,
it must be by some pure, spotless act. This cannot be; no pure act can spring
from man. God has taken an exact survey of the whole world in its dark and
fallen state, and could not, among those multitudes of acts which spring from
the will of man find one piece of beauty, one particle of the divine image, for
he has pronounced this sentence upon them, with repetition, too, as his
infallible judgment: 'There is none righteous no, not one: they are all gone
out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does
good, no, not one,' Rom. iii. 10-12. The most refined nature derived from Adam
was never found without fault, a pure virtue is a terra incognita. The
productions of nature are always evil. If not one action be fully good in the
nature of man, what meritoriousness can there be in any preparation of nature
for the grace of God? Can the clearest virtue that ever was since Adam oblige
God to pardon its own defects, that is, the defects of that very act of virtue?
Much less can it challenge a higher degree of grace to be transmitted to it.
[3.] If any preparation were our own, and
were pure, yet being natural, how could it oblige God to give a supernatural
grace? If there be anything of meritoriousness, it is only something of the
same kind with the work in a greater degree, but there is no proportion between
natural acts and supernatural grace. There is no one scripture, or one example,
declaring grace to be given as a reward to mere nature, or any act of nature.
God indeed, out of his infinite righteousness, and equity, and goodness, has
rewarded some moral acts with some worldly advantages, or the withdrawing some
judgments threatened, as Ahab's reprieve from judgment upon his humiliation, 1
Kings xxi. 27, 29; and the temporary pardon to Nineveh, upon their submission
to the prophet's threatenings, Jonah iii. 8-10. But what obligation lies upon
God to reward men doing thus with super-additions of grace? for there is no
proportion between such a moral act and so excellent a reward. Are may as well
say that a coal by glowing and sparkling may merit to become a star; or that
the orderly laying the wood and sacrifice upon the altar might merit the
descent of fire from heaven to kindle it.
[4.] If there was any obligation on God, by
any preparations of nature, then such acts would be always followed with renewing
grace. There would be an obligation on God's righteousness to bestow it. And if
it should be denied, the creature might accuse God of a failure in justice,
because he gave not what was due. God sure would observe that rule of justice
which he prescribes to man, not to detain the wages of a hireling, no, not for
a night. Were grace a debt upon the works of nature, God were then obliged not
only to pay it, but pay it speedily, it being exact righteousness so to do. But
we see the contrary. Publicans and harlots are raised and beautified, while
pharisees lie buried in the ruins of nature. These preparations are many times
without perfection. The pangs of conviction resolve sometimes into a return to
the old vomit, and make no progress in a state of life and grace. The apostle's
rule will hold true in the whole compass of the work, Rom. vi. 11, 'If it be of
works, then it is no more grace.' So much as is ascribed to any work or
preparation by the creature, so much is taken from the glory of grace, and would
make God not the author, but assistant, and that too by obligation, not by
grace.
[5.] From this it follows, that man does not
prepare himself by any act of his will, without the grace of God. What
preparation can he make, who is so powerfully possessed by corrupted habits,
which have got so great an empire over him, struck their roots to the very
bottom of his soul, entrenched themselves in the works of custom, that if he
goes about to pull up one, his arm shakes and his heart faints? How strongly do
these rooted habits resist the power of grace! How much more easily do they
resist the weakness of nature in confederacy with them! What is said of the
remnant of Jacob as a 'dew from the Lord,' as 'the showers upon the grass,'
that it 'tarries not for man, nor waits for the sons of men,' Micah v. 7, may
be said of the grace of God, it waits not for the preparations and dispositions
of the creature, but prevents them. It is a pure gift; though we are active
with it, yet we are wholly indisposed for it. We can no more prepare ourselves
to shine as stars in the world, than a dunghill can to shine as a sun in
heaven. What preparations does God wait for in the heart of an infarct when he
sanctifies it? If 'without Christ we can do nothing,' John xv. 5, then no preparations
without Christ; for they are something, and very considerable too. There is no
foundation to think there should be any preparation in the creature, as of the
creature.
First, The first promise of redemption and
regeneration intimates no such thing in man to either of them: Gen. iii. 15, 'I
will put enmity,' &c. The putting enmity into man against Satan is promised
by God as his own work. There was a friendship struck up, a confederacy made,
the devil entertained as a counsellor; God would now break this league, he only
puts enmity into the heart against Satan: 'It shall bruise thy head,' &c.
The bruising the serpent's head is wholly the act of Christ. It, not the
man or the woman, but the promised seed. As there were no preparations in the
creature to that which Christ acted in the flesh, so there are no preparations
in that creature for what Christ is to do in his Spirit. He bruised Satan in
his flesh upon the cross without any preparations in the creature; and so he
bruises Satan in the heart, by his Spirit, without any preparations on the
creature's part. For anything I see, had man in the state of innocence been
sensible that his dependency, as to any good, and motion to good, ought to be
upon God, and he to have waited upon God for his change and confirmation, he
might have stood; but when he would practically assert the liberty of his own
will in a way of indifference to good and evil, he fell. And by the way, those
that assert the freedom of their own will naturally, without the grace of God, either
common or special, seem to me to justify Adam's first affected independence of
God.
Secondly, God is as much in the new creation
as he was in the old. Not only the creation of the matter, but the preparation
of it to receive the form, was from God; neither the matter, nor any part of
it, prepared itself. If nothing prepared itself to be a creature, how can
anything prepare itself to be a gracious creature, since to be a new creature
is more than to be a creature; and every preparation to be a new creature is
more than any preparation to be a creature? The new creation differs, I must
confess, from the old creation; but it is such a difference which makes it
rather harder than easier.
First, The object of the old creation was
nothing, the object of the new is something; but a thing that has no more
active disposition to receive a new form, than nothing had.
Secondly, The object of the first creation
was a simple and pure privation; the object of the second is a contrary form,
which resists the work of God: there was only an action of creation in the
first, there is an action of destruction in the second, the destruction of the
old form and the creation of a new. Is it likely that any nature would
voluntarily prepare itself for its own destruction? God in the first creation
found no disposition in the subject to entertain a form, here he finds a
contrary disposition to resist the form.
Thirdly, What preparation had any of those
we read of in Scripture from themselves? What disposition had Paul, when he was
struck down with a heart fuller of actual enmity than he had at his birth? Did
the apostles expect any call from their nets, or set themselves in a readiness
before they heard that call? A voice from Christ was attended with a divine
touch or power upon their hearts; both the preparation and the motion itself
took birth together. And what preparations are there in Scripture, but are
attributed unto God? If a conviction be thorough and full, and consequently a
preparation, it must refer to that Spirit which our Saviour asserts to be the
principal cause of it, John xvi. 8, 9, 'When he is come,' that is, the
Comforter, 'he will reprove the world of sin.' It is laid wholly upon this, as
the end of the almighty Spirit's coming, whereby it is not likely men would be
convinced without him. Is there any desire or prayer for it? Even this, if
true, is from the Holy Ghost; 'no man can call Christ Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost,' 1 Cor. xii. 3. Did any of those our Saviour cured of bodily
infirmities, prepare themselves for that cure? Neither can any man prepare
himself for his spiritual cure.
Fourthly, What thing in all the records of
nature ever prepared itself for a change? All preparations in matter for
receiving any form arise not from the matter itself, but from some other active
principle, or the new form in part introduced, which by degrees expels the old;
as in water, when heat comes in the place of cold, the preparation is not from
the water, but from the new quality introducing itself. The grace of God is to
the soul as form is to matter. The body is formed in the womb, for the
reception of the soul, but not by the embryo, but by the formative virtue of
the parent, fashioning the parts of the body to make it a fit lodging for the
soul; or, as some think, the soul itself, as the bee, fashions its own cell;
but howsoever it is not from itself. The preparations of Lazarus to rise were
from the voice of Christ, not from the stinking body of Lazarus. The nature of
all is alike. That one lute is better prepared for an harmonious touch, is from
the musician's skill, not any art of its own. If one man of the same nature
with another be endued with rich morals, it is from the common grace of God
exciting natural light, and the common notions of fit and just; as the reason one
vine of the same kind brings forth more generous fruit than another, is from
the stronger influence of the sun. All nature assents to this truth, that
nothing does prepare itself for a change.
Fifthly, If man did prepare himself for
grace, it would be a disparagement to God, it would violate the sovereignty of
God. It would be derogatory to the majesty of God to have his grace depend upon
the conditions and previous preparations in the creature; it would lay the
foundations of grace in a man's self, and impose a necessity in God to come in
with further grace, and make his actions dependent upon the actings of the
creature. The beginning of faith would be from us, and the supplement from God;
the work of grace would be of him that 'wills and runs,' and not 'of God that
shows mercy,' Rom. ix. 16. It would change the whole tenor of the Scripture,
and make conversion not God's drawing of us, but our traction of God; for he
that does dispose himself to grace, is in some sort the cause of that grace, as
he that does dispose the subject for such a form is in a sort the cause of that
form. If the preparations were from the will of man, man would begin the
noblest work that ever was wrought, and God would be made no more than an
attendant upon the creature's motion; whereas the very beginning in the will,
as well as the perfection, is ascribed to God: Philip. ii. 13, 'God works in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.' God's good pleasure is the
original cause of this work upon the will, not the will's good pleasure. The
work then depending on God's good pleasure, excludes any dependency on the will
of man; it is therefore called a creation, to show God's independence upon
anything as to this work.
Sixthly, Where should this preparation
begin? in what part of the soul? Shall it begin in the understanding? That has
lost the reins whereby it governed the lower parts of the soul. Nothing is more
discomposed in its acts than that faculty. It is well compared to a charioteer
or coachman fallen from his box, and his feet entangled in the reins of the
horses, which hurry him about. The sensitive appetite, like a wild horse, has
got the bit between his teeth, runs about, and draws the understanding after
it. Indeed a charioteer that has lost the government of his horses endeavours
to remedy that violence; he cries out, makes all resistance, has a will to help
himself; but the understanding is so far from resisting, that it takes pleasure
in the disorder of the passions; it prompts the will to follow them, and this
is properly to be a servant to sin. Shall it begin in the appetite? How can
that incline to range itself to the order of reason? It has no reason itself;
it submits not to the laws of reason; it has got the mastery of it, and has
prescription for its dominion, of a long standing, ever since the fall. The
dominion of sin is in the understanding, will, appetite, whence all of them are
called flesh, so that all the motions of the soul depending upon them, the
slavery must needs be voluntary. Therefore neither the understanding conceives,
nor the will wills, nor the appetite desires, anything against themselves; how,
then, should the will, which is captivated by a corrupt understanding and
disorderly affections, recover itself, when it must necessarily be under the guidance
of one of these jailers? Suppose the understanding were illuminated, are those
evil habits in the will corrected barely by the illumination of the
understanding? If they are corrected, why does not the will always follow the
dictate of the understanding? But, alas! those evil habits determine the will
to evil, as good habits determine it to good; for it is the nature of habits to
incline the faculties to those things which are suitable to the nature of those
habits; therefore as long as it remains under the command of those evil
inclinations, it is impossible it should pass from evil to good. But that the
will has evil inclinations, appears by the Scripture calling the whole man
flesh; else corruption would not be universally seated in the soul, but only
accidental in the will, from the darkness of the understanding. But certainly,
as Adam in innocence had an habitual holy disposition in his will, so man, in
his fall, has a corrupt inclination in his will, an habitual quality, whereby
he drinks iniquity like water, Job xv. 16. What power of the will can take
those cords off, which hold it prisoner, whereby it must be prepared for a free
motion?
To evidence this further, we shall consider,
1. That man does not naturally, neither can,
understand the new birth.
2. He cannot desire it. Understanding and
desire are necessary preparations to any rational change a creature can make in
itself.
1. Man cannot understand it. This is
necessary to a change. Whatsoever is done by the will, must be done by the
impulse of some other faculty. Sensitive appetite cannot instruct the will to
this work. Sense is not capable of reason, much less of religion, though it be
the portal to both. The will can never be moved to any good thing, unless the
mind propound it as good and amiable. The act of thinking must precede the act
of believing, for we cannot believe without thinking of what we believe. It is
less to think than understand. If we cannot, then, do that which is less in the
preparation, we cannot do that which is greater, especially when it is
impossible to will without thinking; and thinking is a necessary means to
willing. He that cannot prepare himself for a good thought, how can he prepare
himself for a gracious habit? What ability have we to the act of faith, when we
have no ability to any thought of faith? We cannot by the strength of nature
understand it, if we consider,
(1.) The first blot caused by sin was upon
the understanding. Man was first deceived by the sophistical reasonings of the
serpent. The first effect of sin was to spread a thick darkness upon Adam's
understanding. Though the whole house, and every beam of it, fell together, yet
this faculty was first unfastened, and brought all the rest to ruin. As soon as
ever he ceased from glorifying God as God, a darkness was brought upon his
foolish heart: Rom. i. 21, 'When they knew God, they glorified him not as God,
but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened,'
where the apostle describes the state of man in corrupt nature after his fall.
Folly first in the heart to desire the forbidden fruit, and then darkness came
upon the understanding. Their "dialogismoi", their reasonings, became
empty and contradictory; their primitive light departed, and darkness, as a
privation, took place. What true motion can there be in the will, when there
was so thick an obscurity in the understanding? Where there is but a false
knowledge in the mind, there can be no true motion in the will. There must then
be a restoration of this light, before there can be any preparation to a good
act of the will. Adam recovered not this light by his own strength, no, nor by
the outward declaration of the gospel in the promise; for no outward object
proposed to the understanding confers any power upon the faculty. How can it
then be recovered by our strength, since we have rather added to the scales
than diminished them? For,
(2.) There is a darkness transmitted from
him to the understanding of every man by nature. The light is darkened in the
heaven of the soul, the more spiritual part of the mind, Isa. v. 30, as the
prophet speaks in another case. Our understandings are so closed up with the
thick slime of sin, that we cannot see the beauty of gospel truths; 'darkness
comprehends not the light,' John i. 5. Though the light of the sun did shine a
thousand times brighter than it does, and strike upon the face and eyelids of a
man with the greatest glory, yet if there be a spot upon the apple of his eye,
if he scants a seeing faculty, he can apprehend nothing of it. Hence the
apostle prays for the illumination of the understanding of the Ephesians, chap.
i. 17, 18, and that they might have 'a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of God.' And our Saviour tells them that they 'must be taught of
God,' John vi. 45, by an internal teaching of the Spirit, as well as by himself
in an oral instruction. What a thick cloud was upon Nicodemus his mind, when he
discoursed with him about regeneration, who was the ablest teacher to
illustrate it to his fancy and understanding! It is not such a darkness as if
he might understand the mysteries of heaven, if he would exert the strength of
his own reason. This would be only as a man shutting his eyes who had a visive
faculty; but it is such a darkness as cannot be expelled by flesh and blood, or
anything arising from it: 'Flesh and blood,' says our Saviour to Peter, 'has
not revealed it unto thee, but my, Father which is in heaven,' Mat. xvi. 17.
Flesh and blood includes everything in opposition to God. Our Saviour had
externally owned himself, in the face of the Jews, to be the Messiah, the Son
of God; but besides this, there was an inward illumination granted to Peter,
for the apprehending and embracing so great a truth. There is not only a
darkness upon the minds of those who have no outward revelation of the will of
God in Christ, but upon those who are in the midst of the sunbeams: Deut.
xxix., 'Yet the Lord has not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see,
and ears to hear, unto this day.' They wanted not the beams. No people in the
world had the ordinances of God besides them; but they wanted an organ fitted
to receive and use them, which was not in their power, but is mentioned as the
gift of God. God promises to make his people to know his ways. What needs that,
if they could know them without him? We have indeed the light of the gospel, we
have also a faculty, but without an eye disposed for the light, Ye enjoy no
benefit by it. Now who ever heard that darkness could prepare itself for its
own expulsion? It cannot comprehend the light, much less prepare for the
reception of it. Now who ever heard of one born blind, in a capacity to prepare
himself for sight? We are blind in naturals, much more in spirituals. The most
polished reasons among the heathens, both for knowledge in naturals and
prudence in civil affairs, coated, and with all their wisdom knew not God.
(3.) There is an unsuitableness and a
contrariety in the mind of man to the gospel, which is the instrument of
regeneration. There is a mighty distance between the spiritual object and the
natural faculty. The understanding, though never so well furnished with natural
stuff, is but natural, and flesh; the object is supernatural and spiritual;
therefore the richest mere nature can no more attain to the knowledge of
spiritual things, than the clearest sense can attain to the knowledge of
rational. Though every man 'by nature has the things contained in the law,'
Rom. ii. 14, 15, yet no man has by nature the things contained in the gospel.
The gospel has not the same advantage in the hearts of men as the law hash, for
it finds nothing of kin to it. Though a natural heart has some broken pieces of
the law of God deposited in it, yet there is not the least syllable of Christ
or regeneration written in the mind by the hand of nature. The understanding
therefore naturally cannot prepare itself for the reception of the gospel,
because it has not any principle in it which suits the doctrine of it. It seems
a ridiculous thing to the wisest carnalist, who receives not the things of God,
because, out of the pride of natural wisdom, he counts them foolishness, 1 Cor.
ii. 14. Hence not many wise are renewed in their minds. Had the gospel truth
been as agreeable to reason as the other common notions imprinted in man, it would
have been preserved in the world longer than it was, since, without question,
Adam did communicate to his posterity the notion of a redeemer, which did soon
die among them, because not consonant to that reason they had derived by nature
from Adam. It was a knowledge given to Adam by revelation, not imprinted in his
nature by creation. Besides, there is a contrariety in the mind to the truth of
the gospel. As we say of liberty, so of enmity. Though it be formally in the
will, yet it is radically in the understanding. The mind is the seat of those
hostile principles which act the will against God, Rom. viii. 7. The mind of
man regards the things of God as unpleasant, and an intolerable yoke and hard
bridle. Let light, the most excellent thing in the world, glare upon a man that
has sore eyes, he will turn away from it, or shut his eyes against it; for
though he understands the worth of it, yet it has a quality offensive to him.
So is the gospel to those notions settled in the distempered mind. Men give not
credit to the declarations of the gospel; 'Who has believed our report?' has
been the voice of God's messengers in all ages, Isa. liii. 1. No man, unless
known by all never to speak truth, but is more believed than the God of
infallible and unerring truth! What principles, then, are there in the
understanding to prepare it for the reception of that which is so contrary to
its ancient inmates?
(4.) Besides this, the natural levity of the
understanding does incapacitate it to prepare itself. It is with the understanding
as with a line, the farther it is stretched out the weaker and more wavering it
is. So is the understanding, being at a distance from God. How do vain thoughts
intrude into the mind! No man can keep a door locked against them. We feel them
rushing upon us while we endeavour to avoid them. We are confounded and
overwhelmed by them, and drawn to things against our own resolutions. Man has
not the command of his own heart, so much as to think steadily of a divine
object. How can he then prepare his own heart, when he cannot without grace fix
in any holy meditation which is necessary for the renewal of it, since nothing
is more discomposed in its acts than the mind of man, which is always dancing
about, like cork in the water, or feathers in the air? Whence should come any
preparation to good orders but by some supernatural ballast, to establish it
from fluctuating? This disease every man is sensible of, and whatsoever disease
is inherent in nature cannot be cured by any preparations by that nature which
is wholly overgrown with it.
(5.) Hence it follows that a natural mind
has no right notion of grace. To the right notion of a thing is required
suitableness, pleasure, and a fixedness of the mind upon it. A natural mind
wants all these. How can it then prepare itself for that which it has no
knowledge of? And without knowledge it cannot commend it to the will. The
apostle asserts a plain cannot in this business: 1 Cor. ii. 14, 'He
cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned.' Being destitute of
the Spirit, they cannot discern the things of the Spirit. Sense can discern
things sensibly, not rationally. Reason can discern things rationally, but not
spiritually. The light whereby a natural man judges of the things of the gospel
is a star-light or a moonlight, which gives not a distinct view of the object.
The evil disposition must be removed from the mind, before the object be
entertained according to its worth. As if any natural object have such
excellent qualities in it, that if it be embraced it will draw the will and
affections after it; yet if the mind be ill-disposed, and does not judge of the
object according to the merit of it, it will refuse it. Offer a man gold who
understands not the worth of gold, it will not allure him. Man with his eyes is
spiritually blind, and with his ears is spiritually deaf. So God calls the
Gentiles, which were to be brought to Christ for a restitution of their eyes:
Isa. xliii. 8, 'Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that
have ears.' Such can no more judge of the excellency of spiritual things than a
blind man can have regular conceptions of colours, or a deaf man of the
excellency of music. If 'no man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,' 1
Cor. xii. 8; if no man can have a magnificent conception and speech of Christ,
but by the Spirit giving him both that conception and utterance, he cannot have
a notion of the formation of Christ in the heart without the gift and
impression of the same hand. What preparations, then, can arise from nature,
when the mind can have no conception of Christ but by the Spirit of God?
Well, then, to conclude this. What
preparations can there be in nature, since we cannot understand the things of
God, when yet we have more clearness in our understanding to see them than we
have force in our wills to love them and embrace them? It is in the
understanding that the common notions, which are the grounds of knowledge, are
deposited. There is less of ignorance in our understanding than of enmity in
our will. The eye can see further than the arm can reach. If therefore we
cannot think or understand, by all that help of common notions, without the
grace of God, hove can we then prepare our wills for it, to comply with it, and
renew that faculty which is chiefly possessed with a contrariety to it?
2. As we cannot understand it, so we cannot
naturally desire it. What is not spiritually discerned cannot spiritually be
desired. Not but that according to those unformed conceptions which men have of
it by common grace, there may be some weak velleities, but they are wishings
without a will, not desires according to the value of the thing. Mercy first
breathed on our first parents, before they breathed after that. The first
motion came from God. So soon were they turned obstinate enemies against their
Creator, without any thoughts of turning supplicants, though they had not lost
the conceptions of their late integrity. which if they had, they had been
wholly insensible, without any trouble of conscience. What desires can we naturally,
then, have for it, who have far weaker conceptions of that happiness than they
had immediately alter they lost it? We cannot desire what we do not apprehend.
A beast cannot desire to be a man, because he has no conceptions of the
excellency of the human nature above his own. No nature can ever affect that
which is contrary to it. Do flesh can ever desire its own crucifixion. If we
seek, we shall find; if we ask, we shall receive, but who first touches the
heart to seek or to ask? If we cannot think a good thought of ourselves, how
can we think so good a thought as a desire of regeneration? To say, then, we
can desire the new creation of ourselves, without some kind of grace, is to
assert another doctrine than what the apostle Paul asserted to those already
regenerate. The first will, which is the necessary spring of all actions, is
wrought by God, Philip. ii. 13. The frame of man's will and desire stands to
another point: John viii. 44, 'The lusts of your father you will do.' The best
renewed man 'knows not what to pray for as he ought,' without the instruction
of the Spirit, Rom. viii. 26. We cannot give our hearts a lift to heaven, or
breathe out an unutterable groan, without the help of an infinite Spirit. The
root of man's affections groves downward, not upward. What breathings can be
expected in a soul choked up with sin? There was no motion of the church till
'the hand of her beloved was put in by the hole of the door,' and made a motion
in her bowels, Cant. v. 4. The church owed no obligation to her free will and
her own predispositions. There is not a smoke in the heart to heaven without a
spark first from heaven; not a step till God enlarges the heart. Velleities are
from common grace, under the preaching, of the word, fervent and saving desires
are from special grace, by the hand of the Spirit. So that there are no
preparations from nature to this, since both our apprehensions of it and
desires of it spring not out of that stock.
The second main thing is this, As man cannot
prepare himself for it, so he does not produce and work it in himself. This is
evident from the former. If he cannot make any preparation, which is the less,
he cannot cause any actual production of it, which is the greater.
But to evidence it more, let us spend some
time in this.
As it does not depend upon the will of man
in the preparation, so neither in the production.
I shall evidence it, first, by arguments
drawn from the consideration of God.
If this work depended upon the will of man,
as the first cause in the production, it would deprive God,
1. Of his sovereign independence. If man's
will were the first cause of regeneration, God would not be the supreme
independent cause in the noblest of his works. This work is nobler than
creation in respect of the price paid for it. The world was made without the
death of anything to purchase the creation of it. But the divine image is not
restored without the death of the Son of God, every line in this new image
being drawn with his blood. Is there anything happens in the world but by the
conduct and efficacy of his providence? Do all the motions of the heavens, the
productions of' creatures, the universal events of nature, depend upon the
will, power, and wisdom of God? And shall the soul, the most excellent of the
lover creatures, bearing the characters of God's wisdom and goodness upon it
(the acts of the soul in the way of religion, being the noblest acts it can
produce), be left wholly to itself in the production and management of these?
Shall God, the supreme cause in everything else, be an inferior and secondary
cause in this affair? It is 'not he that plants, nor he that waters, but God
that gives the increase,' 1 Cor. iii. 7. God is the first cause, upon whom man
depends in all kind of actions, much more in supernatural actions, chiefly in
the understanding and will, upon which faculties no creature can have any
intrinsic influence to cause them to exercise their vital acts. If the will of
man were the first cause, God would be an attendant to the creature in the
noblest works. God would not then be the first mover, but man. The will willing
would then be the cause of God's working, not God's working the cause of the
will's willing and choice. God's working would be consequent upon the will, and
so the effect of the will's free motion. Man would then be the dispositiva
causa in relation to God. It would make God the second cause, and
represent him expecting the beck, and the preparations of man, before he did
exert any act. It would make God to will that which man wills, and make God to
will that which man may reject. It would follow that God concurs not to
regeneration by way of sovereignty, but by way of concomitance. It would not be
a victorious but a precarious grace, which is against the whole tenor of the
Scripture, which represents God as holding in his hands the first links of all
second causes: Rom. xi. 36, 'For of him, and through him, and to him, are all
things.' He is the first governor of all the wills and powers of the creatures,
the first cause of all motions. He orders all, without being ordered by any.
Now this is below the majesty of God, to be conducted in his motion by the will
of the creature, to have the purposes of his goodness brought into act by an
uncertain and slippery cause. How can it be conceived that God should put his
hand to the more ignoble works of nature, and turn over the noblest work of the
new creation to the airy will of the creature.
To conclude; God must either be precedent in
his operation to the act of the will, or follow it. If precedent, we have what
we would, if subsequent, then God is a mere attendant upon the motions of the
creature, and a servant to wait upon man. This is to advance free will to the
throne of God and depress God to the footstool of will; this is to deify the
creature, by placing the crown of the sovereign independence of God on the head
of free will.
2. It puts a blot upon the wisdom of God. If
God expects the determination of the will of man, whether he shall act or no,
then God is disposed by the will of man to the intention of his end. But it is
very inconsistent with that unfathomable and unerring wisdom, to have the
attainment of his end depend upon an agent wherein nothing is wrapped up but
folly and madness, Eccles. ix. 3. This is to make his power depend upon weakness,
and his gracious ends towards his creature hang upon the extravagancies of one
distracted, which no wise man would be guilty of. Is God in all things else a
God of power and wisdom, working all things in number, weight, and measure,
springing up every motion in the lower world, by an unblameable counsel? And
shall he leave the forming of the image of his Son, wherein his wisdom is most
seen, to the slight irregular will of man, which has neither weight nor measure
in itself? This would make the immutable counsel of God depend upon the
mutability of the creature; which would be inconsistent with the wisdom of man,
who chooses the firmest means he can for the conduct of his designs; for if man
wills this day, then God wills, if man reject it the next day, then he rejects
that which God wills. So God's will most be at uncertainty, according to the
will of man. How shall his counsel stand upon so tottering a bottom? How shall
he do all his pleasure if it were a mere dependent upon the pleasure of the creature,
contrary to what he is pleased positively to assert: Isa. xlvi. 10, 'My counsel
shall stand, I will do all my pleasure.' The apostle does couch these into
arguments together: Eph. i. 11, 'Who works all things according to the counsel
of is own will;' he argues (1) from the power of God, 'who works all things',
whereby our own works, and power, are excluded, and God asserted to be the
supreme cause of everything, in an efficacious and energetical manner, as the
word "energein" signifies. (2.) From his wisdom, 'according to the
counsel of his own will,' wisely and justly, and therefore not according to
ours, wherein there is nothing but folly and evil. This excludes all our own
wills in the first work. Now, to assert that this beautiful image were brought
forth upon the stage of the heart by the will of man, as the first cause, would
destroy God's prerogative, and represent his operations under the conduct of
our own counsel and will, not of his own. Certainly if there be a secret and
wise Spirit of providence, running through the whole world to preserve his
honour in his works, as certainly there is, the most honourable declaration of
them in the heart cannot be thought to be left to the conduct of wild and
hare-brained nature.
3. If the will of man were the prime cause
of regeneration, it would deprive God of his foreknowledge and prescience; it
would make that foreknowledge, which is certain and infallible, merely
contingent. For if the will of man were wholly left to its own determination,
the motions of the will were doubtful and uncertain, till the will does
determine itself; and so God's knowledge of them would be uncertain, for it is
clear, that from a thing wholly uncertain, there cannot arise a certain
knowledge. Therefore, God could not be said certainly to foreknow the
conversion of man, if the efficacy of grace depended upon so contingent a cause
as the liberty of man's will; for then it might not be, as well as be; the will
might not embrace it, and so the knowledge of God be but merely conjectural,—a
knowledge unworthy of a deity, which must be supposed to be omniscient; a
knowledge depending upon a peradventure, or at best, it is but a very likely
it will be so. This would be a debasing the deity to an opinionative knowledge,
which could not be certain, because depending upon so undetermined and wavering
a cause. God cannot know this or that man's regeneration from eternity but he
must see it infallibly in himself willing it, or in the causes of it,
irresistibly producing it. But if the efficacy of grace depends upon the will,
then God does not certainly determine the regeneration of man. And for God to
foreknow that which he himself has not determined, and when nothing in the
creature, nor anything in the circumstances, does determine it, is to make God
see that (as one says) which neither in the creature nor in himself is to be
seen.
Obj. Some may object, How does God come to
foreknow sin, for that depends upon the liberty of the will?
Ans. It would be too long to inquire into
this, I shall only at present say this, it is certain God does foresee every
sin, otherwise the evil acts of men could not be predicted. Our Saviour could
not then have foreknown what the scribes and priests would do to him, as he
does foretell: Mat. xvi. 21, 'Christ began to tell them how many things he was
to suffer of the chief priests and scribes.' And since God cannot fail in his
predictions, but they will certainly come to pass, the hearts of the Jews could
do no other thing, supposing the prediction, than what Christ does here
foretell, for their wicked wills would certainly determine themselves that way.
And God, by a concurrence of causes which he had linked together in his hand,
orders things so, that meeting with the corruption in their wills, their wills
determine themselves to such actions there foretold; yet is not God therefore
the author of sin. For sin being no positive thing, cannot have an efficient,
but a deficient cause; and God determines the withdrawing of his common
grace, and the ordering of such and such circumstances, and so did foresee how
a free creature, with that corruption in his heart, would determine himself in
such occasions, when involved in such circumstances. But now in the work of
regeneration, outward circumstances cannot cause any determination of the will,
because those outward circumstances of grace meet with nothing in the heart
full of corruption, to take part with them, which outward circumstances of sin
do. Therefore since there can be no foresight of God in this case, depending upon
the concurrence of outward circumstances, unless there were something in the
heart which did suit them, the determination of the will cannot proceed from
them, but from God himself, willing and determining the will by a positive
influx of his grace. The determination of the will to sin comes from within,
from its natural corruption concurring with such occasions, which, joining
together, determine the will to it. Therefore God foresees what a free creature
will do; but there being no principle in the will by nature to correspond with
any gracious external circumstances, it cannot determine itself to grace,
because it wants a principle of determination within itself, the corrupt habits
determining it quite otherwise. Sin proceeds not so much from the liberty as
the captivity of the will; and God knowing the corrupt frame, can foresee what
man in such a frame will do upon occasion; as we may easily resolve that an
habitual drunkard will be drunk when he has sensual objects placed before him.
4. Another consideration is this: to make
the will of man the efficient of his regeneration, is to make the truth of God
a great uncertainty.
(1.) First, In the covenant he made with
Christ. If his having a seed depended upon the will of man, the promise of God
to give him a seed might be null and void; for at least it must be granted
possible, that not one man under heaven would have accepted of his terms; and
then his coming to save had been in vain, because there was a possibility that
not one man would have embraced the salvation offered. Since the number of
rejecters of him is greater than the number of receivers, it is likely the less
number, if left to their own wills, would have followed the greater, since the
prevalence of evil examples above good ones is every day evident. It had not
been, then, 'the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand,' Isa.
liii. 10, 11, but the pleasure of man shall prosper in the hand of the
will of man. The great resolve of God, the priesthood of Christ, the design of
drawing a generation of persons out of the world to praise him, had hung upon a
mere haphazard and a maybe, if it had depended only on man's will; and God
should have waited the leisure of free will, to see whether the most glorious
design that ever was laid should prosper, and whether he should have been a God
of truth, or a liar to his Son. Though our Saviour had laid the foundation of
our redemption in his own most precious blood, yet he must have depended on our
will for the fruits of his purchase; it had been a great uncertainty whether he
had seen one grain of fruit for all his expense. He might have been a king
without one subject, or the destruction of one potent enemy he came to conquer,
not one sin subdued, not one devil cast out of any son. This might have been; for
though by God he was made a king, yet according to the other assertion, it
depended on the will of man whether he should have one subject to own his
authority; and, if so, God had been very unwise to enter into covenant with
him, and Christ very unwise to come upon such grand uncertainties at the best,
when it was a question whether any one person should have enjoyed the fruits of
his death. How can it enter into any man's heart, that so great a contrivance
as the sending of Christ to be the means of salvation, with such great promises
to see the fruits of his death in a seed to serve him, should depend in the
main fruits and effects of it on any thing undetermined by the will of God;
that so great a weight should hang upon so thin a thread as the will of man?
(2.) In the promises he makes to men. How
could God promise that so absolutely as he does, Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 'A new heart
will I give you,' if this work did depend upon the will of man, which might
frustrate the truth of God in his promise? And when God knew there was no
principle in their hearts that could rise higher than to shame and confusion,
not to so excellent a work as regeneration, as is intimated, ver. 32, 'Not for
your sakes do I do this: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house
of Israel,' what reason was there for God to depress them to confusion, if they
had had power to renew themselves? If this promise of God depended not upon any
thing in them in the first making, it could not depend upon any thing in them
in the full performance of it. We must either make God a liar, or unwise, or
remove any efficiency in the will of man as the first cause. What blasphemy
would it be to say, that God was so unwise as to promise that which depended
upon the power of another, whether it should be wrought or no; that God could
not be certainly true to his word, unless freewill assisted him!
5. It despoils God of his worship, in those
two great parts of it, prayer and praise.
(1.) Prayer. With what face can any solicit
God for that grace, which he conceives to be in his own power to have when he
will? It is a mocking of him to desire that strength of him, which he has given
us already, inherent in our nature. If it were the work of our wills, it would
require only the excitation of them, not any application to God. Who begs for
what he has? Who desires an alms that has thousands in his purse? As prayer
would be a vain thing in any man that should deny a providence overruling the
affairs of the world, so it would be as vain a thing to call upon God for
grace, if the whole affair of regeneration were left to the conduct of man's
will. The end of God's making promises of a new hearts and a new spirit, is to
be inquired after to do it for us, Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 37. The natural consequent,
then, of asserting the power of our own wills, is not to call upon God, but
direct our desires to another cause, to solicit our own wills, not God. It
would not be, then, according to the language of the church, 'Turn thou us, O
Lord, and we shall be turned;' 'Draw me, and I will run after thee,' Lam. v.
21, Cant. i. 4, but, I will turn to thee, and then shalt thou be turned to me;
I will run after thee, and draw thee to myself. The royal authority, and power
of God, and his glory in granting, is the foundation of prayer; therefore the
Lord's prayer is concluded with this, as an argument to move God to grant what
is asked, 'Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory;' that is, thou art
rich and powerful, and hast all sorts of blessings to bestow. With what face
can any one go to God with these words in his mouth, when he ascribes the
kingdom, power, and glory, in so great a work, to his own will? We can never
pray in confidence to God for it, for all confidence is wrought by a
consideration of the will of him we pray to, to accomplish what we desire, and
of his power to effect it. What confidence, then, can we have in his will
particularly to work it for us, if we conceive he has left it to our hands, as
the proper work of our own wills? This was the ground of our Saviour's
supplications, with strong cryings and tears, that 'God was able to save him,'
Heb. v. 7: able naturally, in respect of his power, able morally, in respect of
his truth to his promise. If God were careless in this concern, and had cast
off all from his own hands, on the hand of free will, God might well say to and
man, as he did to Moses, 'Why criest thou unto me? Speak to the children of
Israel that they go forward,' Exod. xiv. 15. Why cry you to me? You may do it
yourselves. Go forward with your own wills. The natural language of man to God
would not be, Lord, let thy kingdom come, thy will be done, give me a new
heart; but, I will have thy kingdom come, I will have thy will be done, I will
procure myself a new heart, I will change my heart of stone into a heart of
flesh.
(2.) Praise. It does deprive God of this
part of his worship also, praise even for his greatest blessings. If our own
wills did produce this work, the greatest cause of glorying would be, not in
God, but in ourselves. We have as little ground to praise God, if it be our own
work, as we have to pray to him for it. All that can be said is, that we have
ground to praise him for the means of regeneration; and this is no more ground
than they have that are not regenerate under the enjoyment of the same means.
If a man could give himself a natural being without God, he could be his own
creator, his own foundation; so if he could give himself a spiritual being
without the grace of God, he would be a god to himself; for in this case he
would really do more to his conversion than God. If God offer grace equally to
all, and the pliableness of one man's will to receive it above another were
from himself, he would then owe an obligation to himself, but no more to God
than the other that rejected it owes. The apostle, by asking the question, 'Who
Has made thee to differ? And what hast thou that thou did not receive?' 1 Cor.
iv. 7 (though it be meant of a difference of gifts, yet it is argumentum a
minori), clearly implies, that what difference there was between them and
others, was not of their own planting, nor grew up from the stock of nature.
But if regeneration be wrought by a man's own will, it is not God that makes
the difference, therefore the glory does not belong to him. He is the author of
a general call, therefore the glory of that pertains to him, it is true; but
yet as much from the damned that have lived under the gospel, as from the
glorified saints in heaven, because the special entertainment of this call was
not from the efficacy of God's grace, but the liberty of man's will; for,
according to this assertion, the love of God would be equal both to the damned
and saved, and would not shine with a fairer lustre in heaven than it does in
hell. The apostle wishes the Philippians to 'work out their salvation with fear
and trembling,' and encourages them by this argument, because God is the author
of all that good which they do. If the determination of the will, then, is from
itself, is it not a brave ground to glory in ourselves? How shall any man give
God the glory of his salvation? If it be said, God did enlighten their
understandings by the preaching of the gospel, this is an illumination common
to all; and the reason some believe and others not, is not from the gift of
God, but from themselves; how can we give God a peculiar praise for that
wherein there is no difference between the best and the worst of men? But the
apostle says, God gives us to will, that is, the operation of our will, and not
only the illumination of the understanding; therefore, that our wills do
terminate in that which is good, we hold of God; the apostle does not say, God
has given us power to will, but produced the will in us, and that of his good
pleasure. If, therefore, God work no more in one than in another, there is no
place for God's good pleasure, because there is no difference. Let us see with
what kind of language the praise of God would be clothed, according to the
doctrine of free will. A renewed man may say thus: Lord, I give thee thanks,
that thou hast conferred upon me a supernatural grace; but thou did also give
as much grace to my neighbour, but I added something to that which thou did
supernaturally give me; and though I received no more than he did receive from
thee, yet I did more than he, since he remains in his sin, and I am regenerate;
therefore I have no more obligation to thee and the grace, than he that
believes not; for, Lord, thou did not make me differ from the other, because he
had equal gifts with me; but I made myself to differ, because I superadded my
own velle to thy divine assistance. How much of the glory of God would
be pared off by such a half-witted praise as this! How low would be the
acclamations of glorified saints in heaven! What foundation of pride in the
creature, contrary to the intendment of the gospel, which is chiefly to humble
man, if man were the cause of the most excellent work in himself! It would
write vanity in a great measure upon that excellent exhortation of the apostle,
'Let him that glories, glory in the Lord,' 1 Cor. i. 31, since there would be a
bottom for flesh to glory in his presence, contrary to the design of God in his
works, ver. 29, which is, 'that no flesh should glory in his presence.'
Arg. 2. The second sort of arguments is
drawn from the nature and state of man.
1. In creation. Man did not create himself;
to be a new creature is more than to be a creature. As man contributed nothing
to nature, so neither can he contribute anything to grace, any more than a
passive capacity in respect of faculties, which yet are the gift of God to him,
nothing of his own acquisition. The soul, though framed with all its faculties,
is as little able to engrave the image of God upon itself, as the body of Adam,
formed with all its parts and members, was able to infuse a living soul into
itself; there is no reason therefore to attribute our creation to God, and
regeneration, the glory and excellency of a creature, to ourselves. I know such
similitudes ought not to be strained too high; yet when this doctrine agrees
with other parts of Scripture, we may form an argument from this metaphor of
creation whereby regeneration is expressed in Scripture. It is confessed by
most, if not all, that no creature, not an angel, can be an instrument in the
very act of creation of another thing, much less the chief efficient of its own
creation, for creation is an act of omnipotence, and an incommunicable property
of the Deity, not to be delegated to any creature. The creation of man, in a
state of such perfection as to be endued with the image of God, was a greater
work than simply the creation of his body or the essential faculties of his
soul, yea, greater than the creation of the whole world, because the attributes
of God did more lively appear in him, and particularly his holiness. The restoration
then of this righteousness to man, after it is lost, is a greater work than the
first creation of his body and soul, it being the same thing with the
conferring at first his original rectitude upon him. If man therefore could
create this in his own soul after it is lost, he would do a greater work than
simply the creation of a world. Surely there is as much power and wisdom
required to the new creating righteousness in the heart, after it is perished,
as there was in the placing it there at first; and then it will follow that
none can new create it but an infinite wisdom, power, and holiness. If man
therefore can create it in itself, he must have a wisdom, power, and holiness
equal to that of God his first creator, for what could not be done by any creature
at the first conferring it, but it was necessary that it should be a work of
infinite power, cannot be done by a less power non, because the work is every
whit as great; and no less power is requisite to a second creation of a thing
after it is perished, than was necessary to the first creation of it, since
this power of creation cannot be derived to any creature. As when life is gone
from a fly, and the body of it dried and shrivelled up, all will grant that the
restoring life to this fly must be done by an omnipotent power. The case is the
same with us by nature, spiritual life, upon the fall, was wholly fled, no good
thing dwells in our flesh, Rom. vii. 18, not one thing spiritually good, that
which is born of the flesh is flesh, wholly flesh in every part of it. If the
making a living fly or worm is above the power of nature, much more the
creating of so glorious a fabric as grace in the soul. Man might as well have
implanted the divine image in his soul at first, as restore it after it was
lost. To ascribe such a power to man to raise himself is a greater power than
Adam had by creation, because to restore a man's self from death to life is
greater than to preserve the vital principle he has already, and act naturally
from it.
2. In the state of innocence. Let us
consider man in that, and it will appear he is unable to renew himself. If man
did not keep himself up, with so great a stock of natural rectitude in
paradise, how can he recover himself and that stock after it is lost? 'Man in
his best estate is vanity; all Adam is all vanity.' In the estate of pure
nature, he is vanity in respect of his mutability, much more vanity then in his
fallen state, from the experience of which Adam rightly called his second son Abel,
vanity, Hebel, the word used here. How soon did the breath of the
serpent melt the impression upon him! And if he did not by his innocent will
preserve that purity which he had received, how can he by his corrupt will
recover that purity which he has lost? If Adam had had a will to preserve, he
might have stood, but in losing his will he lost his power; if he did not
maintain his will in his rectitude, nor (as some say) could not without the
grace of God, how can he, by the mere force of his own will, restore that lost
rectitude to himself? If an universal integrity stood in need of grace to
preserve it, an universal depravation stands in need of a more vigorous force
than that of our will to eject it. If Adam, who had no disorders in nature to
rectify, did not stand by his own will, it is not likely that we, who have
strong habits to conquer, can be restored by the strength of our own wills.
What nature did not do when it was sound, it is not likely to do a greater
thing when it is wounded. We cannot now have more power than Adam had in innocence;
but he was not then endued with a power to regenerate himself if he should
fall, but death was pronounced, both spiritual and eternal. If temptations
corrupted him, and if he, being in a good condition, did not maintain himself
in it, but pass from a good condition to a bad, how can we, by the only liberty
of our will, pass into a good one? Are temptations less powerful now than
before? Is the devil less vigilant to take all occasions to subvert us? Suppose
our wills were not so evil as they are, would it not be more easy for the enemy
to draw the will to himself, when it is unresolved between two parts, when the
guide of it is so easy clouded, than it was to draw Adam's will to evil from
that good to which he might readily have determined himself? Adam had the
greatest advantages human nature, in a natural way, was capable of; he was
created with a fullness of reason. But how long do we converse with sense,
which fastens upon temptations, before we come to a use of reason! After we are
come to some smatterings of reason, and a growth in it, as we think, what
whisperings and impulses to sin do we feel! What an easiness to embrace
incentives, a deafness to contrary admonitions! What languishing, velleities,
and palsy desires at best, for that which is good; a mighty mist and darkness
upon our understandings, irresolution in our wills? How can we with all these
fetters be able of ourselves to put ourselves into a better state, and act
against nature, which is impossible any creature can do but by a superior
power!
8. Consider man also in the state of
corruption.
(1.) If the will of man by nature were the
cause of regeneration, it would follow that corruption were a cause of
regeneration. 'The imagination of the heart of man is only evil, and that
continually,' Gen. vi. 6. That which is evil, therefore, cannot be the cause of
that which is man's greatest happiness. All actions are according to those
innate qualities and habits which the agent has; all corrupted things act no
otherwise than corruptly, because every act has no more in it than what the
principle, which is the spring of the action, conveys to it. If the heart,
then, be wicked, it cannot do anything but what is wicked, and a wicked act can
never be the foundation of regeneration. If a corrupt man, as corrupt, can be
the cause of regeneration, then he can act graciously, not only without a
gracious habit, but by and from a corrupt habit. If the acts are corrupt, the
product of them must be corrupt, for man, in renewing himself, must act either
as corrupt or good. If as good, then he was renewed before he set about the
renewing himself. The question will then be the same, How came he by that
restoration to goodness? If as corrupt, then corruption is the spring of the
noblest happiness of the creature. It would then follow that a man can perform
acts of life before he lives; that vital acts may be exerted by dead
principles; that sanctification can grow up from an unsanctified root; and that
the will, with its old corruption, can be the cause of its elevation to another
state, and that the old creature can perform a new creature's act before it be
a new creature. Then a carnal mind, while it is carnal, may be subject to the
law of God, which the Scriptures say it cannot be, Rom. viii. 7. Then those that
are in the flesh may please God in an high manner, by the renewing themselves.
This would be more strange than if we should see a crab-tree bring forth
pomegranates; a corrupt tree would then bring forth good fruit, and that the
highest fruit, contrary to our Saviour's assertion, Mat. vii. 18. It would
follow that the stony heart would be the cause of the fleshly, and so an effect
would rise from a cause quite contrary to it, and the complying principle in
man be wrought by the resisting principle. It is as much as if the fire should
cool, and the water burn, by their own innate qualities. If the will of man
corrupted be the cause of principles of grace, then the old creature brings
forth the new. The image of the devil is the cause of producing the divine
nature, and hell the cause of an heavenly principle. It would follow that an
act of one kind can be produced by an habit of a contrary nature, and that a
man can act graciously before he be gracious. Before grace, no action is
essentially good, because there wants a gracious principle, whence it must
receive its denomination as good. One act, then, of corrupted man, or a
multitude of acts, cannot be the cause of grace, because they all centre in
that denomination of evil. How the acts of the will, whereof not one can be
called good till the will has a good principle, can produce so noble a work and
habit as grace is, is not easily intelligible. Our being engrafted into the
good olive tree is contrary to nature, Rom. xi. 24. Nature cannot naturally
contribute to that which is opposite to it. We are wild by nature, our new
implantation is contrary to nature. A good nature, therefore, cannot be the
natural effect of a wild nature.
(2.) Since corruption, the power of man is
mighty weak in naturals and morals, much more certainly in spirituals.
[1.] In naturals. No natural body that lies
under a grievous disease can repair itself by its own power without some
external assistance. A wounded member must be beholding to oils and plants for
a cure. No man can cast out a disease when he will. He may be sick when he
will, by eating that which is contrary to nature; but the cure does not depend
upon his will, but upon physic. Outward medicines must recover that which he
lost by his own wilfulness. The will indeed is conditio sine qua non; there
must be a will to use the means, or a man must be forced to use them, as we
deal with madmen and children which are unwilling to take physic. But who ever
heard of a man that could cure himself by his own will without the application
of medicines? How can the soul then be restored to its vital integrity, by its
own force? How can it change its own temper without some superior power
operating upon nature? 'Man is like a wild ass's colt,' Job xi. 12. What wild
creature ever tamed itself? If any say that the will of man, by the use of
outward ordinances, can cure itself, it is answered, Those ordinances are
operative, not in a physical but moral way, and therefore such an efficiency as
is in plants and drugs cannot be expected from them. There must be an operation
of our own wills to make them efficacious. But what shall cure the will where
the disease principally lies, and the love of the disease is seated? Who shall
remove the beloved inclination from the will? Can nature cast out nature, or
Satan cast out Satan? What can make us willing? When we are made willing, the
cure is half wrought, as, when a madman is willing to be cured of his
infirmity, you can hardly count him any longer mad. The evil principles in the
will will never aim at their own destruction. If this work of regeneration were
only the curing of a man that were sick or wounded, it could not be done by the
power of man's will, but by the application of some external medicine, though
nature did concur with it. But it is not a sickness but a death, therefore
cannot come under the influence of' the will of man in the first work. Shall a
man have more power to cure his soul of mortal sins, than to cure his body of
mortal wounds?
[2.] In morals. Whence comes that
intemperance, incontinence, luxury, which overflows mankind, who are carried to
those things which impair health, even in meats and drinks, against the
reluctance of reason, whose will is led not by reason but appetite, and choose
not like men but beasts, under the notion of pleasant and lustful? Is not this
from the will conducted by appetite? The temperance and continence opposite to
this is not in Scripture counted part of the extraction of nature, but the gift
of God: 1 Cor. vii. 7, 'But every man has his proper gift of God, one after
this manner, another after that,' speaking of continence. That which is God's
gift is not merely the fruit of human will; for in the apostle's language they
seem to be opposed, viz., to be from God, and from ourselves; to be God's gift,
and yet our own. In Eph. ii. 8 there is a plain antithesis, 'Not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God.' It is the same expression of that moral virtue of
continence as it is of the divine grace of faith; 'it is the gift of God.' We
are nothing in morals without God, no more than a beam is when the sun is
clouded or withdraws its light. Shall we, then, allow a greater power to man in
spiritual things than the Scripture does in morals? Shall the one be the gift of
God, and the greater the acquisition of nature? Cannot the clay form itself
into a vessel of moral honour? Shall it, then, be able to form itself into a
vessel of grace? If we are not intrinsically sufficient of ourselves to
exercise a morel act, since our natures are so overgrown with corruption, we
are less sufficient of ourselves to exercise a supernatural act without a
divine motion. Can anything assume an higher nature than what it originally
has? Man has assumed a lower nature than that wherein he was created, which no
creature besides him in this lower world has. Since he has brutified himself,
and cannot moralise himself without common grace, how can he advance himself
into a participation of the divine nature without special grace? How can man, so
habitually evil, ascend up to an higher nature?
[3.] In this corrupt state of man, any one
sin beloved will hold a man down from coming to God. It is impossible for a
man, wedded in his heart to his riches, and bemired in earthly confidences, to
enter into a renewed gospel state. 'How hard is it,' says our Saviour, 'for
them that trust in riches, to enter into the kingdom of God!' Mark x. 24, 25.
This one corruption commanding in the heart, will hinder any resurrection by
the power of nature, for on man's part Christ pronounces it impossible for such
an one to enter into the kingdom of God, ver. 27, that is, into a gospel-state;
and that upon the score of this single sin, which only appeared at this time in
that young man. The like he pronounces of another sin, that of ambition: John
v. 44, 'How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another?' That one
fancy of the Jews, of a temporal conquering Messiah, did so possess their
brains, that it barred the door against all the power of our Saviour's miracles;
and the bare objective proposal of him, though unanswerable by reason, could
not remove this rooted fancy. One sin in the will, has more power than any
imagination in the fancy. When Adam disfigured his nature by one sin, he had no
strength to recover himself, though his righteousness was but very lately fled
from him. We need not question his recovery of it, had it been in the power of
his will to will it, and the power of his nature to regain it. If one sin,
then, in the will, is a bar against the power of nature, what are all those
lusts which swarm in the heart of man, and swell up this lake of natural venom
in the soul? If one fetter stakes down a man to an impotency and impossibility,
how great is man's weakness under all those fetters which every day he loads
himself with! One string about a bird's leg will keep it from flying away, much
more many.
Arg. 3. Another sort of considerations, is
from the state of man under the gospel.
1. If regeneration depended on the will of
man, what is the reason more do not receive the gospel than are seen by us to
receive it? If the faculty of believing were given to all, then all would
believe upon the promulgation of the gospel, because the gospel is 'the power
of God to salvation,' Rom. i. 16. If it be the power of God in the outward
preaching of it, then all would believe. If all do not believe, then some other
secret power attends it, which makes it efficacious in one, not in another; it
is 'to them that are saved' only, 'the power of God,' 1 Cor. i. 18; to others,
though of great reason, foolishness. If the strength of arguments be the cause
in one, what is the reason those arguments have not force upon another? What is
that which makes the difference? All men have reason; and what is common reason
does conduct all men more or less. If men could open the eyes of their mind to
understand the excellency of gospel proposals, what is the reason that among
those great multitudes to whom it is preached, so few in all ages have embraced
it, though the things proposed are in themselves desirable, and suit so well,
in respect of the blessedness promised, to the natural desire of man for
happiness! When it was preached by the apostles! it was edged with miracles,
attended with a remarkable holiness, yet they complained that few received
their report. When in that age, and succeeding ages, men have been so far from
receiving it, that they have scoffed at it, persecuted with all their fury the
professors of it. It has been thus despised, not only by the meanest and
blindest sort of people, but by men of the most elevated understanding among
the heathen philosophers, that could pierce into the depths of nature; and by
the Jews too, who had the Messiah promised to them, expected him about that
time, had so many prophesies deciphering him, which all met with their
accomplishment in his person; who were also amazed at the miracles he wrought
in his life, and those which accompanied his death. Does not all this show the
natural blindness of man, that there is need of some higher power to open his
eyes, besides the objective proposal, that he may acknowledge the excellency of
those things which are presented to him? Do we not find men ready to
acknowledge reason upon other accounts, to be wrought into warm affections by
pathetical speeches? Why are they not as ready in this, if it were in the power
of their own understandings and wills? Do we not find the wills of men averse
from it, though in their consciences they approve of the doctrines of it? What
is the reason a man is renewed at one time, and not before, when he has heard
the same arguments inculcated many a time? Many drops would not work it before,
and one drop works it not in an instant. Is it from the power of reason in man?
What reason is there, then, that he should be mastered by one reason now, who
was not mastered by the same reason, and many more as strong, formerly? Whence
comes that light into the mind? What is the reason such a man was not
regenerate before, when he has in some fits meditated upon former arguments, and
afterwards one effects it, by a secret insinuation, without any previous
meditation, and a sudden turn of the will is wrought? Can this be supposed to
be from the will principally? Rather from some divine spirit spreading itself
over the soul, and opening the passages of it which were before shut. That
place, Mat. xi. 21, where our Saviour speaks of the Tyrians and Sidonians, if
the gospel had been preached to them, they would have repented in sackcloth and
ashes, does not prove the power of man to renew himself, but that they would
have testified some outward humiliation, as Ahab did at the threatening of
Elijah; or rather, Christ exaggerates the hardness of the Jews' hearts in
comparing them with the Tyrians in a hyperbolical manner of expression; as we do
when we reproach a man for unmercifulness, we say, Had I entreated a Turk or
barbarian as much, I should have bent him; not that we commend the humanity of
the Turks, but aggravate the cruelty of those we have to do with. The proposal
of an object is not sufficient without the inspiration of a will, whereby that
concupiscence which masters that faculty may be overpowered.
2. If regeneration were the fruit of man's
will, what is the reason that men convinced by the preaching of the gospel, and
under great terrors too, find themselves unable to turn to God? What is the
reason they are not presently renewed? Would they be torn with such horrors,
and bear about them such racks in their consciences? Would they fill heaven and
earth with complaints, were it in their own power to make themselves such as
God commands them to be? If this were found in the more ignorant sort of
people, the reason then might be charged upon their want of knowledge; but men
of great wits and insight are filled with those complaints when God begins to
rebuke them. And such as have a great deal of grace, as David, when God charges
sin upon him: Ps. li. 10, 'Create in me a clean heart; renew in me a right
spirit;' why should they solicit God for renewing grace, were it in the power
of their own hand? Would any that fear God, as David did, mock him at such a
rate, as to desire that of him which they are able to do without him? Were
there a natural power in man to turn himself, why did not Judas, after his
conscience lashed him, go to his Master's knees to desire pardon, rather than
to the gibbet? He had long experience of the merciful disposition of his
Master; had not grace given him to incline his will to such an act; yet Peter
was turned after his denial of his Master, was there anything more by nature in
him than in Judas? Or did Peter do that by the strength of his own will, which
Judas did not do? No, the Scripture assures us, it was from the prevalence of
Christ's prayer, a secret influence from Christ's look, stirring up that grace
that was already in his heart; he might else have gone out cursing his Master
as long as he had lived: 'No man can come to me, except the Father draw him,'
says our Saviour; though he be convinced, there must be the Father's traction
as well as conviction to complete the work. All drawing implies a resistance,
or at least a heaviness and indisposition in the thing so drawn, to come of
itself. There is much difference between the proposal of the object, and the
cause of our entertaining it. The object is the final cause which puts us upon
motion; the object moves the will as an end, but it gives no power to move. If
a man hear of an alms to be distributed at such a place, and he knows he stands
in need of it, and has a desire to go to receive it, this knowledge of the
necessity of it will not give him legs to go, if he be lame and unable to go;
and he that does go to receive the alms, the desire to receive the alms puts
him upon motion; but the intention of receiving the alms was not the efficient
cause of that motion. If he had not had strength in him from some other cause
than the alms, he could never have gone. Our motion to God must proceed from
some higher cause than barely the proposal of the object, and a conviction by
it.
4. Argument is drawn from the condition of
the regenerate themselves. They are not able to rid themselves of the
remainders of sin, much less can natural men of the body of sin. From the
impotency after grace, we may rationally conclude a greater weakness in a
natural man that has not one spark of grace within, to be blown up from any
breathing of grace from without. The flesh lusts against the spirit in a
regenerate man; how peaceably does it enjoy its dominion in a natural man,
where there is no spirit to control it, and lust against it? Regenerate men
'cannot do the good they would,' and they 'do the evil which they hate,' Rom.
vii. 16, 19, though they have a law of grace in their mind, set up in
contradiction to the law of sin in their members. How can a natural man then,
do so good a thing as the renewal of himself, and the destruction of his sin,
who has no will to the one nor hatred of the other, who has the law of sin
flourishing in him, and delights to read the characters of it and perform the
wills of the flesh! If there be such an inability in a renewed man, who has a
relish of God and the goodness of the law, who has sin in part mortified, and
cast out of the mind, to the members and suburbs, how much greater must the
inability and resistance be when there is nothing but opposing flesh! What need
the apostle issue out such heavy complaints: 'O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?' Rom. vii. 24, if he had power in
his own hands to free himself from this oppressing sin? If Paul, a living tree
in God's garden, having both the root and sap of grace, be so wretched, so weak
and unable to free himself from those suckers, how wretched then is a dead
rotten stake, which has no spiritual root! How can he free himself from a total
spiritual death, when this great apostle could not free himself from a partial
spiritual death by all that stock of grace already received? If a good man
finds it so laborious a task to engage against the relics of nature, and manage
an open hostility against the wounded force of his sensual appetite, much more
is it a difficult task for a natural man to row against the stream of unbroken
nature, when the natural resistance is in its hill strength, and the bent of
nature standing point-blank against God. If a well-built and well-rigged ship,
with her sails spread, can only lie floating upon the waves, and make no way
till a fresh wind fills the sails, surely the rough timber that lies upon the
ground can never fit and frame itself into a stately vessel.
5. It is against the whole order which God
has set in the world, for any thing to be the cause of itself, or of a higher
rank of being than what it has by nature. No effect is nobler than its cause;
grace is more noble than nature. A seal cannot convey and other image than what
is stamped upon itself, and no further than its own dimensions; neither can
nature stamp anything of grace upon the soul, because it has no such image
engraver on it by God. Nature, though never so perfect in its own kind, can
never produce a thing of higher perfection than itself; a plant can never
produce a beast, nor a beast a man, nor a man an angel. No natural quality can
be changed in any subject by itself, but by the introduction of some other
quality superior to it. The fire can never freeze while it is fire; water
cannot part with its coldness without some superior acting upon it; and can
those that are naturally bad ever become spiritually good but by an almighty
power? No nature can exceed its own bounds, because nothing can exceed itself
in acting. Whatsoever a natural man does is but natural, and can never amount
to grace, without a change of nature and addition of a divine virtue. If any
thing could rise above its own sphere, it would be stronger than itself.
Nothing can never make itself something; the best apostle counts himself no
better,—2 Cor. xii. 11, 'I am nothing,'—and entitles grace the sole benefactor
of all his spiritual good, 2 Cor. xv. 10. What thing ever gave itself its own
shape? Every piece of art is brought into figure by the workman, not by itself.
Conformity to Christ is a fruit of the election of God, not first of the choice
of our own wills. Rom. viii. 29, 'Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his Son.' The first link of the chain in the
providential and in the gracious administration is in the hands of God. Hence
in Scripture the gracious works in the soul run in the passive for the most
part: 'Ye are justified, ye are sanctified;' not you justify or sanctify
yourselves; though sanctification and purging and working out salvation is
ascribed to them that have received grace and life, as acting afterwards for
such ends, and producing such effects by the strength of grace received from
God, and grace accompanying that first grace in its acts.
As we have proved that man by his own
strength cannot renew himself, let us see whether he can do it by his
additional capacities.
1. Man, by the help of instituted
privileges, does not produce this work of regeneration in himself, without a
supernatural grace attending them. Ordinances cannot renew a man, but the arm
of God, which does manage them, edges them into efficacy, as the arm that
wields the sword gives the blow. Means are the showers of heaven, but they can
no more make the heart fruitful till some gracious principles be put in, than
the beams of the sun, the dews of heaven, and the water pots of the clouds, can
make a barren ground bring forth flowers, without a change of the nature of the
soil, and new roots planted in it. All the spectacles in the world cannot cure
a man's eyes, he must have a visible faculty to make use of them. Our faculty
must be cured before we can exercise it about objects or use means proper to
that faculty. All persuasions will not prevail with a dead man; the fairest
discourses, the most undeniable arguments, the most moving rhetoric will not
stir or affect him, till God take away the stone from the grave and raise him
to life. The report of the prophets will do no good without the revelation of
God's arm, Isa. liii. 1, because all those things do not work in a physical
way, as drugs and plasters, which attain their end without any active
concurrence of the patient, but in a moral way; the will therefore and nature
must first be charged before those can do any good. You can never by all your
teachings teach a sheep to provide for winter, as an ant does, because it has
no such instinct in its nature. If any thing were like to work upon a man, the
most stupendous miracles were most likely to produce such an effect upon the
reasons of men; yet those supernatural demonstrations without a man only cannot
make him believe a truth. Miracles are a demonstration to the eye as well as
preaching to the ear; though they be confessed to be above the strength of
nature, yet all the spectators of them are not believers: John xii. 37, 'But
though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not.' Many
of those that saw our Saviour's works did not believe his doctrine; nay, they
irrationally ascribed them to the devil, when they could find no reason in the
nature of them to charge them upon such a score. The raising Lazarus from the
dead was as high a miracle as ever was wrought yet, though many of them
believed, yet others did not, but accused him to the pharisees, who thereupon more
vigorously took counsel to put him to death, John xi. 45, 46, 47, 53, though
they acknowledged that he did many miracles. They had reason as well as others;
the miracles were undeniable, as being acted before many witnesses; the natural
force of them upon all reasons was equal, the considerations arising from them
unanswerable. There were evil habits in the will, not removed by grace, which
resisted the unanswerable reason of the miracles. What made the difference
between them and those that believed? Why did not the wills of the enemies
follow the undeniable reason, as well as the wills of others? Miracles may
astonish men, but cannot convert them without a divine touch upon the heart. 1
Kings xviii. 39, the people were astonished by that wonderful miracle of fire
falling from heaven and consuming the sacrifice, and licking up the water in
the trench; and some reverential resolutions were produced in them: they fell
upon their faces and said, 'The Lord he is God;' they showed their zeal in
taking Baal's prophets, and helping, or at least suffering, Elijah to slay
them; yet those people revolted to idolatry, and continued so till their
captivity. The easiness of faith upon the apparition and instruction of one
risen from the dead was the opinion of one of the damned: Luke xvi. 80, 'If one
went to them from the dead, they will repent;' but this opinion was
contradicted by Abraham, ver. 31, who positively asserts, 'If they did not hear
Moses and the prophets, they would not be persuaded though one rose from the
dead.' If their wills were obstinate against the means God had appointed for
their conversion, the same wills so corrupted would be as obstinate against the
highest sort of miracles. If that, then, which is above the hand of nature to
act, and bears the character of omnipotence upon the breasts of it, does not
work upon men's hearts and wills of themselves, surely nature itself cannot
turn the heart to God.
The two great dispensations of God are law
and gospel; neither of these can of themselves work this.
(1.) The law. The law will instruct, not
heal. It acquaints us with our duty, not our remedy; it irritates sin, not
allays it; it exasperates our venom, but does not tame it; though it shows man
his miserable condition, yet a man by it does not gain one drop of repentance.
It tells us what we should do, but corrects not the enmity of our nature
whereby we may do it. The apostle takes notice of the enmity of man to the law:
Rom. v. 6, 7, 'Yet enemies', 'yet sinners.' That yet may refer to what
he had spoken of the law in the chapter before. Though men had had so much time
from the fall to recover themselves, and had so many advantages by the law and
the ceremonies of it, yet all those years spent from the foundation of the
world had produced no other effect than the weakening of them; as creatures
that are wounded, by their strugglings waste their own strength. Yet
sinners, till this time sinners, whereby the load of sin which lay upon the
world was made more heavy by the continual addition made to those heaps. The
offence did rather abound by the law than was diminished: Rom. v. 20, 'The law
was given that sin might abound.' Though it made a clear discovery of the will
of God, yet it rather aggravated sin; it added no power to perform that will.
The motions of sin were exasperated by it, ex accidenti, and brought
forth fruit unto death; all the means by the law for the repressing of sin did
rather inflame it. Sin could not be overcome by it, because the law was 'weak
through the flesh;' that is, had not so much power as sin had; it was like a
little water put upon fire, which did rather enrage than quell it: Rom. vii. 8,
9, 'Sin revived' when the law came, it had a new life, and the apostle found
himself utterly unable to overpower it. There were, ver. 5, 'motions of sin,'
"pathemata", not only a power in sin, but an enraged power, which
adds to the strength of a person, 'sin slew him: taking occasion by the
commandment,' ver. 10, and a dead man is wholly at the disposing of his
conquerors. The law was 'holy,' it had an impression of God's holiness upon it,
Rom. vii. 12-14, there was also equity and convenience in it, it was 'just and
good,' and though these were considerations enough to spur men on to rid
themselves of this tyrant sin, yet they could not, they had not strength enough
to do it; though it was holy, just, and good, yet it was not strong enough to
rescue them; and the reason of it, the apostle lays upon the difference in the
nature of both: ver. 14, 'We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,
sold under sin;' there was an enmity in his nature to it, and therefore he must
lie under the power of it till a mighty deliverer stepped in to conquer it. Do
we find any better effect of the ceremonial law, which was the gospel in a
mask, and which was the instrument of all the regenerations among the Jews? How
few do we find renewed among them under that means which they enjoyed solely,
and no other nation in the world partners with them in it! How frequent were
their revolts, and rebellions, and idolatries, inconsistent with regeneration,
we may read in Joshua and Judges. The inefficaciousness of means appears
evidently in that nation which had greater advantages than any in the world
besides; the covenants, sacrifices, oracles of God, warnings by prophets, yet
so frequently overgrown with idolatry from the time of their coming out of
Egypt to the Babylonish captivity; and ten tribes wholly cashiered for it.
(2.) The gospel. Though the veil of
ceremonies be taken off from it, and it appears open faced, yet till the veil
be taken off the understandings of men, it will produce little fruit among
them, 2 Cor. iii. 14. The gospel is plain, but only to him that understands,
Prov. viii. 9, as the sun is clear, but only to him that has an eye to see it.
The gospel itself cannot remove the blindness from the mind. The proposal of
the object works no alteration in the faculty, without some acting on the
faculty itself. The beams of the sun shining upon a blind man make no
alteration in him. The Jews, to whom the gospel was preached by our Saviour
himself, could not believe, because God blinded their eyes, &c., John xii.
39, 40. There must be a supernatural power, besides the proposal of the object,
to take away this blindness and hardness which is the obstruction to the work
of the gospel. Though the Son of God is come, and the gospel be preached, yet
the understanding whereby we know is given us by him: 1 John v. 20, 'And we
know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we
may know him that is true;' the light of the gospel shines upon all, but all
have not an eye given them to see it, and a will given them to embrace it. The
mere doctrine of it does not regenerate any man; some have tasted of the
heavenly gift, that is, have had some understanding of Christ, who is the
heavenly gift, the Son given to us, Isa. ix. 6, and are partakers of some
common illumination of the Holy Ghost, yet are not regenerate. Was not the
gospel preached to the Jews, even by the mouth of our Saviour whom they crucified?
And was it not preached to the Gentiles by the mouths of those apostles whom
they persecuted? Were there not proposals that suited the natural desires of
men for happiness, yet did not many that seemed to receive it, receive it not
in the love of it? If God himself should appear to us in the likeness of a man,
and preach to us as he did to Adam, it he did not overpower our hearts with an
inward grace, he would do us no good at all by his declarations. We do not read
of any work immediately upon Adam at the promulgation of the gospel by God
himself, though it appears that afterwards there was, by his instructing his
sons to sacrifice, and his expectations of a Messiah. But we certainly know
that our Saviour, God manifested in the flesh, declared the gospel in his own
person, and found no success but where he touched the heart inwardly by the
grace of his Spirit. All mere outward declarations are but suasions, and mere
suasion cannot change and cure a disease or habit in nature. You may exhort an
Ethiopian to turn himself white, or a lame man to go; but the most pathetical
exhortations cannot procure such an effect without a greater power than that of
the tongue to cure nature; you may as well think to raise a dead man by blowing
in his mouth with a pair of bellows. Judas had enjoyed the best means that ever
were, yet went out of the world unrenewed; and the thief upon the cross, who
never perhaps was in any good company in his life till he came to the cross,
nor ever heard Christ speak before, was renewed by the grace of God in the last
hour.
2. Neither can a man renew himself by all
his moral works, before faith. Our calling is not according to our works, but
'according to God's own purpose and grace,' 2 Tim. i. 9. Paul, before his
conversion, was 'blameless as to the righteousness of the law,' Philip. iii. 6,
yet this was loss; a bar rather to regeneration, than a means to further it.
For all this legal comeliness he ranks himself, before his conversion, in the
number of the dead: Eph. ii. 5, 'When we were dead in sins;' not you,
but we, putting himself into the register of the dead. Whatsoever works
a man can morally do before faith, cannot be the cause of spiritual life; they
are not vital operations; if they were, they were then the effects of life, not
the cause; the Scripture makes them the effects of grace: 'created to good
works,' Eph. ii. 10. What is an effect cannot be the cause. The best works
before grace are but a refined sensuality, they arise from self-love, centre in
self-satisfaction, are therefore works of a different strain from those of
grace, which are referred to a higher end, and to God's well-pleasing. In all
works before grace there is no resignation of the soul to God in obedience; no
self-denial of what stands in opposition to God in the heart; no clear view of
the evil of sin; no sound humiliation under the corruption of nature; no inward
purification of the heart, but only a diligence in an external polishing. All
those acts cannot produce an habit of a different kind from them. Let a man be
stilted up with the highest natural excellency; let him be taller by the head
and shoulders than all his neighbours in morality, those no more confer life
upon him than the setting a statue upon an high pinnacle, near the beams of the
sun, inspires it with a principle of motion. The increasing the perfection of
one species can never mount the thing so increased to the perfection of another
species. If you could vastly increase the heat of fire, you could never make it
ascend to the perfection of a star. If you could increase mere moral works to
the highest pitch they are capable of, they can never make you gracious,
because grace is another species, and the nature of them must be changed to
make them of another kind. All the moral actions in the world will never make
our hearts, of themselves, of another kind than moral. Works make not the heart
good, but a good heart makes the works good. It is not our walking in God's
statutes materially, which procures us a new heart, but a new heart is in order
before walking in God's statutes, Ezek. xxxvi. 27. Our regeneration is no more
wrought by works of our own than our justification. The rule of the apostle
will hold good in this, as well as in the other: Rom. xi. 6, 'If it be of
grace, it is not of works; otherwise grace is no more grace;' and faith is 'the
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast,' Eph. ii. 9. And the
apostle, Titus iii. 5, opposes the 'renewing of the Holy Ghost' to 'works of
righteousness.' He excludes works from being the cause of salvation; and would
they not be the cause of salvation, if they were the cause of the necessary
condition of salvation?
Prop. 3. As man cannot prepare himself to
this work, nor produce it, so he cannot co-operate with God in the first
production of it. We are no more co-workers with God in the first regeneration,
than we were joint purchasers with Christ in redemption. The conversion of the
will to God is a voluntary act; but the regeneration of the will, or the
planting new habits in the will, whereby it is enabled to turn to God, is
without any concurrence of the will. Therefore, say some, we are active in primo
actu, but not in primo actus; or we are active in actu exercito, but
not in actu signato. Some say, the habit of faith is never created
separate from an act, as the trees at the creation of the world were created
with ripe fruit on them; but the tree, with the power of bearing fruit, and the
fruit itself, were created at one and the same time by God. Yet though the
habit be not separate at first from the act, yet there is no co-operation of
the creature to the infusion of that habit, but there is to the act immediately
flowing from that habit; for either that act of grace is voluntary or
involuntary. If involuntary, it is not a gracious act; if voluntary, it must
needs be; since the tone of the will is changed, then the creature concurs in
that act; for the act of believing and repenting is the act of the creature. It
is not God that repents and believes in us; but we repent and believe by virtue
of that power which God has given us. In the first act, therefore, there is a
concurrence of the creature; otherwise the creature could not be said to repent
and believe, but something in the creature, without or against the will of the
creature. But in the first power of believing and repenting, God is the sole
agent. Jesus Christ is the sun that heals our natures, Mal. iv. 2; the rain
that moistens our hearts: Ps. lxxii. 6, 'He shall come down like rain upon the
mown grass.' What co-operation is there in the earth with the sun to the
production of flowers, but by the softness it has received from the rain? It
would else be parched up, and its fruits wither. The Holy Ghost does by his own
power make us good trees; but we afterwards, by virtue of that power, work
together with him, in bringing forth good fruit. Yet this is also a
subordinate, not a co-ordinate working; rather a sub-operation than a
co-operation.
1. The state wherein man is at his first
renewal excludes any co-working with God. The description the apostle gives of
a state of nature excludes all co-operation of the creature in the first
renewal: Titus iii. 3, 'For we ourselves were sometimes foolish, disobedient,
deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful,
and hating one another.' And Eph. ii. 2, 3, 'Among whom we all had our
conversations in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind.' Every man is naturally taken up in the
fulfilling the desires of the flesh; not only the Gentiles, to whom Paul
writes, but himself; for he puts himself and the rest of the Jews in the
number. In the second verse it was 'ye walked;' in ver. 3, it is 'we all;' and
in Titus iii. 3, 'we ourselves.' We who had the oracles of God, that had
greater privileges than others, were carried out with as strong an impetus
naturally, till grace stopped the tide, and after stopping, turned it against
nature. When the mind was thus prepossessed, and the will made the lusts of the
flesh its work and trade, there was no likelihood of any co-operation with God
in fulfilling his desires, till the bent of the heart was changed from the
flesh and its principles. The heart is stone before grace. No stone can
co-operate with any that would turn it into flesh, since it has no seed,
causes, or principles of any fleshly nature in it. Since we are overwhelmed by
the rubbish of our corrupted estate, we can no more co-operate to the removal
of it, than a man buried under the ruins of a fallen house can contribute to
the removal of that great weight that lies upon him. Neither would a man in
that state help such a work, because his lusts are pleasures; he serves his
lusts, which are pleasures as well as lusts, and therefore served with delight.
There is naturally in man a greater resistance against the work of grace, than
there is in the natural coldness of water against the heat of the fire, which
yet penetrates into all parts of the water.
2. Regeneration is a new principle. What
operation can there be before a principle of action? All co-operation supposes
some principle of working; as actus secundus supposes actum primum.
But a man, before his first regeneration, is blind in his mind, perverse in his
will, rebellious in his affections, unable to know the truth, unable to do
good, dead in sin. If he does co-operate with God before the habit be settled,
then we can act before we have a power to act. We can please God in taking his
part, and joining issue with him, before we have a gracious principle; which is
contrary to the Scripture, which tells us we are first begotten of God before
we can keep ourselves, or exert one act for the bettering ourselves: 1 John v.
18, 'He that is begotten of God keeps himself.' The preservation of ourselves,
and every act tending thereto, follows the infusion of the first principle. And
the apostle Paul implies, that God works in us to will before we work: Philip.
ii. 12, 13, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God works
in you both to will and to do,' &c. The apostle supposes not any operation
in them before, because he supposes not their working without God's giving them
a will, the act of volition. The working of the creature supposes some divine
work first upon the will. Did the dust of the ground, whereof Adam's body was
formed, co-work with God in figuring it into a body? or does the body
contribute any more than a passive receptivity to the infusion of the rational
soul? Lazarus did not concur with Christ till his powerful voice infused life
and strength into him. His rising and walking was from a power conveyed,
wherein Christ did work; but there was no co-working in him in the conveyance
of that power. We do not say that a man co-works with the sun in enlightening a
room, because he opens the shuts which barred out the light; the opening
whereof is no cause of the sun's shining, but a conditio sine qua non.
But do we so much in the first renewal? It is God alone who darts his beams,
and opens our hearts too, to admit it: Acts xvi. 14, it is said, 'the Lord
opened Lydia's heart.' The will cannot concur in the actual infusion of a
gracious principle, because it has no spark in itself by nature, suitable to
that principle which is bringing it into the soul itself. The shining of God
into the soul is compared to the chasing away that darkness which at the first
creation was over the face of the deep: 2 Cor. iv. 6, 'For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God.' What co-working was there in that
darkness to remove itself, but a necessity upon it to obey the command of God
who had the sovereign power over his own works? If the creature did co-work
with God at first, it could no more be said to be dead than a man asleep may be
said to be dead; and grace were only an awakening, not an enlivening.
3. If there were any co-working of the will
with God in the first infusion of grace, God would not be so much the author of
grace as he is of nature in any other creature. The creature would share with
him in the first principle of its action, which no creature in the world can be
said to do. It would rather be a concourse of God than a creation; but all the
terms whereby God sets forth himself in the work of regeneration import more
than a bare concourse or a co-operation with the creature: ' I will take away
the heart of stone; I will write my law in their hearts; I will put my Spirit
into them,' are loftier expressions than are used to signify a co-working only.
He appropriates the whole work to himself, without interesting the creature in
any active concurrence, any more than at his creation.
4. If the will of man did co-work with God
in regeneration, it would then share part of the glory of God. The whole glory
would not belong to God, which he challenges to himself in Scripture. He were
then but an half Saviour, an half new creator. We should be in joint commission
with him, by the power of our own wills, in the first motion. If creation and
resurrection are acts of an almighty power, man co-operating with him in the
very act of creation and resurrection would partake with God's almightyness,
and in some sort be co-equal with him, and a joint partner with God in a work
which required almightyness for the effecting it. Surely since the same power
which raised Christ from the dead works first in every believer for his
spiritual resurrection, he contributes no more to it than the body of Christ in
the grave did to its resurrection, which was a work not of his humanity, but
divinity. Plucking out of the power of Satan is an effect of the power of
grace, and God's gift, 2 Tim. ii. 25, 20. God first 'gives repentance, that
they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil.' A slave, whose
hands and feet are laden with fetters, can contribute nothing to his
deliverance but a will and desire to be delivered; nor that, if he be in love
with his fetters, which is the case of every one of us by nature, who are as
fond to be in the devil's custody as he is to have us. What co-operation can
there be in this ease? Whatsoever is an act of mercy, and an act of truth in
God, he is to have the sole praise of; it does not in any sort belong to the
creature. The psalmist emphatically excludes man from it: Ps. cxv. 1, 'Not unto
us, O Lord, not to us, but unto the name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy
truth's sake.' Not unto us, twice repeated, but to thy name give
glory. Do believers beg of God the giving glory to himself, and not unto them;
and will they contradict their prayers, by sharing the praise with God? This is
expressed for deliverances. Much less does any praise and glory belong to the
creature for the most excellent deliverance of all, from the power of sin,
Satan, and death.
5. How can men co-work with God in the first
regeneration, when they must needs acknowledge that in the progress of it they
are oftener hinderers than furtherers of it? If God did not work more strongly
in us than the best of us do in ourselves, and breathe a willingness into our
wills, after regeneration, we should come short of salvation for all the first
stock. How often do the best complain of their disability! Is it not frequent
in the mouths of Christians in all ages as well as of Paul: Rom. vii. 18, 'To
will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not'? How
easily are our purposes shaken, and our strength staggers! Can we then
co-operate with God, when we have no purpose, no strength? Let every man's
experience speak for himself, how apt he is to check the motions of the Spirit;
to let our Saviour stand and knock, and not open. What strugglings of the body
of death! What indispositions in an holy course! Is there not often a kind of
rustiness of soul, cold damps in spiritual duties? What faint hands in any holy
work! What ebbs and floods, ups and downs in his heart! What feeble knees in
his walk! What hung-down heads in laying hold of Christ in repeated acts of
faith! What frequent returns of spiritual lethargies! And all this after
habitual grace. If our co-operations with God after grace received, are but a
remove from non-acting, next neighbours to no working at all, we must conclude
it to be worse with man before grace was settled in the soul, and that there
was no active concurrence with it in any manner of acting; otherwise there
would be as much co-operation before the implantation of habitual grace as
after, which is hard to be imagined, that a man should be no stronger with
grace received than under the want of it.
Prop. 4. Man by his own strength cannot
actuate grace after it is received. To what purpose did the saints of old pray
to quicken them, if they stood not in as much need of exciting grace from God
as of renewing grace: Ps lxxx. 18, 'Quicken us, and we will call upon thy
name;' Ps. cxix. 25, 27 and many places in that psalm. The new creature is
little better than an infant in the best, and cannot go unless God bear it in
his arms, as he speaks of Ephraim, Hosea xi. 1, 3. They cannot move unless led
by the Spirit. The child has a principle of motion in it, but cannot go without
the assistance of the nurse; nor the soul, without the assistance of God,
actuate that principle of grace. Habitual grace is the instrument, not the
principal agent. A sword, though it has an edge, cuts nothing till it be moved
by some strong arm. The first principle of the motion of grace resides in God.
Purification in its progress is attributed to faith as an instrument, but to
God as a principal agent. It is said, Acts xv. 8, 9, 'God gave them the Holy
Ghost, as he did to us, and put no difference between us and them, purifying
their hearts by faith.' Yet the will of man concurs in this actuating of faith,
as a subordinate cause: 1 John iii. 3, a man is said to 'purify himself by
hope.' A well-rigged soul, with its habit of grace spread, as well as a ship
with its sails, must wait the leisure of the wind before it move. Paul
acknowledges his acting for the service of God to be not from himself
principally: 1 Cor. xv. 10, 'Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me.' It was the grace of God used me as an instrument; the glory must not stick
to my fingers; it was the grace of God with me, affording strength and help to
that grace which was in me. If this concourse of God be necessary in all
natural actions, it is much more in the spiritual frame of the soul to keep it
up, and to keep it acting. It is not we that work to will and to do, but God
works to will and to do. It is to be considered that the apostle writes to them
that are in a state of grace, exhorting them to a progress in salvation
depending upon God, who worlds the after will and the alter doing, as well as
the first will and compliance with the grace of God. Do we not find renewed men
not able, with all the grace they have, to quicken themselves sometimes in
duty? What is the reason they lie spiritless before God, often with breathings,
sighs, and groans for quickening, and it is far from them? They stir themselves
up, meditate, summon up all the powerful considerations they can, yet find
themselves empty of a spiritual vigour. Surely there is some principal power
wanting to spirit their grace, and make them leap in duty; some invisible
strength has withdrawn itself, which did before conduct and breathe upon them,
and fill their souls with a divine fire. They find it not in the power of the
hand of their own will to actuate and quicken the grace they have, much less is
it in the power of any man's hand to renew himself. The work of grace is not
only a traction at the first, but a continual traction, as conservation is a
continual creation: 'Draw me, and we will run after thee,' Cant. i. 4. The
church there speaks it as regenerate, desiring a continual traction from God,
as the first ground of her race after Christ. Life she had, for she promises to
run; yet this race she could not begin nor continue, without traction from God.
Prop. 5. Man cannot by the power of his own
will preserve grace in himself. Our Saviour's prayer to his Father, John xvii.
11, 15, to 'keep them,' imports, that they were too weak to keep themselves:
'Unless the Lord keep the city, in vain does the watchman wake,' Ps. cxxvii. 1.
Unless God preserve the soul, all the watchfulness of habitual grace will be to
little purpose. All creatures, if God hide his face, are troubled, Ps. civ. 29,
much more the new creature, whose strength does more necessarily depend upon
God, because of its powerful opposites. Were it not for the assisting grace of
God, the unruly lusts in our hearts would soon bear down habitual grace in the
best. How many temptations are prevented which we cannot foresee! How many
corruptions are restrained, which the best grace cannot fully conquer! How is
the tide and torrent of these waters beaten back, which otherwise would go over
our heads! The poor will of Adam preserved him not against a temptation, when
he had no indwelling corruption to betray him; nor did the will of the angels,
who had no temptation, keep them from forsaking their habitation. How can any
renewed man, alive with all his grace, merely by the strength of his own will,
keep himself from sinking down in the lake of his old corruption? He that would
ask the fallen angels in the midst of their torments, what was the reason of
their fall, would receive no other answer but that their strength was
unsuccessful, because it depended upon their own will. The knowledge of the
gospel and evangelical impressions are never like to keep up without the Holy
Ghost: 2 Tim. i. 14, 'That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep, by
the Holy Ghost,' not by thine own strength. It we cannot keep a form of sound
words, which, as it is knowledge, is more agreeable to the natural appetite of
man, without the Holy Ghost, much less can we preserve grace in us, which is
more stomached by corrupt nature. Neither are good frames like to be preserved
in us without God's keeping: 1 Chron. xxix. 18, 'keep this in the imagination
of the thoughts of the heart of thy people.' Our hearts will not let any good
motion sink into them, unless God give a pondus to his own motion. If,
then, regenerate men are unable of themselves to actuate and preserve grace
received, much more inability is there in a natural man to gain that which he
has not a
spark of in his own nature, but an enmity
to.
Quest. But, do you divest man of all power,
all freedom of will? Is he able to do nothing in order to regeneration?
Ans. We do not divest man of all power;
therefore, before we consider what power belongs to man, we may consider,
(1.) Man simply in his fall. So man lost all
his natural ability by his first sin, and was the meritorious cause of his
losing supernatural grace, which God by a judicial act removed from him, and in
this state man had no ability unto anything morally good. Nothing was due to
Adam but the state of the devils, who have no affection to anything morally
good, but always do that which is in its own nature evil, and always sin with
evil intentions. Adam would have been thus, had the threatening, according to
the tenor of it, been executed; there had been no common affections, no more
light in his understanding than what might have served for his torment, as
wicked men, after death, are deprived in a judicial way of that light in their
minds, those velleities and good motions which sometime hovered in them, those
affections which were here exercised now and then towards God. The sentence
given against Adam is then pronounced against them, and they laid under the
final execution of it, which was to die the death: Gen. ii. 17, 'Thou shalt
surely die,' a death of all morality, all affections to anything that has the
resemblance of goodness. It might be a prediction of what would be in course,
as well as what would be inflicted in way of judicial recompense. None of these
things can be looked for in Adam, or any of his posterity, as fallen; not a
grain of life, or anything tending that way, was due to him, but only death.
(2.) Man is to be considered as respited
from the present suffering this sentence by the intervention of Christ; whereby
he is put into another way of probation. So those common notions in our
understandings, and common motions in our wills and affections, so far as they
have anything of moral goodness, are a new gift to our natures by virtue of the
mediation of Christ. In which sense he may be said to 'taste death for every
man,' Heb. ii. 9, and be 'a propitiation for the sins of the whole world.' By
virtue of which promised death, some sparks of moral goodness are preserved in
man. Thus his 'life was the light of men;' and he is 'The light that lightens
every man that comes into the world,' which sets the candle of the Lord in the
spirit of man a-burning and sparkling, John i. 9, and upholds all things by his
mediatory as well as divine power, Heb. i. 3, which else would have sunk into
the abyss. By virtue of this mediation, some power is given back to man, as a new
donation, yet not so much as that he is able by it to regenerate himself; and
whatsoever power man has, is originally from this cause, and grows not up from
the stock of nature, but from common grace.
Which common grace is either,
[l.] More general, to all men. Whereby those
divine sparks in their understandings, and whatsoever is morally praiseworthy
in them, is kept up by the grace of God, which was the cause that Christ tasted
death for every man: Heb. ii. 9, 'That he by the grace of God should taste
death for every man;' whereby the apostle seems to intimate, that by this
grace, and this death of Christ, any remainders of that honour and glory
wherewith God crowned man at first are kept upon his head; as will appear, if
you consider the eighth Psalm, whence the apostle cites the words which are the
ground of his discourse of the death of Christ.
[2.] More particular common grace, to men
under the preaching of the gospel. Which grace men 'turn into wantonness' or
lasciviousness, Jude 4. Grace they had, or the gospel of grace, but the
wantonness of their nature prevailed against the intimations of grace to them.
Besides this common grace, there is a more special grace to the regenerate, the
more peculiar fruit of Christ's mediation and death for them. All this, and
whatsoever else you can conceive that has but a face of comeliness in man, is
not the birth of fallen nature abstracted from this mediation. Therefore when
the Gentiles are said to 'do by nature the things contained in the law,' it is
not to be understood of nature merely as fallen, for that could do no such
thing; but of nature in this new state of probation, by the interposition of
Christ the mediator, whose powerful word upheld all things, and kept up those
broken fragments of the two tables of law, though dark and obscure. And
considering God's design of setting forth the gospel to the world, there was a
necessity of those relics, both in the understanding, and affections, and
desire for happiness, to render men capable of receiving the gospel, and those
inexcusable that would reject it. So that by this mediation of Christ, the
state of mankind is different since the fall from that of the evil angels or
devils. For man has, just, a power of doing that which is in its own nature
good; secondly, a power of doing good with a good intention; not indeed
supremely for the glory of God, but for the good of his country, the good of
his neighbours, the good of the world, which was necessary for the soldering
together human societies, so that sometimes even in sins man has good
intentions. Whereas the devil does always that which in its own nature is evil,
and always sins with evil intentions. Without this mediation, every man had
been as very a slave to sin as the devil; though he be naturally a slave to
sin, yet not in that full measure the devil is, unless left in a judicial
manner by God upon high provocations.
There is then a liberty of will in man; and
some power there is left in man. And here I shall show,
1. What kind of liberty this is.
2. That there is some liberty in man.
3. How far the power of man by common grace
does extend.
Quest. First, what kind of liberty this is.
Ans. 1. The essential liberty of the will
remains. Liberty is of the essence of the will, and cannot be taken away without
extinction of the nature of man; it is free from compulsion, otherwise it were
a not-will, which liberty does not consist in a choice of good or evil.
For even under this depravation it cannot choose evil qua malum, as
such. It can choose nothing but what appears to it under the notion of good;
though it many times embraces that which is materially evil, yet the formal
consideration upon which it embraces it is as good, either in reality or in
appearance; as the sight in every colour sees light. And when it is carried out
to that which is really evil, and only apparently good, it is by force of those
habits in the understanding, which make it give a false judgment; or, by the
power of the sensitive appetite, which hurries it on to the object proposed,
but always it respects in its motion everything as good, either an honest,
pleasant, or profitable good.
Ans. 2. Though the essential liberty of the
will remains, yet the rectitude whereby it might have been free only to that
which was really good is lost. Man by creation had a freedom of will to choose
that which was really good, yet had a mutability, and could choose evil; and by
choosing evil rather than good, sank his posterity into this depraved liberty
which now remains. Though since the fall man is preserved in his natural
freedom, and cannot be forced, yet he has not a power to will well, because
that righteous principle whereby he did will well is departed from him; yet
because the essential freedom due to his nature remains, whatsoever he wills he
wills freely, so that though something the will wills may be materially good,
yet it wills that good in an ill manner, for being overcome naturally by sin
man can do nothing but according to that law which sin, as a master that has
conquered him, imposes upon him: 2 Peter ii. 19, 'They themselves are the
servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he
brought in bondage.' And of all men in a state of nature, though under common
grace, the apostle pronounces, Rom. iii. 11, that 'there is none that seeks
after God;' that is, in any thing they do, though never so good, they seek not
God but themselves. 'There is no fear of God,' no respect to God 'before their
eyes,' ver. 18, whence it comes to pass, that by reason of this dominion of sin
nothing can be done well. Hence man is said to be dead; not that the life which
does constitute the nature of the soul is taken away, but that which renders it
fit for performing actions pleasing to God; for such a life does consist, not
in the nature of the soul or will, but in that habitual integrity which was in
man by creation. As the body when it is dead does not cease to be a body, but
ceases to be animated, by the separation of the soul from it, so the soul may be
truly said to be dead, though the power of the soul be not taken away. If the
spiritual rectitude in that power which did constitute it spiritually living be
departed, by the removal of this righteousness, the will is not free to
spiritual things, though it be to natural. It is 'free among the dead,' as the
psalmist speaks of himself; Ps. lxxxviii. 5; free to dead works, not to living;
to this or that dead work, to any work within the verge of sinning, as a bird
in a large cage may skip this way and that way by its natural spontaneous
motion, but still within the cage.
Ans. 3. Therefore, though man has lost this
liberty to good, he retains a freedom to the commission of sin, under the
necessity of sinning. This freedom is a power of choice and election of a
thing, which differs from that spontaneity which is in beasts, who act by
instinct, without any reasoning in the case, because they want a reasoning
power. Though man be under a necessity of sinning, yet it is not a necessity of
constraint, but a necessity of immutability, which is consistent with liberty,
though the other be not. A creature may be unchangeably carried to good or
evil, and yet be free in both: to good, as the angels and glorified saints
cannot will to sin, because their wills are immutably determined to good. They
cannot but praise and love God, yet they freely do both, and our Saviour did
freely do that good which he could not but do by reason of his hypostatical
union, otherwise he could not have merited, for all merit requires the concurrence
of the will. To evil; the devils cannot will to do good, because their wills
are unchangeably determined to evil, yet they sin as freely as if there were no
immutable necessity upon them. So man cannot but naturally sin in all that he
does yet he is not constrained to sin, but sins as freely and voluntarily as if
there were no necessity upon his nature to corruption,—as freely as if God had
not foreseen that he would do so. Man sins with as great a pleasure as if he
were wholly independent upon the providence of God, and the more a man is
delighted with sin, the greater freedom there is in it. Hence the Scripture
lays sin upon the choice of man: Isa. lxvi. 3, 4, 'They have chosen their own
ways, and their soul delights in their abominations.' They have their own ways,
that is, ways proper to corrupt man; but they chose them and delighted in them.
Man is voluntary under his depravation, free in his aversion from God, a free
necessity, a delightful immutability. The will cannot be compelled to will that
which it would not, or not to will that which it would. Then sin arises from a
settled habit, the freer is a man in his sin; and though he cannot act
otherwise than according to that habit, yet his actions are most voluntary,
because he is the cause of that habit which he acquired by evil acts, and by
succeeding acts testifies his approbation of it.
2. That there is some liberty in man, some
power in man. Not indeed such a power as the Jews thought man had naturally, of
exercising himself about anything that God should reveal, without the infusion
of a new power, to enable him to act that which God required by supernatural
revelation. Some power and liberty must be allowed,
(1.) To clear the justice of God. No just
man will punish another for not doing that which was simply and physically
impossible; and 'shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' It is a good
speech of Austin, If there were not the grace of God, how could the world be
saved? If there were not free will, how could the world be judged? If man were
divested of all kind of liberty, he might have some excuse for himself; but
since the Scripture pronounces men without excuse, Rom. i. 20, some power must
be granted to clear the equity of God's justice. No man sins in that which he
is under an inevitable constraint to do, and so would be unjustly punished. It
does not appear that God does condemn any man simply for not being regenerate,
but for not using the means appointed to such an end, for not avoiding those
sins which hindered his regeneration, and which might have been avoided by him
if he would, though indeed every unregenerate man will be condemned. The
pouring out the wrath of God upon man is principally for those sins which they
might have refrained, and had sufficient reason against: Eph. v. 6, for
'because of these things,' that is, for those gross sins which they might have
avoided, mentioned ver. 5, 'comes the wrath of God upon the children of
disobedience,' "apeithias"; men that would not be persuaded, which
obstinacy was in their will. As these are the causes of God's wrath, so these
will be alleged as the principal reasons of the last sentence. And our Saviour
in his last judgment does not charge men with their unregeneracy, but with
their omissions of what they might have done, and that easily; and commissions
which they might have avoided, Mat. xxv. 41-43, with their not feeding his
members when they were hungry, &c., which were things as much in their
power as anything in the world. And the reason Christ renders of the sentence
passed upon men, to depart from him, was their working of iniquity: Mat. vii.
23, 'Depart from me, you that work iniquity,' that work it voluntarily, and
work that you might have forborne. Though unregeneracy does exclude a man from
heaven, as a condition without which a man cannot come there, yet nothing of
this is mentioned in the last sentence. If man had a firm will to turn to God,
and had not then a power conferred upon him to turn, I know not what to say;
but man has no will to turn, yea, he has no will to do those things which he
might do. Supposing man has a power to avoid such and such sins, he is justly
punished for not making use of that power. Nay, supposing he had no power to
avoid them, yet if his will be set to that sin he is justly condemned, not for
want of power, but for the delight his will took in it. From which delight in
it, it may be gathered that if he had had a power to have shunned it, he would
not have shunned it. If a man be assaulted by murderers that will cut his
throat, if he will not use his power against them, but take a pleasure in
having his throat cut, is not this man a self-murderer, both in the judgment of
God and man? Let me use another illustration, since the end of all our
preaching should be to humble man and clear God. If a man be cast out of an
high tower, and be pleased with his fall, would he not be justly worthy of it,
and to be neglected by men, not because he did not help himself in his fall,
for that was not in his own power, but because he was mightily pleased and
contented with his fall, and with such a pleasure, that if he had been able to
have helped himself he would not? So though man be fallen in Adam, yet when he
comes to discern between good and evil, he commits the evil with pleasure. So
that supposing he had no power to avoid sins, yet he is worthy of punishment
because he does it delightfully. Whence it may be concluded, if he had had
power to avoid it, he would not, because his will is so malignant.
(2.) Without some liberty in the will, free
from necessity of compulsion, man would not be capable of sin, nor of moral
goodness. No human law does impute that for a vice, or a virtue, to which a man
is carried by constraint, without any power to avoid. Where anything is done
without a will, it is not an human action. Beasts therefore are not capable of
sin, because they want reason and will. If man had not liberty of will, he
would be as a beast, which has only a spontaneous power of motion without
reason. Sin could not be charged upon man, as God does all along: Ps. xcv. 10,
'It is a people that do err in their hearts;' and Ps. cxix. 21, 'Thou hast
rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments.' It had
been no error in them, if they had not done it voluntarily. The erring from
God's commandments arises from pride of heart, they had not else deserved a
rebuke. Who would chide a clock for going wrong, which has no voluntary motion?
Man without a liberty of will could not be the author of his own actions, and
sin could no more be imputed to him, than the irregular motion of a watch can
be imputed to the watch itself, but rather to the workman or governor of it.
Without a voluntary power, man would be as all engine, moved only with springs,
and human laws, which punish any crime, would be as ridiculous as Xerxes'
whipping the sea, because it would not stop its tide. Neither were any praise
due to man for any moral virtue, no more than praise is due to a lifeless
picture for being so beautiful, or to the limner's pencil for making it so: the
praise is due to the artist, not to the instrument.
(3.) Without some liberty and power of
motion in the will, all the reason of man, and those notions in the
understanding, left by the virtue of Christ's mediatory interposition, would be
to no purpose. The reason why men do err is because they do not take right ways
of judging according to those means they have: 'Ye err,' says our Saviour, 'not
knowing the Scripture, nor the power of God,' Mat. xxii. 29. They have a
faculty of judgment, and means whereby to judge, which would prevent errors.
There is therefore some suitable power in man to follow the judgment of reason,
if he will. He would be in vain endowed with that power of reasoning, if there
were not a power of motion in some measure suitable to that reason. The
authority of judging in the understanding would be wholly insignificant; all
debates about any object proposed would be to no end, if the will had not a
liberty to follow that judgment. How can God make appeals to men as he does, if
they had not a power of judging that they ought to have done otherwise, and
might have done otherwise than they did? Though man has not a sufficient light
left in his nature for salvation, yet he has such a light of reason in him to
which he might be more faithful in his motions than he is, otherwise the
apostle could not have argued from that light the heathens had to their
conviction, as he does, Rom. i. 19-21, &c., and manifests their
unfaithfulness to that truth which God had manifested to them, and manifested in
them in their nature. Most sins do arise from the neglect of being guided by
that light which is in men.
(4.) The glory of God's wisdom in the
government of the world would not have been so conspicuous, if some liberty had
not been allowed to the will. It is no great matter to keep in order an
inanimate thing, as a clock that must obey a necessity; God would have been but
like a good clock-keeper only, as ones says. But how much does it make for the
wisdom of God, to make the free motions of his creature, the various humours in
the will of man, centre at last in his own glory, contrary to the will and
design of the creature, that they have their natural motions, their voluntary
motions, and God superintends over them, and moves them according to his own
will regularly, according to their nature, without crossing them? 'The
determinate counsel of God,' in the death of our Saviour, and the free will of
Pilate and the Jews, meet in the same point: God acting wisely, graciously,
justly; their wills acting freely and naturally, reduced, without injury to
their nature, to the due point of God's will.
Quest. 3. The third question, How far does
the power of man by common grace extend?
Ans. As in a body deprived of the soul there
is some power of growth left in the hair and nails, so some power is left in
the soul, though it be spiritually dead. As a regenerate man by special grace
has a power of doing that which is spiritually good, so a natural man by common
grace has a power of doing things morally good, if he will. God keeps the key
of regenerating grace in his own hands, and unlocks what hearts he pleases, and
brings in a vital spirit into whom he pleases; but there is by common grace an
ability in men to do more than they do, but that they harbour, cherish, and
increase those vicious inclinations in their own souls. But let it be
remembered that this power is not to be abstracted from God's common grace, as
the power of a renewed man after grace is not to be abstracted from special
grace, nor the natural powers of motion to the actual motion, not to be
abstracted from God's general providential concourse.
(1.) Man has a power by common grace to
avoid many sins: I say, a power by common grace; for sometime, upon the
neglecting the conduct of natural light, God pulls up the sluice of his
restraining grace, lets out the torrent of their natural corruption upon them,
which forcibly hurries them to all kind of wickedness; as it is said, Rom. vii.
24, 26, 'Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their
own hearts; for this cause God gave them up to vile affections.' Therefore, and
for this cause, that is, for going contrary to that natural light they had, God
let the lusts of their own hearts, which he had restrained, have their full
swing against them. In this case sin can no more be avoided, than a man can
stop a torrent.
Again; though a man, as he is in a state of
nature, cannot but do evil, yet he is not necessitated to this or that kind of
sin, but he may avoid this or that pro hic and nunc in particular,
though he cannot in general; as a man who has the liberty of walking where he
pleases in a prison, he may choose whether he will come into this or that walk
within the liberty of the prison; but let him move which way he will, he is a
prisoner still.
Quest. If it be said, if a man has power to
avoid this or that sin, why may he not avoid all?
Ans. I answer, If he had power to avoid all,
he would be restored to the state of Adam. But the reason is this, the power to
avoid this or that particular sin arises from a particular cause, the natural
subjection of appetite to reason, the lightness of temptation; or if the
temptation be more vehement, the stirring up reason and pressing considerations
against it; but the power to shun all sin depends upon the subordination of the
faculties one to another, in the due order of their creation, and an universal
subjection of them to God. Though a man, by a careful watch, may withstand a
particular temptation, yet as long as he is alienated from God, and has corrupt
habits in him, which are prone to sinful acts, he will one time or other, by
some sudden temptation, be carried out according to his natural inclination,
before he is able to premeditate, and set reason on work. And sometimes the
motions to sin come in such troops, that he cannot stir up his force against
all, so that while he is combating against one, another comes behind and
surprises him. As another Romanist illustrates it, a vessel has three holes to
leak at; a man with two hands may stop two of them, which he will, but the
third will remain open of necessity. None will say that the devil can avoid all
sin in general, and become holy for the future, because his will is determined
to sin, but this or that individual act of sin he may; for he may choose
whether he will assault this man or that with such a temptation, or whether at
this time or another. As if two commands were given to the good angels, and it
be left to their wills whether they will do that or the other, though they
cannot but do good, because their wills are so determined, yet they have a
liberty to choose which command they will at present follow. And the reason of
this is this: there is no physical necessity upon a man to this or that sin, as
there is that the fire should burn. Lusts only offer themselves; they have no
force upon a man, but be his own will; they have no authority from God to
compel him; then God should be the author of sin. Satan can give no commission
to them to break open our hearts; and though he be a strong adversary, he
cannot break them open. If the door be open, it is our own act. Is there any
necessity upon a man to run into this or that infectious company, or drink
brimful cups, till he has drowned both his reason and sentiments of morality?
Has he not power to quell many incentives to sin? Show me that man in the world
that, upon serious consideration, would say, it is utterly impossible for him
to avoid this or that particular sin when he is tempted to it. What men do in
this case, they do willing, though a strong temptation may be the first motive
of it. It is said, Hos. v. 11, 'Ephraim willingly walked after the
commandment,' though the first motive to it was the command of their prince
Jeroboam.
To evidence this, let me do it by some
queries, which may both satisfy that we divest not man of all power, and
prevent the ill use men may make of this doctrine, to encourage sluggishness.
1. Cannot you avoid this or that foreseen
occasion of sin? Cannot he that knows how prone he is to overthrow his reason
when the wine sparkles in the glass, avoid coming within the sight of it? What
force is there upon his legs to go, or his hands to take the cup? Can we not
starve those affections we have to this or that particular sin, by neglecting
the means to feed them? If a man stood by with a drawn sword to stab you if you
went into such a place, could you not forbear going in? What is the reason?
Fear. And why might not a natural fear of God, heightened by consideration, be
of as much force with you as the fear of man, unless atheism has swallowed up
all sentiments of a Deity? Do you not rather wish for opportunities, and court
a temptation? put you heads out of the window, with Sisera's mother; why is the
chariot of the devil so long a coming? It is said, Prov. xxi. 10, 'The soul of
the wicked desires evil.'
2. Have you not a power to avoid gross sins?
Is there any force upon men, to open, sensual sins? Have they not a power to
abstain from fleshly lusts? Has not the will a commanding power over the
members? What hinders it from exercising that power? The members are not
forced, but they are 'yielded up' by consent of the will to sin, Rom. vi. 19.
Had not Achan as much natural power to forbear taking the wedge of gold and the
Babylonish garment, as the rest of that vast number of the Israelites? Not one
of their hands touched any of the spoil. Had he not as much power as any of
them to have restrained his hands, though he could not quench his covetousness?
The law of nature tells us, we ought not to do that to another which we would
not have done to ourselves. Have we not as much power to observe this as the
Gentiles, who did by nature the things contained in the law? Why may not a
man's will command his tongue to speak that which is true, as well as that
which is false? Is there not power to control it from speaking blasphemy, and
belching out cursed oaths? Cannot you command the hand to forbear striking
another wrongfully? Has not a murderer power to keep his sword in his scabbard,
as well as to sheath it in his neighbour's bowels? Can any man say, that there
was one gross sin in the whole coarse of his life, but he had a power to avoid
it if he would? Forbearance of gross sin consists in a naked omission and a not
acting, which is far more easy than a positive acting, and every man has a
power to suspend his own act.
3. Did you never resist a temptation to a
particular sin? Why may you not then resist it afterward if you will, since the
same common grace attends you? If the will be disengaged one moment from a sin
under a great temptation, why not another moment from sin, under a less
temptation? No temptation can overpower your strength, unless the will freely
shake hands with it: Acts v. 3, 'Why has Satan filled thy heart, to lie to the
Holy Ghost?' His meaning is not, why Satan has done it, for Ananias could not
render a reason of that; but why did thou suffer Satan to fill thy heart? If
you have given a cheek to Satan before, is it not as easy to say again, 'Get
thee behind me, Satan'?
4. Have you not power to shun many inward sins?
Man, where he has least power, yet he has some, viz. over his thoughts. We
cannot, indeed, hinder the first risings and motions of them, which will steam
up from the corrupt fumes and lake whether he will or no; but cannot we hinder
the progress of them? Is there not a power to check the delight in them if we
will, or divert our thoughts another way, not listen to their suggestions, and
hold no inward converse with them? Though you cannot hinder their intrusion,
may you not hinder their lodging? 'How long shall vain thoughts lodge within
you?' Jer. iv. 14. Sure we have a power by common grace to forbear any
conference with the motions of flesh and blood.
5. When you do sin, had you not many
assistances against it, which if you had hearkened to, you might have avoided
it? Were there not previous dissuasions from that inward monitor, conscience?
When sin has been enticing you on one hand, and conscience warning you on the
other, have you not more willingly listened unto the pleasant reasoning of sin,
than the wholesome admonitions of conscience? Can you not as well listen to
what conscience as to what sin does propose? But have you not wilfully scorned
its judgment? Have you not raged against it with a confidence in sin (which is
the case of the foolish sinner, Prov. xiv. 16, 'The fool rages, and is
confident'), and would 'not consider any of the ways of God' it minded you of,
Job xxxiv. 27, and gave no more regard to its sober dictates, or its louder
pressings, than you have to the barking of little curs in the street? Why could
you not, with those assistances, have avoided that particular act of sin? The
fault was clearly in your wills. Can you not rather choose a cup of wine, than
a cup of poison? clear streams, than muddy waters? Besides those assistances,
you might have had more, if under the batteries of temptation you had sought to
heaven for them. Might you not, then, have avoided this or that sin, when you
had such assistances, and might have had more?
6. Have you not avoided sin upon less
accounts and considerations? The heathen philosopher could observe, that men
may live better than they do. The wrestlers and champions in the Olympic games
lived most temperately and continently during that time, to be more fit for the
gaining the prize. May not rational considerations do as much, if excited in
your minds, as an ambitious desire of honour and affection to victory did in
them? Had not Saul a power to withdraw his hand from the unrighteous
persecution of David before, as well as when he was sensible of David's
kindness in sparing his life when he might have killed him? A drunkard under
the disease and pain caused by his sin, can forbear his cups; does his disease
confer any power upon him more than he had before? No; why could he not then
have forborne his drunken revellings? Can men be restrained from some sins by
the eye of a man, the presence of a child? What power do their eyes confer upon
them? They only excite that which they had before. Cannot men forbear a sinful
act for a sum of money if it were proffered them or in the presence of a king,
who is said to 'scatter away evil with his eyes,' Prov. xx. 8, or in a visible
and imminent danger? If a gibbet or a stake were set before men, that they
should be immediately executed if they did not forbear such a sinful action, or
if they did not go to hear a sermon; can any be so foolish, to think that the
glister of gold, the penalty of the law, the sight of a gibbet, should confer a
power upon you which you were not before possessed with? It is not then the want
of power to avoid sin, but the want of will.
7. Why does conscience check any man after
the commission of sin, if it were not in his power to avoid it? All those
actions which fall under the cognisance and check of conscience, are actions in
our own power, and within the verge of our wills. For the pain of conscience is
of another kind than that pain or grief which is raised by those accidents we
could not avoid. It arises from the liberty of the will, and galls the soul
when it considers, that that which it has done was in its power to be done
otherwise. This is the common language of men upon the regrets of conscience: I
might have done otherwise, I was warned by my friends; I slighted their
warnings, I had resolutions to the contrary, but I stifled them. All men have
laid the fault upon themselves, and what is universal consent has a truth in
it; the consciences of all men would not gall them for that which they had no
power to decline. Indeed, if men wore necessitated to sin, they could not be
tormented in hell, for the torment there is conscience acting rationally, and
reflecting upon them for their wilfulness in the world. If man had not a power
to refuse sin, conscience would have no ground for any such reflections to rack
and torment them. And it is observable, that natural men, somewhat awakened
upon a deathbed, are not so racked by their consciences simply for not being
regenerate, as for not avoiding those sins which were hindrances, and not using
those means which were appointments of God for such an end, because those were
in their power; but they wilfully embraced the one, and as wilfully refused the
other.
Prop. 2. Man has a power, by common grace,
to do many more good actions (actions materially good) than he does.
Evangelical works we cannot do without union to Christ, so himself says,
'Without me you can do nothing,' John xv. 5; nothing according to the order of
the gospel, nothing spiritually, nothing acceptably, because no such fruits can
arise, where faith, the root of such works, is wanting. Though man be much
crippled in regard of morals, yet he is not wholly dead to them, as he is to
spirituals. A man may 'break off his sins by (moral) righteousness, and his
iniquity by showing mercy to the poor;' by taking off the yoke of oppression, and
restoring of what he has rifled, which counsel Daniel gives to Nebuchadnezzar,
chap. iv. 27. Though a sick man cannot do all the acts of a sound man till he
be perfectly cured, yet he has some power of acting some things like a sound
man, remaining with his disease. The young man in the Gospel (yet out of
Christ) morally kept the law; so may men under the gospel keep the outward and
material part of the precept. There are not only some common notions left since
the tall, but also some seeds of moral righteousness in the nature of man. The
Gentiles did not only, by nature, in part restored, know the things written in
the law, but they did by nature do them, Rom. id. 14; upon this stock they bore
many excellent fruits. What patience, chastity, contempt of the pleasures of
the world! What affections to their country, and bowels of compassion to men in
misery! And what devotion in the external worship of their gods, according to
their light, were exemplary in them, though only under the conduct of nature! And
these works, though they were not according to the exactness of the law, and
failed also in the manner of them, and could not please God for want of faith,
yet so far as they were agreeable to the law of nature, and in regard of the
materiality of them, were not offensive to God. This moral righteousness of
theirs was only external, and rather an image of righteousness than a true one.
Abimelech had a natural integrity, which God acknowledges to be in him, and did
arise from his moral nature, though he also appropriates to himself the
restraint of Abimelech, and his concurrence with an approbation of that moral
integrity: Gen. xx. 6, 'I know that thou did this in the integrity of thy
heart: for I also withheld thee from sinning against me, therefore suffered I
thee not to touch her;' "lo netaticha", I gave thee not up to touch
her. If men did nourish a moral integrity, which they might do, God would
concur with them to preserve them from many crimes. If those which were only
under the guidance of natural light had so much power to do many moral acts by
a common grace, is man's power less under the gospel, whereby they have an
addition of a greater light to this natural? If man was able to do so much by
the light of nature, there can be no inability brought upon him under the light
of the gospel, unless men, by their sluggishness and obstinacy, provoke God
judicially to deprive them of that power, and withdraw his hand from them, and
so give them up to all kind of wickedness, as it is the dreadful case of many in
these days. Man may keep the law of nature better than he does, and for not
keeping that he is condemned.
Prop. 3. Men have a power to attend upon the
outward means God has appointed for regeneration. Though man cannot renew
himself, yet he has a natural power to attend upon the means God has afforded.
Though a man has not power to cure his own disease or heal his wound, yet he
has power to advise with others, and use the best medicines for his recovery.
There is not an outward duty a renewed man does, but a natural man has power
externally to do it; though what is essentially good in all parts, cannot be
done without special grace, yet what is externally good may be done by the
assistance of common grace. Have you not passions, fear, love, desire, grief?
Why cannot you exercise them about other objects than ordinarily they are
employed about? Why can you not make hell the object of your fears, and heaven
the object of your desire? Why might not Esau have wept for his sins, as well
as for the loss of the blessing? Might he not have changed the object if he
would? Why may we not exercise our inward affections more in our attendance on
God? Is not a little excuse sufficient to put off from duty, a great excuse not
sufficient to keep you from committing sin? Great business must be laid aside
for sin, not the least laid aside for God. Every little thing is a lion in the
way then. Do you not many times rack your minds to invent pleas for neglect of
duty? Why can you not set them on work to consider reasons to move you to
service? Have we not power to be more serious in the use of means than we are?
We can be so when some affliction presses us, or conscience gnaws us. Neither
of these furnishes us with a new power. Conscience is like the law, acquaints
us with our duty, but gives us no strength. The charge God brines against
Ephraim was, that he 'would not frame his doings to turn towards God,' Hosea v.
4; he would entertain no thoughts, not one action that had the least prospect
towards repentance, he would use no means for that end, or have a look that
way. If a man will not do what is in his power, it is a sign he will not be
renewed. Can he pretend to a desire to live, who will not eat, and endeavour to
prevent foreseen dangers? Or can he pretend to a desire to build, that will not
use materials when he may?
There are two great means: hearing the word,
and prayer.
(1.) Hearing the word. Have not men power to
go to hear the word, to hear a sermon, as well as to see a play? Have they any
shackles upon their feet, that they cannot carry them to a place of worship as
well as to a place of vanity and sin? Can you not as well read the Scripture as
a romance? Has not the will a despotic power over the members of the body? How
came Herod to have more natural power to hear the word, and to hear it 'with
pleasure,' Mark vi. 20, than other men have? May you not strive against
diversions, resist carnal affection, rouse up your souls from their laziness,
and endeavour to close with the word? How smilingly would God look upon such
endeavours? If men do not, it is out of a natural sluggishness and enmity of
will, not for want of power if they would. Men do not what they might.
Certainly he does no more desire regeneration who neglects and despises the
great instrument of it, than he can be said to desire his own preservation, who
neglects medicines proper for the cure of his disease.
(2.) Prayer. I do not mean a spiritual
prayer, which is by the special assistance and indwelling of the Holy Ghost,
but of a natural prayer by common instinct; such a one as the apostle puts
Simon Magus upon, who he knew was destitute of any air of the Spirit to breathe
out, as being 'in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity,' Acts viii. 22,
23, yet supposes him to have a power in some manner to express his desires to
God; or such a power that was common in heathens, upon any distress to run to
their altars, and fill their temples with cries to their gods. You cannot pray in
the Holy Ghost, but you may send up natural and rational cries to God. Did not
Jonah's mariners cry every man to his god? Have you not as much power to cry to
the true God as the heathens to false ones? There is the natural prayer of
those mariners, as well as the natural integrity of Abimelech, which was not a
new-covenant integrity. Can you not be as devout as the publican, and cry, with
more seriousness of affection than generally men do, 'Lord, be merciful to me a
sinner'? When men are upon a death-bed, ready to take their leave of the world,
they can then cry. It is not their death-bed inspires them with power, more
than they had before, but they have more mind, and see a greater necessity of
crying to God. They have more power in the time of their health, by how much
the habit of sin wanted that strength which has been acquired by a continuance
of acts till the time of their sickness; for the fewer sins have been
committed, the less is the power impaired. Though God has kept other things in
his hand, yet he has given us a power of begging, we will use it as a means to
obtain them. Can you not kneel down before God, and implore his assistance? Can
you not acknowledge before him that it is impossible for you to change
yourself, but that your eyes are upon his grace; that you cannot attain by your
own strength a spiritual heart; that you will seek nowhere else for it but from
his hand; and that you will not be at rest till he has put in his hand and
dropped upon your hearts? Can you not thus cry out, Oh that I were a renewed
person! as well as cry out, Oh that I were rich and honourable in the world!
Had Paul a new tongue when he cried out, 'Who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?' Was it not the same member wherein he had breathed out threatenings
against the disciples?
Prop. 4. Man has a power to exercise
consideration. He has seminals of jus and aequum, and a power of
judging according to them: Luke xii. 57 'Yea, why even of yourselves judge you
not what is right?' Our Saviour checks them for not making use of their natural
power; in the searching their own consciences, and judging their own acts, as
well as they did in discerning the face of the sky, and what weather would
follow. There is a power of consideration in a rebellious heart; for God acknowledges
it in a rebellious nation: Ezek. xii. 3, 'It may be they will consider, though
they be a rebellious house.'
1. Can you not reflect upon yourselves?
Every man has a reflexive faculty; otherwise he is not a man. Reflection is the
peculiar privilege of a rational creature, without which he is not rational.
The Pharisees could reflect upon themselves, and say, 'Are we blind also?' John
ix. 40. Can you not then take a survey of your past lives; cast up the accounts
of your souls, as well as your books? Can you not view your particular crimes,
with the aggravations attending them? Yea, you can, if you would. Can you not
look back upon the means you have neglected, the love you have slighted, and
the light you have shut your eyes against? As long as a man has reason, he may
use his reason in these things as well as in others. Why may he not reflect
upon himself in spiritual concerns, as well as civil affairs in the world?
Cannot he, by comparing the face of his soul with the glass of the word,
understand his own state, and by self-reflection come to an understanding of
his own lost condition and weakness?
2. Can you not consider the word? Cannot
your reasons be employed about the objects the word offers, as well as the
objects the world offers? Though you cannot act spiritually in the duties of
religion, can you not act rationally in them, as men? Are you endued with a
rational soul, to consider the proposals of worldly affairs and concerns, and
can you not exercise the same power in considering the proposal made to you by
the gospel? The gospel is not only spiritual, but rational. As long as you have
a thinking faculty, can you not consider what the reasonable meaning of it is?
Though you have not a spiritual taste, you have a rational understanding; why may
it not be busied about one object as well as another? The natural repentance of
the Ninevites at Jonah's preaching, implied the consideration of his
threatening sermon. Why is there not a power in you to think of what is
proposed to you out of the word, as well as you can think of what you read of a
mathematical or philosophical book, or some history? The power is the same in
both, the faculty the same. As the object proposed adds no power to the
faculty, so it takes away no power the faculty already has. Surely man is not
such a block or stone, but he may turn these things over and over, press them
upon his own soul, which may make way for the sensibleness of his state, and
putting the will out of its sinful indifference. What any natural man has done,
that may all under the same means do, if they will. Why may not the veriest
wretch among us humble himself at the hearing of the word, as well as wicked
Ahab? 1 Kings xxi. 27, 29, 'When Ahab heard these words, he rent his clothes.
Seest thou how Ahab humbles himself?' He discovered an external humiliation,
after the consideration of the threatening denounced by the prophet.
3. Can you not cherish, by consideration,
those motions which are put into you? There is not a man but the Spirit strives
with, one time or other, Gen vi. 3. Has not man a power to approve any good
counsel given him, if he will? Have you not had some supernatural motions
lifting you up towards God, and pressing obligations upon you, to walk more
circumspectly? Why might you not have cherished them, as well as smothered
them? Why could you not have considered the tendency of them, as well as have
considered how to divert and drown them, by engaging in some sensual dust? Was
the power of consideration lost? No; you could not then have cast about in your
minds, by what means you should be rid of them, or how you should resist them.
Have you not wilfully rejected them, even when consideration has been revived
at a sermon? And yet you did industriously let that good motion die for want of
blowing up the spark, by following on the consideration which was raised upon
its feet. When you have 'begun well, who did hinder you' from a further
obedience? 'This persuasion comes not of him that calls you,' Gal. v. 7, 8.
There was no necessity upon you, to fortify yourselves in your corrupted habits
against the attempts of the Spirit. Could you not as well have fallen down
before the throne of grace, to have begged grace to second them, as kicked at
them, and spurned them away? Was it want of power to do otherwise? or was it
not rather your own obstinate wilfulness? Since I appeal to you, whether your
own consciences have not tugged at you, and spurred you on at such seasons, why
could you not then beg of God, that such a good motion might not have departed out
of your coasts? Because a man cannot renew himself, therefore to lie down in
sluggishness is not the design of this doctrine.
4. Can you not consider those notions you
have be natural light? Man has a conscience which minds him of moral good, and
pulls him from evil. No man can deprive himself of these. It will check in
those things wherein others commend us, and commend us in those things wherein
others accuse us. May we not observe the motions of conscience within us? May
we not consider the charge it brings against us for any act committed, so as to
avoid the like for the future; and the excusations of conscience, in commending
us, so as to do the like acts for the future? As we have a law without us,
which we may consider, so we have a conscience within us, which witnesses to
the equity of the law, accusing us for what we do contrary to it, and excusing
us for what we do in observance of it, Rom. ii. 15; and this in man's corrupt
state. Cannot man then observe the dictates of conscience? Can he not find out
the sense of this law in his mind, though it be much blurred? Cannot he act
like a man, in following the dictates of this rational principle, as well as
like a beast follow the allurements of sense? No rational principle in man puts
him upon evil, but upon moral good; whatsoever draws him from good, or puts him
upon evil, are principles common to him with one brute or other, profit,
pleasure, honour, all which are found in some beast or other. Why may not a man
then consider the rational reports of his own conscience, as well as the
brutish whisperings of sense? But does not man endeavour to shuffle off his
conscience, and is mighty jolly when it keeps silence, or when he can stop its
mouth with an excuse? Do not men wilfully choke the sentiments of it, and keep
the truth deposited in their souls, in unrighteousness, Rom. i. 18; and like
the scorner, 'hear not its rebukes,' Prov. xiii. 1? Whatsoever man has by the
relics of natural light, he may think of. He knows by nature there is a God; he
knows something of his attributes, and of his law; may not those be his morning
thoughts? Is he not stirred up sometimes to contemplate on them? May he not do
it at other times, since this common grace is always with him, and leaves him
not till he leaves valuing and embracing its divine assistances? Let it be
remembered, that in all this which man may do, the power is to be ascribed to
common grace through a mediator, keeping up by his interposition the pillars of
the earth, and preserving some relics of natural light, and the seeds of moral
righteousness in man, not in the least to be ascribed to bare nature; and that
man's corrupt will, stuffed with sinful habits, is the cause he makes no use of
this power.
Quest. 2. If we have not an ability to renew
ourselves, why does God command us to do so? And why does God make promises to
men if they will turn? Is not this a cruelty? as if a man should command
another to run a race, and promise to reward him if he did, and yet bind him
with fetters that he cannot run? Both the command would be unjust and the
promise ridiculous.
Ans. In general. God may command, and his
command does not signify a present ability in man.
(1.) He may command, because we have
faculties suited to the command in respect of their substance. For the death of
a sinner was not a physical death, but a moral. Man lost not his faculties, but
the rectitude of them; he lost the purity of his sight, the integrity of his
will, but not the understanding and will itself.
(2.) God's command does not signify a present
moral ability to perform it. God's command, which acquaints us with our present
duty, is no argument of a present power; for if a command signified more than
the duty man owes, it signified more than a command in its own nature could
signify. Gods command to us to renew ourselves implies no more an ability
inherent in the creature to do so than Christ's voice to putrefying Lazarus,
'Lazarus arise, come forth,' John xi. 43, implied a power in Lazarus to raise
himself, or his speech to the palsied cripple, 'Arise, take up thy bed,'
implied a power in himself to do it himself before a supernatural conveyance of
it. Do not men exhort every day to sobriety those that have contracted a
profound habit of drunkenness and lust, that philosophy does acknowledge it is
not possible for them to abstain from; yet no man accuses those that exhort
them of impertinence, nor those that chastise them of injustice. God's commands
are not the measures of our strength, but the rule of our duty, and do not
teach us what we are, but what we should be.
But to clear this more particularly:
God may command, though man has not a
present moral ability to renew himself. For
[1.] First, Man once had a power to do
whatsoever God would command him; he had a power to cleave to God. He had not
else, in justice, been capable of any such injunction; there had been ground of
a complaint and charge against God, if man had been created defective in any of
those abilities necessary for his obedience to this command. The command is
just; God would not else have imposed it, because of his righteousness, and
every man's conscience testifies that it is highly just he should honour God,
love God, and cleave to God. If it were just, then man was capable to perform
this command, for man, as a rational creature, is capable of a law, and cannot
be governed otherwise; and no law could be given so proper for him as to stand
right to his Creator. Since, therefore, the law was just in itself, and since
God did justly impose it, man was certainly created by God in a capacity to
observe it. No question but God, who furnished other creatures with an ability
to attain their several ends, and perform the orders God had set them in at the
creation, was no less indulgent to man. He that was not deficient to the lower
creatures would not be deficient to the noblest of his sublunary works. He
would have been worse in his rank, without a sufficient stock, than other
creatures were in theirs. There would not have been a physical goodness and
perfection suitable to his station in the world, and his excellency above other
creatures. How could God then have pronounced him good, among the rest of his
works, if there had been in his creation a natural inability to answer the end
of his creation? If God had created man in such a state that he could not do
righteously, and yet commanded him to do righteously, and, because he did not,
punish him, he would have been unjust; as if a man should command another to
reach a thing too high for him, and that when his hands were tied behind him,
and because he did not, beat him. This would have been the case had not man had
power at first to do righteously. Had man preserved himself in that created
state, no just command of God (and it was impossible any unjust command should
have proceeded from infinite righteousness) would have been too hard and too
high for him.
[2.] God did not deprive man of this
ability. Man was not stripped of his original righteousness by God, for man had
lost it before ever God spake to him, or passed any sentence upon him after his
fall: Gen. iii. 10, 'I was naked.' If God had taken it away without any offence
of Adam, he might have expostulated the case. It had been alike unjust, as if
God had never given him power at first to observe the command he enjoined him.
It would have been unreasonable to require that of man which God himself had
made impossible. But God did not take away man's original righteousness. If God
had taken it away before man's fall, then man was unrighteous before he fell,
and God, taking it away from him while he was perfect, had made him, of an holy
and righteous man, unholy and profane; as he that deprives a malefactor of his
sight, for his demerit, makes him of seeing blind. If God took it away after he
spake to Adam in the garden, it would then follow that Adam was righteous after
his fall till God deprived him of it, and so was innocent while he was sinful,
and strong while he was weak. God did not take it away from him before, but had
told him that the loss of it would be the natural consequent of his eating the
forbidden fruit, Gen. ii. 17, nor after for after we find only temporal
punishments threatened. God indeed did judicially deny him the restoration of
it, which, as a governor and a judge, he might justly do, resolving to govern
him in another manner than before. So that it would be an unjust imputation on
God to say, God cut off man's legs, and then commanded him to run, and come to
him. What if God did foresee that man would fall; was God therefore the cause
of his fall? God's prescience, though it is infallible, is not the cause of a
thing, no more than our foreknowledge that the sun will rise to-morrow morning
is a cause of rising of it.
[3.] Therefore, since God did not deprive
man of it, it follows that man lost it himself, and not barely lost it, but
cast it away. He did voluntarily by an inordinate intention of will, cast away
this original perfection, and fell a-hunting after his own 'inventions',
Eccles. vii. 29. He did not stick to that command God had given him, nor
implore God s assistance of him, as by
His natural ability he might have done. He
consulted not with his command upon the temptation, but was very willing to
cast off that righteousness wherewith God had endowed him, for an affected
godhead. Man readily swallowed the bait; he did not debate the business with
Eve, 'She gave to her husband with her, and he did eat,' Gen. iii. 6. So that
the fault
was wholly in himself, and his present state
voluntarily contracted, for though the devil tempted him, yet he had no power
to force him. He was easily overcome by him, for it was not a repeated
temptation, but a surrender at the first parley.
[4.] Therefore God's right of commanding,
and man's obligation of returning and cleaving to God, remains firm. God's
right still remains. God gave him a portion to manage, though man prodigally
spent it. God may challenge his own. Cannot a master justly challenge that
commodity he sent his servant with money to buy, though he spent it in
drunkenness and gaming? God gave Adam a sufficient stock; he trifled it away.
Must God's right suffer for his folly, and man's crime deprive God of his power
to command? The obligation to God is natural, therefore indelible; the
corruption of the creature cannot render this first obligation void.
Righteousness is a debt the creature, as a rational creature, owes to God, and
cannot refuse the payment of it without a crime. Who deprived him of the power
of paying? Himself. Should this voluntary embezzlement prejudice God's right of
exacting that which the creature cannot be excused from? A debtor, who cannot
pay, remains under the obligation of paying. The receipt of a sum of money
brings him into the relation of a debtor, and not his ability to pay what he
has received. Such a doctrine would free all men who were unable to pay from
being debtors, though the sums they owed were never so vast. That judge would
be unjust that would excuse a prodigal debtor, because he could not pay when
sued by his creditor. No doubt but the devils are bound to serve God, and love
him, though by their revolt they have lost the will to obey him. If, because we
have no present power, our obligation to turn to God and obey him ceased, there
would be no sin in the world, and consequently no judgments. Who will say, that
if a prince had such rebellious subjects that there were little hopes to
reclaim them, he should be therefore bound not to command them to return to
their duty and obedience? If it be reasonable in a prince, whose rights are
limited, shall it not be reasonable in God to exact it, who has an unbounded
right over his creature? Either God must keep up his law or abrogate it, or,
which is all one, let it lie in the dust. His holiness obliges him to keep up
his law; to abrogate it, therefore, would be against his holiness. To declare a
willingness that his creature should not love him, should not obey him, would
be to declare that which is unjust, because love is a just debt to an amiable
object and the chief good, and obedience to a sovereign Lord. Must God change
his holiness because man has changed his estate? The obligation of man
remaining perpetual, the right of God to demand remains perpetual too,
notwithstanding the creature's casting himself into an insolvent condition. If
man still owes this duty to God, why may not God exact his right of man? Much
more may God call for a right use of those means and gifts he has, as a
benefactor, bestowed upon man since his fall. No man will deny this right to
God upon serious thoughts. These new gifts and means were given him not only for
himself, but for his Lord, to improve for his glory. God may justly require the
right use of those moral principles and evangelical means for the ends for
which he appointed them.
[5.] It will appear more reasonable, because
God demands no more, nay not so much as he required of Adam in innocence. It is
but obedientia redintegrata, a return in part to that perfect
boldness which was inherent in man, and to that obedience in part which was in
a great measure due to God. As when a prince demands the return of rebels, he
demands a restoration of that subjection which they paid him before. God
required a perfect obedience in the first covenant, he requires not so much in
the second, so that for want of it a creature shall be cast off; but a sincere
obedience is required, though not in degree perfect. Adam had a fundamental
power in him to perform that obedience which is required, in faith and
repentance, the two great parts of regeneration. Faith is nothing but an
embracing and accepting of Christ the mediator. Adam had a power of believing
and accepting Christ for his head, had he been proposed to him in paradise, as
the mediator of consistency and confirmation, and the vinculum of
holding him for ever close to God. Had not Adam a power to accept him under
this notion, as well as the good angels have accepted him for their head, and
worship him as mediator; that is, pay him an obedience as mediator when he
comes into the world, Heb. i. 6. Had he not a fundamental power to grieve,
though since sin was extraneous to a state of innocence, he could not have
exercised that grief for himself, repentance being extraneous to obedience, and
unmeet for him in a sinless state? Suppose God had commanded him to grieve for
the sins of the fallen angels, Adam having this passion in his nature, might
have done it. He might have known what sin was in them, and might have grieved
for the dishonour of God by them; even as our Saviour did grieve for the sins
of others, Mark iii. 5, who knew no sin himself. And in grieving for his own sin,
there was only a change of the object.
[6.] It is yet more reasonable if we
consider, that every natural man thinks he has a power to renew himself, and
turn to God when he will practically, though not all of them notionally. What
reason then has man to quarrel with God, and accuse him of demanding that which
he thinks he can give to God, and will not at present, but take his own time to
do it, when he sees it fit? This practical opinion runs in the reins of every
natural man under the gospel, as well as in the heathens, which appears by the
general wilful delays of men about their eternal concerns, by their vows and
resolutions upon the blows of conscience of reforming their lives, and becoming
new men without having recourse to the grace of God, or taking any notice of
him in their resolves. This I think is a clear case. 'Yet a little more sleep,'
says a man, that thinks he can rise time enough when he will, and despatch his
business in a moment, Prov. vi. 10. With what face can man accuse God of not giving
him power, when he thinks he has power enough himself? or be angry with God for
demanding his debt, when he thinks himself in a solvent condition? No man will
blame another for requiring that of his servant, which his servant boasts he
has power in himself to do. The Israelites thought so when they said, Exod.
xxiv. 3, 'All the words which the Lord has said we will do,' without any
applications to the grace of God to enable them. All men are like Israel in
this; only the regenerate are most sensible of their own impotence, and scarce
any man else.
[7.] From all this it follows, that God is
not bound to give grace to any; and where he does bestow it, it is an act of
his sovereign pleasure. If God has given man power, and never took it away, but
it was cast away by man, therefore God's right is not prejudiced, but he may
justly demand of man what once he gave him power to do, especially since it is
less than what man at first owed him; and when man thinks he has power to pay
him, it will evidently follow, that God is not bound to give any new power. If
God were bound to give a new power to accept of the gospel, he were then unjust
not to confer it; if he be not bound, it is of mere grace that he bestows it.
God proposes pardon to all upon such conditions, but he is not bound to give
the condition to any; he commands all to renew their obedience to him, but he
is not bound to renew any one person. He gives the command to turn, as a
lawgiver and governor; he gives the grace to some to turn, as a benefactor. It
is grace therefore, not debt. When God confers it, it is an act of his
compassionate mercy; when he denies it, it is an act of his just sovereignty.
He may, if he please, 'suffer all nations to walk in their own ways,' Acts xiv.
16. Yet if he please to propose the means of grace to any, the very knowledge
of those mysteries of heaven is a peculiar gift, as well as the outward
proposal: Matt. xiii. 11, 'To you it is given to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.' If we improve reason to the
highest, God is not obliged to give us grace, no more than if a beast improved
sense to the highest, he were bound to give him reason. Though if there could
be a man found in any age of the world, who did improve reason to the utmost of
his power, I would not doubt God's giving him the addition of supernatural
grace, out of the largeness of his bounty, though still there is no obligation
upon God, because man does no more than his duty.
And that God does not give grace to all to
whom the means are offered, and yet does command them to turn, and promise to
receive them;—
(1.) It does not entrench upon his sincerity
in his proposals. His proposals are serious, though he knows man will not
receive them without an over-powering grace; and though he be resolved not to
give the assistance of his grace to every one under those means, but leave them
to the liberty of their own wills. The gospel is to be considered as a command
ordering men to believe, or as a promise alluring men to be renewed, by
representing to them the happiness of such a state. Consider it as a command,
God is serious in it, though he resolve not to give grace to all to whom the
precept comes, for under this consideration of a command it is a declaration of
man's duty, and a demonstration of God s sovereign authority. Does God's
resolution of not giving grace weaken the obligation of man to his duty, or
diminish God's authority, or give ground to man to charge him with insincerity?
Consider it as a promise, does it hinder God's seriousness in it if he resolves
not to give the condition of it to all? It is sufficient to show God's
seriousness in it, to declare, that if men will be regenerate, it will be very
pleasing to him; that he will make good to them what he has promised, that if
they be renewed, he will make good every tittle of the promise to them; and if
they will seek, and ask, and knock, he will not be wanting to them to assist
them.
(2.) It does not disparage his wisdom to
command that to man which he knows man will not do without his grace, and so
make promises to man upon the doing it. If man indeed had not a faculty
naturally fitted for the object, it might entrench upon God's wisdom to make
commands and promises to such a creature as it would be to command a beast to speak.
But man has a faculty to understand and will, which makes him a man; and there
is a disposition in the understanding and will which consists in an inclination
determined to good or evil, which makes us not to be men, but good or bad men,
whereby we are distinguished from one another, as by reason and will we are
from plants and beasts. Now the commands and exhortations are suitable to our
nature, and respect not our reason as good or bad, but simply as reason. These
commands presuppose in us a faculty of understanding and will, and a
suitableness between the command and the faculty of a reasonable creature. This
is the reason why God has given to us his law and gospel, his commands, not
because we are good or bad men, but because we are men endued with reason,
which other creatures want, and therefore are not capable of government by a
command. Our blessed Lord and Saviour did not exhort infants, though he blessed
them, because they were not arrived to the use of reason, yet he exhorted the
Jews, many of whose wills he knew were not determined to good, and whom he told
that they would die in their sins. And though God had told them, Jer. xiii.,
that they could no more change themselves than an Ethiopian could his skin, yet
he expostulates with them why they 'would not be made clean;' verse 27 'O
Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?' Because, though
they had an ill disposition in their judgment, yet their judgment remained,
whereby to discern of exhortations if they would. To present a concert of music
to a deaf man that cannot hear the greatest sound were absurd, because sounds
are the object of hearing; but commands and exhortations are the object, not of
this or that good constitution of reason, but of reason itself.
(3.) Neither does it disagree with his
justice. It is so far from being unjust for God to demand what men are obliged
to do, though he knows that they will not do it, that God would be unjust to
himself if he did not demand it, if he let men trample upon his rights without
demanding restitution of them. If a prince sets forth edicts to rebels to
return, and promise them pardon upon their returning, though he knows they are
rebelliously bent, that they will not entertain a thought of coming again under
his sceptre, but will still be in arms, and draw down his wrath upon them, will
not all interpret this to be an act of clemency and goodness in the prince?
Neither is God an acceptor of persons, because he does not give grace unto all;
for may he not do with his own what he please without injustice? Those to whom
we give alms have reason to thank us; those to whom we give not an alms have no
reason to complain; we have gratified the one, but we have done no wrong to the
other. We are all by nature criminals, deserving death; should God leave us in
that deplorable estate wherein he found us, can we accuse him of injustice?
Those that by grace are snatched out of the pit, have reason to acknowledge it
an admirable favour, as indeed it is; those that are destitute of grace, and by
their own wilful rejection left to sink to the bottom, cannot impute their
unhappiness to him; for he left them not without witness; he presented them the
word, exhorted them to hearken to him; but, instead of paying their duty, they
fiercely rejected him, abhorred his exhortations, and gave themselves over to
sin and vice. If a man proclaim by a crier that such that can bring such a mark
shall receive such an alms, he sends this private mark to some, they come and
receive an alms. Had he not power to do what he pleased with his own, to send
his distinguishing token to whom he pleased? What injustice is done to the
other, to whom he sends not this mark?
We have shown that God may command. Let us
see why God does command, when he knows man has no power to renew himself?
1. The first reason is,
To make us sensible of our impotency. The
design of God is not to signify our power to perform it, but sensibly to affect
us with our inability, that we may be the better prepared for a remedy; as the
moral law was given with such terrifying marks, to make men despair in
themselves, and the ceremonial law annexed to it, to give some glimpse of a
Mediator in whom they might have strength. And therefore when the Israelites
were so affected, Deut. xviii. 16-18, as to desire not to hear the voice of the
Lord in that manner, nor to see that great fire any more which attended the
law, that they might not die, he commends them for it: verse 17, 'They have
well spoken that which they have spoken.' God is highly pleased with this sense
of their own inability to answer the terms of the first covenant, since it
makes them fly for help and supply to the prophet of the second covenant. The
cabalists therefore say, that the law was given to take away the venom of the
serpent; that is, not that we should fulfil the law, but that we might learn
how far we were swerved from the duty we owed to God, and how unable to gain
the happiness we had lost. A conceit of self-sufficiency secretly lurks in
every one of us; we should think ourselves gods to ourselves if we saw not the
picture of our own weakness in the spirituality of the command. Therefore,
though we cannot ourselves perform this command of regeneration, it is
necessary it should be directed to us, to make us abject in our eyes, and strip
us of all confidence in the flesh, which is the first step toward a being
endued with the Spirit; to make us hang down our proud plumes, and sink into
that despair in ourselves, which is necessary to the superstructure of a saving
faith. It is necessary the law should be commanded, to make sin appear
exceeding sinful, to give us a true prospect of ourselves in the glass of the
command: the rectitude of it shows us our crookedness; the holiness of it, our
impurity; the justice of it, our unrighteousness; the goodness of it, our
wickedness; and the spirituality of it, our carnality and fleshliness. God does
not command us (though we have no power) to upbraid and triumph over us, but to
lay us low, and humble us.
2. To make us sensible of the grace of God,
and urge us to have recourse to it. It is necessary that man should understand
the perfection of divine righteousness, and what the condition of man was
before the fall, that thereby he may understand the necessity of the remedy,
and be more willing to come under God's wing than Adam has to keep under it;
but without a sense of his own weakness man would never come to God. God
commands us, not that he expects we should renew ourselves, for he knows we
cannot; but that being acquainted with our feeble frame, we should implore his
grace to turn us, and have recourse to him, who delights to be sought unto and
depended upon by his creature. That this command of renewing ourselves, and
returning to our due obedience, is given to this end, is evident by the promise
of the gospel, which did accompany the command, both to encourage and direct
men where to find assistance for the performance of what the first covenant
exacts, and the second accepts. Therefore, with the commands of the law, there
is the promise of a great prophet to teach them, an ordaining typical
sacrifices to relieve them, and the gospel, under the mask of the ceremonial
law, attended the fiery and impossible commands of the moral. God might have
exacted his right without making any promise, it had been summum just; but
God exacts not his right now, but with a promise; where there is jus in
one, and remissio juris in the other. And very frequently in the
Scripture, where the command is given to show us our duty, yet a promise is
joined to it, to show that though obedience be our duty, yet sanctification is
God's work, as Lev. xx. 8, 'Ye shall keep my statutes and do them;' whereupon
it immediately follows, 'I am the Lord which sanctify you.' The precept is to
acquaint us with our duty; the promise, to acquaint us with the sight of a
gracious ability; the precept minds us of our debt, the promise minds us of the
means to pay it: what is required in the precept is encouraged in the promise.
Every precept, being a part of the law, is to 'shut us up' to faith, and to
'bring us to Christ,' Gal. iii. 23, 24. God makes us amends; that as he
requires of us what we lost by another's fault, he has provided us a remedy by
another's righteousness, which we never performed; and by his own Spirit, which
we never purchased, if we will but seek it. If God did work it in us without
commanding us to work it ourselves, we could not have a foundation to make such
sensible acknowledgements of his grace and omnipotent kindness. It is our work
as a due debt; it is God's work as a fruit of his grace; Isa. xxvi. 12, 'Thou
hast wrought all our works in us.' The promise, therefore, of a new heart and a
new spirit, is made indefinitely; none are aimed in it, nor any excluded, that
will but seek it. And supposing they are predictions rather than promises, yet
they run in the nature of a promise: they are to be pleaded, for God 'will be
inquired after concerning them;' and the fulfilling of them to the soul is as
pleadable as the fulfilling other prophecies to the church; the grounds of the
plea are the same in both, the truth of God: Ezek. xxxvi. 37, 'Thus says the
Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it
for them;' which may reasonably be concluded to respect the whole antecedent
promising discourse of God.
3. These commands and exhortations are of
use to clear the justice of God upon obstinate sinners. God is a judge, and
judges by law; commands therefore are necessary, because a rational creature is
only governable by law. If God were not a lawgiver, he could not be a judge;
his judicial proceedings depend upon his legislative power. Men being to be
judged by their works, must have some law as the rule of those works; and his
law is no more than the first law in innocence, that is, to return to obedience
and righteousness. These commands and exhortations are the whips and scourges
of perverse consciences, whereby they are galled while they obey not the
motions of them, and render them inexcusable and unworthy of mercy in despising
the conditions God requires of them, and make the case of Sodom 'more tolerable
in the day of judgment' than the condition of such men, Mat. xi. 24. We are apt
to bring an unreasonable charge against God of cruelty and injustice, as though
his punishments did not consist with righteousness. God therefore shows us our
duty, and demands it of us, and it is confessed by us to be our duty; man is
therefore deservedly punished, because he does wilfully cherish the old nature
in him, the fountain of all sin; he has the truth, and he holds it in
possession, but in unrighteousness, therefore the wrath of God is justly
revealed from heaven against that unrighteousness of his, Rom. i. 18. God calls
sinners, though he knows they will not renew themselves, as men send servants
to demand the possession of a piece of ground, though they know it will not be
delivered to them; but they do it that they may more conveniently bring their
action against such a person that will not surrender. So upon God's command to
men to be renewed, his justice is more apparent upon their refusal; as he sent
Moses to Pharaoh, though he knew before that Pharaoh would not hearken to him.
This punishment is only accidental to the gospel, it becomes the savour of
death per per accidens, because of the unbelief of those that reject it;
the gospel is designed for the salvation of men, not for their condemnation. If
the corruption of man produces condemnation to himself, must God abstain from
doing good to the world? There is not a man but abuses the light of the sun
which shines upon him, and the mercies God gives him, and thereby brings wrath
upon himself, and God knows they will do so; would we have God, therefore, to
put out the light of the sun, and divest the earth of its fruitfulness? Shall
God lay aside his right of commanding, and take away the preaching of the
gospel, and so excellent a thing as the happy revelation of his gracious
promises and exhortations, because many men by their wilfulness bring the just
wrath of God upon them for their refusal? Will any man accuse our blessed Lord
and Saviour, when ho comes to judgment, that he did them wrong to come and die
for mankind, and cause the news and ends of his death to be published, and
exhort sinners thereupon to believe in him? Surely men's consciences shall be
full of convictions of their own wilfulness, and the equity of God's justice
thereupon.
4. The commands and exhortations are of use
to bring men to God, according to the nature of rational creatures, and also to
keep them with God. Man not having lost his reason, though he has lost his
rectitude, cannot be drawn to God in a rational way but by cords proper to man;
for he is a creature governable only by laws, and therefore must have laws
suited to his nature; and commands and exhortations are so, for the weakness
brought upon men to answer them is by their own defection. God does not bring
men to him by instinct, as he brought the beasts to Adam, or the creatures into
Noah's ark; such a conversion would not be reasonable, nor spiritual, nor
agreeable to God, no more than the obedience of the beasts to Noah. God
therefore draws men by commands, and promises, and exhortations thereupon
convenient to the nature of man, accommodated to the rational capacity of the
creature; for man being created after the image of God, ought to be conducted
and governed after another manner then other creatures. The grace of God
therefore working suitably to the nature of man, cannot be conceived by us in
any other way than in this of commands and exhortations. And when men are
renewed, the commands for perfect regeneration are still incumbent upon them
(though they cannot attain it in this life), to stir up their hearts to an
exercise of that gracious ability they have to walk in the ways of holiness,
and to that end to a reliance on the grace of God. The promises are given to
them to inflame them to a love of holiness, and to show them where their chief
strength lies; this appears plainly to be the intent of the Spirit of God in
that command and promise, Philip. ii. 12, 13, 'Work out your own salvation; for
it is God that works in you to will and to do.' He writes to those already
regenerate, Work out your salvation, use your gracious power, and be encouraged
by the assistance God gives you. Use your own power as if there were no grace
to help you in the performance; depend upon the grace of God which works in you
both to will and to do, as if you had no power at all of any motion in
yourselves.
So that to sum up the whole of this later
discourse, the impotence of man does not excuse him.
1. Because the commands of the gospel are
not difficult in themselves to be believed and obeyed. If we were commanded
things that were impossible in their own nature, as to shoot an arrow as high
as the sun, or leap up to the top of the highest mountain at one start, the
very command carries its excuse with it in the impossibility of the thing
enjoined. But the precept of regeneration and restoring to righteousness is
easy to be comprehended, it is backed with clear and manifest reason, and
proposed with a promise of happiness which is very suitable to the natural
appetite of our souls. To command a thing simply impossible is not congruous to
the wisdom, holiness, and righteousness of God; it would not be justice, but
cruelty. No wise man will invite another man by any promises to do that which
is simply impossible; no just judge will punish a man for not observing such a
precept; no righteous and merciful person would impose such a command. But
these commands of the gospel are not impossible in their own nature, but in
regard of our perversity and contumacy. The command of righteousness was
possible when first given, and impossible since by our own folly; impossible in
our voluntary corrupted nature, and by reason of our voluntarily cherished
corruption. The change is not in the nature of the law, but in the nature of
the creature; and what is impossible to nature is possible to grace, and grace
may be sought for the performance of them.
2. Because we have a foundation in our
natures for such commands, therefore man's weakness does not excuse him. It had
been unjust for God to have commanded Adam in innocence to fly, and give him no
wings; this had been above Adam's natural power, he could not have done it,
though he would fain have obeyed God, because his nature was destitute of all
force for such a command. It would be strange if God should invite the trees or
beasts to repent, because they have no foundation in their nature to entertain
commands and invitations to obedience and repentance; for trees have no sense,
and beasts have no reason to discern the difference between good and evil. If
God did command a man that never had eyes to contemplate the sun, man might
wonder, since such a man never had organs for such an action. But God addresses
himself to men that have senses open to objects, and understandings to know,
and wills to move, affections to embrace objects. These understandings are open
to anything but that which God does command, their wills can will anything but
that which God does propose. The command is proportioned to the natural
faculty, and the natural faculty proportioned to the excellency of the command.
We have affections, as love and desire. In the command of loving God and loving
our neighbour, there is only a change of the object of our affections required;
the faculties are not weak by nature, but by the viciousness of nature, which
is of our own introduction. It is strange, therefore, that we should excuse
ourselves, and pretend we are not to be blamed, because God's command is
impossible to be observed, when the defect lies not in the want of a natural
foundation, but in our own giving up ourselves to the flesh and the love of it,
and in a wilful refusal of applying our faculties to their proper objects, when
we can employ those faculties with all vehemence about those things which have
no commerce with the gospel.
3. Because the means God gives are not
simply insufficient in themselves. God does afford men beams of light, he makes
clear discoveries, as it is, Rom. i. 19, 'He has showed it to them,
"efanerose", 'it is manifest in them. He displays in their hearts
some motions of his Spirit, produces some velleities. The standing of the world
under the cries of so many hideous sins, is a daily sermon of God's kindness
and patience in bearing up the pillars of it, and is a standing exhortation to
repentance; as Rom. ii. 4, 'The forbearance, long-suffering, and goodness of
God leads to repentance.' The object is intelligible: 'The word is near us, in
our mouths, in our hearts;' it is apprehensible in itself, Rom. x. 6, 7. The
revelation is as plain as the surface of the heavens, Ps. xix. 1-3, applied to
the preaching of the gospel. Rom. x. 18. That men are not renewed, and turned
to God, is not for want of a sufficient external revelation, but from the
hardness of the heart; not from any insufficiency of the means, but the
depravity and wickedness of the soul to whom those means are offered. The
commands and means of the gospel are no more weak in themselves than the law
was, but weak through the flesh, by reason of the inherent corruption man has
fastened in himself, Rom. viii. 3. Would not the hundredth part of any
revelation of some worldly object, connatural to man's corrupt heart, be
sufficient in itself to put him upon motion to it, and embraces of it? The
insufficiency does both not lie in the external means, for the gospel is an act
of mercy and grace; the call is an act of kindness. It is clear to man that God
offers; it is clear that God will accept, if man will embrace his counsel; and
shall this be said to be insufficient, because man will reject it?
4. Because this impotence in man is rather a
wilfulness than a simple weakness, therefore man's pretended weakness does not
excuse him from the command. It is not a weakness arising from a necessity of
nature, but an enmity of will, whereby some other apparent good is beloved
above God, and some creature preferred before him. There is a double impotence,
merae infirmitatis, which is a want of power in the hand, when there is
a readiness in the will to perform, or malignitatis, which is seated in
the will and affections, whereby though a man has a power to perform, yet he
cannot because he will not: he will abhor any return to God, and will not be
whetted by his promise to any endeavour. A simple impotency deserves pity, for
it is a rational excuse, but an obstinate perversity is so far from an excuse
that it is an aggravation. The deeper the habit of obstinacy, the more inexcusable
the person. What a ridiculous excuse would this be, to say to God, (1.) that I
ought not to be obliged to restore myself to righteousness, and obey the
command of the gospel, because I am of so perverse a disposition that I will
not obey, and will not be restored; or (2.) that God is bound to restore to him
that will to obey and renew himself, otherwise he is guilty of no crime. The
first would be ridiculous, and both impious. What hinders any man from being
regenerate under the call of the gospel, but a moral weakness, which consists
in an imperious inclination to evil, and a rooted indisposition in corrupt
reason and will to believe and repent? And here the Scripture lays it upon the
hardness of the heart, Rom. ii. 5, and a rebellious walking after our own
thoughts: Isa. lxv. 2, 'I have spread out my hands all the day unto a
rebellious people, which walk in a way that was not good, after their own
thoughts.' We are impotent and cannot, because we are rebellious and will not.
For since man has an understanding capable to weigh arguments on both sides,
and see the advantage of the good proposed, and the disadvantage of the evil
tempting, if he does the evil, and refuses the good, is not the fault clearly
in his will? And when by a custom in sin we ripen the power of our evil habits,
we contract an impossibility of doing the good required, and casting out the
evil forbidden. This does in no sort excuse us, because it is an inability
contracted by ourselves. God himself threatens punishment to the Israelites,
when he confesses that they could not attain to innocence: Hosea viii. 5, 'My
anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to
innocence?' "lo yuchlu"; how long can they not? Purity or innocence.
They had raised such an habit in them, by casting off voluntarily the thing
that is good, ver. 3, that they could not divest themselves of it, which was so
far from excusing them that it sharpened the anger of God against them.
5. This weakness does not excuse from
obedience to this command, because God denies no man strength to perform what
he commands, if he seek it at his hands. No man can plead that he would have
been regenerate, and turned to God, and could not, for though we have not power
to renew ourselves, yet God is ready to confer power upon us if we seek it.
Where did God ever deny any man sufficient strength, that did wait upon him in
serious and humble supplications, and conscientiously used the means to procure
it. A man cannot indeed merit grace, or dispose himself for it, so that it must
by a natural necessity come into his soul, as a form does into matter upon
dispositions to it. But if a man will do what he can do, if he will put no
obstacle to grace, by a course of sin, would not God, out of his infinite
bounty to his creatures, and out of that general love whereby he would have all
men saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, give him special grace? Has
not our Saviour made a promise in his first sermon to the multitude, that God
'will give good things to them that ask him,' with a much more than men
give good gifts to their children, Mat. vii. 11. They were not only his
disciples that he preached that sermon to, but the multitude, comparing it with
Mat. v. 1, and Mat. vii. 28. Has not God declared, that he 'delights not in the
death of a sinner,' Ezek. xxxiii. 11, and does he not out of his infinite
goodness condescend to beseech us to be reconciled to him? Will not the same
infinite goodness bow itself down to form a new image in them that use the
means to be reconciled and conformed to him, as much as they can? Has not our
blessed Saviour already given a testimony of his affection to such endeavours,
in loving the young man for his outward observation of the law, Mark x. 21, who
wanted but one thing only to pass him into a gracious state, the refusal
whereof barred him of it? And shall not he have a choicer affection to those
that strive to observe the rules he has left in his gospel? Will he not be
pleased with such motions in his creatures towards their own happiness? Will he
not further that wherein he delights? Think not therefore to justify yourselves
at the bar of God for your sloth, because you are too weak to renew yourselves.
It will not help you then. The question will then be asked, Did you ever
seriously beg it, as for your lives? Did God ever desert you when you would
fight against sin, when you set yourselves seriously and dependently on him for
grace? God gives us talents, but by our sloth we embezzle them. It is upon that
score Christ lays it, Mat. xxv. 26, 'Thou wicked and slothful servant.' God has
not promised to furnish you with more talents, when you improve not the talents
you have already; non-improvement of them cuts oft all pleas men may make
against God upon the account of their impotence. As there never was a renewed
man, but acknowledged his regeneration as a fruit of God's grace, so there was
never any man that can say, he did use his greatest industry in trading with
the talents God entrusted him with, and God refused him the supply of his special
grace. If you have not a new heart and a heart of flesh, ask your own hearts
whether ever you did seriously inquire of God to do it for you. God never fails
them that diligently seek him.
For the use of this:
1. For information.
(1.) See the strange misery of man by his
fall. We cannot be the authors of strength to our own souls, since we are
despoiled of that vital principle which constituted us spiritually living in
the first creation. How are we sunk many degrees below other creatures, who
always have, and still do answer the ends of their creation, when we, wretched
we, have lost both the will and power to answer the end of ours? We can
understand, will, move, but not as man in innocence could. In ourselves we are
nothing, we have nothing, can bring forth nothing spiritually good and
acceptable to God; a mere composition of enmity to good and propensity to evil,
of weakness and wickedness, of hell and death; a fardel of impotence and
conceitedness, perversity and inability, every way miserable unless infinite
compassion relieve us. We have no more freedom than a chained galley slave till
Christ redeem us; no more strength than a putrefied carcass till Christ raise
us, an unlamented hardness, an unregarded obstinacy, an insensible palsy spread
over every part, a dreadful cannot and will not triumphing in the
whole soul. The heart turned into pleasure with its own wounds and chains is an
amazing misery both to good men and angels, because it is so great, and yet
unbewailed to see a man endued with a soul so rare, even with its crack, that
the heathens thought it to be a particle of God; an understanding that can peer
into heaven, fathom the earth by contemplative inquisitions, yet cannot strike
up a spark of enlightened reason about everlasting happiness; that that reason,
which understands a worldly interest, should be so blind, so weak, about a
heavenly bliss! A short-sighted mind, that cannot cast a look so high as to
spiritual things, nor rise up in one holy thought without the grace of God; a
perverse will, that cannot commission one spiritual desire; a weak arm, that
cannot strengthen itself to grasp and hold one spiritual gift; a dry
wilderness, that cannot issue out a tear till God open the fountain of the
great deep of grace to flow in upon it; a hard heart, that relents not under
afflictions on earth, nor could under the flames of hell without grace! What a
woeful thing is it to be miserable, and have no strength to be happy! to look
into a law, and behold it wholly spiritual, and to reflect upon our souls, and
behold them wholly carnal! Rom. vii. 14, to find a command of regeneration in
the judgment of our own consciences, just for God to impose, good for us to
receive, and an utter inability to square ourselves according to it!
(2.) See the vast power of sin. It is this
that has cast its infectious roots so deep in our souls, that it is impossible
for us to pluck up this degenerate plant. The first defection from God was of
that nature, that it did per se, of itself, produce an inability in us,
as sickness does in a body, or disjointing a member does weakness in a man;
otherwise man, after he had sinned, had been found in strength, and had had a
power to do good, till God by punishment had taken away that power, and
inflicted a contrary weakness, which would be very absurd to affirm. Adam threw
off the royal robe of righteousness; and in all those ages which are run out
since, man could not find by all the inquiries of nature how to put it on again
without a supernatural strength. This sin that has taken hold of us, keeps us
down, that we cannot lift up our heads to divine knowledge, or reach out our
hands to perform any divine precept, it is this has emptied us of our treasure,
stripped us of our strength, made us as poor as Job upon the dunghill, and as
feeble as the cripple at the pool; and which is worse than this, has not only
deprived us of our health and strength to cure ourselves, but of our will to be
healed by another; and possessed us with such a frenzy that we are friends to
our madness, and enemies to those that would deliver us from it; we are all
possessed with a legion of devils, that makes us cry out against Christ before
we be turned to him, Mark v. 7. It is this first poison diffusing itself in the
heart of Adam has made us all by nature a generation of vipers, and infected
our very tongues, that we cannot, being evil, speak that which is good, that
is, perfectly and spiritually good, as it is Mat. xii. 34, 'O generation of
vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things?' and poisoned our souls at
the very root, that not one grape of grace can grow upon the thorn of nature.
All the coin of our actions bears the impression of the evil treasure in our
hearts, Luke vi. 43-45.
(3.) We may from hence see the
groundlessness of any conceits rising in us, of the power and freedom of our
own wills to anything spiritually good. This conceit reigns in most men's
hearts naturally; it is a legacy left to our natures by the will of Adam. The
not submitting our wills to the will of God, in a way of humble waiting upon
him, is the source of the misery of mankind; such imaginations will creep up in
our hearts, that our understandings can aspire to all knowledge, our wills
spring up in grace, as naturally as a clear fountain in pure waters. The cause
of such conceits is the ignorance both of the depth and largeness of the wound
original sin has made in all our faculties. Paul, while a pharisee, without
question was of this mind, and cried up the liberty of the will as much as he
cried down the truth of the Christian religion; he was 'alive without the law
once,' Rom. vii. 9. But when he takes out the lesson of the sinfulness of
natural concupiscence, Rom. vii. 7, the experience of his slavery, and being
sold under sin, grew up with the notion of the extent of original corruption,
and he found himself a mere dead man, as may be observed in several passages in
Rom. vii. Every man is born with this conceit, since we find the only peculiar
nation God had in the world asserting it in the whole body of them, in the face
of God, Exod. xxiv. 8. When Moses told them all the words and judgments of the
Lord, all the people answered with one voice, 'All the words which the Lord has
said will we do;' and ver. 7, 'All that the Lord has said will we do, and be
obedient.' Not one man among them duly sensible of natural slavery, nor making
any application to God for grace to keep them; but as confident of the strength
of their mutable wills as if they had as much power as the first man in
innocence. This vain confidence has its bitter root in the imagination of all
Israel; and that it may not appear to be a sudden and rash passion, they assert
it again more solemnly upon second thoughts: ver. 7, 'All that the Lord has
said will we do, and be obedient.'
[1.] It is a high piece of pride. To boast
of a great estate, when a man has not a farthing in his purse, is very
ridiculous, or for a slave to brag of liberty, with his chains upon his hands
and feet. What a vain self-reflection is it when we are bound naturally in our
sins, as a slave in his shackles, with Satan's padlock upon us, till the Son
make us free indeed! John viii. 36. It is the very moth of pride which ate out
the beauty of Adam's garment who, whilst he would stand upon his own bottom,
laid the scene of his own ruin; he affected to be his own conductor, and proved
his own cut-throat; and aspiring to an independence on God, fell down into the
dungeon of slavery to, and dependency upon, Satan. It is a pride like that of
Adam, an invasion of God's property, an affecting to be that by ourselves which
we can only be by Christ; it is an arrogance like that of the Babel builders,
to think by this slime of nature to raise up a spiritual building as high as
heaven. We sin over again more formally the sin of Adam, by affecting an
equality with God.
[2.] It is a disparagement to God. It is an
unquestionable idolatry, and never yet practised, to set up any creature as the
author of the temporal good of the whole world. Is it not more to set up many
thousands of free wills as the authors of the spiritual good of the creature,
to make every man's will an idol? Is the robbing God of the glory of his grace
less criminal than the divesting him of the glory of his outward work? Or are
the works of grace in the soul more inconsiderable than those of nature? It
disparages Gods grace; it makes his grace subsequent, not preventing; it makes
the highest spiritual work to be the seed of man, not the seed of God. If this
conceit takes place in your hearts, God is like to be without much praise from
his creature. Peter will be no more beholden to God than Judas, Paul no more
than Simon Magus; both had the outward revelation, and so both owe a praise to
God; but what further debt of praise did Paul owe to God, if his regeneration
sprang forth into being by the power of his own will, without any further
contribution from God than an objective proposal? It takes off the crown of
glory from the head of Christ; for though it will be acknowledged that he
bruised the head of the common serpent by the power of his death, yet the
destruction of the works of the serpent in our hearts, which is our immediate
happiness, was wrought by the seed of free will. It would be strange that the
apostle Paul should be so over-seen, to give such praise to the grace of God
manifested to him, if he had not been particularly beholden to that for the
turning of his heart. By this God is beholden much to the creature's will, in
being a great cause of keeping up the interest of God in the world, which had
no footing, notwithstanding his revelation, without the compliance of man's
will, untouched by any supernatural grace. Such a conceit of man's power seems
to envy God the glory of his whole grace. And such a bitter root of this, I
doubt, may be one secret cause that we are so heart-tied and tongue-tied in the
praises of God for his grace.
[3.] It takes away a great part of the glory
of the Spirit's work in the world. Was his convincing the world of sin and
righteousness only external by the objective proposals of the word, and fitting
the apostles for the propagation of that convictive revelation? Was he to stand
only as a spectator to behold which way the motion of free will would cast the
balance? Is he to preserve grace in the heart? and is there not more need of
his creating it there, than preserving it after? Is there more danger of the
devil's quenching the flame kindled in the soul, than there was of its first
touch upon the heart? Is he a Spirit of grace only to propose it, not to work
it? The Spirit makes no verbal proposal of it, that is by man; if an inward
proposal barely by applying it to the understanding, has not man as much power
to do that, as to work it in his will? How can it be a well of water springing
up to eternal life, if it works nothing efficaciously upon the heart? This
secret pride and conceit in the heart may be a cause we make so few
applications to the Spirit of God, taking little notice of him in our attempts.
[4.] It puts a bar to all evangelical
duties. It makes us cleave to ourselves rather than to God, and presume upon
our own strength rather than rely upon his. The heathens (as Seneca) asserted,
that it was a silly thing for a man to desire that of heaven which he had power
to do without it. Why should we go to him for renewing grace, when it is in our
own power to renew ourselves? May it not be said to us, as it was in another
case, 'Why trouble you the master?' As long as we think we can spin a
righteousness out of our own bowels, we will never go to Christ for a robe of
his weaving, though never so rich. And while we think we can rear a stately
spiritual building by our own skill, we shall never desire the art of another
workman. Our Saviour would have nothing to do with his fullness, if He stood in
no need of it; and what need had we of it, if we could despatch this great
business of grace ourselves? This secret imagination in the heart is one cause
of the neglect of duties, especially prayer, or of a slightness and coldness in
it.
[5.] This conceit endangers a man's
destruction, by encouraging a delay of using the means necessary to this work
in God's ordinary course. What sensualist would not delay using means for
repentance, who conceits he can repent when he will, and that to will is in his
own power? This makes men think they have a key to unlock heaven at their
pleasure, and have the command of the treasuries of grace; and therefore are
afraid to attend upon evangelical means, for fear they should be put upon
serious reflections too soon. The common sentiments of men are a sad evidence
of this; you shall hear many acknowledge their weakness in other things, but
not in this; they cannot leave such a course of sin, they cannot pray with so
much affection, yet their hearts are right, they can repent and believe when
they will, that is in their own power; which makes them sluggish and careless
at the calls of God. But what a folly this is, let Solomon witness, who sets
the fool's cap upon such confidence; 'He that trusts in his own heart is a
fool,' Prov. xxviii. 26; it is to trust in a weathercock that is mutable with
every wind of temptation. To depend upon our wills, is to depend upon the
oldest and the most certain bankrupt in the world, that broke as soon as it was
set up, many ages since, and never recovered itself. Who told you, therefore, that
you can melt the stone within you at your pleasure? that you can cast the
strong man out of your wills without a stronger than he? But suppose the
grounds were rational, and that you had a power to cure yourselves; the
consequent is very irrational, for that cause to delay it; for what man in his
wits would endure a wound or deformity many years, because he can heal or
beautify himself at his pleasure in a moment? Take heed therefore of such
fancies of your own power to regenerate yourselves, and upon that account to
neglect that which you have power to do; but imitate Ephraim with all speed,
notwithstanding your cheating imagination, and cry out, 'Turn thou me, and I
shall be turned,' Jer. xxxi. 18.
(4.) It informs us, that regeneration is not
wrought merely by moral suasion, or only by exhortations; then it would
principally be the work of the will of man. Our Saviour had a will to preach to
all in Jerusalem, but he had not a will to quicken all: John v. 21, 'the Son
quickens whom he will;' so that it depended upon his inward operation, not only
upon his outward exhortations. It is true there is a suasion in the ear by the
word, but the persuasion is in the heart by grace; the suasion in the word may
cause some rational reflections as a moral cause, but no spiritual motion
towards God as a physical cause. Men are not disputed or exhorted, but created
into grace; the proposal of a good by the understanding is not always embraced
by the will, unless it be a good suitable and connatural to those habits in the
will. Where, therefore, there is no suitable habit planted in the will,
rational reflections in the mind and conscience are not like to prevail much.
[1.] If it were only by suasion and
exhortation, the most eloquent preaching were like to do most good. Whereas it
never was God's method to found conversion upon the 'words of man's wisdom,'
though 'enticing' in themselves, but upon the 'demonstration and power of the
Spirit,' 1 Cor. ii. 4. The most eloquent preaching would then most fill the
gospel nets. And the reports of that rhetorical prophet Isaiah would have been
soon believed, which were not so, because 'the arm of the Lord was not (always)
revealed with them,' Isa. liii. 1. If any words, as words, were like to have an
edge to cut deep into the soul, they must be the words of our Saviour; since
'never man' (even in the judgment of some of his enemies) 'spoke as he spake.'
But though 'his lips were full of grace,' Ps. xiv. 2, most of his hearers'
hearts were empty of it under his ministry; not the eloquence and pressing
reasons of Christ, nor the wrath of God revealed from heaven, can reclaim the
heart of man, without the power of grace. The Pharisees were prouder under
Christ's melting bowels, and the Jews harder under God's wrathful blows, Isa.
i. 5; neither hearing nor feeling will prevail upon hardened souls.
[2.] What bare exhortations can work upon a
dead man? Can a well composed oration, setting out all the advantages of life
and health raise a dead man, or cure a diseased body? You may as well exhort a
blind man to behold the sun, and prevail as much. No man ever yet imagined,
that the strewing a dead body with flowers would raise it to life; no more can
the urging a man, spiritually dead, with eloquent motives, ever make him to
open his eyes and stand upon his feet. Did our Saviour come out of his grave,
or could he ever have done it, by mere suasion, without the power of God to
raise him? Eph. i. 19, 20. The working of mighty power is a title too high for
the capacity of mere moral exhortations. A mere suasion does not confer a
strength, but suppose it in a man, for he is only persuaded to use the power
which he has already.
[3.] Does not daily experience testify the
contrary? Have you never discoursed with some profane, loose fellow, so
pressingly, that he seemed to be planet-struck at every reasoning, shaken out
of his excuses for his sinful course, yet not shaken out of his sin; that you
might as soon have persuaded the tide at full sea to retreat, or a lion to
change his nature, as have overcome him by all your arguments. Have you not
seen many at a stand in sin, by the force of some convincing reasons, return
again to their vomit? Have not many tears at command in anything that concerns
themselves, the loss of some estate, or some dear friend, but in the things of
God, in his dishonours, as dry as the parched earth? That you may almost as
soon extract water out of a rock, as repentance for sin out of their stony
hearts. So that it is not the faint breath of man, or the rational
considerations of the mind are able to do this work, without the mighty
pleadings and powerful operations of that great Paraclete or Advocate,
the Spirit, to alter the temper of the soul.
[4.] There is no likelihood that any man in
the world would be renewed, if it were only by moral suasion. Satan's logic
would be stronger than God's; his arguments would more suit our imagined
interest, and our real enmity against God; his persuasions would find more
kindred in the principles of our minds and habits of our wills to take fire by
him, than the suasory allurements of God, which will meet with nothing in our
hearts but contrariety to them. The deceitfulness of sin within us, and the
subtilty of Satan without us, both being active as well as persuading
adversaries, would fix us in our rebellion, without a contrary power, as well
active as exhortative, and God would do no more towards our restoration than
Satan does towards our destruction, since the devil can only propose to us, not
by any physical touch incline our wills. We are wholly inclined to him in our
own natures, in love with the knife that cuts our throats, and too fond of our
shackles ever to knock them off. The will is so enamoured with its corrupt
habit, that were this work left barely to self will, and no other power employed
in it than exhortative, not one person were every likely to come unto God.
[5.] If it were wrought by suasion, the will
would have the whole praise of the work. For suasion or exhortation is nothing
else but the proposing arguments to the understanding, but the motion,
according to those arguments, is wholly from the will, which has a power to
receive them or refuse them. God, indeed, would be the first speaker, but not
the first agent; God would be only the assisting cause, as all moral causes are,
he would only assist the motion of the will, not cause it. The motion of the
will is a physical act; if, then, the physical act be from the will, and God
only the moral cause, the will will be the greater sharer in the work, fo-
moral causes are in vain without a physical effect in those things they work
morally upon: as all the reasoning of one man with another will be to little
purpose, if there be not a physical motion of the will of that person to comply
with the other's reasonings. If, therefore, the reasoning part be only from
God, and physical motion from man, the most debauched wretch, under the
preaching of the gospel, is as much beholden to God as the highest believer,
who had both the same suasions and exhortations; for though the suasion was from
God, the persuasion was from their own wills. God only made the revelation, and
was afterwards a spectator, not an actor.
(5.) Information. We may draw a conclusion
hence whereby to judge of the truth of doctrines. Man cannot renew himself.
Whatsoever doctrine does depress and humble man and advance the glory of God,
is true, it answers the main design of the gospel, which all centres in this,
that man is to be laid low, and God to be exalted as the chief cause. It pulls
man from his own bottom, and transfers all the glory man would challenge into
the hands of God; it lays man in the dust at God's footstool. That doctrine
which crosses the main design of the gospel, and encourages pride in man, is
not a spark from heaven: 'No flesh must glory in God's presence,' 1 Cor. i. 29.
The doctrine of justification by works is thrown down by the apostle with this
very argument as a thunderbolt: Rom. iii. 27, 'Where is boasting then? it is
excluded by faith;' that is, by the doctrine of the gospel, boasting would be introduced
by ascribing regeneration to nature as much as it is excluded by denying
justification by works; the doctrine of the gospel would contradict itself, to
usher in boasting with one hand whilst it thrust it out with the other. Our
Saviour gave this rule long ago, that the glorifying God is the evidence of
truth in persons: 'He that seeks his glory that sent him, the same is true,'
John vii. 18. By the same reason also in things and doctrines, and indeed,
Christ speaks it in relation to his doctrine, as appears, verse 16, 17. All
truth gives God the pre-eminence in all gracious works; the first creation, the
progress and top-stone, are the works of this great Bezaliel, this mighty
artifices, both the first draught and the last line. To confound nature and
grace together, is to join the creature in commission with God, and make them
co-heirs in the glory which is only due to the only wise and almighty Creator.
Use 2 is for exhortation. 1. To the
regenerate. If this doctrine be true,
1. Then ascribe nothing to flesh. (1.) Not
to yourselves. No more praise is due to us than to gold for being melted by the
fire and wrought by the workman into a vessel of honour; it is due to the skill
of the artifices, not to the vessel itself. When the reparation of human nature
was to be wrought by the gospel, when the crooked should be made straight, and
the rough places plain, then should flesh be as grass, when the Spirit of the
Lord should blow upon it; yea, the people, those that are God's peculiar ones,
by reason of privileges, are grass, Isa. xl. 4, 6, 7, they should be nothing in
themselves, that God might be all in all: the Spirit of God blows upon all
their self-confidences. If God be the God of all grace, what share have our
wills in it then? He calls, he opens the heart, he strengthens, he perfects;
all the grace we have is his 'treasure,' 1 Peter v. 10. He first delivers from
Egypt; preserves in the desert; conducts to a footing in Canaan. Grace triumphs
in the whole work, from Dan to Beersheba, from the beginning of the work to the
end. What glory can belong to us? We will, it is true, but God gives that will;
we work, but God bestows and stands by that power to work; what have we then to
do with the praise? It is 'in his light we see light,' Ps. xxxvi. 9. The rays
whereby we have a glimpse of him are not darted from us to him, but from him to
us. The light in the air springs not from itself, but from some other body
enlightening it; how can any good be ascribed to us, where there is nothing but
insufficiency and defect? It is to belie the Lord, to entitle a work of
omnipotence to so infirm a cause, it is worse than the pharisee, who, in the
midst of his boasts of his own moral righteousness, thought a tribute of praise
due to God: 'Lord, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are,' Luke xviii.
11. Shall we entitle God the author of our beings, and ourselves the creators
of our spiritual beings? Is it less to have an elevation of our faculties, and
an animation of them by a new virtue, than to have simply the faculties
themselves? If the creature be unable of itself to move without a dependence on
God in way of common providence, much more unable is it to move without
dependence on God in a way of supernatural vitality. The glory of the act is as
little due to man as the glory of the first habit.
Now, 1, review yourselves, consider what you
were before regeneration, what after it; and then, how can you ascribe anything
to yourselves?
(1.) What you were before regeneration. Was
not sin as deeply rooted in you as any other, which made you as incapable to
raise yourselves as the most wicked man in the world? Were you not prisoners in
chains, captives under locks and bolts, when grace first set up its standard
for your recovery? How thick was the darkness of your minds? how stout the
perversity of your wills? how impetuous the violence of your sinful affections?
Did they not all conspire together to make as stout a resistance against the
work of the gospel as any others? Can you then say, that because God saw you more
inclinable to grace than another, that he drew you? You were created; did you
bring clay enough to compose the least particle of flesh about you? You are new
created; what part of the new man was formed by your direction? Did you bring
grace enough of yourselves to form one holy thought, or send out one holy
desire? Did your own will single you out of that multitude of degenerate men of
better natures than yours, left still in their own nothingness? Was it nothing
but your own will that planted you in the nursery of the invisible church, that
made you capable of a divine union? Were not other men's reasons as strong as
yours? the means they enjoyed greater? their moral disposition sweeter? What
was the reason their wills did not bend themselves as well as yours? What is
the reason they did not hold out their hands to catch this all-necessary grace?
Did this noble birth cost none any pains but yourselves? Was this goodly fabric
reared by your own wills? Look on it; methinks it is a piece too comely and noble
for human skill.
(2.) What are you since your regeneration?
What, do you find no rebellion of the law in your members against the law of
the mind? Are there not powerful allurements of the flesh? Are your thoughts
always flying up to God, and hovering about him? Are you always nimble in your
praise of him? or not rather lifeless many times under the breathings of the
Spirit? Why are you thus? Did you first by your own force begin this noble
conquest of sin? And can you not by the same power make a better progress? Did
you breathe a life into yourselves when you had not a spark, and can you not
blow up this spark into a greater liveliness? Surely then this work was not at
first the birth of your own wills. Do you not yet find some scale and thick
matter upon your understandings that you cannot pick off? some darkness in your
minds, as there is some in the air after it is enlightened? Are there not
obstructions in your wills? no shackles upon the executive power? Can you not
remove that darkness with that great light you have? nor unlock those fetters
by the strength of your habitual grace? Can then the first powerful entrance of
it, the fall of the first scale from the understanding, be judged to be the
work of your own hands? or the first teeming of your wills with grace to be the
effect of your power? View yourselves well in both states, and you will find no
ground whereon to build so much injustice towards God, and pride in yourselves,
but must needs acknowledge that God and not yourselves have wrought all your
works in you, Isa. xxvi. 12, not only your temporal advantages, which the
church there means, but your spiritual, and much more spiritual than temporal.
To stave off any ascribing to yourselves,
consider,
[2.] He that ascribes it to his own will has
great reason to question whether he be regenerate or no. He may well doubt
whether he understands or feels what it is, since those in Scripture who have
been most experimented in it, and therefore are the most competent judges, have
most highly magnified the grace of God, and most deeply vilified themselves;
they have given the glory of it so entirely to God that they have not let a
grain of it stick to their own fingers. Thus David often, 'Thou hast quickened
me.' The apostle Paul owns his effectual call to be owing to the 'grace of
God,' Gal. i. 15, and to an abundant 'grace in Christ,' 1 Tim. i. 14; he was a
persecutor, but his faith and love was from the abundance of the grace of God,
and that in Christ too, not from any thing in nature. Peter is not behind him
in the admiration of it: 1 Peter i. 8, 'Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, has begotten us
again.' And it is that the church in the times of the gospel prophesied of: Ps.
c. 8, 'It is he that has made us, not we ourselves;' made us his people, as it
follows, 'We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture,' 'not we ourselves.'
Whenever the naughtiness of their hearts has been ready to launch out to
self-praise, they have turned the tide quickly to the grace of God. When Paul
had owned grace as the cause of his spiritual being, 1 Cor. xv. 10, and began
to speak of his labouring more abundantly than they, he flies back in haste, as
one that had gone beyond his line, 'Yet not I, but the grace of God which was
with me;' another, 'Yet not I;' Gal. ii. 20, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ
lives in me.' There is no mention of any in Scripture that ever in this case
did sacrifice to their own net.
[3.] If a man be regenerate, such a boasting
of himself is very dangerous. Though it may not rifle you of the new nature,
yet by the just judgment of God, it may cloud the comfort of it. If such a man
be renewed, this pride is but a prologue of some dark veil to be drawn between
him and the light of God's countenance, between him and the sight of his own
grace. A swelling up in pride presages a sinking down in desertion. If God be
not owned by you to be the God of all grace in you, he will not own himself to
be the God of all comfort to you. Grace follows humility, and some shrewd shock
attends spiritual pride, it is such an idolatrous robbing God of his glory
(whereof he is most jealous), and giving it to another, that he will not let it
pass without a remark. The clouding of your grace will be the fruit of the
smothering of his glory. For since the main intendment of the gospel is to
humble, God will humble you if any grace be in you. If the Spirit of grace has
breathed upon your souls to renew you, he will blow upon your grass to consume
it, Isa. xl. 7, he will pull down those proud thoughts and strong holds, and
cause your vain confidences to wither and come to nothing. Ascribe it not
therefore to yourselves; be not so presumptuous, as, while you allow God to be
the author of the being and motion of a little fly, to cry up your own wills as
the chief cause of grace, a work more excellent than the material world.
2. Ascribe nothing to instruments, either
men or means. It is not of the will of man, not another's will. Without the
efficacious working of the Spirit, the gospel itself is but as a dead letter,
the Spirit only quickens it. It is not outward teaching and blowing which of
itself will kindle these sparks; an instrument cannot act without the strength
of an agent to manage it; the chisel forms the stone into a statue, but
according to the skill and strength of the artifices moving it. It is not the
breath of man, and a few words out of his mouth, can produce so great a work as
the new creation; this might be a reason why God chose so weak an instrument as
man to preach the gospel, to evidence that the great work was not from the
weakness of man but the power of God.
Exhortation 2. Let us be humbled under our
own natural impotence and inability, and keep up this humiliation. There is
danger of the pharisee's pride climbing up into the heart, even after
regeneration. Renewed men have instructions to humility above other men; their
sin may strike them low, because it is the growth of their own nature; their
grace may keep them low, because it is no plant of their own setting; sin,
because it is originally theirs; grace, because it is originally none of
theirs; it is no beam of their own understanding, no stream from the fountain
of their own will. If we think believingly and fruitfully of Christ at any
time, we cannot but think of our own weakness, nothing in him but minds us of
it; our weakness to obey the law was the cause of his coming; our weakness to
satisfy God was the cause of his dying; our inability to repair and support
ourselves was the cause of his fullness. His death minds us of our impotence to
redeem ourselves, his grace minds us of our impotence to renew ourselves. The
more we grow up in the new birth, the more deeply sensible shall we be of our
impotence. Oh, let this text be written in our hearts, 'Not of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man.'
3. Resolve nothing in your own strength. The
power to believe and be renewed is a power 'given,' not inbred, Philip. i. 29;
our strength is deposited, not in the cracked cabinet of our own wills, but in
the treasures of Christ. Our purposes are weak without grace to strengthen
them, our resolutions vanishing without grace to establish them. If we should
be left to the sails of our own faculties, without the breath of the Spirit to
fill them, we should lie wind-bound. The will can never in this life be so firm
but the allurements of the great tempter will make inroads upon us and overset
us, without the special grace of God to establish and strengthen us. As we are
not to do anything for our own glory, so we are not to do anything in our own
strength. As we must not be our own end, so we must not be our own principle;
the power the best have is but derived, the stream must know it is but a stream
still. The actual exercise of Paul's ability grew from strength in another
hand, 'I can do all things through Christ strengthening me,' Philip. in. 14;
all things by him, nothing by himself. When the Israelites went out with God,
no sons of Anak, no walls of Jericho, nor chariots of iron could stand before
them. When they trusted in themselves, nothing could be resisted by them. The
devil was certainly none of the lowest rank of angels; he had a great clearness
of gifts, yet he falls for cleaving to his own will and strength, not to the
grace of God. And Adam, in depending upon himself, lost himself and his
posterity. For us to undertake the government of ourselves is like a ship
without a pilot, to be dashed soon against a rock. To lean on our own wisdom
and will, is to lean on broken reeds, deceitful supports; self-confidence is
the worm of grace, conceit of a spiritual fullness in ourselves is the way to
an emptiness of spiritual comfort. Self-will and self-wisdom are the great
idols of the soul, and some little images of them are in the hearts of the best
men, which they are ready sometimes to fall down before and worship; they would
oppose temptations themselves, do duties themselves by the strength of habitual
grace, without regard to the strength of God, the great support of it.
4. Therefore live dependently upon God. Do
you not find how apt you are to stagger at every temptation; how weak your
wills are to good; how easily your purposes are broken, the thoughts of God few
and distracted, your motions heavy in divine ways? Is there not, then, need of
a constant looking unto God, as they did upon the brazen serpent, for the
healing of our natures, while the wound remains imperfectly cured? All bodies
on the earth, though they have a principle of motion in themselves, yet
dependently upon the heavenly bodies. If the motions of the heavens should
cease, that all motions in the earth would cease too is the opinion of
philosophers. Without dependence on the grace of God and fullness of Christ, we
sink into weakness and impotency, as a beam expires into duskiness upon the
clouding of the sun. It is God only can be a 'dew to Israel,' Hosea xiv. 5.
Think not of bringing forth the after-fruits of grace without his influence, no
more than you could plant in yourselves the first root of grace without his
power: the same breath of the Spirit must blow the fire up as well as kindle
it. As by our own wills we should never turn to God, so without the continuance
of efficacious grace we should quickly start from God. 'As you have received
Christ, so walk in him,' Col. ii. 6. You received him by faith, walk in him by
faith. This is the reason of the different thrivings of one Christian above
another, under the same means. One endeavours to act upon his own bottom; the
other clings to the vine. Christ knew the things of God by lying in the bosom
of the Father; we come to know and do the things of God by lying in the bosom
of the Son. All natural effects, if taken off from the influence of their own
cause, by which they live and increase, lose their power and die. The soul
separate from God, by non-exercise of faith, loses its strength, become stiff
and inactive. How often do we return to our wonted coldness, bring forth lazy
fruits, creep like snails in the ways of God, without the spur of quickening
grace! And we want it because we do not seek it; for though we be armed with
the whole armour of God, helmet, shield, breastplate, yet prayer and
supplication must he added as a mark of' our necessary dependence: Eph. vi. 18,
'Praying always with all prayer and supplication.' Then will the Spirit endue
us with a fresh vigour, confirm our languishing wills, restrain the flames of
natural corruption, and excite the fear and faith of God in the heart.
2. The second branch of the-exhortation, to
those yet in a natural condition.
1. Endeavour to be sensible of your natural
impotence. Be deeply humbled at the feet of God, strip yourselves (as much as
in you lies) of the conceitedness of reason and pride of will. Every man is
born with high conceits of himself and his own power; it being a natural evil,
should cost us the deeper humiliations. Consider yourselves by nature under the
dominion of sin, the demerit of wrath, the curse of the law, the hatred of God,
and a feebleness to help yourselves in this wretched condition. View yourselves
often in the glass of the law, bring the spiritual word and the carnal heart
together, and behold the beauty of the one and deformity of the other; let all
the nasty corners of the heart come under the examination of that purity, and
then let the carnal mind hang down at the thoughts of your inability to frame
yourselves according to a spiritual law. The view of our natural condition
cannot work regeneration in us, but it is some kind of preparation towards it.
'The law is a schoolmaster to drive to Christ,' Gal. iii. 24. It works not this
grace, but it fires a man out of himself, shows him how much he differs from
the holiness of God, and is an occasion for casting about and looking after
some remedy, whereby he may be made like to God, and of earnest crying for the
showers of grace. Be sensible also of your contrariety to the grace of God, our
wilfulness against it is worse than our emptiness of it. God 'will teach the
humble his ways,' Ps. xxv. 9. those that are sensible of their own
insufficiency to guide themselves.
2. Make use of the power you have. Man (as
has been sheen) has some power by those restored relics of nature. There is no
plea therefore to lie snorting upon a bed of sluggishness. We must not expect a
divine assistance will fly to us from heaven while we play the sluggards.
Though God does rouse up some on the sudden, before and previous act of their
wills, yet we must not expect God will use the same methods to all. Our own
power must be stirred up and exerted as much as may be. To be faithful in a little
is the way to be made ruler over much. Though the top of nature cannot merit
grace, yet if nature struggles to come to the top it may find an invisible hand
helping it up step by step. The damnation of most men will not be for the fault
of their first parents, but for the abuse of their own power, the perverseness
of their wills, and neglect of what they might have done towards the seeking of
God. Though Moses had a promise of victory over Amalek, yet Joshua must fight,
and the Israelites stand to their arms. God saves not men in ways encouraging
their laziness. 'The sluggard desires and has nothing, but the soul of the
diligent shall be made fat,' Prov. viii. 4. The sluggard has nothing but lazy
wishes, not active endeavours. If it be not worth the having, why do you desire
it? If it be worth the desiring, why not worth the seeking?
(1.) Avoid those sins you have power to
avoid. Every sin, though never so little, does increase our weakness, as every
wound does the distemper of the body. It makes us weigh down towards the centre
of sin. Every grain cast into the scale makes it the more unable to rise. As a
virtue which is risen to that height that it cannot degenerate into vice is
most worthy of praise, so the vice that possesses the soul so deeply as to incapacitate
it to the doing good, being contracted by ourselves, is the more worthy of
wrath.
(2.) Use the means appointed by God. Though
we are torches which cannot light ourselves, yet we may bring ourselves to the
word, which may both melt and kindle us. Though the giving rain and the
increasing the fruits of the earth be from God, yet no man ever held ploughing,
and sowing, and pruning unnecessary. The work of grace is the work of the
Spirit, who is a 'wind which blows where it lists,' John iii. 8. But may we not
wait for those gales? May we not spread our sails and watch for the successful
breathings? How do you know but whilst you are waiting upon God in an humble
posture, God may unlock your hearts, and pour in the treasures of his grace?
Acts x. 44, 'While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them
which heard the word.' It you will not harden your hearts today, God may soften
your hearts today: Heb. iii. 16, 'Today, if you will hear his voice.' These are
the times wherein God parleys with the soul, and inclines it to the happy
surrender. Though the power is God's, as the water is the fountain's, yet he
has appointed the channels of his ordinances through which to convey it:
'Ministers by whom you believed,' 1 Cor. iii. 5. The gospel begets
instrumentally, God principally 1 Cor. iv. 15. God calls by the gospel, 2
Thess. ii. 14. As God is the governor of the world, yet it is by instruments
and second causes, which he clasps together to bring about his own designs. He
that does not use these means may fear that God will never work savingly upon
him, for it is an utter refusing any acceptance of this grace, or anything
tending to it. This is to be peremptory, never to do ourselves any good, or
receive any from God. In despising the means, you despise the goodness of God.
As God gave up the heathens to themselves, because they were 'unthankful,' Rom.
i. 21, for that light of nature and means which they had, so if we use the
means of the gospel with thankfulness to God, God may give himself up to us.
But by neglect of them we take the larger strides to destruction, and the same
dreadful sentence may be pronounced against us as against them in Ezek. xxiv.
13, 'Because I have purged thee,' that is, offered thee means whereby thou
might have been purged, 'and thou was not purged, thou shalt not be purged from
thy filthiness any more; but in thy filthiness thou shalt die.' The using the
means afforded by God has a common illumination, and a 'taste of the heavenly
gift' attending it, Heb. vi. 4.
[1.] Use the means fervently, with as
much ardour as you set upon anything of worldly concern; do it with all your
might, since the eternal blessedness of your soul depends upon it: Eccles. ix.
10, 'Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might.' Stir up your souls
to hear and meditate, as David does to bless: Ps. ciii. 1, 2, 'Bless the Lord,
O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name.' Employ all your
faculties in this useful work; bring your hearts as near to the word as you
can, screw up your affections to what you meditate upon, check your hearts when
they begin to rove. Consider your own particular case in anything you hear; and
let the word be as a delightful picture in the view of your minds continually;
let every evangelical object excite your inbred affections.
[2.] Use the means dependently.
Objective proposals are not useless, because God has ordained them; though they
are not always successful, unless God does influence them. The means do not
work naturally, as a plaster cures a wound, or a hatchet cleaves wood; nor
necessarily, as fire burns; for then they should produce the same effects in
all, as fire does in combustible matter; but as God pleases to accompany them
with his grace, and edge them with efficacy, they must be used with an eye to
God, building with one hand, and wrestling with God with the other. Men speed
best in ordinances as they strive in prayer. There are promises to plead before
you come to hear: Exod. xx. 24, 'In all places where I record my name, I will
come unto thee, and bless thee.' The promise was made to the whole nation of
Israel, the visible church, therefore pleadable by every one of them; and fix
it upon your hearts, that as the death of Christ only takes away the guilt of
sin, so the grace of Christ only takes away the life of sin, and the death of
nature.
[3.] Pray earnestly. Entreat God to
send his grace; beg of him to issue out a divine force, and a quickening power,
to enlighten your minds, incline your wills. Lie at his feet, groan, wait till
this work be wrought in your soul. How do you know, but while you are looking
up to God, God may come down to you? Can a man be wounded, and not cry for
plasters? Can he be shipwrecked and not cry out for some vessel to relieve him?
Let such a voice frequently issue from you, 'What shall I do to be saved?' Is
there no balm for a wounded soul, no hope for a distressed sinner, no city of
refuge for one pursued by wrath and vengeance? Do you pray for daily bread? Why
do you not for special grace? Are there no rational pleas you can urge? Is
there not a fullness of arguments in the word? Why do you not then use those
arguments God has put into your hands? Why do you not spread his own word
before him? Put him in mind how his thoughts were busy about the work of redemption,
and that the regeneration you desire of him was the great end of that, and a
thing pleasing to him? Why do you not reason with God, to what purpose he sent
his Spirit into the world, but to do this work in the hearts of men which you
are now soliciting him for; and that you come not to beg any alms of him, but
what he freely offers himself? You may daily read such arguments in the word,
where a revelation is made of them; you may daily plead them: if you do not, it
is not your cannot, but your will not. Cry out of the blind eyes
you cannot upscale, the iron sinew you cannot bend, the false heart that will
not go right, and the fallen nature which cannot reach so high as a holy
thought. Surely God will not be deaf to the natural prayers of his rational
creatures put up to him with a natural integrity, no more than he is to the
cries of animals, to the voice of the lion seeking for his prey, into whose
mouth he puts, by his providence, what may satisfy it. God gives the Spirit to
them that ask him; not to the idle, lazy, and peevish resister of him and his
grace. If you have power to regenerate yourselves, why do you not do it? If you
have not, why do you not seek it? Is the way of heaven shut to you; or rather,
do you not shut your own hearts against it? Have you sought it earnestly, and
can you say God denies it you? No man can say so; there is a promise for it:
James iv. 8, 'Draw near to God, and ho will draw near to you;' he speaks it to
sinners, as it follows, 'Cleanse your hands, you sinners.' You can pray for
other mercies, why not principally for this particular determination of your
wills to God, above all other things? Lord, give me to will and to do. Never
leave off praying till God has crowned your petitions with success; and be
encouraged to seek to him, whose great business in the world was to destroy the
works of the devil, whose principal work was the spiritual death of man. If you
have such earnest desires in your souls, that you would rather have it than the
whole world, and esteem it above all worldly wealth or honours, be of good
comfort, some of the rubbish of nature is removed; the steams of such desires
shall be welcome to God, and the Spirit's commission shall be renewed to
breathe further upon your souls. Desire as vehement as hunger and thirst shall
be satisfied, if our blessed Saviour's promise be true, who never deceived any,
or broke his word: Mat. v. 6, 'Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled.' A fullness attends a sense of emptiness,
accompanied with hungering desires. But I am afraid few people put up their
petitions to God for it; that I may say, as Daniel of his nation, 'all this
evil' of unrighteousness and sin is 'come upon us' by our depraved natures;
'yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from
our iniquities, and understand thy truth,' Dan. ix. 13.
[4.] Nourish every motion and desire you
find in your hearts towards it. Have you not sometimes motions to go to the
throne of grace, and beg renewing grace of God? Do you not find such tugs and
pulls in your consciences? Is there not something within you spurs you on? Kick
not against it, nor resist it, no, nor smother any spark of an honest desire in
your hearts; be constant observers of lessons, your natural consciences, or
whatever any other principle set you. Natural notions are not so blotted, but
they remain legible; would men be more inward with themselves, than abroad with
the objects of sense, which draw their minds from pondering that decalogue
written in their souls. There is not the most wicked man under the gospel, but
has sometimes more bright irradiations in his conscience than at other times,
but they are damped by a noisome sensuality; he has some velleities and
heavings, some strugglings against the solicitations of unrighteousness, some
assents upon the presenting of virtue; for as grace is not always so powerful
in a good man as to stifle temptation, so neither is corruption so powerful in
a wicked man as always to beat back those motions to good which rise up in his
soul, whether he will or no. As the law of the mind is not always so sovereign
in a gracious man, but that it is affronted by the law of the members, so
neither is the law of the members so absolute in a wicked man, but that it is
somewhat checked by the law of nature in the mind. Are there not upon hearing
the word, or reflecting upon yourselves, some wishings, some inward velleities
which partake of reason, and the nature of that faculty which represents the
necessity of it to you? As there is some kind of weak knowledge left in us
since the fall, there is also something of a weak desire. Cannot these desires
be improved and represented to God? Why is not the grace of God fulfilled in
you? Because you persevere not in these desires, you quench the sparks of the
Spirit, and willingly give admission to Satan to chase them out. Shut not your
eyes then against any light, either without or within you, which may provoke
God to withdraw this grace from you. How do you know but, upon using the means,
praying earnestly, observing inward motions, God may give you an actual
regeneration? The neglect of these is a just reason for God to refuse you any
further gift; and may take off all things which you may think to bring against
him in your own defence. The use of them has been beneficial to many, and no
example can ever be brought, that God has condemned any that conscientiously
used the means of salvation. Therefore I say again, if any man use the means,
pray earnestly for this grace, observe the motions of the Spirit in him, he
will not want a superadded grace from an infinitely good, tender, and merciful
God.
End of part 1